Life on the Naughty List, or What the Elf!

22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

W hen the alarm went off, I ran through a yoga series to wake up my body. Then I showered, dressed, fed Bootsy, and was out of the apartment by 8:10, so I had plenty of time to walk to the theater and grab a coffee at Hello, Coffee! on the way. I showed up at the theater and wasn’t surprised that the facility was so quiet at this early hour.

I rode the escalator up to the orchestra level entrance. I was surprised to find Jeremy McCartan pacing the floor when I got there. He looked over at me as I stepped off the escalator.

“Erika,” he said. “Do you know what this is about?”

“I haven’t a clue. I received a text message from Rebekka Eldridge last night asking me to be here.”

“Hmm…” McCartan said. “I received an email late last night letting me know they were meeting with you and that I should be here as well.”

We tossed around a couple of possibilities but were interrupted when Vladislav Nicolai appeared and told us to follow him.

“What’s this about?” McCartan asked.

“Not my place, sir,” Nicolai said.

He led us through the same passage he’d previously taken me through to the alley exit. Only this time, he led us to a conference room. He opened the door. Eldridge, Weiss, and San Nicolás sat at one end of the conference table.

Eldridge gestured toward the end of the table. “I’m glad you’re both here on time. This should make things easier.” She gestured and said, “Please sit.” We pulled out our chairs. I glanced at McCartan, who raised an eyebrow at me, but didn’t question the odd setting for this meeting.

“For the purposes of this meeting, we are recording the proceedings,” Noam Weiss informed us. “Technically, in New York, we don’t have to tell you this, but we think it’s a best practice.”

“I’m not sure how comfortable I am with this,” McCartan said. “You summon Erika and me, then inform us you’re recording the meeting. I feel I must obje—“

The door opened behind us.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” an Icelandic voice said behind me. “I thought this meeting was happening in Eldridge’s office, not here.”

My Icelandic giant walked into the room. Without glancing down to look at me, he took a seat at the other end of the table. Did he know about this? He mentioned an early morning meeting last night.

He opened his briefcase and pulled out a legal pad. He turned and looked toward me. His face flashed surprise at seeing McCartan and me. I doubted he was surprised to see McCartan, but he looked shocked to see me.

“This is my personal lawyer,” Eldridge explained, “Benedikt Hannes Einar. He’s a partner at Jonson, Einar, and Berkowitz.”

McCartan nodded, and I did my best to shoot Benedikt a pleading look that screamed what is this about? Instead of getting an answer, his face was impassive and all business.

“For the record, I’m here to ensure this process is handled to the direct letter of the Actor’s Equity contract,” Benedikt informed the group. “I am serving as legal counsel for Rebekka Eldridge and not Naughty List Productions.” Benedikt turned and nodded toward Weiss.

“I’m Noam Lavie Weiss, and I represent Naughty List Productions as the general manager,” Weiss started.

“For the record, I’m Asier Zlota San Nicolás. I’m the director of The Naughty List .”

“I’m Rebekka Eldridge, lead producer for Naughty List Productions.” She looked at Ryan and me and added, “With us today are the executive director of Actor’s Equity, Jeremy McCartan. We also have Erika Saunders.”

“As the company general manager,” Weiss then said. “The burden of terminating an actor’s contract falls on my back.” Huh? “It is with immense sadness that this meeting has been called to end Erika Lynsay Saunders’ contract with Naughty List Productions.”

“What?” I said in a voice higher and shriller than I intended. A flash of surprise crossed Benedikt’s face, but he quickly masked it.

“This should come as no shock to Ms. Saunders,” Weiss said, looking at McCartan and not me. “We’ve known for some time that a member of the cast was violating the nondisclosure agreement within their contract and speaking to the media about the company’s proprietary information. From what we have pieced together, Ms. Saunders spoke with someone at TheBroadway411 about current backstage gossip, including personnel matters and technical issues. As such, the damage was done at the box office after—“

“I’ve done no such thing,” I cut in. “I’ve never talked to the press. I haven’t talked to the press in years.”

“We were afraid you’d try to deny the allegations,” Weiss said. He gave me a look that was two parts anger and one part pity. He placed a small tape recorder on the table. Where does someone find a tape recorder these days? For three minutes, I listened to a recording of myself talking about the incident with Lachtna MacGrory and Maeve McKenna. I had no idea how they got the recording or when it was made. Then it hit me, Carissra’s gaming microphone. I remember Carissra and Kirk talking about how good it was at picking up voices. My mind raced a million miles a minute. How could something so innocuous as a conversation with my neighbor become public knowledge then be used to get myself canned?

“As you can see,” Weiss said. “We have incontrovertible proof of Ms. Saunders’ guilt.”

“I see,” McCartan said, not bothering to look at me.

“How did you get that recording?” I blurted out.

“So, you don’t deny it was you on the recording?” Eldridge shifted her steely gaze to me.

“Yes, but—“

“For the record,” Benedikt said without looking at me, “Ms. Saunders has admitted that the voice on the recording is hers.”

That snake!

“What’s the background noise?” McCartan asked.

“What do you mean?” Benedikt asked.

“When they played the audio, there was like fighting noises or something.”

“The audio was enhanced to make it clearer before sending it to TheBraodway411,” Eldridge said.

“Yes, but how did you get it?” McCartan asked.

“It was easy. I threatened the woman who runs the site. She sent me the recording.” Eldridge met my eyes. “The young woman tried to stall, but once I had my lawyers,” she nodded in Benedikt’s direction, “threaten her a few times. She folded quickly.” At that moment, I envisioned Eldridge scheming to get 101 Dalmatian puppies to make herself a nice fur coat. She relished watching me squirm.

“We expect Ms. Saunders to be paid for the work she did through last night and get credit in the Playbill for having created the character,“ McCartan said, turning the conversation back away from Eldridge.

“We thought that might be your reaction.” Weiss played another recording clip of me discussing the show and its content. “This is an obvious violation of the NDA. If you push us, we’ll take Ms. Saunders to court. I seriously doubt she has the funds in reserve to hire a lawyer to fight this case.” McCartan nodded. “We will pay Ms. Saunders through last night, but we will omit her in any materials associated with Naughty List Productions going forward.”

“This would include any mention of the show on her bio,” Benedikt added. “This is a hard cut with the company. If these conditions are not met, the company reserves the right to sue Ms. Saunders for breach of contract.”

I looked at McCartan. “Can they do this?”

“Yes,” was all he said back to me. “All things considered, they’re letting you off scot-free.” He shook his head before adding, “You know better, Erika. I’m stunned.”

“I did nothing wrong,” I said for the first time, feeling some sense of my usual moxie rising.

“Please don’t bother with any explanations,” Benedikt said. “You were a valuable member of this company, but we simply cannot keep you on staff after the inherent violation of trust from your actions.”

Well, at least he was living to his first name. My own Benedict Arnold was in the room. A few minutes later, Benedikt produced a stack of papers and had me sign them. Both McCartan and I looked at every sheet before I signed and moved on to the next.

When I finished signing, Vladislav Nicolai showed up and escorted McCartan and me to my dressing room. Someone had already gone through and boxed up the few personal items I had. I had been more focused on the show than on decorating. I kept hoping that I would have more time to decorate once the show opened. Sadly, my entire life fit into a single cardboard box.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said to McCartan.

“Why did you do it, Erika?” McCartan said, looking at me. “This is the type of error I expect from one of my younger clients…not a seasoned pro like yourself.”

“Despite what you may have heard on the audio recording, I did not talk to the press.”

“Oh, really?” McCartan said to me skeptically. “So, you’re telling me that what I heard with my own two ears isn’t real?”

“I don’t—“

“Just don’t, Erika.” He looked at me, shook his head and sighed. “Be glad they aren’t taking you to court.” Tears welled in my eyes. I forced myself to breathe deeply because I would not cry in front of this man. “I don’t know what will happen next. Equity will hold a disciplinary hearing at some point. I’m disappointed. As hard as you’ve worked to get back on Broadway, you threw it all away by talking to a gossip blogger.”

He didn’t wait for my response. He left my dressing room. With both boxes in hand, Nicolai escorted me out of the building. He at least took pity on me and led me to the alleyway entrance so I could avoid having to see anyone in the cast.

Once I was out in the cold air, the waterworks started. In all honesty, I’m amazed I got home with all the water streaming from my eyes. I made it to my apartment, set the boxes down inside the door, and bawled like I hadn’t cried in years. After an hour of my personal pity party, I picked up my phone and texted Brice.

I was fired. I don’t want to talk about it yet. I’ll call tomorrow.

A string of texts was already coming in from my castmates, but I didn’t want to deal with them. Instead, I put on my coat and went walking around the city. I walked around for an hour before finding myself on 5 th Avenue, standing in front of Radio City Music Hall. There was an eleven o’clock showing of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, so I bought a $90 ticket in the nosebleed section.

I sat in anticipation, reading the Playbill while waiting for the show. The audience was surprisingly packed for an 11:00 a.m. performance on a Friday. Tourists started pouring into the city at Christmas time to get their shopping done. For the past couple of years, I’d tried to avoid leaving the house on Fridays and Saturdays during the holidays to avoid the crowds.

I flipped through the program, waiting for the show to begin. I recognized a couple of people in the show and was genuinely glad to see they had work. When the lights dimmed, I cried again. Thankfully, I wasn’t ugly crying this time. I had a waterfall traipsing down my cheek for ninety minutes.

When the show was over, I turned my phone back on. There were a ton of texts. A few of them had links to newspapers and bloggers’ sites. Asher sent me a link to Michelle Bouvier’s article in The Post . I wanted to ignore the link, but I wouldn’t let myself get away with pretending it wasn’t there.

“ Erika Saunders was fired today from The Naughty List . Cast members, who wish to remain anonymous, have confirmed that Saunders was fired under highly dubious circumstances. Saunders was fired for a breach of contract. She allegedly had contact with bloggers at Broadway411 who used the information to publish content on their website that was proprietary by the production. I’ll update this story as more information becomes available. ”

I was about to text Asher but decided I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Instead, I was going to have a full-on pity party. I stopped by John’s of Times Square on 44 th , grabbed a large Margherita pizza, and headed home to my apartment to eat until I could bust. It’s not like I had to worry about fitting in my costume tonight. So, if I ended up a little bloated after all the pizza, I didn’t have to give an elf.