“And he’s waiting for marriage, which is big. I’m still waiting until I fall in love. Very few guys, even good Christian boys, are willing to stick around if sex is not on the table immediately. It meant a lot to have a boyfriend who wasn’t constantly pressuring me.” She dragged a bit of waffle across her plate sadly.
This drove Jamie nuts. Tessa always forgot Colin’s faults when they spent enough time apart.
“That all sounds good for a dating profile, but what about the reality?” Jamie blurted out. “Colin was only a good boyfriend like fifty percent of the time. The rest of the time he was being condescending or ignoring your needs, then trying to make up for it with a big stupid gesture. You were on your third ‘break’ for a reason.” Tessa’s face crumpled, and Jamie was instantly remorseful. “I’m sorry—that was too much, too soon.”
Tessa sat up straight and shook her head. “No, I need the tough love. I need to let him go,” she admitted. “I can’t believe I was contemplating the prospect of marriage with someone who’d leave the country without telling me.”
She released a long, low groan and dropped her head on the table, letting her arms go limp. “I’m sick of this subject. Let’s talk about happy things, happy people. Jamie, you and Lee seem to be doing well.”
Is there such a thing as too well? “Things are good—I think,” Jamie said. “Possibly weird?” She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s so . . . he met my mom!”
“Whoa,” EJ responded. Both she and Tessa leaned back as if blown by a strong wind.
“How did that happen?” Tessa asked.
“Okay, so when Lee was set to fly back to LA for Winter Break, there was a huge dump of snow that shut down the airport. Lee’s stranded, and he hates hotels, so he turns up on my doorstep.”
“Couldn’t he have stayed with Will?” EJ asked.
“Will had already left for New York. I was the best option.”
“How’d it go?” asked Tessa.
“Great! He’s such a sweetie—any mother is going to love him. The strange thing is how not weird he found any of it. Like, the next morning, I wake up and find him and Ma doing the crossword together. He was all, ‘NBD, your mom is awesome.’ But it is a big deal, right?” EJ and Tessa nodded.
Jamie relaxed in her seat. “Good. I was starting to feel a little nuts.” She sighed. “It feels wrong to complain when he’s so great and things are going so well, and it was all so unexpected . . . but things are starting to feel like they’re happening too fast.”
“Have you told him that?” EJ asked. “He probably thinks he’s giving you what you want.”
“No. I guess I’ve been okay to float along and see how this goes.”
Tessa lifted her head and sat up slowly. “That’s how Colin and I started,” she said absently. “Easy and fun. We never had any serious conversations, never really asked any questions . . .” She turned to Jamie and put an urgent hand on her arm. “Talk to him, Jamie. Or else you might wake up one day and find him in Australia.”
Jamie thought about Tessa’s words for most of the day. Then it was time for her second-favorite ritual: Hearth Night. On the first Sunday evening of the spring term, the Bennet Women lit a roaring fire in the house fireplace, and after a round of cocoa or tea, they had the Burning of Sorrows. Everyone wrote down a regret or disappointment from the last term on a slip of paper. At an appointed time, they threw their sorrows into the fire. This helped even the most skeptical of them start the semester with a touch of optimism.
Next came a round of cookies and the Consumption of Hopes, which Jamie knew was a knockoff of a Russian New Year’s tradition. It was still nice, though. For this rite, they wrote a desire for the next semester on a marshmallow with a food marker, put the marshmallow in their cocoa, and toasted the new term. This took a bit longer because many people would make their toast out loud. Like declaring your New Year’s resolution.
The best part was after you got up and said, “I will [blah, blah important thing],” everyone else raised a mug to you and shouted, “And so you will!” in response. Jamie had never missed a ceremony. She’d even made a point to visit before she flew out for her semester abroad in Paris. (She was Jewish—God knew she loved a ritual.)
Tonight, Jamie pledged that she would stop avoiding difficult conversations with her boyfriend.
“And so you will!” her housemates chorused back.
God, I love being a Bennet Woman, Jamie thought. She was arm in arm with EJ, leaning against the wall closest to the fireplace. Jamie tried to ignore any creeping sense of finality.
“Nothing will ever be like this again,” she murmured, with the smallest touch of alarm.
EJ wasn’t quite listening, though. Jamie knew she was looking for people who seemed particularly upset. Hearth Night brought a lot of suppressed emotions to the surface. She watched her friend frown slightly and followed her gaze to a very verklempt Tinkerbelle. She had kicked off the declarations by saying, “I will pursue acting no matter who supports me because I have the talent, and it is my dream.”
When her fellow Bennet Women replied, “And so you will!” Dia burst into tears. Now she clung to her roommate, who bore the attachment with unexpected tenderness.
“Graciela is not a hugger,” EJ murmured. “Dia must be going through it. I’ll have to check on her later.”
Jamie looked on sympathetically. Dia was wacky, but she was sweet; Jamie hoped she was okay.
Dia
“Why are you here at this ungodly hour?” Sir Titus asked the bleary-eyed undergraduates as they tried to hide their yawns. Everything about the seminar seemed designed to challenge the students’ commitment, especially the 8:00 a.m. start time on Monday mornings. Yet, despite seeing an hour that Dia had forgotten since praying at the flagpole in high school, everyone was captivated as Sir Titus addressed them from the stage in a gravelly English accent.
“You are here because you want to be artists in the acting profession. You are here at this ungodly hour because this is when we could secure the auditorium for a solid four-hour block all semester. Why must we be in the auditorium? Because, as actors, the stage is our home. You’ll note that I said that you are actors. You’re not ‘studying to be’ or ‘becoming.’ You are actors from the day you start to dedicate yourself to the perfection of your craft. There are actors who wait tables between auditions that are on no one’s stage but remain artists. Conversely there are people who have fallen into TV or film roles whom one could only call ‘film professionals.’” He chuckled sardonically and turned slightly left, treating the undergrads to his still impressive profile.
“The core of acting is showing up, doing the work, and being fully invested in that work. In this class you are professionals. The eight o’clock start time is your call time. We have a fifteen-minute break at ten, and we will never finish early.
“You have three unexcused absences. Any more than that will require a conversation between me, you, and your academic advisor.” Sir Titus placed both hands on his cane and leaned forward, fixing his students with the same steely look that may have once made Meryl Streep burst into tears.
“If you need this class to graduate this year, we will find a way for you to walk, but you will not remain with us. If there are extenuating circumstances, please talk to me. I’m a teacher, not a monster, so I won’t punish you for an unavoidable crisis. However, if you are not prepared to deal with the petty tyrannies of creative types, this would be the time to consider a different vocation.” Another dry laugh, then Sir Titus tossed his mane of white hair and switched from stern headmaster back to charming grandfather.
“You will be on the stage every week in monologues, scenes, or for exercises. Everything you need to know is in that magazine-size document I call a syllabus. As you know, at the end of this seminar, we’ll have a showcase of dramatic scenes. This is to incentivize collaboration; actors need each other. I encourage you to get acquainted quickly, as I’ll want to know your scene partners by mid-February.
“The showcase will be in April. Thereafter, this course will focus on the business of show: reading contracts, finding agents, how to audition, and understanding rejection. I hope that what you learn here will prepare you for the acting world.” He breathed a deep sigh. “But enough preliminaries, everyone onstage. Come up! Come home.”
The students quickly joined the venerable man onstage and arranged themselves into a circle.
“Introductions!” he commanded from its center. “I want to hear your name, where you’re from, and when you knew, to your core, that you wanted to be an actor—oh, and please, I want this to be an honest answer. Don’t try to impress me with your cleverness. These things become so exhausting when everyone is trying to be Oscar Wilde.” He pounded his cane on the stage. “This is a sacred space—a safe space. And the best work happens when we can be a little vulnerable. Let’s start with our youngest.” He turned to Dia. “Please.”
She was caught off guard. Her patented introduction was precisely the opposite of what Sir Titus wanted, and she didn’t have time to think of something new. She decided to start talking and hope for the best.
“Hi. I’m Dia Shumway. I’m from Spring Valley, Utah, and I knew I was serious about becoming an actor when . . .” Her eyes filled, but the tears did not fall. “I learned that my parents were pretending to support me while expecting me to fail.” Collecting herself, she gave a small but defiant toss of her curls. “When they told me, I think they wanted to crush me, but instead it made me more determined. I plan to succeed despite them.” This was met with sympathetic applause; someone in the circle gave her an encouraging squeeze of the arm. She smiled ruefully.
“I take it this all transpired recently?” Sir Titus asked.
“A couple of days before Christmas.”
He nodded sagely. “I’m sorry, Dia. But this sort of thing is fairly common.” He addressed the circle. “At some point in your career, whether it’s a parent, a partner, or a very close friend, there’ll be someone whose dreams for you are quite different from the ones you have for yourself. Like Dia, you’ll have to learn to move despite them or without them.” He turned back to the freshman. “It’s quite painful, but the earlier you learn this kind of lesson, the better you are for it. Let us carry on . . . going left.”
Dia’s introduction was like a dam breaking, and Sir Titus got all the honesty he could hope for. It was like A Chorus Line without the leotards or heavy brass instrumentation. The students talked of school plays, caring teachers, and moments of transcendent inspiration in dark theaters. By break time the group was emotionally exhausted, but by the end of the first class, the actors were already quite attached to each other. Afterward, as she was gathering her things, Dia noticed a shadow in her peripheral vision.
“Hey, Dia?”
She looked up. It was the ridiculously gorgeous guy she’d run into at callbacks.
“Hi. Jordan, right?”
“That’s me.” He gave a brief wave. “I wanted to thank you for your honesty. It was so brave. I think it really set a good tone for the class. Removed the cynicism, you know?”
“It definitely wasn’t all me,” Dia replied with uncharacteristic shyness. “Everyone else had to keep it going. Besides, I didn’t even mean to be brave.”
“I guess you have a brave heart, then. I should call you William Wallace—no, just Wallace. Can I?”
“Sure,” she giggled. Then, living up to her new name, she said, “You mentioned you had a similar issue with your uncle. Would you mind talking more about how you push past it? Maybe over lunch? I’m buying—well, my meal plan is. My parents couldn’t cut that off; they already paid for it.”
“Yikes, sorry.”
Dia shrugged ruefully. “It’s only my spending money, for now. At least they’re not pulling me out of school. I’m thinking of this as practice for living as an actor in New York. I—sorry. Way oversharing.”
Jordan slung an arm around her. “Don’t worry, Wallace. I can spot a survivor when I see one, and you’re gonna be fine.”
“Thanks, Jordan. Let’s go. I could eat a horse. Four hours straight is a lot of class.”
EJ
When EJ returned to campus, her mom seemed to be making up for their brief period of estrangement by emailing her something nearly every single day. First, there was an article about a woman in Baltimore who was helping sexual-assault survivors through ballet. While EJ was impressed by this woman’s work, what piqued her interest in the story was the accompanying photo. “The Curvy Ballerina” had a body very much like hers—thickish thighs, substantial booty—but there she was, en pointe, in flowing white, looking beautiful. This got EJ wondering. She started following her on Instagram.
Then her mom sent her an old profile about astronaut Mae Jemison, who also planned to pursue a dance career as a teenager and took classes at Alvin Ailey while she was in med school.
She built a dance studio in the basement of her house, Ella! her mom wrote in the email.
This made EJ think, Why not? She checked the school calendar; they were still in the add/drop period. Then she went to the dance department’s website. There were still open slots in Advanced Ballet, no pointe shoes required. Perhaps this was the time to go back? Avoiding it these past six years hadn’t helped her get over things. Maybe she needed to find a new way to love ballet. EJ sent a quick email to her advisor. Stella responded with Go for it! You’re only taking two other classes.
She took a breath and registered for her first ballet class in six years. “Let’s just see what happens,” she said to herself. Then she called her mom.
EJ didn’t tell her mother everything, though. Since she couldn’t get into the whole Will/Jordan situation without talking with her mom about her sex life, she called Maya instead. Over FaceChat, she gave Maya the short version of all that happened: from the Fall Formal through her last conversation with Will. (She didn’t share Jordan’s whole story—but she included enough to preserve his privacy and inspire outrage.) After she finished, EJ watched her sister frown thoughtfully.
“I’m surprised that you forgave him the first time. But then you don’t stay mad at people on your own behalf—even when you should. I still don’t understand the whole Jordan thing, though.”
“He asked me not to say anything.”
Maya shot her a look of disbelief through the screen. “Can’t help you if I don’t know the whole story. BT dubs, that may be exactly what Jordan is counting on.”
Okay, that rattled her. If Jordan was trying to play her, swearing her to secrecy was probably the smartest thing he could do. She took a breath and told her sister the whole of Jordan’s story as she remembered it: Jordan’s loneliness among the rich kids at his prep school, Lily’s going from his only friend to girlfriend, how Will disapproved and tried to bribe Jordan to leave Lily alone. How Will got Jordan kicked out of school. As she talked, EJ watched her sister’s expression. Maya’s frown deepened with every sentence.
“That sounds like a soap opera,” she said when EJ had finished.
EJ felt a breath of relief. Maya believed it, too. “I know! It’s the craziest thing I ever heard!”
On the screen Maya was waving her hands wildly, signaling for EJ to stop.
“No, I mean this sounds like the plot of a literal soap opera. Hold on.” Maya turned away from the screen; EJ was nervous as she heard her sister typing on her phone.
She turned back to the screen. “Yeah, this is the plot from the first season of The Golden Ones, a Korean soap opera. It was really popular with my kids at the Ohana Center. I thought it was a blatant rip-off of Boys Over Flowers, but that didn’t bother anyone else.”
A link popped up in her chat window. EJ clicked on it hesitantly. The show was on Netflix. As she scanned the episode summaries, her stomach dropped. Episode 1: “Dong Jo’s family runs a Donut Man in a poor neighborhood of Seoul. After saving a businessman’s life, he gets the chance to attend the prestigious Yong Academy.”
&
nbsp; Episode 3: “Dong feels out of place at the academy until he meets the beautiful Jin-Hyun. She becomes his first friend.”
Oh dear. She felt her stomach drop but kept reading. Dong’s only other friend was Avi from India, the school’s cricket star.
Jordan told me his only other friend was the school’s black lacrosse captain. He made the friend black for me! EJ quailed internally.
She turned back to face her sister. “I feel sick,” she groaned. “But it still doesn’t make any sense. Why blame Will? How did he even know I knew Will?”
“Maybe he just knew that Will was at Longbourn and took a wide swing. Or”—Maya paused thoughtfully—“maybe you should start locking your phone better.”
“But he hasn’t contacted me since. Why do this at all?”
Maya looked sympathetic. “I don’t know, sweetie. But there is someone you can ask.”
Please. No. She scrubbed her face with her hands. EJ shrugged sadly. “I think I’d rather never know why than admit any of this to him.”
“I know how attached you can be to being right, but sometimes other things are bigger.”
EJ then gave her sister some more specifics about the fight with Will, like how he’d accused her of believing Jordan because she’d been “fucked stupid.”
Maya was not pleased, to say the least. After she expounded on where Will could go and how he could get there, she took a breath. “Ella, I need you to do me a favor: get your degree and leave that place before I have to come up there and start slapping people.”
EJ laughed and nodded in response. “You see my problem: How do I talk to Will about Jordan again without looking like Boo Boo the Fool?”
On the screen, Maya worried her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Here’s what you do: blame me,” she began. “Tell him your big sister made you. Once you know what Jordan’s motives may be, you can say a hearty ‘fuck you’ to both him and Will.”
Even though she felt about as low as could be, EJ laughed. “I like your plan. It has a lot going for it.”
The Bennet Women Page 17
