Echo After Echo

by Amy Rose Capetta

  “Oh.” Adrian pulls his script out of his leather bag. “One thing. I’m not really —”

  “Off book?” Leopold asks. “Not to worry.” He plucks the script from Adrian’s hand. “I want this exercise to be about emotion. It’s about meeting each other in the same place.” Adrian nods after each sentence. (Directors love it when he nods. It shows that he’s really paying attention. That he gets it.)

  “Echo, please find your way to the bed,” Leopold says, waving a hand from where she’s standing now to where he wants her to be.

  The girl mounts the bed as quickly as possible.

  “Again,” Leopold says.

  She climbs down and circles the bed, climbs on from a new angle.

  “Again.”

  Leopold makes her repeat the movement not once, not twice, but fourteen times. He won’t explain what she’s messing up. Which is a little harsh. But directors do whatever it takes to get the performance.

  The fifteenth time, Leopold says, “Brilliant.”

  And the girl glows.

  Leopold turns to Adrian. “Ariston, if you will join Echo on the bed.”

  “Right.” Adrian rubs his hands together, tosses his shirt aside, and tiger-crawls across the sheets. The girl looks horrified.

  “No,” Leopold says. “This is not a one-night stand in some godforsaken motel. Ariston, you have run away from your kingdom, your family, a future you believed in. All to find her.” Leopold nods at the girl.

  Adrian seriously considers turning around and leaving. This part should have gone to a real actor. But that’s what Adrian wants to be, so this is his big chance — right? That’s what his agent told him.

  Adrian forces himself to calm down and really look at the girl. She’s bigger than the girls in Hollywood. (It’s not like Adrian cares. It’s just the truth. If they were casting a movie, she would play the best friend, the sassy one without much screen time. Or the loyal one who dies tragically to remind you that the main character knows how to feel.) It’s not that she isn’t pretty, but prettiness is just the price of admission. Adrian gained four and a half pounds once, and everyone talked about it for weeks.

  “What’s your name?” Adrian asks.

  The girl looks at the director, like she needs his go-ahead to speak. “Do you mean Echo, or . . .”

  “Your real name,” Adrian says.

  The girl’s posture perks up. “Echo is my real name,” she says. “But people have been calling me Zara for some reason.” Color rises into her cheeks, heats up her whole face. It suits her.

  “Zara,” Adrian says. “I like it.” He takes the sheets inch by inch. Zara’s body shifts, like a knot being undone.

  “Yes,” the director says. “Much better, Ariston.”

  This is one thing Adrian is really good at. All the reviewers say so. Okay, maybe not all, because some people only care what he’s doing with his hair this month. But real reviewers say two things. One: he has so much natural presence that he basically pushes other actors off the screen. Two: he is utterly convincing when he falls in love.

  (Adrian likes that. Utterly convincing.)

  And just when he is starting to get his confidence back, that’s when it happens. The director crumples to his knees.

  “Hey, you okay?” Adrian asks, leaping down off the bed. He kneels next to Leopold but doesn’t touch him. Touching might give the impression that he has any idea what to do. He should probably run to get help — but Leopold is holding up a finger.

  Wait.

  It’s like the director is ripping each breath out of the air. Riiiiiiip. Riiip. Rip. When Leopold’s breath is mostly normal again, just a little rasp at the end, he stands up. “Let’s continue.”

  Zara goes right back to where they left off, climbing back into the moment on command. It’s not that easy for Adrian. If something like that happened on a movie set, doctors would be brought in. Everyone would at least get some cold water and take five. “Should we maybe —”

  “Dear boy,” Leopold says, setting a hand on his arm. “It’s nothing, really.”

  Adrian is too shocked to let it go. “What was that? A migraine?”

  “A vision,” Leopold says.

  Adrian doesn’t know what to say to that. So he just nods and nods.

  The night wakes up, the city filling with people who are beginning their second act, the dark echo of whatever they have done during the day. This is a time of guilt and shame and secrets.

  Leopold loves it.

  He could order a car, but on most nights he chooses to walk the twenty blocks from the Aurelia to the glass box of his apartment. It gives him time to skim over the next days, to anticipate.

  But right now, he can’t think past the knocking inside his head.

  He tries to hold it off, at least until he can get home. The visions don’t care about where he is. The visions won’t wait.

  He needs Meg. She knows how to handle him when he’s in this state. He needs her voice, above everything. Leopold takes out his phone and calls her.

  She doesn’t pick up; she must be in a tunnel.

  The knocking, again. These days he feels as though his body is just a door for the visions to come through.

  “Meg,” he breathes, leaving a message of one word. She doesn’t call him back. It must be a very long tunnel.

  Leopold finds a doorway and sinks down to his knees. In any other town, people might notice. In New York, he’s just part of the scenery.

  The visions used to visit him only in the theater. Now they are with him any time they please. They strike viciously in the middle of the night, or fell him as they did in rehearsal. They used to be less painful, almost polite, delivering inspiration and then leaving him the hell alone.

  He closes his eyes.

  The first thing he sees is Roscoe.

  And he is afraid.

  Leopold is watching Roscoe die. It’s not a memory; it’s a moment, lived over and over.

  Leaves clatter over his head — applause. But not much. The city is stingy, as always.

  He stands up, not even bothering to brush the grime from his knees. He considers hailing a cab so he can have the rest of this horrible vision in peace. But Leopold doesn’t like taxis. The dense smell of them, the cracks on the seat like old skin. Everything ugly. This night is unbearable and cold, but at least it is beautiful. Leopold needs everything to be beautiful right now.

  Even his pain. Especially that.

  The picture in his head begins to darken and shift, and when the lights come up, a new scene is waiting. An actress in a small room, mirrors and bright lights. Leopold has wasted time hoping that this one is a mistake. But his visions have always found a way to come true.

  Zara finds herself back in the studios for her next rehearsal. The intimacy of the storage room unsettled her, but now she almost misses it.

  Kestrel runs to join the chorus members. She laughs the loudest. Hugs everyone the longest.

  Zara warms up alone.

  Leopold and Meg sit at a folding table with their heads together, whispering. Zara has never known a director with a personal assistant before. What does she do, exactly? She stays close to Leopold, within reaching distance. The looks he gives her are tired, the frayed opposite of the energetic presence she felt the other night.

  Zara tries to catch his attention from across the room. All he does is mutter something to Meg.

  Brilliant.

  That’s what Leopold called Zara.

  Brilliant.

  The word has a spotlight shine to it. Now that she’s felt its warmth, all she wants is to feel it again.

  The stage manager tells them it’s time to begin. Echo doesn’t have much to do in act 1, scene 1 — just wander around the marketplace as the chorus tells Echo’s tragic story. Kestrel is the chorus leader, so she does most of the talking. Her voice has a metallic ring to it, cold and bitter.

  “Ariston refused a love

  To find a love.

  Echo refused a love


  To find a path,

  Not knowing that it would lead

  Past love, to death.”

  The chorus lays out the entire plot before the action even starts — that’s how Greek tragedy works. It’s never bothered Zara before, but all of a sudden it feels bizarre. The audience knows at the beginning that Echo and Ariston are going to fall in love. They know how bad things are going to get. People sit there riveted and watch things unfold, inch by beautiful inch. Until the beauty shades into pain.

  Is that part of what people want? Zara has only ever cared about the love in Echo and Ariston’s story. But the pain has been there waiting. Inevitable. It’s right in the prologue, mocking her.

  Leopold watches with bored eyes, shouts out blocking. Zara scribbles down her entrance, her crosses. The second time they run the scene, she sets down her script. Now she can really start acting.

  Leopold leaps up from his chair and walks with her.

  He puts a hand on her back. “Stand up straight.” He pushes her upright. “An arch in the foot, please.” His fingers brush up and down her neck. “More length here. And stop breathing like Zara Evans. You are not Zara Evans.” He puts a hand to her stomach, which makes her feel soft and exposed, but she doesn’t stop walking. She waits with empty lungs, until Leopold tells her that she can take another breath. “Slowly. Control it. Echo is not like you. Never forget that. Echo is better. Pull in your fat, please. No one is coming to the Aurelia to see a modern slob. Don’t look at Meg; she can’t help you. Listen to me.” He leans closer to her ear. His voice is a single drop of cold water. “Listen.”

  This goes on for an hour. Zara is wrong and wrong and wrong. But that’s how she’s going to get better, right? By knowing just how bad she is? Other directors she’s worked with have given her some idea of what she’s good at, but she’s never known if she could trust the praise. Was her performance really good, or just good enough for a school play or summer stage?

  This must be what making art feels like. This must be what it means to become a true artist. Zara must learn to second-guess, not just everything she’s doing but everything she is.

  Leopold holds her waist as she walks forward. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.” They’re trembling on the verge of something good. The spotlight comes back, and the rest of the world is lost in the dark.

  And then the scene ends and Leopold lets her go with a sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose as if he is trying to keep his disappointment contained. “We have so much work to do.”

  So Zara works.

  All week, she pushes herself. Day after day, Leopold is in her ear, whispering. The other actors keep their distance. There is no time to make friends, anyway. There is barely time to become Echo. On Friday, the actors’ day off, her fear drives her to the studio so she can get in more time with her script, make up for years of training that she doesn’t have.

  She weaves her fingers into a knot and pushes her hands up, up, into the spot below her ribs where her voice lives. It leaps out, carrying farther each time she tries, but the sound is still breathy, weak. She stretches herself until her muscles make it clear that one more inch would be the snapping point.

  And then she stretches a little bit farther.

  This is what Zara wanted. To be bigger than herself. To do more than she ever could in her tiny life at home.

  She says the first monologue until her voice turns into raw ribbons.

  When she closes her eyes, she sees Roscoe on the ground, bleeding, but the blood is red curtain fabric.

  Zara opens her eyes. She sees herself in the long mirror but she doesn’t want to be that girl, the one who isn’t good enough. She thinks of all the actresses in the greenroom, the ones who weren’t cast. The ones with real résumés and the bodies that people want to stare at, to worship.

  Zara hits her script again. Harder.

  She runs the lines. Louder.

  The edges of what she can do are invisible, but they’re always there, and she slams into them so many times. She needs to be better. She needs to be more. Zara works until the sky — cut up into squares by the tall windows — goes watery red. It’s only the middle of the afternoon, but a winter night is closing in.

  Maybe she’ll stay here until dawn. Maybe she’ll live at the theater.

  Zara is stuck on act 1. She can’t get past the part where Echo runs away from home.

  “There is no life here,

  Only cold walls . . .”

  Zara hears footsteps coming down the hall. For a single moment she is sure that Leopold is coming to berate her — or worse, tell her that she should give up now and leave the theater.

  Zara doesn’t notice a new fear taking root in the dark soil of Roscoe’s death until it’s planted firmly in her mind. Roscoe failed at his lighting design. Zara is failing at Echo. What if someone wants to stop her? Really stop her?

  Zara walks on her bare feet and tucks herself into the corner of the studio. Tense, each muscle in perfect suspension.

  And then Eli peeks in. Everything about her looks tired, except for her eyes, which are fever bright.

  They haven’t talked since their trip to the balcony.

  “I was over in the offices with the stage manager and I thought I heard your voice,” Eli explains. “You okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Zara crosses her arms over her chest.

  Eli takes a long look at Zara in her tight-fitting rehearsal clothes, which only makes it worse. There’s a sort of calculation in that look, like Zara is a tricky math problem. “How long have you been in here?”

  Zara’s brain feels broken. “Four . . . five? Hours?”

  Eli twitches her head toward the door.

  “I can’t leave. I told Leopold . . .” No outside commitments. No distractions. “I have to keep working.”

  Eli nods as if she gets it. “This will be Echo-related, I promise.” Eli points at the puddle of dark fabric in the corner of the studio. “Come on. We’re leaving. Put your coat on.”

  Zara takes the first step. Despite Eli’s promise, Zara feels that following her is against the rules. Exactly what Leopold told Zara to avoid. But she takes another step, and soon she’s rushing down the hall, calling out, “Where are we going?”

  Eli leads Zara down Fifth Avenue, the wall of Central Park running along one side, the cobbled sidewalk under their boots. It’s a medium-freezing day, but the sun is shining like it’s got something to prove before it goes down. Eli is not looking forward to full-blown winter. She hates the cold, and how by January it feels like there’s only one color left in the entire city, gray from street to sky.

  Right now there’s a red sliver of sun, turning the world pink and yellow and orange. There are jackets in bright colors, which will soon be replaced by dark wool and long puffy coats like trash bags.

  Eli turns to face Zara, braving the wind, as a few curls make a jailbreak from under her knitted hat. Zara is painted in beautiful colors, but the look on her face is still furtive, as if Eli has stolen her from the Aurelia. Maybe she has.

  “Where are we going?” Zara asks again.

  Eli hasn’t answered the question yet. She’s learned a thing or two from doing theater, like how to build the suspense.

  The park breaks open and there is a building: huge, classical, stunning. Zara’s eyes pretty much triple in size. The Met is one of the only places in the city that can hold a candle to the Aurelia. As Eli leads Zara up the wide, shallow steps toward the arches and pillars, she gets a stretched-out feeling in her heart. A hopeful ache.

  She needs this as much as Zara does.

  The light plot is done, but Eli has no idea if Leopold will like it. And if he doesn’t, she’s done. Her job at the Aurelia, her dream career, gone in the time that it would take to hit a single cue. And then there’s Roscoe, and the questions that hang over Eli’s head like dark, gray clouds.

  Eli leads Zara into a large room where they purchase tickets. Eli says, “Hey, let’s check our coats
.”

  “Why?” Zara asks.

  “Why?” Eli repeats. “I’m afraid if I turn my head, you’ll run back to the theater at full speed.”

  Eli hopes for a laugh, but Zara looks pained.

  It’s not her job to make Zara Evans feel better. And it’s definitely not her job to flirt. Zara helped Eli when she needed it, so she’s doing the new girl a favor in return. This has nothing to do with Eli’s crush.

  She tells herself that so many times that she almost believes it.

  They step into a courtyard with a high ceiling that feels like it’s open to the night sky. Dark blue swims down through squares of glass. There are no paintings in this room. It’s a lot of statues in grim bronze or glittering white marble. Everyone is Greek and Roman and gorgeous.

  Almost everyone is nude.

  Zara looks around, but Eli can tell that she isn’t really seeing anything. The girl is completely in her own head. Eli’s had that kind of week, too. But sometimes a person has to step outside of that and really see the world again. You can’t make art if you have nothing to make it out of.

  Eli circles around a trio of women. Their dimpled backsides shine like beacons. “The Three Graces,” Zara reads off the card on the base of the statue.

  “These ladies are nice,” Eli says. “But they’re not what we’re looking for.”

  She winds a path around the pedestals. Zara follows so close that she’s like Eli’s impatient shadow. Eli stops in front of a girl. She has one hand at her naked breast, the other clenched tight at her side. At the base of the statue, small waves lick at the girl’s feet, hungry as flames.

  “Echo,” Zara whispers, and looks up at Echo’s stubborn body, her beautiful face.

  That’s what Zara looks like. Not every detail, but the general idea is the same. Eli doesn’t say that out loud, of course. There are limits to how much truth she can tell a girl who probably doesn’t even like other girls.

  Also: the nudity thing.

  “How did you find her?” Zara asks.

  “Hannah,” Eli says, and it comes out bitter as black coffee, like her ex broke her heart last Tuesday. The logical part of her knows that it happened a year ago and she should be over it by now. But here’s the real truth: time doesn’t work in neat, predictable ways. It doubles over on itself. Finds new ways to hurt you. “Hannah was at Tisch — acting major, but she took all these fine-art classes. We would come up here on Sunday mornings after an ungodly stack of pancakes. I mean, when we were dating.”