by Kayti McGee
“We are six weeks out from filming, so I expect to see you all in time.”
I know every beat of the song now, have rehearsed this every free moment but I hate that we are starting with it. The opening choreography is where I always mess up and if we start badly like this I won’t be able to recover for the reset of rehearsal. I let the breath I’ve been holding out and do what I can to slow my breath down and catch up before the music goes. We are in a tableau, our bodies in different shapes and I’m counting for my moment to come in. I know Tanya’s beat to enter, then Jerome, then Meghan and Esteban. Then I’m on: passé, spiral, turnout.
“Marlee, you are going to kill me.” Loren calls out and motions to his assistant to cut the music.
He demonstrates my part again rotating and bending his body with precision.
“Passe, spiral, turnout. Then contraction.”
He demonstrated like he invented the movement, which he sure as shit didn’t.
“We hadn’t gotten there yet,” Tanya said. “You stopped the music just as we were about to contract.”
“Honey, do you really want me to draw attention to you?” Tanya raises her eyebrows and puts her hands up. I do the steps again, without music, feeling humiliated, let Loren correct my positioning. He whispers near me before walking away.
“I don’t know why I bother. Who needs talent when you have the producer. Music on, please!”
I feel physically and spiritually broken at the end. Finally letting myself pant as Loren leaves the room. I slip my glasses back on because I feel like I need to cry again and let my body lean against the wall.
“Dinner tonight is just a technicality because I need double, triple drinks after that rehearsal,” Tanya says. I glance up at her as she pulls her thick black hair up into a puff.
“Join us? Jerome has a connection and got us all in to Arizona Amo’s new restaurant. Cholla? You know it?” The last thing I want to do is go there but better that than at home and sit in my room feeling awkward around Jake.
“Let me take a quick shower and I’ll meet you there.”
I almost don’t get out of the car when I pull up to the valet stand, looking at the walkway where the paparazzi and press had lined up that night, when I got out of the limo carefully because I wasn’t wearing underwear, how I put my hand on Jake’s strong chest for the first time and felt the way his arm could wrap around me like our bodies were made for each other. When we were having sex, he fit inside every part of me so perfectly and I can’t imagine anyone’s shape being as right as his. I shake my head, drop my keys off and head in.
The restaurant has a totally different vibe from the first night, now set up for more traditional dining, and a sleek mahogany bar and lights that colored lights that make it feel like we are in a club. I join the cast and get a slew of warm hugs that take me by surprise.
“My body is breaking,” Jerome says to me. “We were just talking about how our bodies are breaking.”
“My hand is doing this tremble thing after today’s rehearsal,” Tanya shows me but I don’t notice anything in particular. “I think I might be dying inside.”
“I feel like it’s my fault that he’s working us so hard,” I say. “I am trying so hard to get those moves right but I keep getting in my own way.” I could keep going but I don’t want to be the open book that Jake tried to train me against. Everyone is looking at me seriously and puzzled and I can tell I’ve said too much.
“Um, you’re doing fine,” Tanya says. “From what I can see you are totally on point.”
“Half the time,” Meghan chimes in, “I’m following you to make sure I get my timing right.”
“He’s known for this,” Jerome says. “He picks someone and tears into them. I worked with him one other time before, in my first show a few years ago back in NY and he practically dragged this dancer daily who was no different than me. I think it’s his technique to tear into one person who is on the level with everyone else so that everyone gets scared and works harder. He chose you for the scape goat, honey, and I’m sorry.”
I smile at them and will myself not to get weepy now.
“I appreciate this,” I say “but I could be way better.”
“We all could,” Tanya says. And though I’m not sure I believe her I definitely feel less like a fraud.
“He’s so up in our business sometimes I feel like I’m in a relationship with Loren. Keeping us for seven hours today. I want a relationship but definitely not with him. Oh waiter!” Jerome calls the waiter over and we all order more drinks.
“Make hers a double,” Tanya says and knocks her shoulder in to mine in a way that reminds me of Jake and I feel the last of my insecurity float away. When our drinks arrive we all toast to Loren’s bad attitude and then are quiet for a moment with our drinks. The couple next to us his curled together in a booth and she’s feeding him strawberries. Tanya leans in conspiratorially.
“Is that Janner? Tanner and Jenna?”
“I think so,” Jerome says. “God, what a perfect love story.”
Now that it’s mentioned, I recognize the celebrities. It was the big spring story how they met on the set of their movie for the first time in ten years. I want that. I want that power, I want that power to have that sex. Fuck I hate LA, maybe I think, I can’t tell exactly but I know I hate this feeling.
Tanner rubs his cheek against Jenna’s and they pause there for a moment, lost in the sensation of each other’s skin. I can almost feel Jake’s skin, watching them.
“Are any of you able to maintain a relationship with this kind of schedule?” Jerome asks and everyone bursts out laughing.
“The only time I’ve been able to keep something steady during filming is if I have something that got started while I was between gigs. It’s the only way that I’ve been able to pay enough attention to earn all the time I’m away,” Meghan says.
“Ugh, I was in love before I got my first break. I made the wrong choice picking that show over him, but it was too late by the time I realized it. He’s married now,” Tanya says.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Thanks. I have such different values now. I love my career and I want to be married but how do you even date?” Tanya says.
“What about you Marlee?” Jerome asks. I finish my drink and take a piece of bread, feeling myself starting to get drunk too fast.
“Oh, I was engaged once, but… it didn’t work out.” Everyone nods and doesn’t ask me anything more and I keep my mouth shut. Deflecting. Just like Jake taught me.
Jake.
Am I making the wrong choice? Putting my career above all else? Do I want too much?
Chapter Nineteen
Jake
I finally get Jonas out of his introverted cave to meet me at a bar in Silverlake. Usually I spend the first half hour trying to get him to talk with me but this time I’m pretty stoic myself. We sit there for awhile nursing our beers when Jonas asks, how’s Marlee and I finally unleash.
“Dude, so much has happened. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I already know you’re hooking up.”
We exchange a look that we’ve exchanged for decades. It means, Nick. But because he knows me well, before I can get my phone out to tear Nick a new one he puts his hand on my shoulder.
“That’s all I know about it. I’m down to hear more but—”
“We had this arrangement,” I say. “God, I feel creepy talking about it out of context. Basically she was a virgin.”
“Whoa. Teacher Jake.”
“More than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
I tell him everything about the contract with Thurgood and nearly need to restrain him from launching a cyber-attack. He picks up his phone and says “I’ll ruin him on Twitter” but I grab it out of his hands and slip it into my own pocket.
“I wanted to do the same thing, but Marlee wouldn’t let me. I agreed to do it because I wouldn’t admit it then but I can
admit now that I really care about her, and that started before she even moved out here. I wouldn’t have admitted this then either but even though I told myself I could just have a good time I think I thought I would win her over. That the sex would be so good she would have to choose me instead. I knew the sex would transform her but I had no idea it would transform me too. I hadn’t felt anything for a long time before her. But she has infectious enthusiasm and she is just so down to be new at something and to experiment and even if its something she loves and she’s had a million times she raves about how good it is as if it’s the first time. She brings a freshness to everything and everyone she encounters. When I’m near her I just feel like I’m at home, not just in my own house but like in myself. I want to be that home for her too. I might not be able to give her all the connections she wants in the way Del can but I can give her so much. Maybe I should tell her that.” I take out my phone to text her and this time Jonas pockets it.
“Hold off for a minute, big brother.” He signals for another two beers. He lets out a heavy exhale looking at me with this steady eye that our dad used to before he would impart some big advice.
“If you love her, let her go, man.”
I watch him as I pull from the bottle.
“I’m not in the mood for a Pinterest quote, kid.”
“I’m not being facetious. While you were giving her lessons on men, someone should have been giving you lessons on women. You just have to listen to them. She’s been telling you she wants to do this. You gotta let her have what she wants.”
I don’t like hearing this but I feel a punch in my gut that tells me he’s right and I sure as hell am not in the mood to admit it to myself or to him. I haven’t been listening to her. She never set this up as a choice, or a competition. That was all me. She knew what she wanted from the beginning and laid the arrangement out clearly. I’m the one who turned it into something else. I take a few more chugs and finish my bottle.
“Since when did my kid brother learn more about how to deal with women than me.”
“Easy,” he says, handing me back my phone. “I learned from all the mistakes you and Nick made.”
On the ride home, I pick up two bottles of pink shit. When I get home, I unscrew the cap off one and toss it in the garbage, knowing I won’t be saving any of it. I pull straight from the bottle and look at the living room, in our typical midweek disarray: plates and old coffee cups, open magazines and discarded leotards. The house is quiet and I’m relieved but a little depressed. I used to be so at ease with this empty house but now I can’t imagine it without her. All of her knick-knacks and dance clothes strewn about the house, the way she leaves half empty water glasses everywhere. But I’m gonna have to get used to what this place was before.
I’m keeping that desk she ordered, though. It’s real sturdy.
It’s hard to look at any place in the house and to not see her body there, someplace where we fucked because every time was so memorable thanks to the set up of the lesson. I look at the fruit bowl on the kitchen island and even though there aren’t bananas in it now I smile remembering our very first lesson and how she couldn’t help but eat the fruit. Of course she couldn’t, it tasted so good. I don’t know the last time a banana made me feel that excited. I look at the couch and think of our final night together and also all the times that we just sat there and laughed together before the arrangement even started. I can’t look at the floor without thinking of fucking her there. I turn the light on in my room and remember when I found her in my bed saying it was time that we get started. It didn’t feel that different kissing her the first time on my bed to when we had sex for the first time there. Even the blue t-shirt I left on the floor is making me think of her eyes and how she loves that color on me and the way when she looks at me I get this sensation of endless possibility.
I turn my stereo on but nothing I have set up to play feels like the right mood because the only thing I want to hear is her voice.
I go onto my computer and pull up the cut of the song that we did together. I still feel so close to the sound of her voice, the sound of her coming, but I have to accept that she was never mine to have. She’ll become a stranger to me again. That I won’t have access to her the way I have access to her now.
I put our song on again and maybe Marlee passed on some of her enthusiasm to me after all because I’m feeling the song in my body the way it felt when we were creating it together. Catch myself saying hell yes at moments when the harmony really clicks.
I start looking through my phone of videos I took of her in the studio laughing and dancing, her ass grinding slow and her smile wild and free. I scroll through my instagram and pull up the video of us singing You’re the One That I Want when I let myself blatantly stare at her body for the first time. As I listen to the song and watch these videos I start to feel that creative drive that the day in the studio awoke in me. I plug my phone into my computer and download the videos off and start to cut them together to the song.
I don’t even have to think because I know what shot needs to go where, when I need to loop her smile in again or a pan up of her hips swaying. I cut in some funny clips like when she pulled up her pants really high and a moment where I took a video of us kissing by the pool. I cut in footage of her nailing that dance move she feels so insecure about from the show. I’m not even thinking that I want her to see that I love her. I want her to see that she’s more valuable than anyone else in town, no matter who she’s with.
I finish the video and load it onto a thumbdrive. I pull the manilla envelope with the contract that I took from her that fateful morning. I told her it was symbolic and maybe this is the most symbolic way that I can let her go and indicate to her that she has my blessing. She doesn’t need to spend time feeling bad when all she was doing was sticking to the plan that I had agreed to all along.
I go into her bedroom and it’s funny that there was this time before she got here where I was setting the room up imagining her in this bed, dreaming about my body on top of hers, taking her completely. Now I’m letting her go completely.
I’m starting to feel like another one of Ryder Brother’s hit singles.
I lay the contract and the thumb drive on her pillow with a note.
“I hope you get everything you want. You deserve the world.”
Chapter Twenty
Marlee
My heart catches when I see what’s on my bed. I hadn’t seen his handwriting before but even though his name is signed at the bottom I know its his by how deliberately he wrote each letter. I run my fingers over his words then take the thumb drive and plug it into my computer. There is one file on it, a video, and I press play.
Of course, it had to be the song.
But I didn’t expect to see us together.
In all our time together I always focused on him, but I didn’t take the time to really look at us.
And right now I’m seeing us laughing together, floating in the pool with our sunglasses on, singing together in the studio. I can’t stop staring at our faces pressed close together and the way his his stubble cheeks, his swoop of dark hair, and glinting blue eyes looks next to my own skin, the way my hair rests on his shoulder and how when we laugh together we both throw our heads back and show our teeth, our hands reaching out for the other’s shoulder.
I knew how he made me feel but I didn’t know how much we had built.
And if that couldn’t be enough I suddenly see me, the way he was seeing me.
I usually cringe when I see rehearsal videos, when I hear the sound of my voice, even friends’ instagram videos of me make my skin crawl. But hearing my voice in this song doesn’t provoke that emotion, and neither does seeing me dancing silly for him in the studio or moments when he snuck videos of me sipping coffee and looking out the window, the breeze catching my hair. When I see myself working the routine that I’ve been struggling over for the show, hitting each move on beat with precision, I believe what I’m seeing. I can hear wh
at I offered to his song, can feel how I inspired what the album will become. I watch the video five more times. Then I listen to the song on repeat as I look through the contract, the sky slowly shifting toward dawn. For the last few weeks the contract seemed like my golden ticket but now as I look it over it suddenly seems like any other opportunity. An opportunity I got because I got cast in this show, which was an opportunity I got because of auditioning, because of my skill, and I found out about the audition because of Jake, who I met on his set.
I could have ended up on a dozen different sets but I ended up on the one that lead me to Jake. One opportunity lead to the next and I finally know what I really want now.
I finally doze in and out waiting for a respectable time to call Richard. I see a post on a gossip blog that he was back from his vacation and I feel an urgency like I need to act faster than I’ve ever acted before. I leave a message on his phone at 9 am, tell him its urgent and could he possibly meet me today? Then I listen to the sounds of Jake moving around the house. I wait to see if he will pause outside my door like he sometimes did back when the arrangement was on but I just hear his footsteps continue moving across the kitchen, down the hall and out the door. I get a text message from Richard.
Absolutely. I can rearrange some things. Dinner and drinks tonight. I’ll send a car for you.
That feels forever away but for once I feel lucky that I have rehearsal with Loren. The time will pass quickly and I won’t have the watch the minutes ticking by on my phone and maybe for once I won’t even care that Loren’s pink face is spitting insults at me. I know my dance moves and I can pivot my body and I know, thanks to Jake, what my body is capable of. I grab my duffle bag and bring along Jake’s thumb drive for luck.
This time I don’t stop in the bathroom first, don’t keep my sunglasses on and hide in the corner before its time to start. I sidle up with my hungover cast laughing about what they can and can’t remember from last night. Loren walks in with sunglasses on this time, nursing his own hangover, taking coffee from his assistant but this time I don’t feel fear. I know that whatever is going on has nothing to do with me.
