Read My Lips (A College Obsession Romance)

by Daryl Banner

  I can’t contain my excitement, not even in acting class. My stomach’s doing cartwheels in the grass and my lips keep twisting into a smile that hasn’t gone away all weekend.

  I don’t care if he’s deaf. He didn’t hear my song? No big deal. He felt it. I could see it in his eyes, which burned black with hunger, with need, with danger …

  I don’t care about my friends’ warnings, either. Everyone has a story attached to them. Living in the limelight of my parents, I’m used to doubting every piece of gossip or hearsay that drifts past my ears and eyes. I’ve seen my mother blasted on enough slanted, click-bait articles to know not to trust rumors.

  My phone buzzes. I glance down at a text.

  NOT-VICKI

  OMG Des, the cast list is up.

  I gawp, pulled out of my thoughts of Clayton. Already? It’s only been two days. Who the hell casts a whole season of shows in two days?

  ME

  I didn’t expect it so fast.

  NOT-VICKI

  Yep.

  Im stuck in costume history tho

  :(

  ME

  I’m in acting.

  Meet up afterwards?

  NOT-VICKI

  YESSS and then lets get some lunch

  to celebrate!!!

  I stow away my phone, worried that my acting professor Nina has caught me when I realize the room’s gone silent, but instead it’s just one of my classmates performing, being all dramatic and taking long, annoying pauses between his lines.

  My mind drifts back to thoughts of Clayton, and the rest of the class period is forgotten.

  I leave the black box eagerly. The world brushes past my face as I reach the cast list hanging off the rehearsal room door. A flock of eager students push one another out of the way to read its contents, much in the same way dogs fight over a bone. There is a moan of disappointment to my left. There is a cheer of victory to my right. There is silent pondering everywhere else.

  And then there’s me. Two heads in front of me move apart, and through the sea of whispers and groans and hair, I finally see the names. I rub my eyes and stare, reading the name at the top a dozen times. I don’t believe what I’m reading.

  “Congrats,” murmurs Eric, who I didn’t notice at my side.

  I shake my head. “But I didn’t think—”

  “You obviously earned it,” he says, offering me a smile. “And hey, look. I’ll be playing the town drunk, Simon! But we don’t have any scenes together …”

  “That’s great,” I tell him distractedly, still reading and rereading my name on that list.

  “You know what the secret to acting drunk is? It’s to try not acting drunk.” Eric laughs hollowly. “I’ll see you later, D-lady.”

  I still can’t believe it. It has to be a mistake, right? “Bye,” I say belatedly, then realize that Eric’s already gone.

  And it’s not only that I was cast; it’s the role I was cast in. I shake my head, unable to comprehend it. Maybe this is an error, surely. Maybe there’s another Desdemona Lebeau in the Theatre department.

  To make matters worse, not twenty seconds after Eric’s ghostly departure, Victoria replaces him at my side. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” she sings excitedly, her eyes eagerly scanning the cast list.

  I get the pleasure of having a front row seat to observe my friend’s face as it slowly, gently collapses in disappointment.

  “Wow,” she mutters after some time, the pain evident on her face. Then, she squints, something occurring to her. “Lebeau …” she reads.

  Oh, fuck.

  She turns to me, a look in her eye. “Lebeau?” She’s piecing it together. “Any relation to—?”

  “No,” I blurt a little too quickly. Of course she’d know my family; she knows everything. “There’s lots of Lebeaus in New York. Like, tons.”

  “Hmm.” Though the dubious glint remains in her eye, she gives a shrug and says, “Congrats, Dessie. Honestly, I didn’t know you were going for the role of Emily.” She tries her best to sound composed. “Of course, you totally fit the role. I mean, you’re pretty and all.”

  Now I can’t tell if she’s sincerely complimenting me or just being a bitch. “Thanks,” I say anyway.

  “I gotta get to class,” she blurts, although I know her next class isn’t for another two hours. “I’ll see you back at the dorms later.” Then with a tiny smile that looks like a grimace, she’s off.

  So much for our lunch plans. I’m about to shout after her, explaining that I wasn’t even going for the part, that I didn’t indicate “Emily” as a preference on my audition form, but saying that would probably just make things worse, admitting I got a part I didn’t even want. The part she wanted. The lead role.

  The … lead role.

  Suddenly, that fact hits me as if it weren’t already made plain. The lead role. Oh my god. I just got the lead in the first main stage production of the year. That’s how good they thought I was. This has to be an error, my mind keeps telling me, but a sudden whirlwind of confidence seems to take over instead. Maybe I’m still riding the high from my show on that tiny circular stage last Friday night.

  Quite suddenly, whatever wrinkle of guilt I was feeling is long gone.

  “I got the part!” I say elatedly into the phone when I’m by myself in the corner of the lobby, just outside the auditorium doors.

  “Of course you did, doll,” sings my mother’s fluid voice. I hear wine glasses and silverware tinkling in the background, wherever she is. “Now, it’s important that you put in an actor’s worth of work. No, I’ll take another chardonnay. Please, with some brie.”

  I smile as I stare out the tall glass windows of the lobby, letting my mom talk to whoever else it is who’s got her attention. I’m watching some sweaty guys throwing a Frisbee back and forth in the courtyard outside, too happy with the news to be bothered by my mom’s distracted attention to it.

  As a side thought, I genuinely wonder if Cece would be happy for me and have some nice words. She’s not used to me having any sort of success. Maybe I should call her up, too.

  “An actor’s worth of work?” I prompt her when it sounds like she’s free. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know, doll. Listen to your director. Make interesting choices. Don’t upstage. Excuse me, this is not the chardonnay I drank earlier. Where’s the good stuff, sweet thing? Get Geoffrey, he knows what I like. And don’t forget the brie.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Brie, yes. Brie. This’ll be good for you, doll,” she says, returning to me. “You really need to find that special voice in you. Put in the work and you’ll get as much as you give. Call me after your first rehearsal.”

  Silence greets my ear when she hangs up abruptly. I see a flash of my mom’s headshot on the screen before my phone goes dark.

  I feel so damn invincible suddenly. I could take on a hundred auditions, even with my tiny little nothing embellished piece of crap résumé. I’d brave any tiny circular stage at any random piano bar and sing my heart out. I can do anything.

  And then I see Clayton’s face in that piano bar. I recall how I made him squirm on that barstool—and then how he left so abruptly after I made my move.

  A heaviness settles right on top of all of my joy. He couldn’t hear my singing. Maybe he didn’t know what I was doing. Maybe he thought I was mocking him. Maybe he hates attention. Who the hell knows what he was thinking after my little performance?

  I want to make things right. Excitement invades me again. An inspiration, if you will. My heart grows lighter just thinking about it.

  I can make this right.

  Driven by my idea, I rush to the computer lab at the library just down the road from the School of Art. It’s pretty crowded for a Monday, but I manage to find an unoccupied computer right in the middle of the madness. Typing quickly, I log in and run a little search in the browser. I study the pictures that come up, curious. With a click, a video fills the screen. I move my hands, carefully try
ing to imitate what I’m seeing. There’s a few students nearby whose attention I’ve caught, but I pay them no mind, the performer in me ignoring the unintended audience.

  The smile returns to my face. Today is just the best day ever.

  The sun beams on me as I cross the campus later, heading for the University Center for a bit of lunch. Since Victoria forgot about our plans, I opt to eat by myself. I’m far too happy to feel bad. It’s not my fault I got cast and she didn’t. If I could give my part to Victoria, I totally would, but what would I have, then? The whole point of attending this university is to get a normal college experience and hone my craft. I’m sure Victoria will understand; she just needs time. Hell, maybe in a few days’ time, she’ll even help me with my lines. Victoria’s a good, kindhearted person.

  After I pay for my turkey sub sandwich, which comes with a bag of baked potato chips and a soda I didn’t want but accept anyway, I search for an empty table. Noon is just the worst time to eat; this place is so packed, I can’t even hear my own thoughts.

  When I come around the corner, I spot a booth with a familiar face. Sam, my roommate, is eating all by herself. Or, rather, she’s not eating at all. She’s seated there with a textbook spread out in front of her, looking bored as ever. Those ugly thick-rimmed black glasses swallowing half her forehead, she looks up, her beady black eyes finding mine. Her lips stretch into a long line, which I think is her trademarked version of a smile.

  I plop down across from her. “Hey there, Sam!”

  “Hi.” Her eyes drop down to my sandwich.

  It doesn’t go unnoticed. “What’re you studying?” I ask, opening the crinkly wrapping to my turkey sub.

  “Theory.”

  Since my sub’s cut in two pieces, I lift the first half to my mouth and take a bite. “It’s so freaking busy in here,” I whine through a full mouth. “And so loud!”

  “Yeah.” She swallows, staring at my hands.

  “Have you eaten already?” I ask her.

  “Yeah. I had … breakfast.”

  I don’t know how, but I suddenly suspect that my roommate skips meals and saves every penny she’s got. Maybe her parents’ weekly-or-monthly allowance is regrettably meager at best. Maybe she didn’t eat.

  “Y’know, I’m not gonna be able to finish all this,” I confess. “Want the other half of my sub?”

  “Oh.” Sam shifts in her seat. “No, it’s … it’s okay. I’m not that hungry.”

  “Well, guess that second half’s gonna go to waste.”

  She stares at it dubiously. I nudge the remaining half of the sub I was totally planning on eating toward her. After a moment of hesitation, she picks it up and takes a bite. From the way she eats, it’s clear how very hungry she was indeed.

  Not to say the sight of her scarfing down the sub is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. I suffer staring at a speck of mayonnaise on her chin for a solid five minutes before she wipes it and licks it off her finger.

  Just before I put the last bite past my lips, I see Clayton through the mess of people in the cafeteria.

  Fuck. He’s here.

  I never see him anywhere on campus except for the theater.

  My insides seize up. The last delicious bite of my lunch is left on the table, forgotten. My eyes zero in and the only thing that exists in the world is his muscular frame as it slowly strolls by in the distance. Just at the sight of him, my legs squeeze together.

  I can’t explain that last reaction.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Sam flatly.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I ditch the booth and cut through the masses, my feet flying as if there were no floor beneath them.

  I maneuver around all the annoying tables that stand in between Clayton and I. My feet nearly catch the strap of some guy’s backpack that rests by his feet. My elbow knocks into some girl who shouts a protest at my back that I don’t hear.

  I find Clayton standing near the double glass doors at the entrance to the cafeteria, the sunlight cutting through and painting his face in shades of white and yellow, making his dark demeanor glow like some beautiful, otherworldly being. He stares down at his phone, his biceps bulging from holding the screen to his face. The plain black shirt he wears hugs every contour of his body, tapering down to meet his sexy jeans, which are torn at the knees.

  He is sex in the shape of a man. God …

  He looks up, and when his eyes meet mine, there is electricity there. Kill me now. His face changes, and his heavy-lidded, dark stare penetrates me. All that bright confidence I had a moment ago is sucked into my throat, rendering me unable to breathe. He’s so sexy. He’s got that distinct, bad-boy handsomeness, his cheeks dusted with a five o’clock shadow and his eyes catching the light from outside, making them appear like two shimmering chips of glass.

  My heart hammers against my chest.

  It’s performance time.

  I lift my hand up and wave, offering a smile.

  After a moment of staring, he returns a tiny nod.

  You’re doing good, I coach myself. He acknowledged you. Keep going! With a jolt of excitement coursing through me, I bring a fist to my chest, then slowly rub it in a circle—Sorry.

  He doesn’t respond to that, his eyes glued to my face as if he didn’t just see what I tried to sign to him.

  Just keep going, Dessie. I bring a flat hand to my chest—My. I take two fingers from one hand and tap the two fingers of my other—Name. Then, I carefully form what I hope to be the correct letters with my right hand—D, E, S, S, I, E. When I’ve finished, I clasp my hands together, proud of myself, and smile again.

  His face hardens. His lips purse, causing his sexy cheeks to suck in as he considers me. Oh, crap. Did I do it all wrong? Did I just call him an asshole, or insult his mother, or accidentally tell him I’m a purple frog? Maybe I should have gotten a second opinion before practicing sign language for the first time—that I learned from a Google search—on Clayton.

  Then, without relaxing any of that hard attitude on his face, he nods again, then redirects his attention to his phone, where he seems to be typing for a short moment. He shows me the screen:

  I’m Clayton

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “I know,” I say out loud, then find myself struck with the horror of the fact that I don’t know any more signs. I looked up how to say some other things, but they’ve gone completely out of my head.

  Crap. I’m out of conversation.

  It doesn’t seem to matter. Clayton, his jaw flexed, gives me another tight nod and a short, halfhearted wave before he turns and departs the building. The glass doors close behind him.

  I stare after him, my pulse throbbing in my ears.

  Then, all the fear and doubt is replaced yet again with unapologetic glee. I just conversed with Clayton. Wow. I just conversed with Clayton using my hands.

  There’s a few other ways I’d like to communicate with Clayton using my hands.

  Feeling twenty times lighter than I did before, I return to my booth and pop the last bite of sub into my mouth, a giggle wiggling its way up and down my whole body. I can’t believe what I just did. I can’t believe that actually just happened.

  “Is he a friend?”

  I look up at Sam, who has yet another speck of mayonnaise on her face, right by her lips. I don’t care. It’s even adorable, suddenly.

  “You could say that,” I answer with a dumb grin.

  “Is he deaf?”

  “Yep.”

  I open the bag of chips I didn’t even want. I pop one into my mouth, then scoot the bag across the table to my roommate, who doesn’t even have to be asked, helping herself to one.

  “He looks like someone I knew in high school,” she says. “He could be part of a heavy metal band.”

  “A sexy drummer,” I say, dreaming on. First thing I’ll do when I get back to my dorm is research every sign I possibly can. “Guitarist,” I go on, wondering how to sign the phrase: I want you to push me into the wall and st
ick your cock inside me. “Sexy, sexy guitarist.”

  “Him being a drummer would make sense,” Sam reasons. “Vibrations and everything …”

  “Vibrations,” I agree, dreaming about what sort of vibrations I want to feel between my legs tonight, if I can get some time alone. I think about what signs I’d need to learn to tell him: Bend me over the table and pound me until I forget my own name.

  Imaginary signs and hand-shapes keep spinning around my mind as I share the rest of the potato chips with my roommate, lost in dreams of him … and what other kind of magic I can do with my hands.

  What the fuck was that?

  I can barely concentrate even when I’m backstage sorting stage weights and fucking two-by-fours, as if I’ve suddenly doubled as the set crew, too. Dick was so damn efficient with his lighting crew this morning that there’s barely anything left to do tonight or tomorrow, which leaves my body in a perpetual state of busywork and my mind trapped on that girl.

  Dessie.

  Not a name I’ve heard before.

  I’m so distracted by her that I let a stage weight go too early and the heavy fucker drops on my foot like a brick. After a shriek of pain, I kick the damn thing fruitlessly and study my foot, thankful I wore some sturdy boots today. When I take a glance at the others who are messing with the counterweight system, I realize I might’ve shouted louder than I intended to. I give them an annoyed nod, then continue about my work, determined to keep my toes unbroken.

  That Dessie girl signed to me. Great. Fucking great. It’s obvious she either never used sign language before or just learned those few signs for my benefit. I don’t know which feels worse. I hate the attention that signing in public gives me. The only person I sign with is my other roommate Dmitri, who met me in an astronomy class last year when he noticed that I had an interpreter present. He’s got a deaf sister, so he was already fluent. Fuck, he’s even more fluent than I am.

  But that girl signed me her name. She obviously gave enough of a shit about me to introduce herself. I feel that horrible flutter in my chest. The girl I’ve been obsessing about … she fucking signed to me.