Look Both Ways

by Alison Cherry

  It’s so different from our master class yesterday that I actually snort. How is anyone supposed to learn to act here when we’re getting such conflicting instructions?

  “Is there something amusing, Brooklyn?” Clark asks.

  “I, um. I’m just reacting to the space?” I catch Russell’s eye, and he puts his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.

  “Fine,” Clark says. “Come on, people. I want to see some motion.”

  I start wandering around the perimeter of the room, dragging my fingers over the walls. They come away fuzzy and gray with dust; I doubt anyone has cleaned in here since the end of last summer. “Play with levels,” Clark calls. “Nobody wants to watch you people walk all day.” Bench-press guy gets down on the floor and rolls slowly in my direction, accumulating a film of grit and dust bunnies on his black T-shirt. I hop over him a couple of times, and he reacts by changing direction. Pandora rubs her body against the walls, making what she must think is a sexy face. In the corner, the blond guy swings on the rails of the low balcony that lines one edge of the triangle. One of the wooden rails breaks loose, and the guy is left clutching it like a club while he dangles by one hand. Three long nails protrude from the end like the spikes on a stegosaurus’s tail.

  “Oops,” he says. Then he starts whacking the other rails like some kind of deranged percussion player.

  “Destruction is creation,” Clark shouts over the racket. “That was very organic. Are you getting this, Alberto? I’m giving you gold, man.”

  From his corner, Alberto nods furiously.

  “The floor is made of tar!” Clark shouts so loudly, I jump. “You’re wading through a lake of molasses!”

  “Wait, tar or molasses, which one?” asks Natasha.

  “I don’t care! Make it happen! Make me see it!”

  I try my best to move like I’m slogging through a lake of tar, but this whole thing is starting to feel more and more absurd. I’m all for theater being a collaborative effort, but it works a lot better when someone in the room seems to know what’s going on. I tell myself this is only the first day, but there’s no way walking around like my feet are sticking to the floor is going to help Alberto write a play.

  Over the course of the next hour, we bounce like we’re on the moon, run like we’re being attacked by swarms of bees, tiptoe like we’re on hot coals, and walk like various animals—peacocks, elephants, cats, kangaroos. All of Pandora’s animals involve making the same sexy face. Then Clark has us close our eyes and create a “soundscape.” I think he’s aiming for something like the time we created a rainstorm in elementary school by snapping and clapping and drumming on our thighs. But since he doesn’t lead us at all, it ends up sounding like a lot of random humming and howling and popping that doesn’t go together. When I open one eye and glance at Russell, he’s got both hands buried in his curls like he might rip them out by the roots.

  It’s after eleven when “rehearsal” finally ends. Instead of giving us a pep talk about how well we’re starting to bond as an ensemble, Clark picks up his clipboard, says, “That’s enough,” and walks out the door. Alberto gathers his notebook and pens and scurries after him, like he’s afraid to be left alone in the room with us. I realize I haven’t heard him say one word the entire evening.

  The other six cast members and I look at each other for a minute, but nobody has anything to say. After a second, people shrug and start heading out. Nobody bothers to say good night.

  Russell comes up next to me. “Well, that was…something.”

  “That’s one way to describe it,” I say. “Your lighting designer friend looked like she was about ready to puncture her eardrums with a fork. I can’t say I really blame her.”

  “Did you know it takes only seven pounds of pressure to rip your ears completely off?”

  “Eew, no. And I wish I still didn’t know that,” I say, but at least I’m laughing. “This has seriously been the weirdest week of my life. Marcus Spooner threw eggs at me yesterday.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It was at our master class; he was trying to teach us how to focus through distractions or something. He told us if we weren’t willing to stab ourselves in the leg for art, we didn’t deserve to be here.”

  Russell’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, I know the guy is supposed to be brilliant, but that is all kinds of messed up.”

  “I know, right? Thank you!” My voice comes out louder than I expected, but it’s so reassuring that someone else has noticed that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. “When I complained about it to a bunch of the apprentices yesterday, they were like, ‘But Marcus is a genius, the whole thing was a metaphor, blah, blah.’ I don’t care if it’s a metaphor! He threw eggs at me!”

  “Did he actually teach you anything?”

  I want so badly to be able to say yes, that even though it was difficult and humiliating, it also taught me lessons I’ll carry with me for the rest of my career. I want yesterday’s class to have proven that I made the right decision by coming to Allerdale. But it didn’t, and I know I don’t have to lie to Russell about it. He doesn’t expect anything from me.

  “Honestly?” I say. “No. Not at all.”

  “At least egg is good for your hair, right?”

  I laugh. “How do you know that?”

  “Olivier told me. He says his hair is so thick and soft because he uses these egg yolk treatments on it. I mean, it sounds weird, but it’s definitely working for him. You think I should try it?”

  I want to laugh at his intimate knowledge of his boss’s hair texture, but it seems too early in our friendship to tease him about his crush. So I say, “I can’t say I recommend it, after yesterday. Your hair looks nice as it is.”

  “Thanks.” Russell holds the door for me, and we head across the lawn toward the dorms.

  “So, are you going to stop coming to rehearsals, since Clark doesn’t want a set?” I ask.

  “No, he’ll probably change his mind. Plus, watching you all pretend to walk through a lake of tar was pretty glorious.”

  I shove his shoulder. “Ugh, shut up.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Russell says. “If you weren’t so good at strutting like a peacock, I wouldn’t be forced to keep showing up.”

  He flounces down the path in a ridiculous imitation of my peacock walk, twitching his butt from side to side, and I burst out laughing. “You’re a terrible person,” I say.

  “But you’re glad I’m not leaving, right?” He elbows me in the arm. “Admit it. You’d be supersad if I weren’t around.”

  “I would. I don’t think I could face this insanity without you.”

  Russell smiles and pats my shoulder, and the unexpected force makes me stumble forward. He’s a lot stronger than he thinks. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I wouldn’t leave you alone in there. I’ve got your back.”

  By the time I get back to the dorm, the warm, fuzzy feeling of Russell’s companionship has worn off, and the futility of my situation hits me like a canoe paddle to the face. I’m not cast on the main stage. The master classes are humiliating bullshit masquerading as brilliant lessons in technique. My “show” is so nebulous that the person writing it doesn’t even seem to know what it’s about. So what am I doing here at Allerdale? Slinging a wrench all summer isn’t going to teach me how to be a real performer or help me fit in with my family. I might as well be working at the Pinkberry down the street from my apartment. It would certainly make my back hurt less.

  When I open the door to my room, Zoe’s on the phone, but the second she registers the expression on my face, she says, “Hey, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Love you.” She makes a kissing noise and hangs up. “You all right?” she asks. “How’d rehearsal go?”

  I drop my bag onto the floor. “I think ‘absurd’ pretty much covers it?”

  “Oh no. What happened?”

  I tell her everything, imitating put-upon Clark and silent Alberto and Pandora’s sexy animal walks. Zoe listens
to the whole thing with wide, sympathetic eyes, but she’s also laughing. She has this boisterous, unrestrained giggle that’s way goofier than I’d expect from someone so put-together. When I’m done, I flop facedown onto my bed. “I’m glad my pain amuses you,” I say.

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. The whole thing sounds awful. It’s just, you looked exactly like Pandora when you did that sexy cat walk. She’s in Midsummer with us, and that’s her fairy walk, too.”

  “Well, enjoy my impressions while you can, because it’s obviously the only acting I’m going to be allowed to do here.”

  “Aw, don’t say that,” Zoe says. “It’s possible it’ll get better, right? When Alberto finally manages to write a script, maybe—”

  “It’s not going to get better,” I say. “The whole thing is a complete joke. Seriously, if they thought I wasn’t good enough to be here, they should’ve rejected me. They didn’t have to punish me with Señor Hidalgo.”

  “Brooklyn, you’re obviously good enough to be here, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  She has no idea. “And yet I’m not allowed to set foot on the main stage unless I’m holding tools. I’m not even good at that. You should’ve seen—”

  Zoe cuts me off. “Okay, that’s enough.” She stands up, and I’m positive she’s about to walk straight out the door and find someone better to hang out with.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t bitch about this so much. I’ll try to—”

  “No, that’s not the problem. Stand up.”

  “Why? Are you going to throw eggs at me?”

  “Just do it!”

  I stand, and she marches me over to the full-length mirror on her closet door. “Shoulders back, chin up,” she says. “Look your reflection in the eyes.”

  I look at her reflection instead. “What are we doing?”

  “You’re doing what I say.”

  “So bossy,” I complain, but I smile, and she smiles back. Her hands feel warm and steady on my shoulders. I make eye contact with myself, stand up straight, and lift my chin. Even the posture change makes me feel a tiny bit better.

  “Good,” she says. “Now say, ‘I deserve to be here.’ ”

  I turn all the way around and look at her. “Are you seriously making me do affirmations?”

  Zoe spins me back toward the mirror. “Say it!” she orders.

  It seems easier to get this over with than to argue. “Fine,” I say. “I deserve to be here.” It comes out sounding incredibly sarcastic.

  “That is officially the least affirming thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You have to mean it!”

  “But what if I don’t mean it?”

  “Brooklyn, that’s the entire point of affirmations. If you say it enough times, you start to mean it.” She points to the mirror. “Again.”

  “I deserve to be here.” I try to sound more confident this time.

  “Louder!”

  “I deserve to be here!”

  “Scream it! Let the whole dorm know!”

  “I deserve to be here!” I shout at the top of my lungs, and then I burst out laughing, and so does Zoe.

  “Good!” she says. “Now say, ‘I am talented!’ ”

  “I am talented!” I scream.

  “I am beautiful!” Zoe yells.

  “I am beautiful!” I repeat, but now all I can do is wonder if Zoe really thinks I’m beautiful. “Your turn,” I say, because I need her to stop looking at me for a minute.

  “Okay.” She moves to stand beside me and squares her shoulders. “I can act over the Barney song!” she shouts. “I get to play Kim on the main stage! I got into fucking Juilliard!”

  “I can hang a Source Four!” I shout.

  “I have a fantastic ass!” Zoe screams, and then we’re both laughing so hard, it’s difficult to breathe. It’s the kind of laughter that’s almost painful, where you feel like your body is barely holding itself together, but the pain is so good, you don’t want it to stop. My legs start to buckle, and I clutch at Zoe’s shoulder to keep me upright, but she’s equally weak-kneed, and we melt toward the floor together in slow motion. That makes everything even funnier, and I start hiccupping. Zoe’s face is bright pink and wet with tears.

  Jessa opens our door without knocking. “What the hell is going on with you people?”

  “We are amazing!” I shout at her at the same time that Zoe screams, “We’re hot, talented bitches!”

  Jessa shakes her head. “Y’all belong in the loony bin.”

  She withdraws and shuts the door, and even though I feel weird for thinking it, I’m glad she’s gone. I want this moment with Zoe to myself. My roommate buries her face in my shoulder as she struggles to calm down, and her hair drapes over us both like a curtain. When I glance up at the mirror, I like how our reflections look, all messy and sprawled and tangled together.

  When she can speak again, Zoe says, “That was awesome. We should do that every day.”

  “We’d get thrown out of the dorm.”

  “But we’d feel so good about ourselves!” She giggles and wipes her damp cheeks. “Admit it, you feel a little better now, right?”

  “I do, yeah.” I don’t tell her that the reason I feel better is because she sees me as this bright, shiny, better version of myself, not because I actually believe I deserve to be here.

  Zoe sits back up. “Seriously, though, being in bad shows is part of the business. Those are your actor battle scars, you know? They’re the stories you’ll pull out at dinner parties forever. It sucks now, but it’ll be hilarious later.”

  She’s right; my entire family has war stories like this, and they’re always laughing about them at Family Nights. The whole point of coming here was to be like them, and at least in this way, I finally will be.

  “What’s the worst show you’ve ever been in?” I ask.

  Zoe settles into a more comfortable position on the floor. “Probably this student-written musical in tenth grade. The girl who wrote it was in love with our acting teacher, and the whole show was basically about him secretly being into her, too. I played her, and my then-boyfriend played the acting teacher, and then we broke up in the middle of the rehearsal process. And the actual acting teacher was the director, so it was basically this giant hurricane of awkward.”

  “Oh God,” I say. “That might be even worse than Señor Hidalgo.”

  “Fortunately, my friend Brian was in it with me. I wouldn’t have made it through without him.”

  “I’ve got an ally, too,” I say. “Do you know Russell, that supertall guy from scenic? He’s doing our set, and he’s really cool. We talked a little bit after rehearsal.”

  “Oooh.” Zoe sits up straighter. “No, I don’t know him. Is he cute?”

  I picture Russell’s warm brown eyes and curls and strong arms. “Yeah, really cute. But also gay.”

  “Damn. Are you sure? I thought Carlos was gay when I first met him, and…um…he is definitely not.” Her face turns a little pinker, and even though I’m the only other person here, I suddenly feel excluded from the conversation.

  “I’m pretty sure about Russell. He knows about hair products, and he’s totally into that guy who’s doing the set for Midsummer. Olivier something?”

  “Really?” Zoe wrinkles her nose. “Isn’t that guy, like, fifty?”

  “He’s pretty attractive, though. Russell showed me a picture on his phone.”

  “Russell has a picture of him on his phone?”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “I know, right?”

  “Yeah, definitely gay. That sucks.”

  “Why’d you think Carlos was?”

  “This is going to sound awful, but he seemed too respectful to be straight. He looked me in the eyes when we talked, instead of trying to peek down my shirt. My last couple of boyfriends before him basically wanted a set of boobs to hang out with.”

  “Can I see a picture?” I ask.

  “Of my boobs?”

  I laugh. “Of your boyfr
iend.”

  “I know. I’m just messing with you.” Zoe pulls out her phone and opens a picture. Carlos has a stubbly beard, squarish black glasses, and those deep parentheses around his smile that are almost dimples but not quite. His teeth look incredibly white against the tan of his skin. Zoe’s in the picture, too, wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and pressing her cheek against his. They look totally at ease with each other, and I’m flooded with an irrational wave of jealousy that there are people in the world who know Zoe so much better than I do. I want to skip ahead to a time when we’ve known each other for years, when we meet new people and they marvel at the depth of our friendship.

  “He’s adorable,” I manage to say.

  “Isn’t he?” Even though she must’ve seen the picture a million times, Zoe’s still practically glowing as she looks at it.

  “How long have you guys been together?”

  “About ten months. Are you dating anyone?”

  I shake my head. “I was with this guy Jason for, like, five months this past year, but we broke up in April. He was really cute and sweet and everything, but we weren’t into any of the same stuff. We kind of ran out of things to talk about.”

  Zoe nods. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine; it was my decision. Plus, now I don’t have to listen to my mom complain every single day about how he’s not right for me.”

  “She didn’t like him?”

  “She thought he was nice. But he wasn’t a theater person, and my parents kind of have this thing about how only theater people can really understand other theater people. My uncle’s dating this financial analyst, and my mom will not leave him alone about it.”

  “Wait, everyone in your family’s a theater person?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Wow, that’s crazy. Are they all actors?”

  Zoe’s getting uncomfortably close to the truth. I wish I didn’t have to be secretive with her when she’s making such an effort with me, but I can’t tell her about my mom right now, not when our friendship is progressing so well. Maybe I’ll never have to tell her.

  “They do lots of different stuff,” I say. “Some of them sing opera or dance or direct or whatever, but pretty much everyone is an insanely talented performer. They all came to Allerdale, and they were all really successful, so that’s why it sucks so much that I’ve basically failed here.”