Look Both Ways

by Alison Cherry

  “We can still be more than friends if we’re not touching every second.”

  “We’re not touching every second, Brooklyn! We don’t touch ever. You’ve barely let me kiss you all week, and I’ve been trying so hard to be accommodating. But I watch you all day in rehearsal, and you’re so adorable and smart and sexy, and all I want to do is put my hands all over you. So when we’re alone, I want to be with you. What’s the point of even being together if you don’t want that?”

  “Are we even really together, though?” I know I’m latching on to the wrong thing, but it feels like the easier argument to have. “What about Carlos? It’s not like you wanted to touch me when he was here. I don’t want to be your backup relationship.”

  Zoe sighs and looks at the ceiling. “We talked about this last week, and you said you were okay with it.”

  “Well, yeah, ’cause you were so upset, and I knew that was what you wanted me to say. But honestly, it was pretty weird being kicked out of my own room and knowing you were in here having sex with him when we had hooked up for the first time like a week before, and—”

  “You don’t even want to hook up with me, though! Every time I try, you tell me to stop. Are you seriously telling me that it’s because of Carlos? What if I broke up with him? Would you let me touch you then?”

  “It doesn’t matter, ’cause you’re not breaking up with him, are you?”

  “It does matter. Answer the question.”

  I grab a pillow and hug it to my stomach. “No, okay? It’s not totally about Carlos. It’s mostly about me not being ready and you pushing me.”

  “But are you ever going to be ready? You said you did everything but have sex with Jason, so I know you’re not scared. And I know you’re not playing hard to get, because that’s not the kind of person you are. So what exactly is the problem here?”

  I think about that first night when Zoe saved the best bite of her pizza for last. She’s not impatient; she loves delayed gratification. But she needs to know that perfect bite is coming at the end of the wait, and I know I can never give her that.

  I take a deep breath, then another. The inevitable moment is coming when I’m going to ruin everything between us, and I want to hold it off a little bit longer. But if we don’t have this conversation now, we’re going to have it tomorrow or next week, and it’s never going to hurt any less.

  “I don’t think I’m into this the way I thought,” I say.

  Zoe doesn’t answer, and I feel like I have to fill the silence, so I keep talking. “I think you’re the absolute best. It’s nothing about you, or not liking you, or not thinking you’re attractive. I think you’re really attractive. But I think maybe it was better when we were just good friends, and we could tell each other everything and hang out all the time but we didn’t have to worry about all this complicated…stuff, you know?”

  Zoe’s quiet for a few long seconds, and then she finally says, “It’s because I’m a girl, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”

  “Jesus, Brooklyn. I asked you flat-out if you liked girls weeks ago, and you gave me some vague answer about how you could maybe like them under the right circumstances, and then you let me kiss you! Why didn’t you just say no?”

  “This isn’t about liking girls, though. I really thought I liked you that way.”

  “But it turns out you don’t,” Zoe says. “Oops. But no harm done, right? It’s not like anyone else here has feelings.” I’ve never heard her be sarcastic before, and it hurts more than I expected.

  “Zoe, it’s not as straightforward as you’re making it sound. It’s not like I feel this way on purpose. Haven’t you ever been totally obsessed with someone and thought you were attracted to them and then figured out later that it was actually platonic?”

  “No,” Zoe says. “When I’m attracted to someone, I know. It’s not hard to tell. I look at them and I think, ‘I want to have sex with that person.’ ”

  “But it doesn’t feel that different to me. I want to be with you all the time. I want to learn everything about you. I want to be the best version of myself, because that’s how I want you to see me. I always know exactly where you are in the room. That’s how a crush feels, except without all that…other stuff.”

  Zoe stands up and towers over me on the bed. “You’re the one who started that ‘other stuff!’ You unzipped my dress after Pandemonium. It’s not like I made you. Were you just messing with me to see if you could? Is this some sort of weird power thing?”

  “No! Of course not. I didn’t even mean for this whole thing to be, like, sexual at first. I felt so close to you, and I wanted to get closer and express how much you meant to me, and then it kind of got out of control and turned into this, and…I don’t know.”

  “But you seemed like you liked it! Were you faking this entire time?”

  “No! I love kissing you, Zoe. And I really tried to be okay with doing other stuff, but it makes me really uncomfortable, and I feel like if it’s this hard, it’s probably not right.”

  Zoe rakes her fingers through her hair. “I can’t believe this is happening again. You’re exactly like Carina. I put myself out there, and I let myself fall for you, and then I find out you’re using me like some experiment you can throw out when it doesn’t go the way you planned! I’m not here for you to toy with while you figure out who you are or whatever! I was actually invested in this, and you should’ve told me you weren’t, so I didn’t make a complete ass of myself!”

  “Zoe, I didn’t know! How was I supposed to know I didn’t like something when I’d never done it?”

  “You let me throw myself at you! When I think about the stuff I said to you…God, you fucking straight girls trying to find yourselves. I’m never going to learn, am I?”

  Zoe picks up her messenger bag and starts cramming things into it—pajama pants, toiletries, a book. Her face is red and splotchy, and I want to wrap her up in my arms and tell her to calm down, that I’ll make it all okay. But I can’t be her solution right now, because I’m the problem.

  “What are you doing?” I ask from the safe little island of my bed.

  “I’m going out.” She tries to shove a bottle of shampoo into the bag. It’s too big to fit, but she leaves it poking precariously out the top.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know, Brooklyn, okay? Somewhere you’re not. I want to be by myself.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am.” She slings the bag over her shoulder, and the bottle of shampoo falls to the ground, but she doesn’t bother to pick it up before she storms out. It’s still rolling around on the floor, trying to find its equilibrium, long after she’s gone.

  I lie awake most of the night, crying and waiting for the sound of Zoe’s key in the door, but she doesn’t come home. When my alarm goes off at seven, I feel like I’ve had about thirty minutes of sleep, and even after a shower, my eyes look red and puffy. I know I have to pull myself together; we’re moving into the theater today and attempting a stumble-through of act one with the orchestra. Under normal circumstances, I’d be super-excited about seeing all our hard work up on its feet. But last night’s conversation has colored everything, and all I feel is sadness and desperation and dread. It’s like I’ve finally made it to the top of a mountain, only to find that the beautiful view I was promised is shrouded in thick, gray fog.

  I’m psyching myself up to walk over to the theater and face Zoe when my phone rings and my mom’s picture pops up on the screen. I’ve been dodging her calls for days, but right now I really need to talk to someone who loves me, so I answer.

  “I finally got you!” my mom says. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all week!”

  “I’m here,” I say. My voice comes out flat.

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m just really, really exhausted.”

  My mom makes
a sympathetic noise. “Third rotation is so hard. It’s okay, Brookie. Things will calm down a little after opening night. Tell me about this new show they’re cobbling together. Is it any good? The email Bob sent said they’re combining Macbeth and Birdie into one thing, but I can’t imagine how that’s even possible.”

  Here I was, thinking my parents wouldn’t find out about the new show unless I told them myself. I’ve been a complete idiot; of course the Allerdale administration would notify all ticket-holders about the change in the programming. At least my mom doesn’t seem to know what my role in the new show is, and there’s still plenty of time to put my fake-illness plan into action later this week.

  “It’s kind of like a mash-up,” I say. “We left most of the Macbeth text intact, but we’re inserting songs from Birdie with all the words rewritten so they’re about the witches’ prophecies or about murdering Duncan or whatever.”

  My mom laughs. “That sounds dreadful. I’m so sorry your very first Allerdale show turned out to be such a disaster. But I know you’ll be flexible and make the best of it.”

  “I think it’s kind of clever, actually,” I say. “Uncle Harrison will probably like it.”

  “Probably, but we all know he has questionable taste at best. I swear, some of the stuff he produces at that festival of his. Why would anyone put that much effort into something that’s essentially a bunch of jokes?”

  Because it makes people happy, I want to say, but her tone stings so much that I can’t squeeze the words out. This past week, the Allerdale company has finally accepted me as one of their own, even though I’m not performing. They seem to think writing a show is kind of a big deal. It hurts to remember that to my family, my hard work is just a bunch of jokes.

  Fortunately, my mom doesn’t even pause for a response. “Speaking of terrible shows, what ever happened with that awful side project, Señor Magellan’s Flying Circus? I haven’t heard anything about it in weeks.”

  I don’t bother to correct her. “It…got canceled,” I say.

  “The playwright couldn’t get it together, huh? That’s what happens when you put someone untrained in charge of a show. Marcus should really know better by now. But having that over with must be a relief for you, right? Now you can give all your attention to Bye Bye Banquo, or whatever they’re calling it.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say.

  “We’ll see you on Friday before the show, right? I made us a nice early dinner reservation at that lovely bistro we went to last month. Zoe’s invited, too, of course. I’ve been telling absolutely everyone about your hot new girlfriend.”

  “Mom,” I moan.

  “What? It’s exciting. Everyone’s thrilled for you. I’m so proud of you for opening yourself up to the possibility of dating girls, Brookie. Your life is going to be so much richer for it. I always hoped that if I had a daughter, she would want to date women. Men are so difficult to understand.”

  I should tell her Zoe and I broke up, that I’m not really sure I want to date any more girls. But in her eyes, the rest of my summer here has been a failure, so if I’ve failed at wanting Zoe, I’ve failed at everything. I decide not to say anything for now. Dinner on Friday won’t really happen once I convince my parents not to come, and when Allerdale’s over, I can pretend Zoe and I have drifted apart naturally.

  “I’m really glad you like her,” I say.

  “I can’t wait to see both of you. Oh, sweetie, I’ve got to go. Christa’s calling on the other line. But I’ll see you Friday.”

  “Sure,” I say. “I love you, Mom.”

  The second I hear the click of the line disconnecting, the crushing complexity of my life rushes over me like a tidal wave, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to walk to the theater and go about my day. My beautiful show, the one thing that was actually going well for me, feels small and silly and tainted after hearing my mom belittle it. I squat down right there in the middle of the Ramsey lawn, put my hands over my face, and try to pull myself together.

  “Brooklyn?”

  When I look up, Russell’s standing right next to me, looking concerned. I stand up and try to paste on a smile. “Oh, hi.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I’m about to say I’m fine, but there’s really no point in pretending; I’ve obviously been crying. “Not really,” I say.

  “What’s up?”

  “I…kind of got dumped last night.”

  A horrified expression comes over his face, and he actually takes a step back, like my angst might be contagious. But then he recovers and pulls me into a hug. “Oh no. Brooklyn, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were dating someone. You never mentioned him.”

  I ignore the pronoun. “It wasn’t, like, a long-term relationship or anything.”

  “Even so, that totally sucks. Take care of yourself today, okay? I’ll cover for you if you need to take some time out of rehearsal.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  “Not really, but thanks.”

  Russell guides me toward Legrand, one arm still tight around my shoulders, and we’re there all too soon. He holds the door for me, but I hover outside. “You go ahead,” I say. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  “Why, what’s—” Russell’s eyes widen. “Wait a second. You were dating a guy from the cast, weren’t you?”

  “No,” I say, and I hope he can’t tell from my face how close he is to the truth. “It’s not that. I just need a minute.”

  “Okay. I’ll wait for you inside.”

  I hide around the corner of the building and try to prepare myself for seeing Zoe, but the passing minutes only give me more time to imagine horrible new scenarios. What if she confronts me in front of everyone and accuses me of using her? What if Livvy hears and tells Jessa, and all my friends turn on me again? What if Russell finds out what happened and decides he doesn’t like me anymore?

  I tell myself none of that is going to happen. Zoe’s upset, but she’s not vindictive. All I have to do is avoid her until she cools down, and that should be easy if she’s onstage and I’m in the audience. Maybe in a few days, she’ll see how wrong she was to yell at me for being honest about my feelings, and then she’ll apologize, and we can go back to being civil. Maybe we can even go back to being friends.

  I spot her the second I walk into the theater, stretching onstage with the other two girls playing the witch doubles. I search her face for any sign that she regrets the things she said to me last night, but when she catches my eye, all I see is cold, hard anger. My chest tightens and aches, and I look away as Stage Manager Lauren whistles for our attention.

  “We’re going to start at the top of the show and work our way through with the orchestra,” she says. “If you have any problems and you need to stop, stick your hand in the air and one of us will call ‘hold’ and help you work it out, okay?”

  I wish I could stick my hand in the air right now and pause the entire world until I feel ready to deal with it again.

  The actors know their lines and their lyrics, and the orchestra knows their music, so the stumble-through ends up being mostly about the awkward transitions when the doubles have to switch places with the Shakespearean actors to perform their songs. Nobody needs the lyricists for that, so I sit quietly next to Russell, reviewing every moment of Zoe’s and my relationship and trying to figure out what I should’ve done differently. Every time she comes onstage, I scrutinize her words and gestures for some hidden meaning, something that might make me feel better about what happened between us. But all her movements are choreographed, and all the words she’s singing are ones I wrote for her. There’s nothing to decipher.

  I’m concentrating so hard that I nearly have a heart attack when Alex, the Macbeth director, sits down behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about act two, and I think we might be missing a song,” he whispers.

  Russell jumps in right away. “Did we skip one?”

&n
bsp; “No, but I feel like we need to give more weight to the moment when Macbeth learns that Lady M is dead.” I flinch at the word “Macbeth”—it’s bad luck to say it inside a theater, and the last thing I need is more bad luck. I remind myself that the rule doesn’t apply when you’re rehearsing the production.

  “You mean the ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow’ speech?” Russell asks.

  “Exactly. The monologue is so short, it doesn’t seem like enough to really let the moment land, you know? I think maybe we should put a song there.”

  “I’m not sure there’s an appropriate song from Birdie that we haven’t used,” Russell says. “Did you have one in mind that you’d like us to rewrite?”

  “I could write something original,” I say. I have no idea I’m about to say it until it’s out of my mouth, but it immediately feels right. I need a place to put some of these excess emotions that are spilling over my edges like coffee from an overfull cup.

  “Sure,” Alex says. “Take a crack at it. Nothing too over-the-top, okay? Just something honest and quiet that’ll get the audience right here, you know?” He thumps his fist against his chest.

  “Totally,” I say.

  I start to get up, and Russell touches my arm. “Do you want help?”

  I don’t want to hurt him, but I also need to do this alone. “Um, I know we’ve written all the other ones together,” I start. “But do you think it would be okay if—”

  “It’s totally fine,” he says. “Take all the time you need. I’ll handle stuff in here, under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No writing an emo song about how love is a lie and everyone disappoints you,” he says, and I surprise myself by smiling.

  I find an empty rehearsal room and lock the door, and the moment I let my fake-happy facade drop, I start to feel much better and much worse at the same time. I sit down on the bench and try to focus on Macbeth. How did he feel when Lady M died? Grief-stricken, for sure. Guilty, probably, that he hadn’t wanted the same things she’d wanted and hadn’t been able to make her happy. I bet he wished she had been satisfied with what she’d had instead of reaching for bigger, more dangerous things.