by Una LaMarche
I walked back down Charles Street toward the subway station in total shock, not so much at the evening’s revelations as at what they seemed to imply.
Either I’d never really known you or I’d never really loved you.
I didn’t know which was worse.
Chapter Twenty-Four
First week of May
12 days left
JEALOUSY WAS A MISERABLE SICKNESS, but I’d lived with it for so long I barely noticed its symptoms anymore. There was no way for me to soothe the painful cognitive dissonance that came from the realization that I didn’t know you as well as I thought, or from loving you desperately despite having been so betrayed, so instead I spent all my free time the first week after spring break trying to find a better target for my hatred: him.
I scoured the Internet for clues, but you were one of those people who mostly ghosted on social media, not posting for weeks at a time. The same could not be said, sadly, for your hipster douchebag of an ex-boyfriend, Jasper Davenport, who seemed to think the world needed to see every kindergarten-level collage he made with “found” pieces of trash (the skateboard he’d recently découpaged with stale Twinkies and empty condom wrappers was especially poignant). But based on his artful, shadow-drenched selfies, Jasper looked to be shacked up with a dark-eyed sophomore vocal major, so that was a dead end. None of your exes’ feeds made any mention of you. I even tried to find Diego’s cousin, but I couldn’t remember his name, and besides, I figured, drug dealers probably didn’t have Tumblr accounts.
I knew Joy would tell on me if I pumped her for information, and that Diego was just Joy once removed, but in a moment of panic I did text Roth after a few beers in my basement late one night to find out if he knew what you’d been up to over break. I didn’t relish giving him another glimpse inside my ever-increasing emasculation (Would you ask her what she wants with me? Jesus, that was sad, no wonder no one ever came to my house), but I also didn’t have much of a choice. It was either trust him, or fly blind.
Sorry man, just saw her at rehearsals, he wrote back, so I got drunk and worked some more on my new play, a monologue about a World War II soldier cuckolded by his wife back home.
At school it was hard to keep a straight face. The anger and mortification just kept growing. I blamed myself, obviously, and your doorman and the lucky, probably brain-dead male model idiot you’d been taking upstairs and every single person I ran into, especially the couples, rubbing their happiness in everyone’s faces, the Diegos and Joys of the world getting exactly what they wanted. And then, of course, there was you.
Being high didn’t excuse what you’d done to me. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure about that, at least.
• • •
The saving grace of tech week was that it consumed me by necessity even more than you consumed me by choice. I spent most of my time in the darkened theater with our technical director, Chris, a recent college grad whose sole role on the faculty was to do the technical jobs all of the actors felt were beneath them. Over the next few days I also started a little experiment in which I stopped talking to you unless you directly asked me a question. We could do a whole run-through and I might say nothing. It was fun to watch the insecurity take hold as I gave Roth notes and completely ignored you. I wanted to make you crave my attention, and the only way I could force you to realize you needed it was to take it away.
I was relieved at first that whatever you two had done over break, however infrequently, seemed to have worked. The energy was back, the dialogue wasn’t as rushed, and your chemistry was believable again—onstage, at least. The weird thing was that when you weren’t saying lines, you still seemed to be avoiding each other. At the end of rehearsal, you’d leave not only at separate times, but through separate exits. Without the hostility that had plagued the weeks before break, the disconnect seemed out of place, like overacting for an audience of one. In retrospect, that was my first real clue.
My second came courtesy of Diego, who I ran into in the costume shop, getting fitted for a bolero.
“Looking fancy, dude,” I said, scanning the racks for the post-Victorian work clothes the costumer, Ms. Gaspard, had been tailoring for our dress rehearsal.
“Feeling pretty fancy,” he grinned.
“Don’t move your arms, honey,” Ms. Gaspard mumbled through a mouthful of pins.
“So how’s it coming together?” I didn’t care, really—dance was never my thing, and I got bored watching anything with no dialogue—but in order to pump him for information, I had to go through the motions of social graces.
“Amazing,” he said. “Although I guess I can’t speak for Joy, since she’s working twice as hard as me.”
“Is it different now that you two are . . .” I let my ellipsis do the talking, and Diego blushed.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, no, but—it’s just better, you know? Everything’s better.” He smiled, like he couldn’t believe his luck, and I focused hard on making my face look normal, forcing the bitterness down.
“I’ve seen this happen so many times,” Ms. Gaspard said, placing her final pin in Diego’s velvet lapel. “Get kids together, rehearsing nonstop . . . something always clicks.”
“Not for everyone,” I said. “I almost had to recast, but luckily my leads got back on track.”
“Well, there’s an exception to every rule.” Ms. Gaspard turned Diego so that he could admire himself in the full-length mirror, and then busied herself getting my costumes off the rack. “But when it’s there, anyone can see it. You can fake a lot of things, but you can’t fake chemistry.”
I bristled. Your chemistry with Roth had been natural—that was partially why I cast him, even though he was way too classically handsome for the gangly, nondescript Rodolpho I had envisioned when I wrote the play. I hadn’t been worried because I thought you were mine then—and also because by the end of February you two had been constantly sniping at each other. It was only since I’d gotten back that things had shifted. Anything that had happened would have happened while I was gone.
Someone’s been here all week. They barely left. A stomach-turning casting choice for your “new friend” snaked its way into my brain with a venomous hiss.
He wouldn’t, I thought. It’s so sad and telling how I never doubted that you would. But not him. He was my friend.
“Can we, uh, get some more soot on this?” I asked, inspecting the vintage cap Roth would be wearing. I faced the mirror and put it on, turning my head slowly while keeping my eyes in the same spot.
If you narrow your focus enough, you stop using your peripheral vision, the Director whispered. You start to miss things.
“Looks pretty dirty to me,” Ms. Gaspard laughed. It took me a second to remember we were talking about the hat.
“He” couldn’t be Roth. He was the reason I had gotten into Janus in the first place. Without Dave Roth, one could argue, I never even would have met you.
Then again, without me, you never would have met each other.
No one could argue with that.
Chapter Twenty-Five
May 8
5 days left
“HEY, HANDSOME.”
The Monday before Showcase, you sat down next to me at the fountain, flashing a smile on the small section of your face that was still visible underneath your huge sunglasses, and I quietly seethed. Mom had been wrong. It was Shakespeare who’s been right. Like Romeo said, love could easily spring from hate. Or, as it so happened, vice versa.
“Hey, yourself,” I said, avoiding eye contact. You’d blown off school on Friday, which meant we’d had to reschedule our cue-to-cue, which meant that Roth had disappeared, too, and neither of you responded to messages over the weekend. I didn’t have any real proof yet, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d been leaving you guys alone in the theater as much as possible, taking prolonged coffee breaks, m
aking an excuse to drag Chris with me, and then bursting back in when (I hoped) you least expected it. But so far, I hadn’t walked in on anything worse than you blasting Justin Bieber. The hardest piece of evidence I had to go on was that Roth had texted the word rehearsals, plural, when I’d asked him about break. You’d been very clear at dinner that there had been only one. But I couldn’t confront you with that. I’d look like a complete paranoid asshole.
Diego and Joy were slowly making their way across the square, apparently late because they had to stop every two seconds to kiss or whisper something to each other. I’d only witnessed them as a couple for a week and I was already sick of it.
“What’s up, E?” Diego said, sitting down and pulling Joy onto his lap. She winced slightly, which made me darkly happy. “Missing the beach yet?”
“No,” I deadpanned.
“You ready for the Showcase Showdown?” Joy asked.
“Wait, did you just drop a Price Is Right reference?” Diego beamed at her in mock horror. “That’s it, we’re done.”
“Where’s Roth?” I asked, ignoring them, scanning the plaza. You two kept “coincidentally” missing each other, swapping places like you were pulling some kind of Clark Kent outfit change.
“I think he might have Career Management,” you said, examining your tray of deli sushi. Career Management was the Janus version of a guidance counselor. Seeing as it was a private appointment instead of a class, I found it hard to believe you would know he was there if you two weren’t at least talking.
“Well, we need to go over the schedule,” I said. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with either of you.”
“Uh, you see me every day,” you laughed.
And you don’t see me at all, I thought, seething. You think you can just humiliate me and I’ll lie down and take it.
“Showing up is half the battle,” Joy said, looking pointedly at you.
“Shouldn’t you be in a better mood, man?” Diego asked, popping open a bag of Cheetos. “I mean, your part is basically done, right?”
I glared at him. Performers always thought it was all about them—they were the ones onstage, they were getting the attention (and, most importantly, the applause, which they needed like oxygen). They never seemed to think about the fact that someone else was really doing all the work. They were like puppets, deluded into thinking they were moving and talking on their own.
“Hardly,” I said. “It’s tech week, which means endless sound and lighting fixes, sets and costumes, the cue-to-cue, and then a dress rehearsal. I’ll be living and breathing this thing until curtain.”
“I hear you,” Joy said. “I feel like a broken wind-up toy, just going and going and going.” She turned to Diego and frowned. “Adair put me through hell this morning. I basically got a full physical.” They exchanged a few concerned whispers.
“Secrets, secrets are no fun,” you started to sing, but then Joy shot you a death stare and you shut up.
“Your schedule is cleared this week, right?” I asked. You nodded, tapping on your phone.
“Because I need your full . . . commitment,” I said, savoring the irony of the last word.
“What else would I be doing?” you asked, still not really paying attention. I don’t know what bothered me more, the fact that you were hiding something, or the fact that you were such a shitty actress that you couldn’t even be bothered to do a good job of it.
“I don’t know, you seem pretty busy lately,” Joy said. The words were acid-tinged and made me reconsider Joy’s potential value. You sniffed and rubbed your nose with your wrist. I was about to make a loaded comment about seasonal allergies when Roth finally showed up.
“Hey, sorry I’m late.” He walked over with his thumbs hooked into his pockets, hunching his shoulders, his eyes darting from your face to mine. “I was in Career Management.” I raised my eyebrows; you two were syncing your alibis.
“Cool story, bro,” I said. “What did Ms. Lopez have to say?”
“Just that I have no career,” Roth said with a self-deprecating smile. “It was a short meeting.”
“The casting directors will be knocking down your door come Monday,” Diego said. “Right, E?”
“We’ll see,” I said, frowning out at the sea of tourists with their selfie sticks. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
“It’ll come together,” you said, looking at either me or Dave—with your sunglasses on, it was impossible to tell where your eyes were. “It always does.”
“That’s a pretty confident statement coming from someone who can barely make it to school,” I snapped.
Everyone fell silent for a minute or two, but I had the distinct, paranoid feeling of messages being exchanged silently across the transom, beyond my peripheral vision.
“Trouble in paradise?” Diego finally laughed, but no one joined him. Anyone could see what a joke we were. Everyone had seen it, months ago—except for me.
“All right,” you sighed. “I think that’s my cue to go to the ladies’ room.” You picked up your bag and sauntered off, and Roth took your seat, fidgeting with the straps on his messenger bag.
“You know, I think she’s actually trying pretty hard,” he said. “I mean, it’s getting better, right?”
I looked at him and frowned. “Depends on where you’re sitting,” I said.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Except for the obvious, I think we’ve got it down.”
“The obvious?”
“Yeah, I mean, the part we’re leaving to performance. The, uh, spur-of-the-moment choice.” He laughed uncomfortably, and I realized he meant the kiss. We’d skipped over it so many times I didn’t even read the stage directions anymore. I’d forgotten it was even there. Sitting right in front of me.
I’d tried everything to get you to crack . . . except for the obvious.
• • •
We did the cue-to-cue the next day. Since the main stage would host four different short plays in a row for Drama Showcase, the set had to be easy to load in and break down. My solution, a minimalist, single steel beam (made of spray-painted foam blocks—for once, the visual arts stoners had come in handy) that stretched from wing to wing, needed intricate lighting design to avoid looking as cheap as it was. So in addition to Chris, I had a junior tech geek named Faiqa up in the booth, adjusting the levels.
True to form, you and Roth arrived through doors on opposite ends of the theater, avoiding eye contact.
“There are my star-crossed lovers!” I cried, just to see if you would look at each other before looking at me.
“Looks great, man,” Roth said, keeping his eyes on the stage.
“Yeah, great,” you parroted, with unconvincing enthusiasm.
“Great!” I said. “We’re going to make this quick and dirty.” I opened my script, which I’d marked up in advance with the cues. “If all goes well, it will be very . . . illuminating.”
“Good one,” Faiqa said through her headset from the booth.
“Places!” I yelled.
I called the cues while you and Roth moved from mark to mark onstage, saying one-off lines to show Faiqa where you’d be standing when she changed the lighting. Per my instructions, she made it dark and moody, with a film noir spot in the center and colored gels to create a dark, midnight blue cast on the background, which would slowly fade to an early morning orange by the end of the play. There wasn’t much for you two to do—while I worked on finessing each cue with the tech team, you stood like bored mannequins. I was the only one who knew there was a surprise coming.
“OK, this is cue ten,” I said to the room at large, when the moment finally arrived. “This is the kiss after Viola says, ‘I just want to feel something real.’ Page seventeen.”
You and Dave, who were already sitting side by side on one of the blocks center stage, staring intently at the grou
nd, didn’t move.
“OK, so they’re in the same place as cue nine, so I’ll just—” Faiqa said as she lowered the spotlight and brought up a backlight that cast you in hazy silhouette.
“I’d like to actually see it,” I said. “Their faces will be turned to the side, so I want to see what that looks like.”
You and Dave turned to face each other.
“Now say the line,” I called.
“I just want to feel something . . . real,” you said, substituting volume for emotion.
“Do it with your hand on his face. Faiqa needs to see it.”
“Actually, I don’t,” she said through the headset, but I ignored her.
You reached a hand up to Dave’s temple and brushed some hair off of his forehead. I saw the corners of his mouth twitch up.
“OK, now say it again . . .” I said, trying not to clench my teeth.
“I just want to feel something . . . real,” you repeated, gazing up at him.
“. . . and now kiss.”
“What?” Your eyes darted nervously over to me. “I thought that was supposed to be improvised.”
“I changed my mind,” I said. “I need to make sure it’s believable.”
Dave shifted uncomfortably. “Won’t it be more believable if it’s a first kiss?” he asked.
“It would be more believable if you were actually a teenaged welder, but we’re letting that slide.”
“Right. I just—” he looked at you helplessly. “Um.”
“Well, I’m glad we’re running it now if it’s such a struggle,” I said, feeling bile rise in my throat. Your pathetic protestations sealed the deal. I hadn’t been completely convinced my hunch was right until that moment.
