Candlelight City

by Jessica Tang Von Harper

  After their brunch, they strolled back to the auditorium. A few more members of the tech crew had arrived and were working on the stage. Josh swiftly stepped in and took charge of them. Suzie wanted to help, but when she joined a group that was moving a backdrop, Josh ran up to her.

  “No way,” he told her. “You’re the lead tonight. I’m not going to have you accidentally put a nail in your hand and have to spend opening night in the emergency room.” He put his arm around her and pulled her backstage towards the dressing rooms.

  “Is there something else I can do?” Suzie asked.

  “Sit somewhere out of the way. Practice your lines. Take a nap. Just, don’t be in the way of my techs, okay?” Josh placed her in front of the dressing rooms then paused for a moment, as if to make sure she remained there. Satisfied that she understood, he turned away and hurried back to the stage.

  Suzie sighed. With nothing better to do, she took the stairs to the main auditorium and sat in a middle row, watching the activity on the stage. She thought about spending some more time with Brad, but he had better instincts of how he could help, and always seemed to be in the middle of a serious conversation with the lighting crew or the sound engineers or the set designers. Full of restless energy with no outlet for it, Suzie squirmed in her seat and watched each painful minute tick slowly by.

  It was an enormous relief when Tonya suddenly appeared, dropping into the seat next to her. “Hey, there, Jenna,” Tonya remarked. “How’s everything?”

  “Fine,” Suzie answered automatically, then admitted, “Feeling some nerves. I’ve never done this before.”

  Tonya gazed at the stage for a moment, watching the tech crew scurry around like ants. She shook her head at them. “Let’s get out of here. We have hours before make-up, and we’re going to crazy just sitting around.”

  “Where should we go?”

  Tonya smiled slyly. “I got my camera. Let’s go be a pair of beautiful, vain actresses.”

  Tonya led Suzie down to the dressing rooms, where they went through the unused costumes. Tonya donned a tight green dress that clung to her curves like a snake skin, and Suzie put on a slinky black dress with tall black boots that came up to her knees. Tonya threw some other costumes in a big purse, and beckoned for Suzie to follow. They weaved through the labyrinth of tunnels below the auditorium, until finally Tonya pushed open a door and they stepped out into the sunlight.

  “Big, empty school,” said Tonya. “Where should we go?”

  It wasn’t completely empty. They could hear distant cheering from the upper field, where a track meet was taking place, and in the distance they could see a maintenance worker pruning a section of shrubbery. But the buildings were quiet around them and it really felt like they were the only ones there.

  “How about the patio by the cafeteria?” Suzie suggested. Tonya agreed and they walked in that direction. Suzie glanced over her shoulder and noticed that their sexy attire was drawing a stare from the maintenance worker, but soon they turned a corner and left his line of sight.

  The cafeteria was a rectangular building connected to the science center, and in the crook between the two buildings was a patio filled with picnic benches where students could eat their lunches outside. Three vending machines stood just outside the cafeteria, and Tonya started their photo session by having Suzie pose against the machines.

  At first, Suzie felt like she was pretending to be sexy, playing at being a model. But Tonya kept up an encouraging patter as she snapped picture after picture: “That’s it…. you’re gorgeous… oh my god… you’re sexy as hell… that’s the way, let me see those legs…” and Suzie couldn’t help but respond to it, showing off to the camera. She experimented with a variety of poses, and then they switched places, with Suzie taking the pictures and Tonya posing. Merely watching Tonya be effortlessly sexy was an education. The tall blonde pressed against the soda machine with a smoldering look directed towards the camera, and Suzie felt her stomach flutter as she took picture after picture.

  “You almost look like you’re seducing that soda machine,” Suzie joked.

  Tonya chuckled. “It’s not the soda machine I’m trying to seduce, Jenna darling. It’s the camera.”

  They switched again, with Suzie posing at a picnic table. First she sat at on the bench in front of the table, then, with Tonya’s encouragement, she stood on the table.

  “It’s unbelievable, Suzie…” Tonya murmured. “It’s amazing how far you’ve come since you were cast in this play. You wear sexy so naturally now… it seems effortless…” Suzie was sitting on the table, her legs to the side and her hand caressing the black leather of her boots. “Open your legs,” Tonya suggested, focusing the camera.

  Suzie leaned back and opened her legs wide.

  Tonya raised an eyebrow. “No panties?”

  “Jenna doesn’t wear panties,” Suzie answered. Tonya shrugged and took more pictures. Suzie hiked her dress up above her waist and leaned back onto the table. A cool breeze blew through the courtyard, and Suzie shivered as it touched her bare skin. It felt like she was being tickled by ghostly fingers.

  “Pull your dress off,” Tonya said. “I’ll get some nudes of you, then we’ll try some different outfits.”

  Suzie took hold of the hem of the dress and pulled it over her head. She passed the garment to Tonya, who put it in her giant purse. Suzie glanced around nervously, but the courtyard remained empty and quiet. It was a strange feeling to be naked in such a familiar location. How many times had she sat with Emma at one of these tables, eating lunch, often doing schoolwork for one class or another while they ate, other kids passing around them in a steady stream… now Suzie was naked, and the courtyard seemed naked, too. She imagined herself standing in the grassy center of the courtyard, her arms upraised, her body becoming a nude statue of smooth marble. She would remain there, and on Monday morning the students would flow around her, not noticing her, the same way they didn’t notice her when she sat with her head in a book and a chicken salad sandwich in her hand.

  “A lot of them will have seen me naked by Monday,” Suzie murmured. Then, added, “A lot of them already have…”

  Tonya was removing her own dress and putting it in the purse, leaving herself in a skimpy pair of leopard-print panties. “Hmm?” she inquired, glancing at Suzie.

  “Just thinking of our big audience tonight.”

  Tonya shook her head. “It’s nothing.” She aimed the camera, apparently content to take nude pictures of Suzie while just in her panties. “The lights will be bright, and you’ll only see the first couple rows, if even that.” Tonya walked in a semicircle, snapping pictures of Suzie in profile. “Actually, a big audience can be nice. Tell a joke and get a healthy laugh out of them. Do something shocking and hear a good, loud gasp.”

  Suzie admired the blonde girl’s curvaceous body, and also the self-confidence that allowed Tonya to be so comfortable in her state of undress. “You’d make such an amazing Jenna,” she blurted out.

  Tonya smiled slightly, clearly pleased by the compliment. “I know I would,” she said. “But Mr. Belfast knew what he was doing when he cast you. And I’m going to be a pretty amazing Inga. Watch out, I’ll steal the show from you.”

  They laughed together. Tonya let the camera rest against her thigh, and regarded Suzie warmly.

  “It’s the last high school drama production I’m ever going to be in, and of course I wanted to be the lead,” Tonya said. “But I’m glad you were cast, Suzie. Otherwise, we never would have met, and we never would have become friends. it’s been a riot hanging out with you in rehearsals. This has been the most fun I’ve ever had in a show.”

  Suzie smiled, touched, but again feeling melancholy that she hadn’t involved herself in the drama department earlier.

  “Ready for a new costume?” Tonya asked, and Suzie decided she’d lounged naked in the cafeteria courtroom for long enough. Tonya pulled out a pair of 1920s flapper dresses. Suzie put on an outrageous blue dress and Tonya d
onned a short yellow dress with matching heels. She even had an old-fashioned cigarette holder in her purse. They walked towards the science center and found a plain section of wall to pose against. Suzie did her best to adopt the mannerisms of a high-class socialite at one of the Great Gatsby’s endless parties.

  “I say, darling…” Tonya drawled in a spot-on New England accent. “…you look like a million bucks!”

  “Why, thank you, darling,” Suzie replied, “you look like you could be in the pictures yourself!” They both laughed.

  After they’d both had a chance to get their picture taken, Tonya said, “Next costume!” She pulled out some dark blue garments, folded neatly. “Now we’ll be rich executives, the Queens of Wall Street.”

  When Suzie saw what Tonya was holding, her stomach twisted. She took the offered clothing and gazed at it.

  “What’s wrong?” Tonya asked.

  “It’s nothing. Just… I have something very similar in my closet. The same lady’s jacket and pants. I’ve even worn them to school a couple times, when I’ve had big presentations.”

  “So?”

  Suzie gazed at the clothing for a moment. She couldn’t put into words the anxiety she felt, the overwhelming feeling that this was some kind of omen. It felt like a reminder that she couldn’t escape her old self. She couldn’t explain to Tonya her sense of dread that when she stood on stage that night, all anyone in the audience would see would be Suzie. Suzie clumsily pretending to be Jenna, stumbling naked around the stage.

  She forced herself to smile. “It’s nothing. It just felt odd for a minute, like I was going to dress up like myself.”

  Tonya was already stripping, oblivious to a nearby maintenance worker who was walking by and staring. “Sweetheart, when you dressed like this for school, you were dressing for success. Now you’re going to put it on, and act like you’ve already got that success. Billionaire Babe Club, darling! Let’s go!”

  Suzie pulled the blue dress over her head and gave it to Tonya to put back in the purse. She was still reluctant to put on the jacket and pants, but felt uncomfortable standing naked while the maintenance worker stared at her. She hurriedly pulled on the businesswoman clothing. A traitorous voice in the back of her head whispered that the discomfort she was feeling was another symptom of the Old Suzie. The cloud of dread hanging over her grew.

  In their new costumes, they walked over to the administration building and took pictures by the front fountain. Tonya clearly sensed that Suzie was having difficulty being in character. She offered tip after tip, and finally remarked, in frustration, “For someone who’s dressed up like herself, you sure don’t seem very comfortable in those clothes.”

  “Sorry,” Suzie stammered. It was impossible for her to get outside of her own head. She felt like she was scrambling to find something that had been inside herself, something she had taken for granted would be there but was now missing. It was like wanting to speak the perfect word in a sentence, and finding that word impossible to bring to mind. It was like reaching a line in a scene that had been rehearsed a thousand times, and suddenly finding that the line was completely gone… impossible to recall…

  Impossible to recall…

  Suzie froze. Was she going to fall apart on the stage? Was she going to fail in front of the entire school? She closed her eyes, trying to fight back the panic that suddenly seized her

  “Suzie?”

  Tonya’s voice. She sounded concerned.

  Tonya! Tonya would make a great Jenna. Suzie had said it herself, not ten minutes earlier.

  “Suzie!”

  It would be so easy. Walk away. Go home. Tonya would tell everyone she had gotten sick. Tonya was the understudy. She could play Jenna, and the play would be fine.

  “Suzie!!”

  Her name again. But now the voice was different. Suzie opened her eyes. She saw Tonya in front of her, but this new voice had come from her left.

  “Suzie! It is you!”

  She recognized that smug, even voice. That voice that always sounded like it was intentionally using small words because it thought you couldn’t understand the big ones. The familiar voice from so many of her classes, her great rival.

  Antoine Grelotti.

  He was dressed in a suit and tie, walking out of the administration building. His dark hair was perfectly styled, and his black shoes gleamed like onyx. He nodded politely at Tonya, then smiled at Suzie. “Surprised to see you here on a Saturday. What are you up to?”

  “Hi… Antoine. I’m in the play that’s opening tonight. ‘Candlelight City’?”

  “You’re in that?” He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were involved in the theater.”

  “This is the first show I’ve been in.”

  “I see.” He grinned, his teeth gleaming. “I wish I had time to see it. I’m here for the Junior CEO Awards. Our year-end banquet.”

  “We’re playing next weekend, too… the next couple weekends…”

  He cut her off. “Sure, sure. But you know how it is. It would be nice to relax and enjoy a play now and again. But, so many commitments. Hey, I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you yet. Mr. Tibbets gave me the news that we’ll be classmates again in the fall. Stanford! Looks like the competition continues into college, eh?”

  “Oh! Thanks.” Suzie blinked at him. “I didn’t know you’d been accepted, too. But I’m not surprised. Congratulations!”

  “Thank you.” Antoine leaned back on his heels. “I was just kidding about the competition. It’s not likely we’ll pursue the same field of study, and even if we do, we’ll have a lot of other brainiacs to contend with. Small pond to big pond, right?” Antoine looked around at the school, as if already nostalgic for his humble beginnings. He returned his attention to her. “You know, Suzie, I’ve actually been meaning to thank you. Our little rivalry through the years, always competing with you for the top grade… I don’t think I’d be the over-achiever I am if I hadn’t had you to match up to. It really made me push myself harder. I probably wouldn’t have made it into Stanford, and I certainly wouldn’t have earned valedictorian.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s been the same for me,” Suzie began. Then his last sentence sank in. “Did you say valedictorian?”

  “Principal Gregors told me yesterday.” Antoine’s smile was huge. “You got an A minus on that last Honors Lit essay, I got an A. That gave you a 4.668 projected on the cut-off date, and me a 4.701 projected. I just edged you out.”

  Suzie was stunned. For a moment, it seemed like the final push over the edge, sending her down into the darkness of despair. For all her high school years, she had fought to be the top of her class. All that time, all that effort, had it all been a waste? A single moment where she’d let her standards drop, a single A minus, and that was it? Was it all just pointless?

  Yet, strangely, although Suzie hovered over the beckoning darkness, it did not envelop her. She was surprised to realize that she felt fine about Antoine being valedictorian. All day long, she’d been regretting how she only discovered the theater her senior year, and only had the chance to be in one show. Her values had shifted. Grades weren’t the only important thing to her anymore. Being on the stage, being the star in front of a packed auditorium… how could she care about an A minus when all of that lay before her?

  At that moment, she could feel how much she had changed, and in an instant, her panic and doubt evaporated and she felt light as a ray of sunshine. “Congratulations.” She smiled up at Antoine. “You worked hard. You deserve it.”

  Her nonchalant reaction to the news clearly puzzled him. “We both deserved it,” he assured her in his smug voice. “You worked just as hard as I did. But only one person gets to be up there giving that valedictorian speech. It was more luck than anything that it’s going to be me.” His tone indicated he didn’t really think it was luck at all.

  But Suzie barely heard him. Her epiphany had filled her with reckless energy. “You deserve to be valedictorian,” she told him. “
I worked as hard as I could to be number one, and you still managed to outdo me. You won. And the winner gets the prize.” Before she was aware she was going to do it, her fingers were undoing the buttons on her shirt.

  Now she had really unsettled him. “What are you doing?” he stammered.

  “The winner gets the prize,” she repeated. “And this year, I’m the prize.” She undid her shirt and pulled it open, letting it slip off her shoulders.

  He gaped at her exposed breasts. “I don’t… what are you doing?”

  “You deserve to fuck me. All through high school, I’ve been working my hardest to keep you from getting that top class ranking. And all the while, I’ve been hiding my body away beneath all these layers of clothes, never letting you see anything, never letting you touch anything. You won the battle to be valedictorian, Antoine. You win me, too.” She pulled her skirt down her thighs, letting it drop to a circle around her feet. She stepped out of the skirt and stood in front of him, completely naked.

  As Antoine stared at her, Suzie felt the rush of adrenaline that she knew came from the shock of exposing herself in front of someone who knew her well. She was a hundred times more conscious of Antoine’s stare on her bare skin than she was of the nameless maintenance worker who had just been eyeing her.

  “You want to have sex… right here? Right now?” Antoine’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Right by the fountain?”