Parallel

by Lauren Miller

  Breathe, Abby. Just breathe.

  Actors get nervous before their auditions. It’s perfectly natural and not something to freak out about. Jitters are just part of the process. Bret told me once that he still pukes before every one of his (then again, he hasn’t actually had an audition since his first big movie). The fact that I’m anxious doesn’t mean I’m going to choke.

  I’m totally going to choke.

  It’s happened before. Sixth-grade play. My part was tiny: I had two lines. And on the night of the performance, I forgot them both. If Ms. Ziffren hadn’t made the audition for Arcadia a mandatory part of our grade last fall, I never would’ve set foot on a stage again. Everyone was shocked when she gave me the lead. We all expected Ilana—

  My stomach squeezes. Oh, Ilana.

  “I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out whether his balls are that color,” the voice beside me says. Its owner is sitting cross-legged in the seat next to mine, the latest issue of US Weekly balancing on her knee. Her jet-black hair is cropped boy short, and she’s wearing black fishnets and combat boots under a flowery dress that looks like it belongs on someone’s grandma.

  I glance down at the magazine in her lap and see Bret smiling up at me. Despite the ubiquity of publications with his face on the cover, I haven’t seen a picture of him in over a month. I made the mistake of Googling him the day after my birthday and spent the next four hours gorging on celebrity gossip and Nutella. Even though I was ambivalent about the experience while I was living it, it was hard to see pictures of my cast mates—especially Kirby, who was an unknown just like me before she was cast in EA and now is everywhere—and not feel a pang of regret for my old life.

  “I mean, there’s no way that tan is real, which means someone had to spray it on him,” the girl next to me is saying. She holds up the magazine to give me a better view. “Can you imagine that conversation? ‘Sir, please lift your junk so I can chemically enhance the shade of your nutskin.’” She laughs. “I’m Fiona, by the way,” she adds, sticking out her hand. There’s a tattoo of a leaf on the inside of her wrist.

  “Abby,” I say.

  “So what other plays are you going out for?” Fiona asks, closing the magazine and slipping it into her bag. Just like that, from testicles to theater.

  “I only know about this one,” I admit, feeling like a fraud.

  “You need this, then,” she says, pulling a printed blue flyer out of the bag. “It’s a list of all the shows this semester. And if you’re serious about the acting thing, you should totally join the Dramat,” she tells me.

  “That’s a drama club, right?” I should just tape a sign on my forehead that says I AM AN IMPOSTER.

  “Abby Barnes?” a male voice calls.

  “That’s me,” I say, and stand. Don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous.

  “Kill it!” Fiona whispers, making bullhorns with her fists.

  Legs shaking, I climb the steps to the stage, joining a guy with man-boobs and wire-framed glasses. He wears an overconfident smile aimed squarely at the third row, where the director (an Indian guy wearing a bright pink Team Jolie T-shirt) and the producer (a hefty blonde in lavender barrettes) sit clutching coffee cups and iPhones.

  “Ready when you are!” my stage mate bellows.

  The director smiles serenely. “We are not deaf, and the characters we’re casting aren’t deaf,” he says. “Inside voices are fine.”

  “Great!” Still shouting.

  The director and producer exchange glances. Fiona gives me double thumbs-up.

  “Anytime you’re ready,” the producer calls. “And again, no need to shout.”

  Unfortunately, the shouting is either his normal speaking voice or a stage affectation he won’t abandon. Either way, he maintains it for the duration of the audition.

  I do my best not to let him throw me off. He’s reading the part of Erysichthon, which actually is quite fitting, given his size. Cursed by the gods with an insatiable hunger after cutting down a sacred tree, Erysichthon eventually eats himself.

  “We’ll post the cast list on the theater door at seven,” Lavender Barrettes tells us with a bland smile, halfway through our first scene. “Thanks for auditioning.”

  “Thank you!” Shouty shouts.

  There is no way I’m not a casualty of this disaster.

  Fiona and I walk back to Old Campus together. “You were amazing,” I tell her, meaning it. She went right after me and knocked it out of the park as Demeter, goddess of the harvest. We stayed till five to watch the rest of the auditions, and none of the other girls were anywhere near as good.

  “So were you!” Fiona enthuses.

  “Ha. Hardly.”

  “I’m serious,” she says. “You totally kept your cool, even as flecks of spit ricocheted off your face.”

  “Fiona!” a male voice calls. A hulk of a guy in a shirt that could double as a bedsheet is waving from across the courtyard. His forearm is the size of my thigh.

  “Be right there!” Fiona shouts. “My boyfriend,” she explains. “And yes, the size thing is an issue in bed. I once tried to straddle him and pulled my hamstring. Hey, you wanna eat with us? We’re going to the Doodle for burgers.”

  The idea of making small talk with Fiona and her boyfriend while I mentally obsess over my audition is even less appealing than the thought of eating a greasy hamburger right now, both of which are infinitely more appealing than the mental image of her straddling him, now seared into my brain.

  “I’d love to,” I lie, “but I promised my roommate I’d have dinner with her.”

  “Right on,” Fiona says. “Another time then. Here.” She digs through her bag and pulls out an index card with the lines from her audition scene written on the back. “My email,” she says, scribbling it down on the blank side. “In case I don’t see you later.”

  “We’ll hang out!” I say enthusiastically, imagining us bonding over arty movies and obscure literary references.

  When I get back to my room, there’s a note from Marissa on the coffee table. @ Commons w/ girls across the hall. Meet us!

  I drop my bag on the floor and plop down on the couch, too revved to eat. What I should do is catch up on my philosophy reading. I have a midterm on Thursday, and I haven’t even cracked open my course pack. It’s remarkably easy to procrastinate when you’re not sure you’ll be around to take the test you’re supposed to be preparing for.

  I flip through the first section of the packet, a collection of essays on free will, predestination, and foreknowledge, and scan over the sample questions at the end. What did John Calvin mean when he said that God “freely and unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass”? Ugh. Philosophy of Theology seemed like a good choice when I was picking classes, but now the subject matter hits a little too close to home. Did God know Ilana would get into that accident? Was it somehow predestined?

  Did all this—the collision, the entanglement, the fact that I kept my memories—happen for some specific purpose, or is it all just a crazy cosmic fluke?

  I want to believe there’s a reason behind it all, but it’s hard to come up with one. If God had something he needed help with, I’m guessing he wouldn’t pin his hopes on the girl who can barely remember to pray (except, of course, when she’s studying for a super-hard theology midterm. Please, God, don’t let me fail.).

  Feeling my eyes glaze over, I abandon my theology reading for DVRed episodes of The Hills. An episode and a half later, Marissa comes through the door, carrying a plastic cup full of dining hall frozen yogurt, layered with Cap’n Crunch and Oreos. “I figured you might need a snack,” she says, handing it to me.

  “Thanks,” I say, suddenly starving.

  “How’d the audition go?” she asks as I shovel a heaping spoon of yogurt into my mouth. She kicks off her shoes and plops down on the couch next to me.

  “Eh,” I say between bites. “I couldn’t tell. Hey, this is really tasty. Want some?”

  She shakes her
head. “No, thanks.”

  “HFCS?”

  “The trifecta,” she replies, making a face. “High fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and aspartame.”

  “Mmmm. Yum.” I take another massive bite.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” I reply, crunching on an Oreo.

  “Does Caitlin like Ben?”

  I stop mid-bite. My mind jumps to the night of my birthday dinner. In the version I remember, Caitlin was with Tyler, but she and Ben were acting awfully cozy at the table. Marissa didn’t act like she noticed it, though. But things have changed now. Because of what happened in the parallel world yesterday, Caitlin was single on my birthday. Was the flirty banter between Ben and her even more intense. Marissa is still waiting for me to answer her question. When I don’t right away, her face falls. “She does, doesn’t she? She likes him and you’re afraid to tell me. I knew it.”

  “What? No! Caitlin does not like Ben,” I assure her. After unwittingly ruining Craig’s marriage that summer, Caitlin has adopted a zero-tolerance policy for guys who are taken. It’s the reason she felt the need to wait four days after Tyler broke up with Ilana to go out with him. Relationship boundaries mean something different to her than they did before. Falling for someone who failed to mention his wife (at least, not until that wife called Caitlin, demanding to know why her husband had Caitlin’s number in his phone) shattered something inside her, and there was nothing I could do to put it back together again. She wouldn’t even let me try. After sobbing through the gory details the day after it happened, sick with sadness and regret, Caitlin made me promise never to bring it up again, and I haven’t.

  Marissa looks relieved. “I didn’t think so, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” I say firmly. “Caitlin would never like a friend’s boyfriend. Ever.”

  Marissa smiles. “Speaking of friend’s boyfriends . . . how’s Michael?”

  “What did Ben tell you?” I demand.

  “Nothing!” she insists. I raise my eyebrows, not buying it. “Okay, fine. He said that Michael told him you guys were an official thing now. I was surprised you hadn’t mentioned it to me, that’s all.”

  “That’s because it’s news to me!” Things with Michael are going well, but I didn’t think we’d reached label-level yet. “An ‘official thing’? What does that even mean?”

  “I’m pretty sure it means he’s your boyfriend,” Marissa replies.

  “But we’ve only been on two real dates,” I point out, then flinch. Boat ride. “I mean three.”

  “So?”

  My phone rings. “See?” Marissa points at my phone, the screen lit up with Michael’s name. “He’s calling to see how the audition went. Total boyfriend move. Accept it, Ab. You’re a couple.” My heart flutters a little at the thought of it. What it would be like to let myself get attached, to stop worrying that a new reality will sweep him away. Maybe I’m overthinking it. In every relationship there’s a risk that it’ll end before you want it to. That’s the nature of love.

  Love. My heart flutters again.

  “So? How’d it go?” Michael asks when I pick up.

  “Eh.”

  “You realize that’s not an actual response, right?”

  “I’m not sure I have an actual response,” I tell him. “The guy I read with shouted and spit his way through the scene. I’m not optimistic.”

  “Well, I’m sure you nailed it. What time are they posting the cast list?” he asks.

  “Not till seven,” I say.

  “It’s seven-oh-five.”

  “Ah!” I fly off the couch. “I’ll call you back!” Without waiting for a response, I toss my phone on the table and dash out the door.

  “Good luck!” Marissa calls.

  Although I didn’t really expect to see my name on the cast list, I’m still bummed when it’s not there. Not even an understudy role. The chatter of the crowd gathered around the theater intensifies and blurs, the voices melding into one indecipherable chorus. The words on the cast list are hazy, as if I’m seeing them through warped glass. My eyes fall to the sidewalk and a drop of water appears there, barely visible in the weak yellow glow of the bulb above the stage door. I study the wet spot, resisting the bodies that push against me, vaguely wondering where it came from. Someone murmurs, “She’s crying,” and it’s not until I touch my cheek that I know.

  Get it together, Abby. It’s just a stupid play.

  But it isn’t. Not to me. This was supposed to be my big identity-defining moment. My breakaway move. Getting cast in this particular play—one whose name means “transformation”—was supposed to be the beginning of my metamorphosis, from pathetic take-whatever-I’m-dealt Abby to powerful define-my-own-future Abby.

  It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

  I had the exact same thought three months ago, the night I found out the studio had extended production a third time, eliminating any remaining chance of my starting college on time. I was sitting on a stoop on the backlot, watching two men change the facade of the building across the street from a bank to a bakery. I’d walked off set and just ended up there, on a street I’d seen in a hundred movies but never in real life. Of course, in the movies, you never see that the road just ends. It doesn’t go anywhere or connect to anything. I remember thinking that as I watched the men across the street mount a giant cupcake over the building’s fake door. People think this road goes somewhere. They don’t realize it’s a dead end. I hadn’t realized I was crying until my phone rang. When I pressed it to my ear, the keys were damp.

  The moment I heard my dad’s voice, I started bawling. “This isn’t the path,” I kept saying, my words garbled with tears and snot. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.” I remember feeling as though everything I had worked for had been snatched away. Dad saw things differently.

  “Well-worn paths are boring,” he said. “Embrace the detour.”

  But how can you tell a detour from a dead end?

  The crowd around the theater is beginning to thin. I blot my tearstained cheeks, grateful for the dark, and look around for Fiona, wanting to congratulate her on her part (cast as “Eurydice and Others,” she essentially got the lead). But she must’ve come and gone.

  As I’m making my way through the handful of people still gathered on the sidewalk, trying not to appear dejected, a male voice calls out to me.

  “Abby!” The show’s director is sitting on the theater’s main steps, away from the hullabaloo, smoking a cigarette. He waves me over.

  “Hey,” he says as I approach. “Great audition today.”

  Unsure if he’s sincere, I respond with a vague “Thanks.”

  “I had ulterior motives for not casting you,” he says then, his words punctuated by little puffs of smoke. “I want you to audition for the Spring Mainstage, and rehearsals overlap by a couple weeks.”

  “Oh,” I say, trying to process this. I don’t really know what the “Spring Mainstage” is, but the words “main” and “stage” lead me to believe it’s a big show. “Are you directing it?”

  He shakes his head. “I’ll be busy with this one. But you’d be perfect for the part of Thomasina.”

  “As in Coverly?”

  He smiles. “You know the play.”

  I’m too rattled by the coincidence to form a coherent response.

  “So I was right about your being perfect for it,” he says. “Auditions are the week before Thanksgiving. I’ll tell the director to look out for you.” He drops his cigarette and stamps it out. “Have a good one,” he says, then slips around the corner of the building, disappearing into the shadows.

  “Thanks,” I say, even though he’s not around to hear it. Then I raise my eyes to the sky and say it again.

  Arcadia. Of all the plays he could’ve suggested, he picked the one that changed my life. A story about the connection between past and present, order and chaos, fate and free will.

  You�
��d be perfect for the part of Thomasina.

  A young girl who thought that nothing was random, who believed that everything—including the future—could be reduced to an equation.

  It doesn’t sound so crazy anymore.

  8

  THERE

  Thursday, October 30, 2008

  (the day before Halloween)

  “Ugh, hurry up!” I shout at the red brake lights in front of me. Of course, the day I have to be at school super early, there’s a torrential downpour. I left my house six minutes ago, and I still haven’t made it through the first intersection. The traffic lights must be out. Up ahead, lightning zigzags across the sky. I brace for the thunderclap, but still jump when it comes a few seconds later.

  The clock on the dash clicks from 7:16 to 7:17. Crap. Dr. Mann’s review session started two minutes ago. With our midterm just over five hours away, this is my last chance to get a handle on the two concepts I still don’t understand before I have to write about them. I accelerate, riding the bumper of the black Toyota in front of me, willing its driver to go faster.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon—”

  The Toyota stops short and I slam on my brakes to avoid it. My bag flies into the dashboard, spilling its contents onto the passenger-side floor. The car behind me leans on its horn.

  And . . . standstill. Again.

  “Could this day be any crappier?” I mutter, then instantly feel guilty for it. Yes, this day could be much crappier. Ilana could still be in a coma. I could be the one in that hospital bed surrounded by machines, my face swollen and bruised. And I’m bitching about a little traffic?

  The first three days after the accident were the worst. The doctors weren’t sure Ilana would ever wake up, and they warned that even if she did, there was a good chance she’d spend the rest of her life in a permanent vegetative state (a phrase I made the mistake of Googling). Yet despite the scary medical speak, the idea that Ilana might not be Ilana anymore just wouldn’t compute. I kept waiting for her to saunter into the waiting room and make some snide remark about my outfit. She was fine at the party, I kept thinking. She was fine, she was fine. She was fine until she came around that curve on Providence Road at the exact moment a speeding pickup truck crossed into her lane.