His Firm Direction

by Alexis Alvarez

“It is annoying,” agreed Laska. “I got annoyed just now, even hearing you talk about it. So annoying.”

  “And this other thing.” Cleo hesitated. “When he first said it, it didn’t register. But then, later on, I thought, maybe it meant something.”

  “What did he say?”

  “So when he came over and we fought. He said something like, he didn’t think he’d ever feel this way again. And he wanted a chance to tell me something.”

  “Oh, my God.” Laska sat up. “Cleo, Jesus, that’s way more important than the audition! Why didn’t you tell me that first?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure it meant anything!” Cleo’s heart began to pound. “So do you think that means… anything?”

  “Uh, yeah!” Laska made a duh expression.

  “But I don’t know. Like, I shut him down hard. I said mean things and made him go. And then later on I thought, well, what if he wanted to tell me something important? It’s just that he went on so long about blah, blah, relationships suck, blah. And then he blew me off for a whole week. And his apology was weak and stupid. So I was pissed. But maybe…”

  “I think maybe he wanted to tell you he cares about you?” Laska suggested.

  “But I can’t be sure. And I told him I never wanted to see him again.” Cleo felt tortured. “Even if he did, I was such a bitch that he probably changed his mind. Oh, my God.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “That if I changed my mind, to come find him.” She wiped her eye.

  “So maybe you should go do that.”

  “Did I ever mention that you are a very, very good best friend?” Cleo gave Laska a quick hug.

  “Yes, often, but it’s always appreciated,” returned Laska, smiling. “So if you decided to do the Axel audition, where is it, anyway?”

  Cleo checked her watch. “Downtown today, as the same theater, at four p.m., not that I’m tracking it obsessively or anything. In exactly one hour and seventeen minutes, although who’s counting.”

  “So maybe you should… get over there?” Laska checked her watch, too. “If you skip the shower and grab a cab immediately, you could probably make it just a few minutes late.” She stood up and grabbed at her beach bag. “Late is the new black, I think. So is the unwashed coconut-skin and messy-hair look.”

  “Can shitty chipped toenail polish also be the new black?” Cleo gathered up her sunblock bottle, slightly greasy from her fingers, and her hat. She felt butterflies in her stomach.

  “Yes.” Laska nodded. “Anything you want is the new black. That’s how it works. You announce it with enough confidence, anyone will believe you. The meme’s still not played out, so you can go crazy with it.”

  “You could use it in doctor ads,” offered Cleo, shoving her feet into her flip-flops. “Vaccinating your child is the new black! You could totes win back all the anti-vaxxers.”

  “Send your resume to Dr. Carter in HR,” said Laska. “There is room for you in the fold, my clever friend, if this acting thing doesn’t play out for you. I like the way you think.”

  Cleo slung her towel over her arm. “So I should go. Right?”

  “You should do what you want to do,” Laska said. “But just a few minutes ago, we decided you were going, so yes. You should.”

  “Because it wouldn’t be weird or needy or anything.”

  “Nope.”

  “But just a very career-minded, savvy, appropriate thing to do.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not because I miss fucking him and want to get back together. Even though maybe he wants that, but it’s okay if he doesn’t. Because it’s all good and life will work out. Right?”

  “No. I mean, yes.”

  “So I’m going.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.”

  “Yes. Bye.”

  * * *

  When she arrived at the theater, all of the joking nonchalance and comfortable camaraderie with Laska had faded, and Cleo felt her heart beat all through her body, in her fingertips and neck, pulsing hard and strong. She tried to imagine the blood squirting through the veins and arteries for a second, but that was gross and medical, so she pushed it away. Axel filled her mind, his laugh, his face. His stern look. His passion.

  It was hard to admit but it was true, and once she admitted it the first time it came easier the next, until it was a burning thought in her mind: Fuck the play. She was there for Axel and Axel only. And if he didn’t want her, oh well, she’d figure something out, but she needed to know. And this gave her the confidence she needed as she pulled open the large, unwieldy doors with the gilt carvings and stepped into the familiar space, breathing in the aroma she knew like the scent of her own sweat.

  One look at him and she’d know, she thought. Just one look into his eyes would let her see if anything was alive for her, or whether it was a dead end.

  “Excuse me?” A young man in a bun stepped to her, a clipboard and pen in his hand. “You’re here to audition for the Simona Chooch play?” Then he did a double take. “Oh, wow, you’re Cleo. I know you.” He smiled broadly. “I saw you twice in the last play before I applied for an internship. You’re awesome.”

  She nodded. “Thanks. Yes.”

  “Let me just check you off on the list.” His smile faded as he scanned the printout. “Um, I don’t… see you on the list?” He flipped a page and turned to her. “That’s weird. I don’t—maybe I don’t have the most recent one. Ohmigod. I can just check with…” He turned to go, then turned back, checked his motions. “I mean, it’s you, so it probably doesn’t, I just need to get the new list from Mandy. She said she’d fire me if I mess up one more thing.” He chewed his fingernail.

  “I’m a late entry,” Cleo replied, scanning the theater. “Tell… Mandy… that I called Axel separately and that’s why I’m not on the main list.” She took a deep breath.

  “Oh, okay. Is that a thing? I guess that’s cool, then. Thanks.” He hesitated. “Um, good luck?”

  Cleo smiled. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome?”

  He was so young! Had she ever been that small and naïve? She shook her head. Who knew; on stage, this uncertain young man might turn out to be the next Laurence Olivier. That was the amazing thing about acting, or anything, really—people were constantly surprising you with their hidden depths, talents that rose out of them like near-extinct sea beasts, like an orchestra suddenly swelling out of a child’s music box, like a Picasso pouring out of a surly teenager’s paintbrush, swirling and growing and taking the world by storm.

  She knew the instant he saw her, because her whole body came to attention with the force of his stare, and when she turned her head, there he was. Walking from backstage, papers in his hand, his hair messy and his face as handsome as ever. The shock of recognition was a gunshot to her throat and she gasped with the fierce attraction that burned as hot as before, no spare seconds needed to fan the flames.

  For a second they stood, eyes locked, and then he turned his gaze to a cluster of women waiting in the first row of seats. “Arielle, you’re up next. Please go and get ready, and then we’ll run through the scene. And then…” his eyes flickered to Cleo for a second, “I think we’re done.”

  The young clipboard man rushed forward. “Oh, Axel, no, you have Cleo!” His voice rose as he jogged to the front. “She’s here, your call in. So I should put her after Arielle, then? Is that right?”

  Axel turned and faced Cleo, and she stopped, suddenly terrified that he’d say no. He’d send her home, without the chance to even try.

  The second dragged out, and extended, and everyone looked to see the cause of this glitch. Cleo curled up inside, and still Axel said nothing. He crossed his arms.

  She bit her lip. Should she turn and go?

  Finally, Axel shrugged. “That’s fine, Tyler,” he said, his voice clipped. “Arielle, when you’re ready.” He gestured.

  Cleo sank into a seat a few rows back from the front. Arielle must be auditioning because sh
e saw the woman up there gesturing; heard voices, but it wasn’t making sense; to her brain it was all random noise and movement, maybe what a blind person would see after having their vision restored after a lifetime of darkness. Flashes, colors, shapes, but nothing that corresponded to the world in any real way.

  When it was her turn to audition, she took a deep breath. Reading lines with Axel was surreal, maybe weirder than the play Reuter Hetzer wrote. But when she looked at the script in her hand, the words came alive and she could hear them, like notes to a brand new symphony. And when she started to talk, she became the character on the page, and then the character wasn’t on the page. The character was live, and it was her, and she was living the part. Time became erratic; first, it was taffy, extending everything into long Doppler shifts of slow motion, and then she was done, and everyone was clapping, and Axel was looking at her.

  She glanced away, unable to deal with his intense gaze, and saw the expressions of the others: A pinched, disappointed look on Arielle’s face, the knowledge that she wasn’t going to get this part. On Tyler’s face: Rapt admiration. But she couldn’t read Axel’s expression at all.

  “Everyone,” Axel announced. “Thank you for coming. Your time means a lot to me and I appreciate your interest. I’ll make a decision and notify everyone by the end of the week. Please take one of the packets on the way out.” He gestured at Tyler. “Our assistant will help you.” He paused. “Ms. Martinelli, I’d like to speak to you privately.”

  As the people began to chatter and walk to the exit, some lingering, some clumping together to exchange information, Axel nodded. “Cleo. My office.” He turned and strode off the stage, not looking back.

  “Mandy? Mandy?” Tyler sounded distressed. “I can’t find the packets that Axel—Mand?”

  Like Tyler, Mandy must be new. The support staff were always changing, it seemed, the entry-level people in the theater. They were as prolific as flies and as interchangeable as candy corn pieces, until they weren’t, until they suddenly started to shine out and became someone of notice. She knew how that worked, because it had happened to her, too.

  Who would have thought—she surely would never have guessed—all those years ago, when she was doing free ‘internship’ things like Tyler, that one day she’d be the star of a play, sleeping with the director, and now walking off to face him to see whether her heart would now shatter or shine.

  Cleo clenched her hands together, then stood up, adjusting her purse on her shoulder, then walked up the battered wooden stairs to the stage to follow him back to his lair.

  His door was ajar, and when she entered, he was looking at something on the wall, a picture. She pulled the door shut. She hadn’t been near him at all in weeks, now; seeing him was like a shot of adrenaline to her already overstimulated nerves.

  “What are you looking at?” She came a little closer.

  “This is from a while back,” he said, gesturing to the photo.

  Cleo took another step nearer to see. It was a framed picture of Axel, on skis, out of focus people in thick jackets and colorful hats behind him. Frozen in a microburst, torn-up snow hovered around him, but it was the expression on his face that drew in the eye—an expression of utter joy, surprise, victory—it was clear that he’d just won the race. Or he’d won life. He’d won something, that was for sure, because nobody could fake that kind of emotion; it was the look of a man who had received everything he’d ever wanted and more, and the intense delight made the viewer vibrate with the same pleasure, almost.

  “Is that new?” She didn’t remember seeing that before; she’d have remembered such emotion, asked about it.

  “I put it up a few weeks ago.”

  “Ah.” She nodded, bit her lip. “It’s nice.”

  He nodded.

  Cleo’s stomach roiled. “What am I doing here, Axel?”

  “What are you doing here?” He crossed his arms. “That’s my question. You really want to be in this play, Cleo?”

  “Well, you said. Remember, a while back? You said that no matter what happened, you thought I was an excellent actor and you wanted me in your next play. Or was that just a line to get me to sleep with you.” She crossed her arms, her voice rising.

  He sighed and shook his head. “It wasn’t a lie. You’re good, and I meant it. But Cleo, I don’t see how—” He gestured. “I don’t understand why you’d want to work with me, given the way you feel. There are other opportunities out there. Reuter, yes? You’d be insane to turn down that part.”

  “How do you know about that?” Startled, she frowned.

  “Well, it’s a small world,” he said with a shrug, “in the stage acting circuit, at this level, anyway. He asked about you.”

  “He asked you about me? What did you say?”

  “I said you were amazing, and he’d be an idiot not to take you.”

  “Did you also tell him I’m a good fuck and an easy lay, too?” she challenged.

  “No. I didn’t, and wouldn’t say anything like that. Okay?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know you’re mad, but I’m not that much of an asshole.”

  She shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “If you think that poorly of me, you shouldn’t be here. Why bother?” His voice was clipped.

  “I don’t know!” She ended up screaming the words, leaning forward as if to hurl them at him, verbal bullets. Then taken aback with her own vehemence, she put her face into her hands and repeated it into her skin, her voice muffled. “I don’t know, Axel. I don’t know.”

  She made her way to the couch and sank into it, and tears leaked from her eyes. “I don’t even know,” she whispered, and then she started sobbing.

  “Fuck.” His voice was taut. “Cleo, I don’t know what to do. You said to get out of your life. That you hated me. If you want to be friends now—”

  But a second later, she felt the cushion next to her indent, smelled his cologne waft over, and then he took her in his arms. “It’s going to be all right,” he said, his voice tender and fierce at once. “Okay? It will.”

  That made her sob harder, and he didn’t speak, just pulled her to his chest, letting her heave and jerk in his arms, wetting his shirt, her hair wild across his shoulder. After a while, she realized she was gripping his thigh and digging in; she relaxed her hand and took a long, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” His voice was low, but genuine.

  Startled, she lifted her head, her wet eyes meeting his. “What?”

  “What are you sorry for?” But he wasn’t taunting her. He sounded sad, even lost.

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head and gestured, as if including them and the room together in a group. “For everything that happened, I guess.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” He searched her face.

  “I shouldn’t have said those things,” she admitted, her voice small. “I was just so hurt, Axel.” Saying it made the pain rush back, as fierce and fresh as if it were just laid down. “I felt bad, so I lashed out. I wanted to hurt you as much as I hurt.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance to explain anything,” he said, sounding frustrated. “I know I was an asshole, but I think I at least deserved a chance to talk. No?”

  She nodded. “I know. I thought—I was so sure that you’d have nothing good to say, and I didn’t want to put myself through the embarrassment of some kind of goodbye speech thing. So I just, it was easier to just walk away.”

  “You didn’t just walk, though.” His voice held faint recrimination. “You hurled some pretty strong accusations at me as you did it.”

  “I know.” She wiped her eyes. “Attack first to prevent an attack, I suppose.”

  “I wish you hadn’t.” He sounded regretful.

  “Well, I wish you hadn’t been with Alyssia and done what you did,” she retorted, then sighed. “I’m sorry. That doesn’t help. It’s true, but it’s not helping.”

  “So what are you doing here?” His voice was not unkind, but had a hard
edge. “Is it just about the play? I need to know.”

  “I guess I just came to—see.”

  “See what?”

  Afraid to look at his face, she looked at his worn jeans, his strong thigh outlined by the fabric. “I didn’t want to leave things like we did. It was ugly and I couldn’t get past it. I kept thinking and thinking about it, over and over. And about you.” She whispered the last part. “And I wanted to find out if there was any chance, any way, if you at all…” She trailed off at his continued silence.

  He didn’t reply and she snuck a glance at his face. He was looking across the room, pensive.

  “Axel?” She swallowed hard, trying not to cry again.

  “Yeah.” But he didn’t look at her.

  “You said, that you never expected to feel this way. I need to know what that feeling is. And if you still have it. For me.”

  She held her breath.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What are you thinking?” Her breath came in short shallow sucks of air, her stomach suddenly fluttery and sick.

  He stood up and walked back to the wall, pointed at the picture. “Do you know why I put this up?”

  Confused, she shook her head. “No. Why?”

  He faced her. “Because it reminded me of a time when I was happy, Cleo.”

  She nodded. “You can see it in your face, there. It’s obvious.”

  “I wanted to remind myself to focus on the things I have to do to get to that place again. I worked hard for what I earned, Cleo, and that’s part of what made it so fucking amazing. If something comes easy, it’s not always appreciated.”

  She stayed silent, not sure he expected or wanted a response.

  “But sometimes, in the middle of the shit storm, you have to remember that there’s a goal at the end, and you have to stay the course, otherwise you’ll never get there. To that.” He gestured. “To that feeling. To that accomplishment.”

  She nodded, checked his face. “You’re right. It’s important to keep the goal in mind.” She could hear the uncertainty in her tone; not for what he was saying, but for why. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this right now?” She stood up.