Thoughts While Having Sex

by Stephanie Lehmann

With that settled, curiosity overtook me. I ventured out into the hallway.

  Kelly was sitting on the floor mouthing her lines. Her lines, my lines, just an annoyance to her now, an obstacle to overcome so that she could get out there and show the world what a great actress she was.

  Peter was on his cell phone with some business to take care of. It seemed like he had endless demands. The postcards had to be sent out, the publicist pushed, the papers notified, critics invited, producers wooed. Producers with money, or money contacts. That was the key. A real producer could move the show to a bigger space with a longer run and real salaries and real advertising. And then the critics really would come. And then it would really have a chance.

  "So, did you hear?" It was Carol, in a hushed voice, emerging from the theater, her sandwich consumed.

  "What?"

  "Come." She motioned me to the bathroom. Her voice was foreboding, and I prepared myself for bad news as I followed her through the door.

  "Hear what?"

  "Kelly canceled Monday's rehearsal."

  "Because?"

  "She has an audition for some new series on HBO."

  "Oh. Good for her."

  "If she gets it, they start filming immediately. That means she's gone, sayonara."

  My stomach lurched. Of course she would get it. Why shouldn't she? Sure the competition must be incredible. But if it would ruin my play, then she would get the part.

  "Does Peter know?"

  "Oh, he knows. Haven't you noticed some tension around here today?"

  "I just figured they'd all decided they hated my play."

  "They don't hate your play. They may hate you for writing the play, but they don't hate the play."

  "Thanks."

  "But seriously. If we lose Kelly, we'll just have to find someone else."

  "Do you think we can?"

  "We'll have to. We're lucky it's not a week later."

  "By the time she knows if she has the part, it will be a week later. And remember how hard it was to cast that part in the first place."

  "This is what happens when you can't afford an understudy."

  "We'll just have to hope she doesn't get it," I said and we exited the bathroom.

  Kelly was still sitting on the floor mouthing her lines. She looked up at us and smiled. And we smiled back.

  I saw Peter was done with his call so I went to say hello.

  "Hi," I said.

  "How's it goin'?" he asked.

  I felt confused by his question. Did he mean the rehearsal, which he could see was going lousy. Or did he mean my life, and the fact that we hadn't spoken in days.

  At that moment, Kelly stood up and went back into the theater. We watched her silently. She gave me the slightest of raised eyebrows.

  "Carol told me about Kelly's audition," I said to Peter as soon as she'd closed the door behind her. "If she gets the part, do you think we'll be able to replace her?"

  "I don't know. I have enough to worry about."

  "Right." I decided I should give him some distance. The last thing he needed was to deal with my free-floating anxieties.

  We started back in, but he put his hand on my shoulder to slow me down. I turned to face him.

  "Listen," he said, "if I seem distracted it's because I'm really overwhelmed right now. A lot of details to take care of. But you know it's all for your play, right?"

  "Yes. I know."

  I sat through the rest of rehearsal in a state of giddy anxiety. He did seem to like me. But he needed his space. But Kelly was going to make a move on him. What if he succumbed to her? How would I handle that? I couldn't exactly blame him for choosing her over me. After all, I would choose to be her instead of me. It was all I could think about during the rest of rehearsal. Who would leave with who?

  "Okay, let's call it a day," Peter said with some relief when they reached the end of the scene. "Tuesday at three o'clock. Be sure to get some rest over the weekend. And learn your lines!"

  I braced myself to see her leave rehearsal with him. To link arms, head to the elevator, get a drink at Rosie O'Grady's, be unable to refrain from kissing over their beers (tentatively at first, but then with more passion, forgetting to care what the other patrons thought) and then rush back to his place barely able to keep their hands off each other a minute longer before jumping into the sack.

  Annie rushed off as usual, and Carol said her good-byes as I busied myself with putting my copy of the script into my bag and checking inside my purse for, well, nothing at all, in case Peter might want to come over to speak to me. But he was back on his cell phone. It was Kelly who came up to me.

  "Are you heading out?" she asked.

  I tried not to look towards Peter to see if he was looking at us. It was his last chance to say anything to me before the weekend. I wouldn't see him until Tuesday. That seemed so far away.

  "Yeah," I said, and we walked out together, saying our good-byes together. Peter barely interrupted his phone conversation as he nodded and waved.

  "So," I said to Kelly, as we walked to the subway, "Anything happening with you and Peter yet?"

  "I asked him to a movie Saturday night."

  My heart sank. "What are you going to see?"

  "He said no. He told me he was busy."

  "Oh, that's too bad. Busy doing what?"

  "Didn't say."

  "Huh. Maybe he has a girlfriend we don't even know about."

  "I don't think so."

  "Hmmm. Well," I said, giving her advice I would never take myself, "maybe you should ask him out for Sunday. Just because he couldn't go Saturday doesn't mean you should take it as a personal rejection. Maybe he was legitimately busy."

  "I did ask him for Sunday. He said he was busy then too."

  “He's under a lot of pressure. He needs the weekend to chill out."

  "If you ask me," Kelly said, "Peter worries too much. He needs someone like me to show him how to have a good time."

  "Well," I said, as we paused at the stairs to the subway, "it's certainly not me he's having a good time with Saturday and Sunday night."

  "Then how'd you like to go to a movie with me?"

  "You mean like a date? Second best?" I teased, "cuz you couldn't get him?"

  "No reason for both of us to sit at home."

  "I have to say, I'm shocked you don't have twenty thousand guys dying to go out with you."

  "There are guys I could go out with. I just can't stand them."

  "Okay. Then you must have eight trillion friends. Actresses. Models. Heiresses. People you go club hopping with."

  "I don't like club hopping," she said. "And other women don't like me. My beauty always seems to intimidate them."

  "Well, okay," I said, pushing away the smallest hesitation that I would spend the whole evening watching all the men drool over her and ignore me. It wasn't a big deal. I was used to it. That's how it always was with my sister.

  I slept in late the following morning and was woken up by the ringing of the phone. The machine picked up. It was Peter.

  "Hi. Sorry I missed you," he was saying into the machine.

  I looked at the clock. Eleven. I was undecided whether to eavesdrop on the message or speak to him.

  "Give me a call," he was saying, "when you—"

  I decided to pick up. "Hello?" Better to talk to him now than have the anxiety over calling him later.

  "Hi. Did I wake you?"

  "No!" Guilty, like I'd been caught masturbating (as if). "No, I wasn't sleeping, I was just getting some breakfast."

  "Listen, I was wondering if you'd like to get together tonight."

  "Tonight?" The same night he’d told Kelly he was busy? My heart suddenly lifted, life was beautiful, there were cherry blossoms on every tree. Except… "I can't. I have plans."

  "My fault. I shouldn't have waited so long to ask. I was feeling so hassled yesterday I couldn't think ahead."

  "Things are in that chaotic up-in-the-air stage."

  "I hope you aren'
t too worried. I'm sure everything is going to work out."

  "Yes, I'm sure they will."

  I told myself to ask him out for Sunday. Like I told Kelly to.

  "You have to remember," Peter was saying, "it's tempting for an actress to want to see the character she's playing as being just like she is."

  "Yes." Don't be afraid. He’d already told Kelly he was busy, but he’d been lying, right? Because he wanted to go out with me and not her, right?

  "All she has to do," Peter continued on, "is insert herself in, and then everything comes easy. But if she has to imagine a personality that's different from her own, it's gonna take a lot more work."

  "You know, I am free on Sunday. If you want to do something on Sunday."

  "Sunday is good," he said. "Around six?"

  "Six is good."

  "Great. So I'll pick you up at your place. We'll get some dinner."

  "Great." I hate the way I sound when I say "great." It always sounds fake, even when I don't mean it to be, and I certainly meant it then.

  Chapter 7

  I wish I could skip the next part. Describing the night out with Kelly. Describing the night out with Peter. It's too much. I don't want to think about any of it.

  We met at the Waverly movie theater on Sixth Avenue and saw a Brad Pitt movie. I don't go for Brad Pitt but she did. Little did we know she'd be in a movie with Brad Pitt in the not-so-distant future. Weird to think. As we sat in that movie theater, she must've been imagining that for herself. That’s probably why she sighed on the way out with that frustration of "Why can't it be me up there?" Not that she said it. Kelly didn’t complain in that way. Lots of theater people complain all the time about how hard it is, but Kelly didn't.

  "Are you hungry?" she asked.

  "I could eat.” I wasn't really hungry but I didn't want to go home.

  "Any ideas where we should go? There's a ton of restaurants around here."

  "I don't know one from another."

  "There's an Italian restaurant near my place. They have this fettuccine dish that I adore."

  An actress who eats fettuccine. Amazing.

  "But," she added, "it would take you out of your way."

  This was true. Heading over to the East Side would mean a two-leg journey home instead of a quick straight-up on the subway.

  "Maybe we should walk around," she said, seeing my hesitation. "We're bound to find something."

  "That's okay. If you know they have good food at the place near you."

  "They have great food."

  "Then maybe we should just go there. I can always take a cab home."

  I wondered why I was offering to inconvenience myself. It was Manhattan. There are twenty restaurants on every block.

  "Okay, let's go there. The pasta is out of this world."

  As we walked down the street, men kept turning to look. She did like revealing clothes. That evening she wore a tight red halter top, and she had a lot of cleavage spilling out. So she got constant comments. "Hey, mama, you hot. Look at those boobies. Come home with me, mama, I'll show you a good time."

  We had to ignore quite a few of these on this particular Saturday night. I suppose it bothered her, but I suppose it pleased her too. She certainly wasn't going to keep her body a big secret because of it.

  The restaurant was dark and noisy, but we got a table in the back corner that gave us some privacy. Again, all the men's heads turning to look at her. Women too, for that matter. I felt tickled to be the one with her. Like it gave me some sort of status. Even though no one looked at me for a second, except maybe to be curious to see who was with her and then be disappointed when they saw it was just me.

  Tonight, I thought, tonight I'm gonna get her to talk about her past, her family, her love life. I felt sure that after a glass of red wine and a big bowl of pasta she'd be ready to spill her heart out to me.

  "So," Kelly asked me after the waiter took our order, "how do you feel about the way rehearsals are going?"

  "Well. I know that Annie is struggling with her part. But I'm sure she'll find her way."

  "She'll get there."

  "I'm surprised she doesn't seem to like the part more," I added. After all—and this I did not say—Annie really had the lead. Julia wasn't the main character. She was the antagonist. It was a great role, but the play was clearly about Melanie. "Though I guess," and this I did say, "it's more fun to play a character like Julia who has the whole obnoxious, aggressive sexy thing going. No one likes to play the boring good character."

  "I don't think of Julia as obnoxious."

  "I didn't mean obnoxious, exactly. I certainly hope that I've made her understandable and sympathetic. Even though we don't always like her, we feel for her, and she's a lot of fun to be with, too, when she's not being difficult."

  "I think she's complex. And intriguing."

  "That's good."

  "And I don't think Annie thinks of Melanie as boring and good. And I don't know where you get the idea that Melanie isn't sexy. I just think Annie is having a hard time getting under her skin. Sometimes it's hard to know what Melanie is thinking."

  "Well, I think you're speaking from Julia's point of view," I said, wondering if she really did think Melanie was sexy. "Julia doesn't understand Melanie and what she's all about. But I think it's there, in the play, and Annie has to figure it out. Maybe it's found more in the subtext than in what she actually says."

  I looked at Kelly, but she didn't seem convinced. "The play is very psychologically sophisticated," I said, my defensiveness rising. "It's not simple."

  "No, it's not simple. And that's why it's so interesting. There are so many layers."

  "Yes."

  "It's just hard to get under all those layers."

  "Well, that's the actor's job, right?"

  "It's all of our jobs."

  "You mean you don't think I did my job?"

  "That's not what I said."

  I was about to press her more, but the waiter arrived with our huge plates of pasta, and after that, through dinner, we avoided talking about anything having to do with the play. I realized that she still hadn't mentioned her audition. And neither had I. And it would be strange to do so now—maybe she thought so too—so it didn't come up. Peter didn't come up either. Nothing of any importance came up. And I felt like precious time was being wasted, talking about tired old subjects like expensive Manhattan real estate and the difficulty of finding a good person to cut your hair. I didn't want to bother with these mundane subjects, not with Kelly.

  After the waiter cleared our plates away she sat back in her chair with a groan. "I am so stuffed."

  "Me too. I should walk home. That would burn some calories at least."

  "Are you going to?"

  "No. Because if I walk, I won't get to bed for an hour and I'm exhausted."

  Now I was totally regretting having walked over to her side of town—especially since the conversation had been so disappointing. "Might as well blow ten dollars on a cab."

  We split the bill and walked out to the street. The weather had turned nasty and it was starting to rain. I stood on the corner and tried to hail a cab as gusts of wind blew into my face. But nothing came. Not a single empty cab.

  "Maybe we should walk over to Second Avenue," I said. "It's on the way to your place and I should be able to find something there."

  "Let's go."

  When we reached Second Avenue I held my hand up. The rain came down harder. Still, no cab came by. It was starting to pour and neither of us even had coats.

  "Look, why don't you come up to my place for a minute until this rain calms down. I'll make you a cup of coffee."

  It was true, she was right down the block. But all I wanted was to be at home in my nice warm bed. I looked once more up the street. There were at least two other groups of people up the street also trying to hail cabs. I could've taken the bus to the subway, but the idea of getting on a train at this time of night was creepy and it would take forever to get h
ome. My apartment might have well as been on the other side of the world.

  "Okay," I said. "A cup of coffee sounds good."

  So we went up the block to her building. The Chinese take-out place was open and a few really depressed looking people were shoveling rice and noodles into their faces. She pushed open the heavy front door and we went up the stairs past the schmushed dead waterbug into her dreary little apartment.

  She made me a very strong cup of coffee and we listened to the thunder outside.

  "These summer rains can be amazing," I said.

  "I like them. At least, when I'm all warm and cozy inside my own little apartment."

  I nodded, thinking about the journey home I still had to take.

  "Listen, why don't you stay here tonight?"

  "You mean, like a sleepover? Like I used to have with my best friend Peggy Batshaw all the time?"

  "Yes, we'll have our own little slumber party."

  "But where would I sleep?"

  I looked around. There was no couch or anything. Just the loft bed.

  "In my bed."

  "Your bed?"

  I was slightly freaked at the idea of sharing a bed with her.

  "Thanks, but I think I'll go home."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah."

  "It's not a big deal. I wouldn't mind at all."

  "No. I'd rather go home. But thanks."

  So I finished my coffee. And I said my good nights. And we kissed cheeks. And I tried not to notice how soft her cheek was. And she walked me to the door. "If you change your mind, come on back," she said.

  "Okay, thanks," I said, and I went back down the stairs past the schmushed dead waterbug and out onto the street.

  Outside, it was downright nasty. Bucketfuls of rain. Past midnight. Still no cabs. I turned around and went back to her place and rang her bell. Her voice came out of the intercom. "Hello!"

  "I'm back!"

  "Come on up!"

  And she buzzed me in.

  It was odd lying in bed next to her. I was very tense. I just could not relax. It's not like we were touching or anything. I just could not relax. It was like two in the morning, and I had dozed off for about an hour out of pure exhaustion and relief at being in a warm dry place, but then I'd woken up again, and my mind was racing. Racing with worry over the play, mostly. Kelly must've sensed that I was awake because she whispered to me, "Can't sleep either?"