Thoughts While Having Sex

by Stephanie Lehmann

  "How can you say this? You had no problem with this before rehearsals. You're just buckling under Annie's complaining because she's not smart enough to understand the part!"

  "First of all, Annie is a very intelligent person and second of all, I wouldn't do that."

  "Okay, not that she isn't smart enough, just that she's never experienced something like this in her own life so she can't relate—"

  "That's not what's going on here."

  "Kelly said something to you, didn't she."

  "No."

  "Something about the layers, the layers needing to be peeled away. I bet you all had a nice powwow, didn't you, last week when I had to miss rehearsal. I bet you all had fun sitting there picking apart my play!"

  (I knew I was sounding a tad dramatic but I couldn't help myself.)

  "Kelly hasn't said one word to me about your play. Did she say something to you?"

  I was silent for a moment, thinking about how they were ganging up on me because they were insecure because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to get it together in time so I had to be the fall guy.

  "Yes," I admitted. "Kelly was complaining to me about something. But the complaints of two actresses who can't even get their lines memorized when we're about to open doesn't count."

  "Surely you can see that if three different people are saying more or less the same thing then maybe you should listen."

  I couldn't speak. I was too upset. It seemed like this particular criticism really, really, bothered me. Like it was hitting on something that I did not want to hear. That I... well, no, not me—that Melanie had to be meaner, fiercer, let loose with all her feelings no matter what the consequences. She had to let her anger out. Like Julia. Like Diana. Diana, who I tried so hard to be unlike. Just as Kelly had said the night before. I had to keep control because she was so out of control, and that was how I survived. That's what kept me safe from her fate. And safe from her and her mood swings. By being sensitive enough for the both of us. Able to see both points of view.

  I would never say those cruel things. And Melanie wouldn't say them. She might think them, but she would never say them, and certainly not to Julia, who had to be protected from such feelings; couldn't they see that?

  And then, as if he was reading my thoughts, Peter said, "In a play people say things. They say things that don't usually get said. Sometimes I think that's the whole point of a play. For people to come and hear words that are too painful to be spoken."

  He took a sip of his beer, then stared down into it. I took a sip of water and eyed my buttered piece of bread, bound for the garbage can back in the restaurant kitchen.

  He put his hand on my hand.

  "I know this is hard to take in, Jennifer. Sleep on it. Mull it over. See if something comes to you. I know it's hard. It means you have to feel through an experience that you'd rather not feel through. But that's what writing is all about, isn't it?"

  I couldn't speak. He was being so gentle with me while I felt like striking him in the face.

  And sitting on his lap. And resting my head against his chest. And crying in his arms.

  "Yes," I said. "I suppose so."

  But inside I was still thinking, no. That's not what writing is about. Writing is about pouring your heart out and exposing yourself to other people and then having people repay you with criticisms because you managed to express something that made them uncomfortable.

  But I didn't say that because somewhere inside of me I knew that it was very possible that I was overreacting. And horribly defensive. And just plain wrong.

  The waiter brought our food. I looked at my chicken with no appetite as I thanked Peter for his feedback. "I'll think about it," I said, and then forced myself to eat.

  Chapter 8

  All I could think about after dinner as I walked up

  Eighth Avenue was how much I hated them. Hated them all, with their snug little circle of criticism. Annie with her superior-to-Melanie attitude. Kelly with her oozing sexuality. Peter with his self-righteous know-it-all arrogance. Well I wouldn't listen to them. A writer has to be strong! You can't let people gang up on you with their opinions and tell you what to write. This was my story and I was telling it my way—the way I knew how to tell it. Just because they didn't know the first thing about telling their own stories (all of them swimming around in their own little fish bowls) they wanted to tell me how to tell mine. Except this anger. This hate. A hate so strong, I wanted to kill all of them. I could use this hate, I sensed, in her speech. And make it stronger.

  No. I would not listen to them. They were polluting me! Melanie wouldn't talk like that. She might wish something horrible about another person but she could never be so mean to their faces. She was too sure that it would destroy her, destroy the other person—she would hold it in!

  But wasn't that the point? That her words could destroy, that her feelings could destroy? And how could the audience know what she was thinking and feeling if she held it all in?

  That's what Annie had said.

  But she didn't hold it in. She did say some pretty bad things to Julia.

  But were they not bad enough? I had to be true to Melanie. If I wasn't, then what was the point?

  I wished I had the scene in front of me. I would look at the lines, see exactly what she said. Maybe all it needed was one line more, maybe two, just like he'd said. Sometimes you got a big criticism like this, but that was all it took.

  No! I wouldn't let them win. Just because they didn't understand, I would not cater to their ignorance.

  But if they didn't understand, how would the audience? What good was a play if I was the only one who understood it?

  But was I? Maybe it didn't speak to them, but it would speak to others like me. God knows there were a lot of plays out there that didn't appeal to me because I couldn't identify. And here I was, writing a play for people like me: scared, hesitant, inhibited, bottled up people like me. And all these pushy theater people were trying to get me to make her like them. Well I wouldn't. They couldn't push me around. I would be strong!

  Or was I being weak?

  Why didn't I know?!

  With my brain buzzing, I covered twenty blocks in no time, hardly noticing where I was. I reached my apartment and vaguely thought of looking in my script. But instead, I fell into bed, telling myself I had every right to. After all, I was still exhausted from the night before with Kelly. As I snuggled under my covers, I told myself I didn't want to look over my play; I wished it didn’t exist. I only wanted to fall into a deep sleep far away from thoughts and feelings because other people... other people... they always let you down.

  The next morning, I woke up with regret. I didn't want to leave the sleep world behind, and still had no desire to go back to the play. But I knew that I would have to force myself to sit down, read over the lines, and see if anything that Peter said would make sense to me now that I was somewhat calmer. Was this rising to the occasion? Or buckling under pressure. I didn't know.

  First, breakfast. I walked to the Westway, the diner where Peter and I first met, with a copy of the play just in case I could stand to look at it. I also brought a copy of the Times just to let myself know that I didn't have to look at my play if I didn't want to. I ordered a blueberry muffin and coffee. It was one of their big beautiful, blueberry muffins that I always ogled in the showcase and never let myself order because they were too fattening. It was a bribe, pure and simple. Eat the muffin—look at the play. That would be the deal. Unless I didn't want to.

  It was Monday morning and people around me were hustling to get to work. I had the day off, and this was the day of Kelly's audition, so there was no rehearsal. That meant I had the luxury of time. Hours of uninterrupted time with no obligations to the outside world where I could look at my play that I didn't want to look at and figure out if Melanie had said all she needed to say.

  But I couldn't get myself to open it up.

  I read the headlines on my newspaper. All the Dot
Coms were failing, and there was an earthquake in South America, and another shooting in a suburban school, but none of it mattered, none of it had anything to do with me.

  I should get out my play. My play that had to do with me.

  But maybe that was the problem. Maybe the play had only to do with me. Maybe no one else in the world could care less about this character. Because I was a freak. The only person alive who was like me.

  I should write a play about a nymphomaniac cheerleader who gets trapped in an earthquake in South America. Then they would care.

  I drank my coffee, which tasted too much like dish water, and ate the muffin, which was too dry. It was made with canned blueberries and corn syrup, and was totally disappointing. I should've gotten a bagel with butter as usual. Now I was stuck with wasted calories. Wasted calories and a wasted life.

  But finally, thank god, the lousy coffee started to kick in. A mental zing. A curiosity to see the words. The words were my friends. Life was comforting and familiar around the words. I forced myself to put the play in front of my face and open it up. No obligation to read it. Just find the page the scene was on. And place it in front of my eyes. No obligation to do anything whatsoever.

  There it was. The conversation between Melanie and Julia at the end of the third scene. The last time they saw each other before Julia killed herself. The blowout that Diana and I never had.

  I didn't want to read it. Didn't want to think about it. Anything would be preferable to having to think about what those two characters needed to say in that scene.

  I looked up towards the door of the coffee shop. I looked at the pay phone by the door. No one came in. No one came out. I stared at a fly that landed on my table. Watched it rub its two little stick legs together, like it was an evil scientist planning to take over the world. I took another bite of lousy muffin and another sip of lousy coffee and looked back down at the page. The typewritten lines stared back at me. I was prepared to hate every single one of them.

  The waiter came by. More lousy coffee? Yes. He poured. I added cream. Took another sip. Forced my eyes to the page. What does she say? What does Melanie say? She's finally talking about the wedding. Her anger about the wedding. I made myself read.

  Melanie: "I was trying to get you to reassure me. To give me your encouragement to go ahead with the wedding. But you wouldn't do that, would you."

  Julia: "If you had that many doubts about the man you were going to marry—"

  Melanie: "Not him, you! Because you seemed so upset. I even played him down because I didn't want you to be jealous. And you took advantage of that and twisted me all up inside, and I just couldn't be happy knowing that if I got married it would make you unhappy!"

  I took a sip of coffee and kept reading.

  Julia: "So you sacrificed yourself and then you blamed me for your entire life. Because it's so much easier than taking responsibility for yourself."

  Melanie: "You think it's easy? Going through life like some kind of deformed' hunchback, always trying to stay lower, stay lower, so I never overtake you—so I always let you win?"

  Julia: "Let me win?! You don't even compete. Because you know you'd always lose. And it's so much easier to wallow around in self-pity than to pull your own weight, isn't it."

  Melanie: "You want me to pull my own weight? Fine, I'll pull it. You can't stay here!"

  Julia: "I've lost my lease. I'll end up on the street. But you don't give a fuck, do you, all you care about is yourself!"

  Melanie: "How can you say that? Who lent you money when you quit your job and couldn't go a day without getting high? Who stayed up with you night after night because you went off your medications and thought the spiders on your shower curtain were going to eat you alive?"

  Julia: "Fine. Enjoy having your apartment all to yourself, Melanie. And don't worry, I'll never ask you for anything, ever again."

  Melanie: "That sounds good to me!"

  Julia: "Have a nice life, Melanie. I dare you to have a nice life!"

  And she exits, slamming the door behind her.

  I read the passage once more. Melanie did finally stand up to Julia. But it was true, she was still holding back. Still protecting Julia from her feelings instead of letting them all out.

  I felt something uncomfortable in my gut. How can she tell the sister when her sister is so vulnerable, so miserable, so miserable she's about to—not that Melanie knows she's about to—but how can she tell her how she really feels? It would be too horrible. Too horrible to know that you've said those things and then she went and...

  But isn't that the point? To make the drama as horrible as possible?

  I froze for a moment. Thought back to my own sister. The reality of my own sister, who was not these words on the page here. She’d actually existed. She actually ended her own life. And it wasn't my fault, of course, but it was, it was, I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault because I... what?! What did I think I did?

  The tears welled up and started to spill out. I had to stop them, stifle the sobs. Other people must not see you cry (Why don't people sob in public all the time—how do humans manage to be on such an even keel so much of the time?). I wiped my eyes, but the tears kept coming, I couldn't hold them in, and my chest heaved with sobs and I wanted to scream out to the entire restaurant how I hated her! Hated her for making me feel this way! Making me miserable my entire life, always feeling her misery as if I was the reason for it!

  As if feeling her misery would make life easier for her. It never did. She just continued with her self-destructive ways and made me hate her and—

  "Hate you," I wrote. "Hate you for making me feel this way. Miserable my whole life, as if I was the cause. But it's not my fault. It has never been my fault. Because you have never been happy no matter what I do. There’s always something making you angry—some injustice, some reason to yell and scream and throw a fit and make everyone around you feel unhappy like we were all doing something wrong. But it wasn't us; it had nothing to do with anything any of us ever did—it was you! Selfish, egotistical, mentally unbalanced chemically screwed-up YOU! So don't come asking me for favors, Julia. I'm sick of you and your problems. I've spent my life tiptoeing my own needs around yours, and it never does any good because you always end up in trouble anyway, so just stop asking for help and leave me alone!"

  I put down my pen. My hand was sore from gripping it. Then I read through the rest of the scene.

  Julia: "Fine. Enjoy having your apartment all to yourself, Melanie. And don't worry, I'll never ask you for anything, ever again."

  Melanie: "That sounds good to me!"

  Julia: "Have a nice life, Melanie. I dare you to have a nice life!"

  And she slams the door and exits.

  And we never see each other again.

  I took a deep breath and let it out. The speech was overwritten and would need some editing, but it would lead so much better into the final scene, where Julia comes back as a ghost haunting her. Finally. Melanie had said everything she needed to say.

  I showed up early at the theater for Tuesday rehearsal with the new lines. I didn't want to admit to "defeat" for having taken their advice—even if it did make the play better. But I felt embarrassed that I had been so resistant. And I looked forward to seeing Peter be pleased.

  "You win," I said, handing him the new page and looking properly sheepish.

  "If you made it better, then you're the one who wins," he said back.

  I wished I didn't feel like "the good little girl playwright" doing as she was told. But they were my words, I reminded myself, and they had come out of me. At least they weren't "good little girl" words.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "I didn't do anything."

  "You pushed me."

  "That was easy. I couldn't stop myself."

  "Sorry I was so grouchy about it the other night. It ruined the evening."

  "There will be other evenings."

  He gave me grin, and I felt a wave of happine
ss, and it was at that moment that Kelly made her entrance. She looked tired.

  "Hello, you two." She looked back and forth between us trying to size up the moment. "Have a good weekend?"

  "Not bad," Peter said. "And you?"

  "It had its ups and downs."

  I wasn't sure if she was embarrassed over the other night. In her bed. I didn't think it was likely. To her it was probably nothing at all.

  "How'd your audition go?" I asked.

  "My agent called this morning. They didn't want me."

  "I'm sorry," I said, feeling immense relief.

  "It's rough," Peter said.

  "Rejection sucks," she said, looking straight at me. I couldn't help but wonder if she was making some kind of reference to our own little tryout, though I couldn't really believe she could feel rejected by me. Especially since she knew it was my inhibitions that held me back, and anyway, Peter was the one she wanted, not me.

  "Well,” I said, “they don't know what they're missing.”

  "If it's any consolation," Peter said, "we're happy not to lose you."

  "Yeah," I agreed. "We're grateful for that."

  "Thanks. And,” she added, “I would've felt horrible dropping out of the play.”

  She smiled at us both. It wasn't a very sincere smile, and I refrained from saying: Are you kidding? You would've been out of here faster than I can say, "But we don't have an understudy!"

  Just then Annie arrived, and I handed her the new page. She started reading it over immediately.

  When she was done, she looked up at me and said, "Cool."

  Things were finally becoming real. That is, the illusion was becoming real. A guy named Felix was hanging the lights. A sound person was hired to record the few sound cues we needed and some music for intermission. The construction of the set was almost finished, and the flats were being painted to look like the shoddy walls of a run-down studio walk-up. We were having a small problem with the fake window that kept spontaneously sliding shut (when my sister's ghost was coming in and out?). And Lucas, the prop master, was starting to bring things in to make the apartment look real and lived in. He actually lugged, with Peter's help, an incredibly heavy iron radiator from the flea market a few blocks away. After they set it up against the wall, the whole apartment seemed authentic.