Chapter Twenty-Three 3 page

Chapter Six

South Pacific opened.

Leah sat in the back row with Adam and elbowed him as hard as she could during "I'm Going to Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair." He hummed along.

"Adam," she said.

"What? I like musicals."

She rolled her eyes in the dark.

The after party was at a mostly closed restaurant three blocks away. Leah talked to each person she ran into for about three seconds each and was relieved to spot Sophia across the room. Sophia wore black slacks and a black, low-cut top and looked ready for both an evening of dancing and for a rehearsal. Leah let herself be impressed.

"Some evening, you know? It's like...alluring?" Sophia asked when she drew near, smiling.

Leah wanted to say that she loved that smile, and the words were on the tip of her tongue. Sophia, though, was looking at her oddly, so she licked her lips instead and asked, "How's Macbeth?"

"I don't want to talk about Mac," Sophia said.

Leah nodded. "I hate my co-star."

"Ward?"

"You know him?"

"I've seen him around."

"Oh." Leah exhaled.

"So, how's your book?" Sophia asked.

Leah warmed at Sophia's remembering. "Oh. Demetrius, that's the prince, fell off his horse and into a pond, and that's how he met Brenda, who has no idea he's a prince, she just thinks he's a stupid rider."

Sophia chuckled. Then silence overtook them. Leah knew she should go, that it was polite to mingle, that they'd had their shot at conversation and had been reduced to the romance novel. But Adam came up to them and, as Sophia laughed at something he said, her bare arm brushed Leah's, and a charge went through her, a heat she hadn't felt since the first time she'd worked with Grace. She swallowed hard, unwilling to give up just yet.

Adam went on his way to talk to the director of South Pacific, and Leah turned to Sophia. "Where are you from? I don't think we ever got that far."

"Jacksonville," Sophia said. "My mother's Haitian and never quite got out of Florida. I was in Charlotte, doing post-graduate work in theater for a year, that's how I met Elaine."

"I never knew there was so much going on in North Carolina."

"I've been trying to break into the national tours. Without much success. But I'm making enough to eat. If I don't think about the student loans," Sophia said, and looked resigned. She spoke with a seriousness that belied her age, and Leah could already imagine her onstage, intense, with presence.

"God, how old are you?" Leah cringed. "Sorry."

Sophia bumped shoulders with Leah, which made Leah nearly faint, and said, "Twenty-five."

"And still trying to break in?"

"Trying. You?"

"It's the same in New York. Instead of tours, just Broadway. And us, 'Off.'" Leah said. She noticed she was talking in sentences twice as long as Sophia's, and tried to rein in her chattiness. If Sophia preferred the stillness she herself exuded, Leah's chances were hopeless.

"Adam seems so talented," Sophia said.

"He really, really is. But it's business. And hey, aren't you?"

Sophia pirouetted. "Yes, I am."

"We get enough work to keep going."

"So we'll keep going. It's nice to meet someone from New York. Everyone here is leading a different life than what I want."

Ward was across the room, schmoozing the producers, and Leah thought about his dreams. She understood, finally, homesickness. "To goals, then," she said. She offered up her glass.

Sophia clinked it with hers. "And to not having anything to fall back on."

"Well, except family."

"Except family." Sophia took a sip of her drink.

"I guess nothing makes me want to succeed more than that," Leah said. She made a face, and finished off her drink, and Sophia laughed and leaned into her arm.

They stood together, chatting about far-off places, as people came up to them to introduce themselves.

Later, walking home with Adam, Leah realized that Macbeth opened in two days, and Poe tech rehearsals started tomorrow, and there would be no way she'd have time with Sophia again. The words to "Some Enchanted Evening" stayed stuck in her head until she fell asleep.

"You're brooding," Adam said at breakfast.

"I'm hung over."

"You had one glass of fruit punch last night."

"Fine. I have a crush on someone," Leah said. She wanted to talk about it, to make herself feel less crazy. This wasn't why she had come to North Carolina. Some people wrote it all out... like Adam, she supposed... some people brooded. She talked. To anyone who would listen, and Adam had been stupid enough to make breakfast.

"On who?"

Leah glared at him. He folded his arms. She stabbed her fork into the eggs. The metal clanged against the ceramic plate. He shrugged and said, "I'll figure it out."

"I'm sure you will."

"Want to read the review of South Pacific?" He tapped the folded copy of the Durham News-Star on the table.

"Just tell me the good parts," Leah said.

"The avant garde staging and the sense of nostalgia in a similarly war-torn era remind us all of the timelessness of our humanity."

"Jesus," Leah said.

Adam nodded. "Sure as hell hope he likes Poe."

"Don't you have the reviews you want written in your head already?"

"Sure. But those will never, ever see the light of day."

Leah covered his hand on the table with hers, and kept eating.

He squeezed her fingers gently and said, "At least the musical will."

"Does it feel like giving birth?"

"I have no fucking clue."

The set designer yelled at Leah not to break anything. She stood gingerly in the center of the stage, surrounded by fabric. Her jeans and sweatshirt belied the opulence behind her, but Ward, wearing an undershirt and sweatpants, at least kept her company. They sang together. They stopped, they started. Leah began to feel like she knew what she was doing. She could close her eyes and let the century slip away from her.

Adam, conducting the five piece orchestra he'd put together, smiled up at her and she hit the harder notes. Ward's touches were more in the moment than inappropriate and when she ducked his kisses and he sang wounded songs to her, she felt her face grow warm.

"That's a wrap," Adam said at seven, and the crew and the musicians followed them home to sing around the piano and drink, laugh and eat pizza.

Leah settled onto the porch long after the sun had set. She listened to the crickets and the frogs, beyond the singing behind her, and let the heat invade her skin, and inhaled deeply, letting happiness fill her.

"Jeremy, come on," Leah said, leaning against the ticket window.

"Honey, it's sold out. It's Shakespeare. People dig that shit."

"I'm not just a civilian, you know."

"It's opening night. Next week I can hook you up, girlfriend."

Leah pressed her face against the glass.

"Here," a voice said behind Jeremy. Leah opened her eyes. Sophia slid a ticket toward her.

"Thanks," Leah said.

"You want to see me that bad?" Sophia asked. She had on worn blue jeans and what looked like the same top from the South Pacific party and no makeup. Still, Lady Macbeth lurked within her, somewhere behind her eyes.

Leah grinned. "You're in this?"

"Just like Eve is kind of in the Bible."

Leah tapped the ticket against her lips. "Thanks, again."

"No problem. My mom couldn't make it." Sophia's face fell, and she disappeared into the theater. Jeremy looked after her and sighed. Leah gave him a sympathetic look and ran off to find her seat.

An older, gaunt woman in several layers of shawl and overcoat that still managed to show she was too thin was sitting next to her, and Leah ventured to ask, "Elaine?"

Elaine smiled. She had bright blue eyes that met Leah's without hesitation. "Do I know you?" she asked.

"No. Sophia comped me the ticket, and I just thought..."

"She's a good kid," Elaine said.

"I guess we'll finally get to see," Leah said.

Chapter Seven

Sophia shook the stage. Her love for Macbeth was as palpable as her love of power. Her ambition felt like raw need.

Leah feared her. Her cajoling was cruel, and her youth only added to her soulless, vulture-like character; her seduction of an older man, her barrenness.

Leah trembled. Elaine's breathing stopped and started next to her. A gasp. Then silence, so that Macbeth's words thudded without obstacle through the auditorium.

When Leah found Sophia at the after party, all she could think of to say was, "A tale told by an idiot."

Sophia's smile was polite, but not the kind Leah had won from her before, and behind it there was a tinge of sadness that seemed to fade when Leah followed up with, "You were amazing."

"Thanks."

"Really amazing, actually," Leah said, with a rush of headiness.

Sophia laughed. "All right, all right."

The play had made Leah's skin crawl and she'd cried, afraid to wipe her cheeks in case the gesture gave her away. She wanted to seize Sophia and kiss her in gratitude for the emotion, also to have a place to channel it. She knew the swollen, alive feeling would ebb, and that she'd have to seek it out again. Already the scenes replaying in her head had lost their force, like worn photocopies or videotape.

Leah wondered if this is how people would feel if they saw her in Poe.

Sophia gently took her wrist and said, "I'm glad you came. I wanted you to see..." She paused.

"What?"

Sophia dropped her hand and shrugged. "Me."

"The understudies are always good. People forget that," Leah said.

"Even the understudies."

"Please. The only person with more 'tude around here is Ward."

"You haven't met our director," Sophia said.

Leah noticed, as the cast and crew swarmed about, and the press took pictures and asked for quotes, that though people came up to Sophia to congratulate her, even to gush, no one lingered.

When Elaine came, kissing each of Sophia's cheeks, Sophia became shy. Coquettish. Leah thought she recognized the chemistry between them and wandered away, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. Ward and Adam had already left. She went to the bar and talked to everyone there, and then when she'd run out of new faces she went back to say goodnight to Sophia.

Sophia gave Leah a wan smile, looking tired. "I'm ready to go, too."

"Timing," Leah said, "is everything."

"I read that somewhere," Sophia said as they strolled toward the doors.

"Where do you live?" Leah asked.

"The Days Inn."

The Days Inn was four blocks in the other direction from her house, and through the worst part of their bad neighborhood. Come home with me, Leah wanted to say, thinking it was too soon for any bold statements. And yet, the opportunity was here. "Come home with me," Leah said, and as Sophia demurred, added, "Adam will drive you home from there."

"It's only four blocks. Isn't your place like, twice as far?"

"Further away from the crack dealers, though. It's midnight, and it's Friday, and I'm not going to walk you home."

The fear that flashed through Sophia's expression made Leah feel cruel. "Please. Live a little. See our amazing rental."

Sophia scanned the crowd, presumably for someone else. She shrugged and said, "I'd ask John, but his car smells like pot."

"I assure you that Adam's does not."

"That's good to hear."

"He only smokes inside the house."

Sophia snorted.

Leah put her hand on Sophia's back and, at Sophia's acquiescence, led her out into the night. The walk was too short. Conversation started and then they were climbing the steps to the dark house. Adam's bedroom window had shown no light, so Leah apologetically let Sophia into the kitchen and said she would look for the keys.

She deduced they were in Adam's room and pushed her ear against his door. She heard grunting coming from inside and hoarse, urgent cries. She rolled her eyes and descended the stairs. Sophia had settled at the kitchen table and, though Variety was open before her, had her head on her elbow and seemed mostly asleep.

"Sophia," Leah said, touching her arm.

"Hm?"

"Adam's got someone upstairs. I think you should stay here tonight."

"Hm."

"On the couch."

"It's only ten blocks," Sophia said.

"It'll be a nicer walk on a sunny morning."

"I can't impose."

"It's a leather couch," Leah said.

"I don't even know you," Sophia said sleepily. She straightened up to rub her eyes and squeeze the bridge of her nose. She wore an evening gown and her hair had fallen and her makeup was gone from her cheeks, and smeared under her eyes.

"Get to know me over breakfast," Leah said.

Sophia's lips curved into a smile. "Where's the couch?"

"This way." Leah tugged at her hands. Sophia stood. Leah pulled her into the living room. Sophia opened her eyes. She saw the piano, the bookcases, the television, the couch.

"We have cable," Leah said.

Sophia fell onto the couch. She sighed, sat up, and took off her shoes.

"Do you want tea?" Leah asked.

"Water?"

Leah went into the kitchen. When she came back with a bottle of Evian, Sophia had taken off her dress and folded it on the end of the couch, and wrapped herself in the blanket that had lain along its back. She sat, Buddha-like, and accepted the water.

"Will you be all right?" Leah asked.

"Yes. I'm just going to sit for a while, and think about my life."

"Okay." Leah went to the stairs, and stopped on the first one to say, "I'll see you in the morning."

Sophia raised her bottle in toast. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow."

"Creeps in this petty pace," Leah said, going up the stairs, counting each one.

She kicked off her shoes and took off her own dress, and pulled on the nearest robe before she collapsed into bed, ignoring the blankets, letting the fan send feeble waves of cool air over her back.

She waited to fall asleep with a lightness in her chest, an easing, knowing Sophia was nearby.

Screaming awoke Leah, along with the realization that she'd forgotten to tell Adam that someone else was here, and that she'd forgotten to inquire as to who was in Adam's bedroom. She knew she wouldn't make it to the living room fast enough to take back the screaming.

Robe billowing, she flew down the stairs and nearly ran into Ward. He caught her by the arms. "Morning," he said.

"Hello." She doubled over, panting, and asked, "Is Sophia all right?"

"Sophia is getting some orange juice," Sophia said, walking by them, wearing Adam's bathrobe. Adam, in white T-shirt and shorts, was blushing furiously and staring at Leah.

"You were busy," Leah said.

Adam looked guilty.

Bert, the set designer, came through the front door. "Good morning, ladies." He looked surprised, but Sophia handed him the quart of orange juice, and he shrugged and settled down at the table.

Leah went back upstairs to shower.

Chapter Eight

Leah, Adam, Ward, and Sophia walked to the theater together. Then Sophia went past it, explaining that she was going to sleep in her own bed. Now that Macbeth was playing nightly there were only a few put-in rehearsals in the afternoons.

Adam took Ward and Leah to the prop room.

"I know you can act and sing," he said. "But can you act and sing with stuff?"

"You know I've got stuff," Ward said, shaking his hips.

Adam giggled.

Leah said, "I'm going to get more coffee."

When rehearsal broke and Leah was soaked with sweat and Ward had finished yelling and insulting her, Adam informed them they had a week and a half off while costumes were sewn and lighting was programmed into computers.

"I hear there are some good plays nearby," he said.

She could sit through Macbeth again. Somewhere Sophia couldn't see her, because that would be creepy. She shrugged. Adam smiled. He brought it up again at dinner. The three of them were together at the house, eating chicken breasts with capers and wild rice.

"Come clubbing with us Friday," Adam said.

"Where?"

"Flamingo," Ward said.

"No thanks. I don't want to be the only woman in a gay bar. You remember what happened last time."

Ward glanced at Adam.

"They thought she was a man," Adam said.

"You didn't have to tell him that."

"It was very unpleasant," Adam said.

"Very."

Ward took another bite of rice.

Leah glared at Adam.

"So go to a girl bar," Adam said.

"Adam. We're in North Carolina."

He pushed a copy of the local weekly newspaper across the table. "I circled some. You haven't been out since we got here."

"Neither have you."

"Well, that's got to change. If you don't go clubbing, at least go to a party."

"We're hosting one," Leah said.

"In a week, and that's for our show. Hardly the event of the century," Adam said.

"Some people are born social, and some have socializing thrust upon them," Ward said. He waved his fork at Leah.

Adam gently pushed Ward's arm down, and said, "Leah never missed an event in New York. She's the toast of the town."

"Have you ever met anyone famous?" Ward asked.

"Your momma," Leah said.

Ward grinned.

"What's wrong, Leah?" Adam asked.

"Nothing's wrong except Jeopardy!'s on and I need to feel smart." She took her plate into the living room.

Ward and Adam finished dinner in the kitchen, whispering to each other, touching benignly. A hand on a thigh, a finger tapping an elbow. Adam came and took the dish from her when he went to clean up. She watched the television silently, her thoughts too much in turmoil to think of the answers to Adam's questions, or hear what Alex was saying.

In New York, she knew everyone. Every star and writer was a friend of Leah Fisher. Even in their most boring iterations of the same stories...the reason she'd left in the first place to try something new...there was camaraderie. A stranger was just someone new in town, new to the stage, to be introduced to her. She got invited backstage to every show on Broadway, and into the dressing rooms of half. She had done what she wanted.

She'd wanted to leave.

Now, to walk into a room and not know anyone felt unreal. Last night's efforts at the bar had been intense and draining and probably futile. She'd been on the scene since she was nineteen. Since she had convinced her parents it was all right to let her minor in theater, because a college degree was a college degree, that it was no worse than English.

Going to the Flamingo with Adam and Ward would not cheer her up. No one would recognize her. She'd be their third wheel and though beautiful young men would probably dance with her, and charm her, and maybe even buy her a drink, there'd be nothing for them to share, nothing to take home. She didn't want to escape, she wanted to be remembered.

But staying home in the empty, large house seemed worse. The drug lords and prostitutes would know, and they'd come for her. They'd steal the piano. She shivered. If that was going to happen, she didn't want to be around for it.

"How am I going to get there?" Leah asked. Adam and Ward were taking the rental car.

"You can walk," Adam said, beaming. "It's ten blocks. Here, let me help you dress."

"I can't dress myself to go to a lesbian bar?"

"Were you going to wear jeans?"

"No."

"Oh, honey."

She sighed.

He put her in her tightest blue jeans and the only pair of high-heeled boots she'd brought.

"I can't walk ten blocks in these," she said.

"I put in insoles."

"Adam."

"Hey, I need you on stage an hour a night. Good foot care is important."

"And gay," she said.

She picked her sluttiest top and did her own makeup, which Adam marked over with brighter lipstick and more eye shadow.

"I look like a tramp," she said.

"A vamp. You look like a vamp."

"Rhymes with tramp."

He grinned.

"Do you expect me to bring someone home?" she asked.

"It'd be good for you. How long has it been?"

She met his eyes in the mirror and said, "Not long enough."

"Who?" He placed his hand on her back, and looked at her earnestly.

"No one," she said, pulling away.

"Leah."

"Just some guy."

"And?" Adam prompted.

And every time he'd touched her, she'd wanted to die. It wasn't his fault. He was the sound technician from her most recent anime gig. They'd joked together about the crazy love story she was recounting, in high-pitched oration. She'd been the one to invite him to dinner, and then a second, and when the kissing had been fine...a little exciting, even, she'd let the rest happen.

He'd been gentle, mistaking her trembling as he undressed her for excitement. And she'd touched him, remembering how it had felt to hold Grace, marveling at how different it was even when all the parts weren't that different. He'd used his mouth, and she cried and begged him to stop, and when he wanted to hold her as he slept she'd felt suffocated, had escaped, had never spoken to him again, despite the flowers he sent, despite his apologies.

He had no idea what he was apologizing for.

Adam wrapped his arms around her waist and held her, and when she relaxed back into him he murmured, "Bring home a girl. Do I have to draw you a picture?"

Chapter Nine

She almost lost her nerve walking the ten blocks. She stopped in the dark, under a maple tree that draped heavy branches over her head. Going back meant the empty house. Ward and Adam were going to a club an hour away. Even if she cried into the cell phone for them, it'd be useless.

Forward lay civilization. Adam promised her that she was hot, and not desperate, and that her hair was really more of a dirty blonde than a mousey brunette and not too straggly in the way it brushed her neck. Perhaps she'd even run into some of the local crew there. She'd have a drink, she told herself, maybe two.

When she arrived, Lost Girls at Sea was packed. The club was one large room, mostly dark with stage lights pointed at the dance floor, flickering, and light above the bar. She paid her ten dollars at the door, and pushed through the crowd toward the bar at the back. There she could sit...the crowd was mostly on the dance floor, or along the back wall. She ordered the special and drank it in one swallow and then ordered another to carry while she mingled.

The crowd wasn't all younger than her, though those on the dance floor looked to be about eighteen. The girls with the piercings and the shaved heads caught her eye first, but mostly everyone wore jeans and held beers. The hair, when present, was poofier than what she usually saw in New York, the accents made her giggle, and finally, after thirty-four years of living, she saw her first mullet.

Despite Adam's promises, she didn't recognize anyone. She smiled sheepishly at girls, all in groups of two or three, who smiled back, but then turned away. She sighed. Women traveled in packs. Lesbians were no exception. She sipped at her drink, hoping to make it last so that her hands were occupied, and surveyed the dance floor.

She caught a flash of Sophia.

"Crap."

No one heard her through the thundering disco music, and Sophia hadn't seen her standing in the dark along the edge. She finished her drink and made her way onto the dance floor. Only when she was two feet from Sophia, about to interrupt, did the awareness of Sophia in a dyke bar, dancing with a woman, reach her. And now it was too late to run.

"Are you...?" Leah asked clumsily, instead of "Hello."

Sophia's eyes widened as she recognized Leah...a good sign, at least...and she asked, "Are you?"

Leah glanced around at the sea of women, and then back at Sophia, and nodded. "I guess, tonight, I am."

Sophia smiled.

"Anyway, sorry to interrupt, enjoy your dance," Leah said, backing away. She decided to head for the bar. A third drink would do her good.

"No, I'll dance with you," Sophia said. She gave her partner an apologetic wave and hug, and then grabbed Leah.

"But..."

"Come on. It's good to see a familiar face."

Leah allowed herself to be tugged into an awkward, swaying hug. Sophia was warm, and her skin shone with faint sweat, and her hair stuck to her face. She was smiling, wider than Leah had ever seen.

"Are you drunk?" Leah asked. She put her hand to Sophia's flushed cheek. The heat burned into her palm.

"Little bit," Sophia said.

"You a fun drunk?"

"Little bit," Sophia said, and lunged forward. Leah stumbled back as Sophia's mouth touched her temple. The spark that shot through her was instant, and powerful, and she held onto Sophia to keep from falling.

"I barely..." Leah started, and then changed her mind and asked, "Did you come by yourself?"

"I come every Friday," Sophia said, shouting into Leah's ear. "I was supposed to meet Jenny and Carlotta from the South Pacific crew, but they didn't show. One can wonder why."

A startlingly clear picture flashed through Leah's mind. She pushed Sophia's hair out of her face to keep her hands near the burning cheeks, the skin pliant under her fingertips.

"How was the show?" Leah asked.

"Double, double, toil and trouble," Sophia said. "Forget about the show. Let's just dance."

They danced. Mostly apart, and Leah was no Fred Astaire, but she kept to the beat and let Sophia slide down her body, and wiggled her hips. Just to keep moving. Something loosened inside her, and Sophia poured drinks down her throat while they rested between songs, sitting at the bar, knees touching, watching the crowd.

They gossiped whenever they settled at the bar, and Leah was deciding her fifth drink was enough, when someone from another group came over and asked her to dance, even with Sophia, gorgeous and glistening and sweet, sitting right next to her. Feeling beautiful and flattered, she accepted.

The woman smelled of leather, and Leah let hips press against hers, and buried her nose in the collar of the leather jacket, and breathed and moved to the slow, sexy Indigo Girls song playing as hands traveled down her ass. She would never tell Adam, but it had been a good idea to come, to feel desired.

As soon as the song ended, she wobbled back to Sophia at the bar, who was regarding her oddly.

"What?"

"You're supposed to continue with her. She's looking at you," Sophia said.

"What? She's all right. But I..." Leah frowned, and considered. She shrugged and said, "I got what I wanted."

"What, are you a tease?" Sophia asked, lightly smacking her on the back, and then sliding an arm around her waist.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 582