Chapter Twenty-Three 5 page

"You were third witch?"

"I was very scary," Sophia said.

"As if."

"Anyway, Adam sent me."

"Oh, so it's Adam now."

"He's interesting. If I spend any more time talking with the Macbeth crowd I'm going to kill them. I've been hearing I only got the part because I was sleeping with Elaine."

"How is Elaine?"

Sophia's face fell. She met Leah's eyes, and said, "She's in the hospital again."

"I'm sorry." Leah put her free hand on Sophia's elbow and hefted her bag up again with the other.

"It's all right. They're all going to the zoo tomorrow. Photo op. So I thought I'd at least take today and have a change of scenery."

"So I'm scenery," Leah said.

"Very nice scenery."

The low heat that had begun in Leah's abdomen at seeing Sophia spiked into white fire.

Sophia asked, "How was New York?"

"I needed a change of scenery, too."

"Yeah?"

"It made me appreciate why I'm here."

Sophia didn't move as Leah leaned in to cup her cheek. Leah kissed her. Sophia responded to Leah's pressure with her own, nuzzling Leah's lips. For a moment, everything was perfect and still, and then Sophia pulled back to study her face.

Leah let go of Sophia and looked around. If everyone had seen them, they were politely looking away now. She shrugged.

Sophia kissed her cheek.

Leah smiled. "I think I know why I'm in Poe now."

"That was some trip."

"Well. It was some trip back."

"Hey, Leah," Adam called from the third row. "What do you think of the name Edgar Allen Poetry? Get it?"

She would have flipped him off but the producers were there to watch the first tech rehearsal. She settled for sighing. "Ha. Ha."

"Okay, let's do Dream. From the top."

Leah went to the wings. Ward stood on stage, presumably outside her building, waiting for her to come home. She tried to think of herself in love, scared, thirteen years old, but all that came to her was Sophia. She inhaled, squared her shoulders, then let them slump and went on stage.

Ward caught her arm. He pulled her around. "Virginia," he said. His voice was low... meant to be a whisper, but no one could whisper on stage. So, just quiet. Library voice. Indoor intensity on the outside stoop in Boston.

"You shouldn't be here," she said. She pulled out of his grip, and went downstage.

He was supposed to follow her, but he stayed, and cried out, louder now, "Virginia."

"You can't be here. This can't happen. It's not real," she said. She thought of saying the words to Sophia, and couldn't think of any reason to say them, not Virginia's reasons... age and propriety and other loves...and yet, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away.

Ward, damn him, was still upstage, trying to force her to turn around and see his pain. His want, his desire, naked on his face. And the audience wouldn't see the grief on hers. She said, "Go away."

"Virginia," he whispered, hoarse and frustrated.

She turned around, and stalked past him. With her back to the audience, she gave him a little smirk. He seized her arm, and squeezed a little too hard. She yelped.

"Take this kiss upon the brow," he said, and kissed her temple. His teeth grazed her skin. It felt like a violation. She pushed his chest, and when he let her go, went into the house. Behind the set, she listened to him sing.

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

She cried, behind the stage, silently where no one could hear her, and then she went to the little fake window, made of plastic. Ward paced the stage, histrionic, brutalized by her little rejection.

He clenched his fist, and said, "I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand."

Leah watched and listened as the music...Adam's five piece orchestra...created the sound of the ocean. Ward never looked back at her. He raged only for the audience.

"Bravo," Adam called from the seats as Ward's song ended and he got off his knees. Leah came through the front door. Adam met her eyes, and smiled. "Not in the stage directions, but perfect. The agony of your restraint against whatever was inside you was admirable."

"She didn't look at me once," Ward said.

"She didn't have to," Adam said. "You were always right there."

Rehearsal broke around seven-thirty. Leah was so exhausted she'd spent the last two hours crying, off and on, in jagged shuddering. She'd lost her voice. Adam had yelled at her for not being more temperate, for not monitoring herself. So she'd become histrionic, like a rebellious child, never mind that he was right.

She was too keyed up to go home. If she did, Adam would make tea and she'd go to bed early, only to do it all over again tomorrow morning. That was too depressing to contemplate.

She had a dress fitting at three the next day. That was too depressing to contemplate, too.

Her back ached. She settled herself on the brick retaining wall of a yard across the street from the theater and watched the audience appear for Macbeth. There were crowds of people... senior citizens, young parents and children, dating couples...all dressed in Sunday best, greeting each other with long-lost joy. They were treating themselves to a show tonight. Some of them might have waited all year.

Each of those watchers would feel powerful, catered to, special. They were paying for the privilege of having people perform for them, just them, something their fellow man would never experience; not on that night, not at that time.

Leah knew the intoxication of being stared at, desired, and loved. She wanted to join the crowd and be a part of its energy. She wanted to see Sophia on stage again.

The crowds thinned, and then disappeared completely into the theater, leaving the street empty in the last vestiges of daylight. She went to the ticket booth, where they were closing up and counting money.

"Hey, Leah," Seth said. "You want a ticket?" A summer intern from the community college's theater department, his nose and both ears were pierced, and he had a chorus part in South Pacific.

"No. Full house tonight?"

"Oh, yeah. Sold out. All the season ticket holders showed up, too. Fatime looked for empty seats, but they were all gone."

Fatime, the overweight, smiling high school girl who had just wanted a summer job that didn't involve the food or retail industries, nodded in agreement.

Leah imagined people waiting months in advance, or maybe years, buying tickets to shows they didn't even care about, just because it might be interesting. And they had no idea they'd be getting someone like Sophia. Only a few knew to hope for Elaine.

"So, what do you do now that everyone's trapped inside the theater?" Leah asked.

"Yell fire?" Seth said.

Fatime shot a rubber band at him.

He winced and said, "Now we sit around and talk for a half hour, then we start getting the food ready. Snacks for the cast, champagne and candy bars for the tourists at intermission. We point people to the bathrooms, organize the lines. You know."

"And you guys volunteer for this?"

Seth grinned. "I get school credit."

"Part of my parole," Fatime said.

Leah's eyes widened.

Fatime winked.

"In New York, you guys would be unionized," Leah said.

Seth raised his fist. "Join us, famous actor lady."

Leah's face grew hot. "I should go," She said.

"Oh, come on, stay," Fatime said. "Tell us about New York?"

There was an eagerness in her voice that compelled Leah, so she went behind the desk and sat in an uncomfortable wicker chair, and let herself feel important to two school kids who handed out playbills because they wanted to act.

Fatime cracked the auditorium doors as Macbeth died. Leah felt a pang. Lady Macbeth was already dead. Swarms of people left after the house lights went up, like a wave pouring out of the theater. Some lingered, chatting with each other, or waiting for the actors to make appearances in the lobby. Their family, their friends.

A couple had flowers for Banquo.

Sophia walked through the lobby with Oscar, who Leah recognized as Macduff by the boyish haircut and the circles of makeup under his eyes, smeared by his recent anguish. He smiled, leaning in to tease Sophia about something. She elbowed him in the ribs and he danced away, and then circled back, putting his arm around her.

Leah watched, torn between possessiveness and paralysis. Sophia spotted her and smiled.

As they walked closer, Leah moved to intercept them. "Hey," she said.

"Hi," Sophia said. She hugged Leah, and asked, "Did you see the show tonight?"

"No, I was just hanging around after a late rehearsal."

"That's good," Oscar said. "You missed a doozy."

"Oh?"

Sophia glared at him, but Oscar grinned and said, "Someone forgot her lines."

"Someone threw my timing off."

"Well, tonight it wasn't about the seduction of a man," Oscar said. "It was about getting through lines without choking. And yet, dude, standing ovation. People over appreciate us."

"Or there's power in simply being," Leah said. She had her hand on Sophia's shoulder. Sophia leaned into her, just enough to let her know she was pressing back, seeking more. Leah brushed her thumb against Sophia's arm. Sophia flashed her a smile.

"Drinks, ladies?" Oscar asked.

Leah was tempted, but hanging out in the theater for three hours had tempered her exhaustion into mere fatigue. She shook her head.

"Tomorrow," Sophia said. "Tonight I'm going to soak in a hot tub."

"And?" Oscar prodded.

"And read my lines," she said, and scowled at him.

Leah grinned.

Sophia shot her a glance. "Memorizing is hard."

"Everything's hard about Shakespare," Leah said.

"See?"

Oscar shrugged. He squeezed Sophia's forearm and kissed Leah's cheek and went to deign to talk to the crowd waiting for him. To thank him for his Macduff, for pouring out his heart on the stage, and making them think of their children.

"What do you think Shakespeare would have thought of psychology?" Leah asked.

Sophia turned her head to put her chin on Leah's fingers. "He would have a justification for why we are all so much less than we aspire to be."

"Deep."

"I take issue with his barren woman leads to madness idea, though," Sophia said.

"I think you need to take that up with Freud."

"If I'm talking about anything with Freud, I'm starting with my mother."

"I don't know anything about your mother," Leah said.

Sophia frowned. She pulled away from Leah slightly. "My mother's...my mother."

"Let me walk you home," Leah said.

Sophia raised her eyebrows.

"Just to the door of the roach motel."

Sophia smiled. Leah turned to the lobby exit. Once on the street, Leah bumped Sophia as they walked, close enough to brush against each other. Leah grasped Sophia's wrist, and slid her fingers down to intertwine with Sophia's. The answering squeeze Sophia gave her hand thrilled her. She squeezed back. She wanted to win more response in Sophia, to see the pleasure flush Sophia's cheeks, to make her smile, to be the cause of it.

At the sliding doors of the hotel, they stood to the side, away from direct light. Leah turned down an offer of pot and a party from men passing through the doors, and then from Sophia's fellow cast, returning for the night. Sophia giggled.

"I should go have tea," Leah said. "I talked all night. That's probably the last time I can do that for a while."

"Okay," Sophia said. She looked at the door, and then back at Leah.

Leah couldn't think of anything relevant to say. She tilted her head and went with the obvious. "I'm sure you were good tonight."

Sophia chuckled. "I'm sure I'll be good tomorrow night."

Leah leaned in. She waited for Sophia to draw back, to hesitate, but Sophia's smile remained, so Leah kissed her. Sophia's lips gently pressed back. Leah pulled on Sophia and brought her into a hug. Sophia rubbed her back. The kiss remained chaste, and Sophia tilted her chin to kiss the corner of Leah's mouth instead, and then pressed her face into Leah's neck.

The brush of Sophia's lips against her throat made Leah shiver. She was so aroused, so suddenly, that she clutched Sophia until Sophia murmured against her throat, "So, are we dating?"

"Yes," Leah said, because she wanted it to be true.

Sophia nodded against her neck.

Leah swallowed. "Next time, invite me up."

Sophia slid her hand up between them to cup Leah's neck. "Okay."

Leah pulled back to find her mouth again, and kissed her more deeply, so that Sophia's lips parted against hers. Sophia bit into her upper lip, and Leah's tongue flicked out, to protect herself instinctively, and met Sophia's. She shivered, and kissed Sophia harder. Sophia murmured a plea, and Leah broke the kiss, her whole body throbbing with need.

Sophia stepped back, toward the lobby door, and smiled shyly at Leah. She went inside.

Leah exhaled. She closed her eyes against the hot air, and tried to quell her heartbeat, tried to ignore the internalized expectation that this was all fleeting and therefore would hurt her, perhaps too soon, that ruin here would ruin everything around her. Then she surveyed the neighborhood around her, and thought of the time, and began to walk the six blocks back to her house, as quickly as she could.

Chapter Thirteen

"This trip is supposed to be about your big break in a musical, not some romance," Adam said over breakfast.

"Rehearsals are boring."

"Not if you have the distinct terror of failure."

Leah smiled at him.

"Oh, stop."

"Let's go," Leah said, finishing off her orange juice. "I want to sing."

"Sing what?" Adam asked. He reluctantly got up from the table and gathered his portfolio, shoving sheet music into it, loose leaf, and a handful of red and blue pens.

"I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames," Leah said, nearly humming the words, sending them up and down the scales.

"That's not actually in the musical. Have you been reading on your own?"

Leah winked. She slung her backpack over one shoulder and went to the door.

"Leah. You do care!"

She stepped out into the sunlight and said, "I do."

After five hours of rehearsal, she was flat on her back on the stage, panting. Sweat on her arms and palms sealed her to the wood.

"Leah, you're ruining the costume," Adam said.

"I'm supposed to be lying like this," she mumbled. Her throat burned. She swallowed, and the saliva cooled her, and then the pain began anew. She swallowed again, but her mouth was dry.

"Yes, but you're not supposed to lie in it eternally. Come on, Macbeth needs the stage. They're doing put-ins."

Leah rolled to her knees and began patting her hair. Then she frowned at Adam. "Are you just fucking with..."

The auditorium doors burst open and the cast of Macbeth poured in, coming down the aisles. Leah got to her feet.

Adam folded his arms.

Leah came to the edge of the stage and said, "I'm going to shower, then."

"Wait," Adam said. He vaulted onto the stage and said, "I have opera tickets."

Ward eagerly scurried over. "When?"

"Monday," Adam said. "Before South Pacific and Macbeth run their last weeks. It'll be our last chance for anything fun before dress and opening night."

The mention of opening night made Leah nauseous. She knelt next to Adam and breathed through her nose. Even Ward looked green, standing over them. Adam pulled out two tickets and offered them to Leah.

Leah took them and said, "Adam? These are in Charlotte."

"Did you think there was opera in Durham?"

"But..."

"You're not riding with us, either."

Leah shrugged. She stood up and said, "It'll be a nice break. A way to remember there's something else to live for besides Poe."

Adam looked wounded.

She went to the ensemble dressing room to change, nodding to the Macbethians gathered to gossip and get ready for the rehearsal. Then she slung her garment bag over her shoulder, checked that the opera tickets were in the back pocket of her jeans, and went upstairs to Sophia's dressing room.

There was a sign taped to the door that said Sophia Medina, and another sign that said Joyce Tam and Erica Rosen, the female leads for South Pacific. South Pacific ran that night, after the put-ins and dinner, so Leah knocked cautiously.

"Come in," Sophia's voice called.

Leah turned the knob and swung the door open. Sophia, leaning down in front of the mirror to put her hair in a pony tail, smiled when she saw Leah's reflection.

"I've never been here," Leah said.

"It'll all be yours when we leave."

Something cold settled into Leah's stomach. She put her hand over it and said, "Try to keep it clean, then."

She let the door swing shut as she walked further into the room. Sophia had pictures, toys, and Nutrigrain bars on a high shelf labeled Sophia, and a black bag was next to her feet.

"You can put your stuff down," Sophia said.

Leah let the backpack slide to the floor, and then put her garment bag on top of it. "We got costumes today."

"What does it look like?"

"Come to opening night and see," Leah said.

"Comp me some tickets."

"Sure. I get four. You can sit next to my mother, my father, and my sister."

"They're coming? That's so sweet."

"Didn't yours come?"

"Well...yes. Eventually."

"I'm hoping mine won't be stuck next to any reporters. My dad tends to make comments."

"Does he like musical theater?"

Sophia was standing, facing her, but hadn't moved. She stayed rooted in spot, and so did Leah, feeling awkward, wondering what she was doing there, and what Sophia expected her to be doing.

"In theory. But the things he's seen...the things I've done...I die in Poe twice. That's not going to thrill him. But at least I won't be going topless."

Sophia's eyes dropped to her chest, and then the gaze returned to Leah's face. "Really?"

"I was in college."

"Sure you were."

"Hey, I had a solo."

They both laughed and Leah crept closer to lean against the makeup table. "Do you like opera?"

"In the sense of...being in it?" Sophia asked.

"Just going."

Sophia shrugged. "I've only been to one. My mother took me to Amahl and the Night Visitors when I was four."

"Golden opportunity, then."

"Does Durham actually have an opera?"

"Charlotte."

Sophia frowned. "That's..."

"South. Westish." Leah gestured in a vague direction.

"I was going to say, the home of NASCAR."

"Do you prefer that? Because I didn't get comped tickets to any races."

"Opera it is, then."

Leah realized Sophia had tacitly agreed without even asking when it was, to say she might be washing her hair. She blushed. "It's Monday."

Sophia tilted her head.

Leah dug out a ticket and asked, "Want to come?"

"Yes," Sophia said. There was rose in her cheeks, too, and when she took the ticket from Leah's hand, her fingers brushed Leah's wrist.

"There's a problem," Leah said.

"What?"

"We don't have a car."

"I'll borrow one."

"There's another problem."

"You don't drive, do you?"

"I'm from New York."

"Welcome to the South, honey," Sophia said.

"We could take a train. Amtrak."

Sophia took a step closer. "Don't you trust me?"

"Isn't driving hard?" Leah reached out and took Sophia's hands.

"Not compared to acting," Sophia said, leaning over Leah, pushing against her hands.

"How about singing?" Leah asked, and lifted up to kiss her.

Sophia kissed her back, without comment, sealing their lips and wrapping her arms around Leah's neck. Leah pulled Sophia against her waist. She hugged Sophia tightly, rewarded when Sophia intensified the kiss.

When they broke off to catch their breath, to soothe their racing heartbeats, they didn't speak. Sophia just nuzzled Leah's cheek, let Leah kiss her jaw and her neck, and then they kissed again, tongues stroking, teeth grazing lips, their mouths pressing together and breaking apart and pressing together again with more pressure. Leah could only hear her own panting, and Sophia's, and neither heard the knock on the door until Geoffrey stuck his head in and said, "Sophie, you're late."

Sophia pulled back, breathing hard. Leah's face burned with embarrassment. She didn't look at Geoffrey, but Sophia grabbed her bag and left, her hand brushing Leah as she went.

"Isn't that Leah Fisher?" Geoffrey asked, outside.

"Yeah."

"Holy crap."

Leah crept to the door, to hear them as they reached the stairs.

Geoffrey said, "She's the headliner!"

"Well, I'm not an understudy anymore, Geoff."

"Brilliant."

Then they disappeared down the stairs, and Leah couldn't hear any more. She wrote down her phone number on a stack of stage manager notes, and added, as an afterthought, "Call me."

Leah went back to rehearsal, in one of the empty rooms away from the stage, just a piano and a folding table. Adam lost his temper. He moaned, raged, slammed his hands down on the keys to make awful sounds.

"It's not you," he said. "It's just not coming together. The costumes aren't what I wanted. The stage is all wrong. The music won't flow into the words. Why can't you make it flow?" This, he directed to Leah.

She turned to Ward, but he was just as terrified as she was. His eyes were wide, and he hadn't said much. Usually he'd boast and annoy her and tell Adam, "I can do this...Don't give me direction, I can do this."

Today he mumbled his lines, stepped on hers, and forgot the lyrics to "A Dream within a Dream." She sat in a folding chair, since there was no wall to hide behind, and felt nothing as he and Adam rehearsed.

Ward glanced at Adam. Adam said, "You stand..."

"You stand..." Ward sang.

Adam cut him off and said, "I stand."

"I stand amid the roar," Ward sang, and though his voice was beautiful enough, there was nothing behind it, nothing in the room with them, to echo the words. "Of a surf-tormented shore."

Adam played the piano louder, forcing Ward to sing over him, to yell, "How few! Yet how they creep."

Leah laughed. Adam banged the keys, and she laughed harder. Ward stopped singing, and fled. He slammed the door, leaving Leah alone with Adam.

"What's so funny?" Adam asked.

"Nothing. Nothing." Leah continued to giggle. She put her cheek against the table.

"Stop it," Adam said. "I need you, here."

"Find someone else," Leah said, and laughed. Hurt flickered across his expression, but she didn't care. She felt nothing, except a sickening sense of dread.

Chapter Fourteen

Sophia didn't call until Friday, after a week of tech rehearsals so endless and exhausting that Leah could barely bring herself to shower each day.

"I've got the car," Sophia said. "If you still want to go."

"That's fantastic. How's Macbeth?" She hadn't seen Sophia, not even in passing, for days. Were they dating? At least Sophia hadn't forgotten her name. Or maybe she just really loved Die Fledermaus.

"Oh, Mac. I just want it to be over. I'm so tired of being so hateful and awful every night."

"Better than playing a victim," Leah said. She felt overly cheerful, elated by the thought of the opera, compared to Sophia's serious, distant tone.

Sophia said, "Elaine says it's the material, not the character's age, really, that makes older women play this part. There's just so much rawness and power here. She says that Desdemona and Lady Macbeth should be flipped, that Desdemona has the layers and Lady Macbeth is driven by one thing alone, but that it's unsustainable."

"Does Lady Macbeth have a name, you think?" Leah asked.

"Like, Sarah Macbeth?"

"Or Jodie," Leah said.

"Her real name was Gruoch," Sophia said. "But I think naming her takes away from her identity being born in her husband's. What she makes of him, she makes of herself."

"That's feminism for you," Leah said.

"That's the best we get. The role of the woman in theater is not especially liberated."

"Hm."

"But I'm working with a four hundred year-old text," Sophia said.

"Well, I'm inhabiting a thirteen year old virgin, and my text is only a hundred and fifty years old. I'm not sure we're making progress."

"Oh, great. I look forward to the opera, then."

"Well, unless it's subtitled, we'll have no idea how subjugated the girls are."

"Oh, I think we'll be able to tell."

Leah smiled. She pressed the phone against her cheek. Warmth radiated through her chest. She'd only known Sophia few weeks and already Sophia was her closest confidante outside of Adam. She couldn't imagine what life was like before meeting Sophia, and didn't want to think about going back to New York, alone, and pretending this hadn't been a part of her life.

She sighed.

"When should I pick you up? Sophia asked. "The opera's at eight, it's at least a two and a half hour drive."

"Will I survive two hours in a car with you?"

"I suppose we'll find out," Sophia said. She cackled into the phone, and then added, "I have no idea where to hide a body, anyway."

"And I could take you," Leah said. Though she doubted that was true. Sophia was almost certainly stronger, and Leah had never been in a fight in her life. Whenever boys pulled her hair in school, she curled up into a little ball and cried.

"Four, then?" Leah asked.

"We'll leave from the theater."

"What kind of car is it?"

"Oh. You'll find out."

The car was a ten year old Sebring, and Leah, freshly showered and wearing slacks and a blouse with too many black sequins on it that Adam had produced from his suitcase, gazed at the car with trepidation. She said, "It's so...large."

"It's the safest thing on the road," Sophia said. "Unless it breaks down."

Leah bit her lip.

"Can you change a tire?" Sophia asked.

Leah whimpered.

"It'll be fine. I think. I drove you home from the airport, didn't I?"

"True." Leah got into the car. Before she buckled her seatbelt, Sophia got into the driver's seat, and gave her a shy smile.

"Are you wearing lipstick?" Leah asked.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 591