It helped that Sierra had never planned to go on the July Fourth trip to Boston: a day of touring historical sites—Like where Charlie Savoy drove into the river! Harlow had said—shopping, fireworks and catching the last bus back. Most of the apprentices, who hadn’t been drafted into service for the contributors’ dinner, would be going. Luckily, Ethan was among those staying behind too. Sierra wished she had been allowed to tell him that this whole dinner was actually her idea, that she had found a way to be part of the theater, despite not earning a role on the main stage. But she kept quiet, as promised, and kept busy until she was needed for dinner prep.
While Ethan worked the early shift at the pub, she escaped into the lush thickets of Hopkins Forest in search of that elusive, endangered plant species. Hiking with her notebook and map, snapping photos on her phone of any plant life worthy of a cameo in her thesis. The hours trickled by as she roamed the well-trodden dirt paths, listening to the stark quiet, letting the calm envelop her, fully at peace even in patches so densely canopied the sun’s rays barely broke through. It had been a long time since she had been alone. The frenetic pace of the apprentice program had gotten her accustomed to so much multitasking. Here she could hear her own thoughts again, and they told her there was still time to make waves. That was easy to forget when everyone was so focused on Romeo and Juliet for so long, but auditions for Midsummer Night’s Dream were now just one day away: a new chance to be on the main stage. And there was still her part in the student Black Box show—Fiona seemed happy with Sierra’s work there; maybe one of the agents would notice her at that performance. It was just over a month away now. Still time to turn the summer around.
Completing the trail’s loop, she finally made her way back toward the park entrance, where she was greeted by a pack of footfalls and the faint buzz of conversation. At once, they flew by her like a track team: a dozen college-aged girls led by Chase Embers.
At 2:30 sharp, Sierra waited on the manicured lawn outside of the theater—which was dark tonight. She took a seat beside the stone sculptures of comedy and tragedy masks roughly the size of stallions. A honking horn startled her, and she laughed when she saw the old red pickup truck. “Hop aboard, these flowers ain’t gonna pick themselves,” Ethan greeted her with a smile.
“Awesome, my Uber’s here,” she said, leaning in the open window.
“Nice, right? Mason’s wheels,” Ethan said. Mason was the Chamberlain’s longtime set designer. “Looks just like mine used to, only difference is this one actually runs.”
“They have these in Oregon too, you know.” A wave of nostalgia hit her, a touch of homesickness. They had a green truck at the resort that she would use to drive guests’ luggage to their rooms. “Do you mind if I—?”
“Really?” He sounded intrigued. “So you can take the girl out of the tree house...”
Windows rolled down, sunglasses on, her hair blowing, Sierra sped into the mountains in search of the farm supplying the wildflowers for the night’s dinner party. Ethan navigated on his phone, and they found the weathered barn in the middle of nowhere, just a half hour out of town. The proprietor, a woman in denim and chambray whom Sierra recognized from her favorite flower stand at the farmers’ market, had gathered bunches upon bunches—black-eyed Susans, New England asters, firewheels, cornflowers, lilies in violet, golden and cherry hues—all bound and nestled in buckets, ready for transporting. Ethan and Sierra simply needed to load them into the truck.
In the distance, Sierra spied the fields where the flowers had been plucked.
“You’re welcome to have a look around,” the woman told them and then went back into the barn.
They had time, so Sierra drove them up the dirt path, arriving at the field of lilies and sunflowers. They ran through, holding out their arms on either side, fingertips grazing the blooms, like athletes low-fiving fans as they rushed into a stadium.
Ethan stopped after what felt like half the length of a football field. “So, I’m generally emphatically anti-selfie,” he called out.
“Same,” Sierra agreed, turning around and stopping herself.
“But...wanna make ’em sorry they’re not here?” He meant Harlow and Alex.
She smiled and pulled out her phone. “Challenge accepted. Act like you’re a narcissist who doesn’t know he’s a narcissist,” she joked.
They snapped themselves with the barn and mountains in the background, and lay on their backs laughing as they took shots in the sunshine, flowers surrounding them.
“You know...” Ethan said, beside her in the field, the sky bright blue with streaks of cirrus like swipes of paint. “I probably shouldn’t say this because she’s your roommate and all...”
“Harlow,” Sierra said to the sky.
“Yeah, I hope you know, she just, she doesn’t think, that’s why she says some of the stuff she does. And I think it’s very...generous of you to not, like, want to knock her out half the time.”
Sierra laughed. “Well, what kind of roommate would I be if I did that?”
“A perfectly justified one.”
For a few peaceful moments, Sierra forgot about auditions or expectations or pressures or falling short.
Before they left, they raced, climbing to the top of the tree beside their truck. Perched on the branches beside him, she could have stayed there all day.