Sierra arrived early to the lake, skipping their morning lecture to be there. She found a spot under a shady elm and tried to keep from jumping out of her skin at the thought of having to perform for Charlie Savoy. She had stayed up half the night practicing, memorizing, trying to make these few lines her own.
When Charlie emerged from the break in the trees, only ten minutes late, Sierra exhaled.
Charlie took a seat beside Sierra on the grass. “Showtime, Puck,” she said, no small talk, stretching her legs out in front of her.
“Absolutely.” Sierra bounced up to her feet, shaking out her limbs, closed her eyes, opened them again. And she began, eyes on a knobby tree in the distance, “‘If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is—’” She made the mistake of glancing at Charlie midperformance. Her stare was so penetrating that Sierra stopped herself. “Just real quick—”
“Whoa, what are you doing?” Charlie asked, sitting up now.
“I just had a question,” Sierra tried again.
“No. First, go. Questions later.”
Sierra nodded and began again. She made it through the entire thing—that whole long minute—and thought she had done not terribly. But Charlie said nothing, just wound her hair up into a loose topknot; it had already grown hot, even in the shade. Sierra, standing perfectly still, interpreted the action as a bad review: your audience should forget whether they’re hot or cold or hungry.
“Why do you do this, anyway?” Charlie asked, squinting in the glare of the late-morning sun, hand shielding her eyes.
“Me? Theater?” Sierra asked, watching a group of students setting towels on the slim strip of sand near the water.
Charlie just nodded.
“To feel...at home,” she said, hoping it sounded important enough. It was the purest truth. “Or more than that, somewhere between comfort and thrill or adrenaline and escape. I can’t explain it.” She shook her head, embarrassed not to be able to put something that should be so obvious into words.
“Sure, transcendence,” Charlie said easily. “That’s why I’m here. That’s what I’m chasing too. Every damn day.” She tossed this out, breezily, but it felt profound to Sierra. That was exactly what she searched for and, on the good days, could find.
“Yes,” Sierra said solemnly.
“That’s a good reason, by the way,” Charlie went on, slapping Sierra on the back. “Again.” She gestured. Then, remembering, “Wait, you had a question.”
Sierra feared it would sound too rookie after this moment of deep understanding between them. But she asked anyway, gently. “It’s just, you do know that this is on every list of audition monologues to avoid because they’re so overdone?” Sierra had discovered that during some research.
“Yep,” Charlie said, dusting some dirt off the leg of her jeans. “I know.”
“Then why—?”
“If you can do something like this and turn heads, then you can do anything,” she said. “And if you saw those lists then so did a lot of other people, so there’s a good chance you could be the only one gutsy enough to try this.”
“Ohhh.” It was like a light bulb exploding. “Counterintuitive. Reverse psychology. I like that.”
“Just like, do we think Nick Blunt is the first guy to ever think of staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the middle of the summer? No,” Charlie laughed. “So we’re all just fucking hoping he’s got some new ideas for this thing. Think of it this way—we need to inspire him. You need to inspire him. Inspire me.” She shrugged, like this was an easy request.
“Got it,” Sierra said, though she wasn’t sure she actually did have it.
“It’s okay, use your neuroses—”
“Absolutely, neuroses.” Great, now Charlie thought she was crazy.
“—or whatever you’ve got.” Charlie leaned back on her elbows.
Sierra closed her eyes, thinking of the last time she felt true peace. Transcendence. She started again, those first two lines, but on the third—“‘That you have but slumbered here...’”—her body propelled itself, without a plan, up into the elm tree, nestling on a low branch just above Charlie. “‘While these visions did appear...’” Stretching out like a sleeping cat, taking her time before the next line.
Sierra had sufficiently blacked out in the middle, which she hoped meant that that part had worked, and by the time she reached the end—“‘Give me your hands, if we be friends...’”—she was back on the ground beside Charlie, who had held out her own hands for Sierra to take. On the final line, she looked in Charlie’s eyes. They were a lush green she had never noticed before, probably because Sierra had been scared to look directly at this woman—much like the sun—for too long.
Charlie smiled in a serene way that made the world stop. “Nice,” she said.
It was one word but so much more. Sierra remembered Ethan describing a compliment from Charlie that way, and now she understood.
“I told you. Do it again and then I’ve got a stand-in for the tree. We’ll talk after...” Charlie said, anticipating Sierra’s next question: how to translate this to a theater devoid of leafy vegetation.
As one o’clock approached, they walked back into town together, Charlie telling her simply, “Just do what you just did.”
“If I could only remember that every time then it would be so much easier,” Sierra said. “I should tattoo it on my arm.”
“Not a bad idea.” Charlie smiled, watching the shop windows along Warwickshire.
“Did this one hurt?” Sierra touched the nape of her own neck.
“Oh, this.”
“I have no ink, so I know nothing,” Sierra went on. “But maybe if I ever get the nerve...” She felt less cool the more she spoke, so she stopped.
“It did hurt, actually,” Charlie said like it was a secret, tapping the bird delicately. “But I never tell anyone that.”
“Nicholas has one too.” Sierra shocked herself by mentioning this.
“See, that was great acting,” Charlie laughed. “I almost believed you thought it might be pure coincidence that we both have these.”
Sierra watched Charlie from the corner of her eye, worried she’d offended her. “Sorry, if I—”
“Nooo,” Charlie said, buoyant enough. “It was a long time ago, first time I was here. We met here.” She put her hands in her jeans pockets, slowed her pace. “It was kind of a secret. We snuck off campus. It was sort of to commemorate the end of that summer...” She trailed off.
“I think that’s amazing and romantic.”
“Or maybe insane,” Charlie said lightly. “Either way.”
They had reached the theater, too soon for Sierra.
“Do it like you just did,” Charlie said again, turning to leave.
“Thank you, Charlie!” Sierra called out, though the words didn’t seem enough. But there was one more thing she had to ask. “Wait!” She took a few steps as Charlie faced her again. “Why did you want to help me?”
“Why did you help me?” Charlie asked, rather than answer.
“I’m fascinated by how you do what you do. How you make these lines I’ve heard a million times sound new, how somehow there’s you in these parts even though they were written a million years ago when no one like you was around.”
“No one like me?” Charlie seemed surprised.
“Fiery and commanding and not caring—”
“I care—” Charlie said, a statement, not a defense.
“No, I know, I mean, not caring about what anyone thinks, doing everything your own way.”
“For better or worse,” Charlie laughed.
“I once read that experiences, even ugly ones, are useful, a well to draw from—” She had read it in an interview of Charlie’s referencing her arrest in her late teens.
“True,” Charlie said, appreciative, as though recognizing the words as her own.
“And also, I don’t know if you know this, but there’s something that happens when you and Nicholas are together, an energy or something—”
“That’s probably just years of unresolved issues. We should be in couple’s therapy even though we’re not actually—”
“No. It works.” Sierra felt it was important for her to know. “He’s excited around you—he’s boring anytime he’s ever lectured. But when you’re around, it’s different. It’s the kind of thing I always thought happened all the time in theater, but I’ve never actually seen before now.” She felt she was talking too much. “So anyway, I’m here for anything that facilitates that.”
Charlie nodded, looked away a moment. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. And added finally, “Now don’t be late. He hates when people are late.”