Ethan couldn’t believe this was really happening. He replayed the afternoon in his head, again, as he walked back to the dorm to prepare for the night’s performance. He wasn’t even technically an understudy for Romeo, but Miles had hatched this plan weeks ago, so Ethan had learned the entire Romeo part, studied how Chase played it opposite Charlie, memorized every movement down to the detail, in order to seamlessly assume the role. Nicholas Blunt had even held a special rehearsal to run the major scenes—balcony, sword fights, death, the usual suspects.
But it was Act One, Scene Five, that first kiss at the Capulet ball, that had been the most invigorating. Or at least, as invigorating as something could be when it was also terrifying and choreographed and the director watching them was his costar’s ex-boyfriend. In his very limited stage career of student productions, Ethan had never kissed anyone onstage on whom he’d had a crush offstage. He always wondered if the heart would understand that this was acting or be fooled into believing this was real. The answer, he discovered, after the wave of fear as he leaned toward Charlie and the shock of his lips connecting with hers, was that the heart—his heart—was smarter than he’d expected. It knew and was swiftly overridden by his brain, which instructed his head to lean to the right so as not to block Charlie from the audience’s view and that he should hold her hand and that it should last approximately four seconds and that he had a line immediately after, and she did too, and then another kiss, and that above all, he had to do this well. The Actor Ethan had to remain present and in control and active in order to appear worthy of performing opposite someone like Charlie. The heart knew.
When Miles had informed him that he’d taken up a collection among the employees of North End Cinema to raise funds to install Ethan in his dream role for a night (it had cost $501, a dollar above the second-highest bid), Ethan was touched. But why would you even do that? he had laughed. He couldn’t resist asking.
Because I think you’ll remind her of herself, when she started out, Miles had told him. And I think it would do her some good to remember that. Things like passion, you know?
Ethan felt like there had to be more to it than that—it was a lot of money—but he let it go. He didn’t want to talk Miles out of it.
Sierra thought Ethan was kidding when his text popped up on her phone just fifteen minutes before showtime: are you busy? can you come back here a minute?
backstage???? Sierra typed.
yes. greenroom. closet.
She excused herself from Fiona and the intense debate the directing apprentices were waging about the most overrated auteurs of the twenty-first century, and slipped out the main doors to the corridor that fed like an artery into the backstage maze.
In the greenroom, Harlow, Alex and the other apprentices in Romeo laughed and talked, spirits too high to even notice Sierra. She rapped on the closet door and then opened it: Ethan sat on a backward folding chair. Makeup on, hair slicked, in costume.
“Well, you look good at least, and that’s, like, half the battle,” she said.
He wore jeans, the requisite white button-down, open collar, sleeves rolled up above his elbow. The same shirt that she was so used to admiring on Chase. And the very same one that she had ironed crisply only hours earlier. The ink of his mechanical bull half-sleeve tattoo—which she had learned was meant to imply the intersection of old and new, a metaphor for the expansion of his family’s business, because this was the fascinating way Ethan’s brain worked—visible through the translucent broadcloth. He still said nothing.
“Okay, blink twice if you’re okay, Romeo.” She leaned down, looking in his eyes. He blinked once. “Good enough.” She sat on the floor in front of him. “They’re still making you change in here?” she asked, to lighten things. “Don’t they know who you are?”
“Exactly.” He spoke finally. “I’m nobody. What am I doing here?”
“No, what am I doing here? You’re about to go on in—” she glanced at her watch “—seven minutes?”
“Is this crazy?” He looked at her now, serious.
“Which part?” she whispered. “The part where you somehow got friends to put up the cash at the silent auction to request you to star opposite Charlie. Savoy. Tonight? As Romeo? Or...”
“Yeah, all of it,” he said. “And I’m paying them back. Somehow.” He was on his feet, pacing now, which was hard to do in such cramped quarters. “And I’ve spent a lot of money at that movie theater, so it’s sort of even anyway—”
“Listen,” she cut him off, grabbing his shoulders to stop him, looking into his dark eyes as she had that very first day on the field. “I’ll tell you the part that isn’t crazy, and that’s you as Romeo. You know how to do that, no matter who’s starring opposite you.”
A sudden scurrying and calling out of directions and names filtered through the walls.
He took a deep breath. “Text me at intermission and tell me if I’m a complete disaster?”
“No.” She smiled. “You got this. Break a leg.”
Ethan had never experienced this. Had never had his own emotions bleed so completely into a role that he had to continually remind himself that what happened onstage wasn’t real. But even though his heart might’ve known he wasn’t Romeo and Charlie wasn’t Juliet and they weren’t star-crossed and weren’t in love, something about it all was true: within the confines of this specific performance, under those particular lights, on this night, there were sparks. The professional sparks, the necessary ones that the audience feels when everyone is doing their job. Chemistry. He had known it in his first scene with Charlie. He had known it without having to glance at the second row during the curtain call to find Miles, wiping a tear. Or when he saw Sierra standing in applause. Even before Charlie had whispered into his ear, “Nice, Mercutio,” as they took their bow.
After the hugs and the molting of the costumes and the greetings of the audience and the harboring of secrets and the introductions, they walked to the Fourteenth Line all together. Miles had advised him to pretend they didn’t know each other and he would call him “Ethan” instead of “Rob.” “I think we should forget about that letter, trust me, you’re doing fine without it,” Miles whispered on the way there. “And I’m not sure it would help her to know you wrote it.”
“No, it’s supposed to help me for her to know.” Ethan was confused. For some reason he had expected tonight would finally be the big reveal. “I spilled my guts out in there and my heart and...everything. I thought you thought she should know that.”
“No, I think you should just keep your guts and heart where they are now.” Miles said it kindly, with certainty, and made his way into the Fourteenth Line. Ethan followed the group, trying to make sense of this, but didn’t understand. He felt deflated. His truest self was in that letter and he had spent so much time imagining Charlie reading it, and those words meaning something to her, that he wasn’t sure he could just let it go.
Charlie was surrounded by her castmates and friends, including Marlena Andes. (The Marlena Andes—Ethan almost couldn’t fully absorb that another star of that wattage had watched him tonight and she had even told him, You were beautiful.) But now Ethan felt his postshow luster and confidence rapidly fading as he retreated to the periphery of Charlie’s circle, watching instead of participating. Back to himself. The thrill wearing off, leaving him only with a sense of disappointment. A swift mood swing and adrenaline crash as epic as the surge he had experienced preshow.
He guzzled his beer then switched to a Vodka Red Bull.
“Not the ending you hoped tonight?” Sierra asked, knocking her shoulder against his.
He shook his head. “You know when you build something up in your mind?”
She smiled and exhaled. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Of course you do, sorry.” He thought back to that night Chase had given her Harlow’s necklace. “You always get it. Thank you for always getting it, not making me feel like a total idiot.”
“I’m an idiot too, so it’s cool.”
Walking back to their dorm, Ethan’s hands buried in his pockets, he struggled to find the words. “I’m not sure what I expected,” he said, still embarrassed.
“I’m familiar with that feeling,” she said.
But he couldn’t stop himself. “I wrote Charlie a letter.”
“Like tonight? On a cocktail napkin or something?”
“No,” he said. “Before we got here, before I even knew she would be here.”
“Wait, what?”
“For this drama class we had to write to someone we admired and tell them why.”
“A fan letter.”
“Yeah, but, I don’t know, more about art and the imprint it makes on your soul kind of thing.”
“Wow, okay.”
“So, you know, she owns that movie theater in the North End.”
“I guess I heard about that. I don’t really get out much,” she said, softly.
“So I go there all the time because it’s close by and I have, like, no friends—”
“I’m sure that’s not true—”
“Trust me,” he said. “I never see her there, but I got to know Miles pretty well, and mentioned to him that I had this letter and I wasn’t ever going to actually give it to her, but then he told me I should because that would be good for her to hear, so I showed it to him—” they reached the Quad and he lay down on the ledge surrounding the flower beds, still talking, as though on the couch in a therapist’s office “—and Miles decided he would give it to her, and vouch that I’m not crazy—” He paused a moment, looked up at her. She had sat down beside him on the ledge and smiled at this.
“I know, debatable—” he said.
“No. You’re the least crazy person I know,” she said.
“Anyway, he gave it to Charlie.”
“And she never said anything?”
“I don’t know if she ever even read it. If she did then I don’t think she knows it’s me. I signed it Robert, you know, before I tried to become this actor, or whatever,” he said. “But anyway, the day Miles passed it along to her, she had the car accident that night.”
“Wow, that sounded really horrific, but somehow she was completely okay—”
“I know. And there was never the right time for—”
“You’ve gotta tell her—” she cut him off.
“Wait.” He sat up. “I mean, you think?”
“I don’t even know what it said, but I know you and yeah.” She nodded. “If you were, you know, creepy or ugly or something, then I’d be like, ‘Hey, maybe just forget that note.’”
“Thanks—” He lay down again, this time his head on her lap.
“But I just feel like, people should know they matter to you,” she said. “I mean, wouldn’t you love to, matter to someone?” She paused a moment, her eyes up at the stars. He felt himself drifting off to sleep, listening as she went on. “Maybe that’s not the best example, because you know, you matter to me, or whatever. You know what I mean, I don’t know...”
Charlie and Marlena closed the place down, outlasting even Chase, who tried to walk Marlena to her hotel but was thwarted. “Girl talk,” Marlena explained.
As soon as he took his leave—kissing Marlena on the cheek—Marlena, all six feet of her in heels, looked at Charlie from the corner of her eye. “Chase is still annoyingly gorgeous.”
“True,” Charlie said, as though it were fact.
“Anything there?” Marlena asked, an eyebrow cocked.
“Oh, God, no!” Charlie said. “We were destined to be just a one-night stand.”
“Good to know,” Marlena said mischievously. “In that case—” But she was interrupted by a trio of drunken collegians spilling out of King’s.
“We love you, Marlena!”
“Are you gonna live? PLEEEASE!” They all shouted over each other, referencing the season’s cliff-hanger.
“Love you too!” She waved as they walked on. “We’ll see! Keep watching!” She blew them a kiss.
“See, you are so good at this,” Charlie said.
“Not really, just in the zone right now.” She smoothed back her blond curls. “But, you know the real me is like, ‘Do you love me? Do I love me? Please love me! Keep loving me! Someone!’” Marlena laughed at herself and Charlie did too.
“That I get,” Charlie said, speaking for herself. “And I love you.”
“You better.” Marlena linked arms with her. “And while we’re on the subject—as I was saying, if you all are strictly platonic—”
“Chase? One thousand percent yes—”
“Then I have to tell you—” She turned to face Charlie, her eyes brightening beneath luscious lashes. “Chase totally held my hand! Tonight. After the show!”
“What? Tell me everything,” Charlie said, excited.
“No, that’s everything, but, like, backstage. I mean, he. Grabbed. My. Hand. And held it. Like this.” She took Charlie’s hand in both of hers. “And said he was glad I was here...” Marlena started walking again.
“That is very interesting,” Charlie said, wheels turning.
“Do not tell him I told you.” She pointed at Charlie.
“And, he kissed you.”
“Just on the cheek,” Marlena said.
“You’ve had a crush on him since we met—”
“Guilty. But, I mean, nothing could happen. Unless...” She trailed off. “But, no, that’s a big unless.”
“He’s changed, I think, actually.” Charlie had felt a shift in him ever since that night on her balcony. “So, you just never know, is all. Unless you go for it.”
“We’ll see. I’ll be back to see Midsummer—you’re turning me into such a Shakespeare junkie,” Marlena said. “And in the meantime, your costar is delicious. In case you hadn’t noticed.” She meant Mercutio, who had played Romeo opposite her Juliet tonight, and gave Charlie a look.
“Overlooking the fact that he’s young enough to be my child, if I had been a teen mom—”
“You with all your excuses—” Marlena cut in.
“I just think I already have enough extracurricular drama with the people in this production,” she laughed, holding open the door into the hotel lobby.
“Just have fun,” she cooed. “I mean, act like you’re having fun. Get me?”
“Ohhh.” Charlie stopped, a revelation. “Like, in front of Nick?”
“Seriously, you didn’t think of that on your own?” Marlena shook her head, curls bouncing. “Where’s your game, girl? Thank God I’m here.”