The cast began rehearsing The Tempest, and when Charlie and Nick weren’t at work on that show—which involved constant hushed meetings with Mason to devise effects so special few would be permitted to even know about them—then they were preparing another show entirely.
Charlie couldn’t believe she and Nick were actually doing this: they would shoot a few behind-the-scenes videos to send to media and post online. They had tapped Fiona to help them, pairing her with Simon, who would be pitching in long-distance from London to edit the project. They could only trust a few people. What they had planned for opening night was so elaborate that even Charlie was nervous.
The final show wasn’t the only thing on her mind.
“Brace yourself,” Charlie said to Marlena as they walked back to Hathaway House, bags slung over their shoulders, stage makeup still on, fresh off yet another full-house standing ovation for the night’s Midsummer performance. They had just a week left of the run. “I’m about to get freakishly emotional.” She glanced at her friend from the corner of her eye.
“Are we talking tears here?” Marlena said lightly. Charlie gave her a look that said, Absolutely not. “Kidding. I’m the crier here. We all know that. But, okay, ready for it.”
“You know how Nick’s been doing so much and we only see him at rehearsals and he has a lot on his mind—” she said, tense. It was nearly midnight, fireflies lighting the way as they passed the museum.
“Yeah, but The Tempest opens in one week, so that’s kind of intense—”
“I know, I get that, I’m great at getting that, but last time he did this—”
“Dawn of the Super Id.”
“—when he resurfaced, he had this plan devised that I couldn’t go along with—to do this terrible movie without reworking it, without taking the time, without the collaboration. And I had to walk away.”
“You guys literally weren’t on the same page of the same script.”
“Exactly,” she said, as Marlena unlocked the door of Hathaway House, letting them in. Marlena went straight for the bottle of rosé from the night before. “He had all the wrong ideas. And then we were over and the movie happened and Jasmine happened and we had this cold war. And our careers fell apart in the process. Because you’re only as good as your last project, et cetera, violins, cautionary tale, the end.”
“Wow, that’s a hell of a montage when you lay it all out like that,” she said, pouring their glasses. “I would say you’ve just been taking an intermission.”
Charlie sighed as though not buying it.
“And I would also say,” Marlena went on. “Sure, so you don’t know what happens after The Tempest, at all. You don’t know where he goes, you don’t know what you’re going to do. Status quo or something gutsy.” She took a gulp of her wine. “Here’s the only thing that matters—do you know what you want? Just for you. What Charlie wants. Not about him. About you, about your life, your career, things you haven’t bothered considering for a while. And I love your movie theater, you know, I love everything you do, but you know what I’m talking about.”
Charlie took a deep breath as though about to dive from a cliff, studied her glass then looked at Marlena. She nodded. She did know. For the first time in years.
“Then that’s what you do. Scary as it is. And after this is over, then you’ll see if his script looks like yours.” She shrugged, took a sip of wine. “Can I rock a pep talk or what?”
“Not bad. So Dr. Stevens does make house calls?” she joked of Marlena’s TV character.
“Listen, this is a totally radical concept called friendship, not sure you’re familiar with how it works. You were there for me, you know? Remember my intermission? And my montage becoming me?” She topped off Charlie’s wine. “It was you holding my hand, talking and listening and researching and deliberating and scheduling and comforting and convalescing and encouraging and then finally, thank God, celebrating. So I’m here. For whatever’s coming at you.” She said it all easily, glossed over, in her way.
“That’s good because I have no idea what’s coming in the next fucking act.” And she was nervous, for the first time in years, but it meant that she cared.
“Cheers to that.” Marlena clinked her glass against Charlie’s.
Two days before opening, Charlie had a very different role to play. She sat down on a wooden stool before a camera set up in one of the rehearsal studios.
“So Nick did this? Already?” she asked Fiona.
“He did, indeed, just yesterday,” Fiona said, adjusting the camera on its tripod.
Charlie pulled her hair up in a topknot. She and Nick had discussed doing a few “very short confessionals” talking about each other, but she realized now that they had neglected to go over what each of them would say. It was Charlie’s inclination to skim the surface, play it safe—exactly the opposite of how she behaved on stage. This just wasn’t her kind of performance. Nick’s either. She inhabited other people’s stories. She didn’t share her own. But to preserve this place, she would make the sacrifice.
“Ready when you are,” Fiona said. “I’ll get that—” she pointed to Charlie’s lark tattoo “—at the end.”
“So he did talk about that...” Charlie said to herself. “Any chance I could maybe—?”
“I know what you’re asking,” Fiona said, still setting up her shot. “We’ll make a deal.” She spoke directly to Charlie now. “After we shoot this, I’ll let you see his clip. Then you can even reshoot if you want.”
Charlie exhaled, tentative. “Okay, fine.”
“Rolling.” Fiona signaled. “Total softball question. Why do you think you two work well together?”
“I guess that sort of presupposes that we do,” Charlie laughed, looking away a moment; this was going to be harder than she’d thought. She drummed her fingers against her lips. “He can do things I can’t, which is always exotic and mysterious. He’s all structure, foundation. Where I jump first and just explode at everything.” She considered their years. There was so much she could say, but not here, not like this. “He hears me and listens too—and those aren’t the same. Many directors do neither.” She stared off, smiling softly. “If I had words for it, then it wouldn’t be very special, would it? I can’t define it. But it’s always been there. And it’s unlike anything I’ve found anywhere else.” She paused a moment, looked not at the camera, but at Fiona. “What?”
The girl seemed disappointed in some way. “I think you’re holding back,” Fiona said, boldly. “There’s got to be an example you can give or something. All your history together...”
Rather than bristling at this, Charlie actually felt proud: Fiona sounded like a director, a good one, one who wasn’t afraid to challenge Charlie. And also, if Charlie could admit it, she knew Fiona was right. She looked at the ceiling now, big surrendering exhalation, and back at the camera. For once Charlie truly thought about what she was going to say before she said it. Turned it over in her mind, smoothing it like a river rock, deciding it was something a person deserved to know, that Nick deserved to know. And this might be as good a place as any to share it.
“Well, there is one thing,” Charlie started slowly, her tone heavier now. “I heard Nick’s voice, that night in the harbor...that night, you know, the night of the car accident.” She looked away. “I know, he wasn’t there or anything, but I heard him anyway and it sort of...woke me up. That night. Got me back up to the surface. You know what I mean?” She worried she wasn’t making sense but it was the best she could do. She hadn’t realized how hard it would be to hear those words out loud, to admit that he had remained part of her all that time, even while they blamed each other for downward-spiraling careers, even when they weren’t speaking.
Fiona looked directly at her, asked in a soothing voice, “Does he know that?”
“Not yet,” Charlie sighed. “But he will when he sees this.”
“Is that okay?” Fiona asked, making sure.
“I guess it’s gonna have to be.”
True to her word, Fiona sent Charlie the clip of Nick, or a link to access it. She watched it that night on her phone, up on her balcony overlooking the town.
“What’s special about Charlie...?” Nick had repeated Fiona’s question on the video, grimacing. “I can’t believe we agreed to this. Okay. I hope this is gonna be okay with her.” He looked worried, which made Charlie smile because she still couldn’t believe she had revealed what she had. “She brings the life to everything, in case you hadn’t noticed. And without fire, you have nothing. It’s not something as readily available in the world as you might think. Plenty of people think they have it—and are wrong. If you have it you probably don’t even know. It’s definitely not something that I have.” He laughed at himself. “I mean, obviously, these—” he slapped his neck as though killing a mosquito there “—these were her idea, a long time ago. And it reminds me every day of what I could be...” He trailed off, changed course. “I’ll just say this, there is no one like her. If you’ve been near that and you somehow lose it, you do everything you can to get it back and then you don’t let go.” He folded his arms across his chest, gazing at his feet. “She’s the voice in my head. Even in those years when she wasn’t really speaking to me, she was still the voice in my head.” He ran his hand through his hair, looked up and stared right into the camera. “I feel like I said too much. I’m not good at this.”
Charlie had been so taken with his video—comforted by his words, set at ease by the raw candor that seemed to match her own—that she hadn’t realized the next clip loaded automatically: it was Sierra.
“This is going to sound crazy,” Sierra said into a mirror, wiping off her stage makeup after what must have been the Black Box dress rehearsal. “I never thought I would have people like Marlena Andes and Chase Embers and Charlie Savoy and Nicholas Blunt clear their schedule to come to some show that I happen to be in.” She whispered, shaking her head, “I’m terrified of messing everything up. Which I did at the start of the summer and I do not want to do that again. But if I’m being honest, like I’m supposed to be, I guess...” She looked to the side of the camera, as though for prompting from Fiona. “Then, weirdly, seeing Ethan out there opening night is going to be even more terrifying. I want him to think I’ve done something this summer, because I remember how I felt watching him the first time as Mercutio, you know? And I want him to feel that too. A version of that, because that feeling is, like, life-changing. Don’t tell him,” she said and then laughed at herself. “Well, I guess he’ll know at some point. Obviously. Unless this gets edited out.” Her eyes lit up, as though an idea struck. “Wait, what did he say?”
Ethan’s clip was there too, and now Charlie had to watch. Fiona had recorded it during his shift at the pub. She asked him about the future.
“Back to school in a couple weeks and then, I don’t know, more of this,” he said. “I mean, the drama part, not the waiter part. Although, that too, actually.”
Fiona’s voice asked about Sierra. “I don’t know what she’s thinking but...between you and me and whoever watches this, I guess I’d say...well, one of my first nights as Mercutio, she made me sign a photo, which was so kind but I always got a solid friend vibe from her, so, you know, anyway, I signed this thing and it was after this night onstage and I was just feeling, everything, and I started to sign it ‘love,’ without thinking but then caught myself, and sort of fixed it, but anyway, this summer has been...everything. We go to school just miles from each other. And I’m hoping maybe she needs someone to go to Cape Cod with at the end of the summer...” He trailed off, wistful.
That was the end of the footage. It had gotten Charlie thinking about opening night for The Tempest. Maybe there was time to make one more change.