Denise finds this salmon-colored dress, with big sleeves that aren’t period-appropriate, but this is an emergency. The neckline is a little low and shows the few scraggly dark hairs growing in the valley of my chest. Liam used to like tickling them.
I’m about to shake off the memory but that will ruin Jamilah’s work on my makeup. Which is a rush job that mainly focuses on my eyes and lips. There’s no time for a wig, plus if I wear a wig I won’t be able to hear for all the hair scratching against my hearing aids—not to mention the risk of feedback—so I’m a short-haired Olivia, but whatever.
Laken pops her head in. Her show blacks and headset suit her. “How much longer?”
“Somethingsomething places,” Dr. L says, yanking on the laces at the back of my dress, forcing the breath out of my lungs. I might actually be Dorito-shaped, like Liam, when she’s done.
“Thank you, places.” Laken follows Jamilah out, letting the prop room door swing shut behind her.
Dr. Lochley gives one last, fierce yank and ties me off. She swings around to my front.
“You sure you want to do this? You know you don’t have to.”
“The show must go on, right?”
“The show must go on,” she agrees, thumbing away a bit of lipstick. “All set. You need a mirror?”
“Would it matter?”
She laughs. “At least let me take a picture. Your stage debut.”
“Okay.”
Dr. L pulls out her phone. “Thank you for stepping up. You didn’t have to.”
I think of everyone who worked so hard on the show. Afternoons of rehearsal and laughter. Movie night. Saturday work days. Liam.
“Yeah. I did.”
Dr. L smiles. “Well then, break a leg.” She opens the door for me. I step out into the hallway and bump right into Liam.
“Oh. Sorry.”
He’s in a dress too, a silver-blue number that perfectly matches his eyes. He’s in full makeup and a black wig that’s all curls and rings that perfectly frame his face.
He is breathtaking.
“Oh,” he says again. We’re chest to chest. “Jackson?”
“Hey.”
I forgot how tall he is. I swallow and stare up at him.
“I better—” He nods toward the stage doors, where the actors are already lined up.
“Yeah.”
But he doesn’t move. Instead, he reaches back and tucks in the laces Dr. L knotted off. I can barely breathe.
“Break a leg,” I manage to say.
“You too.”
Madison, in their checkered fool costume, and Peyton, who plays Maria (Olivia’s lady-in-waiting) stand in front of me, waiting for the scene change. My stomach ties itself into a clove hitch. There’s bile in the back of my throat. I never should’ve had so much dairy.
The stage doors have their windows blocked with BlackWrap, so we can’t see inside. I can’t hear what’s happening onstage, but Madison stands close, waiting for Peyton’s cue.
The line of light along the bottom of the door goes dark for scene change. I reach for the door—force of habit—but Madison grabs it, lets Peyton go first, and follows. The door swings shut again.
My stomach unravels and ties itself into a bowline instead. Darcy, who plays Malvolio, steps up next to me. She’s got a sharp, blue-black beard spirit-gummed to her chin and bushy eyebrows painted on over her real ones. She gives me a quick nod. I nod back.
I think I have to pee. I should’ve done that before getting into this dress. And I should’ve let Bowie know what happened, but my phone is still in my jacket. Are they worried? Annoyed?
Did I even remember to silence my phone before going out for water?
“Breathe,” Darcy says.
It doesn’t help at all.
But she grabs the door and prods me in the back to get me moving.
I step onto the stage, squinting at the lights. The audience is laughing, and for a second I’m convinced it’s at me, that one look was enough for them to realize how utterly ridiculous I am, to confirm that I don’t belong onstage, I belong in the back where no one can see or hear me. But then I notice Madison, making a fool of themself, and I relax a tiny bit.
They turn to me. “God bless thee, Lady.”
I try to summon the way Cam always did this bit, so haughty and full of himself.
“Take the fool away,” I command my retainers, two first years, Connor and Kieran.
But Madison gets a gleam in their eye, and they tell the retainers to take me away instead. They’ve got so much energy, and I don’t know how I’ll keep up with them because they have amazing comedic timing and I’m just, well, me. There’s a ringing in my ears, not from my hearing aids but from every nerve in my body being electrified.
I make the mistake of looking out into the audience at one point and catch Bowie, their mouth hanging open, watching me perform. But then they sign a quick You got this at me, and they’re right. I do got this. I match Madison beat for beat, I act from the inside out, I become the best Olivia I can become.
At least until Liam steps onstage.
He’s in his Cesario costume now, a blue waistcoat the same hue as his dress from earlier, puffy shorts, and black leggings, which make his legs look about a mile long. The stage lights catch the shine of his raven hair. And just like Olivia, I’m smitten.
It’s the easiest thing in the world, acting like I’m in love with him at first sight. Because first sight, twelfth sight, millionth sight, I will never stop loving him.
Liam meets my eyes, and my lungs fight against my corset. He’s right in front of me. I stare at him, and he stares back at me, until I realize he’s said his first line.
“Huh?”
That gets a chuckle from the audience. He blushes, even beneath his makeup, and repeats, “The honorable lady of the house, which is she?”
And I answer, “Speak to me, I shall answer for her. Your will?”
This is the most Liam’s spoken to me since we broke up. And the way he’s looking at me, I don’t know if it’s acting or if he really sees someone beautiful when he looks at me. I’m not sure I want to know.
My heart is pounding, but I think I’m actually having fun. I haven’t done this since middle school, and I’d forgotten how amazing it is: the audience’s emotions feeding me, the lights twinkling like stars high above, the feel of the stage beneath my feet. It’s terrifying and glorious and there’s nothing else like it. My body is flooded with adrenaline and there are times I forget who I am.
At intermission, Madison tucks a bottle of water into my hand. I’m sweating in the dress, and along my hairline, and the back of my neck. Even my underwear is chafing. I press the bottle against the back of my neck and against my pulse points.
“Drink,” they say. “Hydrate or die-drate.”
“Huh?” Maybe I heard them wrong. “Thanks.”
“You did good out there.”
I shake my head, but I can’t fight the smile.
“Thanks.”
Liam’s last scene had him exiting stage right, but I’m backstage left. Act III starts with our next scene together: the one where Olivia confesses her love.
And it’s like I poured the water bottle all over myself.
How am I supposed to do this?
Before I know it, Laken is calling places for the second half, and the lights are dimming, and Peyton is leading me back onstage. Everyone else exeunts, and then it’s just Cesario and Olivia.
Liam and me.