It’s too dangerous for the actors to go onto the set pieces, so scene after scene plays out on the few feet of stage floor in front of the set. Every design element that Derek built—all the ladders, pulleys, ramps, and staircases—has to be abandoned. The production is stripped down to nothing but actors and light.
The techies work together backstage keeping the pathways clear, leading actors in and out of the Cave, then walking them onstage so nobody gets hurt.
Mr. Apple and I stand together in the wings making decisions about everything. We decide the fairies should have glow sticks, the humans flashlights, and the actors—Shakespeare calls them mechanicals—glow bracelets and a bunch of lanterns. We give one of the actors a big emergency light, and he uses it like a spotlight on the mechanicals during their rehearsal scenes.
The audience barely stirs during most of the show. They laugh from time to time, which is a good sign, but I can’t tell if they’re laughing at us or with us. And most of the time it’s so quiet I don’t know if they’re awake or asleep.
The night goes by in a blur, bodies moving in the darkness, actors’ faces seen in the beams of the techies’ flashlights.
Summer passes me a dozen or more times during the night, but we don’t speak again.
I keep hoping she might say something to break the ice, but she never does.
At one point near the end of the show, Johanna finds me backstage.
“Adam, what do you think if Wesley and Peter steal my flashlight in this scene? They’re not in love with me anymore, so maybe they just grab it and give it to Summer.”
I’m so startled she’s talking to me, I don’t answer.
“Is it a terrible idea?” she says.
“No, it’s a great idea. It’s funny,” I say.
“Do you think so?”
“Sure. And at the end of the play when things are back to normal, they can return it to you.”
“That’s great!” she says, and gives me a big smile.
“You’re so nice. Why didn’t I know this?”
“Because you’re always with Reach when you see me. And I’m a bitch when I’m around him.”
“But why?”
“You don’t know?” she says. “You two are such good friends, I just assumed—”
I shrug.
“Okay, here’s the thing,” she says. “He asked me out.”
“He did not,” I say.
“Like a hundred times. I told him I wasn’t interested, but he kept sending me cards, notes, even a Vermont Teddy Bear.”
“No way,” I say.
“The fifteen-inch Chic Shopper Bear. He sewed his name onto its shirt and built a tiny prop Macy’s bag because he knows that’s my favorite store.”
“Holy crap. That does sound like Reach.”
“When he wouldn’t back off, I had to be mean until he got the message.”
Ignacio interrupts us.
“Cue coming up,” he whispers.
“So that’s the story,” she says to me. “Sorry I’ve been flaming you all year.”
“What about the stuff you said a few days ago? Did you really think I sabotaged the show?”
“Honestly? I wasn’t sure.”
“What do you think now?”
“Now it’s obvious,” she says.
“We need you onstage,” Ignacio says to her.
“What’s obvious?” I say.
“You didn’t sabotage it. You saved it.”
She gives me a quick hug and heads onstage for her scene.
Mr. Apple beckons to me from the Cave.
“I want to give everyone candles for the last scene,” he says. “What do you think?”
I imagine the wedding ceremony playing out in candlelight.
“I like it,” I say.
“Make it happen,” Mr. Apple says.
I grab a bag of tea light candles. Grace, Reach, and I pass out paper plates to put under them so the actors won’t burn their hands. Before I know it, we’ve sent twenty-five actors onstage in a long candlelit procession humming “One Hand, One Heart” from West Side Story.
Hubbard, the actor who plays Puck, is last in line. Mr. Apple holds onto her elbow, whispering instructions into her ear. Then he sends her onstage, too.
I turn towards the Cave to make sure we didn’t forget anyone, and Derek is there.
“Well played,” he says. “This whole evening. Bravo.”
“I tried to save the show,” I say.
“You did,” Derek says. “Tonight you are a hero.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“But everything we talked about for next year? Forget it. You’ll never get near another light, not as long as I have anything to say about it. And I’m going to have a lot to say, at least according to Mr. Apple. He offered me my own show next year. Can you believe that? Direct and design on the big stage. Recompense for my covering his ass when he freaked out.”
“You’re going to direct a whole show?” I say.
“A musical,” Derek says. “Maybe my production of Wicked will finally come to fruition. We shall see.”
“Congratulations,” I say.
“Thank you so much,” he says with a smile. “So enjoy your night, Z. It’s a big one for you. Your first lighting design … and your last.”
Mr. Apple appears with a flashlight in hand.
“Come on, lad,” he says to me. “I want you to see this.”
He walks me to the wings. I glance back at Derek. I see him grinning at me, his teeth ghostly white in the darkness.
Mr. Apple positions us so we have a view of the stage.
It’s beautiful. There are candles everywhere. It doesn’t feel like a play at all, more like a celebration at night in someone’s backyard.
“Watch this,” Mr. Apple says.
The final speech in the play belongs to Puck. Mr. Apple has directed it so the entire cast is onstage, all of them frozen except Puck. Puck comes forward to speak to the audience.
HUBBARD
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended …
I never paid attention to the ending much before, but listening to it now makes me angry. It seems like Shakespeare’s big apology. He writes a whole play about how you can’t trust love, and then at the end he chickens out and ties up the loose ends.
HUBBARD
You have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
I’m not opposed to a happy ending, but how realistic is that? Shakespeare sends Puck out to say, Sorry if I scared you. Maybe it was all a dream.
If I believe that, then maybe I believe my life is a dream. I didn’t almost get Summer and lose her, Reach isn’t mad at me, and Grace’s heart isn’t broken. Maybe Derek isn’t going to destroy me after the show. Maybe I’ll get offstage tonight and Dad will be there with Josh and Mom, the three of them laughing and waiting to congratulate me.
My own perfect happy ending.
“Are you watching, lad?” Mr. Apple says.
He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
I look at the candles spread across the stage, flickering like a field of stars.
I look at Summer, beautiful in candlelight.
It’s a perfect moment.
Then Puck walks over to Jazmin—and blows out her candle.
Puck blows out Johanna’s. And Wesley’s. She continues down the line, blowing out the candles one by one.
This is what Mr. Apple wanted me to see. The fairies are supposed to bless everyone at the end of the play. But Puck is doing the opposite. She’s extinguishing each flame.
Mr. Apple has shifted the entire meaning of the play. It’s not a story about a world that went wrong for a time then returned to normal. It’s more complex than that. Things happen, and who knows why? We have to find a way to deal with it.
I look back at Mr. Apple, and he throws me a wink.
“It’s amazing what a little inspiration can do,” he says.
“Are you still going to quit?” I say.
“I thought a lot about it,” Mr. Apple says. “You know what I realized?”
Puck walks to the front of the stage.
The entire theater is dark now, the audience silent.
There’s a single actor. A single candle.
“I’m a theater person,” Mr. Apple says. “This is my home.”
Puck holds out her candle, scanning the faces of the audience.
HUBBARD
So, good night unto you all …
Then something unexpected happens. Candle wax drips on Hubbard’s hand, and she shakes it in pain.
Her flame goes out, and the room is cast in total darkness.
I hold my breath.
I wait for the fear to come, but it doesn’t.
I look for my father in the dark, but he’s not there.
It’s just me and Mr. Apple offstage right, standing together.
A cheer rises from the audience. People are applauding wildly, shouting at the stage in excitement.
The rear doors of the theater open, and light floods in from emergency lights the fire department has set up in the hall.
Ignacio motions for the crew to follow him onstage, each one with a flashlight.
I don’t join them. I stay backstage and watch.
The audience continues to applaud. First the actors bow, then the techies, then everyone together.
Some of the techies call my name, just a few at first, then all of them. Soon the actors join in.
“Ad-am!” they shout over and over. And a few call out, “Z!”
I listen to the applause, people shouting my name. I look to see if Summer is shouting for me. She’s not.
“Are you going out?” Mr. Apple says.
I look over my shoulder. Derek is standing in shadow behind me. I can’t see his face, but I can sense him watching me.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Enjoy your moment in the spotlight,” Mr. Apple says. “You earned it.”
He nudges me onto the stage. The techies and actors turn their flashlights on me.
The audience cheers.
I hold my hand up over my face, trying to hide my zits. Then I take it down.
I stand and let everyone see me.
I even take a little bow, and the crowd goes wild.
I think of what Mr. Apple said about the first time he was onstage. I can sort of see why he liked it.
The audience continues to applaud. I take another little bow, and before the applause ends, I walk offstage.
I walk right past the actors and techies, past Derek and Mr. Apple—straight out the back of the theater. I walk down the hall of the theater department where I first saw Summer. I go out the back door of the school.
The lights of the fire trucks revolve slowly, bouncing red-yellow light across the asphalt.
I walk through the parking lot, and I don’t stop until I find Mom’s Volvo.
I send her a text, telling her I’m waiting for her at the car.
It’s not that I don’t like applause. It’s kind of nice.
But all those people looking at me—
There’s only so much a techie can take.