* * *
“I’m Sierra,” she said, as soon as Bradford wrapped the exercise with a classic “Annnnd scene.”
“Ethan,” he managed to tell her, shaking her hand, before the professor interrupted again. Sierra looked confused—understandably—glancing once more at the remaining half of his name tag, but follow-up questions would have to wait.
“Now! The main event!” Bradford stood on the bleachers. “I call it ‘Man Walks into a Room.’” Ethan had been subjected to a version of this exercise enough times to be wary: someone is a host, others join the party, playing roles the crowd shouts out along with an object they’re bringing. Sierra exhaled, as one might before scaling a rock wall. So Ethan felt emboldened.
“I know we’re supposed to be people who like improv, because we’re here,” he said. All around them people were already shouting (“Iguana!” “Taser!” “Genius Bar... Genius... Guy!” “Avocado toast!” “Beyoncé!”). “And we’re supposedly ‘actors.’” He made quotes around the word. “But, I mean—”
“Yeah, it’s not my thing either,” she said, sounding relieved to admit this.
Ethan preferred studying a role, slowly absorbing it into his bloodstream. He watched, supportive as so many others threw themselves wildly into the fire. He wished he had that unbridled confidence. Maybe this summer would change him.
“My roommate seems to enjoy it though.” Sierra pointed to a blonde hopping onto the bleachers who was instantly anointed “Marilyn Monroe with a chainsaw” by someone in the crowd.
“Sleep with one eye open,” Ethan said sarcastically.
The game finally ended with twenty apprentices on the bleachers—none of them him or Sierra—all frozen in various states of zaniness.
* * *
“So before we go on, I need to know the truth. Who...is...Robert...Summit?” Sierra asked pseudo-dramatically, as they walked back en masse from the field, the sun a golden haze beyond the mountains.
“He’s still figuring that out,” Ethan said, speaking in third person. “But he goes by his middle name, Ethan. At least, when it comes to this kind of thing—acting.” He felt a wave of shyness at the admission: he didn’t quite feel he had enough theater credits to warrant this. But he had to start somewhere.
“Stage name, sure, I get it,” she said, as they walked past restaurants and coffee shops filled with university summer students. “I have kind of an alter ego too. I’m really...an environmental science major.” She said it in the lowered tone others might reserve for vocations like assassin.
“No, it’s too much,” he joked, putting his hands up. “We just met.”
“I know,” she said, cringing. “It’s just, this is what I’d love to do.” She gestured toward the theater ahead—the historic white-painted brick playhouse evoking a long-ago era with its stately columns and pointed pediment. “But it seems not necessarily, practical? I might not be good enough. So while I figure that out, I’ll also be charting the return of an endangered plant. Don’t suppose you heard about the rare chaffseed found in Cape Cod a couple years ago? Hadn’t been seen in fifty years?” She laughed at herself.
“Uhhh, no.” He smiled slowly. “No, I did not.”
“Yeah, anyway,” she said, sheepish now. “I’m writing my senior thesis on it—”
“Wellesley?” He pointed to the “esley” remaining on her name tag.
She nodded. “So you’ll find me roaming Hopkins Forest in my free time and at the end of the summer I have to go to the Cape to check it out. Not exactly soul-awakening stuff...”
“I wouldn’t say that...”
She gave him a skeptical look and they both smiled. “But it’s the only way I got funded to come here,” she said. “So it’s for my parents, you know, sensible—”
“That I can understand. This place is my escape from the family business—” he started, infusing the words with a hint of terror.
“That sounds very Sopranos,” she said.
“Nothing criminal, promise,” he explained. “Dangerous but not criminal.” They crossed Stratford, their group arriving at the lush gardens of the Quad, set with long tables bearing the necessary barbecue staples—burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob—expertly arranged, a “Welcome Chamberlain Theater Apprentices!” banner strung between a pair of oak trees. “So, I’m a business major—”
“Harvard?” She glanced at his torn name tag as they reached the buffet line, the volume on the conversations around them dialing up now that the group had compressed.
“I’m a transfer student, so a misfit by definition,” he said, self-deprecatingly. He handed her a plate as they made their way down the line. “But my family owns a rodeo. So the bull-riding aspect—”
“Wow, yeah, that qualifies as danger—”
“There you are!” Marilyn Monroe with a chainsaw appeared before them. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” She didn’t let Sierra speak: “Harlow. Hunter,” she introduced herself, grabbing his arm aggressively enough that he nearly fumbled his plate. “You’re rooming with one of my dearest friends, Alex Xing?” she said. “We have a table over here, come!”
As Harlow pulled him away, Ethan caught Sierra’s eye and jokingly grimaced.
5
NO SPOILERS
June came too soon, as Charlie knew it would. Though sleep remained elusive, she remained unmedicated but busy enough to avoid thinking about her Chamberlain sentence: so much work to do in order to leave her precious art house behind for two months. She had hired extra staff for the summer to aid Miles—though he seemed more concerned with her. How do you and Nick Blunt plan to coexist for sixty days without murdering each other? he’d asked her daily. No spoilers, she’d always reply, since she didn’t actually know. Her relationship with Nick predated her friendship with Miles, but Miles had attended the infamous premiere, so Charlie imagined he had filled in the blanks with a cocktail of tasty gossip and fuzzy facts.
By the time Miles saw Charlie off at South Station though, he had settled into a forced optimism. (There’s no reason you can’t enjoy the theater part of this. It’s like going back to your roots, he had encouraged, adding completely unsarcastically, You have a lot to give.)
As the bus pulled away, Charlie paged through her tattered copy of Romeo and Juliet. Nick had emailed, all business: Charlie, first up is Romeo and Juliet. I trust you’re familiar. And then, Your accommodations... followed by an address. He signed it simply, Nicholas, which she found mildly obnoxious. He had worked hard to get Nicholas to stick. It was how he had introduced himself all those years ago, as a directing fellow at Chamberlain: Nicholas. She had looked him in the eye as she shook his hand firmly. Really? I think you’re a “Nick,” she had told him. You’ll figure it out soon enough. She was nineteen, he was twenty-five and speechless. From then on, she called him Nick.