It would be another four years until they made the film that would make them both. (It had been her idea to include his name in the title—Who do I think I am? he had asked.) Their actual romantic relationship would take up such a small sliver of her life—just about a year—a little longer if she counted the months he drifted away, lost in his work, distant in miles and in emotion just before their breakup, on a film set of all places. Still, their time together would leave a disproportionately deep mark. She stopped short of calling it a scar because too much of it had been...good.
* * *
When she finished reading, the bus had just reached those steep, curvy mountain roads she recalled from so long ago. Her thoughts took similar twists and turns to arrive at a place she didn’t want to be: on the edge of fear. She had done enough Shakespeare to know what it required of a person. But she hadn’t acted, at all, in years: What if it just wasn’t there? What if it had atrophied like any muscle left unchallenged for too long?
Her breathing too rapid now, she closed her eyes, refocusing. She had played Juliet a thousand times all over London—the West End, the Globe. And on Broadway, and off Broadway and off-off Broadway. She exhaled.
Just as fast a more horrific thought shook her: What if Nick didn’t want her for Juliet, but for...Juliet’s mother? She could technically be Juliet’s mother. But it’s not like Juliet was ever really played by a thirteen-year-old, she told herself. This was theater—you just had to act young enough. Plus, she looked far younger than her thirty-nine years. She could do wide-eyed when necessary. But, no, even worse: What if she was supposed to be Juliet’s nurse? How humiliating was this community service exercise supposed to be? She pulled her Red Sox cap down farther and closed her eyes, tried to will herself to sleep. She had been up all night. Again. Packing. Reading. Sketching. Streaming the latest season of the only show she binged, Terminal Earth ICU. Distracting herself. Trying to.
On-screen you give the impression of this work being effortless, like something you could accomplish in your sleep. Or perhaps more akin to breathing: something vital and natural. Most of us drama students, I can safely say, will never ascend to that level. Which is why I have to ask: Please return to acting? Could you look past what reasons you might have had for leaving it? You’re needed.
That letter, from a drama student named Robert, drifted into her thoughts. Somehow asking the same questions that had kept her up at night for years. Her eyes flickered open again.
They were nearing their destination, anyway. She could tell by her favorite sign at the end of a gravel pit on the side of the road: RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP. She had asked her mother back then, two decades ago, seated beside her in the back of the sedan that had been sent to collect them from the airport, what the sign meant. That’s a device to aid trucks if they’re having difficulty braking as they descend from the mountain, her mother had said in her perfectly posh inflection, eyes not leaving her newspaper. Then added, If only we had something like that for you.
Another turn and the bus rattled into the town at last, home of Chamberlain College and the Chamberlain Shakespeare Summer Theater. It was all there still, nestled in this pocket surrounded by mountains: the gothic ivy-covered buildings, the charming Victorian houses, the lively main street, even that sweet little historic log cabin harkening back to the town’s first settlers. The one she had broken into with Nick...
This had been a bad idea. On so many levels.
Sixty days. She just had to get through sixty days.
The bus slowed to a stop in front of the old inn. She pulled up her email from Nick, checking the unfamiliar address of her accommodations again. Mapping it on her phone, she followed the route past the inn, along Stratford Road onward through the campus’s main quad, still not sure where she was being led.
6
YOU’VE DISTRACTED MS. SUAREZ
Sierra gazed into the harsh fluorescent-lit restroom mirror. She placed the fedora on her head with great care, tucked her chestnut tendrils up into it. Studied her reflection. Then she took the hat off again and chucked it at the wall. She did not belong here. And in a few minutes, everyone else would know that too. Why did she feel this way before every audition? This was why she was an environmental science major. She was unequivocally good at that. Didn’t the world need more women who were good at science, anyway?
A knock rattled the door. “Is there a Sierra Suarez in there? You’re up,” came the stiff voice of one of the directing apprentices.
“Yes! Coming! Awesome!” she said. She could feel the butterflies now, the thrill of it! And then something else.
She darted back into the stall. Heaving. And threw up.
Sprinting out again, she glanced once more in the mirror. “I. Am. Juliet.” Kicked the hat up from the floor, gasping when it actually landed in her hands, and pushed through the doors, down the twisting labyrinth through the nearly pitch-black wings and on to the exact mathematical center of the stage. So many faces staring back at her.
“Sierra Suarez, reading for the role of Juliet,” she told them. Then spun around, her back to the audience, deep breath, and slowly turned to face them again:
“‘Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?’” She quickly dissolved into the lights and the words until she wasn’t quite there anymore.
* * *
Sierra couldn’t remember what happened before Chase Embers—Chase. Embers!—burst through the door at the back of the theater and strutted up the aisle toward the directors, collecting all the eyes in the room.
The very fact that she couldn’t remember anything meant that whatever had transpired between her first words as Juliet and Chase’s entrance must have actually been very good. That was how it was if things were going well onstage: her mind knew the lines; her voice knew how to deliver them; her body knew how to feel them. An intersection of reflex, muscle memory, practice. The only time anything came easy.
But with that door opening, sunlight streaming in from the lobby and this divine creature, Chase Embers, slipping out of her fantasies and into her living-breathing reality, a switch flipped and she was aware of the world again. And once that spell was broken, she didn’t know how to get it back. She was going to blow this audition.
Who could blame her though? Chase Embers wasn’t someone you would ever be able to ignore. So untouchably beautiful it didn’t even matter that that wasn’t even his real name. She’d had a crush on him for as long as she’d had crushes. As did the whole world. That was how he had famously landed on the Forbes list as a teen. (She was an infant when he was a teen, but she knew every inch of his biography. He was honestly destined for greatness ever since making his film debut as a baby playing Denzel Washington’s son in that thriller.) He was now thirty-seven but more gorgeous than ever, the build of an action hero (which he was), lit-from-within glow. It had been announced after she got the apprenticeship that he would be here—otherwise the competition to get in would’ve been even fiercer. She just wished he wasn’t here at this particular moment.