“So, now that it’s just...us—” Nick sat at his neatly ordered desk, straightened a stack of scripts.
“Look—” she said, not letting him finish. She leaned against the wall. “You know I’m not like that.”
He slouched in his chair, trying to appear cool. Trying to not keep thinking about that long-ago summer.
“I just want to be treated like everyone else. The actors. I know they’re not rooming with apprentices. This place was Airbnb before Airbnb was invented.”
He listened as though they were in another courtroom, but he was the judge.
“And yes.” She rolled her eyes. “When I was here before I did want to be in the dorms, but that’s because I wanted to be treated like everyone...then...too. My...peers, or whatever. Which went...not very well, in retrospect, I guess.”
He remembered: she had literally been the definition of peerless. An accomplished stage actress at nineteen, here as part of the professional company when the other nineteen-year-olds in the program were students with credits in college shows.
“Are you going to actually say something?” she asked, pulling him from his thoughts. “Or am I doing a one-woman show over here?”
“Right, no.” He click-click-clicked his pen. “Listen, if you think you can get along with your castmates—” He cleared his throat.
“People fucking love me,” she cut him off.
“If you think you can get along with your castmates,” he repeated, scribbling down an address on his personalized stationery. “Then there’s a spare room here.” He slid the paper across the desk, trying not to smile, then sifted through a drawer.
She grabbed the paper, glanced at it. “Really?” she asked, registering the address. “Is this the same—?”
“Same place. It’s still where the company stays.” It was indeed the same house where her mother had stayed all those years ago, and she had too—once she got the dorms out of her system. “Your castle awaits.” He tossed a set of keys at her—which she caught in one hand—then leaned back in his chair, feet on his desk, pretending to look over notes.
“So you were...always planning? You were just kidding? With the dorm.”
He glanced up. She was smiling coyly, hands on her hips.
“Well, look who’s gone and gotten himself a sense of humor,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said to his notes.
“Thank you.” She opened the door to leave.
“Listen,” he said, stopping her. “I’ve got a pack of wild baby thespians to tend to—” he checked his watch “—so go now, but we’re not...finished here.” He said it with an ease he was proud of. It was obviously an epic understatement. “Dinner, later this week or something?”
“Fine,” she said, like it was another sentencing. She started to pull the door shut behind her, but tossed out, “We can talk about how incredibly boring it is that you’re doing Romeo and Juliet.” The door closed.
“Hey!” he called out. “People love Romeo and Juliet!” She opened the door, and he continued. “You’re the only person in the history of the theater who thinks Romeo and Juliet is boring.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” she said, closing the door as she left, again.
“Don’t start with me!” he called out.
She opened the door again and said, “I don’t mean boring—Shakespeare was revolutionary in his day, I get it, I’m down. I just mean that I suspect what you, specifically, have planned is excruciatingly boring—”
“Charlie,” he cut her off with an exasperated sigh.
“I’m going now.” She closed the door yet again.
“Goodbye,” he said.
She opened it fast. “We’re gonna have to talk about those casting choices.” And shut it once more.
“I haven’t even told you about the casting!” he shouted through the closed door. Two quick knocks and it opened again, slowly. His heart revved involuntarily. “So we’re knocking now, how—” He stopped when he saw his septuagenarian volunteer box office manager, Mary, appear. “Civilized.”
“Did you misplace a troupe of young actors, Mr. Blunt?” Mary asked brightly.
“Oh. Right.” He shook his head, gathered his notebook, the remnants of his iced coffee. His phone rang again. Another familiar number. “I’ve just gotta—”
“I was hoping Charlie would be in here,” Mary said, mischievous.
“Nicholas Blunt here, great to hear from you,” he answered the call. “Tell ’em I’ll be right there,” he whispered to Mary, who nodded and let herself out. “No, this is a great time,” he said, sitting down again. “Especially if you’ve got good news which—”
He had a splitting headache now and rummaged through his desk drawer. “Really? Because we’ve sold out the entire run already for the first—” he found Tylenol but wished for something more, like Vicodin “—I believe there’s no greater proof that what we’re doing is innovative and... Stunt casting?... That demeans the artistic foundation this theater was built on, I’m shocked to hear that...” He had actually heard this before. “We’re an award-winning regional...” He squeezed his eyes shut, kneaded his forehead. “No, the ‘glory days’ are happening now... I’m sorry you feel that way, that couldn’t be farther from the truth...and I respectfully rescind your invitation to invest in the Chamberlain.” He tossed his phone at the door.
9
THE BALCONY IS A GAME CHANGER
Duffel bag slung over her shoulder, Charlie wandered Warwickshire Way, the main drag with its many new storefronts—yoga and Pilates studios, a day spa, bars, eateries, boutiques—hanging a left on leafy Avon Road, and there it was.
The storybook Victorian home, all turrets and decorative trim. She could feel the house’s history but note its transformation: fresh paint, new windows, the crow’s nest restored. The once-warped wraparound porch mended, shellacked in an earthy jade hue. A new glider hung there, which likely wouldn’t squeak like the old one used to when she sat there with Nick.
As she had walked toward the stage earlier that day, Nick had shape-shifted into that boy she had first met, the aspiring director in Converse shoes, T-shirt, jeans. He was less muscular then, more clean-shaven, his hair wet from an early swim at the lake. Script tucked under his arm, hope in his chest, dreams of making a name for himself.
The front door opened, and on reflex, she darted to the side of the house. To cover, she pulled out her phone, scrolling through texts. From the shadow of a craggy oak, she watched one of her roommates strutting in joggers and a tight T-shirt, yoga mat bag on his fully inked arm: Chase Embers. She groaned, involuntarily, audibly. Luckily, his earbuds were in. He glanced side to side, as though waiting to be noticed, like a heartthrob rolling into the cafeteria in a movie about prom hijinks. He had starred in several of those—and then the dark, paranormal one with Charlie, which had actually been good—before playing a drug-addled college kid in that gritty festival-circuit film everyone loved, his breakout several years ago.