“I really don’t hear any—”
But I’m already off toward backstage, running toward the source of the sound.
CHAPTER 28
I FLOAT THROUGH the dark corridor from the main stage to the black box. Don’t even feel my feet, that’s how light and quick I am. I hear the first lines of the play being delivered by Ashley/Michelle on the main stage. How can she even hear herself over this music? Getting louder and louder now. Pretty. Very pretty at least. I’m moved in spite of myself. What production is this? I wonder. Familiar anyway. I’ve heard this music before. Do I know this play?
When I enter the black box, I see a single spotlight shining down onto the stage. The rest is black. The music is so loud here. So there is another show! Unbelievable. On opening night of all nights. Feels like a plot. Why did no one tell me? Grace, did you know about this? Grace isn’t here, that’s right. I float toward the single spotlight, toward the swelling sound. My feet seem to lead me there, barely touching the floor now, right to center stage. There’s an X marked with red tape in the dead center, and that’s where I stop. And just like that, the music stops. The spotlight falls hot on my face. Blinding my eyes. I can’t see the audience. But I can feel them out there in the dark, watching. Oh god, have they already started?
“I’m sorry,” I say to them. “I’m so very sorry.”
They all applaud lightly. Then they fall silent as if waiting for me to continue. I should get off the stage, but I can’t seem to move from where I’m standing. I’m the only one here, how come? Isn’t there a production? Where are the actors? No one else onstage but me. And they seem to be watching me. Waiting for me to say something else. Almost like I’m the one they came to see. I feel them rapt in their seats.
I look around the stage. I see I’m on a set. A living room. What play is this? The Glass Menagerie? Long Day’s Journey into Night? Furniture looks too contemporary. And familiar, why familiar? I gaze at the walls lined with bookcases, at the floor lamp shaped like a dragon, a television in the corner where a crime show is playing on mute. My heart begins to beat a little faster. I know these bookcases, I know this lamp, this television. I know these framed posters on the wall. One of a Romeo and Juliet ballet we saw together once, the one time I managed the New York trip, surprised her with tickets. The other of a production of Salome she must have gone to alone. A window with a drawn shade of rose froth. The flowery couch where I once sat weeping while she watched helplessly from an ornamental chaise. I know the half-finished puzzle of the Venetian piazza on the coffee table. She was working on the sky the last time I was here. Still is.
“I know this living room,” I say aloud, accidentally.
The audience laughs lightly.
“This is Grace’s living room. I’m in Grace’s living room.” My heart starts to pound now. The audience applauds. Why are they applauding?
“What am I doing in Grace’s living room? What play is this?”
A smell hits me then. Pungent and thick. A sick sweetness. The sweetness of rot.
“What is that smell?”
The audience laughs again. Now more stage lights come on. I see a woman lying on the floor surrounded by wilted Get Well balloons, their smiley faces warped by deflation. All around the woman are dead flowers in vases full of murky water. I know the flowers. Oh, just a wonderful arrangement of spring flowers, please. Something revitalizing. Restorative. Torn bags of Instacart groceries are scattered around the floor, flies buzzing over the packages of meat and the rotting dragon fruit. The champagne bottle is a heap of broken glass. I stare at the woman lying there in the middle of all this shattered rot, her eyes wide open.
“Grace!”
I run to her. Fall to my knees amid the torn bags, the shattered glass.
Relief washes over me at the sight of her. Grace, Grace, thank god. Lying here so peacefully on the stage floor. Getting a good rest just like I told her to. It’s true that Grace can sleep anywhere. I’ve always envied that. Look at how peacefully she dreams even now. On the stage with all these lights shining down on her face. With the clapping and everything else. With her eyes wide open.
“Grace, I’m so glad you’re here,” I say. “I was worried.”
The audience laughs softly. My heart thrums darkly in my chest.
“I was worried,” I tell them. “I was calling and calling, wasn’t I, Grace? Or at least I wanted to call. I didn’t call only because I didn’t mean to disturb you.”