“Sorry to just wander in,” I tell Hugo. “I heard the music.…”
He grins. “Sabbath lured you in, huh?”
I stare at him with what I hope is a smile.
“Don’t apologize,” Hugo says. “Always good to see you.”
Is it? Really?
“Hey, Miranda, are you all right?”
Don’t tell him about your pain. Don’t fucking tell him about your pain, you hag, the beautiful young me says. Shhh. Shhh. She brings her slender finger to her perfect lips bright as cherries. I press my cracked lips together and nod.
“Yes, just rehearsing,” I tell him. “Well, waiting to rehearse. No one’s shown up yet.”
I look at the floor, the sawdust. I absolutely cannot cry in front of Hugo.
“Oh,” Hugo says softly. “I’m sorry.”
I flash back to his look of pity at the last rehearsal. How he witnessed my humiliation at the hands of fucking Trevor, silent, smug Briana. I feel myself get hot and red now under his gaze.
“It’s fine. I’m sure they’ll be along any minute,” I say to the floor.
“Sure they will be,” he says, not unkindly. I look up to see him pulling a cigarette from behind his perfect ear. A strange urge to bite it rises in me like a weak wave. “Too early for mutiny, right?”
“Never too early,” I whisper.
Hugo laughs. He thinks I’m being funny. “Actually, I’m glad you’re here, Miranda.”
My name in Hugo’s mouth. I close my eyes.
“You are?”
He doesn’t mean it literally, you idiot. He’s talking professionally, hello?
“Yeah, I wanted to show you… well”—he laughs—“I guess you already found it.” He points at the cloth-covered box. “The maquette.”
“Yes. I haven’t looked yet. But I’m very excited to see.”
In my mind, the beautiful young me shakes her head from the glossy Playbill page. Beyond hope. I’m beyond hope.
“It’s just a preliminary idea, mind you. I only just put it together today. I wanted to get your take before I went any further.”
“You did?” I’m so terribly touched, it’s ridiculous.
“Sure. I mean, you had such a vision for All’s Well.”
I recall my meeting with Hugo at a diner last summer to discuss my vision, to discuss the sets. I admit, I got drunk beforehand even though I was already deeply drugged. Still, I was in so much pain I was barely able to sit down, yet of course I did, my hands cupped around a tea I wasn’t drinking. Unable to get over the fact that I was sitting across from him, from Hugo. Me and Hugo at the diner almost like we were on a date. He was wearing a T-shirt that read Cornered by Zombies. It was two in the afternoon. There was a crazy woman in a visor softly chattering to herself at the next table. I attempted to make small talk—And how was your summer? et cetera—which went terribly. He played along politely, told me he was building Adirondack chairs, going to a lot of metal shows. Some theater too, he added quickly, like I was his boss. And then, you know, lots of hikes and time outside. Good to just pack up and get out of town. Run around some mountains, you know?
Yeah, I said, like I totally knew. I pictured getting out of town with Hugo, running around mountains. Or sitting in his garden （probably he had a garden） on his homemade chairs. Standing beside Hugo at a metal show, the drums making my bones vibrate. It all sounded like ecstasy.
What about you? he said. What have you been up to?
I thought of myself lying on my living room floor in the semidarkness, weeping. Watching reality TV or the goat video. This and that, I said.
I recall how I wasn’t able to look him in the eye. How I ended up talking to the table, going on and on. Telling the table about my vision for the play, telling the table all my hopes, my costume choices, my lighting thoughts. How I saw Helen as a woman in deep emotional pain that no one in the world of the play could understand. Except for the audience, of course. And all because Bertram didn’t love her, didn’t even see her, he was blind.
Sure, Hugo said.
How I conceived of the play as a kind of gothic fairy tale in which Helen endures many trials that transform unfeeling, unseeing Bertram’s soul, that teach his eyes to open, to see her, finally. And when he does see her, how can he not fall in love? I finally looked up to meet Hugo’s eyes, and I saw that he was looking above my head at something behind me. A passing waitress perhaps. A gaggle of girls. The clock on the wall. I didn’t turn to look. Sounds great, Miranda.