She’s fine! I want to scream. But I just smile at the dean, who appears to be oblivious to all of this. He’s still rocking on his heels, chuckling to himself. Fauve’s question about the source of the money is really irrelevant.
“They preferred to remain under the radar. You know how it is, am I right?”
I’m nodding wildly. I know how it is, absolutely.
“Anyway, they seemed to know Miranda, I mean Professor Fitch, quite well. The donors spoke very highly of our director here.”
He smiles at me, and my soul shivers.
“Did they?” Fauve says. She’s joined Grace in the audience. Standing beside her. Arms crossed.
“Oh yes. Said they were quite familiar with her onstage work. Real admirers. Big fans.” He turns to my students. “Everyone, you’ve got a famous director here. Lucky, am I right?”
The students are still looking at me with eyes wide open. Frozen as though we are doing an acting exercise. Briana’s trembling beside me, clutching her wrist. I feel her eyes boring into the side of my face.
“Well”—the dean claps his hands—“I’ll let you get back to it. Just had to share the incredible news. Oh, there is one thing I forgot to mention.” And here he looks at me and winks. Because he didn’t forget, you see, he was just saving this bit for the end. For me. “The donors asked for us to put on a particular play… All’s Well That Ends Well? Which I think is the play you were going to put on anyway, am I right, Professor?”
My thighs unclench. Beside me, I feel Briana pale, her mouth making a nonverbal noise.
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. I bet it’s going to be great. And you can go nuts with the production. Costumes. Sets. Effects. That thrust you’ve always wanted.” He winks at me again. “Anything.”
I see a cerulean-blue sky. My old outdoor production in Edinburgh. The starry cosmos above and an open human eye painted onto the stage floor. Helen in her red dress surrounded by cascading bubbles of light. The sun still high above the craggy landscape. The smell of wildflowers all around.
“Wonderful. Isn’t it, everyone?” I look at them standing still, still watching me with horror. Or is it admiration?
“All’s Well That Ends Well,” the dean repeats, winking at me again. “Just great. That one of the comedies or tragedies, Professor Fitch?”
“Both,” I say. And my own voice sounds richer, deeper, to my ear. “It’s both.”
CHAPTER 11
“WOW, CONGRATULATIONS, MIRANDA,” Hugo says to me the next day.
“Thank you.”
“You must be thrilled.”
“I am, I am.”
Friday afternoon before rehearsal. I stare at Hugo wondrously backlit by his own windows, grinning at me. I think surely this is a dream, it must be. We’re in his scene shop. Hugo called me in here just now from the hall. Actually called me in here.
Miranda, he said, craning his head out the door, and I thought surely, surely, there was someone else in the hall he was referring to, someone else he was flagging down. Another Miranda. A student he was fucking, perhaps. But he was looking at me. He just heard about the dean’s announcement yesterday. The donation. All’s Well. We’ll have a real Theater Studies program. An actual major. Maybe he’ll even be able to do set work full-time. Fucking amazing. He wanted to have a quick toast. With me? With you, Miranda.
And now I’m watching him pour whiskey into two small plastic cups. He’s raising his glass to me. “Cheers, Miranda.”
“Cheers,” I say.
And we drink. And again, I think I’m dreaming, surely I must be. But no, I’m not dreaming. The scent of wood is too thick. The light too absurdly peach as it falls from the windows onto impossibly tall Hugo. Saying, “I’m really happy for you, Miranda.”
All around us, catching the orange light of the sinking sun, are the flats that were the half-finished sets of All’s Well. The maquette with the three plastic witches is nowhere in sight.
“Amazing about these donors,” he says. “Almost cosmic, really.”
“Cosmic,” I agree. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“Sort of weird too, of course.”
“Weird? Why weird?”
He hesitates. Looks at me, almost apologetically. “I mean throwing that much money at college theater? Seems weird to me. Who would have thought people gave a shit about theater anymore, you know?”
We love theater, Ms. Fitch.
“Yeah,” I say.