“Not that you don’t deserve it,” he adds quickly. “And we could definitely use it. Take the money and run, right?”
“I guess theater still has its charms for some,” I say. Am I flirting? I might be. Impossible. Haven’t I forgotten how?
“Oh, you don’t have to convince me, Miranda. I’m a convert, remember? I’m obsessed.”
He grins. Hugo grinning. Grinning at me. My god. “I have to say, Miranda, I was rooting for you all along.”
“You were?”
He laughs. “Of course, Miranda.”
He’s saying my name a lot. It’s music. Better than the Edith Piaf I felt compelled to play on the drive to school. Normally I just drive in silence. Staring at the windshield. Picturing my dark future. But this morning, I thought, Why not a little music for the road? Why not a little life? As Edith sang, I thought, This is so nice. I forgot how nice music is on the road. How it always seems to go with the sky, the passing landscape. I sang along. When was the last time I sang along to anything?
“You’re taking a risk,” Hugo says now. “I admire that. Also, I’ve done Macbeth before, you know. A few times. It’s a prison favorite. All’s Well will be a new challenge for me. I’d never read it until this year, I’ll admit. I’ve been reading through it again, and you’re right. Helen is fascinating.”
“She is?” Stop echoing him. “She really is.”
“I still don’t really understand why she loves Bertram though. He’s such an ass.”
“He didn’t see her,” I say. “He was blind for a long time. He was warped by certain diabolical influences.” I’m talking quickly. Heatedly. With actual passion. When was there ever this much blood in my voice?
Hugo shrugs. Leans against the wood slabs. Pulls a joint from behind his ear. Lights it. It’s poetry. There should be a play of just this.
“Still,” he says. “I think she deserves much better than him.”
“She changes him though. In the end,” I say.
“Yeah, but is he worthy of it? I don’t know.”
“I think he is,” I say quietly. “I do. I always have.” I’m absolutely flirting now.
He looks at me. “Something’s different about you, Miranda.”
“Is it?” I say, flushing. I appear confused, unsure. I act like I don’t know what he’s talking about.
When I do.
Something is different. I feel it. Something. What? I felt it after they’d all left the theater yesterday, after the dean’s announcement, after I sent them all home. Briana had already left. I didn’t see her go. Didn’t see how she left. Only that she left and left her coat and bag behind. Only that Ashley/Michelle and Trevor went with her. I gazed at the remaining students. I smiled like all was well. Why don’t we wrap up for tonight? You’ve all worked so hard, I lied. Let’s pick it up tomorrow, shall we? I said. Let’s start fresh. I stood alone on the stage with the script scattered around my feet. I bent down to pick up the pages. Only when I had gathered all the pages in my hands, stood there on a stage cleared of Briana’s overturned uprising, staring at her Garamond font, did I realize it. I had bent down to pick up the pages. I had bent down to the floor. I had picked up all these pages. Without my legs seizing. Without my back spasming. Without the webs sounding their blinking alarms. No fat man’s chair on my foot. Nothing. Just me standing there with the pages in my hands. I gazed down at Briana’s font.
A bark-like laugh escaped my lips.
A fluke, I thought, surely. Just a fluke. Definitely a fluke. I didn’t realize I was picking up the pages, so I was able to pick up the pages. I was still in shock from all that happened, that’s all. With Briana. With the announcement. Your body can do incredible things in times of shock, can’t it? Lift up cars. Fight bears. Just the result of shock, then. No more.
I’d pay for it later, of course, I thought, as I drove home. When I got out of the car, I’d pay. Maybe on the way home, I’d pay. Surely I’d have to pay. Pay for running to the theater. Pay for the strain it took to face off with Briana. To pick up her foul script page by page.
All the way home I drove crouched low in my car as though waiting for an avenging god to smite me from above. I waited for the bottom to drop. For my legs to seize up. For my back to spasm violently. For my hip to swell with rage. Any minute now.
When I stood up to get out of the car, I thought surely my right leg would stay bent and locked, as it usually does, as it does whenever I have to go from sitting to standing. Mocking my attempt to stand.