He looks at me like I’m a black funnel of wind, gathering force. Heading his way. “Yes, Professor.”
“Well. See you in rehearsal, Jacob. I’m looking forward to seeing what you bring to the part.” I’m trying to encourage him, but he doesn’t look encouraged at all. Fine. Have it your way, Jacob.
I leave him, humming that tune I was humming before. And Jacob watches me go, and behind me, I hear him sigh with relief. Strange. Was he afraid of me? Impossible. No one is afraid of me. How long since anyone has been afraid of me, really?
CHAPTER 12
ENTERING REHEARSAL, I had no idea what I would face. Would they refuse me still? Would they hold out? Would I come in to find a cauldron nailed to the stage? The Ashley/Michelles gathered around it, clad in shredded black dresses and witch hats, making abracadabra hands over paper flames? Trevor clutching a tinfoil dagger, ready to wave it in my face in protest? Briana still in her bell sleeves, chin tilted up, screwing her courage to the sticking place?
No. They’re sitting in a silent circle on the stage. They’re watching me walk toward them. They’re watching me, rapt, as though I am a play all my own. They don’t want to miss a beat. All eyes fixed on me, not their phones, not the floor, not one another. All mouths closed. No munching of food, no guzzling of drinks. No murmuring. No whispering. No giggling. No yawning in my face. They are absolutely still. I don’t even hear them breathing, are they breathing? I hear every click of my shoes as I make my way toward them. Smiling as I approach.
“Hello, all,” I say.
“Hello, Professor Fitch,” they say in near unison. A rippling of my name. A first. It sends a shiver through me.
I see they have the scripts in their hands. The old scripts. My director’s cut of All’s Well. They’re gripping them close. I exhale. I could laugh. I could weep. Ellie is looking at me, flushed, excited. She’s smiling. Jacob is looking at me just like he did in the hallway. Even Trevor, his blue eyes wide open, appears enthralled. And then I see the empty space beside Trevor, where Briana should be sitting, in her bell sleeves, her gold cross dangling from her white neck, her burnished hair tumbling over one sharp shoulder. I stare at the air that should be Briana’s body. She has never once missed rehearsal. No matter how many I schedule. No matter the weather. She is always there, always ready, always on time, like only the truly mediocre are. I look at the empty space, and I see refusal. Protest. So this is her way of fighting me. Her last gasp.
A lash of panic. A lick of fear.
I want to ask them, Where is mine enemy? Speak up. Speak!
Instead I say, “Well, shall we warm up?”
“They’re already warmed up, Miranda.” This from Grace. Also watching me like I’m the show. No laptop. No phone. She isn’t even whittling something out of wood. I look back at my children. Still unmoving. Still not appearing to breathe. Like they’re frozen from yesterday. Almost like they never left the theater. They were waiting for me this whole time.
I sit down in their circle—I’m actually able to sit down on the floor with only a little laboring. I sit between Ellie and Jacob, who make room for me. I smile at them.
“Wonderful. Well, let’s have a read-through of the play, shall we? To reacquaint ourselves. To reconnect?”
And just like that, they gaze down at their scripts. And Ashley/Michelle reads the opening lines of the Countess. “？‘In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.’？”
And from there? From there it goes swimmingly. No discussion of yesterday. No hesitation. No complaint. No one raises a hand. No one pauses to ask a stupid question.
There’s a brief moment of silence when Helen’s first line comes. That’s when the air where Briana should be sitting starts to crackle. The silence becomes loud then. The silence is a question mark. There is a cough. Now is the time I should ask them. Where is the girl who is never absent? Who is always annoyingly here?
I open my mouth. I take a breath. I look at Ellie seated beside me in her uniform of black, over which she’s thrown some sort of vaguely glittering shawl. “Ellie,” I say, “will you read Helen, please?”
A moment’s pause, only a moment, before Ellie takes a breath and begins to read.
“？‘I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too,’？” Ellie says, not reading from the script. Doesn’t need to. She’s been practicing. For this very moment perhaps.
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too. Can I tell you how exactly right she says it? Her voice is wavering on the surface, but deep and sure beneath. I hear her knowledge of her lowliness. Her pain and her aspirations both. Her love like an impossible star. I hear it all in her voice—deep, soft, fiery. Looking up at stars from the gutter. And then I see the play. I see it all. It comes wonderfully to me. In all its dark lightness, in all its strange fairy-tale splendor, with the sound of Ellie’s voice.