A month of rehearsals has gone by, flown by, it seems.
“Doesn’t time seem like it’s flying?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Doesn’t time seem like it’s flying, Grace?”
“Sure,” Grace says, frowning. Always frowning these days. A real stick-in-the-mud of late.
“And now look, here we are. Spring. No point being in here,” I say, I sing, waving my hand at the walls of the decrepit theater.
“Let’s rehearse outside today for a change, shall we? Get some fresh air in our lungs, am I right? Sunshine on our skin. Get the blood flowing. Challenge ourselves diaphragmatically, how does that sound?”
“It’s March, Miranda,” Grace says. “It’s still freezing outside.”
I gaze at Grace, who sits on the stage with her arms folded, looking warily at me. Little furrow between her tiny brows. The furrow’s been there for the past month. Ever since Briana left us and didn’t come back. Still sick, apparently, so we hear. So sad. We are all terribly sad about it, truly. Truly, truly.
“Spring is in the air today, Grace. I felt it. I felt it myself on the way here. Let’s experience it firsthand, shall we?”
“I don’t know if that’s—”
But I’m already out the door, leading them all down the hall, and they’re following me as I sail down the stairs in my spiked heels, out of the building. I feel them all jogging behind me, breathing heavily, trying to keep up. My, my, am I really walking so quickly? I’m excited, I suppose. Aren’t they excited? They should be.
“Quickly, quickly, everyone,” I call as I march them across the campus green. Past the storybook little cluster of white Victorian-era homes that are the dormitories and lecture halls. Past the toy library, the glass dining hall where the children chew their food-shaped cud.
“Jesus, where’s the fire, Miranda?” Grace hisses at my side, breathless.
“We have to get started, don’t we, Grace? Ticktock. Ticktock.”
I smile at Fauve, whom we pass just now on the green—she’s in her winter coat, laden with canvas bags full of teaching materials, marching huffily to her class. What is she teaching this semester again? Oh yes, that’s right. Music for Idiots.
“Hello, Fauve,” I say, I sing.
But Fauve is silent, glaring, sick with suspicion as she watches us all clamor past, such a merry bunch of players, all the world a stage. I’m gloriously immune to her Dickensian plots, her sad schemes. I wave at Fauve wildly.
“Come along, everyone,” I yell. “Follow, follow. Follow me across the green, along the snaking icy path, whoa, watch your step there. Bit slippery. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt. Break anything. No more injuries or accidents or illnesses, am I right? Not with showtime just around the corner! Round the corner, can you believe it? Ticktock, ticktock!”
I finally stop right in the middle of the rose garden, right before the great black goat statue. I used to hobble over here on my less inflamed days, in an attempt to experience some kind of beauty—The natural world would do you some good, Mark used to say to me. But the beauty of it all, far from soothing me, actually caused my legs to seize up in a kind of grief. And then the students in their beauty, who were sitting in the garden so carefree, in various yogic configurations, their limbs so pliable, their smiles so easy, just set off the red webs so violently that I was forced to limp away. But not today.
“What did I tell you? Doesn’t it feel just like spring?” I sing, my breath a capering cloud.
I look at my circle of children. Huddled obediently on the green. Lightly shivering. Not so lightly shivering. Pink faces. No scripts, because I’ve forbidden them. And guess what? Now they’ve memorized the play. Now they know it by heart. They stare up at me, the tails of my black coat blowing behind me, standing straight in my heeled boots, taller than I have ever been, casting my shadow over them. Is it just them or have I grown taller in the past month?
Yes, Professor Fitch. They nod. You told us. Just like spring.
Wonderful. “Well,” I say. “Let’s warm up, shall we?”
Grace looks at me with panic. Oh no. Not another one of my “warm-ups.” She thinks my warm-ups of late have been a little too—
“Wonderful,” I say, clapping my hands. “Warm-ups are wonderful, aren’t they? They get the blood going. Get the air flowing. Get the cobwebs swept away. Now let’s all get in a circle, that’s it. Closer, closer, don’t be afraid. I don’t bite, do I?” And I laugh. I’m always laughing these days.