Pumpkin delight! I shouted through my tears. And I could hear her smile as she shut the door and ran toward the store entrance. I watched her through the windshield. Running so easily, so lightly on her legs. And I loved her and hated her and loved her.
Now I look at Grace jogging lightly to her car, her ballet slipper key chain jangling in her fist. The back seat where I sat seems like another country. If she gets in her car now, she’ll drive away. She’ll never look back.
I run ahead of her. It’s suddenly easy for me. Can I tell you how easy it is? For me to sprint ahead and beat Grace to her car? She stops in front of me. Is she afraid? If she is, she doesn’t show it. And why would she be afraid of me, anyway? I’m her friend, aren’t I?
“Let me get in my car, please, Miranda,” she’s saying. Not even looking at me. She can’t. I’m reprehensible in her eyes now. I’m a horror show. Monstrous. How I’m standing before her in my red poppy dress. The way the skirt billows up in the breeze. I keep pushing it back down like I think I’m Marilyn Monroe.
“Grace.” I reach a hand out.
She backs away. Almost instinctually.
I lower my hand slowly, calmly. Okay. Okay, be rational. Stay in the world of reason. Be a creature of reason, a creature like Grace.
“Look, I just want to talk to you. Please. For just a second.”
Grace is shaking her head. “I don’t want to talk, Miranda.”
“But didn’t you come here wanting to talk to me? Isn’t that why you followed me here?”
“Yes, but now I feel differently. Now there’s nothing to talk about.” Even in the dark, I can see her face is not revealing anything. Now she’s staring at me like I’m someone else. Like she’s seeing me for the first time. Her eyes are a wall. Briana. Did she hear us talking about Briana? Did I admit something?
“How long were you standing there?” I ask her.
She looks down at the rotting rose I’m still clutching between my fingers. Why am I still clutching it like this? But I don’t dare drop it now.
“Long enough.”
“Look, Grace, I can explain. Please just let me explain.”
“All right, Miranda, explain. Who were those men?”
“Honestly?”
She stares at me.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
She starts walking past me toward the car. I’m a waste of time. I’m a waste. But I block her with my body. I’m standing right in front of the driver’s side door.
“Grace, please don’t walk away like this. Look, you don’t know what you saw.”
“No, Miranda, you’re right. I don’t know what I saw. You tell me. What did I see?”
Think, think. Be a creature of reason like Grace. What would Grace want to hear?
“Look, it’s just a bit of theater. Just a bit of theater I do on the side.” Perfect. “We were rehearsing for this other play I’m putting on.”
“Another play?”
“Yes! That’s why I’ve been so strange. So distant. So distracted. That’s why I’ve been so unavailable these days. It’s this other play. You see, Grace, how it all makes sense?”
She looks suspicious. I’ve lied to her about other plays in the past, after all.
“What other play? What’s it called?”
“Untitled,” I say coolly, waving the rose around now like it’s a prop, just a prop in this other play. “Sort of an updated Macbeth.”
I watch Grace shudder in the dark at my casual use of the blighted name.
“Maybe a little Doctor Faustus in there too,” I add. “I wish I hadn’t taken it on, Grace. It’s a problematic production. I mean it has some real kinks. These actors I’m working with.” Here I shake my head like it’s all been too much. “I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t know them. I really don’t. They work in a different tradition. Very Method. But we’re working it out. We’re working late. That’s all you saw. That’s all.”
I’m nodding, nodding. This all sounds so good to me. It all makes sense now. It’s such a great performance.
Grace says nothing. And then I remember Briana again. Did she hear us talking about Briana? But surely she can’t believe I made Briana sick with a touch. Grace is far too sensible for that.
“Grace, I don’t know what you heard back there but you can’t possibly believe”—and here I start laughing, to show her how funny it is, how absurd—“that I’m actually responsible. That I did something to her.”