Hugo’s gone, I see. Left without saying goodbye. Though why would he say goodbye? I feel my heart sink in spite of myself.
Now, at last, Briana raises her hand. Briana of the burnished hair. Briana of the B-minus mind who yet believes she deserves an A for breathing. Reading an essay of Briana’s will make you fear for the future of America, will make you hiss What the fuck are you talking about? aloud at the bar where you have to go and get loaded on pinot grigio in order to grade Briana’s paper, so that the bartender will say to you, Miss, are you all right? He will even put his hand on your shoulder, he is that concerned. And you will say, I’m fine, I’m so sorry. And you will look up into his face, and his eyes will be so blue and kind. You will recall when such a face and torso stirred something deep inside you, in a place where there are now only dead leaves skittering. You will look back at Briana’s paper. You will observe that she chose the Garamond font. You will proceed to write B? in the top left-hand corner even though it is a C tops. But you will hesitate, your pen suspended over the page. You will mentally fast-forward to the moment when you hand Briana her essay back, branded with this B?. She will receive it and immediately look as though she has been stung by a thousand wasps, and you will wish that she had brought this to her performance of Juliet. You will watch her face redden first with embarrassment, then with outrage, her chin tilt up, up, up in defiance. She will assume you have given her this grade because you are an idiot and/or jealous of her beauty and youth. You are not the former, but you are most certainly the latter, and so it is not without some fear, some guilt, that you will watch Briana march toward your desk after class, watch her flip her shining hair around in an attempt to blind you as she complains. Watch her eyes grow big and wet and desperate. Watch her outrage bloom like an out-of-control flower. For this is not the way of the universe, the universe of Briana in which you are merely a cog in the great machinery of her ultimate success. The universe wishes for Briana to succeed, to win. Hearing Briana protest like this, knowing your own inner failings, you might bow down to her will. You might hand over the A. Because you are so tired. Because Briana’s voice not only hurts your hip and spinal cord, it also lights up your inner red webs, flashing more quickly under her gaze. You might spare yourself all of this and give her the damned A to start with. And Briana won’t even thank you for this. She’ll just feel like you were an unfortunate spider creeping around her dollhouse but you were kind enough to die on your own. After all, her parents are donors to this school’s decrepit theater program, hence the fact that Briana is Helen this year, hence the fact that Briana was Juliet last year, hence the fact that Briana was Rosalind the year before. Hence the fact that you have heard the soliloquies of Shakespeare’s most complex and formidable heroines die in her unworthy throat. And yet. She is also the reason you have the ghost of a program at all, and she knows this.
I hate that I want Briana to like me even though I hate Briana and I hate that I hate Briana because what is Briana’s future going to be, really? A few years in the big city pursuing her acting passion to no end because there will be no mother or father to open the doors to those gilded places. She’ll be forced at last to stare her own mediocrity in the face. She’ll marry a stock broker, start a vegan mommy blog. Enlist her future spawn in ballet.
Grow up, I tell myself. Be the adult. Be the teacher. Lie to this long-haired child and tell her the reason we are doing this play is because it will stretch her and her fellow cast members to take on a play that is disturbing but not in an obvious bloodbath/orgy way; that is witchy without the cackling hags; that is funny-sad rather than simply sad; that is dark-light, rather than just dark, just light; that is problematic, provocative, complex, and mysterious; a hidden mountain flower growing in the shade of Shakespeare’s canon that hasn’t been put on by a million fucking schools already. And is timely too. Socially relevant.
“Miranda,” Briana says.
Briana always calls me Miranda, never Ms. Fitch, let alone Professor. She looks at me now, and I cower, can you believe this? I brace myself. Brace myself for—
“Couldn’t we warm up first?” She already begins to stretch her body in anticipation. Stretches her arms high above her head. See how much my body needs and loves this?
I have a vision of killing her. It’s not the first time.
“We really need to get a move on today, I’m afraid,” I tell her.
I always forget their warm-ups. I can’t help it. I hate the warm-ups. Leading them through that. It pains me to watch them. How their movements are so easy, so quick, how their movements lubricate their already lubricated bones. Give oxygen to their already oxygenated musculature. Make their faces grow flushed. Really, it’s like watching them all fuck. But Briana warming up is the worst. The sight of Briana’s lithe body moving beneath the stage lights actually hurts my eyes. Causes them to water. It’s like staring directly right at the sun. It’s like willing yourself to go blind.