Except when it remembers the one who’s not in love with me.
“I’m not buying it,” says Jacob. “Arthur—sorry—would you mind pushing the crib back a few feet? All I’m seeing is that creepy fake baby.”
I roll the crib upstage, almost to the backdrop. “Here?”
Jacob surveys the new configuration for a minute, before sighing and turning to Taj. “Should we bring in a real baby? We’re going to have to bring in a baby, aren’t we?”
“You mean the crying kind?” Taj asks.
Jacob pinches the bridge of his nose. “Maybe we age him up to three or four? I’ll play around with the script—”
“Totally. I totally hear you. But.” Taj’s voice is unnervingly calm. “I’m wondering if there’s a way we can avoid changing the entire script? Since we’re, uh, less than three weeks out from opening night?”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other, gaze drifting down the rows of empty chairs—right to left, like reading in Hebrew. Fifty seats arranged on platforms, ascending like stairs. But the front row is level with the floor and the stage, and that’s where Jacob and Taj are sitting.
“Yeah . . .” Jacob sighs. “Okay, why don’t we press pause for a second. We’ll circle back to this in fifteen.” He stands and stretches, tapping the screen of his phone. By the time I reach the front row of seats, he’s already halfway to the lobby.
“Yikes. Rough day for the GDB,” Taj says, peeling the lid off a soy yogurt container.
I grab a pack of cheese crackers from my messenger bag and plop down beside him. “He’s not actually going to age the baby up, right? Like, you’d have to rewrite the entire bedtime scene, plus anything in the park, and it’s just so—”
“Bananas,” Taj says. “It’s the whole banana grove. But he really hates those dolls.”
I turn back to the stage, currently set to resemble an apartment interior—living room, nursery, and kitchen. The design’s more suggestive than literal—it’s really just a few key pieces of furniture arranged in front of three canvas backdrops. Though when you see it with the lighting in place and the actors moving from room to room, it actually does feel like a home.
But even I have to admit: Jacob’s right about the goddamn baby. I guess it’s decently realistic for a prop doll, but you can’t pretend it’s not serving up some major corpse energy. Or lack of energy.
“There has to be an easier workaround,” I say.
Suddenly, I’m out of my seat, crossing the few feet of space between the front row and the stage. I stare for a moment at the trio of backdrops. They’re intimidatingly huge, but at least they’re on wheels. I give the center panel an experimental push.
“Redecorating?” Taj asks.
“Just trying something.”
Taj sets his yogurt down and stands.
Five minutes later, we’ve rolled the center panel back and pulled the side panels in, until the set’s no longer three adjacent apartment rooms. Now it’s just a living room and kitchen, with a hint of a nursery tucked behind them—just a foot of toothpaste blue backdrop and the edge of a crib. “So the baby’s always there,” I explain. “She’s just a little bit offstage.”
I watch Taj take it all in, following his gaze from panel to panel. It’s wild how the simplest tweak can change the entire feeling of a space. The overall focus is tighter, and the added depth makes the apartment feel that much more real. Like there’s this implication of life existing beyond the boundaries of these sets. No idea what Jacob will think, but I’m pretty sure I love it.
“Okay,” Taj says. “Say we’re Addie and Beckett, middle of scene eight, when they’re arguing and Lily wakes up—”
“Right! So what if Beckett’s actually offstage for that scene? Like we get a sound cue where she’s crying, and you see him go into the nursery—”
“Huh!” Taj purses his lips. “So . . . we keep Addie in the living room . . . are they just talking between rooms? Maybe he pops his head around the side, so we feel him in there?”
“Exactly,” I say—and for the first time since Ethan left, a light flickers on in my brain.
I usually feel like such a fuckup at work—even when I’m not dropping the ball, it always feels like I’m just about to. But something’s clicking today in a way I can’t quite explain. Taj keeps nodding when I talk and typing notes on his phone, like my ideas are worth writing down. Like I’m not just some dumbass intern. Or at least I’m a dumbass intern with potential.