How you feeling?
Charlie sat up. Her vision was still blurry but not doubled, and she did feel a little better.
O-k, she said.
Good enough to go to class?
She nodded. They hung up, and she returned to the bathroom to wet her hair in the sink and pull it up into a ponytail. Then she put on her all-black stagehand ensemble and ventured out onto the quad, blinking hard against the sun.
* * *
—
She managed to navigate the afternoon unscathed; teachers seemed to notice she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t bother her much. At the final dress rehearsal, they ran lighting cues and curtain call and polished off a dozen pizzas, and too soon, it was time for costumes, places. Fickman strobed hard on the light switch, which, for Charlie, sent the room swirling, a top in its final wobbly spins.
In the dressing room, the girls-as-Lost-Boys streaked brown eye shadow as faux dirt on each other’s faces, while across the table, Gabriella was wrangling herself into a push-up bra to achieve maximum nightgown cleavage. Not a chance, girl, Charlie thought, and went backstage to look for Austin.
She found him beside the ghost light, fussing with the feather in his hat.
You look hot in tights.
Shut up, he said, a little too harshly.
But he pulled her by her belt loop close against him.
Where you been?
Sick, she said, and gestured to her head.
Fickman rounded the corner, now wearing her headlamp and waving frantically.
Ready? Ready!
You gonna be o-k?
Go! said Charlie.
She gestured to the video monitor they’d rigged, where she could see they’d already dimmed the houselights. Austin kissed her cheek and ran behind the cyc to stage left. Charlie waited until the Darling children were frozen onstage, then opened the curtain.
The show was running smoothly, but somewhere toward the back end of the first act the pain in Charlie’s head returned full force. During intermission, she poked her head out and spotted her parents, plus Wyatt and her grandmother, in the fourth row, looking bewildered. Charlie was rocked with surprise, not only that her mom had shown up, but that she’d invited her own mother. Could it be that she was actually proud? The thought softened Charlie, and she pulled her implant from her pocket, reattached it for appeasement purposes, and hopped down from the stage to say hello.
Thanks for coming, she said.
Nice hat, her father said, motioning to the headlamp.
Here’s our little heartthrob of the theater, said Charlie’s grandmother. I hear it’s Peter Pan himself you’ve ensnared?
Are you kidding me? she said, shooting a look at her parents.
Her father stuffed his hands in his pockets.
Your father and I are just looking out for you, said her mother.
Right, Charlie said. Can we do this literally any other time?
But her mother could not be stopped midperformance.
Emotions run high at your age, she said. God knows I always felt like the world was ending. Makes it hard to think.
We’re just friends, Charlie said, directing the comment at her grandmother because that was easier than looking at her parents.
Oh what the hell, go have some fun, her grandmother said.
Charlie’s mother looked at her own mother in horror, then put her hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
Well, that’d be for the best, staying friends, she said.
Charlie knew she should bite her tongue and let that be the end of it. And she tried, she really did. But it came out anyway.
And why is that? she said. Is it beyond you to consider I’m not totally unlovable?
Don’t be a drama queen—I was thinking of him.
How kind.
You think you belong in this bubble? It won’t last forever, you know.
That’s what this is about? I’m dating a Deaf guy?
Oh, now you’re dating him?
What’s it to you?—Charlie snapped the headlamp band against her head, for emphasis—You only care about stuffing my head with enough metal to pretend with your shitty friends I’m normal!
Her mother was saying some other things now, but Charlie didn’t know what they were, because she left them all standing there and slipped back behind the curtain.
By the time they got to “I Won’t Grow Up,” Charlie could feel her whole body shaking—not a rhythm but an open run of voltage from her head and down her neck. She yanked the processor from her head, but it didn’t seem to matter. Her mouth felt cottony thick, her jaw tight. Charlie imagined herself going pale, or green, or maybe very red, but whichever it was, the cast members were eyeing her funny as they ran on-and offstage. Her body was a hummingbird’s thrum.
And then Tinker Bell came through the wing, her glow stick tutu bouncing past. The neon pinks and yellows and greens blurred together, a plait of light trailing behind her as she returned to the stage. Charlie grasped at the braid, tried to follow it hand over hand—surely the life buoy at the other end of that phosphorescent rope contained the antidote for her pain. But the light was slick; it slid and refracted in her grip until she could no longer see it at all, everything was too bright. She inspected her hands and looked up, realizing she was onstage beneath a spotlight. The pirates scattered and Gabriella-Wendy’s face scrunched into a knot of horror at her approach, but Austin stayed fixed to his mark. She held out her empty hands to him, and he looked from her palms to her face utterly derailed, but smiling.
It was getting harder to see now, but out in the house a figure that must’ve been Fickman was storming down the center aisle. Charlie, though, was fixated on row four, or at least where she remembered it to be. Even her mother would know there was something wrong—everyone’s eyes on this lost child—and there was power in her chest right before she hit the floor.
look, I’m not a monster. I only tried to do what was best for her. To give her every opportunity. To balance an injustice. To fix my mistakes.
When she was born, I studied her tiny hands, her fingers curled in so tight and thought, Perfect, she’s so perfect, how could someone like me have made something so lovely? I was exhausted and yet full of love and wonder and fear. That first night I was afraid to put her down, held her against my chest until dawn. And I knew right away I would do anything to protect her.
When she still wasn’t talking at two, I panicked. We began the circuit—early interventionists, autism screenings. Finally audiology, otolaryngology, speech pathology. The results were clear: I had failed her. Victor had failed her. Especially him.
The doctors spoke of miraculous new technology, proselytized really, and their enthusiasm was contagious. It was all very expensive—the surgery, the device, the therapy that was to come, but what price tag can you put on hope? Charlie had already lost so much time. I knew we had to make it up to her. I liquidated my grandfather’s inheritance. Victor picked up some extra gigs. We would make it work. We would open doors for her.
It was the doctors who told me not to sign, not to let her sign, did you know that? It would confuse her, they said, cause further delays. Your people—medical experts. I trusted you.
When I was very young, my mother entered me in beauty pageants. I hated them—the early morning wake-ups and long drives, afternoons in strange hotel ballrooms, the hot and terrible assaults on my hair—but I was too young to know this wasn’t how all girls spent their weekends. They were good for me, my mother said. I was developing confidence. Maybe I’d even get a scholarship somewhere.