"It's
Poe
."
"Who's going to see it?"
"Half the seats are season ticket holders.
They'll see anything. And probably complain. Another twenty-five
percent, according to the director, who's like one of those local
demigods, are students and senior centers.
Poe
is
educational."
She scoffed.
"Come on, all these kids had to learn about
it in high school. Anyway, as soon as the reviews come out, we'll
sell the rest of the tickets."
"We're getting reviewed? Like, Ben Brantley
reviewed?"
"By someone local whose job is to be both the
movie and theater critic."
"I don't actually believe you," Leah
said.
He showed her the
Raleigh City Press
and the
Greensboro Inquirer
. Not only could people read in
North Carolina, some of them were kind of artsy. There was an
independent summer film festival and some kind of naked Shakespeare
at the beach. That prompted her to ask why they weren't at the
beach.
"Well, the middle is where you'd want to be
in North Carolina," he said.
"Oh, really."
"David Sedaris is from here," Adam said.
"Alan Gurganus?"
"Are they actual local gay people, Adam?"
"Only in a sexual sense."
She smacked him with a newspaper.
The bus had gotten into the Durham bus
terminal at six a.m. Filled with homeless people and early-morning
quiet, the terminal didn't seem that much different than New York,
except that it was outside, and she could see buildings between the
buildings. She felt exposed and let herself be bundled into the
rented car. Then, unwilling to see the Best Western just yet, Leah
opted for being dropped off at the theater. She wanted to see if it
was an actual theater, or if Adam had found some amphitheater
without bathrooms or stage lights where they would prance around
like forest nymphs reading poetry.
The set designers for
South Pacific
let her in when they arrived at seven and then they went back
hammering underneath the stage and painting and playing with
electronics up in the sound booth, so aside from a few flickering
lights, she was left relatively alone.
She had plenty of time and space to reflect
on her inadequacy. Singing
Poe
was daunting. The process had
seemed less intimidating back when she'd been in the bare room and
Adam was at the piano; when it was just a cool idea that might one
day be a concept album. But now the theater was nearly sold out and
she wished she weren't the leading lady.
If the music was good and she couldn't sing
it, she could ruin Adam.
Her hands felt cold. She hummed a few bars.
The theater remained unimpressed by her. She kicked her feet,
dangling off the lip of the stage. She was pretty sure her butt was
asleep, and the stage, though swept and mopped, had the imprint of
a thousand shoes. She cleared her throat and there was no answering
echo, no haunting accompaniment from the grand piano behind her, no
crash from down below.
"And thus thy memory is to me," she said in a
hoarse half-whisper, and forced the next line to be more melodic,
"Like some enchanted far-off isle--"
Footsteps sounded in the wings. "In some
tumultuous sea," Leah mumbled as a woman approached.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," the woman said.
"I didn't know you were here."
Leah got to her feet. The woman before her
was younger than she was, taller, weighed maybe twenty pounds more.
Her black hair shined in a spotlight and her dark brown eyes caught
Leah's reflection. The woman carried herself with grace across the
stage but the voice she projected seemed hesitant, apologetic.
Leah felt like an old and tiny stick figure
by comparison, and her knee hadn't done her any favors by creaking
as she straightened up. "I just got here," she said.
"Where did you come from?"
"New York," Leah said, and then added,
"Manhattan."
"Oh. I've always wanted to go." The woman's
voice, still quiet, echoed her distant expression, even though she
was looking right at Leah.
"You haven't?"
"I don't have my Equity card yet."
"Oh, so you're an actress?"
The woman nodded. "I'm playing Lady M. In,
you know--"
"I know." Leah looked furtively at the
ceiling. She didn't believe in the Scottish Play curse, but who
ever knew in the South. "Aren't you a little young?" she asked,
then bit her tongue.
In New York, she never would have asked such
a rude question. But then, in New York, she would have known
already who was playing Lady Macbeth. She tilted her head, but the
woman didn't look too angry.
"It's--" the woman paused. "A long
story."
Leah nodded.
"I was coming to work on my
monologues--without the crew. It's been so incredibly loud. I'll
leave you to your song," the woman said, and turned to go back into
the wings.
"No, wait, I'll go," Leah said.
"It's fine. I'm sure you're here for the same
reason I am."
"I am," Leah said. "But there can only be one
Lady M."
The woman smiled, just as Leah's cell phone
rang, a recording of her own voice singing "Memory." Adam's ring.
He had programmed it himself. Leah blushed.
The woman stepped back, closer to the
wings.
"See?" Leah said. "I'm late for my breakfast
date. I'll go."
The woman smiled and gave a wave goodbye.
Leah went down the stairs at the side of the stage. She headed for
the back of the theater and then turned around to watch. The woman
took center stage, and said, in a voice suddenly loud and bold,
that didn't seem to match the quiet words from five seconds ago,
"The raven itself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance..."
Leah tried not to be foolish enough to take
that as some sort of portent.
"So, I want to tell you--" Leah said, and
then looked around. "Are we really, actually at a Waffle
House?"
The overall motif of the diner was yellow,
with pale tiles along the walls and lots of windows. She liked the
natural light. She didn't like the smell. Yeast and syrup and
sausage. Though her mouth watered. Maybe she did like the smell.
Adam had pushed her into a yellow booth and her back didn't quite
curve properly against the vinyl.
"Leah, don't stare, you look like a
tourist."
"Instead of?"
"An actress. Besides, if someone says, 'Ya'll
ain't from around here,' I'm likely to spit orange juice out of my
nose and it'll hurt." He shook his pinkie prissily at her.
"Oh, like New York is so cosmopolitan."
Adam giggled.
"Don't do that. They might beat you up, or
something."
"Leah, darling, half the people in this
Waffle House are gay."
"What?"
"Look around."
She looked around. There were two middle-aged
women sitting with a little girl, watching indulgently as the girl
drank a milkshake. They had mirrored expressions of motherly love
on their faces. Across the room, a man writing in a leather-bound
notebook sat alone at the counter, looking ordinary, but Leah heard
him order steak and eggs and really, like Adam she could sometimes
sense things.
She looked back at Adam. "I'm so
disappointed."
"Why?"
"Gay people at Waffle House? Is there no
place to get a champagne brunch?"
"Obviously not. Here we are."
"Adam."
Adam leaned across the table and took her
hand, and she rolled her eyes and prepared to listen to his speech
yet again.
"If you'd just come out when you were with
Grace we'd be so over this by now. Your mother keeps leaving me
voice mail. I think she suspects something."
"About us?"
"About you."
Leah sighed. "Name one publicly out lesbian
actress in New York."
"Rosie O'Donnell?"
"One that works for a living."
He shrugged. "I could name a dozen and so
could you. But I'm not even saying you're wrong. I'm just saying
it's a pain in the ass."
She was hurt by that and concentrated on her
strawberry pancakes.
"What were you going to tell me?" he
asked.
"What?"
"Just now, before the shocking gay people at
Waffle House expose."
"Oh, that I met Lady Macbeth."
"Sophia Medina? What's she like?"
"Young," Leah said. She took a sip of her
coffee. "Isn't Lady Macbeth supposed to be played by some
well-regarded actress in her forties or fifties? Usually a ringer
or someone of local fame? Like me in 20 years? Not--a kid?"
"They brought someone big up from Charlotte
to do it, from what I read in the paper, and four weeks into
rehearsal they found out she had breast cancer. Sophia was Lady
Macduff. They bumped her up."
"Why not just bring in another ringer?"
"I'm sure they tried. People have schedules,
Leah," Adam said. "Remember how hard it was for me to drag you down
here? What do you have against Medina?"
"Nothing. She's just... young."
"And beautiful, I hear. Maybe she was
actually good enough for the part."
"Young, beautiful actresses often are," Leah
said.
"I wonder if she can sing."
"Adam."
"Don't worry, I'm not recasting you."
Leah smiled. "Ironic, isn't it? I'm far too
old to be playing a thirteen year old love interest--metaphor or
not--and she's far too young to be Macbeth. We should switch."
"I'm crushed," Adam said.
Leah felt a twinge of satisfaction. "It's
just business, Adam."
"Honey, it's art."
* * *
The theater was teeming with life when Leah
and Adam got back.
South Pacific
and
Macbeth
were to
rotate for a month in the space, followed by one week of
Poe
, and then the big finale of three weeks of
Side
Show
. Leah avoided the stage and the dressing rooms and
followed Adam around. He explained that they would get stage time
later in the week, but that he was joining the casting auditions
for
Side Show
in order to find her Poe. He had dropped the
idea that Poe didn't exist. Somewhere in a grave, Edgar was
thanking him.
"I want to pick him," Leah said.
"Your feelings will be under consideration.
Chemistry is important."
"Will I get to do lines with him?"
"When we do callbacks," he said.
"Adam."
"What? It isn't fun from this side,
either?"
"It's never fun until rehearsal."
He shooed her into a chair. Plush red velvet,
but very uncomfortable. She squirmed. "Our poor audience," she
said.
"Leah, please."
"I mean the chairs, Adam."
He settled in next to her. "Oh."
"See?"
"Well, we'll just have to bring them to their
feet, then."
"How, with our action sequences? Our amazing
pyrotechnics?"
"We do have a lot of corpses," Adam said.
"That we do."
* * *
Adam chose Edward Whitfield for Poe. Edward
preferred to be called Ward and was indistinctly Asian, with deep,
luminous eyes and peroxide-blonde hair and a lilting Southern
accent that belied his appearance and all the brooding he carried
within him.
He'd spoken "The Raven," for his callback, of
course, and there was nothing special about his oration compared to
the four times they'd heard it already, but his accent and his
youth added a sweetness that appealed to Adam.
"It's changing the musical," Leah said. "It's
supposed to be old and dark."
"Poe died at 40," Adam reminded her.
"But not his words."
Ward's voice already whispered in her head,
"Each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow--" as she went to the deli down the
street from the theater.
A rainbow flag hung from a flagpole on the
roof, swaying in a breeze under the oak trees. Inside, it just
looked like a deli, with a long counter from front to back and a
few tables by the windows, mostly empty at seven o'clock, except
for Lady Macbeth sitting at the window, looking out at the sunny
street.
"Join you?" Leah asked.
A flash of terror crossed Sophia's
expression, and then she recognized Leah. She shrugged. "I'm
leaving soon, but go ahead."
Leah settled down and put her food on the
table, careful not to invade the woman's personal space, and looked
out the window. No one passed by. There were old houses across the
street, stately, with yards overgrown and bricks spilling from
their retaining walls. "I'm Leah," she said, and took a bite of her
salad.
"Sophia. Well--most people call me
Sophie."
"I've been calling you Lady Macbeth," Leah
said.
Sophia nodded.
Leah ate.
"So, is this different from Manhattan?"
Sophia asked.
"Oh, yeah."
Sophia took a sip of her soda. There was
mostly ice in the glass, and she captured a piece and chewed on
it.
Leah looked out the window, and asked, "Is it
different from where you're from?"
"Yes, but--not really. It's just another
town." Sophia exhaled. "It just doesn't feel like home. You know?
So it feels empty."
"How'd you get the part?"
"Elaine--I knew her in Charlotte, before we
joined the cast. She recommended me."
"And now she's--"
"Sick, yeah."
"Is she going to be all right?"
"No."
Leah tried to say, "I'm sorry," but her
throat dried up. She swallowed instead and reached for her green
tea. But there wasn't anything else to talk about. She didn't know
this girl sitting next to her, looking sadly out the window. "So,
what's your favorite movie?" wasn't going to break the ice. Leah
hadn't read Macbeth since college, and she hadn't been in college
in ten years.