Sophia scanned the crowd, presumably for
someone else. She shrugged and said, "I'd ask John, but his car
smells like pot."
"I assure you that Adam's does not."
"That's good to hear."
"He only smokes inside the house."
Sophia snorted.
Leah put her hand on Sophia's back and, at
Sophia's acquiescence, led her out into the night. The walk was too
short. Conversation started and then they were climbing the steps
to the dark house. Adam's bedroom window had shown no light, so
Leah apologetically let Sophia into the kitchen and said she would
look for the keys.
She deduced they were in Adam's room and
pushed her ear against his door. She heard grunting coming from
inside and hoarse, urgent cries. She rolled her eyes and descended
the stairs. Sophia had settled at the kitchen table and, though
Variety was open before her, had her head on her elbow and seemed
mostly asleep.
"Sophia," Leah said, touching her arm.
"Hm?"
"Adam's got someone upstairs. I think you
should stay here tonight."
"Hm."
"On the couch."
"It's only ten blocks," Sophia said.
"It'll be a nicer walk on a sunny
morning."
"I can't impose."
"It's a leather couch," Leah said.
"I don't even know you," Sophia said
sleepily. She straightened up to rub her eyes and squeeze the
bridge of her nose. She wore an evening gown and her hair had
fallen and her makeup was gone from her cheeks, and smeared under
her eyes.
"Get to know me over breakfast," Leah
said.
Sophia's lips curved into a smile. "Where's
the couch?"
"This way." Leah tugged at her hands. Sophia
stood. Leah pulled her into the living room. Sophia opened her
eyes. She saw the piano, the bookcases, the television, the
couch.
"We have cable," Leah said.
Sophia fell onto the couch. She sighed, sat
up, and took off her shoes.
"Do you want tea?" Leah asked.
"Water?"
Leah went into the kitchen. When she came
back with a bottle of Evian, Sophia had taken off her dress and
folded it on the end of the couch, and wrapped herself in the
blanket that had lain along its back. She sat, Buddha-like, and
accepted the water.
"Will you be all right?" Leah asked.
"Yes. I'm just going to sit for a while, and
think about my life."
"Okay." Leah went to the stairs, and stopped
on the first one to say, "I'll see you in the morning."
Sophia raised her bottle in toast. "Tomorrow,
and tomorrow, and tomorrow."
"Creeps in this petty pace," Leah said, going
up the stairs, counting each one.
She kicked off her shoes and took off her own
dress, and pulled on the nearest robe before she collapsed into
bed, ignoring the blankets, letting the fan send feeble waves of
cool air over her back.
She waited to fall asleep with a lightness in
her chest, an easing, knowing Sophia was nearby.
* * *
Screaming awoke Leah, along with the
realization that she'd forgotten to tell Adam that someone else was
here, and that she'd forgotten to inquire as to who was in Adam's
bedroom. She knew she wouldn't make it to the living room fast
enough to take back the screaming.
Robe billowing, she flew down the stairs and
nearly ran into Ward. He caught her by the arms. "Morning," he
said.
"Hello." She doubled over, panting, and
asked, "Is Sophia all right?"
"Sophia is getting some orange juice," Sophia
said, walking by them, wearing Adam's bathrobe. Adam, in white
T-shirt and shorts, was blushing furiously and staring at Leah.
"You were busy," Leah said.
Adam looked guilty.
Bert, the set designer, came through the
front door. "Good morning, ladies." He looked surprised, but Sophia
handed him the quart of orange juice, and he shrugged and settled
down at the table.
Leah went back upstairs to shower.
Leah, Adam, Ward, and Sophia walked to the
theater together. Then Sophia went past it, explaining that she was
going to sleep in her own bed. Now that
Macbeth
was playing
nightly there were only a few put-in rehearsals in the
afternoons.
Adam took Ward and Leah to the prop room.
"I know you can act and sing," he said. "But
can you act and sing with stuff?"
"You know I've got stuff," Ward said, shaking
his hips.
Adam giggled.
Leah said, "I'm going to get more
coffee."
* * *
When rehearsal broke and Leah was soaked with
sweat and Ward had finished yelling and insulting her, Adam
informed them they had a week and a half off while costumes were
sewn and lighting was programmed into computers.
"I hear there are some good plays nearby," he
said.
She could sit through Macbeth again.
Somewhere Sophia couldn't see her, because that would be creepy.
She shrugged. Adam smiled. He brought it up again at dinner. The
three of them were together at the house, eating chicken breasts
with capers and wild rice.
"Come clubbing with us Friday," Adam
said.
"Where?"
"Flamingo," Ward said.
"No thanks. I don't want to be the only woman
in a gay bar. You remember what happened last time."
Ward glanced at Adam.
"They thought she was a man," Adam said.
"You didn't have to tell him that."
"It was very unpleasant," Adam said.
"Very."
Ward took another bite of rice.
Leah glared at Adam.
"So go to a girl bar," Adam said.
"Adam. We're in North Carolina."
He pushed a copy of the local weekly
newspaper across the table. "I circled some. You haven't been out
since we got here."
"Neither have you."
"Well, that's got to change. If you don't go
clubbing, at least go to a party."
"We're hosting one," Leah said.
"In a week, and that's for our show. Hardly
the event of the century," Adam said.
"Some people are born social, and some have
socializing thrust upon them," Ward said. He waved his fork at
Leah.
Adam gently pushed Ward's arm down, and said,
"Leah never missed an event in New York. She's the toast of the
town."
"Have you ever met anyone famous?" Ward
asked.
"Your momma," Leah said.
Ward grinned.
"What's wrong, Leah?" Adam asked.
"Nothing's wrong except
Jeopardy!
's on
and I need to feel smart." She took her plate into the living
room.
Ward and Adam finished dinner in the kitchen,
whispering to each other, touching benignly. A hand on a thigh, a
finger tapping an elbow. Adam came and took the dish from her when
he went to clean up. She watched the television silently, her
thoughts too much in turmoil to think of the answers to Adam's
questions, or hear what Alex was saying.
In New York, she knew everyone. Every star
and writer was a friend of Leah Fisher. Even in their most boring
iterations of the same stories--the reason she'd left in the first
place to try something new--there was camaraderie. A stranger was
just someone new in town, new to the stage, to be introduced to
her. She got invited backstage to every show on Broadway, and into
the dressing rooms of half. She had done what she wanted.
She'd wanted to leave.
Now, to walk into a room and not know anyone
felt unreal. Last night's efforts at the bar had been intense and
draining and probably futile. She'd been on the scene since she was
nineteen. Since she had convinced her parents it was all right to
let her minor in theater, because a college degree was a college
degree, that it was no worse than English.
Going to the Flamingo with Adam and Ward
would not cheer her up. No one would recognize her. She'd be their
third wheel and though beautiful young men would probably dance
with her, and charm her, and maybe even buy her a drink, there'd be
nothing for them to share, nothing to take home. She didn't want to
escape, she wanted to be remembered.
But staying home in the empty, large house
seemed worse. The drug lords and prostitutes would know, and they'd
come for her. They'd steal the piano. She shivered. If that was
going to happen, she didn't want to be around for it.
"How am I going to get there?" Leah asked.
Adam and Ward were taking the rental car.
"You can walk," Adam said, beaming. "It's ten
blocks. Here, let me help you dress."
"I can't dress myself to go to a lesbian
bar?"
"Were you going to wear jeans?"
"No."
"Oh, honey."
She sighed.
He put her in her tightest blue jeans and the
only pair of high-heeled boots she'd brought.
"I can't walk ten blocks in these," she
said.
"I put in insoles."
"Adam."
"Hey, I need you on stage an hour a night.
Good foot care is important."
"And gay," she said.
She picked her sluttiest top and did her own
makeup, which Adam marked over with brighter lipstick and more eye
shadow.
"I look like a tramp," she said.
"A vamp. You look like a vamp."
"Rhymes with tramp."
He grinned.
"Do you expect me to bring someone home?" she
asked.
"It'd be good for you. How long has it
been?"
She met his eyes in the mirror and said, "Not
long enough."
"Who?" He placed his hand on her back, and
looked at her earnestly.
"No one," she said, pulling away.
"Leah."
"Just some guy."
"And?" Adam prompted.
And every time he'd touched her, she'd wanted
to die. It wasn't his fault. He was the sound technician from her
most recent anime gig. They'd joked together about the crazy love
story she was recounting, in high-pitched oration. She'd been the
one to invite him to dinner, and then a second, and when the
kissing had been fine--a little exciting, even, she'd let the rest
happen.
He'd been gentle, mistaking her trembling as
he undressed her for excitement. And she'd touched him, remembering
how it had felt to hold Grace, marveling at how different it was
even when all the parts weren't that different. He'd used his
mouth, and she cried and begged him to stop, and when he wanted to
hold her as he slept she'd felt suffocated, had escaped, had never
spoken to him again, despite the flowers he sent, despite his
apologies.
He had no idea what he was apologizing
for.
Adam wrapped his arms around her waist and
held her, and when she relaxed back into him he murmured, "Bring
home a girl. Do I have to draw you a picture?"
She almost lost her nerve walking the ten
blocks. She stopped in the dark, under a maple tree that draped
heavy branches over her head. Going back meant the empty house.
Ward and Adam were going to a club an hour away. Even if she cried
into the cell phone for them, it'd be useless.
Forward lay civilization. Adam promised her
that she was hot, and not desperate, and that her hair was really
more of a dirty blonde than a mousey brunette and not too straggly
in the way it brushed her neck. Perhaps she'd even run into some of
the local crew there. She'd have a drink, she told herself, maybe
two.
When she arrived, Lost Girls at Sea was
packed. The club was one large room, mostly dark with stage lights
pointed at the dance floor, flickering, and light above the bar.
She paid her ten dollars at the door, and pushed through the crowd
toward the bar at the back. There she could sit--the crowd was
mostly on the dance floor, or along the back wall. She ordered the
special and drank it in one swallow and then ordered another to
carry while she mingled.
The crowd wasn't all younger than her, though
those on the dance floor looked to be about eighteen. The girls
with the piercings and the shaved heads caught her eye first, but
mostly everyone wore jeans and held beers. The hair, when present,
was poofier than what she usually saw in New York, the accents made
her giggle, and finally, after thirty-four years of living, she saw
her first mullet.
Despite Adam's promises, she didn't recognize
anyone. She smiled sheepishly at girls, all in groups of two or
three, who smiled back, but then turned away. She sighed. Women
traveled in packs. Lesbians were no exception. She sipped at her
drink, hoping to make it last so that her hands were occupied, and
surveyed the dance floor.
She caught a flash of Sophia.
"Crap."
No one heard her through the thundering disco
music, and Sophia hadn't seen her standing in the dark along the
edge. She finished her drink and made her way onto the dance floor.
Only when she was two feet from Sophia, about to interrupt, did the
awareness of Sophia in a dyke bar, dancing with a woman, reach her.
And now it was too late to run.
"Are you--?" Leah asked clumsily, instead of
"Hello."
Sophia's eyes widened as she recognized
Leah--a good sign, at least--and she asked, "Are you?"
Leah glanced around at the sea of women, and
then back at Sophia, and nodded. "I guess, tonight, I am."
Sophia smiled.
"Anyway, sorry to interrupt, enjoy your
dance," Leah said, backing away. She decided to head for the bar. A
third drink would do her good.
"No, I'll dance with you," Sophia said. She
gave her partner an apologetic wave and hug, and then grabbed
Leah.
"But--"
"Come on. It's good to see a familiar
face."
Leah allowed herself to be tugged into an
awkward, swaying hug. Sophia was warm, and her skin shone with
faint sweat, and her hair stuck to her face. She was smiling, wider
than Leah had ever seen.
"Are you drunk?" Leah asked. She put her hand
to Sophia's flushed cheek. The heat burned into her palm.
"Little bit," Sophia said.