Little Disquietude (10 page)

At the sliding doors of the hotel, they stood
to the side, away from direct light. Leah turned down an offer of
pot and a party from men passing through the doors, and then from
Sophia's fellow cast, returning for the night. Sophia giggled.

"I should go have tea," Leah said. "I talked
all night. That's probably the last time I can do that for a
while."

"Okay," Sophia said. She looked at the door,
and then back at Leah.

Leah couldn't think of anything relevant to
say. She tilted her head and went with the obvious. "I'm sure you
were good tonight."

Sophia chuckled. "I'm sure I'll be good
tomorrow night."

Leah leaned in. She waited for Sophia to draw
back, to hesitate, but Sophia's smile remained, so Leah kissed her.
Sophia's lips gently pressed back. Leah pulled on Sophia and
brought her into a hug. Sophia rubbed her back. The kiss remained
chaste, and Sophia tilted her chin to kiss the corner of Leah's
mouth instead, and then pressed her face into Leah's neck.

The brush of Sophia's lips against her throat
made Leah shiver. She was so aroused, so suddenly, that she
clutched Sophia until Sophia murmured against her throat, "So, are
we dating?"

"Yes," Leah said, because she wanted it to be
true.

Sophia nodded against her neck.

Leah swallowed. "Next time, invite me
up."

Sophia slid her hand up between them to cup
Leah's neck. "Okay."

Leah pulled back to find her mouth again, and
kissed her more deeply, so that Sophia's lips parted against hers.
Sophia bit into her upper lip, and Leah's tongue flicked out, to
protect herself instinctively, and met Sophia's. She shivered, and
kissed Sophia harder. Sophia murmured a plea, and Leah broke the
kiss, her whole body throbbing with need.

Sophia stepped back, toward the lobby door,
and smiled shyly at Leah. She went inside.

Leah exhaled. She closed her eyes against the
hot air, and tried to quell her heartbeat, tried to ignore the
internalized expectation that this was all fleeting and therefore
would hurt her, perhaps too soon, that ruin here would ruin
everything around her. Then she surveyed the neighborhood around
her, and thought of the time, and began to walk the six blocks back
to her house, as quickly as she could.

"This trip is supposed to be about your big
break in a musical, not some romance," Adam said over
breakfast.

"Rehearsals are boring."

"Not if you have the distinct terror of
failure."

Leah smiled at him.

"Oh, stop."

"Let's go," Leah said, finishing off her
orange juice. "I want to sing."

"Sing what?" Adam asked. He reluctantly got
up from the table and gathered his portfolio, shoving sheet music
into it, loose leaf, and a handful of red and blue pens.

"I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire.
The curtains of my bed were in flames," Leah said, nearly humming
the words, sending them up and down the scales.

"That's not actually in the musical. Have you
been reading on your own?"

Leah winked. She slung her backpack over one
shoulder and went to the door.

"Leah. You do care!"

She stepped out into the sunlight and said,
"I do."

* * *

After five hours of rehearsal, she was flat
on her back on the stage, panting. Sweat on her arms and palms
sealed her to the wood.

"Leah, you're ruining the costume," Adam
said.

"I'm supposed to be lying like this," she
mumbled. Her throat burned. She swallowed, and the saliva cooled
her, and then the pain began anew. She swallowed again, but her
mouth was dry.

"Yes, but you're not supposed to lie in it
eternally. Come on,
Macbeth
needs the stage. They're doing
put-ins."

Leah rolled to her knees and began patting
her hair. Then she frowned at Adam. "Are you just fucking
with--"

The auditorium doors burst open and the cast
of
Macbeth
poured in, coming down the aisles. Leah got to
her feet.

Adam folded his arms.

Leah came to the edge of the stage and said,
"I'm going to shower, then."

"Wait," Adam said. He vaulted onto the stage
and said, "I have opera tickets."

Ward eagerly scurried over. "When?"

"Monday," Adam said. "Before
South
Pacific
and
Macbeth
run their last weeks. It'll be our
last chance for anything fun before dress and opening night."

The mention of opening night made Leah
nauseous. She knelt next to Adam and breathed through her nose.
Even Ward looked green, standing over them. Adam pulled out two
tickets and offered them to Leah.

Leah took them and said, "Adam? These are in
Charlotte."

"Did you think there was opera in
Durham?"

"But--"

"You're not riding with us, either."

Leah shrugged. She stood up and said, "It'll
be a nice break. A way to remember there's something else to live
for besides Poe."

Adam looked wounded.

* * *

She went to the ensemble dressing room to
change, nodding to the Macbethians gathered to gossip and get ready
for the rehearsal. Then she slung her garment bag over her
shoulder, checked that the opera tickets were in the back pocket of
her jeans, and went upstairs to Sophia's dressing room.

There was a sign taped to the door that said
Sophia Medina, and another sign that said Joyce Tam and Erica
Rosen, the female leads for
South Pacific
.
South
Pacific
ran that night, after the put-ins and dinner, so Leah
knocked cautiously.

"Come in," Sophia's voice called.

Leah turned the knob and swung the door open.
Sophia, leaning down in front of the mirror to put her hair in a
pony tail, smiled when she saw Leah's reflection.

"I've never been here," Leah said.

"It'll all be yours when we leave."

Something cold settled into Leah's stomach.
She put her hand over it and said, "Try to keep it clean,
then."

She let the door swing shut as she walked
further into the room. Sophia had pictures, toys, and Nutrigrain
bars on a high shelf labeled Sophia, and a black bag was next to
her feet.

"You can put your stuff down," Sophia
said.

Leah let the backpack slide to the floor, and
then put her garment bag on top of it. "We got costumes today."

"What does it look like?"

"Come to opening night and see," Leah
said.

"Comp me some tickets."

"Sure. I get four. You can sit next to my
mother, my father, and my sister."

"They're coming? That's so sweet."

"Didn't yours come?"

"Well...yes. Eventually."

"I'm hoping mine won't be stuck next to any
reporters. My dad tends to make comments."

"Does he like musical theater?"

Sophia was standing, facing her, but hadn't
moved. She stayed rooted in spot, and so did Leah, feeling awkward,
wondering what she was doing there, and what Sophia expected her to
be doing.

"In theory. But the things he's seen--the
things I've done--I die in Poe twice. That's not going to thrill
him. But at least I won't be going topless."

Sophia's eyes dropped to her chest, and then
the gaze returned to Leah's face. "Really?"

"I was in college."

"Sure you were."

"Hey, I had a solo."

They both laughed and Leah crept closer to
lean against the makeup table. "Do you like opera?"

"In the sense of--being in it?" Sophia
asked.

"Just going."

Sophia shrugged. "I've only been to one. My
mother took me to
Amahl and the Night Visitors
when I was
four."

"Golden opportunity, then."

"Does Durham actually have an opera?"

"Charlotte."

Sophia frowned. "That's--"

"South. Westish." Leah gestured in a vague
direction.

"I was going to say, the home of NASCAR."

"Do you prefer that? Because I didn't get
comped tickets to any races."

"Opera it is, then."

Leah realized Sophia had tacitly agreed
without even asking when it was, to say she might be washing her
hair. She blushed. "It's Monday."

Sophia tilted her head.

Leah dug out a ticket and asked, "Want to
come?"

"Yes," Sophia said. There was rose in her
cheeks, too, and when she took the ticket from Leah's hand, her
fingers brushed Leah's wrist.

"There's a problem," Leah said.

"What?"

"We don't have a car."

"I'll borrow one."

"There's another problem."

"You don't drive, do you?"

"I'm from New York."

"Welcome to the South, honey," Sophia
said.

"We could take a train. Amtrak."

Sophia took a step closer. "Don't you trust
me?"

"Isn't driving hard?" Leah reached out and
took Sophia's hands.

"Not compared to acting," Sophia said,
leaning over Leah, pushing against her hands.

"How about singing?" Leah asked, and lifted
up to kiss her.

Sophia kissed her back, without comment,
sealing their lips and wrapping her arms around Leah's neck. Leah
pulled Sophia against her waist. She hugged Sophia tightly,
rewarded when Sophia intensified the kiss.

When they broke off to catch their breath, to
soothe their racing heartbeats, they didn't speak. Sophia just
nuzzled Leah's cheek, let Leah kiss her jaw and her neck, and then
they kissed again, tongues stroking, teeth grazing lips, their
mouths pressing together and breaking apart and pressing together
again with more pressure. Leah could only hear her own panting, and
Sophia's, and neither heard the knock on the door until Geoffrey
stuck his head in and said, "Sophie, you're late."

Sophia pulled back, breathing hard. Leah's
face burned with embarrassment. She didn't look at Geoffrey, but
Sophia grabbed her bag and left, her hand brushing Leah as she
went.

"Isn't that Leah Fisher?" Geoffrey asked,
outside.

"Yeah."

"Holy crap."

Leah crept to the door, to hear them as they
reached the stairs.

Geoffrey said, "She's the headliner!"

"Well, I'm not an understudy anymore,
Geoff."

"Brilliant."

Then they disappeared down the stairs, and
Leah couldn't hear any more. She wrote down her phone number on a
stack of stage manager notes, and added, as an afterthought, "Call
me."

* * *

Leah went back to rehearsal, in one of the
empty rooms away from the stage, just a piano and a folding table.
Adam lost his temper. He moaned, raged, slammed his hands down on
the keys to make awful sounds.

"It's not you," he said. "It's just not
coming together. The costumes aren't what I wanted. The stage is
all wrong. The music won't flow into the words. Why can't you make
it flow?" This, he directed to Leah.

She turned to Ward, but he was just as
terrified as she was. His eyes were wide, and he hadn't said much.
Usually he'd boast and annoy her and tell Adam, "I can do
this--Don't give me direction, I can do this."

Today he mumbled his lines, stepped on hers,
and forgot the lyrics to "A Dream within a Dream." She sat in a
folding chair, since there was no wall to hide behind, and felt
nothing as he and Adam rehearsed.

Ward glanced at Adam. Adam said, "You
stand..."

"You stand..." Ward sang.

Adam cut him off and said, "I stand."

"I stand amid the roar," Ward sang, and
though his voice was beautiful enough, there was nothing behind it,
nothing in the room with them, to echo the words. "Of a
surf-tormented shore."

Adam played the piano louder, forcing Ward to
sing over him, to yell, "How few! Yet how they creep."

Leah laughed. Adam banged the keys, and she
laughed harder. Ward stopped singing, and fled. He slammed the
door, leaving Leah alone with Adam.

"What's so funny?" Adam asked.

"Nothing. Nothing." Leah continued to giggle.
She put her cheek against the table.

"Stop it," Adam said. "I need you, here."

"Find someone else," Leah said, and laughed.
Hurt flickered across his expression, but she didn't care. She felt
nothing, except a sickening sense of dread.

Sophia didn't call until Friday, after a week
of tech rehearsals so endless and exhausting that Leah could barely
bring herself to shower each day.

"I've got the car," Sophia said. "If you
still want to go."

"That's fantastic. How's
Macbeth
?" She
hadn't seen Sophia, not even in passing, for days. Were they
dating? At least Sophia hadn't forgotten her name. Or maybe she
just really loved
Die Fledermaus
.

"Oh,
Mac
. I just want it to be over.
I'm so tired of being so hateful and awful every night."

"Better than playing a victim," Leah said.
She felt overly cheerful, elated by the thought of the opera,
compared to Sophia's serious, distant tone.

Sophia said, "Elaine says it's the material,
not the character's age, really, that makes older women play this
part. There's just so much rawness and power here. She says that
Desdemona and Lady Macbeth should be flipped, that Desdemona has
the layers and Lady Macbeth is driven by one thing alone, but that
it's unsustainable."

"Does Lady Macbeth have a name, you think?"
Leah asked.

"Like, Sarah Macbeth?"

"Or Jodie," Leah said.

"Her real name was Gruoch," Sophia said. "But
I think naming her takes away from her identity being born in her
husband's. What she makes of him, she makes of herself."

"That's feminism for you," Leah said.

"That's the best we get. The role of the
woman in theater is not especially liberated."

"Hm."