Look Both Ways (23 page)

I hear him roll toward me in the dark. “Hey, Brooklyn?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

I hadn’t planned to do much of anything besides sulking in my room and hoping Zoe came home early. “Nothing, really. Why?”

“I was thinking of driving around the Hudson Valley a little bit and checking out some of the other weird small towns around here. You want to come?”

“Is there a group going?”

“No, it would just be us.”

For a second I feel disloyal to Zoe for even thinking about it; first I’m playing our game with someone else, and now I’m considering spending my day off alone with Russell. But she’s the one who should feel guilty; she’s across campus having sex with someone else right now while I’m having an innocent pajama party with my gay friend.

“That sounds really fun,” I say. “I’d love to.”

“Great. Maybe we could grab breakfast at Kayla’s first? I’ve been meaning to try their scones.”

I tell him I can’t wait, and for a few minutes, I’m proud of myself. If Zoe gets to have fun without me, I get to have fun without her, too. But as I try to fall asleep in an empty bed for the first time in eight days, I can’t help missing her.

The next morning is bright and sunny, and Russell and I pick a random direction and set off down the highway. We stop in every town we pass and investigate the weird little shops—the one that sells knives carved from animal bones, the bookstore full of tomes about conspiracy theories, the antiques shop with the dresses that were supposedly owned by Audrey Hepburn. We buy a baguette and some cheeses with fancy names and have a picnic next to a half-dry creek. We play Love or Hate. We think up titles for silly Shakespeare-musical mash-ups, like
A Midsummer Night’s Dreamgirls
and
The Lion King Lear
and
Thoroughly Modern Macbeth.
Russell tells me you can write a thirty-five-mile-long line with the average pencil and that it’s illegal to burp inside a church in Nebraska. When we get back to Allerdale in the evening, we grab dinner at Sammy’s and spend a couple of hours messing around on one of the practice room pianos.

It should be a perfect day. Instead, I spend the entire time missing Zoe.

The scenic crew and I start loading the
Macbeth
set into Legrand early on Saturday morning, so I don’t see her again until we’re all called in for a surprise company meeting that night. The second Russell and I walk into Haydu, she calls my name from across the room, and a smile breaks across my face when I spot her waving and gesturing toward the seat she’s saved for me. She looks a little tanner from hiking, and it’s strange and terrible that she could change even a little bit in the two days we’ve been apart.

“I’m going to sit with Zoe,” I tell Russell. “You want to get dinner after the meeting?”

He looks surprised; we’ve spent so much time together the last couple of days that I guess he expected me to sit with him. But when he says, “Sure,” he doesn’t sound upset at all. “I’ll meet you out front when this is over.” He smiles at me and then heads straight for Olivier, who’s chatting with Barb near the stage.

I bump into a bunch of people as I hurry over to Zoe; I can’t get to her fast enough. When I sit down, she hugs me close, and even though the arm of the chair is digging into my side, even though I
know
I should be pissed at her, I never want her to let go.

“Hey,” she says close to my ear. “I missed you.”

I think,
No you didn’t,
but what comes out of my mouth is, “I missed you, too. Where’s Carlos?”

“He’s showering. Hopefully this meeting won’t take long. Do you know what it’s about?”

“No,” I say, and I try not to think about the reasons Carlos might need to shower at six in the evening. “Hopefully it’s nothing bad. Did you guys have fun camping?”

“Yeah, it was great! The Catskills are
gorgeous,
and the hike we did was supereasy after what we’re used to at home. Look at this!” She digs out her phone and shows me a picture taken from the top of a small mountain.

I scroll through her photos: trees, a lake, Carlos with a makeshift walking stick, Zoe eating a granola bar, about fifteen selfies with their faces pressed together, a few shots of them kissing. Then come the photos of Zoe setting up their tent and Carlos roasting marshmallows over a campfire. When I get to one of Carlos shirtless in a red sleeping bag, I hand the phone back. “Looks really nice,” I say.

“What’d you do while we were gone?”

Before I can answer, Bob Sussman jogs onto the stage. “Good evening, warriors for art!” he shouts. “Is everyone having a good summer?”

The whole company cheers, and Bob smiles so hard, I think his face might split down the middle.
“Wonderful,”
he says. “I am
so
pleased to hear that.”

“How’s your summer, Bob?” someone shouts from the front row, and everyone laughs. If someone asked Marcus Spooner a question like that, he’d probably give us a lecture about how happiness is detrimental to acting, then throw a few cream pies at us for good measure.

“My summer has been
spectacular
!” Bob answers. “Thank you for asking! It’s such a delight to see all of you. The work you’ve done over the past six weeks has been phenomenal. Some of our long-time donors have told me they think this might be the very best season Allerdale has ever had, and that’s all down to you. Thank you for making it so special.”

Everyone applauds, and I find myself smiling. I know I’ve had nothing to do with making this season special, but it’s impossible not to feel included when Bob is talking.

“I have a very exciting announcement for you tonight,” he continues. “This coming Monday, right here in Haydu Hall, Allerdale will hold its first twenty-four-hour play festival!”

Everyone breaks into enthusiastic murmurs and whispers, and Bob beams like a benevolent dad. “I’m so glad you’re excited as well! The goal of a twenty-four-hour play festival is, of course, to write, rehearse, and perform original short plays within the span of a single day. You will form groups of eight or fewer, and starting at 12:01
AM
on Monday, you will gather to create your own fantastic original work. At eight
PM
that same day, you will perform those ingenious creations right here for an audience of donors and subscribers. The only rules are that you may not begin work on your play until the clock starts, and the work you perform must be memorized and completely original. Your whole group is not required to perform, as long as you all contribute to the creative process. Do something you’ve never done before! Experiment! Be bold!” Bob is bouncing on his toes now, so buoyed by his excitement that I think he may achieve liftoff.

My phone vibrates with a text from Russell:

Want to try one of our mash-up musicals? Midsummer night’s dreamgirls, maybe?

OMG YES,
I text back, and my brain floods with adrenaline at the prospect of creating a whole parody musical with him. Writing, rehearsing, and performing a play in less than a day sounds insane, but I know the two of us can make it happen. In a weird way, it feels like the most doable thing I’ve been asked to accomplish since I got here.

“You’re free to start forming your groups now,” Bob says. “Please write your names down on this sign-up sheet, and have
fun,
you brilliant people! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!”

Everyone starts talking at once, and Zoe grabs my hand. “Should we work alone, or should we ask Jessa and Livvy and those guys to work with us? It might be easier to get ideas if we have more people. Then again, if it were just us, we could—”

I cut her off before she can say anything about being alone with me in a rehearsal room. “Russell and I already have an idea for something we want to write, actually,” I say. “But I’d love it if you’d work with us. All of you, actually—we’re going to need a bunch of people.”

A crinkle appears between her eyebrows. “Wait, how do you guys already have an idea? Did you know about this in advance?”

“No, it’s something we’ve been kicking around. He texted a minute ago to ask if I wanted to work on it for this. See?” I hold up my phone, as if I’m required to prove it.

“Oh,” Zoe says. It’s like she had no idea until this moment that I had a life separate from her. “What’s the idea?”

“It’s a Shakespeare-Broadway musical mash-up, like a parody. We were thinking of maybe doing
A Midsummer Night’s Dreamgirls,
since everyone knows both shows. We’d keep the general story from
Midsummer,
and we’d rewrite the lyrics from a bunch of
Dreamgirls
songs to be about the
Midsummer
characters.” Russell and I haven’t actually discussed the logistics of the mash-up, but it’s very clear to me that this is how it should work, and I know he’ll agree.

For a second, I’m afraid Zoe’s going to say that’s a dumb idea, that she’d rather do something else. If she’s not into it, I’m afraid I’ll back down and let her take the lead, like always, and being in charge for once is suddenly really important to me. Fortunately, she starts laughing. “That’s really funny. I’m definitely in. Want me to round up everyone else?”

“Yeah, that’d be perfect,” I say. I can write a twenty-four-hour play with no problem, but there’s no way I could find a cast without Zoe. None of the other apprentices take me seriously anymore. Maybe this play festival is exactly the opportunity I need to show Jessa and Livvy and Kenji and Todd that I’m worth something.

Zoe gets up. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

“Should I come with you?”

“No, I can do it myself.” Her tone is light, but she obviously thinks it’ll be easier to talk them into working with us if I’m not there to screw things up. “Why don’t you put our names down on the sign-up sheet?”

“Shouldn’t we wait until they say yes?”

“They’ll say yes. I’m very convincing.”

She could just as easily have said,
It’s a really good idea. I’m sure they’ll go for it
or
How could they not want to work with you?
But she’s trying to help me, so I try not to be annoyed that she’s making this all about her. “Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

“When I’m done, we’ll pick up Carlos and go get some dinner in town, okay?”

And that’s all it takes for my annoyance to get the better of me. How rude is it to assume I have nothing better to do than be a pathetic third wheel? “I can’t go out with you guys tonight,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even and pleasant.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m eating with Russell.”

Zoe looks confused. “I thought we weren’t supposed to start working on the show until midnight tomorrow.”

“We’re not working on the show; we’re hanging out. He’s my friend. And I’m sleeping in his room tonight so you and Carlos can…you know.”

“Oh,” Zoe says. “It’s just that I already told Carlos you’d come with us. We barely got to hang out with you the other day, and he wants to get to know you better.”

I can’t believe she’s making me argue with her about this. She has to know how much it sucks for me to see them together. “Carlos isn’t going to care if I’m there or not,” I say. “He wants to see you, not me.”

I wait for Zoe to make it right by saying,
I care if you’re there.
But instead she says, “All right. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” She sounds disappointed, but not disappointed enough.

As she walks away from me, I try not to feel too disappointed, either.

I lie awake for hours after Russell falls asleep on the floor that night, my mind chasing its tail like a hyperactive puppy. Is Zoe mad at me for ditching her and Carlos? She did me a favor by convincing the other apprentices to work with me on the play festival, and maybe I should’ve gone out with them in return, regardless of how uncomfortable I felt. Then again, she’s handled this whole Carlos situation so badly that maybe I don’t owe her anything. If her boyfriend was going to fly out here, she really should’ve talked to me about it beforehand and laid down some ground rules, right? I shouldn’t have been exiled to Russell’s room, and Carlos shouldn’t have been the one to ask me to go. All of that was Zoe’s responsibility, and she totally dropped the ball.