Relatively Honest (11 page)

Gulp.

The confidence flooded out of me as Julie and I faced one another under the lights, playbooks in our hands.

“‘Is that you, Christian?’” she said, low-pitched and fetching. “‘Let’s stay here in the twilight. Sit down. Now…tell me things.’”

My throat was dry. The words, which I knew well enough from watching the others do this scene, seemed to melt before my eyes. “‘I love you,’” I croaked. Not projecting well at all.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“‘Yes, speak to me of love.’” She leaned toward me.

I leaned back – didn’t even mean to. “‘I love you.’”

“‘You have your theme. Improvise! Rhapsodize!’”

“‘I…I love you so.’” Christ, this was awful. Making me say it for the first time, like this? And how was I supposed to play Christian if I fell to pieces now?

“‘Oh, tell me how you
feel
!’” she said, perfectly petulant.

Was this God’s idea of a joke?

I fumbled through the scene, sweating and miserable. Julie sailed through it, making everyone chuckle. Finally I was sent back to the house with a “Thank you” from Bob, while another fellow was sent up to do the same scene with her.

I fell into the seat beside Sinter. “Bloody hell,” I whispered.

“Must have been a little awkward.”

“Well, there goes that role. Or any role.”

“You weren’t so bad. But I know how you feel. Blaine’s getting Cyrano, I just know it.”

Sinter was
right.

Julie, Sinter, and I made a special trip across campus on the third evening to view the final cast list, which was to be posted on the bulletin board at five o’clock. We joined the group of anxious actors already waiting there. Blaine, apparently either busy or very confident, was not present. Right on time, Bob strolled out and tacked the list up, saluted us all, and returned to his office.

We clustered around.

Cyrano de Bergerac -- Blaine Rice

Roxane -- Julie French

Christian -- Sinter Blackwell

And, further down, among a slew of males:

Carbon de Castel-Jaloux -- Daniel Revelstoke

Captain of the Guards. Who bloody cared? My balance had started wobbling with the implications of the more important casting. Christian and Roxane.

Cries of approval and good-natured regret filled the air. Julie shrieked and covered her mouth. People began congratulating her.

Sinter staggered back from the board, wide-eyed. “Christian? Are they sure? There must be some mistake.”

“No, dude, you were the best Christian,” one of the other actors said.

“I…I didn’t think I was, you know, that type of character.”

“You were adorable,” a girl told him. “It was perfect.”

His gaze, bewildered but happy, wandered to mine. He shrugged helplessly.

He would get to kiss Julie. My roommate, Julie’s roommate’s boyfriend, would get to kiss Julie. I found a smile for him – best acting I’d ever done. “Congrats, mate.” My eyes moved to the trembling, elated Miss French. “And to you, of course, Jules.”

“But you too, Dan,” she said. “Captain of the guards! That’s pretty good.”

I waved it off. “Eh, another man in uniform.”

Even if I had been cast as Cyrano I would have been blinded with jealousy at this moment. Someone else – Sinter, no less – was going to be kissing Julie.
Fuck it all to hell.

Finally Sinter and Julie looked at each other and broke into breathless laughter.

“People will say we’re in love,” she told him.

Oh, yes. I hated life all right.

The three
of us walked into Clare and Julie’s room, where Clare lay across her bed, reading with the radio turned up. “Hey,” Sinter greeted. “I’ll be making out with your roommate for a couple months in front of an audience. Hope that’s okay.”

She squinted at him. “Holy shit. Did you both get leads?”

“Yep. Christian and Roxane.” He slung himself down beside her.

“All right! You stud.” She thumped him on the back. “Does this mean you have to keep combing your hair?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “They cast me looking like this, so I guess they like me this way.”

“I like you that way too,” Julie said. “You can see your eyes.”

“Cheers, babe,” he answered playfully. Then, with a startled glance in my direction, as if he had just realized he was imitating me, he blushed and changed the subject.

The whole
company attended the first rehearsal, in which Bob had us sit in a circle on the stage and go round and introduce ourselves. He gave us the photocopied rehearsal schedule, listing who was to be where, when. Plenty of days I would not be required. At least half the days, Sinter would be. Three-quarters of the time, Julie would have to be there. And every single day, Blaine was essential.

To my mixed relief and resentment, Blaine turned out to be likeable. Despite his intimidating talent and his towering flannel-shirted presence (he even dressed like a lumberjack), he was self-effacing and relaxed. He went out of his way to make friends with the rest of us, Sinter and Julie especially. But then, as Bob said that first day:

“Get to know each other. Get comfortable with the people you’ll be acting with. You rely on each other so much when you’re performing. You have to feel connected. You have to
trust
. Theatergoers can tell when the trust isn’t there.”

Bob always said “theatergoers” rather than “the audience.”

Starting the second day, and continuing for three weeks, we met in small groups. We soldiers got put into a classroom with the fight choreographer, pushed all the chairs against the walls, and learned to act military. At least fifteen minutes were spent on the perfect salute, ten on the walk and the bow, and hours and hours on fighting and swordplay most of us would never get to use on stage. I, as the captain, got to practice shouting at the cadets to form ranks, and strutting alongside them to make sure they did it.

Big deal. While I did that, Blaine and Sinter were wooing Julie on the main stage. Some days, our storylines crossed and we would all get to be there together. Even if I didn’t have to be at a rehearsal, I usually attended if Julie or Sinter was going, just to watch.

They still weren’t kissing by the third week of rehearsals. They still only pantomimed it, and Bob was letting it slide for now. I didn’t want to think about it, and Sinter never mentioned it. (Except the very first night, the night the cast list went up – then he had said to me, “I’m sorry. Honest.” I told him to stop being ridiculous; I knew it was only acting. That was the end of it.)

When I found myself alone with Julie, which happened now and then as we walked to classes or rehearsals, I still got nervous. My mind yelped,
Cousin! Love! Lust! Laws! Genetics! Patrick! Mum, Dad! Aunts, uncles! Liar, liar, liar!
and my tongue got confused, and the conversation wouldn’t flow. She seemed preoccupied too, either because of my weird behavior or for reasons I couldn’t guess.

But we had our moments. One day during that third week, she and I lounged near each other (one empty seat between us) in the middle of the house, while Sinter and Blaine worked through the scene in which they strike the deal about Roxane.

Julie chuckled. “I love the look on Sinter’s face there.”

“He plays young and clueless better than I expected,” I said.

We went on watching. I don’t know what prompted me, what gave me the courage – maybe the darkness of the house, maybe Cyrano announcing he was Roxane’s cousin, maybe Julie’s smile in the soft reflected stage-light – but I heard myself say, “When they updated the story for the film
Roxanne
, I notice they didn’t make them cousins anymore.”

She put one foot up on the seat in front of her. A pink ballet slipper poked its toe into my field of vision. Ballet slippers were what she would wear in costume, so she was getting used to them. “Mm,” she agreed. “Would have weirded people out, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Could you pass out from your heart beating too quickly, at the age of nineteen? Hoped not.

“I don’t think it’s such a big deal, though,” she added. “As long as your family doesn’t make a habit of it.”

Surely she could
hear
my heart beating, now. “Yeah,” I said again.

Then, while I worked up the nerve to add,
So listen, speaking of cousins…
, a woman said, “Julie?” It was Bev, the costume mistress. “Come with me for a minute. Got to try a couple old dresses on you and see if we can alter them.”

“Okay.” Julie jumped up and went with her, without a glance at me.

I, meanwhile, took the next hour to get my pulse and sweating under control. She hadn’t seemed to suspect anything from that bit of conversation. And I probably couldn’t bring it up again now without her getting suspicious. I had promised Mum I wouldn’t, anyway. But:
Julie didn’t think it was a big deal.

Sleeping with your cousin not such a problem in the head of the cousin I loved. This was fantastic. No, wait, it was dangerous. Wasn’t it?

Well, not as bad as it had been. The thorn in my conscience had its point blunted now, and my old lustful thoughts were reawakening. I confess the change was a pleasant one.

Thus it was a nasty slap when Sinter said at lunch the next day, “Too bad she’s probably moving to Boston.”

“What?” We had only been talking about how well Julie was doing in the play. I hadn’t said anything about her “no big deal” comment.

Sinter shrugged. “The other day, when I was in their room, she said she was looking into transferring to Boston U next year.”

“For
Patrick
?” Without intending to, I pronounced his name the way you might say “The Elephant Man.”

“Women are unpredictable,” Sinter said.

“Or bloody insane.”

He glanced at me and didn’t push the subject of just who was insane around here. Too tactful, that roommate of mine.

That afternoon, I ended up sitting next to Julie again after one of my scenes. We were in the shadows backstage this time, on a movable block of stairs that was soon to be painted a different color and transformed into a set piece. “Hear you’re thinking of going to Boston next year,” I said, watching the stage where Blaine was delivering a monologue.

Took her a while to respond. “Looking into it. I promised I would.”

“Promised Patrick?”

“Mm-hm.”

I went quiet. But when I scraped up the courage to glance aside at her, I found her looking solemn, sad, nearly depressed. “Is it really what you want to do?” I whispered.

She glanced at me, then let her gaze slide away. Slowly, she shook her head.

“Then…” All I had to add was
Stay, please stay
, but once again, the show intervened.

“Next scene,” Bob shouted. “Roxane and Cyrano, you’re up.”

She glanced at me once more, then hopped down and padded onstage, a Roxane in jeans and ballet shoes. I watched her confess her love for Christian to her miserable cousin Cyrano, and all the while I tried to send brain waves to her.
Stay here, stay with me, you don’t love Patrick, stay, stay, stay.

Maybe it worked. Maybe that was why she came back to me when the scene ended, and sat on the step below me, and leaned sideways against my leg. I firmed it up for her, gave a little press into her, to let her know I wasn’t blaming her, was welcoming her to rest on me, something. Blaine was orating onstage. The actor playing Le Bret strolled around him, shaking his head and reasoning with him. Julie and I watched. She let her head come to rest on my leg, above my knee.

I was almost trembling. Contact like this was practically nothing, compared to what I had done with dozens of girls. But now it mattered. I stroked my knuckles across her hair. Without looking back, she nudged her head upward so it touched my hand again, like a cat pleased with being petted. I opened my palm. My fingers found stray dry wisps with silky waves beneath; and the edge of her right ear, hot and fleshy, for one second. Back to the crown I went, and down again, over and over. The scent of her hair filled my nose, mixed with the dusty backstage theater scent.

Sinter paced into our line of sight at the side of the stage. His hands were folded behind his back; he was likely going over lines in his head. When he lifted his face and saw us, he stopped, one shoe in the air. Julie raised a hand in greeting. Sinter smiled a little, looked me in the eye, and swiveled away. Poor bloke. Couldn’t have been easy having a sick bastard for a roommate.

On the walk home, neither Julie nor I said much. Sinter, usually the quiet one, had to carry the conversation. In our room later, he didn’t say anything to me about the backstage caressing he had witnessed, either. Oh well, it wasn’t much. Wasn’t as if we were snogging. But if it wasn’t much, why did I think about it so obsessively?

They ran the balcony scene the next day. Although the scene only required the presence of Blaine, Sinter, and Julie, I went along too, drawn by a mix of voyeurism and masochism. A few other actors and crew members hung about as well. In the house, a dozen rows back, I scrunched down in a seat and chewed on a pencil while the three principals repeated desirous things to one another under Bob’s guidance. Making things worse, they were using that same set of stairs today as their balcony: Julie stood on it, six feet up, while Sinter and Blaine lurked below.

Sinter-as-Christian, script in his hand, leaped up the side of those stairs as if scaling a balcony, and caught Julie’s hand. “‘Roxane!’” They drew close and stopped, the way they had always done so far. Script called for a kiss, but they hadn’t got up the nerve. Blaine began his melancholy speech below, but Bob cut in.

“Hold on, please. The kiss, children? When are we doing that?”

Ripple of giggles from the others watching.

Sinter and Julie smiled bashfully. “We can start,” Julie said.

“No problem,” Sinter said.

“Then let’s start,” Bob said. “Sooner you do, sooner you get used to it. All right – you’re kissing throughout Cyrano’s whole speech here, until the friar comes on.”

“Okay,” Julie said.

“Sure,” said Sinter. They made a serious study of their scripts.

“All right,” said Bob. “From ‘Your moment made immortal.’”

Sinter hopped back down and stood ready.

“Action!”

“‘Your moment made immortal…’” Julie said.

Blaine shoved Sinter toward her. “‘Climb up, idiot!’”

Sinter scrambled up the steps again. Julie turned to him. “‘Roxane!’” he said. She stepped toward him. And before my eyes, my roommate took my cousin into his arms, bent over her, and kissed her.

The pencil snapped between my fingers. Gripped by jealousy and vicarious thrill, I watched as their lips moved slowly against each other while Blaine delivered his thirty-second monologue. Never in my life had thirty seconds felt so long.

As the monologue ended they broke apart; but before letting her go, Sinter murmured something apologetic to her, grinning shyly. She smiled and murmured back, then jumped into character and delivered her lines. It was cute enough to make you sick.

They went through the scene once more, kisses and all, then Bob announced he wanted to skip to another scene. Sinter came down from the stage and dropped into the seat beside me. As Julie and Blaine began the new scene, Sinter covered his eyes. “God, that was awful.”

I glanced at him. “Looked all right from here.”

“So awkward. Having to make out with someone on command like that, someone you know but you don’t really
know
…”

What’s it like to kiss her?
I was dying to ask. “It looked fine. You don’t have to worry.”

“Well, it
felt
weird.” After a few seconds, he added, “It was probably weird for you to watch, too.”

“Oh, I knew it would come to this, one of these days,” I said dryly. “Just watch it, Blackwell. I’m a very protective cousin.”

He laughed a bit, deciding I was kidding. Which I was. Sort of.

Over the
next week Bob had them do kisses. A lot. He added three that weren’t in the script, for reasons like, “Roxane, you’ve just risked your life to see your husband again, who’s been starving on a battlefield. Let’s have a kiss, a real show of passion. Oh, and you soldiers watching,” gesturing to the rest of us, who were onstage during this scene, “how about some grins and whistles? This is France, guys.”

In an earlier scene, when Christian is being called to war, he and Roxane were supposed to cling to each other like Miriam clung to me at Heathrow. (Not how Bob put it, of course, but it resembled that.) Julie did such a good job I got jealous every time; she wept, she locked her arms around his neck, she pressed kisses on his lips. I could tell it flustered Sinter. Bob could tell too. “Sinter,” he chided, “don’t hold
back
. This is the woman you love! This is the number one thing you want most in the world! You might never see her again! Haven’t you ever been in love?”

Sinter smiled his shy smile, while everyone else laughed; and on the next attempt, he dropped his restraint like an invisible veil. He clutched her so tight he lifted her off the ground, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her between fervent words, he pressed his forehead to hers and didn’t let go of her hand until his fellow soldiers dragged him away. I, watching from the front row, felt my mouth hanging open.