Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (78 page)

Oh, fuck.

Fuck this. Fuck that. Fuck mermaids. Fuck everything.

“Ariel,” I plead fruitlessly.

“So was this your plan all along?” she blurts, spreading her hands. “Bring in your parents from New York on your opening night and cause a scene and make this huge deal over your big Texas debut?”

Wait a minute.

Wait one fucking minute.

“They’re
here?
” I breathe, horrified.

“And call in the press, of course. Channel 11 News. 13. Whoever the hell’s in the area. Weather? Traffic? Who cares. The
Lebeaus
are in town. You are a real piece of work, you know that?”

I can’t even produce words. My heart is lodged somewhere up in my brain, and all I can hear is my pulse and my own erratic breathing. The room spins while I try to imagine the horrific sight of my mom and dad in the lobby right now, slowly being escorted like precious pieces of gold into the auditorium to claim whatever seats they must have secured for themselves ahead of time. Did Doctor Thwaite invite them? Did they come on their own, my mom desperate for more attention and my dad curious to see what his darling Kellen has designed? Is my sister with them?

“I’m sorry.” My voice is so small and pathetic. I don’t know if I’m apologizing to her, or to the whole room. I look around and all I see are confused eyes, contemptuous eyes, blank eyes. I don’t have a friend in this whole building suddenly. Even the actress next to me who I was just talking to, she looks at me like I’m a total stranger. “I’m sorry. I was … I just wanted … Ariel, I’m sorry. I was—”

“Sorry? Sorry for lying to everyone in this room?” she prompts me, her voice turning all sugary again, the same tone she used to warn me about Clayton. “Sorry for … what?”

I lick my dry lips. I can’t seem to swallow. “I’m sorry for—”

“She’s sorry,” says Victoria from the costumes rack, “that you’re being such a royal bitch, Ariel.”

Gasps and whispers wash over the room like a sudden breeze.

Victoria, her arms crossed, saunters away from the rack, facing Ariel in the center of the room. She gives her a pointed once-over.

“Dessie here’s sorry that she even
had
to keep her identity a secret,” Victoria goes on, “because bitches like you can’t handle it.”

Girls snicker in the back. The blonde one from costumes gawps at her partner, her stitching work forgotten in her lap.

“You think you’re the only one who got robbed of that Emily role? I wanted it, too,” says Victoria with a careless sweep of her hand. “Hell, I dreamed about that role all summer. Now, I get to sit backstage and watch Dessie perform it.”

Ariel folds her arms, her eyes seething with derision.

“And does that ruffle my pretty feathers? Sure,” says Victoria with a shrug. “You know what else does? The sheer lack of roles in the Theatre world for people of color. Am I barging into the dressing rooms of every
all-white cast
to tell them about all
their
precious privilege? Fuck no. I’m a big girl. I’ll keep auditioning for whatever the hell I want. I
will
play Emily someday in some other production. But Desdemona Lebeau, she can have
this
production.”

“Yeah,” agrees Ariel, her tone quickly converted from sugar to acid, “and she can invite her famous parents to have a big showy opening night, and
that’s
somehow fair, because—”

“Oh, trust me, I know all about
embarrassing
parents
,” Victoria cuts her off, waving her hand in Ariel’s indignant face. “You don’t want to be moving into the dorms with your dad yelling Cantonese down the halls at twenty words a second, trust me. I can only imagine what kind of hell Dessie has to contend with, and why she had to run all the way down here to Texas to get the fuck away from it.” She whips her head around to face me. “Am I right?”

I suck on my own lips.

“And what do I say to that?” Victoria presses on, her eyes on me. “Kudos to Dessie. And what a shame that her damn paparazzi-drawing family had to follow her. I mean, look at her poor face. Does she look thrilled with your news that her parents are here, Ariel?” She turns back to Ariel, needles in her eyes. “Truth, you wanted. Go ahead. Look in her eyes. The truth’s been there all along. The only one who’s lying to themselves is you.”

Ariel looks at me now. I wonder if she’s looking for any truth in my face, or if she’s just imagining ninety-nine ways to murder me. Her eyes are a completely unreadable mix of confusion and resentment, which is about the farthest from how she’d treated me so far in acting class. For a second, I catch myself wondering if
she
, in fact, was the one dumped by Clayton. I never saw this side of her until now.

Less the mermaid. More the sea hag.

Ariel finally parts her lips, though it takes her a handful of seconds to make any words. “I don’t trust liars. I don’t like liars. Clayton. You. You’re made for each other, a pair of liars.”

“We’re
all
liars,” says Victoria with a roll of her eyes, “or did you not hear Dessie’s song? I’m a liar. You’re a liar. Yay, let’s throw a big ol’ liar party and get the fuck over it.” She takes two steps toward Ariel. “This is the dressing room. Where the
cast
belongs. Seeing as you’re not part of the cast, I suggest you go throw yourself a not-in-the-cast party, and
get … over … it
.”

To that, Ariel lifts her chin, too proud to show how deep Victoria’s words cut her, and strolls out of the dressing room. The others start to break into murmurs and scandalized whispers, even chuckling.

And I’d risen from my chair and didn’t even realize it. My back pressed against the makeup counter, I feel dozens of eyes on me. I have no idea how to feel about what just went down.

Then Marcy, who plays Rebecca Gibbs, tilts her head. In a light and curious voice, she asks, “Who are your parents?”

I swallow, facing her. The others in the room seem to await my answer. Well, out with it. “My mother is Winona Lebeau.”

I don’t even get my father’s name out before three of the girls gasp with their surprise. “You mean the Winona Lebeau who opened
Telltale
off-Broadway?” asks someone across the room.

“Oh my god. She did
Hair
on Broadway. And
Hairspray
, too.”

“
Chicago
,” throws in another voice.

“She won a Tony two years in a row,” hisses someone else.

“Wait, wait.
That
Lebeau??”

“Holy crap. You’re Theatre royalty!”

“
She’s
Theatre royalty.”

“Can I meet her? Oh,
please
let me get her autograph!”

The murmurs of scandal quickly somersault into a wave of joyous laughter and excitement as my castmates start to share stories amongst themselves, bolstered somehow by the news.

And above all that noise and gaiety, my eyes lift to find Victoria’s.

I step away from the makeup counter, drawing myself up to her. She smirks knowingly at me while I stand there wondering where the hell her sudden reversal came from.

Well, I do have a mouth I can use.
“Why’d you stick up for me?” I ask.

Every lick of bitterness that lived in Victoria’s eyes drains away, and suddenly she’s the fun person I met in our dorm hallway over a month ago. “I wasn’t being fair to you,” she murmurs quietly, but I still hear her through the noise. “You wanted to have a life down here that you could call your own. I get it. I totally do. And I’m just
awful
for holding that against you.” She sighs. “We make better friends than enemies. Reading scripts until 3 AM with Chloe just isn’t as much fun.”

I feel my heart swell. I think I needed this, after the fast-spinning carousel my emotions have been on lately. I put on a teasing smile, then say, “You just want my mom’s autograph, don’t you.”

She glances to the left, to the right, then leans in and whispers, “I totally fucking do.”

CLAYTON

I’m squinting through the glass of the lighting booth, curious what the hell’s happening in the front few rows. I can’t quite make anything out, so I pass it off as a bunch of rowdy freshmen, rolling my eyes and kicking my feet up, waiting for the show to start. Really, I don’t give a shit about anything until the part when Dessie comes onstage and lights up my fucking world.

I don’t care that I can’t have her. I don’t care that everything’s gone to shit, just as long as she’s focused, she’s happy, and she’s living the dream she wants to live.

Regardless of whether that dream includes me or not.

A tap on my shoulder nearly scares the shit out of me. I spin in my chair to find Dick standing there, an excited look on his face. He says some words to me that I miss. I lift my chin and furrow my brow.

“Wi-no-na Le-beau
,” he mouths, punching each syllable.
“She’s … here. The … lobby … is … a … fucking … madhouse.”

I blink. Dessie’s parents?

Dick slaps me on the back suddenly, then types something out on his phone and shows me the screen:

You do realize

who Dessie’s father is,

don’t you?

I bite the inside of my cheek. Of course I do.

I return his enthusiasm with a slow, cool-tempered nod. Dick says something else to me, then slaps my back once more before excitedly hopping out of the door and down the stairs to the lobby. I lean forward, staring through the glass and focusing on the front rows again. Is all the craziness over Dessie’s parents, the celebs who’ve apparently decided to come and show their support for their daughter?

A sting of resentment touches me. Dessie’s no longer mine. Doesn’t matter whose daughter she is. Once her father gets word of what a dark and unstable guy I am, he won’t want his daughter anywhere near me.

And haven’t I said it since day one? She deserves better. I’m no good for her.

I clench my teeth and watch listlessly through the window, waiting for my opportunity to darken one world and light up another.

Twenty minutes later, I get the cue on my phone, texted to me from the stage manager backstage—that is, the
actual
stage manager. I wait for the cue light to glow. The moment it does, I slowly fade out the houselights, casting the audience into darkness, before bringing up the lights for act one.

The
actor
Stage Manager, who acts basically as the narrator of the show, comes out onto the stage, greets the audience, and then presents the scene to them, telling them where the Gibbs house is, where the Webb house is, and so on. Sullenly, I read along with my marked-up script in front of me, guesstimating the lines judging from who’s on stage and what’s happening.

This whole experience would be so much better if I hadn’t lost my fucking temper and punched those glasses off Kellen’s face. Sure, it felt good and I gained peace, but I lost something else. And I’m pretty sure knowing that I’d be going home with Dessie tonight would feel a hell of a lot better than that punch did.

This is my own fault. I’m married to my anger. I always will be.

Then the scene finally arrives. Desdemona Lebeau makes her stage debut entering as a young Emily Webb, dressed in a cute sort of early-1900s dress, her hair loose and flowing.

I’m so fucking proud to give her light.