Look Both Ways (30 page)

I tell myself none of that is going to happen. Zoe’s upset, but she’s not vindictive. All I have to do is avoid her until she cools down, and that should be easy if she’s onstage and I’m in the audience. Maybe in a few days, she’ll see how wrong she was to yell at me for being honest about my feelings, and then she’ll apologize, and we can go back to being civil. Maybe we can even go back to being friends.

I spot her the second I walk into the theater, stretching onstage with the other two girls playing the witch doubles. I search her face for any sign that she regrets the things she said to me last night, but when she catches my eye, all I see is cold, hard anger. My chest tightens and aches, and I look away as Stage Manager Lauren whistles for our attention.

“We’re going to start at the top of the show and work our way through with the orchestra,” she says. “If you have any problems and you need to stop, stick your hand in the air and one of us will call ‘hold’ and help you work it out, okay?”

I wish I could stick my hand in the air right now and pause the entire world until I feel ready to deal with it again.

The actors know their lines and their lyrics, and the orchestra knows their music, so the stumble-through ends up being mostly about the awkward transitions when the doubles have to switch places with the Shakespearean actors to perform their songs. Nobody needs the lyricists for that, so I sit quietly next to Russell, reviewing every moment of Zoe’s and my relationship and trying to figure out what I should’ve done differently. Every time she comes onstage, I scrutinize her words and gestures for some hidden meaning, something that might make me feel better about what happened between us. But all her movements are choreographed, and all the words she’s singing are ones I wrote for her. There’s nothing to decipher.

I’m concentrating so hard that I nearly have a heart attack when Alex, the
Macbeth
director, sits down behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about act two, and I think we might be missing a song,” he whispers.

Russell jumps in right away. “Did we skip one?”

“No, but I feel like we need to give more weight to the moment when Macbeth learns that Lady M is dead.” I flinch at the word “Macbeth”—it’s bad luck to say it inside a theater, and the last thing I need is more bad luck. I remind myself that the rule doesn’t apply when you’re rehearsing the production.

“You mean the ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow’ speech?” Russell asks.

“Exactly. The monologue is so short, it doesn’t seem like enough to really let the moment
land,
you know? I think maybe we should put a song there.”

“I’m not sure there’s an appropriate song from
Birdie
that we haven’t used,” Russell says. “Did you have one in mind that you’d like us to rewrite?”

“I could write something original,” I say. I have no idea I’m about to say it until it’s out of my mouth, but it immediately feels right. I need a place to put some of these excess emotions that are spilling over my edges like coffee from an overfull cup.

“Sure,” Alex says. “Take a crack at it. Nothing too over-the-top, okay? Just something honest and quiet that’ll get the audience right
here,
you know?” He thumps his fist against his chest.

“Totally,” I say.

I start to get up, and Russell touches my arm. “Do you want help?”

I don’t want to hurt him, but I also need to do this alone. “Um, I know we’ve written all the other ones together,” I start. “But do you think it would be okay if—”

“It’s totally fine,” he says. “Take all the time you need. I’ll handle stuff in here, under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“No writing an emo song about how love is a lie and everyone disappoints you,” he says, and I surprise myself by smiling.

I find an empty rehearsal room and lock the door, and the moment I let my fake-happy facade drop, I start to feel much better and much worse at the same time. I sit down on the bench and try to focus on Macbeth. How did he feel when Lady M died? Grief-stricken, for sure. Guilty, probably, that he hadn’t wanted the same things she’d wanted and hadn’t been able to make her happy. I bet he wished she had been satisfied with what she’d had instead of reaching for bigger, more dangerous things.

Or maybe I’m projecting. I try to remind myself that this show isn’t about Zoe and me, but
everything
is about Zoe and me right now. Maybe I should give in and let my song be about all of us.

I work all day, and by six, I’ve got a decent first draft. I head back to the theater to catch Alex and Russell before they break for dinner, and I find them in the audience, chatting with the
Birdie
director about the logistics of the banquet scene. “Can I play something for you guys?” I ask.

“You’re done?” Alex says. “Dude, that’s impressive.”

“Don’t say that till you hear it,” I tell him, and they all laugh like I’m kidding, but I’m not joking at all. I’ve never performed a completely original song for anyone before, and I’m even more nervous than I usually am when I sing other people’s work. I sit down at the piano in the orchestra pit, shake out my hands, and try not to care how my voice sounds—the notes and the words are what matter, not the way I execute them. I tell myself this is just like the night Russell and I wrote
A Midsummer Night’s Dreamgirls.
Maybe I can’t imbue other people’s music with new life the way the rest of the apprentices can. But I can create something out of nothing, and that’s even better.

My eyes scan the auditorium for Zoe, and I find her on the other side of the room, changing her shoes and getting ready to go to dinner with some of the other actors. There are so many things I want to say to her, and I’m not brave enough to say any of them face to face. But if she hears my song, maybe she’ll at least know how upset I am that I couldn’t be everything she wanted me to be. I better play it now, before she leaves.

“Brooklyn?” Alex says. “Are you ready?”

I send the universe an image of my lyrics working magic on Zoe, softening her and healing the huge rift between us. And then I start to play, singing the words loudly enough that she can hear my imperfect voice all the way across the room.

I know that I have failed you, though I promise you I tried.

I should’ve had tomorrow and tomorrow by your side.

I thought you’d always be my braver half, my champion and my friend,

and my love, my sweet love,

I’m not ready for the end.

I wish we could go backward to the way things were before.

I should’ve stilled your quick, ambitious hands before they dripped with gore.

The crowd loved Duncan, I loved you. How will we ever mend?

Oh my love, my sweet love,

I’m not ready for the end.

Forgive me, please; I loved you in the best way I knew how.

I know it wasn’t good enough; it doesn’t help you now.

I thought that we were happy, but you had to have the throne,

and once you did, it drove you mad, and now I am alone….

Life’s but a walking shadow now that your brief candle’s out.

It seems bizarre that I’m still here, still stumbling about.

When your mind consumes you from within, there’s no way to defend,

and my love, my sweet love,

I’m not ready for the end,

no, I’m not ready for the end.

When I finish, Russell and Alex applaud, and I force myself to look up at them instead of at Zoe. “I really love it,” Russell gushes. “You did an awesome job.” It’s possible he’s saying that only because he knows what a terrible day I’m having, but his smile looks sincere.

“Yeah, it’s a really good start, Brooklyn,” Alex says. “Maybe a tad maudlin, but we can fix that. Can you teach it to the pianist and Macbeth tomorrow, after we iron out some of the kinks?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Excellent. Really good work.”

But I can’t even hear the praise, because I’m watching Zoe walk up the aisle and out the far door, chatting with her friends like I haven’t bared my soul to her. My music used to impress her so much, but now, when it matters most, she didn’t even bother to listen. It’s not like I expected her to rush up onstage and tell me she was wrong about everything, but I didn’t expect her to ignore me completely, either.

She doesn’t look back as the door closes heavily behind her, and I feel something slam shut inside me, too.

I expect that the pain of seeing Zoe at rehearsal every day will lessen as time passes, but it doesn’t, not even a little. Now that she’s unattainable, everything about her fascinates me again—her boisterous laugh, the inflections of her speech, the way she sings and does her eye makeup and acts like other people’s personal space is nothing more than a friendly suggestion. Little by little, her stuff disappears from our room, and it depresses me to imagine her dresses in someone else’s closet and her towel hanging on the back of someone else’s door. I only meant to cool things off with her, not end them completely, and the way she’s carved me out of her life is heartbreaking. A few days ago, I was the first person she saw when she opened her eyes in the morning and the last one she talked to before she went to sleep. Now I don’t even know where she’s living.

The stupid, ironic thing is that the moment I’ve stopped being able to enjoy it, everything else at Allerdale is finally going well for me. I feel like an important part of the company, I have plenty of people to hang out with, and the show is coming together beautifully. By the time Thursday night rolls around and it’s time to tell my parents they shouldn’t bother to come upstate because I’m “too sick to perform,” part of me regrets that they won’t see what I’ve created. If only they had different ideas about what constitutes important work, they might actually be proud of me.

I call home during the intermission of our dress rehearsal, and as the phone rings, I prepare to make my voice sound hoarse and phlegmy. But when my mom picks up, she doesn’t let me get a word out before she starts talking. “Brookie! I’m so glad you called. I have the
best
news! We ran into Kristen Viorst at a benefit earlier this week, and I convinced her to come up to Allerdale with us to see you perform tomorrow!”

I can tell she expects this name to mean something to me, but it doesn’t. “Who?” I croak.

“She’s on the admissions committee at Juilliard! Of course this won’t be an official audition, but it’s a perfect opportunity for her to get a sense of you as a performer before you—”

“No,”
I say, so panicked that I forget about my fake sore throat. “Mom, you can’t bring her here.”

“Sweetheart, I know it’s scary, but you’re going to be wonderful. And it’s time to start thinking about your future if you want to—”

“You
have
to call it off,” I say. “I’m serious. If you bring her here for nothing, it’s going to be really embarrassing for all of us.”

“What do you mean? It wouldn’t be for nothing.”

If I tell Mom I’m sick, I can shut this Juilliard thing down and keep my role in
Bye Bye Banquo
a secret. But even if I do, I’ll be safe for only a few more weeks; once my mom sinks her teeth into an idea, she never lets go. Kristen Viorst will probably show up at our next Family Night to watch me perform, and I’ll have to come up with a whole new set of excuses and lies. The idea of jumping through any more hoops for a career I don’t even want is suddenly too exhausting to bear. It’s time to tell the truth, once and for all.

“Listen,” I say. “This show is really important to me, and I want you and Dad to come. But the role I have isn’t the kind of thing Juilliard would be interested in.”

“Brookie, she knows you’re just part of the ensemble, and she’s still—”

“That’s not it,” I say. “I’ll explain everything when you get here, okay? I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone. Can you trust me on this?”

She must hear the desperation in my voice, because she stops arguing. “Okay,” she says. “I won’t bring her. Are you all right? You’re worrying me.”

“I’m fine,” I say, but I don’t feel fine. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster that has started its ascent toward the first dizzying drop, way before I’m ready. Now that I’m strapped in, the only way out is through.

Time always speeds up when you want it to move more slowly, and before I know it, Friday has flown by and it’s time to walk into town and meet my parents for dinner. Before I leave, I do a few affirmations in front of the mirror:
The Allerdale company respects me for what I’ve created, and Mom and Dad will, too. Even if I tell them I don’t want to sing anymore, I’ll still be part of the family.
But talking into the mirror isn’t the same without Zoe, and I abandon the cause long before I start believing what I’m saying. Tonight is about being honest, and sugarcoating the truth for myself won’t make things any easier.