Chapter 5
Dafne
The next day, at two in the afternoon sharp–which in theatre lingo means at least half an hour before whatever time the call sheet states–our very first rehearsal begins. I’ve done my stretching and vocal warming, taken a nice sip of water, and am confident I know my lines; I had no trouble learning them up to Act One and Two, as they’re not that many, really. That being said, this whole play will still take longer to tackle than it would if there was any other director in Mr. Hackle’s place. I don’t blame him for being thorough, but we also don’t have much time, as APDAS’ prerogative for last-year students is not to grant the usual six months a play of this magnitude would require, because ‘ Time is not a luxury actors can afford in the real world .’
As Devon and Jack–respectively playing Tybalt and Benvolio–take in Mr. Hackle’s stage directions, I see Theodore lowering himself on the seat beside mine, and I slowly turn my head towards him. Is this a new habit of his now? “There’s plenty of other empty seats,” I hiss. Theodore leans in and whispers, “The world doesn’t revolve around you, love. Besides, it’ll be my turn soon and this is the closest seat to the stage.” I pointedly ignore his perfectly plausible explanation for sitting here and scoff at the endearing term. I need to remind myself he does this all the time with the sole purpose of taunting me.
In my defense, I’m a romantic at heart; despite having sworn off romance as a general rule after what happened last time, it somehow bothers me that he’d say that to mock me. I don’t want to be called love for nothing. That’s a big word and it shouldn’t be thrown around like that.
I briefly consider elbowing him in the ribs or accidentally dropping a cup of boiling tea on his freshly pressed shirt, but I’d rather not get exiled for injuring the star of the show. I tilt my head, considering my options, then decide to hit right where it hurts: the lad’s fragile ego.
“Is that so? Because I distinctly remember you checking me out after dance rehearsal yesterday,” I turn to him in the dimness of the stalls and grin. He purses his lips, and he looks like he’s about to give me a compendium of reasons why I’m wrong, but Mr. Hackle nods in my and Theodore’s direction and calls our names. “You two, I’d rather go over Romeo and Juliet’s first conversation before we continue with Act One. “On stage,” he commands. We clearly weren’t expecting to go straight to that scene since we both have a couple of others before, but we wordlessly rise and quickly make our way up the few steps that lead to the stage.
“Let’s consider this your chemistry test, hmm?”
I glance at Theodore and have a double take, because he’s taking a deep breath and wait–is he sweating? Theo -dore ‘I know the entire Inferno from The Divine Comedy by heart’ Price?
Nah, it can’t be. Except that’s precisely what it looks like. But as he reminded me mere minutes ago, it’s not because of what we’re about to do, since the world doesn’t revolve around me. He also wasn’t checking me out yesterday– uh huh.
He turns towards me, his face is completely transformed into a focused expression, so different from the smile he usually wears like a medal, and despite everything, I can’t help but be a little in awe of it. It’s the first thing I’d told him, after that first class together, how incredible he was at disappearing completely from his own face, his own posture. He didn’t take the compliment too well, which you’d find weird for someone who seems to feed on praise the way Tinkerbell does on people believing she exists.
We stare in each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and I let myself pretend that there is no mutual dislike threatening to crumble completely between us–or at least use the negative charge in my favour. I’m a professional and can handle whatever curveball is thrown my way. As he steps forward, I take in the fierce look in his eyes; he’s close enough that I can see how the green swirls in the brown. I am distantly aware of Mr. Hackle reminding us of the circumstances, what happened just before this scene, even though he knows we’re prepared. He wouldn’t have chosen us otherwise.
“ If I profane with my unworthiest hand, ” Theodore abruptly says, his voice deeper than usual, “ this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this .” His eyes flicker from my own to my lips. Great actor indeed.
“ My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss,” he continues as his hand brushes mine. So that’s how it’s going to be. Lovely.
“ Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this, ” I reply as my pointer finger traces his palm. “ For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss .”
A small smile tugs at his lips. “ Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too ?”
“ Ay, pilgrim ,” I start, letting go of his hand abruptly and turning, facing away from him. Thankfully, Juliet is supposed to be thirteen–I’m fairly sure I’m blushing like a teenager. “ Lips that they must use in prayer .”
“ O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do !” he pleads, “ They pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair .” I turn my head so that he can see my profile.
“ Saints do not move, though grant for prayer’s sake .”
He pauses, and just before I’m about to glance at him to see if he’s still breathing, he’s turned me around by my waist, and we’re nearly chest to chest. “ Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take, ” he says, and now he’s leaning in and he’s actually going to kiss me right now –
“Stop,” Mr. Hackle says, a few fingers raised in midair.
Both Theodore’s and my heads snap towards our director at the same time.
I barely register him stepping away from me quietly a few seconds later, and I mostly notice because there’s a loss in the warmth I felt where his hands were.
“I don’t know how often the two of you enjoy yourselves outside of here,” Mr. Hackle says, and I press my lips together tightly to stop myself from laughing in his face while Theodore clears his throat to my right. We both know what kind of enjoyment he’s referring to.
“I know we don’t usually work on intentions first, but I do want to make something clear. You need to understand that Romeo and Juliet are two kids who fall for each other instantly; there’s no logic involved. They’re listening to what their hearts are telling them and that is ‘this person belongs with you.’” I release a breath I was very much aware I was holding and turn to Theodore, who’s already looking at me. He nods, and I nod back. Message received: we’re going to have to step it up. “Make me believe these two would die for each other. Because they will. No overthinking on my stage. ”
I know it sounds preposterous, considering this is the very first time we’ve rehearsed any of our scenes together, but if what Mr. Hackle just saw wasn’t honest enough from the get-go, then we need to attune to each other as soon as possible. It’s going to take time and patience–lord knows Theodore is going to test my already fragile threshold of tolerance whenever he’s within three feet of me–but I’m willing to do the work. And I hope that even if it doesn’t thrill him, he is too. We start the scene from the top, and this time … we get to the kiss.
Theodore
Once again, we break apart from the kiss. Is this the fifth or sixth time? I’m not sure. It’s hard to keep track. Mr. Hackle was always very clear that there’s little space for modesty on stage, which means we need to be prepared to do this. You know, kissing over and over again. From this close, I can’t help but notice certain things about Dafne I’d never lingered long enough to take in before. Why I didn’t is very clear to me now. I think I was subconsciously shielding myself.
For one, she smells nice. Like peaches and–patchouli, I think. There’s always a patchouli soap at my grandparents’ house, that’s why I know. Her lips are soft, too, and rosier than before, for obvious reasons. Some chunks of her hair are almost curly, the ones by her ears. Her eyebrows are perfectly symmetrical, which either means she’s lucky or spends a long time on them. There’s a single small mole on the slightly upturned tip of her nose, and her lashes might just be the longest I’ve ever seen–not that I’m in the habit of staring at people’s lashes specifically.
Given different circumstances, I’d probably compliment her on each of those things.
Naturally, I’m extremely bothered by the information about her I’ve just catalogued in my brain, despite the fact that kissing someone I’ve been incessantly bickering with for years turns out to be surprisingly easy. Maybe what irks me is that I haven’t kissed a girl in a while, and now it has to be her. We’ve been over the scene for a while now, so if anything, we’re getting the hang of it.
Mr. Hackle’s directions were clear, but he also leaves us space to try new things, and perhaps fail, which is the only way to understand what works on stage and what doesn’t. What’s believable and what feels fake.
I notice the sensation of having my stomach in knots that had been plaguing me all morning is mostly gone. Now, if my eyes stopped dropping to her mouth, that’d be really great .
Two years, four months ago
We’re not allowed to attend other candidates’ auditions, so we’re expected to wait in the hall just outside the theatre. I keep taking deep breaths, because I have the faint worry I might pass out before I even get in the room. I’m on exhalation number eight when the main door that leads to the theatre slams opens. The girl that steps out of it looks like she’s just run a marathon. Her cheeks are flushed, pupils dilated, her dark hair looks like she’s been blow-drying it. Maybe I’m not the one about to faint, after all. She sits next to me without realising I’m there, because her brown eyes are fixated on something on the wall when she lowers herself on one of the chairs anchored to the walls. There’s a beat of complete silence, and it’s incredibly awkward, so I ask, “How’d it go?”
She turns towards me slowly and huffs a surprised, “Oh, didn’t see you there.” She breaks into a soft laugh then, one that sounds as if she’d been holding it in for hours. “I think it went … really well,” she says, a little out of breath. I don’t know her, obviously, but I have the feeling she’s saying I think when what she means is I’m sure . Despite the obvious adrenaline from the audition, there’s a confident quality to the way she rolls her shoulders and raises her hand to tuck a strand of hair behind one ear, adjusting herself on the chair and looking at me with more intent than I’m comfortable with .
“Grand,” I mumble, my stomach churning with tension, and I suddenly don’t feel like prolonging the conversation more than necessary. After all, if she gets in, that means one less chance for me to get accepted. I get up and start pacing in small circles, hoping that gets the message through, but she rises in one swift motion as well, surety and the unmistakable stage-induced energy high still clinging to her every movement. I would find it fascinating, if I wasn’t in the process of quietly losing it.
“Don’t let the nerves get the best of you ...” she starts, offering her hand to me. I stare at it for a few seconds, before shaking it lightly. It’s soft but bloody cold, and I briefly wonder if it bothers her.
“Thanks,” I say, my mouth pressed into a tight line, and her expression falls a little, like she heard what I was thinking. I’m not actively trying to be an arsehole, but I’m one step away from running for dear life and forgetting about the audition altogether–manners aren’t exactly my top priority right now.
She nods, shaking back more firmly than I did and says “I’m Dafne. With an F , not Ph, ” she chuckles, seemingly recovered from the second before. “Good luck then, fellow actor.”
She turns around, gathers her bag from where it lays on the floor, and leaves on stealthy feet without looking back. This two-minute interaction leaves me both irritated and yearning for more information on the doe-eyed girl, but before I can dwell on it too much, I am called in for my own audition.
When I see her at our first lesson together barely a month later and hear she got in with the only full scholarship available, it rubs me the wrong way. My roommate, Devon, says it’s unfair of me; after all, I know little to nothing about her, except for the spelling of her name– and the fact that she wasn’t above giving unwanted advice to a stranger , I add in my mind. When she stands in front of the class and does Lady Macbeth’s monologue though ... I feel like I’ve been hit with a club. Ran over by a truck.
She is good.
More than good. Better than me, which I hate, because if it’s obvious to me, it won’t take long before it becomes obvious to everyone else. And I’ve made a promise–that I would be the best. Actors often get told perfection doesn’t exist in what we do; there’s only studying, and refining, and trying until it works, over and over. But in my eyes, what she did couldn’t possibly be more , and I hate that the same can’t be said about me.
After the seemingly never-ending ball scene, Mr. Hackle has us go back to the previous scenes until eight in the evening. When he dismisses us for the day, I get off stage and start gathering my things, and I just can’t wait to shower and stuff my face with a warm pie and mash. As I daydream about delicious gravy, Devon nudges me with his elbow.
“You lucky bastard,” he says, nodding–in what I’m sure he thinks is a subtle way–to my left. A few feet from me, Isabel and Dafne are chatting about something, the former’s expression growing increasingly… upset, I’d say, about whatever Isabel is showing her from her phone screen.
“What about them?” I ask, my tone apathetic, more out of exhaustion than anything else.
“You got to kiss her something like twenty times in the span of a few hours, and every single guy in here except for me and David never wished they got cast as Romeo more,” he whispers, and I’m not sure whether I want to roll my eyes at the implication in his voice or congratulate him for managing not to shout that for the whole theatre to hear. I can definitely feel the annoyance prevail, and before I can think twice I snap.
“Yes, Devon, so lucky,” and now he’s shaking his head vehemently, but I can’t stop the words from coming. “Not all of us have the privilege to spend their days basking in the oh so great Dafne Wright’s pres–” I start turning, but am interrupted by Dafne holding up a phone, her eyes so bright as they burn into me that I’d have no trouble believing looks could kill. As I take in the Instagram page on the screen, I realise I have massively mucked up.