Chapter 10
Extreme Ghosts
With everything going on regarding the play, it practically didn’t make sense that I was eager to get there every morning—and not only because sometimes I arrived as Rebecca did and had a few moments that felt—well, not charged, that was ridiculous.
Though I did. Still, they were long days.
After our latest full run-through, a week and a half into rehearsals, first thing in the morning, Rebecca and team had started peeling off single scenes.
Since I was in almost every scene, there was a lot for me to do, even when it was my scene partners being asked to try something new while I kept going.
Rebecca had a way of watching us perform, a clear gaze open to what she experienced, that gave me a level of comfort.
Of course, I wanted to make her happy—I always wanted to make my directors happy—but her demeanor told me there was no single right answer.
Everyone else made me fearful of trying something too big, too small, too different. But somehow never Rebecca.
I lingered for a moment when we broke for lunch so I could fill up my water bottle there instead of waiting for everyone in the lounge to do the same. When I turned to head out, I nearly smacked into Rebecca as she walked up.
“Wow, crazy running into you at a place like this,” she said, laughing and placing her hand on my shoulder as if to steady me. I pretended it didn’t feel like an electrical current flooding my system. “Come here often?”
“Stop,” I said, which was how I felt, Do not even pretend to flirt with me, Rebecca Frisch, because I broke your heart and also you’re upsettingly gorgeous and up close smell like a dizzying whirl of spiced florals, but hardly a healthy way to respond.
Rebecca stepped past me to fill her water bottle, and I realized why this felt so off-kilter—well, an additional reason.
“I’ve never actually seen you drink water,” I said. “Just coffee.”
“I know, I know, it’s terrible,” she said with a little groan that made me feel a little … well, a little something. “I’m very bad at it when I’m working. And honestly not great the rest of the time, either.”
The little groan was still echoing in my head and so I had no response, but I supposed that was fine because Rebecca merely laughed and pretended to elbow me to get by, and I headed to the lounge in a daze.
Henry was grumbling about Rebecca—the same open curiosity I’d appreciated in her demeanor was apparently not taken the same way by everyone—that he had no idea what she wanted from him.
I didn’t get into it with Henry, though, nor did anyone else.
So far the only cast member who’d annoyed me was Michael, and I had empathy for the uncertainty that went hand in hand with acting.
When I was on set, especially as Princess Platinum, the crew’s focus was usually on nailing special effects more so than nailing a performance.
Every time I was shepherded back to my trailer I’d sit there, alone, texting Aisha, scrolling through photos of Rosie, reading a novel, and wondering if what the team had spent countless sums of money to capture had been what they expected.
Unless a director was screaming Yes, yes, exactly like that!
in your face, did you ever feel like you truly knew if you were delivering what they wanted?
I wasn’t sure that it was Rebecca’s responsibility to ensure that Henry felt properly guided, but even if it had been approximately a million years since I’d done theatre, I knew the cast was a team. I wasn’t here to defend the director.
There was also obviously the inconvenient element of whatever Rebecca and I were.
Which was nothing, but people must have noticed the times we’d coincidentally arrived together, the tone Kevin used when he jokingly accused Rebecca of being distracted by me.
None of it meant anything but I’d been conducting my personal life with the sole aim of avoiding standing out.
I’d be a fool not to realize I was shining a small spotlight upon myself.
I’d invited Andy and Aisha over for dinner.
By the time I got home, they were both in the backyard with Rosie, who ignored them immediately when I stepped outside.
Dogs were hardly a tough crowd, but it still warmed my heart every single time Rosie looked at me like I was the greatest thing to ever exist.
“You look tired,” Aisha said.
“Yikes,” I said, as Andy said, “Harsh.”
“Sorry, no, just that it looks like it was a long day,” she said.
I gestured to the patio door. “If we’re going to eat at a decent hour, I need to start on dinner.”
“I don’t need to eat at a decent hour,” Aisha said. “Andy? You in a rush?”
“Nope,” he said. “Take your time.”
I sighed and sat down on the lawn next to Rosie.
Andy and his team had designed my backyard to keep it drought-friendly; between LA’s regular weather and climate change, I couldn’t justify the lush green grass I’d grown up playing in.
Still, they’d worked in a small section of greenery, and Rosie and I agreed that it was the best spot.
“How’s the show?” Aisha asked, though she glanced at Andy and not me.
“It’s good,” I said, scratching between Rosie’s ears. “Not as good as you, but what is?”
“I assume you’re talking to Rosie and not me,” Aisha said.
“Correct,” I said with a laugh. “No offense implied.”
“Oh, I know the drill.”
“Maybe I’ll just start on dinner,” I said, not waiting for a response as I walked back inside, Rosie at my heels.
Nothing was out of the ordinary, but I knew Aisha or Andy could bring up Rebecca or related items at any given moment, and I preferred having something to do instead of pretending to relax.
Aisha walked inside a few minutes later, as I was still pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator. “Everything OK in here?”
“Sure,” I said, getting out a colander for rinsing the herbs and veggies. “I just thought maybe you two wanted time without me there.”
Aisha raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sorry, no, I just still feel weird about everything and—”
“No,” she said, sharply. So sharply Rosie voiced her opposition. “Relax, girlie, I’m trying to talk some sense into your mom here. Bark at her, not me!”
Aisha stood next to me, reaching for a brush and gently scrubbing vegetables alongside me. We worked silently until everything was ready to go.
“I thought we were cool,” Aisha said as I pulled out a package of chicken breasts from the fridge. “You know that I love you, and that nothing has changed since I found out you’re—sorry, is there a word you prefer to use?”
“No,” I said. “No word. There was Rebecca and that doesn’t need its own word.”
Not that I hadn’t considered it. I’d rolled them all around in my brain, wondering if one would feel right.
Terrified, sometimes, that one would feel right.
I could still hear it, sharp and recent, even though it had been all the way back at Applewoods, a couple weeks into the summer.
Cory Pennington, the kind of generically handsome that convinced people to take him seriously and my least favorite member of the company, drinking Natty Lite and sexually harassing girls under the guise of flirtation.
What’s your fuckin’ deal, he’d yelled, and I remembered how we’d all looked around a bit—the Natty Lites had been easy to come by and no one was exactly sober—before determining his question was aimed at my roommate Rebecca.
Which of these guys are you trying to fuck?
She’d stared at him, and I remembered how my heart had surged forward in my chest, like it was racing to catch her before this talented, kind girl who I already counted as a friend could be humiliated by an arrogant fool.
It had been easy to hear what was unsaid in his words, that Cory considered them all well out of her league, that merely the idea was hilarious.
I’m a lesbian, she’d said, though, with something of a confused expression.
Like, you idiot, though she’d been too polite for that.
Aisha watched me trim the chicken with a pair of kitchen shears. “I’m sorry if it feels like I’m pushing you to feel fine and cool and comfortable because this isn’t a big deal to—sorry again, you know what I mean. I know it’s a big deal for you.”
I nodded, pushing aside the chicken fat to save for another recipe, grateful as always for Aisha’s seemingly never-ending well of empathy. “Thank you.”
“And I get that you think because of your career that you can’t come out—”
“It isn’t what I think,” I said.
“No, of course,” Aisha said quickly. “But this is me and you talking, not me and Professional Actress Tess Gardner.”
I snorted, and then Rosie made almost the exact same noise, and Aisha howled with laughter before I found myself joining in. She got out a bottle of Roussanne just as Andy wandered in, and he opened it while Aisha got out glasses and I heated oil in my favorite pan on the stovetop.
“You are desperate to leave the whole superhero comic book world behind, though, right?” Aisha asked, leaning against the counter next to me. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be some big thing. If you came out, it might align you with more of the career you actually want?”
“I know what you’re saying,” I said. “I can’t even imagine it, though.”
“It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or anything,” she said with a gentle smile. “I know this isn’t your favorite topic, but—Tess, things don’t have to be this way.”
“It would feel gross,” I admitted. “Doing it for career reasons. Like I’m weaponizing something I’m—it doesn’t feel like the right way.”
“No, of course, I hope you don’t think I meant it that way,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh my god, no, please don’t apologize,” I said. “Or sit there patiently while this white girl explains to her Black best friend about how prejudiced Hollywood can be.”
“No, tell me more about the unequal pressures of the industry,” she said with a laugh. “I just want you to be happy.”