Chapter 27
Half-Dressed Hard Launch
After a week of previews, opening night arrived.
My dressing room was so full of flowers—arrangements in competing sizes from the members of my team, so large that some looked funereal—that I used it as the latest in a string of excuses for getting ready with Kathleen and Ashlee.
Plus my styling team would be setting up soon; I’d offered to share hair and makeup for the opening night party so no one had to wear their stage makeup on the red carpet later.
The standing ovation during the curtain call was our longest yet.
I knew that it was opening night, that people were excited, that in the scheme of things it meant relatively little.
But also it felt like a dream come true, tangible proof that I’d done the thing I wanted, a celebration of something I’d built alongside other people.
A knock sounded on my dressing room door only moments after I’d pulled it shut.
I assumed Kathleen and Ashlee were ready to join me, but when I threw open the door, a theatre employee stood, waiting.
In his arms was a small bouquet of roses in muted hues, tasteful and stylish and familiar—oh my god.
“Who are those from?” I demanded, as if he would know. Also as if I was a much ruder person than I was. “Sorry, I—”
“I was instructed to wait until after the show to give you these,” he said, handing them to me. “Have a good night, Ms. Gardner.”
He hurried off as Kathleen and Ashlee arrived.
“What a twist,” Kathleen said. “More flowers.”
“You didn’t hear that?” Ashlee asked. “He was instructed? Something’s up. Open the card.”
“You’re so demanding,” I said, but as I searched for it, my fingers closed around something larger. A full-size envelope, my name handwritten on it. Inside, a sheet of pale pink stationery, luxe and almost silky to the touch.
Gardner,
Watching you these past weeks has been a thrill—that brave and badass person I’ve always known you to be finally getting your chance to make that known to the world. I am awestruck by you.
I haven’t found it particularly helpful to live with many regrets.
Right now, though, I’m sick with remorse that I didn’t spend every spare moment telling you exactly what you meant to me.
I should have been clearer about just how seen I feel by you.
I can’t believe I didn’t make sure you understood that I would figure out whatever it took for us to be together, if that’s what you wanted.
To be clear, it’s what I wanted. What I still want.
Not someone tethered down. Not someone to slot into my life.
Someone doing what she loves wherever that takes her.
Not “someone” at all—literally I want you.
The logistics are all shit, I know. But I don’t care because nothing else feels like being with you.
Which, genuinely, Gardner, is annoying! I spent years working toward the goal of getting over you, and then you showed up again and I was a hopeless cause.
A lot of people are hot, funny, caring, brave.
You, though: the hottest, the funniest, the most caring, the bravest.
These are all things I should have said before, but I’m saying them now.
I love you—
Rebecca
“Oh my god,” I said, dropping everything on the floor. “I have to go.”
“Your something,” Ashlee said, practically bouncing up and down. “What did she say?”
“I need to find her,” I said, dashing toward the door, unsuccessfully, and realizing that Kathleen had grabbed my sleeve and was holding me in place.
“She’s not going anywhere, darlin’,” she said, kindly. “You know that. So why don’t you finish getting ready and—”
“Sorry.” I pulled harder and wrested control of my sleeve. “I can’t waste time getting ready when I need to tell her—”
“Yes! Go!” Ashlee cheered as I raced out of my dressing room. (From down the hallway I heard a faint shriek: “Wait, something is Rebecca?”)
I didn’t find her backstage, and a brief jaunt to the bowels of the building—the rehearsal space and lounge and Leroy and Gertie’s office—was equally unsuccessful.
She’d been backstage earlier, of course, sending us into our opening night performance with encouraging words, so I knew that she was wearing a jaw-dropping heart-stopping fuchsia suit.
If I popped out the side door, surely I’d be able to spot her quickly and call her to me.
I was halfway right; Rebecca was straight ahead, unmissable across the plaza in her head-to-toe hot pink.
She was also already standing on the red carpet set up outside of the opening night party at Sylvie’s.
Soon she’d be inside and I’d still be standing like a fool with her head sticking out of a lobby door, and it wasn’t that I decided to. I just ran.
“Rebecca,” I called as I approached, and it worked. She noticed me immediately.
So did everyone else on the red carpet—talent, publicists, photographers, several baffled-looking security guards. It only took a half second for them to realize it was me, and me only a half second longer to think about the fact that I was wearing only my robe.
OK, Kathleen might have had a point.
“Gardner,” Rebecca said with a laugh, ducking under the velvet rope and cutting me off at the pass. “I thought I explicitly told you never to wear this robe to the theatre.”
I laughed so hard tears filled my eyes. “I should have told you too. I love you so much.”
“I love you so much,” she echoed, looking straight into my eyes. “No one’s ever made me feel so taken care of. No one ever even sees that I need it! And I’m sorry I’m so bad at saying things or I would have told you already.”
“I’m really bad at it too,” I said. “But I’ll get better. I’ll make it work.”
“I know you will,” she said, nodding. “You’re Princess Platinum, for god’s sake.”
“Wait until you hear about my non-canon sapphic superpowers,” I said, and she cracked up.
“Pretty sure I’m already familiar with those.” She grinned and shook her head. “You’re much more famous than I am, so you must be aware that right now we’re being photographed by at least a dozen outlets. Plus everyone whose phone is out.”
“So we should give them something good, is what you’re saying?” I asked. “The show’s open so we’re OK that everyone knows, right?”
Rebecca stared at me for a moment like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, before she grinned again. “Yeah, Gardner, of course. I just never thought …”
“Me either.” I glanced around at the people watching us, laughed some more. Somehow all at once I felt how it was one of the biggest moments of my life, and also I could have stood there and laughed with Rebecca all night. “You sure you want to blow up your thoughtfully crafted professional image?”
Rebecca laughed. “Stop. I can’t think of anything I want more for my image than for everyone to know how I feel about you.”
My heart pounded and my head spun. I could have burst into messy grateful tears—every cliché in the book—and I didn’t want to wait any longer. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “Me barefoot and you in heels is a real combo.”
“No, it’s perfect.” She grabbed me around the waist, pulled me closer, and leaned over to kiss me like it was D-Day and we’d just won the war. It would have been nice to say that time stopped and the earth stopped spinning, but the gathered crowd actually applauded, and we broke apart, laughing.
“I feel like I’ll be babysitting your red carpet fashion for the rest of my life,” Rebecca said, tugging at my robe. “Though I’m glad you’re exploring new looks.”
“I guess I should change,” I said, liking the sound of for the rest of my life. “I don’t want to leave you, though.”
“So don’t,” she said, and we walked back to my dressing room, hand-in-hand. Kathleen and Ashlee utilized their acting skills to act nonchalant about Rebecca’s appearance, though I wasn’t so good at it. It was too impossible, too perfect, too happily-ever-after. How was she real? How was she mine?
We walked back to the red carpet once I was ready in my black ruffled organza dress and heels.
If I’d planned it, there would have been a strategy to announce a new relationship, a soft launch on social media with Rebecca in the background of a photo of Rosie, a cute selfie of the two of us a week or two later.
My new publicist was probably already annoyed with me, but how could I care?
(Everyone was nice enough to pretend these were the photos they’d run tomorrow, even though I was well-aware I was likely already all over the internet kissing my girlfriend while wearing a robe.)
Inside the party, I still didn’t want to let go, so I dragged Rebecca all over: to talk to my team, to say hi to Andy and Aisha, to greet Ari Fox and her wife. My whole life spent hiding, and I couldn’t have been readier to share this with the world.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Kevin said to Rebecca, squeezing through the crowd, and turning to me. “You too, actually. Wait.”
He stared at us for more than a long moment.
“God, finally,” he said. “But this is more urgent. You won’t believe who’s here.”
“I heard it’s one of the Vindicators,” Rebecca said. “Sorry, no offense, Gardner, not you.”
“Who cares, no,” Kevin said, scanning the crowd. “Oh my god. There they are.”
We looked in the direction he was staring. At first, it was nothing out of the ordinary. A couple of teenagers hanging out near their parents.
Rebecca gasped. “It’s Gertie and Leroy!”
“Oh my god, they’re all grown up,” I said, clutching Kevin’s arm. “Did you say hi?”
“Yeah, that’s what I did. Hi, kids, I’m the stage manager and I’ve been staring at your photo for the last six weeks.”
“Kevin, there are several less creepy ways to phrase that,” Rebecca said with a laugh. “I should go find Neil. And smile ingratiatingly at Patrick Miles.”
Rebecca started to step away, so I kissed her goodbye. “Gardner,” she said, and laughed again. “I’ll be ten feet away.”