Scene 6
Scene Six
I’ve just stubbed my toe, hard, and I’m trying not to scream, but the effort is causing me to sweat up in the wings.
Juliet and the Belgian are flitting around stage.
I think they’ve gotten better, but it’s hard to tell.
The Belgian is still mispronouncing things, and we’re only a week away from opening night.
“Can you hand me the script?” Len whispers.
I’ve been sitting on it, and when I pluck it off the bottom of my chair, the first page sticks stubbornly to my leg. I arch back and try to yank it off, and when I do, I see Len staring at me, this twinkle of laughter in his eye.
“Pretty attached to this performance, huh?”
“Very funny.”
Mrs. Barch calls an intermission break, and Juliet collapses into a seat and picks up a water bottle, like she’s a sidelined athlete.
Len is fiddling with some fixture, but the words are out before I even have a chance to filter myself. “About that date,” I blurt out, all at once. Len squints down at me but doesn’t say anything. “You know, how you said Friday night, at the piano.”
Len straightens up. “I haven’t forgotten,” he whispers, “but remember what I said about patience being a virtue?” He’s smiling, the corners of his mouth turned up quirkily at the sides.
“I think it’s overrated.”
“Oh yeah?” Len asks, raising his eyebrows. “What’s made you change your mind?”
I have to think hard before I speak, about constructing coherent, sensible sentences, because being this close to him is making all the words rush out of my head like water back into the ocean in one big, sweeping whoosh.
“You’re wearing a T-shirt,” I sort of explain.
“It’s my biceps,” he says. “I can’t let them out too often. Too many people want tickets to the gun show.” He sweeps the curl out of his eyes and looks at me. “So,” he says, “does this mean I can take you out tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“You said it: Patience is overrated.”
He puts his hand on mine, and instantly I feel it again, that electric shock. Except this time it doesn’t make me pull away. It makes me move closer. His hand is still on mine, and it’s sending a current through my arm and up into my chest. “You do not hold strongly to your beliefs,” I say.
“Not the ones that need changing.” He looks at me, dead-on. It makes my breath catch in my throat, and I have to kind of blow it out and start all over again.
“Okay,” I say. “Pick me up at six?”
“I’ll be there,” he says. He lifts up my hand and touches it to his cheek. “I’ll be right back. I have to grab something from Cooper House.”
I watch him go, with a gigantic smile plastered on my face.
Like I’m wearing a set of those wax lips Rob and I used to have when we were younger.
And there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing I want to do about it.
In fact, I’m so caught up in Len that it takes me another minute to realize someone is screaming.
Rob has lobbed himself onto the stage like a tennis ball, and he’s standing in front of Juliet, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The Belgian has disappeared and so has Mrs. Barch. Besides a few cast members hanging around the sides of the auditorium, they’re the only ones in sight.
“Did you know about this?” he asks. Screams.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Juliet says. Her voice is quiet, tired, and she’s still sitting down.
“Did you know about this?” he yells again.
Juliet covers her face with her hands, the same way she did on my kitchen floor last night. I want to run between them, to gather her up and protect them both from each other.
“Answer me,” Rob bellows. I can see the veins of his neck bulging out.
He has this one vein by his left ear that pops out when he gets angry.
I’ve only ever seen it once, when we got into a fight about whether or not white was a primary color.
Completely stupid, but he got so worked up about it, the vein practically disconnected. It makes me almost scared for her.
“I’m sorry,” Juliet says. It’s just above a whisper, but it’s so quiet in this auditorium, you could hear a pin drop.
“I should have known,” he says. “I thought I could trust you. I believed in us, despite everything that people said. But they were all right. You’re just a liar.”
Juliet exhales, picking her head up. “Let’s talk about this,” she says.
“What’s to talk about? You betrayed me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? From the truth?” He steps back and holds his head in his right hand.
“Your family—” Juliet starts, but Rob cuts her off.
“Don’t do that. Don’t talk about my family like you know them.” His face is screwed up tight, like if he lets go, he will unravel completely.
And then Juliet stands, and even though I know she’s a good foot shorter than him, from up here they look like they’re nose to nose.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry I don’t know your family better. I’m sorry I can’t be there for you the way you need. I’m sorry I’m not her.”
“This isn’t about her,” Rob says. He looks a little self-conscious now, and he’s glancing around the auditorium.
“Of course it’s about her,” Juliet says, her voice rising. “You’re still in love with her.”
There are a million thoughts bouncing around in my head at once. Juliet is talking about me, I know that much, but I’ve also realized something else, too. Rob is in love with Juliet. He’s angry and hurt because he actually cares. How is she missing this?
“Don’t go using this as an excuse to do something stupid again,” Rob says through clenched teeth.
Juliet’s eyes get wide, and she takes a step back. Rob reaches out and grabs her shoulder. “You can’t just walk away.”
Juliet is looking straight ahead, and when Rob’s hand reaches her shoulder, I see her close her eyes, briefly. “Let me go,” she says, and then she leaves, her feet picking up speed as she races out of the auditorium.
Rob slumps down into a seat, his face in his hands.
A few of the underclassmen start to giggle, trying to defuse the tension that has just swept across the room.
They look like little bobblehead dolls in the wings.
Different heads, same bodies. Like all of them are interchangeable.
Like the entire cast could be switched out and no one would even notice.
Then Rob looks up. It feels like our eyes lock, even though I know I’m lost in the shadows up here, the lights making it impossible for him to see me.
Rob just keeps looking upward, toward me, almost like he’s sending up a prayer.
Then he stands, pitching Juliet’s chair over, and ducks out of the auditorium after her.