MARCH 1993 #5
“Have you slept with the whole cast, Lewis?”
Had he? I darted my gaze around for anyone else—for Harper, of course—wondering what she was making of this.
“Hey, I care about you,” Lewis insisted. “I did what you asked, didn’t I? Nadine and I are just rehearsing. I’m upset you didn’t get the part too, but come on, you’re better than some petty jealousy over scene partners.”
“That was not a scene!” Zoe continued to shriek.
And oh, oh. Harper thought I was auditioning for the Bride. I wasn’t a threat to her. But if Zoe found out I was going out for the same part, mightn’t she do something desperate?
Like ask Lewis to plant the cocaine.
Harper stepped through the door then, tossing her hair back just as Lewis grasped Zoe and insisted: “I like you, Zoe! Nadine and I were just practicing a scene; it’s that bloody simple!”
Harper looked between us all, evidently putting the pieces together.
“Danielle?” she called behind her shoulder. “Did you use the waterproof mascara? Good, thank you!” She snapped back to us all. “Lewis, I’ll accept this as your resignation from our relationship. Now, how long until places?”
———
I followed Harper into the dressing room, where her composure cracked.
“What? What do you want now?”
“To apologize.”
Harper whirled on me, grabbing the chair for support, her eyes flashing. “Excuse me?”
It suddenly felt very dangerous to be in this room alone with her after all we—no, I, had done.
Harper glared at me like she could feel every inch between us, that charged force pushing us apart as much as it tried to snap us together, like the tension could only be resolved with skin against skin, with blood, with a fight.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have kissed Lewis.”
She hissed. “God, like I care about you in all that.”
“And I shouldn’t have taken your necklace. Lewis put cocaine in my bag, and I thought he was doing it for you, but—”
“Shut up,” she shook her head. “Just shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I hadn’t expected the apology to be an easy thing, but I hadn’t anticipated this dismissal either.
“You don’t get to apologize and wipe this clean. You’re so desperate to succeed you’ll do anything for it, wouldn’t you?”
“No, I—”
“Admit it. You’re a vindictive, entitled, conniving little bitch.”
“Sounds familiar,” I snapped, my fingers bunching in my dress to hide their trembling.
“I never denied it.”
She stalked forward, every inch of her taut as a bowstring. Like she was readying to fire.
“As much as you wish it were otherwise, we’re not all that different, Nadine.” Her voice dropped low—like she was savoring this. “I took down the audition times when they were first posted. I spread that rumor you were sleeping with Martin—thanks for the inspiration, by the way.”
I had not actually heard that rumor.
“We all did terrible things for this. I actually respected you for yours.” Her hand fluttered against my cheek in a teasing, condescending caress.
I moved to push her away—because I couldn’t stand it, her touch and her smug superiority and all of her far, far too close, her cloying perfume and too-sweet shampoo, the warmth of her breath against my skin.
Awful, all of it—but by the time my hand batted out, she had already turned away.
I thought of what I’d determined I wanted during our first-ever spat, in the face of our competing monologues: To be something you couldn’t look away from. Your attention, whether you wanted to give it or not.
In that moment, in turning away, she’d won. Whether I had earned that award or not, whether I made it to second year or not—she’d undone me where it counted.
She leaned toward the mirror, tucking strands of hair back into her complicated knot.
“You want to feel like you’re not down in the dirt with the rest of us?
Fine. But Lewis is going to be a mess out there, his little Don Juan persona threatened.
Zoe will be too—I’m just not sure if she’ll be too upset or too angry.
And I’m not going to be at my peak either.
So you tell me, after all that, when you glow in comparison, hell maybe even if the award is in your hand at the end of this, if you still feel like apologizing, or if you wouldn’t do it all again to win. ”
———
She was right about Lewis and Zoe—they weren’t entirely awful; they were professionals after all. But there were cracks, moments where the tension broke or threaded through wrong, where something was palpably off.
It even leaked to Ruben and Eric, who could tell something was awry and tried to overcompensate with their own parts.
But Harper’s performance was beautiful, actually. She dropped the fire and rage. She was vulnerable. She clung to the indication she knew about the affair but lined it with heartbreak instead of fury.
And I excelled in comparison, just like she’d said.
It was easy, my mind consumed with the portrayal of a girl in over her head, feeling caught in the sways of her life, before finally determining a course that would, inevitably, go wrong.
The fire still licking my veins from our confrontation transformed to passion for the man before me—a tension that couldn’t be denied.
Ivan was front row, flowers on his lap, which he gave me after the show, and we spent only an hour at the cast party, enough to whizz round greeting the former prize winners, to pocket cards and watch as Harper breezed through the room like she hadn’t just suffered a breakup.
I clung to Ivan’s side and escaped as soon as we could, treating ourselves to a sit-down dinner at a pizzeria.
We had a long summer ahead of us to discuss.
The faculty awarded me the Wilfred Allen Award the week after.
Two more years at Central Art and Drama School guaranteed. A scholarship in my hands. Everything I’d craved in those first moments stepping through those doors and now that it was actually within my hands, it felt dirty. Wrong. And like I was proving Harper right.
(Don’t look at me like that—I’d smother my conscience soon enough. But at that point it was still making a valiant effort, kicking and screaming in protest. The poor thing never stood a chance.)
Given the choice, I wanted to win on my talent. But if that wasn’t an option, if it was seeing someone else with the award or doing it all again, I knew which one I’d choose. So the guilt clearly didn’t matter all that much …
I didn’t like who this school was turning me into. I couldn’t blame it all on Harper (not, I might add, for lack of trying), but I could convince myself I never would have discovered I was capable of all this without her.
I needed to get out—needed to escape her—at least for a while.
So as soon as I got home, I reached for the phone and punched in the only number I knew by heart, coiling the cord tight around my finger like he might have changed his mind.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Nadine?”
“Please, Ivan, call me Adeline from here on out.”