CHAPTER SEVEN
Pro-fes-sor Dr-ever cleared his throat. “To be an in-ter-est-ing ac-tor—hell, to be an in-ter-est-ing hu-man be-ing—you must be au-then-tic, and for you to be au-then-tic you must em-brace who you re-ally are, warts and all. Do you have any idea how lib-er-at-ing it is to not care what peo-ple think about you? Well, that’s what we’re here to do.” He closed the text-book he was read-ing from. “San-ford Meis-ner. A mas-ter from whom we can learn a great deal about our craft—and about our-selves.”
The class-room was hot and woozy, and I was strug-gling to con-cen-trate. My hunger-ad-dled brain felt like a with-ered hand try-ing to grasp at some-thing out of reach. And while I knew—I knew, okay?—that a sim-ple sand-wich would prob-a-bly fix the sit-u-a-tion, I couldn’t bear to ad-mit de-feat. De-feat, or fail-ure, or some-thing else that made no sense at all.
Dr-ever folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against his desk. He rolled a small gold push-pin be-tween his thumb and fore-fin-ger. “We’ll be spend-ing the next few weeks im-mersed in the teach-ings of Meis-ner, work-ing our way through a se-ries of in-ter-de-pen-dent ex-er-cises that grad-u-ally build in com-plex-ity and in-ten-sity. First, we will hone our abil-ity to im-pro-vise, and then we will work on ac-cess-ing our rich-est emo-tional selves. Fi-nally, we will prac-tice bring-ing the spon-ta-neous and the per-sonal to-gether in a pow-er-ful re-sponse to the dra-matic texts upon which we work. How can we bring our in-ner-most iden-ti-ties to Ban-quo? How can we bring orig-i-nal-ity to Mac-duff? Im-pul-siv-ity to Lady Mac-beth?”
Maisie and Davina both turned to stare point-edly at me. They had ar-rived to-gether, fir-ing dis-dain-ful glances in my di-rec-tion. It had been three days since I was re-cast, and I hadn’t spo-ken to ei-ther of them since. I had no idea how much Maisie knew.
Dr-ever pushed off the desk, then ges-tured for us to stand up and start shov-ing our ta-bles and chairs to one side. Ev-ery-one but me obliged. When I climbed to my feet, my vi-sion swooped and black-ened away from me, and I had to col-lapse back into my seat, hop-ing des-per-ately that no-body had no-ticed. All I heard was the dis-tant scrap-ing of chair legs against floor-boards, and Dr-ever’s con-tin-ued drone.
I was dimly aware of the dark drain I cir-cled, but felt pow-er-less to pull my-self out of it.
“For to-day’s ex-er-cise, we’re go-ing to pair off and sit on the floor op-po-site our part-ners. One ac-tor will speak first, mak-ing a be-nign ob-ser-va-tion about the other, such as ‘you’re wear-ing a blue shirt.’ The re-cip-i-ent will then re-peat this ob-ser-va-tion back, be-fore mov-ing on to an-other. Ini-tially, you’ll re-peat the ex-act same sen-tence, such as ‘you’re look-ing at me,’ then you’ll ad-vance to re-peat-ing the ob-ser-va-tion from your own points of view, as in ‘I’m look-ing at you.’ As the ex-er-cise pro-gresses, it should be-come more about what’s go-ing on be-tween you in the mo-ment. ‘You look un-happy with me.’ The hope is that you’ll stop think-ing about what to say and do, and re-spond more freely and spon-ta-neously, both phys-i-cally and vo-cally.
“You’ll be sur-prised how quickly an emo-tional con-nec-tion forges be-tween you and your part-ner—if you fully im-merse your-self, that is. Now pair off. And let’s be-gin.”
There was a tap on my shoul-der. I turned to see Catalina smil-ing hope-fully at me.
“Want to work with me?”
I breathed an in-ward sigh of re-lief. If Dr-ever had paired me up with Davina, it could have grown ugly fast. Catalina was the easy pres-ence I needed right now.
We ar-ranged our-selves on the floor, sit-ting cross-legged fac-ing each other. The bare wooden floor-boards pressed into all my sharpest an-gles, and I was painfully aware of ev-ery knob-bly bone on my legs and bum. No mat-ter how much I shifted my weight, I couldn’t get com-fort-able. I wanted so badly to use my scarf as a rug, but I didn’t want to draw any more at-ten-tion to my-self.
So I donned my Pax-ton mask—easy smile, high jaw, dis-af-fected gaze—and we be-gan.
“You’re wear-ing a cream cardi-gan,” I said evenly.
She nod-ded. “I’m wear-ing a cream cardi-gan.”
I couldn’t re-mem-ber ex-actly what to do next. Was I sup-posed to re-peat the same sen-tence again? Or say some-thing else? I’d been so busy try-ing not to faint that I hadn’t been fully lis-ten-ing. I in-wardly chas-tised my-self. Do-rian was a life-chang-ing op-por-tu-nity. I’d worked my-self into the ground to get here, and now I was squan-der-ing it.
Thank-fully, Catalina took the reins.
“You keep look-ing at the clock.”
I frowned. I’d barely been aware of my do-ing it, but she was right. I’d just checked—11:44 A.M. “I keep look-ing at the clock.”
Now she searched my face, and I forced my-self to hold her gaze. The ap-ples of her olive-toned cheeks were smat-tered with tiny freck-les. Her irises were bur-nished cop-per pen-nies, dark pupils dart-ing back and forth.
“You’re dread-ing some-thing,” she said fi-nally, plainly.
A yank of recog-ni-tion in my gut. “I am dread-ing some-thing.”
The men-tor-ing ses-sion with Or-lagh was tonight, and my mother’s strange warn-ing burned bright in my mind.
“You think you should feel ex-cited, but you don’t.”
Dr-ever hov-ered be-hind Catalina, arms folded, star-ing down at us as we per-formed the ex-er-cise. His pres-ence loomed like a shadow, mak-ing me hy-per-aware of what we were say-ing. At Catalina’s state-ment, his eyes nar-rowed al-most im-per-cep-ti-bly.
I didn’t want him to know she was right—he’d trusted me with the lead, af-ter all—and yet it wasn’t in the spirit of the game to lie, to re-fute your part-ner’s state-ments. I had to agree with her, no mat-ter how vul-ner-a-ble it made me feel.
I swal-lowed hard. “I think I should feel ex-cited, but I don’t.”
How was she do-ing this? Hom-ing in on my pre-cise feel-ings— some I hadn’t even quite pro-cessed my-self? I was so used to see-ing her with her head in a book that I had no idea how as-tute her emo-tional in-tel-li-gence was. It was a cu-ri-ous blend of com-fort-ing and un-set-tling to have some-one stare so ef-fort-lessly into the heart of you. It didn’t feel like it did to be per-ceived by strangers, or au-di-ence mem-bers, or jour-nal-ists, or my mother’s fans … it was far more in-ti-mate. Not quite so un-bear-able. The sen-sa-tion of be-ing un-der-stood car-ried a sub-tle un-der-pin-ning of warmth.
Yet it wor-ried me that my Pax-ton mask didn’t seem to be fool-ing the peo-ple around me at Do-rian. First there was Davina, and the way she’d so ef-fort-lessly pro-voked me into drop-ping it. And now there was Catalina, who didn’t need me to drop it at all—be-cause she could see right through it.
The thought made me feel dis-tinctly pan-icked, but I couldn’t say for cer-tain why. Maybe it was my mother’s para-noid mut-ter-ings, the way she’d spent eigh-teen years warn-ing me against let-ting any-one get too close. Maybe they’d left more of a mark than I thought.
You have no idea, Penny. They can pose as your friends or peers, and get you drunk enough that you’ll spill any-thing they ask.
Don’t trust any-one, all right?
“You feel un-com-fort-able.” Catalina’s state-ment was plain—she hadn’t be-gun to im-bue her own emo-tional re-ac-tions yet.
I nod-ded, jaw tense. “I feel un-com-fort-able.”
Mer-ci-fully, Dr-ever moved on to an-other pair, and Catalina glanced over her shoul-der to make sure he wasn’t lis-ten-ing.
Then: “You wish you weren’t here.”
An-other sim-ple ob-ser-va-tion, and yet it was so pro-foundly true that I al-most didn’t know what to do with it. She wasn’t say-ing it to be cruel, or to draw un-due at-ten-tion to me. She was just call-ing it as she saw it.
“I wish I wasn’t here.” My voice cracked like a frozen lake over the fi-nal word.
The si-lence that fol-lowed was like a rolling snows-cape—a blank, bril-liant, con-fronting white. Fresh and new, wait-ing for some-one to make an-other foot-print.
Yet I didn’t know how to fill it. I felt so hor-ri-bly ex-posed, like a scab as old as my-self had been sud-denly ripped off, re-veal-ing the bright, fresh skin be-neath.
Should I turn it back on Catalina? Find some-thing about her for us to fo-cus on in-stead?
I stud-ied her the way she had stud-ied me, search-ing ev-ery plane of her face for a flicker of emo-tion, a be-trayal of how she was re-ally feel-ing. Some-thing upon which I could im-pose thought or mean-ing. But it was im-pos-si-ble. I’d never been able to read peo-ple in that way.
Or I was just so hun-gry and ex-hausted that I couldn’t con-cen-trate on any-thing out-side my own im-me-di-ate suf-fer-ing. Star-va-tion made you feel like you were trapped in-side your-self. A brain beat-ing against the bars of the body. An ex-cru-ci-at-ing in-te-ri-or-ity.
I wish I wasn’t here.
Sens-ing how much I was strug-gling with the ex-er-cise, Catalina reached out a hand and squeezed mine. The sud-den touch was like a light-ning bolt, and while I usu-ally flinched away from phys-i-cal con-tact, it felt oddly pleas-ant.
Pulling her hand away, she smiled con-spir-a-to-ri-ally and said, “You find an en-chanted amulet and re-ceive bonus health points.”
“I … what?” I could still feel the im-print of her warm skin on mine.
She nod-ded sagely. “You are on a quest to ob-tain a new bow.”
Sud-denly I un-der-stood. She was lead-ing me into an im-promptu game of Dun-geons & Drag-ons. Still im-pro-vi-sa-tion, but less per-son-ally con-fronting.
Grat-i-tude cours-ing through me, I re-peated, “I am on a quest to ob-tain a new bow.”
“You want to hit an Owl-bear with an ar-row.”
I fought the urge to laugh. “For rea-sons un-known to me, I want to hit an Owl-bear with an ar-row.”
“You want to breach the cas-tle walls.”
“I want to breach the cas-tle walls.”
We were talk-ing in low voices, so that Dr-ever wouldn’t pick up on what we were do-ing, and it felt like be-ing two pre-teens at a sleep-over, whis-per-ing our big-gest se-crets un-der the blan-kets at night, hop-ing our par-ents wouldn’t hear. At least, that’s what sleep-overs looked like on tele-vi-sion. I’d never ac-tu-ally had one.
Catalina’s eyes were twin-kling now. “You want to win the trea-sure in-side.”
“I want to win the trea-sure in-side.”
“Which is…” she prompted, break-ing the rules of the game to forge her own.
Em-bold-ened, I grinned broadly, chival-rously, play-ing a char-ac-ter. “I want to win the hand of the princess.”
“You want to win the hand of the princess.” An-other mean-ing-ful flicker of those daz-zling eyes. “You want love.”
God. How did she do that so eas-ily? Was Dun-geons & Drag-ons a tech-nique used by ther-a-pists the world over? Or was I just an ex-tremely easy nut to crack?
“I want love.”
It could have been a weak-en-ing mo-ment, but in-stead Catalina mimed rolling a dice.
“Ooooof,” she said, blow-ing air through her lips. “You roll a one on the D20. No love for you. Only bar-bar-ian gnomes. And they’re armed! With fire swords! Argh-h-hhh!”
We couldn’t help our-selves, then. We col-lapsed into laugh-ter, earn-ing fu-ri-ous glares from Davina and Maisie, and a dis-parag-ing sigh from Dr-ever.
Lit-tle did he know that the ex-er-cise had worked.
“Thank you,” I whis-pered to Catalina, once we’d fi-nally calmed down.
And I meant it. She had achieved the im-pos-si-ble, and dis-tracted me from the im-pend-ing ses-sion with Cam-ran—if only for a mo-ment.
But noth-ing could stop the clock march-ing for-ward, and be-fore I knew it, it was time to meet my fa-bled men-tor.