CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A few weeks af-ter my mother’s fu-neral, it was open-ing night for Mac-beth.
With-out the por-trait, it wasn’t long be-fore my hair started shed-ding again in clumps. Af-ter ev-ery-thing that had hap-pened, it shouldn’t have felt like a big deal, and yet the sight of those sea-weed strands cir-cling the shower drain still felt like un-canny but-tons of mold, like lim-i-nal un-der-worlds be-neath haunted mir-rors, like some-thing deadly and wrong.
By the time it came to the open-ing night, most of the bot-tom third of my hair had fallen away, leav-ing me more ex-posed and vul-ner-a-ble than ever.
The green room in the Basil Hall-ward The-ater—my fa-ther’s the-ater—buzzed with ac-tiv-ity. We were around twenty min-utes from open-ing, and I was fully cos-tumed in a flow-ing green vel-vet dress with Re-nais-sance rib-bons. My cop-per hair was pinned care-fully around the bald patches, and as I stud-ied my re-flec-tion in the mir-ror, I thought I looked rather like Princess Fiona from Shrek. The re-al-iza-tion made a sin-cere smile crack over my face, if only for a mo-ment.
But as I heard the au-di-ence ex-cit-edly chat-ter their way into the rows of ma-roon vel-vet seats, any mea-ger joy in me van-ished. I was hor-ri-bly, de-bil-i-tat-in-gly ner-vous. My stom-ach clamped around it-self, roil-ing and gath-er-ing speed like a tire hurtling down a hill. In just a few min-utes, a thou-sand eyes would bore into me be-neath the heat of the spot-light.
Be-hind me, Fraser was hav-ing a fi-nal run-through of his so-lil-o-quy with Ban-quo.
“Are you okay?” Catalina asked, pulling over a stool so she could sit be-side me. At the sight of her, some-thing in me eased, and there was a flut-ter of wings in my chest—a stark con-trast to the oily dread in my gut.
And I re-al-ized, for per-haps the first time, that there were good nerves and bad nerves. The gen-tle quiver, the fizzing in my veins when I saw Catalina was wholly dif-fer-ent to the dis-qui-eted angst I’d felt around Davina. The way I felt be-fore a game of chess—ex-cite-ment, an-tic-i-pa-tion, hope—was a dif-fer-ent breed en-tirely from what I felt right now, about to go on-stage in the big-gest role of my life. Per-haps those sen-sa-tions were a kind of gut in-stinct. My heart, my in-ner child, telling me what I re-ally wanted.
How many times since ar-riv-ing at Do-rian had the voice in my head told me I shouldn’t be here?
Maybe I’d mis-in-ter-preted that mes-sage. Maybe it was right, and I shouldn’t be here, but not be-cause I wasn’t tal-ented enough. Be-cause I didn’t want to be. Not re-ally.
For so long I had chased the things ev-ery-one else lusted af-ter with-out stop-ping to con-sider whether it was what I truly wanted. It was why I starved and plucked and preened in the name of beauty. It was why I spent my teenage years doggedly at-tend-ing au-di-tion af-ter au-di-tion, even though they made me sick, in the name of suc-cess—be-cause suc-cess might make my mother love me. Hell, it was why I’d got-ten car-ried away on Davina’s cur-rent on the cold floor of the gallery—be-cause ev-ery-one else wanted her, and yet in that mo-ment, I could make her mine.
But the truth was that I didn’t want fame. I wanted joy.
I didn’t want beauty. I wanted iden-tity.
I didn’t want sharp love. I wanted soft love.
And so, in that hair-spray-filled green room, I turned my head to-ward Catalina, so that I was look-ing at her not in the mir-ror but face to face. “Is Davina here?”
For a split sec-ond, she looked ut-terly crest-fallen. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it be-neath mine, the gem-stones of her sil-ver rings press-ing into my palm. “Not like that.”
Catalina swal-lowed hard and nod-ded, ges-tur-ing over my shoul-der to where Davina sat in the cor-ner of the green room, sulk-ing at her phone. Dr-ever had roped her into help-ing with the cos-tumes.
I got to my feet and crossed over to my neme-sis turned re-luc-tant ally, turned bro-ken lover, turned al-most friend.
She looked up as my shadow fell over her.
“Come for one fi-nal gloat?” she snarked, and for once all I could do in the face of it was smile.
“No. I’ve come to give you what’s right-fully yours.”
Slowly I slipped one shoul-der off my dress, then an-other. My fin-gers un-zipped the stiff side, and the whole dress dropped to my an-kles, re-veal-ing my white body in seam-less beige stage un-der-wear. My fig-ure was al-ready softer from the weeks spent prop-erly nour-ish-ing my-self, and I thought of how starkly dif-fer-ent this mo-ment was com-pared to the one in the mas-ter and sub-ject class. How much more in con-trol of my own life I felt.
Davina stared at me like I’d lost my mind. I hooked the dress up with my foot, catch-ing the vel-vet folds in my palm. The fab-ric was warm.
“Do you still re-mem-ber the lines?” I asked her, feel-ing the room’s eyes on us.
She nod-ded, dumb-founded for maybe the first time in her life.
I handed her the dress, and she took it. “Then go knock ’em dead.”
Swivel-ing on my heel, I walked back to where Catalina sat. She was star-ing at me with some-thing shaped like awe.
I was over-come with the urge to cup her beau-ti-ful jaw in my hand, to graze my lips over hers, to sink into her love-li-ness, her kind-ness, the sunny way she saw ev-ery-thing. But the mo-ment wasn’t right. I didn’t know if she felt that way about me, and I didn’t want to put her on the spot in front of a now rap-tur-ously at-ten-tive au-di-ence.
In-stead I gath-ered my clothes in a care-less ball, squeezed her shoul-der as she had so of-ten squeezed mine.
“Break a leg,” I whis-pered, with a se-cret smile just for her. “Come find me when you’re done?”
She nod-ded, gaze full of won-der and maybe, just maybe, some-thing richer still.
And then with-out look-ing back, naked but for the pale slips of fab-ric cov-er-ing my most pri-vate parts, I for-ever left the the-ater my fa-ther had built in the name of rot-ting beauty.
* * *
A few hours later, Catalina found me cross-legged on the kitchen floor, sur-rounded by tow-els. Bath tow-els, tea tow-els, any tow-els I could find. I wore my rat-ti-est old pa-ja-mas—a Poké-mon T-shirt faded from white to gray, and some jog-gers with a hole in the knee. A big bowl of salty-sweet pop-corn sat be-side me, stud-ded with M&Ms and Mal-te-sers. Ap-par-ently the in-ner child I was on a mis-sion to feed loved choco-late.
Catalina’s face had been scrubbed free of thick stage makeup, and her eyes were a lit-tle pink, as though she’d rubbed too hard with a makeup wipe. She was pant-ing like she’d run straight here in-stead of hang-ing around with the rest of the cast. There was no sign of Maisie or Fraser be-hind her.
“How did it go?” I asked, grin-ning madly.
I was ab-so-lutely giddy with re-lief. I would never have to set foot on a stage again.
“It was okay,” she said hur-riedly, as though keen to get to the real ques-tion. “Davina fum-bled a few lines, and the stage di-rec-tion was woe-ful since she hadn’t been to any re-hearsals. But the crowd still loved her.” A deep breath as she sat down op-po-site me. “Penny, what hap-pened?”
“I’m leav-ing Do-rian.” Her eyes flew wide. “It’s hard to ex-plain, but … even though I’ve only been heal-ing for a few weeks now, it’s given me a whole new clar-ity. When you’re that hun-gry for that long, you feel so hor-ri-ble in your own skin, and so ev-ery-thing in your life feels wrong. But when you fi-nally start to feel right in it again, it shines a spot-light on what ac-tu-ally is wrong. And Do-rian was wrong.” I shrugged, as though it didn’t mat-ter, but in truth it mat-tered more than any-thing. “I have never wanted this. Not re-ally. I just lost sight of that, for a while. And it’s like … with my mum gone … I don’t know. I feel sad. I feel so, so sad for what might have been. But I also feel free. Like I can start liv-ing my life for me.”
“I think that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard.” Her cardi-gan sleeve had slipped off her shoul-der, re-veal-ing that tat-too along her col-lar-bone. “What will you do in-stead?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be a chess bum. Maybe I’ll take up fenc-ing again. Maybe I’ll just swan around liv-ing on my mother’s in-her-i-tance. Or maybe I’ll find an-other thing I truly love, now that I fi-nally know how to lis-ten to my gut in-stincts.” I clutched my hands to-gether in my lap. I felt so young, but in a nice way. Like I had so many lux-u-ri-ous decades sprawl-ing in front of me, and I could do with them what-ever I wished. “I don’t think I have to have it all fig-ured out right now.”
“Of course you don’t.” Her smile was sunny olive groves and old books and the smell of rich earth. She ges-tured around. “What are the tow-els for?”
Her eyes fi-nally landed on the clip-pers plugged into the charger by the sofa, and she frowned in con-fu-sion.
“I want you to shave my head,” I said with an-other deep grin.
“What?” She looked equal parts ter-ri-fied and hor-ri-fied. “Penny—”
“I prom-ise this is not a Brit-ney melt-down.” Sit-ting for-ward on to my knees, I turned around so my back was fac-ing her, then care-fully lifted up my re-main-ing sheets of hair. I was glad I couldn’t see her re-ac-tion. “I have alope-cia. I had it as a kid, and it came back at the start of term. I’ve been los-ing more hair than ever since my por-trait was de-stroyed, and I want to take charge of this. I want it to be on my terms.”
I let my hair drop over my back and turned to-ward her. The ex-pres-sion on her face was un-read-able.
“Are you sure?” she asked softly. “I mean, I’ll do it. Of course I will, Penny. But I just want you to be sure.”
I nod-ded. “When I was in the lim-i-nal world, I saw my child self in a mir-ror. I was around four years old and to-tally bald. Alope-cia. I’d to-tally for-got-ten—I think all the trauma there-af-ter erased vast swathes of my child-hood mem-o-ries. But as soon as I saw her, I just thought … god, you were so per-fect be-fore the world taught you oth-er-wise. I felt like I was look-ing at my true self. I was wear-ing these adorable pink dun-ga-rees, and play-ing chess, and I just ab-so-lutely did not care about my hair. I want that girl back, Catalina.”
And so we shaved my head.
The buzz of the ra-zor over my scalp filled me with those flut-ter-ing good nerves, and as my hair dropped away from me in heavy clumps, it felt to-tally and ut-terly right.
When it was done, I stud-ied my re-flec-tion in a lit-tle Swarovski-stud-ded pocket mir-ror my mum had given me for my eleventh birth-day. I was per-fectly and ab-so-lutely bald, the ridges of my skull high-lighted in pools of golden light around us. The scar on my cheek was stark, but I looked at it with noth-ing but fond-ness. My real mother had carved it to save my life. I would al-ways re-mem-ber her love, her sac-ri-fice. Now it was a part of me for-ever.
That elu-sive, slip-pery thing: iden-tity.
“How do you feel?” Catalina asked, ner-vous at my si-lence.
Lay-ing down the mir-ror, I looked straight at her. She beamed at me, a glis-ten-ing, ra-di-ant smile, and the flut-tery wings in my chest in-ten-si-fied. Her curls were still pinned back from her face, as they had been be-neath the wig she wore on-stage, and her skin shone with a dewi-ness that made me think of ripe fruit and gush-ing wa-ter-falls.
“Thank you, Catalina.” My voice was a whis-per, hoarse with emo-tion.
“What for?” she asked sin-cerely, as though she gen-uinely didn’t re-al-ize what she had done for me.
“Well, first there’s the ob-vi-ous. You saved me. You solved the mys-tery of the por-traits with your in-tel-lect in-stead of a knife. I would still be teth-ered to that hideous gallery with-out you. But it’s more than that.” I swal-lowed hard, my throat sud-denly full of emo-tion, and I couldn’t find the words. “I’m just … I’m so glad you’re in my life.”
At this her eyes filled with tears. She nod-ded, but said noth-ing.
In that mo-ment, I knew what I felt to-ward her was how love should have felt all along. Good nerves. A blend of ad-mi-ra-tion and at-trac-tion, the deep de-sire to care for her, to pro-tect her, to keep her safe. To give her plea-sure, to be with her, truly with her. To be around her all the time, be-cause she made me feel good about the world—and about my place in it.
“I would re-ally like to kiss you,” I said, al-most too quickly, as though I were try-ing to cap-ture the dregs of adren-a-line still in my body. “But if you don’t want that, please know that your friend-ship is more than enough for me. Be-cause you’re the most—”
Be-fore I could fin-ish, her lips were on mine. They were soft and sweet from mango lip balm, with a warm salti-ness from her tears. She cupped her hand around the back of my naked head, ran her fin-gers over the ridges like it was the most beau-ti-ful thing in the world.
Ev-ery-thing in me sang.
It was soar-ing, it was yearn-ing.
It was re-lease.
It was hope.
Maybe love did not have to be carved with a scalpel.