Chapter 31
Marlowe
The first thing I recognize is the smell.
For a few years, Dallas had a thing about using scent to help his actors anchor themselves in the moment.
He believed that if we tethered a fragrance to the experience, it would make our imagined reality more vivid, because scent is one of the strongest memory pieces we have as humans.
Experiencing now the warm apple aroma of the air freshener he pumped into the backstage wings during this time, I see he’s right.
It’s so strong and specific, I am standing in the shoes of my eighteen-year-old self. Almost literally.
“You took me back to RENT?” I ask Priscilla.
“I don’t know if it’s our reality’s version, but I tried my best,” she says.
We gaze out from the dim darkness of the wings. On the stage, Jaz and Dana Weldon are in the middle of singing “Take Me or Leave Me.” Dana cracks on a note the exact same way she did during our final performance of the show.
“Sounds like it is,” I whisper.
“Even if it isn’t, I figure our kiss is a fixed point,” Priscilla whispers back. “At least in every version of reality we did drama. Which means we don’t have a lot of ti—”
At that, the teenage versions of us storm into the wings from the backstage entrance. Teenage Marlowe follows Teenage Priscilla, who has come here in anticipation of her next scene.
My Priscilla and I hurry behind the Memory Machine to escape notice, though the teen versions of us are so wrapped up in their conversation they’d likely be oblivious to our presence either way.
“Don’t pretend it was anything other than cruel,” Teenage Marlowe says. She’s in the middle of arguing with Teenage Priscilla about the Truth-or-Dare kiss that for her, happened only a night ago.
She has on her short Mark wig and the fake plastic glasses that will leave red indents on either side of her nose for hours.
She looks so ridiculous it’s hard to take her seriously, even though I know her anger is very real, and she’d hate that her costume is taking away from the intensity of what she’s saying.
Not to mention Teenage Priscilla with her yellow-blond Roger hair.
In my memories, this moment looks different. Priscilla and I are in our street clothes, for one. We aren’t sweaty and covered in smudgy stage makeup. Our innocence doesn’t feel so fresh, so blatantly clear.
But no. We are two teenage girls dressed as adult men, fighting for our lives.
“Why do you always think I’m pretending?” Teenage Priscilla asks. “I don’t even like acting! So I promise I’m not doing it twenty-four hours a day.”
“Then stop acting,” Teenage Marlowe replies.
I remember these words coming out of my own mouth. I remember believing myself to be speaking with the utmost integrity and truth. Now all I see is teenage me projecting too many of her own insecurities onto Priscilla. How much between us would’ve been fixed by listening more than we spoke?
Teenage Priscilla lets out a frustrated huff, about to walk away, even though she’s the one who needs to be onstage next. She takes two steps, then turns on her heel.
“This is real,” she says, smashing her lips into Teenage Marlowe’s.
The kiss lasts only a second. Barely.
In my memories, it was a riptide that pulled me under for minutes, starving me of all of my oxygen.
“Hold on,” my Priscilla murmurs, clutching my hand through what we both know will be the hardest part of this memory.
Teenage Marlowe pulls away from the kiss, her eyes full of fury.
I wish I could stop what she’s about to do, but that would interrupt this delicate sequence, and while we’ve surely butterfly-effected more than one universe, I do not want to permanently scar any eighteen-year-old version of myself more than necessary.
So Teenage Marlowe shoves Teenage Priscilla.
Not hard enough to knock her over, but enough to make Teenage Priscilla fumble back a few steps.
In the shocked stillness that follows, both girls struggle to regain their purchase.
Teenage Marlowe’s hands are shaking. Teenage Priscilla’s leaned against the side wall.
In her most venomous tone, Teenage Marlowe says, “Fuck you, Priscilla. That was such a fucked-up thing to do. God, I fucking hate you.”
“Fuck you right back,” Teenage Priscilla replies in an impassioned whisper, the real performance still chugging along on the stage beside them. “I fucking hate you, too! I only did that to fuck with you! I’m glad it fucking worked!”
With a dismissive hand flick, Teenage Marlowe storms off.
I know she’s headed to the dressing room, where she’ll examine her face in the mirror, searching for signs of Priscilla’s mouth on hers.
Where she will beg herself for the courage to push through this without crumbling, reminding herself that soon she will be free of Priscilla.
That her big, bright future as a serious and successful theater actor is so close, waiting for her on the other side of graduation day.
Teenage Priscilla stays in the wings. She’s much tougher than teenage me, who, despite all the internal begging and pleading, will soon start crying. This Priscilla is eerily still, her jaw resolute, watching the end of the song onstage.
When it finishes, Jaz exits into our side of the wings. She crosses right in front of my Priscilla and me. My breath catches as I wait for us to be caught. But we are ghosts to this moment, everyone too concerned with their own lives to notice us.
Teenage Jaz catches sight of Teenage Priscilla and rushes over. “Oh no. It didn’t go well?” she asks.
“She told me she fucking hated me,” Teenage Priscilla whispers.
“After you told her your real feelings?” Teenage Jaz implores, speaking so fast I have to focus extra hard to catch every word. All the while, the crew works to change over the scene. There are only a few more seconds before Teenage Priscilla needs to be onstage.
“I kind of forgot that part,” Teenage Priscilla says. “I just kissed her. But when she said she hated me, I told her I hated her, too, and I was fucking with her.”
“Priscilla!” Teenage Jaz says. “Why would you think that would work?”
“I don’t know! She’ll never believe me now.”
“Maybe if you use your actual words,” Teenage Jaz says.
“It doesn’t matter,” Teenage Priscilla decides. “We can finish this show, graduate high school, and never see each other again. I don’t know why I was suffering from some kind of delusion that a world exists where we’d even be together for a single summer. We have very different lives ahead of us.”
The lights onstage change. It’s her cue to enter. With a single breath, she shifts from wounded, sad Teenage Priscilla into wounded, sad adult Roger.
As I watch her do it, I finally understand how close love can feel to hate.
The jealousy and resentment I so carefully nursed throughout high school only ever needed to be cast in a different light to reveal the truth beneath: I have always admired Priscilla Covington-French.
She can fully transform herself without any preparation.
It is as easy as breathing and as real as her own life.
The depth of my feelings as a teen was so vast I didn’t understand how to swim through it all and see this truth.
I had too much pride and mistrust clouding my judgment.
And no, she wasn’t perfect. Yes, she did hurt me. She said cruel things she didn’t mean. That didn’t make them any less painful, even if she cared for me beneath it all.
I can honor that we got it wrong in high school, but I don’t have to be angry about it anymore.
Because I will never be Teenage Marlowe again.
No matter how many versions of reality we travel to, nothing will ever erase the years of wisdom I’ve gained since this time in my life.
Which means she doesn’t get to control so much of my story anymore. I do.
My Priscilla squeezes my hand. “See? Everything I’ve told you has been true.”
“I know. I think I always knew. I was just scared,” I say.
We watch Teenage Priscilla onstage.
“You know, you’ve always been my favorite scene partner,” I whisper. “I wish I would have told you that then.”
“You’ve always been mine, too.” She moves to kiss me, and though my pounding heart pulses into every part of my body, I stop her.
“We cannot hook up on our high school stage,” I say.
Mischief glints in her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. There are teenagers here who could catch us.” I pause, weighing my logic against my desires. “We can go to the costume room. That door locks.”
“The famous costume room,” Priscilla says. “That Dallas had to keep locked after a certain someone kept stealing his custom pieces…”
“Lucky for us, as a current employee of this high school, I am in possession of the passcode.”
“9-2-9-5?” she guesses.
“Nope. This one’s just his birthday.”
When we enter, a wave of nostalgia hits me so strongly it almost knocks me over. Nothing looks very different from the present day, but there are subtle shifts. Wardrobe pieces we no longer have. Paint that’s not yet peeling. Overhead lighting that hasn’t been changed to the blue cast of LEDs.
“God,” Priscilla says, brushing her hand along a rack of costumes. “It’s almost like we’re back in time or something.”
I close the door softly, and the promise of what’s about to happen next makes me almost giddy. It’s illicit in a way I haven’t felt in so long.
There’s a sofa against the wall with piles of clothes covering the seat cushions.
“For us,” I say after clearing the space.
“Wow,” she replies. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Nothing but the best for you.”
She grins, about to continue the bit, but I stop her with a kiss. My teeth nibble her lower lip, lingering there before I say, “Lie down.”
Her eyes have darkened with a hunger I recognize, because it matches my own. She does as I command, stretching herself across the sofa.
“So beautiful,” I say as I kiss her. Even though it’s now a part of the shared language we’ve built, it’s still honest, and it gets her to blush in the exact way I hoped. “You smell so good,” I tell her next, leaning forward to bury my nose in her neck.
She wraps her arms around me, pulling me on top of her as she spreads her legs so I fit the space between them.
What I think is her cupping my ass turns out to be a full-on wrestling maneuver.
She flips me over, holding my hands together above my head as she lowers her mouth onto mine, her kisses much hungrier and harder than the delicate pecks I’d been placing.
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” she asks. “I knew you’d want to be in charge.”
Her mouth moves down, her teeth scraping lightly across my clavicle until she reaches the strap of my muscle tank.
She bites the fabric and pulls it off my shoulder, moving it down along with my bra until one of my breasts is exposed.
Her mouth finds my nipple, and she kisses and sucks in a way that stokes the fire burning low in my belly.
“Just what I wanted to do back in 1893,” she says.
We laugh, and it’s strange how normal it feels to switch between passion and amusement. Her lips are still cupped around me, and every breath she takes blows a puff of air onto my chest.
I tuck my hand under her chin to pull her gaze to mine. “You’re wrong, by the way,” I whisper sweetly, my thumb stroking her cheek. “I knew you’d want to be in charge, but I had to make sure you really wanted the job.”
“Oh yeah? How badly do you think I want it?” She unbuttons my jeans and slides her hand into my underwear until her finger finds my clit.
I let out a sharp gasp, and I turn my head toward the cushion to stifle the sound.
“Ah-ah. That’s not an answer,” she says in a chiding tone. Her fingers move faster, and I become all sensation, writhing along with the speed of her hand. “Tell me, Marlowe Jenkins, how long do you think I’ve been waiting to hear what it sounds like when you come?”
There’s no way for me to speak words. I can only make sounds, ones I hardly recognize as my own. Ones I have to muffle with my own palm.
Priscilla lowers herself until we’re chest to chest, her free hand moving mine so she’s the one covering my mouth now. “I’ll keep you quiet,” she says. “But you have to let me hear.”
I nod in compliance.
“Yes,” she says, encouraging me to go even further as she increases her own pace, to let her take me all the way over the edge. As if there’s anywhere else for me to go. As if my whole life hasn’t been leading me toward this exact cliff.
When I fall apart, I gasp into her hand. She stays with me through my free fall, holding her palm tightly over my mouth until my body has regulated.
“That was everything I wanted and more,” she says with her wicked little grin, pulling her other hand from my underwear. She moves to get off me, but I catch her wrist before she can stand.
“Not so fast,” I say. “This isn’t over yet.”
“I thought I was in charge.”
“Then you should know how much I want to please.” I feel her thighs clench around me. “That’s what I thought. Now lie down.” We reposition ourselves until she’s on her back once more. “No moving this time.”
“I’m yours,” she tells me, tucking her hands behind her head.
I grab her dress and hike it up. “You’re not wearing any underwear,” I say, momentarily dazed.
“Of course not,” she says. “Did you think I’d miss an opportunity to feel every last bit of the multiverse?”
We laugh, but it doesn’t last long, because my hands have gripped the soft flesh of her thighs, and her words halt as I put my mouth on her wetness.
The first sound she makes is a delicate gasp of shock. I keep going, licking and sucking, enjoying the driver’s seat just as much as I liked being the passenger.
“God, I want you,” I purr. “So fucking much. In every way I can have you.”
This is all it takes to make Priscilla Covington-French unravel.