Chapter 34
Priscilla
Marlowe Jenkins can still act.
It’s not a surprise, but it is a delight. Dallas is with her in her every arm flick and eye squint as she manages the difficult task of squeezing meaning out of each line without pulling too much focus from the kids.
My heart wants to burst, knowing how much she’s put on the line to do this show. Her fears. Her embarrassment. With little notice and a whole lot of reality traveling since the last time she even looked at this script, she’s still able to pull it off.
So why am I sitting here feeling bad for myself that my agent dropped me?
How have I let other people’s opinions so thoroughly dictate my decisions, when I never got into this business for other people?
I got into this business for me. Because acting lets me become anyone I want to be, and that excitement still feels novel, even all these years later.
Seeing so many different versions of reality, and knowing that there are worlds with less theater, places where I’ve chosen paths I’d never even consider, I can’t believe I’ve ever waffled on the path I want here.
It feels more important than ever that I continue. For Dallas, but also for the little me.
This is how I take her out of that house with me. This is what we both want.
When Marlowe takes her bow, I’m not the only person standing.
The entire audience gets to their feet, giving her the long, loud ovation she deserves.
No one usually walks away from a production of Spring Awakening talking about the adults, but that’s because they’ve never seen Marlowe Jenkins in one of the roles.
By the time the entire cast is onstage, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.
Spring Awakening is an emotional show already, but this whole cast has been on a journey to get here.
They lost two teachers, gained back only one, and they still put on their show.
Nobody gets to any finish line without struggle.
It’s always hard. But art, in particular, is resilience.
Art is how we survive. And as we stand and clap for them, crying the whole way through, never has that felt clearer.
There are days when you don’t like it. Days when you’re convinced you should quit. Everything in life feels that way at some point, and at least with this, you get the satisfaction of knowing you’ve brought meaning to the human experience.
I can’t shake the nagging feeling that Dallas should’ve realized all of this, too.
He should’ve been here to appreciate what he created one final time—not just the show, but the people he’s molded, like Marlowe and me, who know how to fight because of him.
It’s funny how obvious a lesson can be when someone else needs to learn it, and how hard it is to recognize when it’s you.
The explanation we’ve shared with the world is that Dallas went on a trip.
We found him and asked him to come back with us, but he wasn’t interested in returning.
There are a lot of gaps that don’t add up, and absolutely no one—other than the school’s principal, Dr. Adamson, who claims to know this was the case all along—is satisfied with our vague half answers. For now, though, it’s enough.
After the curtain closes and the cast has changed into their street clothes, they come out to greet the audience in the lobby.
I let Marlowe have her fanfare, knowing everyone else in the audience is dying to talk to her.
I spend my time examining the pictures on the wall, all the past shows Dallas put up.
Marlowe and I are together in so many of these images. So young. No idea what awaits us.
“Priscilla?”
Jaz Sinclair stands a few paces behind me with the woman I recognize from social media as her fiancée. Someone whose name I should already know. Whose life details should be easy for me to grab.
“Jaz!”
Our hug is more of a collision than an embrace, and her fiancée has to act as a bodyguard, preventing us from falling over.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t reached out more,” I say, desperate to put this into words now that Jaz is here with me.
“Come on. Don’t worry about it,” she says, rocking us back and forth even harder in our hug.
“No.” I pull back, forcing her to meet my gaze. “You were my best friend, and I cut you out when I moved. You didn’t deserve that. And my life has been less meaningful without you in it.”
Tears flood her eyes. “Aw, Priscilla,” she says. “Not you making me cry!”
“I’m sorry,” I say, squeezing her again. “I just didn’t want to miss my chance to say that. It’s been too long.”
When we’re done with our crying and hugging, Jaz introduces me to her fiancée, Kira.
The three of us fall into an effortless conversational rhythm.
There is no tension or even awkwardness, when both would be more than earned.
It’s the kind of generosity I’d forgotten can exist, too jaded by my own life to see that it still does.
“You two should come stay with me in LA this summer,” I tell them. “I’d love to have you.”
Jaz looks to Kira. “We’ve been wanting to go there.”
“My place is yours to stay at whenever you’d like,” I say. “And we’re due for a proper catch-up, too. I’ve got some free time.”
“I can’t believe you’re back in Garden Meadows,” Jaz says, knowing exactly how much it means to have me here.
“What wouldn’t I do for Dallas Winthrop?” I look toward the stage, where the Memory Machine lies waiting.
Jaz leans in. “You’ll tell me what really happened, right?”
“Of course I will,” I say without a second thought. My secrets have always been Jaz’s, too. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that. But not anymore.
Finally, it’s my time with my Marlowe.
We don’t kiss when she reaches me. Not because I don’t want to, but because all the people here think she was dating Alice just a few days ago.
They don’t know the lifetimes we’ve lived since then.
And we haven’t discussed if kissing is the kind of thing we can do in public.
We haven’t discussed anything, really. Except, you know, all the soul-deep conversations we had throughout the multiverse.
We stand here, burning energy between us, until she initiates the hug. I hold her tight, and the tears that belong to Detective Jane, and Cilla Cove, and every Priscilla we met along the way rush to the surface.
“I’m really fucking proud of you,” I say.
“I’m fucking proud of myself,” she says back. “And I’m proud of you, too.”
“I don’t care that my agent dropped me,” I tell her. “I’ll find a different agent. I just want to keep fighting for the chance to do the work I love.”
“Yes,” she says.
“I’m not done,” I say.
“Of course you’re not.”
“And neither are you,” I remind her.
“Okay, then,” she says.
“Okay, then.”
And then she does it.
She kisses me.
It’s nothing like our other kisses. There is something here that’s so undeniably real and strong I can almost taste it.
It’s the kind of thing I’ve always wondered if I’d be able to recognize, because I’ve never been sure I’ve felt it before.
But I feel it now. It’s as obvious as it is simple. I want to be with her. No matter what.
We pull apart at the same time, our hands interlocked around each other’s forearms as we stare at the other person’s mouth, wondering which one of us will be brave first. Whose role is it?
Just as I start, Marlowe overlaps me, louder and sharper, as she says, “We need to break up.”
“Last I checked, we weren’t even dating,” I say.
This gets her to let go of me. “No, I know. I know. I just…what’s a Hollywood star going to do with a woman who lives in Garden Meadows?
Our lives are so different. I know you’ve just had this big realization, and I am so on board with it, so unbelievably in support of you going and proving your point and reminding everyone in LA why you are who you are, but I don’t see that life for me.
Being up on the stage tonight, I do want to perform again.
But I don’t need to be at the top of the ladder, whatever that means, to have it be meaningful.
I just want to audition for the summer community theater show.
So I can’t be the one to hold you back.”
“I don’t know about you, but when I walk through alternate universes with someone, I feel a little compelled to stick around,” I say.
“And I have some free time. I don’t need to hop on the next flight back to the West Coast and start my quest for resurgence.
Most everything’s online now anyway, so I can start searching for a new agent and auditioning again from anywhere.
And besides, if we ever need more time than we have, we can always use the Memory Machine. ”
I expect a counterargument or, better yet, a passionate embrace of this speech.
Silence is the hardest to work with, because my toolbox has changed. There’s no antagonizing her for the sport of it anymore.
“Please,” I say, shifting on my feet as a tear rolls down my cheek.
“Oh, come on!” someone says from behind me.
It’s Alice, who apparently has been listening in on our conversation. “Sorry, I’m nosy,” she says. “But as soon as Priscilla showed up, it was never going to be anyone else for you. And honestly, has it ever been?” She turns to me. “I’m still sorry about the locker room thing, by the way.”
“I know,” I tell her. “Truly. I’ve never blamed you for that.”
She presses a hand to her heart. “Thank god. Because I really do wake up some nights thinking about how—”
“I don’t remember my life before you were in it,” Marlowe blurts, interrupting us both.
“That’s not a version of me I’m interested in, because maybe I wouldn’t have loved theater as much if you weren’t there to push me.
Maybe I never would’ve tried so hard to impress Dallas.
Or impress you. Everything good about who I am comes from knowing you, and from being around you, and wanting to be better than you some of that time, but now from wanting to be around you. ”
“There she is,” Alice whispers before stepping back.
“You jump into things without fear,” Marlowe continues. “Or if you have it, you have this superpower where it doesn’t show at all, and instead, you’re just totally present in the moment, accepting everything that comes your way. I want to be there with you.”
“You see me better than anyone ever has,” I tell her, grabbing her hands.
“And I like who I am in your light. I remember to be bolder, and more than that, I remember to stop and think about what it is I really love in this world, because it’s so easy to forget that when you get caught up in other trivial things.
But spending time with you has made all of that seem so silly.
People matter so much more than work. Like we told each other not too long ago, you are my favorite scene partner.
No one has ever taken that title from you, and at this point, they never can.
You could be my number one, if you want. That role is yours for the taking.”
“I’d be honored,” she says. “So long as you’ll be mine, too.”
I make a point of taking my phone out of my pocket and showing us both the date. “May 8,” I say. “In case either of us ever needs to find the other somewhere in time. The day we chose our number ones.”
Her eyes are wet with tears. “5-8-2-6.”
“5-8-2-6,” I repeat.
We kiss, to great applause.