Chapter 7
I met Theo in ninth-grade drama class. I had gone to school with all the same kids in elementary school.
I had enough superficial friendships to get by and pass as socially acceptable, but I had yet to find a soulmate.
All along, he had been across town, waiting out eighth grade like the rest of us.
Now, here he was, slumped in his chair in the back corner of the room, trying to look cool.
I later learned this posture was the result of extensive rehearsal, modeled loosely on Brando in Streetcar.
He deemed it the least approachable stance he could take, protecting him from scary football players who took drama for an easy A.
I wasn’t put off, though. I recognized another introvert.
The first few weeks of high school are critical in establishing what social vibe you want to put out.
I was very carefully assessing my classmates’ every turn, ultimately finding most of them cloying, shrill, and unpredictable.
I wanted to distinguish myself from my peers.
I was circling the drama club bulletin board for audition announcements three times a day.
I had spent the summer reading Strindberg to prepare myself for my real theatrical debut.
I sat beside him without asking, put my bag on the seat next to mine to prevent anyone else from sitting there, casually and instantly creating an island of only us, which was pretty much how it would go for the next four years.
I wanted immediate possession of this boy in a way that I had never even been aware of wanting in another person.
He was the same height as me, since I was already five nine when I was fourteen.
This made him tall. He was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.
Until then, I wasn’t even certain I liked boys because of how inferior I found them, so smelly and jocular and obnoxious.
They were like a bunch of puppies tumbling over each other, sniffing each other’s balls.
This boy stared moodily over his shoulder until I sat down.
Then he looked at me, and I saw the panic in his eyes.
His plan had failed—someone had dared to penetrate the fortress.
I pulled my book of plays out of my bag and lined it up neatly with my notebook and pencil to show whatever drama master was about to educate me that I was a serious actress, that I was here to learn, that I meant business.
“You read Strindberg?” he asked.
“You know Strindberg?” I asked.
“I spent the summer reading a lot of classics,” he said, pulling out a gigantic collected works of Shakespeare.
I will admit I was a tiny bit disappointed. It would’ve been more interesting if it had been Aristophanes or even Mamet. Shakespeare was a bit basic, really. And yet it wasn’t hard to notice that nobody else in the room had brought a giant book of plays to drama class. Nobody else but me.
“What’s your favorite?” I asked.
“I really like The Tempest,” he said quickly. That nearly took my breath away. My eyes widened.
“My name is Miranda,” I said. He looked at me blankly, instant proof that he hadn’t read it. “Like from The Tempest,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. He looked flustered. “I said The Tempest because I thought it sounded cooler than, like, Hamlet. Like, less basic.” That won me back.
“Hamlet is cool,” I said. “Have you read that one?”
“Just the one speech.” He smiled and rolled his eyes at himself. “My name is Theodore Raymond. Yours is better.” He smiled again and my whole world began and ended.
There were only three high schools in town: the Catholic, the public, and the French.
We were the public. Our drama teacher was twenty-six-year-old Mr. Tomlinson, who taught gym, coached soccer, and had no interest at all in drama.
But he was the youngest and the newest and so he got the leftovers.
The long-term drama teacher had retired the year before, which was disappointing, but also, I had heard that she was a tyrant.
Mr. Tomlinson used a textbook to teach drama.
We spent a lot of time copying diagrams of the stage and the technical facilities, which, I will acknowledge, were state of the art for a small-town high school.
Mr. Tomlinson was contractually obligated to put on a school play, which he did with about as much effort as everyone else in the class.
He chose Peter Pan because they already had the costumes from a production a few years earlier.
He assigned older students to direct, design, stage manage, and produce it while he sat in the back of the theater running strategies for that week’s game.
Still, I took auditions as seriously as if they were for Juilliard.
Theo and I rehearsed after school on the back lawn, giving each other notes and animatedly discussing which audition pieces would be best. We shouldn’t have bothered.
When I got onstage, ready to launch into the first ten minutes of Strindberg’s The Stronger, Mr. Tomlinson looked up at me.
“Oh, hey, Miranda. What role do you want?”
“Um, Wendy?” I said, not daring to breathe.
“Yeah, yeah, sounds good,” he said.
“Wait,” I said.
“What?”
“Don’t you want to see my audition?”
“No,” he said. “I figured you’d want to be Wendy. I’m cool with that.”
I didn’t know how to feel. On one hand, I was elated. I had scored my first lead without even trying. On the other hand, I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t gotten to show off my chops, such as they were. I knew enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Thank you, sir!” I squeaked and ran offstage.
The same thing happened with Theo, who, being taller than a lot of boys, got Hook.
Theo had the gravitas, the elegance, and the fury of the most resplendent pirate villain.
When the cast list went up, we went to look together.
Even though we knew our roles, it was gratifying to see them in print.
An actress! Finally. I went to high-five him, and he hugged me hard, then pulled back quickly, laughing, embarrassed.
It was around then that I knew he probably loved me back.
Our production of Peter Pan was an absolute dumpster fire.
We had no budget for mechanics, flying being a key theme in the play, so we simply stepped in and out of the window, a flimsy, poorly constructed flat built by the woodworking class.
It toppled over on me on opening night, and had some quick-thinking stagehands not rushed out and pulled it off me, I could have been really hurt.
The boy who played Peter couldn’t sing, which made no sense, since it was a musical, but Mr. T just gave me all Peter’s songs, which again, did not make sense whatsoever, but I was a fourteen-year-old with stars in her eyes.
I would take any solo I was given. I would make it work; I would make it shine.
It’s true, those moments when it was just me onstage in the spotlight singing Peter’s lullaby to the Lost Boys, a cappella because we had no backing track or musicians, hearing those heartbeats out there.
The silence that my voice sent over the crowd.
I came offstage after my solo, and Theo was there, staring at me, his eyes shining.
Then he would dash onstage, kidnap my brothers, and charm the audience into hysterics.
I’ve never seen anybody so naturally charismatic onstage with such ease and confidence. He was just a kid. He was magic.
I’m expecting rehearsal to be incredibly awkward, but Theo waves at me warmly when I walk in the room, as though we are indeed the friends we have agreed to play.
It makes me sad, but it is also a relief.
If nothing else, Theo can be counted on to be gracious.
My parents set a clear bar for rehearsals.
My father comes in with his vision clear and his blocking already complete.
I learn that the rest of the cast has been well trained by him, so rehearsal is surprisingly borderline professional.
The difference, I guess, is the range of abilities.
There are people who want to be involved in a production but have never really done a play or even seen one.
There is the conservatory class from the college acting program, a few of whom—Max and Bailey, especially—make me raise my eyebrows at their potential.
I am used to walking onto a set where everyone is a professional.
That doesn’t mean they always behave like professionals, but there is a union, there are expectations and rules and ways of doing things and the knowledge that we are all getting paid.
I am getting paid here, but aside from Theo, Arthur, and my parents, everyone else is volunteering.
It’s been so long since I’ve done anything for the love of it.
I hardly know what that feels like anymore.
I watch as they run through the main paces of the first fairy scenes.
“The fairy world.” My father is doing another one of his speeches. “Where the laws and balances of nature are at odds as the fairy king and fairy queen are also at odds with each other. Only as they are restored to each other’s arms can the balance of nature realign.”
The fairy queen, Titania, my sixty-four-year-old mother, and the fairy king, Oberon, a booming high school drama teacher named Marcus, are at odds with each other, wreaking havoc on the natural world and generally fucking with each other.
My mother is a challenging human, but her talent as an actor is undeniable.
She is surprisingly deft and subtle, not the bellowing Titania you often see, not the sexpot either.
There is a vulnerability to her, a light-handedness that is very affecting.
I’m surprised that my father is already riding her for her performance.
“Projection, please, Wynnie!” he calls out, and she glares at him.
“These are the forgeries of jealousy!” she howls back. “Happy?” I don’t blame her.