Chapter 18
Five weeks until Opening Night
After theater school, I didn’t see Theo for years.
I was twenty-six and living in the city.
I managed to get an agent a year after our program ended, my ill-fated showcase audition still haunting me, and he was sending me to every audition in the city.
No theater stuff, but I was still young enough to feel that it was on the horizon.
I was a serious actor; eventually, people would see.
The problem was, my agent only sent me out for TV spots, barely a step above extra work.
I went out for a lot of commercials and saw a lot of the same people out for the same stuff I was.
There was a sort of collective humbling: I saw a girl who won awards for her one-woman Antigone at the Fringe Festival the prior summer enthusiastically trying to sell dog food, and I couldn’t judge.
I just tried to sell it more enthusiastically than her.
I wasn’t getting much, nobody was, and there was the dream of theater: The rejection still felt aspirational, rather than the soul-sucking drudgery that was to come a few years later.
Theo, meanwhile, was a rising star. He seemed to be making his way through all Toronto’s independent theaters, to be always working.
He invited me to everything, but I never went.
His success only reminded me of my failure.
I ran into him just once, at the opening night party of an indie theater play a classmate of ours was in.
I had been moving in the Toronto theater scene haunted by the fact that I knew, one day, we would run into each other.
And here, it finally happened. I saw him across the room.
My heart leaped and my stomach sank. His eyes lit up when he saw me, and he rushed over and threw his arms around me.
“Mirabel! I’m so happy to see you! I always sort of hope I’ll find you at one of these things!” He was warm, open, bubbling over. It had been four years. I was two drinks in.
“Oh, hey, yeah, good to see you,” I said, gingerly returning his hug.
“So, what are you up to? How’s life? How’s work?” He was like a puppy.
“Yeah, pretty good, pretty busy. Auditioning a lot. I booked a commercial for Tide.” If he knew that was two years ago, he didn’t say so.
“So cool, good for you! Yeah, auditioning sucks, but that’s the gig, huh?”
“Totally,” I said. “What about you?” I asked, hoping like hell that he too was barely scraping by.
“Uh, yeah, good,” he said. A shy smile crept across his face. “I, uh, it’s not out yet, but I actually just got a gig.”
“Oh, cool.” My heart sank. “A commercial?”
He looked at his shoes, and when he looked up, his eyes were shining. “Stratford.”
I swallowed hard. “Stratford?” The Stratford Festival was our shared dream.
In tenth grade, we had gone with our English class to see Man of La Mancha.
We held hands as we watched it, our hearts pounding.
Theater! Real theater! Real actors! The whole ride home, we planned our escape from North Lake.
We would go there together. We would live there for the season.
We would get married and be the Great Canadian Theater Power Couple.
I kept that last one to myself, but it was no less part of the plan.
“Stratford,” I said again, trying to sound normal.
“Yeah,” he said. “They signed me on for two seasons.”
“That’s amazing,” I said too loudly, taking a big swig of my drink, spilling it a little. “So, what roles did they give you to start with?”
“Well. Um. Romeo, actually.” He looked at me carefully, catching on that I might not be as happy for him as he hoped.
“Romeo.” I almost whispered it. The thought of him doing Romeo again, without me, made me want to throw up. I took another drink. “Good for you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, I’m happy for you.” My voice was tight, and he was wise enough to let it go.
“Listen, do you want to go get a drink or something?” he asked finally. “I think a few of the cast are going out . . .”
“Oh.” I pretended to look around me for some phantom acquaintance to excuse me. “I’m actually heading to a party after this.”
“Oh!” he said. “That sounds cool.”
“It’s, uh, this guy I’m seeing. I’m not sure it’s cool if I bring someone.” Disappointment flickered ever so briefly, but he recovered quickly. Ever the actor.
“Oh, no, totally, actually, I think my friends are heading out too.”
“Totally, cool, well, great to see you!” I hugged him quickly and turned away before he could say, What about coffee or brunch, or see a play sometime?
There was no other party. There certainly was no other guy.
I wanted to make him jealous, if not romantically, then at least I wanted to appear in demand, busy and important.
But I wasn’t. The truth was I couldn’t stand to be near him.
Everything about him made me feel like shit: his success, his talent, the ease with which he had just slipped into actor life.
I was still taking shifts as a cater-waiter to pay rent.
We were supposed to have succeeded together, but here I was, a total failure.
And worst of all, against all reason, I was still marred: He didn’t, would never, love me.
I knew how foolish it was, how pathetic, that my best romantic relationship to date had been with a gay man.
But still, no one seemed to live up to him.
I walked out alone and threw up in a garbage can in the alley next to the theater. I wiped my mouth and stalked off down the street. I heard his footsteps before I heard him.
“Mirabel!” I kept walking. “Mirabel, wait!” I sighed and stopped. I didn’t turn around.
He came around to face me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving. I’m going home.”
“You said you were going to a party.”
“I lied, okay?” I snapped. “There is no party.”
“You just don’t want to talk to me.” His voice was soft.
I didn’t answer. “You’ve barely talked to me since school.
You don’t come to my shows. And I tell you my dream is coming true, and you literally run out of the building.
” I stared straight ahead, not looking at him.
“Are you really that, I don’t know, selfish?
Are you really so immature that you can’t be happy for me? ”
“I guess I am,” I said flatly.
“Well, fuck that!” he said. “Fuck this, and fuck you!” He started to walk away, reconsidered, and spun back to me.
“You are one of the best actors I know. Okay, yes, you have had a couple of setbacks, and what? You just give up? That’s fine if it’s working for you, Miranda, but you still need to be happy for me.
” Miranda. He’d never called me that before.
It felt like a slap. It felt like losing him.
“No, I don’t.” I could feel our whole history splitting apart in slow motion, and it was all my fault.
“You do. It’s always been you and me, and you just ditched me, and now you’re acting like my success is some, like, personal attack on you.
And that’s bullshit.” I’d never seen him so angry.
“I earned this. I’m allowed to be successful, and it’s not my fault you’re not, but a good friend wouldn’t do whatever the hell this is. ”
“We aren’t friends,” I said. “We haven’t been friends for years.” I watched his face crumple. I stepped aside, around him, my heart thrumming resolutely as I walked away.
In the morning I called my agent.
“Please stop sending me out for these TV things,” I said. “I’m a theater actor. I want to do theater.”
He was quiet. Too quiet. “I’ve been trying,” he said. “The showcase . . . I think it kind of sank you.” There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, Mira, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Not here in Toronto anyway.”
“Oh,” I said, my eyes filling fast. I could only squeak the one word out.
“I’m sorry.” He was kind. “But there’s this new pilot that just came through. A real estate thing. I actually just sent you the sides.”
That show, of course, was Listings.
I hate costume parties as a rule, which surprises people. “But you’re an actor!” I just don’t enjoy looking like an idiot unless I’m being paid for it.
But this is a theater people party, and I’m part of an ensemble and trying to shrug off the “semi-famous-director’s daughter” notoriety, so I allow Theo to outfit me from the Tempest costume warehouse.
He has decided we should come as a pair.
I used to love it here when I was a kid.
Some kids have dress-up boxes; I had an entire storage unit.
Even now, it has a certain magic. Theo and I move up and down the racks, pulling out crazy costumes, adding pieces to each other’s outfits.
By the time we reach the Shakespeare racks, I am wearing a fedora and a feather boa, and Theo is wearing a satin cape and a tutu. He pulls out a sword.
“Should we give this to Nick?”
“Ha!” I say. “No. He’ll think it’s a romantic gesture.
” I start to sift through the racks. We have done a Shakespeare every year at Tempest, so it’s quite the collection.
“Please let me be Lady Macbeth!” I beg. “Or we could be the twins from Twelfth Night?” Theo stares down at me from his great height and pats my head.
“Yes, Mirabel, we would absolutely pass for twins.” He pulls out a garment bag. “No, my darling. We are kicking it old school.” He is holding up my Juliet costume. “One night only, baby.”
“No, Theo! Romeo and Juliet is so basic!”
“Most of the literary world would disagree,” he says, pulling out a second bag. “And anyway, it’s our show. Do you think I will fit into my old tights?”
“This is . . . ugh.” I hold up the bag and rummage through it.
“I’m not wearing a corset to a social event.
” I feel my chest. What little boobs I had in my teens have shrunk to nothing thanks to barre class.
“Not that I need to.” In the bag are the three velvet and brocade dresses I wore in the show, one still bloodstained from my dagger scene, but there is one more item at the bottom.
“Oh, hey!” I pull it out, a long cream satin slip dress with cross back straps and a delicate vintage lace bodice with a ribbon tie.
“The bedroom scene!” This was made by hand for me; it was the first garment that I ever felt really beautiful in.
Theo’s face lights up, and he pulls out the white muslin tunic and leggings he had worn.
“Theme is postcoital R&J?”
“Yes!”
I add a thin gold headband and a long, dainty strand of pearls, like in the famous Waterhouse painting of Juliet. Theo emerges from behind a clothes rack in his costume.
“What do you think?” he says. “Not bad, huh?” He looks like a painting himself. Where once stood a very beautiful, tall, skinny boy is now a grown man with a personal trainer and chest hair.
“What a dreamboat,” I say. “You’re absolutely sure you’re gay?” He does a twirl and winks at me. “Oh, yup, okay, there it is.”
“So,” he says. “You kissed Will, huh?”
“He told you?”
“No. He would never.” That’s a relief. “I, uh, saw. I got up to get a drink, and the cooler was down by the rocks . . .”
“Ah. Shit.”
“So, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I smooth the fabric of my dress.
“Mira . . .”
I face away from him, but he catches my eye in the mirror. “I dated my last costar, and it fucked up my whole life.”
“Will’s not your costar.”
“Yeah, but he’s around the play. He’s always at the theater doing set stuff, and I just feel like it’s a bad idea.”
Theo comes around and gently lays his head on top of mine like the sweet, giant puppy he is. “And what’s the real reason?”
I shrug him off me. “Nothing.”
“Mira.”
“Ugh, fine, the real reason is he gave me very big feelings, okay? Like, scary big. And I am not accustomed to big, scary feelings and I’m a coward and I’m only here for the summer. I don’t need anything complicated.”
“Well,” he says. “Good for you. Sounds perfectly uncomplicated.”
Theo picks me up again a few hours later.
Waiting on my front porch dressed as Sexy Juliet, I feel like Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed.
Or Ever After. Or both. I feel dreamy and nervous.
I do not want to attend anything with Nick ever, but also .
. . I feel pretty, for once. I have my sweet friend with me, and the fairies are counting on me to be their spy.