Chapter 28
For all the ways adding Nick into our production was tedious and frustrating, adding Will back in is easy.
It’s as if he never left. He listens, he takes notes, and he does, indeed, know his lines.
Max and Bailey join us later in the day, and in a few hours, we have run our scenes to the point that Max says, “In one day, we got better than a month with Nick.”
“He’s not wrong,” adds Bailey. I smile to myself, saying nothing.
We have an hour before the rest of the cast arrives for evening rehearsal.
The four of us order Thai food and sit around the dressing room, noodles dangling from our mouths, laughing, that collegial feeling when everyone is on the same page, everyone has a shared goal, and it’s coming together.
For the first time since the read-through, I feel like I’m part of a cast.
Max and Bailey have lots of questions about life as an actor. They have just finished theater school, and they both want to move to the city, find agents, do the whole thing.
“Is it weird being back here?” asks Bailey. “You’re used to a much more professional environment.”
I think back to those years on set. I think of drinking with Nisha in her dressing room after shooting, how much our friendship revolved around gossip and show drama and success.
I would have said we were close friends, and yet in the absence of our shared mission, the show, what is there between us?
I think of hours on set, waiting alone in my trailer in uncomfortable shoes.
I remember getting a small monologue one episode, working hard, nailing it, and having it cut in post.
I wouldn’t have said it two months ago, but it’s true now. “This is more fun,” I say. “There’s less pressure, less money involved. That makes people behave better.” I pause. “Except my own parents, of course.” I tilt my head in Will’s direction.
“Ohhhhhhhh!” Max snaps his fingers.
I glance at Will. He winks at me.
“So, what are you going to do?” asks Bailey. “Now that you don’t have a job.” Max shoots her a sharp look. “What? Sorry, is that rude?” Max nods at her slowly.
“It’s okay.” I laugh. “It’s kind of the burning question.”
I help myself to another spring roll. I’m hungrier in North Lake.
It’s funny: It hasn’t even occurred to me that I wouldn’t return.
My life is there, my work . . . but what work?
What life? I have the condo, a few friends, but no one who has reached out or checked in, in my absence, aside from a single text from Nisha about the video of Nick’s fall.
No work to return to. I picture myself driving around the city in one-way traffic downtown, finding parking, running up concrete stairs to yet another audition.
Those long hallways filled with other women who fit your exact description.
Women who are increasingly younger and thinner.
Hours of prep for an audition that is over in five minutes, and you know within the first minute that you’re not right for it.
Callbacks. Waiting. Rejection, rejection, rejection.
But the thrill, the relief, and the validation when you do book something.
And anyway, what else is there? My reality has been so finite, my goals so clear: Get out of North Lake.
Get an agent. Be an actor. I even became a pretty successful actor, by any standards.
Not the most creatively fulfilling work, but I was able to buy real estate in Toronto.
I was able to pay for health insurance and occasional fancy spa days.
I had a life that looked enviable to all the Kelsies of the world. I proved everything I wanted to.
But do I want to go back?
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure what my next steps are.” I’m not announcing to everyone that I have the chance to go back to Listings.
“Well, what do you want?” asks Max. I look at him, surprised.
“I actually have no idea.” I try to imagine life here, but every element feels amorphous: I have the show, but it will be over soon.
Theo and I are back to good, but he doesn’t live here.
My parents and I are getting along, but that’s not worth staying for in the grand scheme of things.
Across the room, Will stares thoughtfully into his box of pad see ew, avoiding my eyes.
Could he give me a reason to stay? The mere idea almost makes me choke on my noodles.
“Our acting prof just retired,” says Bailey. “I know they haven’t replaced her.” She and Max look at me expectantly.
“I dunno. I’m not sure I could teach.”
“You’ve been teaching us all summer,” says Max. “You keep having to take over the scenes and explain it to new people . . . You’ve definitely been our leader.” I look over again at Will. He smiles but says nothing. “You’ve been a great teacher.”
“That’s more directing,” says Bailey. “Maybe you should try directing? Ooh, you could work with your parents! Maybe you could take over the theater?”
“Okay,” I say, overwhelmed. “That’s . . . a lot of options. Thank you.” Conversation over.
Max gets the hint and changes the subject. “Hey, what’s everyone’s dream role?” Bailey launches into a prepared speech on why she would be an amazing Glinda, and I’m off the hook. For now.
An hour later, we are all assembled in the theater for our first stumble-through.
“Okay, people,” says Sally. “First of all, big thanks to Will for saving the day . . .” There is an uproar of applause.
“And to Mira for working with him today to get him up to speed.” There is another polite smattering of applause, though decidedly less enthusiastic.
“So today we are running the show start to finish, no tech, no interruptions unless totally essential. This is our first time running through the show. It’s going to be messy, but we open in ten days, we are behind schedule, and we need to focus and do our best. Only person allowed to call for lines is Will.
” She looks pointedly at a few people, and a few people look pointedly at me. “Okay, places!”
It goes better than expected. My mother as Titania and Marcus as Oberon are powerful and commanding; they set the tone and everyone follows.
Theo is their lanky, unpredictable child, full of mischief.
It’s my first time seeing the scenes yet with the rude mechanicals, the local peasants putting on a play for the big wedding scene at the end.
It’s ridiculous, a play within a play, especially when the ending feels like it should be when the lovers all make peace and land in their true loves.
But no, there is so much more chaos. It really is a three-ring circus.
They are such a mixed group: Age and gender were of no consequence when casting them.
They are just the funniest people in the cast. There is one actor who plays the hole in the Wall in their “play,” a stern, unflinching, very old man named Ted, and I can’t take my eyes off him, he is so ridiculously dignified.
He plays Wall like it’s King Lear. I have this feeling of missing out, like all this time I didn’t notice the show coming together around me, I was so fixated on my own corner of it.
To be fair, considering the levels of drama in the lovers’ ring, you can’t blame me.
On break, I catch my parents arguing again in the stairwell.
“Ross, we are not using pyro in this production—”
“There’s plenty of money, and you are not the production designer—”
“I am the producer. I am not approving this misuse of company—”
“Misuse? Yes, let’s discuss misuse, my dear, let’s discuss the ways you have taken advantage yet again of my—”
“Places!” calls Sally.
My mother shakes her head and steps back. “For God’s sake, Roscoe, can you blame me?” she hisses. She turns and starts up the stairs, and I slip away before she sees me, before she realizes I heard whatever that was.
Our scenes with Will go well: not perfect, he misses a couple of cues, but not bad for his first day.
I am so much more comfortable with him than with Nick.
It felt so wrong, so uncomfortable, pretending to throw myself at Nick, pretending to love him madly.
Ironic, since we had been actual lovers.
With Will, I can actually act, except it’s not all acting, pretending to want him.
Overall, the rehearsal is a bit of a shit show, people forgetting lines and props and entrances, a whole scene happening before anyone realizes there was supposed to be a scene before it, but it’s also the most fun I’ve had with the show yet.
It’s happy chaos, and people are rallying to support Will.
They are glad he’s back, and I can tell he’s happy too.
My final scene is a simple one. Once the lovers wake up from their dream and return to the duke’s palace, we are basically done except for the wedding feast, where we watch the mechanicals’ play.
It’s about fifteen minutes where we just sit there.
We are blocked all together, a trio of newlyweds.
We didn’t do this scene much in rehearsal, so it didn’t occur to me that we would have to sit together now. Just holding hands onstage.
I look up at him, smiling stupidly, and he looks back at me, beaming, his face open and lit up in a way I have never seen.
Usually, I’m lucky if I can get a half smile.
He laughs out loud, this joyful bark, another sound I’ve rarely heard, and then I remember that we’re acting, he’s acting.
He’s watching the weird play at our fake wedding.
I feel chastened, silly for thinking for a moment that that’s how he would look at me if he were in love with me.
But then he squeezes my hand, holds it tight for a long time, and I wonder if I might be onto something after all.