Chapter 31
Dress Rehearsal, two days until Opening Night
I usually wake up with men in a panic. Do they want me there?
Do I want to be there? Should I slip out before we have to find out?
Needing no one and nothing got me all the way through my twenties and early thirties.
I’ve liked people before, a lot. I’ve liked people maniacally, frantically, on a desperate level that I would have told you felt like love.
It wasn’t love.
It was anxiety.
Waking up next to Will is the most ease I have felt with another person maybe ever.
Before I have opened my eyes, his arm is around my waist. There are things I want.
I want his hands to move up to graze my breasts, or down, down, down, where I could disappear into him entirely, but he rests where he is, pulling me closer but not too close. He kisses my shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers.
“Me too.”
He slips away and is back a few minutes later with coffee. He gets back in bed with me. “So, how do I rank?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Compared to the last man you slept with in my bed.”
I laugh out loud. “Theo didn’t even spoon me,” I say. “You’re the clear winner.”
“Good.”
I look over at him. His hair is a mess, he’s unshaven. He’s a much looser version of himself. I like it. “You look great. I like you like this,” I say. He shakes his head. “No, I mean it,” I say. I sit up and take a sip. “This coffee’s perfect.”
“I’m glad.”
“So, um. What happens now?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I just . . .We have rehearsal tonight. How do we behave?”
He leans backs against the pillow and looks at me. “How do you want to behave?”
“Very badly,” I say, in my sexiest voice. He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t flinch. I sit back. “No, but seriously, do we . . . Are we . . . ?”
“Do we hold hands publicly?” He smirks.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t want to?”
“No,” I say. Why do I feel shy? “I do. I really do.”
“Okay, so?”
“I’m worried people are going to—”
He puts a finger very gently to my lips. “Hey. We’re adults. We don’t need to be a big deal about it. We don’t need to make out onstage, but we don’t need to hide it. We don’t need a game plan. Don’t overthink it. It’s a good thing. Let’s just enjoy it.”
“Huh.” It did not occur to me that I could simply enjoy anything. “But what do we say when . . .”
He kisses me. “It’s no one’s business.”
Will and I walk into the dress rehearsal together.
I’m expecting all heads to turn, like the prom scene in a teen movie, or at least for the fairies to notice.
I feel like it’s obvious. I feel completely lit up, like there are big Vegas flashing arrows above our heads, pointing toward each other.
But no. We walk into the dressing room and are immediately swept up in a frenzy of costumes, curling irons, clouds of hair spray, communal makeup.
There are two changing rooms and one large hair and makeup area.
I am used to my own section of a makeup trailer, at least, but now we have six mirrors with thirty people.
Bailey and I get our own to share. My mother takes a whole one to herself, the corner spot, to remind everyone of her role here.
There are people everywhere, costume ladies on the ground with pins in their mouths.
Suddenly, with costumes on, it feels real.
It feels like a surprise that we are these characters, that we are really doing this.
I’d forgotten what the hype felt like. Maybe I am aglow from last night, or maybe I’m getting swept up in it, but I can’t help but smile as I look around.
Will’s fingers graze mine, catch them, and squeeze before he is accosted by one of the wardrobe assistants, who needs him for a final measurement.
The lovers are dressed all in shades of white and cream, beige for the men, layers that come off as we spiral into the fairy magic, so that by the end, we are in light, gauzy shifts similar to the fairies’.
I like my costumes: I am in a cream chiffon slip with ribbons under my bust and waist, my hair undone, and I’m barefoot.
Fairy Helena. Bailey is in a similar thing, hers with a higher neck and a lower back, lace instead of ribbon, and we cause a little bit of a stir when we come out in them.
Theo wolf whistles, and I immediately look over at Will, who raises his eyebrow ever so slightly and twitches his lips.
After we run the cues for our last scene before the wedding, he grabs my hand backstage and pulls me into a dark corner behind the curtains.
“That dress,” he says, almost in a growl, “is barely a dress . . .”
“Oh, thanks.” I smile into the dark. “You like it?”
“So very much,” he murmurs into my hair. His breath on my neck sends a shiver across my whole body.
“Remind me why I’m not supposed to take it off?
” I whisper, tilting my face up so he can hear me.
Our faces are nearly touching. One inch forward and my mouth would be on his.
Our hands find each other, winding our fingers together.
I want this man. I want this. I want . .
. Someone pushes past us on the other side of the curtain, pressing us closer together, and I spring back.
“Something about putting on a play?” He steps away, giving my hands back to me.
“Fuck the play.”
Dress rehearsals are stressful: There is no stopping, there is only survival. Sally has made a big chart both backstage and in the dressing room with the order of the scenes, but still there is much frantic whispering backstage about what’s next, as always happens backstage.
Our scenes go well. I am almost late entering because Will is standing on the other side of the stage in the wings, smiling at me, and I am remembering the feel of his mouth on my mouth and his hands in my hair. Luckily Glory is behind me and pushes me onstage. I need to pull it together.
There is a bit of a stretch where we don’t come onstage for a while.
Will pulls me into the same corner as before, draws me in close, and kisses me deeply, his hands in my hair, and it’s a world away from yesterday.
Today I already know what he tastes like and how there is a spot at the base of his neck that I now own.
We pull back, breathless, slipping out from our corner just in time for our cue.
It isn’t until we are onstage that I notice my lipstick on Will’s face. He sees my face, smudged in the same way, as does everyone, and that’s it. We’re busted. There’s a nervous titter from the few people in the audience, and in the darkness, I hear my father clear his throat.
We press on until intermission, where we stop for the first round of notes. My father runs through some missed cues, reminders to project voices and enunciate. He has a few notes for Sally about light levels and things.
“And, ahem, could my daughter and her, ahem, associate kindly rectify their makeup situation before returning to the stage.” He does not look up from his notebook, but I hear a touch of mirth in his voice as everyone bursts into laughter and then applause.
Will stands and pulls me up with him, and we bow, and I feel cracked open in a way that feels new and open and good.
Barb, I can’t help but notice, does not join the applause.
“So.” Theo squeezes in beside me in the dressing room. “Does that mean . . . ?” He glances at Will. “I mean, obviously, you were making out backstage, but what’s going on?”
I tell him about last night. “I mean, we like each other. We can’t seem to stop touching each other.” I shrug.
“Bullshit.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is more.”
“I don’t know what it is.” I glance up to Will onstage; he’s chatting with the mechanicals and laughing. Everyone loves this guy. “It feels . . .” I exhale slowly. “It feels very scary. And also good.”
“Tell me about the sex.”
I elbow him. “No comment,” I say.
He stares at me, delighted. “Hussy!”
“I’m not telling you.” I turn to him. “It was nice. Okay?”
“Nice,” says Theo.
“Okay, ugh, Theo, it was amazing.”
“There we go!”
“Like, otherworldly.”
“Excellent!”
“Is he, like, does he do this a lot? Like, how casual do you think this is?”
Theo laughs. “No, Mira. Trust me. He likes you.” I look at him, surprised. “No, I just mean, we are old friends, I know he . . .” He stops himself.
“What?” I grab his arm. “Did he say something about me?”
He laughs again. He takes my hand. “I will just say this: He got a front-row seat to your last relationship.” He’s not wrong. “And I think he just wants this one—this thing—to be different.” I sigh.
“Why does it all feel so complicated?” I ask. “Theo, I like him so much.”
Theo leans over and kisses the top of my head. “Maybe it feels complicated because it’s real?” I think about that. “Maybe this is just a real, good thing.”
After notes we have a small break. Everyone has brought snacks, and I’m about to join the picnic when my father calls me over with a wave.
“Yes, Father.”
“Is it any and all iterations of Demetrius that you enjoy, or is young Will . . . an upgrade?” He’s smiling, but there’s a tone of warning.
“Is that your business?” I arch an eyebrow.
He sits back in his seat. “For the next week, my dear, yes, it is. This show has been rattled enough by . . .” He stops before he says something shitty about my sex life, but I know where it’s going.
“I’m a big girl,” I say. “Also, a professional.” I start back to the dressing room.
“You never saw Maggie Smith with lipstick all over her face,” he calls after me. Like he has ever worked with Maggie Smith. Legend.
“I’ll take the comparison,” I say. “Thank you.”