Chapter 39
Strike
My apartment is cold. My subletter moved out last week.
She has left the place immaculate, which is a relief.
Stepping into it feels unfamiliar, like it no longer belongs to me.
Or it belongs to another me, one who no longer exists.
I look around: It is a nice place. The kitchen is white and shiny.
The bathroom is white and shiny. The bed, the walls, the throw cushions all soft neutrals.
It looks like a real estate stage: no personal effects, no pictures or trinkets or even a dish with miscellaneous keys and coins.
It looks minimal, vaguely feminine, and uninhabited. There is no sign of me.
The thought that kept me spinning all night, that kept my foot on the gas on the long drive back to the city, was this exact thing.
I’m not sure who I am, and I don’t know what I want.
I have been living in a bubble, and it has burst, and without the protection of the play, of the fantasy world it lent me, where do I even belong?
I did the only thing I ever wanted to do.
I wanted to be an actor, I came to the city, I studied, I hustled, I did a million auditions, and I became a professional actor.
The sheer fact of this is epic in itself: That doesn’t happen.
I got a role on something that has run for six years.
A small role. A boring role. A role that largely depended on my being a certain level of conventionally attractive.
A role that, no one would ever admit, depended on my staying very thin.
A role that let me own a home in an expensive city and not have to worry a ton about money.
I mostly ate out, and very little at that.
I mostly wasn’t home. I had long shooting days, and whenever there was a break in shooting, I would hop on a plane with my show friends and drink in the sunshine and starve myself till midafternoon each day to make up for it.
I didn’t really read. I didn’t really see my parents, and that was their fault, right?
My parents didn’t know me either. They certainly weren’t proud of my success on television; they were almost embarrassed that I had gone for something so basic.
Love wasn’t a thing. I knew I didn’t want kids, and I wasn’t even sure about marriage. Frankly, I wasn’t even that interested in a partner of any kind. I had no trouble finding sex, dating someone for a few months, for the fun part, and sure, sometimes they caught feelings, but I never did.
I never did. What does that say about me?
I never did because I was dating guys as shallow and vapid as I was.
You can get pretty far on sex and premieres and eating at cool restaurants.
You can really believe that you are that busy, that life is that full.
You can get pretty far on false starts. I ran so far from that teenage girl who was wide open, who was so desperate for life to happen to her, who was so desperate to fall in love.
And then Nick opened something up. Nick reminded me why I kept men at bay.
I got hurt. I was almost willing to abandon myself for him.
Being vulnerable has not served me well. Opening my heart has proven dangerous.
And now there’s Will.
How dare he fall in love with me! How dare he even suggest that there was love here? I have built a whole life around not needing anyone. I have shown them all—my parents, my hometown, the theater community, Theo, even—that I didn’t need them. I rose above all of it.
But I’m not happy. I haven’t been happy in years.
At least, I haven’t been relaxed in the way that I was this summer.
I haven’t been creative in any real way.
And I’ve never just let someone land in my life the way Will has.
To a normal person, this might be a happy revelation: I met a beautiful man who is kind and true and talented, and he sees through all my shit and he loves me!
What’s wrong with him? Why would someone do that?
The more I turn it over in my tangled brain, the more I know it can’t be real.
He is not to be trusted: He doesn’t know me.
How could he possibly know me if I don’t know myself?
How could he love me? He’s a romantic, I can’t fault him for that.
He wants it to be real, he wants it to be true.
It was a summer romance. A showmance. It’s the oldest story in the book.
The intensity of a show, the frequency and proximity of a theatrical production, and the simple fact that you hold this person onstage, you breathe them in, you have to convincingly portray love.
And in the moment, if you are doing a good job, you have to believe it a little bit, yourself, also.
You need to, for the purpose of the show, be a little in love with each other, at least onstage, and so often, so, so often, this gets confused.
That’s all it is.
Will is an amateur. He doesn’t know that when you step offstage, you need to turn the love off. It’s my fault: I was out of my element. I was distracted. I was confused. It was all just a dream, a lovely golden summer dream, but I snapped out of it, and I got out before anyone got hurt.
That last part, I know, remains to be seen. The last part is the lie that kept me from turning the car around. If I’m honest, I know we both got hurt.
I’m home. I’m back in my own world. I am exhausted from the drive and the restless night and the love and the theater. I collapse into my own crisp white bed and sleep.
When I wake up, it’s almost dark. I check the time.
Five p.m. I look around, confused, before remembering that I am home, this is my room, my bed.
I look at my phone. I’m expecting a couple of texts.
I expect my parents to be pissed that I left in the night, Will, probably.
I know I have some explaining to do. What I am not expecting is for my phone to have blown up.
There are three missed calls from my parents. Texts from Sally, Max, Barb, all asking if I am okay. Twelve missed calls from Theo. One text from Will:
You’re gone, aren’t you?
I stare at it for a moment, and then reply:
I’m sorry.
These two lines, and a whole summer ended. I stare at my words. They are a nothing response. Usually when something ends, I feel relief. Even with Nick, when it ended, it felt like coming up for air, like I was safe. This doesn’t feel safe. This feels like shit.
My phone lights up: Theo calling again. I take a breath. Better him than anyone else, I guess.
“Hey.”
“What the fuck, Miranda?” He only calls me that when he’s pissed. It’s been Mirabel since day one. I say nothing. “People are worried about you.”
“I left a note for my parents.”
“Bullshit,” he says. “You missed strike.”
“I’m sure I wasn’t missed at strike.” In our large cast, with friends and neighbors helping, it probably took two hours.
“You were,” he says. “Because you are a part of the group, and you just bailed. People wanted to say goodbye to you. No one knew you were leaving . . . People are upset.”
“I’m sorry. I had to get back.” Silence. “Something came up.”
“What came up?”
“Just . . . business.”
“For such a good actor, you’re a pretty bad liar,” he says. There is another long pause. “What happened?”
My heart is racing. All the certainty I fell asleep with is gone. Everything feels like a complete mess.
“He said he loves me, or, he’s falling, has fallen . . . I don’t know.”
“Okay, so?” says Theo.
“So, what? It’s too much! It’s too soon.”
“I mean, showtime . . .”
“No! The show is a fantasy—it’s not real life.” I sigh.
“And what exactly is your real life, Mira? You are so privileged. You have so many options . . .”
“I am unemployed and . . .”
“You’re avoiding real life,” he says. “I love you.” He pauses. “But what you did was selfish. In so many ways. To so many people.”
“It’s not personal, Theo—”
“No.” He stops me. “It is. It’s incredibly personal to me that someone who I love so much is being such an asshole.
It’s personal that you have ghosted me again.
It’s incredibly personal that you are just tossing away a man who is one of my closest friends.
And if you can’t see that he’s the best thing to happen to you in a long, long time, then I don’t know what to tell you. ”
“I don’t want to hurt him . . .”
“Then don’t! Grow up. For fuck’s sake, Miranda.” I can hear him sigh heavily over the line. “You left me.” There is a break in his voice that chills me to my core. “You left me again, and you didn’t say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry. Theo, I honestly had no idea I would upset you this much.”
“I have too much else going on in my life right now to be dicked around by you again.”
“Theo, I—”
“Goodbye, Miranda.” He hangs up.
There is a particular burn to shame when you know unequivocally that you’re in the wrong.
I feel it like a vise around my shoulders, a weighty clenching.
I know at any moment I could let it all go, I could admit my errors, I could call Theo back, I could get in the car and drive back home.
But the only thing worse than abandoning literally everyone in my life without a word would be having to face them again.
It’s a lot easier to just be an asshole. Right?
I haven’t eaten since the party. I put on some city clothes: a cute black jumpsuit I never wore this summer because it was too fashion-y.
I throw my gold hoops back on and a red lip.
I step out into the city street, expecting a cinematic night scene: She’s back, Toronto!
Miranda Belmont survived summer in the sticks and she has returned!
Sometimes the city really delivers: the lights glitter, you can see the sunset through the skyscrapers, the sidewalks seem to part like the Red Sea.
It can feel like you are the only one in a crowd of hundreds. You are the star of your own sitcom.
But tonight, I am jostled on the sidewalk before I’ve barely left my doorstep.
It’s garbage day tomorrow, so businesses have overflowing bins out front, reeking with flies everywhere.
A group of teenagers push past me in a cloud of bubblegum-scented vape smoke, and when I go to dodge them, I step in dog shit in my little leather flip-flops.
I stand still, the shame vise tightening.
I deserve this. I turn and go back inside my building, throw my shoes down the garbage chute, and wash my feet about six times.
I’m back, and Toronto doesn’t give a shit. Well, just the one.
I text my parents an apology, then turn off my phone.
I spend $200 on grocery delivery, the bulk of which is wine.
I pull down the blinds, literally and figuratively, and indulge in a forty-eight-hour hiatus from planet Earth.
It’s nice. Wine makes my head not think.
I try to watch luxury real estate shows to numb my brain.
They remind me too much of Listings, so I have to resort to a hard binge of British murder mysteries.
I have to stop because those remind me of Will.
I am genuinely exhausted. Most of all, under everything, I am so sad.
If I let myself say it, I am heartbroken.