Chapter 40
On my third day back, I take a shower, take a breath, and call Jay.
“Miranda!” His voice always seems to be oozing. “How was Shakespeare in the Park? I have to say, I’m surprised to hear from you.”
“It wasn’t in the park . . . Never mind.” I take a breath. “Listen. Jay. Some things changed and I am available after all.” There is a pause. “For the job.” I never did get back to him on that. I ignored his calls and he finally gave up.
His inhale is almost a whistle. He laughs. “You’ve really grown a pair of balls, Belmont.”
“Lucky me.”
“Ha! I’m not going to lie, I want to say no because you really pissed me off with the radio silence.
But . . .” I can practically hear the wheels turning.
“I will admit that I probably deserved it considering how things went when you left.” I say nothing.
“And between you and me, Nolan isn’t really bringing it at the moment.
I mean, I get it, the guy’s in a wheelchair, but also, I mean, it’s not a good look. It’s boring television.”
“Nothing worse than boring television.”
“Right? You get it. And it actually tested pretty well, the idea of you in a lead.” He pauses, I think so I can thank him. I don’t. “Uh, yeah. So, let me just confirm with the execs, but, I mean, it’s going to be a yes. I’ll have the PA shoot you a call sheet, and we’ll see you Monday.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks, Jay.”
“Glad you called,” he says, and hangs up.
I sit there with the phone in my hand, my heart racing.
I was hoping I’d feel calmer, but instead I feel light and twitchy.
Today is Saturday. Two more days. I put on proper footwear this time and go for a walk.
I live just off Queen Street, one of the main streets in Toronto that goes all the way across the city.
I walk and walk, I pass bars I have been to with friends, chic little cocktail places with dim lighting, I pass my favorite Thai takeout, a hole-in-the-wall place where I used to buy a plate of seven-dollar noodles that would last me three days.
I pass a couple of small indie theaters that I did theater workshops and play readings in, back in the day.
I pass bars I had bad dates in, the small park I once made out with a guy in, in my twenties, then ghosted him.
Queen Street is a tour of my youth, a microcosm of everything and everyone I wanted to be and became. It’s all jumbled in there together.
Toronto has been home for ten years. It is so familiar to me.
I feel more city girl than small-town girl.
I used to, anyway. I’ve been gone three months, the longest I’ve ever been out of the city since moving here, and for all the chic spots and amazing food and interesting people and general coolness, it also feels claustrophobic now.
I have less patience for people pushing past me in the street, for the constant sirens, the endless honking.
You can see straight down whatever street you’re on, but you can never really see the unobstructed sky.
I am surprised by a pang of homesickness. I thought I was already home.
I text a few friends that I am back in town.
There are wildly enthusiastic emojis, but only a couple of people take me up on my suggestion of drinks at our favorite spot.
I put on a black dress, do my makeup the way I always did, put on strappy shoes, but when I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, I don’t seem like myself.
I look like everyone else. My dress feels too tight, and my skin can’t breathe.
I look good, sure. I look like Miranda Belmont but not Mirabel.
At the bar, my friends ask about my time away, and I find myself editing the tale, focusing on the drama of Nick.
I don’t mention Will, because he is mine.
I don’t want to share him. One friend braces us for a big dramatic announcement, which is that she is finally getting fillers, and the other girls treat this with the seriousness of any major life decision.
I stare into my drink and wonder what I’m doing there.
On Monday, I go back to set. It’s the first week back for everyone, so my presence is a small blip that is only vaguely out of place amid all the other hugs and catch-ups.
I am truly glad to see some people. There are good people everywhere, but it’s also all business.
Nisha shrieks when I pop my head into her dressing room, leaping up to hug me.
“Mira! I’m so glad to see you! I didn’t believe it when I saw your name on the call sheet!
Is it real? You’re real? You’re really back?
Oh my God, I missed you!” She’s sweet, and she means it, and I hug her back, but it feels different.
We barely spoke all summer. She didn’t come to the show.
And it’s fine. I think I thought we were closer, and like all parts of this job, I was just a little wrong.
“Nick Nolan is such an asshole, I can’t believe he followed you! Oh my God.”
Two months ago, I would have sat with Nisha for hours and agonized over every detail, every twist and turn in my Nick drama. We would have had a bottle of wine each, and I would have felt empowered, vindicated in voicing it all to her, power that would slowly wane again in Nick’s presence.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was some summer.” I can tell she wants all the gossip, but, I have realized, she hasn’t earned it. And that’s okay. “We’ll catch up soon,” I say. “Dinner?”
“Absolutely!” she says. “I want to hear everything.”
I have a new, bigger dressing room. There is a thin envelope with the large bonus check I negotiated for upon my return.
There are flowers from the execs on the counter, and a script and a schedule in side-by-side folders.
I have a flash of the Midsummer’s script laid out on my bedroom desk, the bud vase my mother left there.
I flip through the script. Was it always this shitty?
I know I’ve spent three months reading Shakespeare, but this is barely literate. Jay walks into the room.
“Belmont!” he booms. “Good to see . . .” He stops and looks me up and down. “Jesus, Miranda.”
“Um, what, Jay?” But I already know, and I hate myself for not realizing before he did. I gained weight this summer. I knew I did, but I wasn’t worrying about it. I was eating properly for the first time in years.
“You’re looking . . . robust.” He runs his hands over his face, like this is the literal last thing on planet Earth that he has time for.
“Okay, it’s fine. So, listen, I’m just going to send someone from wardrobe down here for an update.
” I blink at him. “So about how quickly do you think you could, you know . . .”
“What, Jay?”
“Well, you know, camera adds ten pounds, and now . . .” He switches tactics. “Listen, we just want consistency, right? Maybe we write in a pregnancy or something. You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“I’m sure you’re not allowed to ask me that.”
“Yeah, sure, totally. But, like . . . are you?”
I am getting that same tight feeling I had on the phone. I close my eyes and take a breath. When I open them, Jay has left. Seconds later, an apologetic wardrobe assistant asks to take my measurements. I stand there while she writes down numbers. She is sweet. She is new.
“What’s the damage?” I ask, annoyed.
“Oh, I mean, honestly, it’s not that bad,” she says, then catches herself.
“You look great.” She touches my arm. “Like, actually, really great.” She smiles at me, she means it.
I’m grateful. “You’re up, like, an inch and a half all over.
Seriously, no big deal, we just need to go up a size in your costumes.
Easy.” Out in the hall, I can hear Jay on the phone.
“Blown up like a goddamn dough boy,” he says.
“Could be pregnant, she won’t say . . . No, of course I didn’t ask her, fuck, feminism, et cetera.
I didn’t want her back at all, you know.
This is Nolan trying to cover his ass.” The wardrobe assistant looks up at me, alarmed, and shuts the door. She drops her eyes to the floor.
I step back. “You know what? Actually, we’re done here.”
“Oh!” she chirps. “I literally just need, like, two more . . .”
“No.” I open the door. “I’m done.” She scurries out anxiously.
I march down the hall into Jay’s office, where he is speed-eating nicotine gum.
“Kill me,” I say.
He looks at me, confused. “What the fuck, Belmont.”
“I’m asking you—I’m telling you—to kill me off. Do whatever you need to do. I’m not doing this.”
He makes a show of popping another piece of gum into his mouth and chewing it slowly. “You’re out?” he snarls.
“I’m out. I remembered that I can’t work for you.”
“This is so unprofessional.” He is already texting the execs.
“Not as unprofessional as firing me because your star told you to, or asking me if I’m pregnant because I finally dared to nourish myself,” I snap.
“I could go on, you know. I have seen a lot of shit here, and I have an excellent memory.” I stare him down.
He knows. Years of sexist comments, sexual comments, overtly offensive jokes.
I’m so done. “I know you think it’s a joke, how I spent my summer, but I loved it.
I got to work with people who actually cared.
I got to be creatively engaged. I got to work with a script that wasn’t riddled with clichés and plot holes. ”
“You won’t work in this town again,” he sneers.
I can’t help it, I laugh. “That a line from your shitty script?”
“How dare you—”
“I don’t care, Jay. Being here for literally an hour has reminded me how much I hate it here.
This show is garbage—you know that, right?
I’m honestly not sure how it’s still on air.
Being here, seeing you, it’s reminded me how much of my life I have wasted in this world, starving myself in all kinds of ways.
I’m a classically trained actor! I’m playing a secretary! What the fuck! I’m out. I’m done.”
“You’ll have to return the bonus,” he says, sudden desperation in his voice. “How do I explain this to—”
“I don’t care. You did this to yourself.
You ignored me every time I asked for more story, more lines, and I gave you six years, and you just disposed of me because Nick Nolan told you to.
And we both know that if I went public with that, you’d be really fucked.
So I’m keeping the bonus, and we’ll call it even.
” He looks at me, wide-eyed. “Fuck you, Jay. Goodbye.”
A few people are huddled around the door and quickly disperse as I exit. They look at me, eyes shining. No one says anything for a moment, then a crew guy high-fives me, and some girl I’ve never seen with a clipboard leans in. “You’re my hero,” she whispers.
I step out into the parking lot and hand in my pass to the security guard, who looks at me like I’m crazy but takes it.