Chapter Ten #2
They swiped open their Notes app, brain starting to buzz. What made those sticky teenage summers so alive? What could they taste like, in chocolate form?
Bare thighs on vinyl (diner booths). Sweat, salt, the taste of summer skin. Longing and heat. Something nostalgic? Teenage candy?
Jazz eased the Mustang forward, setting off down the empty country road. Dylan barely noticed. They were in the zone, ideas flowing like a chocolate fountain.
The sticky red of V’s lipstick…sweet, sexy, with heat. A glossy raspberry compote with something spiced and warm: cloves?
Summer tasted like buttery popcorn from the theater’s concession stand. Summer felt fizzy, almost chaotic, like soda bubbles against your tongue.
Popcorn, Dylan typed, for crunch!!
By the time Jazz parked outside the playhouse, Dylan knew they had something.
The pair crossed the front lawn, heading for the playhouse entrance.
“So, how’s the plan to rebrand the town as Upstate’s answer to the Castro going?” Dylan asked. It was such a good idea to make Rhodes a queer destination.
“Fabulous!” Jazz declared, adding she’d pitched the idea at a town meeting (actually just half a dozen locals in Clyde’s backyard) and the reception had been positive. “Assuming the show does well.” Jazz hesitated before admitting, “The bank gave me until the end of the month. It’s now or never.”
Dylan’s stomach dipped. “The bank?”
Jazz sighed. “If I don’t come up with the money, they’ll foreclose. Take the building, turn it into a damn Dollar General.”
Dylan stopped walking. “What?”
Jazz lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I’m a little behind on the mortgage.”
“How little?”
Jazz didn’t smile this time. “Little enough that if the show doesn’t sell out, I’ll have to.”
Dylan’s chest pulled tight. They knew the play was meant to save the theater, and the town, but they didn’t know the theater was on the brink of foreclosure.
It was easy to forget that Jazz hadn’t just gotten the quartet together for kicks.
“The show will be great,” Dylan assured her. “We’ll get the money.”
“I know. I have faith.” Jazz’s voice was fond as she regarded them. “I’m just so glad my four best girls are back together.”
Dylan felt a crunch of disappointment, chased by a surge of nerves that knocked at their ribs. Correcting their beloved mentor hurt more than they expected. Still, their voice came out steady: “I’m glad we’re here, too. But I don’t identify as a girl anymore. I did, in high school. I don’t now.”
Jazz pressed a hand to her orange-lipsticked mouth. “Of course you don’t. I knew that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Dylan said automatically. They took a breath.
Was it okay? Or did they just want it to be?
They cleared their throat and tried to say something that felt honest. “It takes a bit of practice to, like, make the mental shift. The effort’s what’s important to me. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect.”
“Me neither,” Jazz said.
“Keep that in mind as I butcher Hamlet,” Dylan joked. Because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was set inside the original Hamlet, intertwined with the plot, Hamlet’s lines were mostly ye olde Shakespeare. Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
“You’ve got yourself a deal.” Jazz regarded Dylan with a mix of gratitude and sincerity. “Thank you for giving up the rest of your summer for this. I know you’re busy. It means so much.”
“You mean so much,” Dylan said. “Do you remember what you said to us before our first rehearsal, back in the day?”
Jazz shook her head, her white hair glowing in the already blazing sun.
“You told us the Tragedians didn’t have a gender: They could be played as women or men or ‘someone in-between.’ That stayed with me. That…permission. I don’t think I ever thanked you.” Dylan tapped the script in their book bag. “This is me, saying thank you.”
“Thank you,” Jazz said. “For continuing to educate me. The greatest gift you can give me is your honesty. To let me in on who you really are.”
Dylan socked Jazz’s arm softly, blinking away the push of tears. “You got it, boss.”
Dylan rode a wave of warmth for their old mentor as they pulled open the playhouse’s front door.
This whole process felt like history repeating in the weirdest way, except now, Dylan wasn’t an oblivious teenager oscillating between feeling smugly convinced they’d figured the whole world out, and desperately trying to, painfully clueless.
They were an adult, somehow. Even at thirty-five, Dylan didn’t always feel like a capital-A Adult.
Why was that, when they had the markers of adulthood: a master’s degree, a start-up, a concern about cholesterol, an opinion about vacuum cleaners?
Perhaps because, despite being in their fourth decade of life, their capacity for human emotion remained the same.
Jealousy, insecurity, shame, regret—these powerful feelings were able to level them back to their high school self.
Even as an Adult, Dylan’s high school crush could still rock their hard-won equilibrium.
After their very cold shower, Dylan was thinking more clearly.
Feelings, of any kind, for Vicky Fang were a let’s-travel-on-that-spiffy-new-ship-called-the-Titanic level of terrible idea.
Dylan reminded themself that Vicky was still an annoying bossy brat, and Dylan didn’t want or need to complicate their full, well-balanced life.
Their focus needed to be Marlowe and the play and boundaries.
Nothing else. Best to avoid the open seat next to Vicky, and instead take the one next to their new old pal Clyde.
Dylan gave him a nod. “Morning, Clyde.”
“Ah, good morning, young Dylan,” Clyde replied. He took off his glasses, his expression intrigued. “Now, where are you on whether or not the moon landing was faked?”
“All right,” Jazz announced, from her position at the head of the table. “Are we all here?”
Dylan scanned the individuals seated around the U-shape of tables—the new Rhodes Players.
Vicky and Lola were seated together, both looking fresh and pretty.
Deborah Buttrose’s earrings were even bigger than the ones from yesterday, some sort of feathered Etsy disaster; she was chatting with Maria, who still looked terrified.
Ophelia and Horatio, aka baby-faced Jamie and sweet, tiny Mikki, were on Dylan’s other side, both finishing up cream cheese bagels.
The teens were bunched together but each locked into their own universe: Emery, white-blond and moody, slouched over their phone in a baggy T-shirt repping a band Dylan was far too old and uncool to recognize.
Zoe, all earnest theater kid energy, softly sang what sounded like “My Shot” from Hamilton, no doubt manifesting a Broadway debut—or at least TikTok virality—by the end of summer.
Kat—plaid pants and a No Gods No Masters tee—flipped through Resistance magazine like she was personally prepping to eat the rich at lunch.
And then there was Orchid: a walking art installation mid-selfie, angles dialed to maximum slay. Influence or be influenced, baby.
The new generation. Dylan could feel themself aging in real time.
“Where’s Annie?” Jazz directed this at Lola.
Lola shrugged, looking worried. “I don’t know,” she said. “She hasn’t replied to my texts.”
The cast members’ gazes flickered toward the theater aisle that Annie had escaped up after yesterday’s table read.
Jazz let out a disappointed sigh before forcing a resilient smile. “Well. That’s okay. We’ll just have to—”
The doors to the theater banged open. Annie burst in, juggling two large doughnut boxes, pushing a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses into her hair.
“Sorry!” She hurried up the aisle. She was wearing another colorful sundress, a strap falling off one shoulder.
“I had the brilliant idea to get doughnuts for everyone,” she explained breathlessly, “but French Kiss isn’t open till eleven, so I went to that truck stop that used to sell Vicky cigarettes but has surprisingly good doughnuts, and sorry but I’m here, I’m here. ”
“Wonderful to see you, Annie.” Jazz spoke as if she’d never had any doubts. “We were just about to get started.”
“Sorry,” Annie said again, taking a seat and passing the boxes around. “Also, kids, cigarettes are not cool even if they look cool in the movies. Danny Zuko has a lot to answer for.”
Emery took a bear claw. “Who?”
“RIP my cultural references,” Vicky said with a sigh, which made Dylan snort laughter. Over the past twenty years, Vicky had become even funnier, in addition to smarter and hotter.
Nope: Dylan was not supposed to be thinking things like that.
“Focus please,” Jazz instructed, clapping her hands. “Let’s begin.”
Jazz explained that today was part of the “understanding” phase of rehearsal, when the entire cast would discuss the play and what it meant to be staging it.
“In addition to answering what is this story about,” Jazz told the thirteen listening actors, “we must answer the question, ‘Why are we telling it now?’ What do we want the audience to walk away with? What connection do we personally feel to the work as a whole?”
Jazz was bright-eyed as she went on, surveying the group. “I want to hear from everyone!”
The cast exchanged tentative looks: No one wanted to go first. Clyde sat back in his seat like a spectator on game day: happy to be there but in no way kicking it off himself.
The teens looked at the adults as if to say, you’re the grown-ups.
Deborah looked expectantly to Lola, who was looking at Annie.
Annie took an enormous bite of a cream custard doughnut, getting granulated sugar on her nose.
Dylan glanced at Vicky, catching Vicky looking at them. A pulse of energy arrowed directly between Dylan’s legs. Dylan reminded their body that Vicky was off-limits, especially during a table read. Unfortunately that just made their body more interested.
“Well, it’s just so richly written.” Mikki was the first to speak, hesitantly. “The word play, all the banter. Wow.”
Jamie nodded supportively. “Yeah, it’s like…modern Shakespeare. So many big ideas.”
“Honestly, I thought it was weird,” Deborah said. “No offense.”
“There were a lot of words in it,” Clyde said, as if making a powerful observation. “A lot.”
Another pause so awkward, Dylan could feel it cringing.
“I agree: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is wordy, weird, clever, and complex.” Lola spoke clearly, with warmth and enthusiasm. “Still a relevant and engaging story for a modern audience.”
Everyone let out a relieved breath, swiveling to face the only professional actor among them, eager to hear what the group’s natural leader and assistant director had to say.
“First, the failure to communicate,” Lola began.
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spend so much of the play confused by what’s going on because they misinterpret or misunderstand things.
Language and communication are supposed to lead to understanding.
But in this play, words and language do the opposite: They obfuscate the truth, in a way that isolates the characters and makes them feel alienated.
That’s often played for comic effect, but there’s real poignancy there. ”
Zoe spoke up. “Right, so when Guildenstern says that line about Words, words. They’re all we have to go on, that’s ironic, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Lola said, smiling at Zoe.
“Not only is it ironic—drawing attention to the play as a play, performed by actors who only have the script and its words to go on—but in this day and age, showing how words and language lead us away from truth, into confusion and loneliness, is more relevant than ever.”
“Do you mean, like, deepfakes and fake news and everyone living in their own separate reality bubbles?” Orchid asked Lola.
“Yes,” Lola said. “None of that existed when Stoppard wrote the play. But whether you see truth as an absolute or a mutable concept that means different things to different people, our inability to communicate is more relevant than ever.”
Dylan vaguely remembered a similar discussion twenty years ago. Back then, they were barely brave enough to say two words. Now, in addition to feeling a degree of responsibility to help kick things off, they were looking forward to diving in.
An insight bubbled into their brain: the concept of truth as a theme of the play, that called into question the very nature of existence. They started forward, half raising a hand.
“Yes, Dylan?” Jazz prompted.
Dylan accidentally caught Vicky’s eye.
When they were a teenager, Dylan’s parents had taken them on safari.
Their group came across a jaguar, drinking from a water hole.
Its shoulder blades moved beneath taut fur as if well oiled.
Its paws were the size of dinner plates.
That same mix of surprise, fear, and wonder all collided in Dylan’s rib cage now, undershot with something they had not felt while looking at that phenomenal jungle cat.
Attraction. Lust.
Electricity zinged across the stage. The power of it blinded them, obliterating their complex web of thoughts.
“Dylan?” Jazz repeated.
“I was just thinking about—truth?” Their fully formed insight slipped away, replaced by the neon-bright image of a sticky, glossed mouth, lips parted in invitation. “And, uh…art?”
Lola picked up the thread, making a salient point about the leads’ constant questioning. Dylan slid back into their chair, eyes trained on the table.
So. Vicky Fang was still their sexual Achilles’ heel.
So much for playing it cool.