Chapter 29 #2
At snail speed, I move forward, inching my way closer to buttery perfection. My stomach growls so loud that a little wave of joy hits me when another person exits with their popcorn bucket. I’ve completely missed the woman’s train I’ve just caught my foot on.
“Oh shoot, I am sorry,” I say from behind.
The blonde woman whips her head back in my direction, looking me up and down as I’m doing the same to her.
From her well-manicured toes to her sparkling pink dress, Sloane Swanson—in the flesh—is slowly killing me with one look.
She is doing a once-over of my entire figure. Staring at me from head to toe before swiping her dress from the floor and away from my foot.
When she does grace me with her words, she flips her hair back and says, “You could have torn it. It’s a vintage Matisse.”
She snaps her attention back to the line. Her stark, white-blonde hair is different from the honey blonde she had on set. Her eyebrows are thinly tweezed from her natural brow shape. Everything about her is different.
More drastic. More deliberate than seven years ago.
Cold air rushes past my shoulder, the glow at my neck starts up and I know she isn’t far behind.
The chant signals me of her arrival.
“A luz sabe… duas almas incompletas…”
She would want me to say something. Do something.
In a taunting voice, Skye says, “If you only knew…”
My vision feels fuzzy as everything slowly morphs around me. The people who were standing in front of me are glitching. When I turn my head to my left, Holden is no longer in the corner of my eye.
I blink hard, trying to recalibrate as everything is pitched into black. A man is talking.
Is this what a stroke feels like? No longer in control of my body…?
I smell woodsy cologne that I recognize and see the blue and white basketball uniform. Zooming out to a makeshift basketball court with overhead lights on a rig. Holden looks frustrated, fully in costume with his script in hand.
“I can’t believe you are choosing her over practicing for the tournament. You never take anything—” Holden says.
The director yells “cut,” and his shoulders deflate.
“I read the line,” he says, pointing at the script. “What more do you want from me, Dante!?”
He scratches the back of his head.
“Let’s take five to reset.”
Holden heads to his designated chair. Sloane is already there to greet him.
“You did so great, baby. He probably just has a different vision for the scene,” she says, breathless. Her eyes are locked on the stage, no longer on him. She mutters a bunch of words to herself like a mad woman.
The director yells, “Let’s start with the prom proposal scene.”
I can hear Holden mumble under his breath, “Fuck this.” He wiggles more in his chair as Sloane and Graham walk up to the stage.
The lighting slowly dims around both of their characters.
ALLISON (annoyed, rushing the conversation) You didn’t even notice me last week…
BILLY (smiling) Of course I did. You were wearing a yellow sundress last Friday.
They exchange a quick glance, sizing each other up. Suddenly, Graham leans in, but he is not quite ready to kiss her.
BILLY (whispering) Go to prom with me.
ALLISON (pulls closer to Billy) I can’t afford to. Besides, you have the playoffs coming up…
LOGAN (marches into the scene, angry, mocking Billy’s voice) Yeah, bro—you got playoffs coming up.
BILLY
(glances at Logan but keeps gazing back at Sloane) Go home, Logan. Nobody wants you here.
LOGAN (acts cold before storming off) I can’t. I am supposed to let you know that practice starts in thirty.
BILLY
(pulls closer to Allison) Can I kiss you?
ALLISON
(nods, but doesn’t say a word)
ALLISON and BILLY both go in for a passionate kiss.
When the scene cuts, they don’t stop. They fall deeper into the kiss as if they have done this time and time again. The director yells cut once more. Finally, they release their lips off one another when they hear it for the second time.
Sloane wipes the saliva off her face when she realizes. Her gaze catches Holden’s instantly. In the chair, I watch, dreading what happens next.
To think, I just wanted a few seconds more when I saw this weeks ago…
This was a living, breathing memory for him. Knowing Skye and all her tricks, I’m being shown this on purpose.
I’m slipping into Holden’s vortex of memories as the crushing realization of Sloane and Graham hits him all at once. His face is drained of all color.
He doesn’t say a word, only storms off to the back lot where nobody can get to him. Both Sloane and I are racing toward him, except I am racing against time. Hoping this time, I won’t fade back to the present.
I slip my body through the cracked door, the sunlight hitting me all at once. I’ve shifted now to a bedroom that has navy-blue walls. It’s barely furnished.
“You are being difficult, you know that.”
“How am I being difficult for you?”
“Oh, not me. Just all the hardworking people on set that have spent time and money to make you a star. Just wasted on you. Do you understand how childishly you are taking this whole ordeal?”
“I am a child. Yours, to add, in case you forgot.”
Without notice, a loud slap hits Holden’s face, making the flesh of his right cheek red.
“Don’t talk back to me! Right now, you are about to be eighteen. An adult with responsibilities. And everything we have worked for to make you successful will be for nothing. You want that on your hands?”
She storms off in a huff without letting him answer, leaving Holden to stew in her anger.
Holden’s body collapses to the bed and I jump in with him, feeling what Skye must feel when all you can do is observe.
“These people are just rotten. You don’t deserve any of it,” I say, but he can’t hear a word. No matter how loud I get. He only curls his hands into a ball and bites his lip as if he can wind himself up so tight that he can hold it all in before it explodes.
From angry to sad, it takes all of sixty seconds to see the tears trickle down his face. Everything painful about him makes sense now. I just want to take it all away from him.
Scooting my body closer to his, I get close enough to his face that I try to wipe his tears, but I’m not able to physically touch him.
“A luz sabe, duas almas incompletas, uma guia a outra.”
Whispering sounds in my ears, in a set of three as everything is and the room is swallowed up in a tornado. It circles me back into a room where I can no longer see him. All I can smell is popcorn again.
Dorothy is officially back in Kansas.