Chapter 5
Recent transactions:
A stone archway cocoons the entrance of the performance space. The walls are aged and crumbling, cracks leaking cold wind
from outside. I pull my coat in tighter and traverse down the steep, uneven staircase until a man in all black scans my ticket.
He guides me through the aisles of other audience members as a wave of heat hits me. There is practically no ventilation down
here, so the air is warming with every shaky exhale from the audience. The space looked amazing from the outside, a Gothic
church in the middle of the city, but as signage pointed the audience down two sets of stone stairs, it was like wading into
a vacuum cleaner bag.
Some of the faces in the crowd ring familiar to me.
Mostly friends and family of the performers with a few Shakespeare enthusiasts littered among them.
Spencer and his fellow actors sent out requests to every casting director and agent in town in the hopes that one of them would show up for their World War I reimagining of Macbeth.
I wouldn’t know them by face, but this is the last show of the run, so I hope there is someone here. Spencer is a great
actor and has been in the business for five years without professional representation. This led him to take matters into his
own hands, organizing troupe-run productions like this one. According to Spencer, ticket sales have been just enough to cover
the four-week run. Everything has been done by the actors, including sourcing costumes, finding venues, and promoting the
play. The crowd is silent as I duck down and creep toward my seat. The room is pitch-black except for a spotlight haloing
the center of the stage. This performance space is a crypt in a church basement in the middle of the city. It’s ironic really;
if Spencer doesn’t agree to my wild plan, my company is six feet under.
A man dressed in a fitted green tweed jacket steps into the light, briefly making eye contact with me as I squeeze past an
aisle of annoyed onlookers to get to my assigned seat.
“So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
“Whom we invite to see us crown’d at Scone.”
I am late. Mostly deliberately to avoid chatting with my parents before the show and a little bit accidentally after putting
the final touches on an updated pitch presentation before “Violet” sent it off to Odericco Investments. I slink into the seat
beside my mum as she tuts and whispers something to my father.
“Sorry, I came straight from work,” I mouth, wriggling out of my puffer coat.
“Why are you wearing a T-shirt and jeans in the office? Aren’t you in charge?” My dad grumbles, the shine from the spotlight
skimming his bald spot like a halo.
I purse my lips, glancing down at my Debbie Harry T-shirt and patchwork denim before schooling my mouth into the polite smile I reserve exclusively for taxi drivers who start ranting about the “state of things nowadays” when there’s still fifteen minutes left to the journey. “Nice to see you both.”
Neither of them reply, focusing back on the stage instead. As quietly as humanly possible, I readjust my body into a comfortable
position and settle in for two hours of Spencer and Company.
My brother laps up the crowd; he is never more comfortable than when he’s on the stage. And luckily, he’s also very good at
what he does. He has this natural quality that makes you truly believe what he’s saying. It’s almost eerie, watching someone
you’ve known your whole life become a completely different person.
When the applause subsides, the cast reappears from behind a red velvet curtain. I also came to opening night, when the tails
were bushy but the flow was clunky. Now, as their shining faces line up and glance at one another to synchronize the final
bow, the looks of sadness and relief are potent.
Spencer played Macduff and was the understudy for the titular role, something he was disappointed to not have had the chance
to do during this run of shows. He practiced the iconic “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” monologue to Cecily, Pacha,
and me so many times we all know it by heart, mouthing along with him like some thespian cult groupies singing B-sides.
“Why did you cut bangs?” Mum says as we leave our seats, standing face-to-face for the first time this evening.
My parents always frame insults in the form of a question.
Like this is their way of being interested in my life.
No “How’s work?” “What are you up to?” “How’s the love life?
” We don’t hug, but then again, the Coles are not famous for expressing their emotions through body language. Or any other language for that matter.
I consider replying, Because that’s what you do in a life crisis, but don’t gather up the nerve. It was either my homemade bangs in the bathroom mirror with a pair of office scissors or getting
a part of my body pierced that isn’t my ear. Curtain bangs were free and seemed way less likely to end in an infection.
Before my parents leave, I watch them say their hellos, goodbyes, and well-dones to my brother and his fellow actors as they
scatter into the crowd, how proud they are of him for saying lines in a basement. If that sounds mean, it’s because I’m bitter.
They don’t know about the numerous times I’ve bailed him out, the times he’s refused a full-time or even part-time job at
a local coffee shop or restaurant because he needs to be available for background acting on Made in Chelsea at a moment’s notice. But after tonight, he will have a huge piece of dirt to hold over me as sibling mutually assured destruction.
So maybe this will be a good thing for our relationship?
Once the crowds have filtered out, I follow Spencer backstage.
“Remind me again why your play had to be performed in a crypt?” I ask, grasping my puffer coat for warmth.
Spencer peels off his military jacket, arms glistening with sweat underneath, and hangs it on one of the metal clothing racks
lining the walls, “For the om-bee-ance,” he declares in a French accent.
“The zombi-ence?” I tease, holding up a Styrofoam skull.
He rolls his eyes. “The ambience, you philistine.”
I run my finger across a wooden shelf, opening a line in the dust like Moses parting the Dead Sea. “This ambience is going to be stuck in the back of my throat for several days.”
Spencer rolls his eyes as I wipe my finger off on my coat. “So I wanted to talk to you about something.” I lean against a
stone structure covered with the cast’s leftovers from lunch.
He pauses, staring at the stone behind me and awkwardly grits his teeth. “Yeah, I think there might be an actual body in there.”
“Ew, dude,” I say as I tidy the sacrilegious paper coffee cups, plates, and napkins off the surface and dump them in the bin.
“And if this is about the missing desk lamps, I promise I will bring them back now we’ve finished the show run,” he says quickly,
as though saying it fast will cause it to fly over my head.
“Not that, but yes definitely bring them back; they are the building’s, not mine. It’s about work.”
“Of course, when isn’t it?” He sighs.
I contain my jab that we are literally having this conversation in a plague pit because he insists on us coming to every opening
and finale show.
Just accept it; you’re about to ask him for a huge favor.
“You know that email I got the other day? The one you thought might be a scam?”
“The porn one?”
“Yeah, that one . . .” I take a breath. “It was from a potential investor.”
He steps behind a changing screen. “Weird of them to send you porn.” A set of wool trousers and suspenders fold over the top
of the taut beige fabric.
“It wasn’t porn!” I say louder than anticipated; the word porn echoes around the cylindrical hall like a whirlpool of cringe. “It was an invitation to compete in this big tech competition in Rome.”
“Oh cool, when are you going?” His shadow asks.
My lips thin to form a straight line. “In three days.”
He pops his head above the screen. “And what does that have to do with me?”
“Well, it’s kind of a funny story . . .” I laugh nervously, trying to find the right words. “On the call with a guy from the
investment company . . . I kind of, maybe, definitely insinuated that a man is the CEO and founder of Wyst . . . not me.” I shouldn’t tell him about the voice changer situation in case he concludes
I’m legitimately crazy, so much so he has to tell Mum and Dad.
He steps out from behind the screen, now dressed in a loose Fleetwood Mac T-shirt and frayed jeans I’m fairly certain are
mine, his face set in a deep scowl. “I’m sorry, you did what?”
My fingers interlace as I try to come up with a viable reason. “I made a mistake on the application, selected the wrong gender,
and I guess I just . . . went along with it. And now they think a ‘Mr. Cole’ runs Wyst.” I look him up and down and sigh.
“And you’re the closest thing I have to a Mr. Cole.”
He shoots me an incredulous look. “I literally am Mr. Cole.”
“Fantastic! You’re hired!” I clap my hands together.
Spencer eyes me with both sympathy and confusion. “If you needed a man, you could have just made someone up? Or hired an actor?”
I step forward, placing my hands on his arms to try and bring the focus back to the most urgent part of this conversation.
“That is exactly what I’m doing. I need you to come to Rome with me next week and pretend to be the CEO for a few days. And do a presentation.”
He takes a step back, shaking his head and laughing. “No way, this has to be a joke. There’s no way you, Jess Cole, would
be this stupid.”
I shrug defeatedly. “Everyone has their moments. Like that time you cut a right angle into my hair because you thought it
would look cool?” I’m hoping reminding him of the ways he has slighted me throughout our twenty-seven years together will
ease us toward a yes.
“I was nine!” he shouts, arms flapping against his sides.
“And you still haven’t made it up to me, so now’s your chance!” I flail my hands out to suggest “Oh, wow, I can’t believe