Chapter 39 #2
It’s pretty great to see how he’s supporting me, though I’m not sure I want him here. It makes the stakes feel higher. He
wishes me luck and sits down on his cushion and doesn’t even look too worried about his pristine suit getting dirty. He’s
come pretty far, Chris has.
Hal’s cousins are there too, visiting from South Dakota and soaking up the satisfaction that comes from experiencing a locals’
night out rather than falling into the Times Square tourist trap.
It’s BYOB, and everyone’s got their wine bottles and flasks. Just because I’m all on my high horse about being sober doesn’t
mean I don’t want other people to guzzle down the alcohol. They’ll be a much easier crowd that way and I’m really not sure
how good the play is. That’s one of the not-so-great things about staying away from the drinks and drugs. I overthink things
more.
“Welcome, everyone, to the grand opening of the Populists’ Playhouse,” I say from the stage, too jittery to breathe through
my mouth, so I’m just taking these nasally inhales. “This play is called The Zookeeper’s Downfall. It’s loosely inspired by a true story. Hope you enjoy it, and stick around after to mingle. We’ve got to mix the Brooklyn
and Manhattan people. Right now we’re like oil and water.” I ramble on because it’s no secret that’s what I do when I’m nervous.
“Let’s not forget we’re all humans here, all woven from the same divine fabric.”
Chris’s coworkers exchange skeptical looks. But then the show starts and I tune out everything external. I just drop into
myself as Tara and I channel our boldest Broadway dreams, the ones we haven’t let die a natural death. The ones we’ve kept
on ventilators and have now nursed back to full health despite the odds.
I can’t tell how it’s going while I’m performing and I don’t try to because I know the show will lose something, lose everything,
if I pop out of myself and start analyzing. We take our bows at the end and then it’s over. Everyone is on their feet and
maybe it just means Hal and Jenni are good at working the crowd, but I think it’s something more. I think we nailed it.
There’s real hope for the Populists’ Playhouse to be featured in the Redstocking museum one day, though the idea of a museum
feels less important now that I have a concept of how I might live on even after I’m dead. My physical death hopefully won’t
mean my actual death so long as I keep myself open enough that my spirit can spill out of my corpse and keep soaring.
People stay to mingle afterward. Some of the ties and suit jackets come off, which is a good sign. Slowly, everyone trickles
out so it’s just the Redstockings and Chris left. He’s stuck around even though I haven’t gotten to talk with him yet. I’ve
been too inundated with admirers; it’s a tough problem to have.
Chris chats with Jenni for a while but then Jenni’s hugging me, telling me how little June is so lucky to have an aunt like
me. It makes me almost wish I’d said yes to being her godmother, but aunt is better, really. Less pressure, more play.
Tara and Niles peel off with Hal and Astrid. It’s clear what they’re doing, trying to leave me alone with Chris. It’s not going to work, though I wish it might.
“Don’t you have to wake up early for work tomorrow?” I ask Chris as I’m unplugging the light strands. The garden is dark,
lit only by the splash of interior lights from apartments bordering the courtyard.
“Are you trying to kick me out?” he says.
“No, I just know sleep is important to you,” I reply.
“This is important to me too,” he says. “You were amazing up there.”
It’s been a few months since the breakup with Olivia and he looks good, better than I’ve ever seen him actually. But maybe
I’m just riding the rosy glow of how I just launched my own theater company and collected the money in cash so I don’t have
to pay taxes. It’s hard to distinguish between the factors at play.
“Hope your coworkers didn’t hate it,” I say. “I know it was kind of out of their element.”
“They loved it,” he says. “So did the endings match up?”
I frown, confused. “What endings?”
“The first time we met,” Chris says. “You told me how the ending the characters want and the ending the audience wants can’t
be the same. But it felt like they were the same in the play tonight. Both groups ultimately wanted the cheetahs to be set
free, right?”
I can’t believe he remembers that conversation we had way back when at the art gallery. It tickles me in a giggly kind of
way. I try to think up a rebuttal, a way to point out a flaw in his argument, but I don’t feel like being a contrarian tonight.
“Yeah, I guess they can be aligned sometimes,” I say. “If the playwright is a real genius and the audience aren’t all idiots.”
A smile drips out of Chris’s closed-faucet face. He’s getting closer, right in front of me. I want to kiss him but I can’t.
It’ll ruin it, I’ll ruin it, and Chris doesn’t deserve that.
It happens fast. My knee goes into his groin. He loses his balance and yelps in pain, falling backward onto the wall of ivy.
I stand there and watch, babbling some lame apology.
Chris cuts me off once he regains his breath. “You don’t need to explain yourself,” he says. “I got the message.”
His eyes are cold and glazed. It’s a horrible sight. I’m locked inside myself again, unable to find the key in time, or maybe
I’m just not looking. Maybe I’ve lost it again on purpose. “Things are great as they are,” I say. “Let’s just stay friends,
okay?”
“Sure,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”
I show him out the front gate. Then he’s gone and I’m sitting there trying to soak in the success of the night, but all I
can think about is how I just pushed away one of the only people I’ve ever wanted to pull closer. I might be healed in some
ways, but I’m still broken in others. I guess I always will be.
As I take a shower that night, the water lurches from cold to hot to cold again and I burn with both extremes. When my skin
is red and shriveled, I finally turn off the shower and want to bash my head against the tile wall as retribution for how
I fucked up everything with Chris. But I don’t give in to that desire.
I just reach for the softest towel off the rack and wrap myself up as gently as I can.