35. SEVEN YEARS AGO
THIRTY-FIVE
SEVEN YEARS AGO
LATE WINTER, SENIOR YEAR
PAIGE
I walked between Ellis and Linc, holding Linc’s hand down at my side, as we took hurried steps toward the building —the venue— for the play Mr. Harris was directing.
“So is it the whole apartment building?” I asked.
Ellis shook his head, peeking across me, toward Linc. “I don’t think so,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know. The only thing Mr. Harris said was that it’s experimental, but the performances are only in certain units, and the doors will be physically open. I guess you’re supposed to visit them in order.”
Ugh. “This sounds weird for weird’s sake,” I whined.
Ellis groaned too. “Agreed.”
“Hey, some of the best shit comes from weird ideas,” Linc said through a chuckle.
I smirked, then scrunched my nose at him. “Did your pal Jeremy tell you that?”
His chest rumbled as he hugged me into him, whispering, “Such a brat,” over my ear, and I giggled.
We’d recently learned that Linc and Mr. Harris were on a first name basis, and I couldn’t help but give him shit.
I mean, we were all pretty sure Linc was Mr. Harris’s star pupil, but . . .
I don’t know. It did seem a little weird. But there were also plenty of faculty members at Providence that I called by their first name. Caroline, the music director. Tam, the prop queen.
I probably only thought it was strange because I didn’t know Mr. Harris very well.
Being February, we were only about a month and a half into spring semester, so I had just started taking his film acting class a few weeks ago. And my only other interactions were the brief ones we’d had about Without the Moon.
A topic we were currently avoiding since all Linc could do was wait until the screening next month.
As we reached the building to the address, the three of us stood at the bottom of the stoop, our chins tilting up toward the three-story building like a haunted house.
I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, but I saw the value in supporting Mr. Harris. I mean, he’d already tried to get me a professional job with the American Idiot audition, and he hadn’t even worked with me in any sort of official capacity.
But honestly, I was so fucking grateful for him just for having a vested interest in Linc—that someone at Providence looked past his empty pockets and saw his incredible talent.
Ellis walked up the few steps first, and Linc and I followed before Ellis looked at the security pad. My eyes squinted over him.
STORIES
A QR code.
Ellis pulled out his phone, and scanned it, then looked down at the screen, reading, “Welcome to a night of immersive raw performance. You, the audience, will simply be a fly on the wall as you visit the homes of the characters. Please visit the rooms in order, and do not interact with the talent. Your code to enter the building is below. We hope you enjoy our Stories.” He rolls his eyes. “I am not high enough for this.”
“Yep, definitely gonna be weird,” I said.
Linc sighed through a small laugh, “Maybe it’ll be cool! You came around on Donnie Darko.”
“I came around on Jake Gyllenhaal,” I muttered as Ellis put in the code to the door, then opened it.
He walked through and I followed. But just as we got inside, Linc pulled me into him, putting my back to his front, as he leaned down, his lips hovering over my ear. “Jake Gyllenhaal, huh?”
I pulled my lips into my mouth and twisted my chin toward him, shrugging playfully. “I’d watch you shotgun him.”
Linc chuckled, then kissed the corner of my mouth, but our eyes simultaneously drifted up, realizing we were in the building, and we finally took in the space.
It wasn’t very big. There was a staircase right by the entrance with three rows of mailboxes—about ten in each row. Buffy bless, I can only hope the performances are in less than half of the units in the building.
We started on the first floor, per the instructions, basically moving as one through the first four apartments, the last of which was empty.
Linc and I stood in the living room as Ellis walked through the archway into the kitchen, then started opening the cabinets.
“Hey!” I whisper-yelled, then wondered why. We were the only ones in here.
Ellis’s eyes met mine, the green color lifting mischievously, then shrugged. “He said it was immersive.”
I started toward the kitchen to pull Ellis out —move this along. I was promised a grilled cheese at Queenie’s if I cooperated, but I gasped as I reached the kitchen. Through the window, I could see across the street, in another building, there was a guy staring into this apartment.
What the fuck?
“Linc,” I said, but he was already right behind me.
“Whoa,” Ellis said as he turned around, and I gathered that he saw the man too.
The guy was sitting at a table, well lit. He looked to be about thirty or so, and he was smoking a cigarette by his open window, just staring.
“Fucking creepy,” Linc muttered, and we suddenly heard the door open, followed by violent arguing between a man and a woman.
Linc grabbed my waist and pulled me into him, as we heard what I assumed were the actors, playing out the scene in the living room.
Is it the actors?
The door was definitely open, and that meant this apartment is part of the show, right?
They came into view from the doorway in the kitchen, and I saw a younger woman with brown hair, she looked like she was crying, and a tall guy, built and bearded.
They were an attractive couple. A bit younger than the creepy guy staring into their apartment.
The man in the living room stormed past us, toward the fridge, and grabbed a beer. I looked back through the window, but saw the guy was gone.
I grabbed Linc’s hand and started to inch our steps toward the door. Since the actors weren’t acknowledging us —thank God— I felt fairly confident we could move.
When I heard some small chatter from what I could only assume was a few more audience members, I kept moving, pulling Linc with me, knowing he’d grab Ellis.
I kept my chin down, feeling awkward as fuck as we passed the girl crying in the living room, then a few more people walked in and started to watch.
As soon as we were in the hall, I took a deep breath.
“Jeez,” Ellis said, and I nodded.
Linc’s eyes squinted, still looking in the room.
“What?” I asked, fidgeting, still feeling . . . I don’t know, itchy.
Linc’s eyes peered down to me, with a small shake of his head. “I met that girl. The night Mr. Harris came to your show at Queenie’s, she was with him.”
My eyes scrunched, glancing back through the doorway, but I couldn’t see the girl anymore. She was blocked by audience members.
“Huh,” I said. “Is she his girlfriend, ’cause she might have a stalker.”
Linc shrugged. “Not sure.”
Ellis sighed. “All right, we’ve got four more rooms, you guys ready for floor two?”
Ugh. I just want grilled cheese.
By the final room, I was about ready to jump out of the window. We’d seen a young man living with his alcoholic and abusive mother, a woman ordering a male prostitute—it was just . . . uncomfortable.
“Last one,” Linc said over my ear, and I whined into his neck.
This room looked crowded, at least—something I never thought I’d be grateful for.
This kind of shit went over my head. It wasn’t entertaining to me. There was something just . . . unsettling about watching a “performance” in a nontheatrical space.
It was similar to a feeling I’d had watching a kid in our stage combat class turn reckless with the choreography—where we, the audience, were no longer engaged in the scene, but worried for his scene partner’s safety. This had felt like an hour of that discomfort.
A crowd at least helped it feel more like a show.
We walked in, and the audience members seemed to be crowded to the far corner of the room. I was too short to see over people’s heads, but I was able to see the arms of a couch.
There were whispers, I could hear a squeak —maybe from the springs from the couch? But a sharp inhale pulled through my chest as I heard the unmistakable sound of a moan.
The heavy breathing filtered through my ears, and I grabbed onto Linc’s hand and pulled myself into him. Tilting his chin down, he whispered, “Are you okay?”
I cleared my throat as quietly as I could, nodding. Jesus, I hadn’t even seen anything, but I could feel a blush spreading up my neck and to my cheeks.
It’s a scene, I reminded myself. They weren’t actually having sex. Right?
I’d read about that once. Some A-list actor was talking about sex scenes in some magazine, and she just casually threw out there, that some scene partners agreed to actually have sex when they were filming a movie—which I found to be insane.
I mean, to each their own—but no thank you.
A few people toward the front of the audience moved away, and I finally saw the scene. My eyes widened, unable to look away.
The guy we had seen earlier—through the window and across the street—was on top of the girl who stormed in with that other guy downstairs. Her name is Josie, Linc had said.
She was below the creepy guy, their waists were covered by a blanket, but their hips were moving. You could see her tits any time he lifted himself up, before thrusting back down.
“Should we invite your husband up here so he can see how good you take a real dick?” the guy growled.
I looked over at Ellis, who stared with flinching eyebrows at the scene. I couldn’t see Linc, since I was using him as a partial shield.
After another second, I felt him slide his hand down to mine and pull. He must have signaled something to Ellis because he followed just behind us, and we walked back out of the apartment, silently.
No one said anything as we walked down the three flights of stairs and then back outside.
Just as we walked down the steps, I peered back at the apartment building and then stopped for a second. “That was . . .” I shook my head. I had no words.
“Intense,” Linc said.
“That’s one word for it,” I said with a breathy, awkward laugh.
Ellis shook his head, but I could see the tick of his jaw just before he barked out, “How is there no warning anywhere about an explicit sex scene at the end of that shit? Fucking anyone can walk in! I mean, do kids live in the building?”
I didn’t see any kids, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any actually living in the apartments that weren’t being used for the “ performances .”
“It definitely felt weird. Invasive,” I mumbled.
Linc shook his head as he ran his teeth along his bottom lip. His eyes flicked over to me. “I think it was kind of meant to,” he said, lost in thought for a moment, then looked at me. “I’m sorry, Pip. I didn’t know . . .”
I shook my head. “No, hey, it’s fine. I knew it was gonna be weird—that avant-garde, experimental shit always is.” And that was true. But that was . . .
A residual shiver ran down my spine, but luckily a breeze passed, and I don’t think Linc noticed. I didn’t want him to feel bad.
I mean, I didn’t really know what to expect from this thing tonight, but that certainly wasn’t it—and it was clear it wasn’t what the boys were expecting either.
Lingering awkwardly for a few more seconds, Linc finally said, “Should we go to Queenie’s?”
Ugh. Mr. Harris was supposed to meet us there after to talk about the show, but . . . Ugh.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Ellis said. “I have questions.”
Ellis started walking in the direction of Queenie’s, and Linc took my hand, his eyes checking mine.
I did my best to give him a closed-mouth smile and walked beside him. I had no clue what I’d say to Mr. Harris, but maybe Linc and Ellis would be talkative enough that I could just nod and squint—pretend to be engaged.
LINC
Why am I so nervous?
Maybe it was Ellis’s nonstop tangent, but I think Paige seemed okay. She was picking at the last of her grilled cheese. She even ate the crusts —so she can’t be that upset, right?
Fuck, I felt bad.
Mr. Harris —Jeremy— had told us it was better to go into the show as blind as possible, but there probably should have been some warning.
“It was irresponsible,” Ellis said, shaking his head. “I mean, content aside, it just seemed unprofessional. A QR code? Zero disclaimers or warnings? Honestly, there was no consideration given to the audience or the actors—”
My eyes widened as I saw Jeremy walking through the door. Ellis’s eyebrows pinched as he turned around. After a second, he tossed up a casual wave in Jeremy’s direction, before he turned back toward us, and his mouth pulled up.
I felt Paige’s leg move beside me and then a small shuffle, followed by Ellis wincing. “Behave,” she said quietly, and I cleared my throat.
As Jeremy got to the table, his eyes met mine first, then drifted toward Paige and Ellis. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?” He shrugged off his coat and took the empty seat next to Ellis, pulling it off to the side a bit before he sat down.
No one said anything, at first, but I felt like it should be me, since I was pretty sure Ellis was about to . . . Ellis.
Luckily, Carrie came over and helped us stall for a second longer by taking Jeremy’s drink order.
I didn’t know how to field this. I certainly didn’t like the play. But I also don’t think I hated it as much as Paige and Ellis did.
Most of the time—with movies—I was able to find something I liked about it. The way it was shot, a cool visual effect, the writing, a character —something.
I just had to figure out what that was before Jeremy asked me. He’d only ever been supportive of my ideas and it felt shitty to not reciprocate.
After another silent beat, Jeremy chuckled. “All right, I’m sensing some negative opinions.”
“No,” I said, quickly realizing I didn’t have a game plan past that word, but Ellis twisted to face Jeremy.
And goddammit. The way his posture straightened, the small tick to the back of his jaw. Earlier suspicions were confirmed. Ellis was about to . . . Ellis.
“What exactly is the purpose of producing something like that?” he asked, his tone cool, casual—exactly how he always started. Like a lawyer in a courtroom.
Jeremy’s body language remained easy, leaning back slightly in his chair. He tilted his chin to the side, and his brown hair fell over his brow as he shrugged. “I mean, you know as well as I do, the only way to create anything new is from experimenting. Reality TV, puppets on-stage—they all started with an idea that was outside the box.”
Ellis’s eyes squinted but not in an angry way. He seemed to consider what Jeremy was saying. “Right. But shouldn’t that come from the subject matter, not the setting?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Not necessarily. And the audience was made fully aware of the setting before they stepped in the building.”
Ellis was about to say something, but Paige sat up. “I think what he means—” she said, then stopped, chewing on her lip. Her eyes flicked to Ellis, across from us, and she squeezed my hand a bit under the table as she said, “Just that . . . as the audience, we didn’t know the space. Like, there was one apartment on the first level—where the couple came in—and I actually second-guessed whether or not we were supposed to be in there.”
“Yes! See, but that’s good!” Jeremy said. “The piece was meant to feel like something you shouldn’t be watching. It wasn’t meant to be comfortable by any means.”
“You wanted people to be uncomfortable?” Ellis either didn’t try, or was unable to fix his face.
Jeremy chuckled. “Not all discomfort is bad. In fact, uncomfortable, raw scenes in movies and TV are what make people feel connected or seen through the characters.”
Ellis huffed and looked at the table. I glanced for a moment at Paige, who was thankfully two steps ahead of me, ready to break the tension. “I don’t know,” she said with an easy smile but I could feel her grip on my hand tighten. “I think it was just over my head. Obviously, I’m not a director.” Her blue eyes widened for a moment, seemingly nervous as they met our teacher’s eyes.
Jeremy smiled warmly. “That’s okay. You belong in front of the camera.” A brief silence passed, but I couldn’t help but notice Ellis’s gaze still transfixed on the table in front of him.
Then Jeremy turned his attention to me. “What did you think about it, Linc?”
I swallowed, still unsure of how I was going to handle this. Paige kept my hand under the table, and my eyes flicked over at her—just a quick peek—and I took a breath, then said, “I think I understood what you were going for with the . . . intimacy of the setting,” I said carefully. “But to me, it felt more like a film than a play, and I think that felt kind of weird.”
Jeremy’s mouth ticked up at the corner. “Interesting. Can you elaborate?”
Paige gave my hand a squeeze, anchoring my courage. I was just trying to not piss off my mentor, while still giving honest feedback. I shifted in my seat, then said, “I don’t know. I just know that film sets are a little more integrated. Everyone is working in one space once the film is shooting. But live theater is all about separation, backstage, onstage—watching the landscape. So, Stories felt like something we were supposed to be watching through a screen, but . . . we weren’t.”
Jeremy nodded with a smirk, and I added, “But definitely interesting,” I half-lied.
Honestly, I just kind of wanted to wrap up the conversation as quickly as possible. I didn’t like that I felt a weird need to almost mediate the conversation.
Ellis still looked annoyed, Paige looked nervous, and I was still uncomfortable.
Jeremy nodded after a second. “Well, it was very mature content. It might be something you find more interesting in the future. You’re all so talented and smart sometimes I forget you’re only eighteen.”
“ I’m still seventeen,” Ellis said, quietly, his eyes pulling up from the table to look at Jeremy, and Paige’s hand tightened in mine under the table.
I could tell by the tone Ellis was making an underhanded point. That he was technically underage, which I’m sure meant technically, Jeremy had broken some kind of rule —law— by Ellis’s attendance at the show.
I didn’t know if such a law existed, but there was no doubt in my mind that Ellis did.
God, this was uncomfortable. Jeremy’s eyes lifted to Ellis. Other than a small flare to his nostrils, he seemed mostly unbothered, but then said, “C’mon, man. Casper Cinema puts out way more disturbing shit than that.”
Holy shit, this is awkward.
Ellis snorted but then looked at me. I begged him with my eyes not to push it —just let it go— and the charge to his stare muted a bit.
He sighed. “Whatever. Guess it just wasn’t my thing,” he said in my direction, and I dipped my chin with a silent thank you, but I got the idea that he’d bitch and moan about this for at least the rest of the night.
Whatever. As long as it wasn’t while we were still with our teacher. The only teacher at Providence who’d ever even tried to get me professional work. Paige too. And current opinions aside, Ellis knew that.
Carrie came back over and took in the quiet nature of the table, the empty plates. “You guys need anything else?”
I looked at Paige, who was looking at Ellis—who was pouting between sideways glances at Jeremy.
When no one said anything, Jeremy said, “No, I’ll just take the check. You can put it all on my tab.”