“What makes you think that?” I thought he had to be kidding.
“She talks about you all the time. She has for months and months. When you said you were going on tour, she came over to our place crying. She said she has feelings for you, but she doesn’t want to hold you back.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s in love with me.”
“I know what love looks like.” He pointed to Kris, twirling Sasha. Sasha was in full-on star mode and attempting contact improv with everyone, and Kris laughed as Sasha nearly broke a vase. Kris smiled at me through the glass.
“She never says anything.”
“I don’t think she knows how to talk about her feelings all that well, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have them. If you talked to her, I think you two would find you feel the same way.”
“What makes you think I have those feelings for her?”
He scoffed and looked me up and down. “Come on, you’re saying I’m wrong here?”
I sighed. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why? Because you’re traveling?”
“For lots of reasons. Because of that, and because she works too much, and because she has all these requirements. Emotional involvement isn’t part of that.”
“Doms can’t fall in love?”
“What would that even look like?”
“You two get to decide that together.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
Eric put an arm around my shoulder. “I know it’s scary. I’ve been telling her to talk to you for weeks, but she’s afraid it’ll damage things or get in your way. I think you feel the same way. Somebody has to take the leap here. Honestly? I think you’re the brave one.”
“What if it goes badly?”
“You’re leaving, Phoenix. You’ll leave, and time will heal it.”
“I’ll try. But I still can’t believe she feels the way I do.”
We looked in and saw Kris waving us inside.
“Believe it,” Eric said and helped me up to rejoin the party.
* * *
Reassurance from Eric helped, but I still needed to sort through things. Sunday, I woke up jittery after a night of fitful dreams. I wanted to call John, but it hadn’t even been twelve hours since we’d Skyped, and I figured he might need a little break.
I paced around my room until nine, deciding that was enough time between conversations. Then I opened up my computer and dialed him. When he didn’t answer, I texted. I worried that wasn’t urgent enough, so I texted with all caps. I was just about to call him on the phone when I saw his name flashing on my computer screen.
“Are you dying?” he greeted me. He held up his phone to the screen, displaying my desperate bid for attention.
“Sorry. It’s just…love complications.”
He slapped the desk his computer rested on. “Called it!” he shouted.
“I know. You were right. Except according to her friend, she feels the same way. Love all around. It’s not one-sided. What should I do?” I started to pace.
“First of all, sit down. You’re making me dizzy.” I did. John smiled. “Second, you talk to her. ‘Hey, I hear you’ve got a crush on me. Funny because I have a crush on you.’ No big thing. Third, you go on tour and see me. Problem solved.”
“What if—”
“Nope,” he interrupted. “This is not a worrying situation. You don’t have to plan anything out. You don’t have to allow for every possible reaction she might have. You tell her you like her and you think she likes you. That’s it.”
“Should I think it through more?” I chewed at my cuticle.
“Absolutely not. What you say isn’t going to decide her response. You aren’t going to find some perfect phrase that makes her want the same thing if that’s not what she actually wants. And you aren’t going to make her not like you anymore if you put your foot in your mouth either. She’s a grown-up and she gets to decide what she wants to do about this, just like you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you don’t have to act on this just because you like each other. I think you should because I think, knowing you, you’ll regret it if you don’t. And I think you not telling her about your feelings is mostly about your discomfort with change and your tendency to sacrifice what you want for the sake of what you think the women you like want. But if you decide you don’t actually want to do anything about this, that it’s too much right now, that’s something you can choose. Your feelings aren’t an obligation.”
“I think I want to tell her. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but I thought she didn’t feel the same way. But now that I think she does…”
“I get it. It’s scary, huh?”
I nodded.
“When I first met Ollie, I liked him so much, but he was seeing someone. I had to wait for months for them to break up and him to get over it, and I worried for what felt like forever. First, I worried that he’d never be single, and then I worried that I was being a bad friend for having a crush on him. When he was single, I worried that he wouldn’t want me or he’d find someone else before I made a move or that if I made a move too soon I’d ruin any long-term chances because he wouldn’t be ready. I worried I’d ruin my friendship with him. I worried for six months.”
“I remember.” I smiled. “You were exhausting.”
“Do you remember what you told me?”
“No. Hopefully something helpful.”
“You said that if we both wanted the same thing, we’d find our way, even if it wasn’t a smooth path. You told me that one way or another, I’d be okay. And you were right.”
“Wow, sometimes I’m really smart.”
He laughed. “Sometimes you are. Do you want to talk to her?”
I nodded.
“Just go do it then. One way or another, you’ll be okay.”
“Can I call you if I’m heartbroken in an hour?”
He rolled his eyes playfully. “Ollie and I have plans at two.”
“Better do this quick then.” I stood up.
“Good luck!”
“Thank you, John. For everything. I love you.”
“I love you too. Move to Boston!”
“Ugh, snow. Besides, I have this romantic thing here to work out.”
He nodded, gave me a thumbs-up, and disappeared from Skype.
Shakily, I walked to Kris’s bedroom door. I took a deep breath and knocked. Nothing. I knocked again, louder. Still nothing. Had she left already? I hadn’t heard her get up.
“Kris?” I called through the door, expecting silence. I decided that if she didn’t answer, I’d go back to my room and take it as a sign to give up the whole thing. “Kris?”
“Out here,” she called back.
I inched her door open and saw her lounging on her deck. “Hi,” I said weakly.
“Come join me.”
I tiptoed through her room. As I passed through, I noticed how different it looked. Kris’s room was neat and tidy. The closet doors were closed. Papers were stacked up on the desk and nowhere else. A novel I’d loaned Kris sat on her bedside table. Electronics were put away. The path to the balcony door was clear.
I’d never been invited to the balcony. As far as I knew, no one had. It was Kris’s private domain. Kris was stretched out with her feet up on the ledge of the balcony, a mug of coffee cooling on the side table between us. She was wearing loose shorts, a T-shirt, and sunglasses, the very picture of summer. It was one of those rare warm mornings. I carefully settled into the free chair.
“How are you?” she asked me.
“I’m all right.” I fidgeted. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“What?”
I swallowed. My mouth felt dry. “Eric mentioned that you, uh, maybe have feelings for me.” She opened her mouth to interrupt, but I talked faster. “And I’ve been having feelings for you too. For a little while now, actually. I know I’m going to be ridiculously busy for next few weeks and then I’m leaving. I k
now it sounds weird, and the timing is bad, and we’re living together, and we have this unusual dynamic. I know all the reasons I shouldn’t be telling you this. But when I didn’t talk to you about what was really going on with me before, it made things bad, and I don’t want that.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know if you feel that same way I do.”
“And what way is that exactly?” Her monotone was making me nervous.
“I care about you. I like you. I’m falling for you. I want more to our relationship.”
She exhaled loudly. “You want me to be your girlfriend.”
“I want us to see if there could be more here emotionally.”
“I like things the way they are.”
“I do too, and I don’t want to lose this. But I think if I pretend I don’t have these feelings, we’re going to lose it anyway. I want to see what else we could be.”
“I like you too. I really do. I just don’t think this is a good idea.”
I sank back in my chair, tears stinging my eyes. “Why not?”
“I’m not ready. I’d given up on the idea that I’d ever have that kind of relationships again. I’d made my peace with that. I have been thinking, with you, that maybe I could have that again. But, Phoenix, I don’t know how.”
“Um, we talk? We hang out? We keep having sex? We go on dates sometimes? It doesn’t have to be that different, just with more outside our play. More talking, more sharing emotionally, more time.”
“You’re leaving.” She turned away. “How is that going to happen when you’re on tour?”
“Phones exist, Kris. Skype, FaceTime, email, texting. Distance is not a problem for getting to know each other outside of sex. I’m scared too, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.”
“We’re both in the middle of huge upheaval. I’m selling my company. In the next six months, every part of how I spend my days is going to change. I’m going to have time off for the first time in my adult life. I don’t know what it’s going to mean for me, or who I’m going to be. Maybe I need to be reckless for a while, travel, get a motorcycle, do all those things normal college students do that I never did. Maybe I need more friends, a hobby, therapy, something. I have no idea.
“And you’re going on tour, and saying you’re going to work on your own show too. What if you meet somebody you like while you’re on tour?”
I scoffed.
She shook her head. “I’m serious. You’ll be meeting so many people. You don’t need to be tied down right now, especially not to me. I don’t know what I have to offer as a girlfriend.”
“I’m not asking you for anything but yourself.” A tear escaped my left eye. Kris turned back to me at last.
“I don’t know who that is.” She wiped my tear away.
“Why can’t we find out together? People change all the time. Love is getting to know somebody over and over again. I’m saying I’m on board for that. What are you afraid of?”
“When Laurie and I broke up, it gutted me. I don’t think you understand how long it took me to feel okay again. I made so many mistakes. I didn’t make her a priority, so I lost her. I like you so much. But I don’t know if I can do things any better. I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m afraid that if we try this, I will. Especially right now when everything is up in the air.”
“You’re not the same person you were ten years ago. You’re already changing in huge ways.”
Kris shook her head again. “Maybe when you’re back from tour. We’ll see where we both are and what we both want and then we can give it a try then. But I need to figure things out alone first. And you need to be free.”
“I know what I want,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s you.”
“See if you still feel that way when you come back,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t want to. But we need to be reasonable about this.”
“Fuck reasonable. You say you want to be reckless? Be reckless with this! We’re both so cautious all the time. For once, I want to just go for what I want.”
“I’m not ready.”
I wanted to yell. I wanted to beg. But you couldn’t make somebody love you if they told you they weren’t there. So I stood up with all the dignity I could muster. “I want big love, Kris. I want somebody who’ll be all in with me.”
She took my hand. “I want that too. Maybe with time.”
“I’m not waiting.” It was a threat to cover up my hurt.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Even if that means you might lose your shot with me?”
“I just can’t right now. I’m sorry.” Under her sunglasses, I thought she might be crying.
I bit my tongue, turned, and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-five
The next week was a blur of work. Without even trying, Kris and I barely saw each other because I was so busy. We stopped playing, because of the long hours involved in my final rehearsals and the emotional words between us. Before I knew it, it was opening night. The theater was completely sold out. This was even more impressive than a typical opening night, because ours was a specially designed and constructed portable theater just for our show. It would be going with us on tour. We had no season ticket holders, and no one who came for the first night knew for sure what they were getting into.
“Nervous?” Sasha asked me as we wiggled into our costumes.
“Hell yes. You?”
She took a deep breath and let it out with an exaggerated “ahh.” “I’m releasing this experience to the Universe. Worrying about the outcome is not respectful of the Universe’s power, because everything will happen the way it’s supposed to.”
“Okay, but are you nervous?”
“So fucking nervous.”
We had no reason to be, though. Despite all the difficulty of rehearsals, the show went off without a hitch. No one missed a cue. Every move was executed with precision and often with grace. The audience gasped and clapped at all the right moments and sometimes when we weren’t even expecting a huge response. I realized as we performed that we had come together as a cast. We moved together perfectly. What we wore to rehearsals didn’t matter. The shit Geoffrey gave us didn’t matter. Once we were actually performing, we were an amazing team.
When it was time for my sea witch performance, the music began its steady beat and I slithered up the fabric. I lost myself in the movement, even those horrible one-ankle hangs I’d finally mastered. All my sadness about Kris faded away. The sounds of the audience fueled me without seeming close or pressuring. I felt completely alive in my body, no fears or concerns. All I needed to do was move, so I did, flying in the air. I wound myself up in the fabric and dropped. I made gruesome faces at Mirah and the audience. Lighting showed me pulling away her voice. I twisted and dangled by just one arm and the side of my neck. When I finished curling myself into a fabric cocoon, leaving our star thrashing on her silks, the music exploded to finish the first act, and the audience erupted with applause.
The second act involved me very little until the final moments, so I hung backstage and watched. I marveled at how well it was going. The show was gorgeous. Mirah managed a tremendous range of skills and emotions. The prince was charming and also heartbreakingly oblivious to the devotion Mirah conveyed with her eyes. We mermaid-sisters returned for the end, Sasha’s long wig gone and the rest of us in short-hair wigs. I spotted several audience members crying. Mirah refused our urging, all of us in careful belly balances on low-flying trapezes at very bottom of the audience’s sight line. Mirah in a harness then flew all the way to the ceiling, where an angel on silks had been waiting in the shadows. When the lights went dim, the crowd cheered. We finished to a standing ovation.
As I started to leave the stage, I spotted Meghan, Bill, and Kris waving to me, flowers in their hands. I went over to them and got big hugs from all.
“That was so cool!” Bill said.
“That was amazing,” Meghan said. “You were incredibl
e.”
“Thank you so much for being here. I know how expensive these tickets were.”
“Great job, Phe,” Kris said, sounding sincere.
“I couldn’t have done this without you,” I said. “If I hadn’t been living with you, I would have had to get another day job, and I don’t think I could have been part of this show.” I turned to Meghan. “You too. If you hadn’t introduced me to Kris, I couldn’t have done this. Thank you both.”
They both wrapped me up in a hug and Bill joined in. “I’m glad I could help,” Meghan said.
“You’re awesome,” Bill added.
“I’m proud of you,” Kris said.
Tears threatened again, but I wouldn’t give in. I was too happy with my performance. Kris and I didn’t talk about anything else that night. I went to an after-party, and she was asleep by the time I got home. Something like this became our pattern for my two weeks performing in San Francisco. We often didn’t see each other at home for days. We didn’t play or even touch. When we were both there, we barely spoke. We’d become strangers it seemed, with insurmountable distance between us since that conversation on the deck.
But every single day I had a performance, Kris was there. I couldn’t believe the amount she’d spent on tickets. Even more, I couldn’t believe the time she was taking off of work. The only real moments we had were those after the show ended, before I went backstage.
“I can’t believe you’re here every day,” I said to her one evening in the second week.
“I don’t want to miss any of your performances if I can help it,” she said. “They’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
I started to hope, despite everything I knew, that before I left she’d offer a big gesture and say she wanted to try after all. Why else would she come to all my performances? But night after night, she told me how great I was, and little else.
“You’re in love with me,” I told her after my second to last show in San Francisco. “That’s why you’re here every night.”
“I’m not saying that I’m not. But it doesn’t change anything.”
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