The Summer Set

by Aimee Agresti

  The doors flung open and two paramedics ran in, wheeling a stretcher, Blunt jogging behind them.

  “Will there be a plastic surgeon on duty?” Chase asked as they loaded him onto the gurney.

  The cast and apprentice class wandered outside to watch the ambulance pull away. Ethan turned to Sierra at his side. “Do you think I’ll get kicked out?” he asked.

  “For what? Overzealous fencing?”

  Charlie walked past, smacked Ethan on the shoulder. “Chin up, Mercutio. Not your fault. He forgot how to take a hit.”

  19

  TOM FORD ISN’T THE MAN I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH

  Sierra was the last one left in the costume shop, her work delayed when she briefly lost control of the iron—speed a factor in this accident—and burned her forearm in the shape of an arrowhead. Everyone else had moved on to their respective rehearsals, but here she was, touching up tuxedo shirts, in moderate pain, when Charlie Savoy bounded in.

  “I’m here for my gala costume? Outfit?” she announced, seeming lost, probably at the sight of the empty room. “I know, I know, I was supposed to come days ago but—”

  “Madame LaPlage had to leave early,” Sierra began, turning off the iron to avoid another mishap, nerves rattled.

  “Thank God. She hates me,” Charlie laughed.

  Sierra would’ve loved to convince her otherwise, but she suspected Charlie might be right. When they were calling in the gowns, Madame had rolled her eyes, frowning while giving Sierra the information for Charlie’s, and said, I used to joke with Charlie’s mother that Charlie would prefer at all times to look like something rolled out of the 100 Club in 1976 and there is just no saving someone like that, sartorially speaking. Sierra had just shaken her head, not understanding, to which Madame explained, frustrated, The Sex Pistols? London? Punk scene? Never mind.

  “Sure. I can find it for you.” Sierra led Charlie—who bit her thumbnail as though preparing herself—to a rack on wheels with a hanging placard marked Gala: Company. Sierra, who had been tasked with calling the designer showroom in New York and requesting to borrow the item, gently pushed aside the other garment bags to reach the one intended for Charlie. “I’m not supposed to tell you this,” she said. “But Mr. Blunt chose this himself.” Sierra unsheathed the black sequined gown, which shimmered, catching every bit of light. “It’s really gorg—”

  “Oh, hell no,” Charlie said.

  “But...it’s Tom Ford,” Sierra whispered, as though the designer himself might be offended.

  “Tom Ford isn’t the man I have a problem with.”

  Sierra opened her mouth to speak but had no words.

  “I’m not wearing that,” Charlie went on. “No.”

  “Do you want to see what we have for Danica, maybe you’ll like that better?”

  “Doubtful,” Charlie said.

  Sierra had to agree: Danica’s dress was a lavender taffeta ball gown.

  Sierra racked her brain for any solution: the gala was only two days away. What could she do in that amount of time with no budget? “Wait a second,” she said, taking a seat before the laptop at Madame LaPlage’s worktable. She brought up the site, a gallery populating the screen, and swung it around for Charlie to look. “What if I call in something else?”

  But Charlie wasn’t listening, hadn’t even followed Sierra to the worktable; she still stood at the clothing rack, holding the dress with both hands, brow furrowed, looking as though she was trying to read invisible words woven into the fabric. Sierra wasn’t sure whether to ask again. She wasn’t sure if Charlie was upset with her, but any possibility seemed feasible. This was Charlie Savoy. Boldly, Sierra spoke again. “I have some other options, if that helps.”

  Charlie shook her head. “This—” she waved the dress on the hanger, the sequins producing a soft, cascading shushhh “—this is the entire problem, with everything, with the way Nick sees his world, me, this place.”

  Sierra wasn’t sure what exactly Charlie was talking about, so she just smiled soothingly, as a therapist might. And Charlie went on, “This is beautiful.”

  “Yes,” Sierra said. That made sense at least.

  “But that’s not enough. This isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about this place, convince them something revelatory is going on here. Nick is beat down, you know what I mean?”

  Sierra nodded but still felt unsure.

  “That’s what failure does, you know? You get conditioned to sort of stop trying a little bit and go for what’s—”

  “Safe?” Sierra offered, surprising herself.

  “Yeah, actually,” Charlie said, looking at Sierra with newfound understanding. “And safe is definitely not enough to change people’s minds or wake them up or make them give a fuck about something. That’s not gonna save this place, you know? Everything counts now. If ever there was a time to take a chance...” Charlie trailed off, gazing at the garment again, entranced as though working something out in her mind.

  “Absolutely,” Sierra said. But she couldn’t pretend this was all making sense. She worried she just wasn’t a good enough actress to fake her way through an entire conversation like this with Charlie Savoy, and she didn’t want to. How many people got to have seemingly meaningful conversations with Charlie Savoy? So she took a chance. “When you say ‘save this place,’” Sierra started in her warmest tone. “Is that, like, I mean, it makes it sound like the Chamberlain is in some kind of trouble?” Sierra had read rocky reviews last summer, but she always assumed those were just critics being critics.

  Charlie’s eyes snapped up, the startled expression of someone caught. Sierra looked away, nervous, pushed her hair behind her ears. Am I right? I can’t be right, I’m never right, she thought.

  But then Charlie closed her eyes, sighed. “Fuck,” she said. “Obviously you’re not supposed to know this—”

  Sierra’s heart sank. “Know what?”

  “Exactly, just like that,” Charlie said. “I’m not even really supposed to know this. No one is. Matteo knows and no one else. I wish I could just not know.” She put her hands to her temples, eyes downcast. “He’ll kill me if he finds out I said this.” Sierra knew the he was Nicholas. “But things like this gala are the only shot at keeping this place going all summer. So, yeah, Chamberlain is in trouble.”

  Sierra nodded, not wanting to pry but needing to know. “And it might close? Before the end of the summer?”

  “Before The Tempest,” Charlie confirmed quietly. “Unless some contributors step up.”

  If the theater closed before The Tempest, then it would also close before the Black Box show, before any chance for Sierra to get noticed by agents or casting directors.

  “Okay,” Sierra said, processing it all. “Then we really need to get you something better to wear to this gala.” Charlie perked up, as though these words assured her that Sierra would keep the secret safe. Sierra snapped her fingers manically and walked back to the workstation. “I’ll call them and make the swap. What about something here?” She swung the computer screen toward Charlie, a gallery of new options populating.

  Charlie looked at her, a fiendish smile on her lips. “Madame will be pissed.”

  “Probably,” Sierra said. “But desperate times?”

  Charlie nodded, then leaned into the screen, pointing. “This one?”

  It was a women’s satin tuxedo, Sierra had seen it before, but it was missing something. “I like it a lot,” she said, summoning the courage. “But if you like that, you might consider this...” She tapped and scrolled to another Tom Ford she remembered, which would make the swap easier.

  “What’s your name again?” Charlie asked, studying this new option.

  “Sierra?”

  “Sierra, I feel like you get me,” she said. “Yes. Done.”

  When Sierra finished up the call to Tom Ford, she found Charlie browsing the co
stumes for Romeo and Juliet: heavy on denim and white.

  “These aren’t bad,” Charlie said, nodding. It was the greatest compliment Sierra could hear.

  “On behalf of the entire costume department, I should thank you. I think you’re the reason Madame’s mood board changed from French Revolution to a sort of old-school Calvin Klein ad? This was much easier.” It was true, they had all been relieved by the shift from elaborate corseted gowns to white jeans, white T-shirts, white tank tops, and the occasional diaphanous scarf and drapey dress.

  “My pleasure.” Charlie smiled.

  “So the suit is coming, but not until the morning of the gala, so if it doesn’t work—”

  “It’ll work,” Charlie said, unconcerned.

  “You really don’t get nervous. About anything, ever, do you?” Sierra hadn’t meant to ask out loud. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  Charlie stopped, leaned against the doorframe. “I wouldn’t say that’s true,” she started, thoughtful. “But I wouldn’t admit it’s not true, know what I mean?” She went on, slowly. “For instance, I didn’t bother telling anyone that I was...thrown off...coming back to this. This place. The stage. These...people. And then I went from thinking maybe I can’t do this, maybe it’s too much to maybe I want more.” Charlie smiled again. “Because seriously, even Juliet can get boring, if you’ve done it enough.”

  Sierra understood. She had begun to wish, for example, that she had had the guts to audition with Romeo in the first place; it might’ve changed her entire course here. She had been too, well, safe.

  “Nerves are good, fear, it challenges your body to perform. People just don’t need to know it’s there.” Charlie looked at Sierra now. “In my experience at least.”

  And with a wave and a plea—“You won’t tell Nick, right?”—she was gone.

  20

  IT’S A ROLE-PLAY EXERCISE

  Thursday night Ethan was surprised to observe Sierra arrive at the end of his shift and take a place at the bar.

  “Someone is really anxious to run lines from Richard II,” he joked. They had fallen into a solid routine running lines after class and rehearsal and before his shift. Sometimes she would even walk him to work and meet Fiona and Tripp there. Then they’d reconvene after work, back at their spot in the Quad, to tackle the next day’s class assignment in the glow of the campus lights.

  “Change of plans and we’ve only got half an hour, c’mon,” was all she said.

  He ducked into the clattering chaos behind the swinging kitchen door, returning with his backpack.

  “This Charlie thing has me thinking we need to step up our game, you know?” she said, leading him into the evening excitement along Warwickshire, in the opposite direction of the dorm.

  “I’m still processing your bonding session with her,” he laughed. He had hung on every word of Sierra’s encounter with Charlie. “And I still can’t believe you didn’t mention you’re the one reprising her role in the Black Box—”

  “I know.” She face-palmed. “I was overwhelmed. I don’t see her every day like you do.”

  “It’s not like I talk to her though.” He felt bad he had brought it up. Sierra had been so encouraging about his role in the show, he sometimes forgot how disappointed she had been not to be cast.

  “My point is, let’s look like we actually fit in tomorrow night at the gala.”

  “I was just gonna wear something of Alex’s.”

  “And I’m saying, let’s not do that.” She held open the door to Ruffs and Cuffs, the priciest shop in town. He stalled, and she flung her head toward the store. “Closes in twenty minutes.” Then, as though reading his mind, she assured, “We’ll leave the tags on, return it after. C’mon, it’s, I don’t know, a role-play exercise. It’s like extra credit.”

  “Role play,” he sighed, dragging his feet as he walked in.

  They found their sections on opposite sides of the store, but Sierra must’ve sensed he didn’t know what he was doing. In no time, she had paired a dark suit, brightly patterned shirt, tie and pocket square (he had never worn one of those in his life) and shoved him into a fitting room. He tried it all on, begrudgingly, after a pained glance at the price tag, and emerged, looking uncertain, from the fitting room.

  “Somehow everything fits?” he said.

  She turned from the cocktail dresses she’d been browsing and smiled in approval. “At least my time in the costume department is paying off.” She weaved around a few racks of gowns to straighten his tie. “Well, you’re set.” She pulled out one of the dresses, a pale blue, held it up and put it back, shaking her head.

  “And where are you two going, if you don’t mind my asking?” An older woman, big smile, tape measure around her neck, appeared beside them. “What a beautiful couple!”

  “Oh, we’re just—” Sierra started.

  But Ethan remembered what she had said about role play and he grabbed her forearm, stopping her. “It’s for our engagement party,” he said. “This weekend.” He looked at Sierra, whose eyes bulged a moment until she caught on.

  “We’re so excited!” she said, hand now on Ethan’s lapel. “He always fights me on the pocket square, but look how perfect he is.”

  The woman clapped her hands and held them to her heart. “Michael!” she barked. “Get over here!” Sweet again, the woman asked, “Is the engagement party here in town? Don’t tell me, let me guess, it’s at King’s? Or is it that new place down the road, nestled in the hills, that looks so romantic?”

  “Yeah, that’s the place,” Ethan said. “Only the best for this one.”

  “It was his idea,” Sierra went on. “I said, let’s just do it at King’s, where we had our first date and got engaged. It’s our history. But he said, ‘No—’”

  “No, this is about our future, so let’s make new memories,” he said. “Right?”

  “That is just adorable,” the woman said. Michael, who had been at the cash register, joined them, and the woman put her arm around him. “Michael, these two are shopping for their engagement party this weekend.”

  “How nice,” Michael said, far less effusive. “Looks like you’ll be needing a ring too. We have some lovely options in our jewelry department,” he added, gesturing.

  “Oh, no, we’re good, it was just too big,” Ethan said, oddly offended.

  “It’s being resized.” Sierra held up her bare left hand. “And then we also had that mishap—” She looked at Ethan.

  “We were going over, on our way, to have it resized,” Ethan started. “And it fell right off her finger—”

  “Oh dear,” the woman said.

  “And got run over—” Sierra added.

  “Oh my!” The woman again.

  “By a truck,” Ethan finished, shaking his head.

  “Don’t hear that every day,” Michael said.

  “It’s being repaired,” Ethan assured.

  “We just hope it’s not a metaphor for our marriage,” Sierra said.

  “No!” The woman grabbed her hands. “Forty years, me and this guy, so I know a couple with staying power when I see them.” She looked at her husband as though deciding something. “We don’t do this often, but we would love to give you a special discount. We’re honored to be part of your story.”

  Once Sierra chose her dress, Ethan insisted on paying for both of their outfits—it seemed the kind of thing a guy would do for his fiancée. When they walked out, Sierra clutching his arm, he even kissed her hair without thinking.

  They held hands halfway up the street until realizing simultaneously that they no longer needed to be in character.

  “So the good news is we were pretty convincing,” she said. “But the bad news is now we probably can’t get away with returning it.”

  “Unless we want to stage a dramatic breakup,” he laughed.

  “I’m n
ot sure I could do that to our audience. They’re so invested in our characters.”

  Strangely, her words felt completely true. But he couldn’t tell if she was kidding, so he just smiled.

  21

  CURTAIN UP!

  Sierra shoved her bag—containing her clothes from her day of class/costuming/Black Box rehearsal/gala prep—under the table, smoothed her black beaded cocktail dress (chosen by Ethan) and shook her hair free from its ponytail. Ethan, in his new black suit, glanced over from the glass display case, straightening the signed scripts for the silent auction then locking the case again.

  “You clean up nice, Mrs. Summit.”

  “Really? I feel like we would hyphenate—Suarez-Summit? Summit-Suarez?” she said, taking her place beside him at the auction table.

  “We’ll figure it out in marriage counseling.” He smiled.

  The lobby of the Hathaway House Museum had been transformed for the gala. Doors set to open in minutes, tuxedo-clad servers hoisted trays of canapés, finished assembling champagne flutes into neat little rows and checked that bottle labels faced outward at all the bars. Nicholas Blunt—looking dashing, actually, like he had at the Oscars those years ago—crossed from the auditorium to the exhibition room for the thousandth time in the past half hour, this time carrying a stack of programs.

  “What’s Blunt so nervous about, anyway?” Ethan whispered, watching.

  Sierra wished she didn’t know, but it wasn’t her secret to tell, so she deflected. “Who knows, but I’m sure Harlow is on it.” She gestured to the lounge off the lobby, where their peers now gathered on the sleek-lined, modern couches and angular chairs, waiting to assume their roles as ushers and waitstaff and ticket takers. Harlow (poured into a vintage bandage dress) and Alex held court. Both had scored the plum assignments: Alex would be at the front of the auditorium guiding the most illustrious guests to their seats. Harlow would tend to the A-list donors in the VIP room, which housed the university’s most treasured Shakespearean artifacts. By contrast, Sierra and Ethan had spent all day unloading boxes of donated costumes, props, autographed posters, photos and scripts for the silent auction, less glamorous than she had hoped. But still far better than Tripp’s garbage duty.