The Summer Set

by Aimee Agresti

  She never cared that her star, her status, had fallen so immediately when she walked off that film set, when she chose a film few liked—Midnight Daydream—as her cinematic follow-up to the film everyone adored—The Tempest. When she walked away from everything after Midnight Daydream, to show the world she didn’t care and didn’t need that career, rather than be hurt by the sting of failure, she had overcorrected. She had underestimated how much she would miss the part of it she loved: being a conduit for a story, giving a room full of strangers permission to gather together, put their lives on pause, get lost in someone else’s plight and feel something. Her spirit and body and soul craved that and missed it. And she would always miss sharing that with the rare, perfect collaborator.

  Theater was the one thing that always wanted her, had always pursued her, appreciated her, taken her back, no questions asked. And this place had been a cherished part of it all: here she had become something independent of her mother. Nick’s Black Box one-act that long-ago summer had been her first role outside the Globe Theatre, the first role that sought her out for her. Her first New York theater work came from an agent in the audience at that performance, her first film too. Her roots truly lay here.

  “This is it, this show—” she said.

  “And The Tempest? If we can afford to stage any of it?”

  She exhaled to the ceiling, then nodded.

  Still seated on the floor, he reached for her calf. “Thank you,” he said solemnly before getting back on his feet.

  He lingered at the door of her room. “You and me and our memories and this theater and our lives all just feel intertwined to me.” It sounded like an apology. He left, not waiting for a response.

  “What just happened,” Charlie said after she heard the front door close. She felt spent. She turned to Marlena behind her and now noticed all of her clothes expertly folded and piled up, her duffel bag empty, even her books returned to the top of her dresser.

  “You did the right thing. We have the whole run of the show to ‘unpack’—metaphorically—everything.” Marlena kissed her on the cheek. “Now, if you need anything else,” she said, on her feet, glancing at her watch, “I’ll be across the hall—” Charlie flashed a curious look. “I know, that’s a whole other thing, but I’ll save that for later. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now.”

  Marlena closed the door behind her, but Charlie crept over to open it again, in time to see Marlena disappearing behind Chase’s door.

  * * *

  The idea struck Nick the moment Charlie had given in and agreed to stay, as though the instant thrill of that news—coming on the brink of nearly losing her again—had jump-started his mind. He jogged the whole way home, in an almost dreamlike state—so much so that he nearly got hit by a Ferrari speeding out of town.

  As soon as he got back to the house—which he appreciated more knowing it might not be his much longer—he found what he was looking for in his suit jacket pocket—he had swiped a photo from the mantel the night of that painful dinner at Hathaway House. Something about this photo of Grayson and Sarah, arms around each other, was intimate in a way he couldn’t explain. He had heard rumors before, but now felt like he finally had begun to understand.

  He took a seat at the desk in the study and grabbed a leaf of his personal Chamberlain stationery and his nicest pen. She was the type to appreciate things like penmanship. He began to write.

  Grayson had told me at the end of that summer to make a place like this thrive, you need it not just in your heart but in your blood too, it has to flow through your veins, it takes your entire being. And it helps if you can find kindred spirits: those with the same bloodtype, if you will. It’s not easy. He said it after the Black Box Showcase, my show with Charlie, and I’ve thought about those words a lot recently and now maybe understand them for the first time. Grayson also told me he was proud of me. That I worked harder than any directing fellow he had known. I’m not sure that praise would still apply, but I am hoping to be worthy of it again.

  He wrote a little more, enclosed the photo and sealed it all in an envelope, then loaded it up with stamps, not knowing how many he would need to get it there, and went outside into the night to put it in the mailbox, not wanting to wait another minute.

  Back inside, he tried to sleep, but couldn’t. It hurt, for so many reasons, to remember Grayson, that year he got sick. Nick had been in a fog, mired in reshoots upon reshoots for Super Id, the Band-Aid put on a film when it really needed a DNR. He hadn’t cared about it anymore, about anything, and it was then that he’d succumbed to Jasmine. He always suspected she made a play for him only because she thought a relationship—and an absurd drunken elopement—would get the film more press. But he wasn’t thinking at all, he was dangerously overmedicated. He saw Charlie at Grayson’s funeral, spoke only to her mother, but seeing her reminded him of how he used to feel about work, life, love, everything.

  When he’d arrived at Charlie’s premiere a month later, he had already told Jasmine he wanted to separate. Jasmine followed him there anyway.

  By the time Super Id came out he was divorced, thank God, but as lost as ever.

  56

  ANY CHANCE YOU’VE GOT IT ON VIDEO?

  It was strange how little Ethan wanted to talk about his conversation last night with Charlie. The text message he was reading aloud at the moment was the first he had mentioned of Charlie all day—which seemed like a tremendous amount of self-restraint considering how monumental it should’ve been to tell her about that letter.

  “It’s from Miles,” he said now, scrolling on his phone, scanning it himself first.

  Sierra sat beside Ethan in the auditorium with the rest of the Midsummer cast and crew and the entire apprentice class, waiting for Nicholas Blunt to inform them what was happening to the show in the wake of Jasmine Beijao’s “breakdown,” as they had taken to calling it. Sierra had heard that including everyone at the meeting was Nicholas’s way of taking hold of the runaway train, all the rumors flying. Sierra had no idea what was going on. Life had been a blur pretty much since their trip to New York.

  After the show last night, Sierra had returned to the dorm with the others, tried to watch something, one of their favorite movies, anything to pass the time until Ethan returned. She even invited Harlow to watch, though they never really hung out like that.

  “Are there any movies about backstabbing roommates?” Harlow had asked.

  She’d scanned the Netflix options on her laptop. “I don’t know, like Single White Female?” and then she realized. “Ohhh. Everything okay?”

  “I know about you with Chase at the Fourteenth Line during the Romeo closing night party.” Harlow said it as though declaring a murderer, weapon and location in a game of Clue.

  “Nothing happened,” Sierra said, actually laughing. “He apologized for messing up my audition and he gave me, like, a peck, that was it.” That was the truth. Sadly.

  Harlow squinted her eyes, trying to determine whether it could really be the full story. “Well, fine. Just don’t let it happen again,” she threatened, pointing her finger so it nearly touched Sierra’s nose. It was all Sierra could do to keep a straight face. Sierra was the least of Harlow’s competition, from what she had heard: one of the costume apprentices had accidentally walked into the company dressing room and caught none other than Marlena Andes alone with Chase as he was getting changed.

  Sierra had been halfway through Midnight Daydream by the time Ethan knocked on her door. His report of what had transpired between him and Charlie seemed so anticlimactic. This was probably the same way Harlow had felt about Sierra’s own recounting of her interlude with Chase. At last she could relate to Harlow on some level.

  “So check this out.” Ethan read aloud now: “From Miles, ‘Heard about Jasmine: WTF? She was always fucking insane, IMO, just got away with it because gorgeous. Is Charlie okay though? Not answering texts.
BTW do you know if there’s in-house video of last night, better than blurry audience phone video online that—’”

  Sierra had stopped listening. “Maybe Charlie’s not answering because she’s been busy finding Jasmine’s replacement.” Sierra shook his arm. “Look...”

  He glanced up from his phone as Marlena Andes walked down the aisle, taking a seat in the front row, followed by Matteo, Danica and Chase. No Jasmine.

  But no Charlie either.

  “She was packing,” Ethan said, his voice and spirit low. “I told you.”

  A hush fell as Nicholas stepped onto the stage.

  “Thanks, all, for this emergency meeting today,” he addressed them, as serious as Sierra had ever witnessed him, yet somehow more powerful too. “I wanted to get you guys up to speed on some changes in the main stage show and in our schedule the next few weeks, since this pertains to everyone—” The doors opened with a creak, soft footfalls jogging up the aisle. “I’m sure you all have a lot of questions about last night—”

  Sierra squeezed Ethan’s arm, pointing as Charlie ran past them and took a seat beside Marlena, who whispered to her.

  Nicholas nodded to Charlie. “First order of business,” he went on. “Jasmine Beijao is no longer with our show.” Gasps broke out. The idea of someone of that magnitude, who seemed so untouchable, getting fired felt shocking. But, also, it gave Sierra faith in humanity that even someone like that couldn’t get away with the kind of cruelty she had pulled last night.

  “Apprentices, let this be a teachable moment. We are artists and as artists we need to support each other. Jasmine Beijao’s behavior was entirely unprofessional. And not in keeping with the spirit of the Chamberlain. That’s all I’ll say on the matter. Onward...”

  * * *

  Charlie was a full twenty-four hours behind on the onslaught of texts from Miles, who seemed shockingly well-informed on everything that had gone on here. She skimmed them while walking to the football field for the outdoor all-apprentice screening of last year’s Black Box show—or as she dubbed it, The Mandatory Bonding Replacing Tonight’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Performance. (The Midsummer run was postponed two days for Marlena to prepare to take over Jasmine’s part. Tomorrow’s matinee was rescheduled so the cast could rehearse together.)

  Charlie planned to avoid Nick for the duration of her remaining weeks there but Miles’s text intrigued her. She caught up with him walking ahead of the company en route to the field. “Got this from my staffer at North End,” she launched in, no greeting. He looked up from his own phone, an expression of mild shock that she was even talking to him. “‘Question about Jasmine’s breakdown: any chance you’ve got it on video? Professional quality, in-house crew?’” she began to read. “‘Friday night crowd already clamoring, could be a moneymaker, tell Nick...’” She trailed off a bit when she hit the speed bump that was “Friday night,” having read it aloud without thinking, but in true actorly fashion, she committed and saw it through. “So I’m telling you.”

  He had that crease between his eyebrows he got when he was considering anything business related. “We do have video of that,” he said. “I record everything and—”

  “Do you think it’s legally—?”

  “And as you may recall,” he cut her off, reading her mind. “You signed a number of documents when you started working for me, everyone does, and one was, indeed, a release to use their image in photos and videos to promote the theater, et cetera, et cetera. Jasmine signed this, as well.”

  “Well, then.” She nodded, as though admitting he was smarter than she thought. “The couple of phone videos that have posted have actually gotten a ton of hits, maybe something like this could possibly be a good thing if—”

  “Friday night crowd, huh?” He said it in a way that made clear he knew this was her theater’s weekly showing of his bomb Dawn of the Super Id. He stole a glance from the corner of his eye as they crossed the street past the gym. The sports fields were located just beyond, and they could see the lights. The sky glowed midnight blue, night just falling. “You’re the reason I despise Fridays now, did you know that?” he asked. “I have this, like, sick dread every Friday night.” He clutched his stomach. “I’ll never understand why you would screen that movie—the one that basically broke us up—every Friday night for the past five years. Like it’s a joke that you refuse to let just die?”

  “So, you did notice?” she said. She assumed he never knew, or she would’ve heard from him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t know what you would call it exactly.” She scratched her head, looked away, caught off guard. “But I guess, I was flirting?” she said flatly.

  “I can’t ever tell when you’re serious,” he said, impatient, like this couldn’t be the answer he’d been waiting for all these years.

  “I’m always serious,” she said lightly, a line he had said before.

  “I was supposed to get flirting...from that?” He looked entirely dumbfounded.

  “It was like...” She searched for the proper analogy. “Sending flowers but more personal.”

  “Oh? Okay. Right,” he laughed, looking straight ahead.

  “The way I see it, how much cash have you made off that film since its initial run?”

  “Well, it’s not like I have any sales figures in front of me, but, off the top of my head, I guess, I don’t know, it’s probably—” He was stalling.

  “We sell out every Friday night. And we have for five years. I’m sure you’re seeing some checks from that. It’s not nothing. But nothing is probably what you’re getting otherwise. So, therefore—flirting. And paying you for it.”

  “Thank you,” he mumbled, after a pause, clearing his throat. “Despite the humiliation and repeated sting of failure that comes with it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’d hate to see what it would look like if you really liked me. You’d probably hit me with a car or something.”

  “Lucky for you, mine was totaled a few months ago.”

  He halted in his tracks just before heading onto the field, stared at her a moment with his transparent eyes and, without a word, kissed her forehead. Kindness and care transcending any history or anger, messiness or complications.

  * * *

  Sierra knew this was coming, tried to brace for it, but she couldn’t calm her nerves. They had watched the three one-acts and assorted monologues that comprised last year’s Black Box production and now Nicholas introduced the main event.

  “Just a few short years ago,” Nicholas started in, a rare glimpse of his sense of humor, “yours truly had his Chamberlain debut as the writer-director of a show that I’m thrilled to see getting an update this summer. I had some help in the form of an accomplished, headstrong, intensely gifted star, whom you may recognize...”

  As Nicholas spoke, Sierra’s mind raced, manically, and she inadvertently consumed the entirety of her popcorn and what was left of Ethan’s.

  “You okay?” Ethan whispered to her.

  She looked at him, exhaled in an exaggerated blowfish way and mouthed, I’m. Nervous. She was as nervous as a person could possibly be who wasn’t actually performing but was merely watching a video of someone else’s show.

  They were seated side by side on the turf, and he nudged his shoulder into hers as if to say, Hang in there.

  It was a tall enough order knowing she was filling Charlie’s shoes, but now the entire apprentice class and Charlie and Nicholas would have this performance fresh in their minds when they watched Sierra stage the updated version in just a few weeks’ time, with Tripp.

  “Thank God it was just a one-woman show back then,” Tripp whispered. “If I had to watch someone rock the part I was supposed to perform, I would go freaking crazy.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Ethan said and put his hands over her ears.


  As soon as Charlie arrived on-screen, the entire lawn cheered. Charlie, seated on a Chamberlain picnic blanket beside the rest of the company, shook her head and proceeded to throw popcorn at her image, jokingly.

  Somehow, Charlie looked nearly the same on-screen, same glow, same ferocity; the passage of time had barely left a mark on her. If anything, she just seemed more powerful now, in greater control of her performance, emanating a greater wisdom.

  Sierra soaked in Charlie, making mental notes of all the ways she, Sierra, needed to not impersonate but to be something else. Though she studied the show as an actor, Sierra, the human, found the most compelling part to be the very end: Charlie bowing, modestly, barely, before dragging a very reluctant Nicholas onto the stage for a moment he never would have taken on his own. That gesture said everything anyone needed to know about the two of them.

  57

  FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: US

  The crowd had cleared, equipment was packed, and the field lights shut off. The quiet of the empty sports pavilion and abandoned fields made Nick feel at peace, isolated, as though they were miles away from town. He had lingered talking to the company about the days ahead, and now as they wandered into town, he hustled to catch up to Charlie, at the back of the pack.

  “Better or worse than you remember?” he asked her of their old show.

  She slowed her pace as the trio of company actors continued on a block ahead. “Jury’s still out,” she said, not entirely frosty but still cautious. “Could’ve been worse.”

  “A rave.” He smiled at her review. He didn’t often see video of himself from past chapters of his life; he saw the films he made, had the memories of making them, but seeing himself was entirely different. He felt like that same guy now: completely unsure, working hard, trying to make it, with no idea what the world might have in store for him. On paper, he had done a lot since then: he had made films (good and bad); he had tried TV; he had written things. This place was now his. But after all that he didn’t feel different. That realization struck him as too much to share right now, so he said instead, “We do give good curtain call.” He had recalled that ending especially vividly. It sometimes played in his mind on the highlight reel of their summer, encapsulating the full sweep of their collaboration: her pulling him out of his comfort zone, into the light, and creating a moment that people could feel, react to, that they would remember.