Echo After Echo

by Amy Rose Capetta

  They looked at her like those statements made it more likely, not less. So she added, “I’m a lesbian, officers. Actually, a lesbian and a half.” The policemen scowled at her. Eli enjoys outing herself sometimes. This was not one of those times. “Do you have any idea what actually happened? Because I know he didn’t fall.”

  “You don’t believe what happened to Roscoe was an accident?” one of them asked.

  “No,” Eli stated.

  The policemen exchanged tight-assed looks. They didn’t want to figure out what happened to Roscoe. They wanted to give her a hard time, fill out their paperwork, call it an accident, and go home.

  The stage manager claps her hands, bringing Eli back to the studio.

  Read-through time.

  Eli does everything she can to focus on Echo and Ariston instead of Roscoe and more Roscoe. She follows along with every word in the script. When they hit Echo’s first scene, Eli thinks about Zara and her paper-towel-scratched cheeks, and Eli can’t stop herself from sending a spark of encouragement across the table.

  Zara looks up at her.

  Again.

  Zara’s eyes are warm and brown and Eli is in trouble. She reminds herself not to do this. Things play out badly for Eli: siempre, siempre. She crushes too hard and then falls on her ass. That’s how it went with her not-quite-a-girlfriend in high school. That’s how it went with the assistant stage manager who eyed Eli all summer, took her down to the techie love nest under the stage, then stopped the makeout just long enough to let Eli know she had a girlfriend in Maine. That’s how it went with Hannah. When Eli met her, she was playing Juliet. That should have been a hint. Juliets want to run around the city acting rebellious and turning every feeling they have into poetry, but they don’t stay with a girl after the curtain goes down. Hannah liked having Eli around — blissful, stupid, in love — until she didn’t. Even then, she swore that her feelings for Eli were real, but they weren’t enough.

  Zara’s voice fills the studio.

  “I have done your bidding these many years,

  But this I will not do.”

  Eli shovels Roscoe’s old notebooks on top of her script. The police looked through them, but when they saw the thicket of math — nothing that looked like a suicide note — they gave the notebooks back to Eli. What she needs to do now is use them as a template to come up with a better lighting design. It’s like spitting on Roscoe’s grave to even think about changing his plan, but she doesn’t have a choice. Leopold hates it. He gave her a week to revise it and submit a light plot.

  Which is impossible.

  Eli stares at page after page. Her brain is a mess of grief and equations. When her eyes are almost dead from strain, Eli closes them and lets the rest of the play wash over her. Here comes the famous love scene, which sounds weird with the stage manager reading Ariston’s part. Like half a love scene, which is really nothing at all.

  And then —

  Echo, caught by the soldiers. Echo, pitching herself into the sea. Echo, wreathed in saltwater and drowning.

  And then —

  The read-through is over.

  Eli is left sitting at the table, holding back the tears that wouldn’t come all day. Roscoe should be here next to her, muttering and making those enormous gestures, his hands flying around the room like two drunk birds.

  Zara did a good job with the read-through. That’s all Eli is feeling. She’s just responding to what Zara can do with her voice, with her body. Ay, maybe don’t think about her body.

  The cast and the crew break up. Zara stays at the table and lingers over her script, setting down a few notes in the margins. Eli wants to offer herself — she’d make a good margin. Zara could write on her in that careful, slanting script.

  Shit.

  Did she really just think that?

  Eli makes for the door. She’s halfway down the hall before she realizes Zara Evans is following her. Eli’s entire body celebrates and panics at the same time.

  The girl is clearly rushing to catch up. It would be rude not to slow down. So that’s what Eli does. Zara catches up and slows down and then just — stares. Warm brown eyes, all over Eli. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Eli asks. She can’t think of any way that Zara Evans has wronged her. And she’d like to keep it that way.

  Zara blinks hard, like maybe those blinks are powerful enough to keep her upright. “Roscoe.”

  Eli shrugs. “Why? You didn’t know him.” Her voice is ice. She doesn’t like the sound, but it’s a necessary precaution. Otherwise she’ll warm up way too fast.

  “I was there,” Zara says. “Not . . . when he fell, but . . . I found him.”

  “God,” Eli says. The first thing she feels is sorry for Zara. Then another feeling hits, so strong it almost cancels out the first. She’s glad Zara was there. Glad that Roscoe wasn’t alone. “So when Leopold said that thing about your arrival . . .”

  Zara nods.

  Kestrel’s voice wafts out of the rehearsal studio. “Zara Evans! Paging Zara Evans! Do people even page people anymore? Oh well! Zara Evans!”

  Zara shrinks toward the wall.

  “What does she want?” Eli asks.

  “I’m staying with her,” Zara says. It doesn’t take much digging to hear the stress in Zara’s voice. “You know how we have a week before rehearsals really start?” Eli nods. “Well, I convinced my parents that I needed to stay here. But now I have to spend the whole time in Kestrel’s apartment.”

  Eli feels a path opening up in front of them. She needs to learn what happened when Roscoe died. Zara needs an escape. “We should hang out tomorrow.”

  Kestrel catches sight of Zara and waves madly at her from down the hall. “I’ll grab your bag!”

  Zara says quickly, “As long as it’s a real tomorrow.”

  “What else could it be?” Eli asks.

  “In plays, they’re always saying, ‘We’ll meet tomorrow. We’ll see each other soon. We’ll run away in the morning.’ ” Zara’s eyes widen, like that last part hit her ears sounding different than she thought it would. “They never actually do.”

  Eli drags one of her curls into a long, slinky spiral, which means she’s flirting. Wait. Who authorized this flirting? She flicks the curl away. “Yeah,” she says. “Let’s make it a real tomorrow.”

  Zara’s second night at Kestrel’s is harder than the first because sleep is replaced by red, red dreams. She commits to being awake around dawn, and does everything she can to distract herself. Runs her lines, unpacks her clothes, kills a week’s worth of homework. A few hours after waking up, she leaves the room to snatch breakfast — nothing that requires the stove or the shiny appliances. They look like they could be dusted for fingerprints and come up clean. Zara grabs a yogurt from the fridge. Kestrel is on the couch, flipping back and forth from reality TV to a French film without subtitles.

  “Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?” Kestrel asks, her face sad in a way that looks measured — like she had to think about just how much sadness would be appropriate before she pursed her lips and wrinkled her forehead.

  “No.” Zara thinks back to what Eli said. “I didn’t really know him.”

  And going to the funeral would mean facing the company again, without Leopold. At the read-through, he was the only thing standing between Zara and complete humiliation. He’s gone for the entire week, in Toronto.

  “I’m going to stay here and work on my lines,” Zara says.

  “Right,” Kestrel says, suddenly interested in her toenail polish. “You have so many lines.”

  Zara hurries back to the guest room. She can’t help that she’s been cast as Echo at Kestrel’s theater, but living in her space makes everything sharper. Zara’s afraid to be caught touching Kestrel’s things. Breathing her air.

  She settles onto the bed, her script in one hand. She has a whole week to sit here, trying not to think about Roscoe. She won’t be able to do it, though. He’ll slip into thoughts of the
Aurelia. He’ll visit her dreams every night. A week of this, before she goes back to the theater. It’s like sitting shiva for someone she never knew.

  Zara’s phone comes to life. Maybe it’s Leopold. They can talk about the play and forget all this for a while. Zara sets her yogurt on the bedside table and checks the screen.

  It’s her mom.

  She’s left seven messages since Zara got to the city two days ago. Zara knows that she can’t put this off forever. “Hi.” Her voice is fluttery, weak.

  “Zara, love,” her mom says in a way that she usually pairs with a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Zara misses that. She could have gone home this week, but she was afraid that when she came back to New York, she would have to start all over again, from scratch.

  Besides, she’s going home for the holidays. Some of them, at least. Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away. And Christmas isn’t their holiday, anyway.

  “How is the city?” her mom asks. “How is the theater? Did you leave anything at home?”

  “Good, and beautiful, and no, I did not.”

  Her parents pile on the questions like this. It’s one of their rituals. Now she’s supposed to ask her mom at least three questions back.

  “Something happened,” Zara says, breaking the pattern. She can feel her mom waiting for an explanation on the other end of the line. She can picture her in the kitchen — black coffee in one hand, a to-do list on the table in front of her. She probably just crossed out Call Zara.

  Zara smiles, knowing that it will infuse the way she speaks. “First of all, everything is fine.” This is the right way for them to hear about Roscoe. Newspapers would make it sound cold, sensational, or terrifying, and it was none of those things. It was an old man who fell, and a trip to the hospital. Zara can make her parents see it that way if she tries hard enough.

  Isn’t that what acting is for?

  “When I came in on the train . . .” she starts. It takes ten minutes to tell the story and another forty to convince her mom not to drop everything and immediately come see her. Zara promises to call her dad and tell him, too, although her mom will get to it first, so the hard part is done.

  At the last second, after a round of good-byes, her mom’s voice goes flat. “You shouldn’t be there. You never should have gone.” This is exactly what Zara needed her not to say. “It’s just a play.” Zara winces like she’s been thrown into cold water. “If you were good enough for them to pick you once, someone will pick you again.”

  Not at the Aurelia.

  Not by Leopold Henneman.

  Not as Echo.

  A new text comes in, from a New York number, with no name attached.

  Is today tomorrow?

  “Mom, I have to go,” Zara says.

  And she hangs up. Without a good-bye. She’s never done that before. Zara reads Eli’s text again.

  Is today tomorrow?

  Plays are usually filled with people who become close for weeks and months, who spend every minute together and learn each other in ways that normal friends never do. They confide, reveal, peel back fears and secrets to see what’s underneath. They dream together. They wrestle and fight and laugh too loud and kiss for no reason. Zara has her mom’s words trapped in her head, like a line that she memorized and will never be able to unlearn. It’s just a play. She needs a friend who knows better.

  Eli looked at Zara like she belonged at that table, like she was meant to be there.

  Zara takes a quick breath and types.

  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

  As soon as it’s sent, she falls backward on the bed and hits the pillows with a hard thump. Zara can’t seem to get anything right. Who quotes the most morbid monologue from Macbeth when someone just died?

  Eli worked with Roscoe. Zara watched him die. Maybe that’s why Zara needs Eli to like her.

  Her phone lights up.

  All our yesterdays have been shit. Let’s get new yesterdays.

  Zara smiles, lying on her back and holding the phone up with both hands as she types.

  Where do you want to meet?

  Eli picks the Aurelia, which is perfect. Maybe Zara should want to avoid it, to get some distance, to forget what happened to Roscoe. But the truth is, she would have been intimidated if Eli picked any other place. The rest of New York City overwhelms Zara: the subways and the choked sidewalks, the people who would happily murder her for not walking fast enough.

  The Aurelia feels like hers.

  The greenroom is dim. Zara doesn’t turn on the lights, just in case she’s not supposed to be in here.

  She finds the most comfortable spot on the well-loved couches and looks over the printed and bound pages that the stage manager handed out at the read-through. This is the fourteenth version of Echo and Ariston that Zara will add to her collection. But it isn’t just another copy of the play. This is Zara’s script. It has Echo’s lines highlighted. Soon it will hold her stage directions scribbled in light, hasty pencil. There is a promise in these pages that was never there before.

  For the first time, Zara feels the threat that comes with it.

  What if she can’t fall in love like she’s supposed to? That’s what she’s here to do. That’s what Echo’s story is about.

  Zara’s secret ripples inside her like dark water. She thinks back to the auditions, Leopold needling: Who do you love most? Zara’s never been in love. Now she has to hope that her director doesn’t notice.

  Eli shows up and flicks on the lights. “Have you been lurking here in the dark?” She’s wearing the same sort of outfit she wore at the read-through: gray T-shirt, ripped jeans, stomping boots.

  “I wouldn’t call it lurking,” Zara says.

  “Skulking?” Eli asks. “Lying in wait?” The words fly out at a pace worthy of David Mamet. Eli is pretty enough to be an actress, smart enough to be a playwright, talented enough to be a lighting designer. Zara feels an inner flutter — intimidation, envy? It can be hard to tell flutters apart.

  Eli sets one hand to each side of the doorframe, looking at Zara with an intensity that locks her into place. “I need to ask you something that will make your day much worse.” Zara lets out a small laugh. Eli cocks her head. “I did say worse, right?”

  “Yeah. But the way you just . . . said it. I like that.” Zara holds up her script, butterflied open at the spine. “It’s what a character in a Greek play would do. They always say what they feel.”

  The small smile that Eli gives Zara goes straight to her head. Eli finally leaves the doorway, but doesn’t make it all the way to the couch. Instead, she hovers halfway across the room and takes the Leatherman out of her belt holster, flipping out several blades in one swift, shiny motion.

  “What did you want to ask?” Zara says.

  Eli speaks while shifting a long knife back and forth, “What you saw. That day. With Roscoe.”

  Zara blinks, and he’s there. His body on the ground. His blood everywhere. She can hear broken breathing, and her own starts to shatter. Zara needs to be done with this story. She recited it to the police, slowly, carefully, and then did her best to forget.

  “I’m sorry,” Eli says, curls flying as she shakes her head. “It’s just . . . Roscoe’s death is the wrong color.”

  “What does that mean?” Zara asks.

  Eli puts away the Leatherman. She paces, stubbing the reinforced rubber toe of her boot against the wall. “So when I’m deciding how to light a scene, there’s a lot of practical stuff I’m thinking about, a lot of little choices that have to do with the equipment and the setup. When it comes down to it, though, whether a moment has the right color is — a feeling. This feels wrong.” She turns directly to Zara. There’s a sadness in her eyes that can’t be faked, even by the world’s best actor. “They’re making it sound like he was some old man whose brain came unwired. Like he couldn’t keep his balance. I’ve seen Roscoe walk a tightrope with two forty-pound lights in each hand.”

  What happened to Roscoe was an accident. Z
ara doesn’t doubt that. But how can she refuse to even talk to Eli about it? That’s how her parents deal with hard things.

  They just stop.

  “Okay,” Zara says.

  Eli leads her out of the greenroom in a disorienting rush, down halls and through an unmarked door. Up a thin metal ladder that never seems to end. Zara looks up and finds herself staring at the bottom of Eli’s boots, the dark valleys of the treads. She wonders what she’s gotten herself into.

  When she arrives at the top, there’s nowhere to go except a thin strip of a balcony. “I’m not afraid of heights,” Zara says.

  “Good,” Eli says, already halfway across.

  Zara raises her voice, to hide the quiver. “I’m not not afraid of heights. I respect heights.”

  Eli doesn’t give Zara the pep talk she hoped for, or the rolled eyes that probably deserves. Instead, Eli just stares at Zara, eyes dark and unblinking. That look could pull someone across a room, across an ocean.

  Zara takes the balcony one careful step at a time.

  When she makes it to Eli’s side, she assumes the worst is over. Then Eli leaps onto the railing. Zara’s heart slides in her chest. Eli settles into a crow’s-nest posture, perfectly casual. “Roscoe was here. He comes up here when he wants to think about the design. It’s the best view in the theater.”

  Zara tips her face over the edge of the railing, and the world falls away. She’s looking at the Aurelia the way a bird would look down on the earth. White scrollwork like sand. Rows and rows of red seats, waves on a bloodstained sea.

  “It wouldn’t be hard to fall,” Zara says.

  “It would if you know what you’re doing,” Eli counters. “Would you die making a cross from upstage left to downstage right?”

  “No,” Zara admits.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Eli says with satisfaction. “That’s your job. That’s what you do.”

  Zara spent her first rehearsal at the Aurelia as an outsider, the answer to one of these things is not like the other. In one offhand comment, Eli made her feel like a real actress.