People are laughing, and the sound swirls in Zara’s head. Leopold hands her another champagne flute. The crystal is breakable. It will shatter in her palm if she clutches it too tightly. “You know who’s brilliant?” Zara asks. “The lighting designer.”
She didn’t mean to say that. The champagne did it for her.
“Of course,” Leopold says. “Roscoe.” He hangs his head down. He is very good at looking mournful.
“No,” Zara says. “I mean, yes. But I was talking about the new designer. Roscoe’s assistant. Eli Vasquez.”
She really shouldn’t have said that. But she hates that nobody knows about Eli. Zara almost tells everyone about the lanterns, how beautiful they’re going to be. But the lanterns haven’t made an appearance at rehearsal yet. How would she know about them if she hadn’t been spending time with Eli, under the stage, alone?
Leopold is looking at her strangely now.
If she says one more word about Eli, Leopold will see the truth. She doesn’t know how he hasn’t seen it already — if he could tell she’s never been in love, wouldn’t he be able to tell that she is now? Because she can’t stop falling in love with Eli, even when they’re not in the same room. Even when Leopold is in the room, watching her carefully. Feeding her drink after drink.
The woman in the silver dress turns to Leopold, puts on a kittenish smile, and says, “People have been saying that these accidents have something to do with a curse on the Aurelia. It’s so dark and delightful.” Zara watched Roscoe die. She doesn’t know if she would describe it as delightful. “Is it true that the theater is cursed?”
That is a fantastic question.
“It’s true that people say so,” Leopold tells the small crowd in his most charming and enigmatic tone. “And what people say has a way of becoming true.”
“Mmmmmm,” the woman says, as if she’s savoring Leopold’s wisdom. The men in the circle nod like they know just what he means.
Zara wants to break free. She wants to find Eli and kiss her for an hour without stopping, then tell her the story of every moment they’ve been apart.
Leopold eases his link with Zara’s arm, somehow making it look as if she’s been the one holding on to him all night. “If you’ll excuse me, I should see to our leading man.” Zara sends a hunting look through the crowd, but Adrian is nowhere to be seen. Apparently he doesn’t have to be paraded around like this.
Leopold walks away. He gives Zara one more glance over his shoulder, as if he wants to be sure of where he left her. He blows her a kiss — not for the onlookers — a small, private tap of fingers to lips. Another test passed. Another lesson learned. She has a hold on one corner of the truth, and she’s peeling it back. Leopold loves her as long as she does whatever he wants. As long as she’s willing to be whoever he wants.
You are not Zara Evans.
Her hand goes, absentmindedly, to the necklace of keys. Kestrel tried to tell her that it didn’t match the dress.
Zara disagreed.
Eli makes her feel more like herself and more like Echo at the same time. How is that possible?
Zara makes one full turn of the room. No Eli. She checks her phone. It’s devoid of messages.
She sends a quick one of her own.
I’m in the ballroom wearing white and drinking too much.
Find me.
That was wrong. She shouldn’t have sent that text. They can’t be seen in front of all these people, together. In front of Leopold. But Zara can’t stay away from Eli all night. It’s not physically possible.
A hand comes down on Zara’s arm, and for a second she thinks that she summoned Eli just by thinking about her. But the hand is wrong — large and bony. Too much sweat in the canyons of the palm.
Zara looks up and finds Carl staring.
For a second, the world tilts, and she remembers the force of his body hovering on top of hers. His eyes are as blue as a painfully bright sky.
“We need to talk.”
Carl tries to edge Zara away from the crowd.
The girl doesn’t budge. “You want to talk to me? Now?” Zara shakes her head. The motions are larger than necessary, as if she’s playing to a house of a thousand instead of an audience of one.
Carl knows what that means. She’s gotten herself drunk.
He lowers his voice. “This is about Toby.”
He still can’t believe that his good-hearted friend took Zara to the Dragon and Bottle. It was a poor choice. But then, Toby has never been known for his wonderful decision making.
Zara stands on her tiptoes, scouring the ballroom. “I’m looking for someone. Excuse me.” She strides away, and Carl’s first impulse is to grab her, to keep her with him until he can explain a few important things. But he doesn’t dare touch this girl.
Instead, he follows at a close distance. “Please. This will only take a minute.”
She looks back at him, her face as transparent as window glass. Even when she isn’t tipsy, her emotions have a way of showing through. It’s what makes her a fine actress. At least, when she’s in control of herself.
He hopes, for a fleeting moment, that her career survives this production.
That she survives.
“Please,” he says, his voice thinning. “We need to speak.”
Zara lets Carl steer her toward the back of the room. Even here, the sounds of mingling are thick, tangled, hard to talk over.
“You need to stay focused on the play right now,” Carl says.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Zara asks, her amber eyes narrowed.
“Whatever Toby said to you,” Carl says, “forget it. He’s an old drunk.”
“He told me he was your best friend,” Zara says.
“Who better than a best friend to recognize an old drunk?” Carl fires back.
Zara has the glare of truth about her tonight. Carl knows that truth can be a powerful thing, but only if people believe in it. They believe in lies just as often. It all comes down to presentation.
“Toby thinks that you’re worried about what happened to Enna,” Carl says in his most reasonable and reassuring tone. “It’s a simple fact of life. We live at the theater. Some of us die here. Ask Cosima if you don’t believe me.”
Zara crosses her arms, turning from a polished actress into a teenager in one swift motion. He wonders if she has any idea how young she truly is.
“So you think what happened to Enna was normal?” Zara asks.
Carl breathes carefully. Otherwise he will stop being able to speak. He is partly to blame for the girl being here in the first place. He needs to explain this. He owes her that much.
When he sits down in the nearest chair, the glasses on the table bump and resettle with a shiver of crystal. “Leopold does unpleasant things to his actresses.”
“What does that mean?” she asks in a numb voice, a close cousin to a whisper. Carl knows all the variations on whispering. He knows all the ways to speak, and what they mean. He has been an actor for so many years. It should mean that he reads people perfectly.
But he failed when it meant the most.
“When we met, Enna and I were so young,” Carl says. “We were in love, and playing two people in love. You can imagine Leopold enjoyed that. He couldn’t have orchestrated it better himself. But then a few seasons later, he cast Enna in the role of a ruined woman. And she became one. There were drugs. And men. Enna didn’t hide her indiscretions. In fact, she shouted them from the rooftops.” Carl’s heartbeat takes over his body, drowns out the crowd. “For years, I didn’t know the truth. I had no idea where it started.”
Zara sits down next to him, and it’s like everyone else in the ballroom vanishes. He’s left alone with a story that feels impossible to tell, and a girl who needs to hear it. “Our happiness no longer suited Leopold. He forced her to sleep with him, did she tell you that?”
Zara tries to blink away confusion, then pain.
Carl is spitting the words now. “He did degrading things to
her, all in the name of the play. He was her director. He told her it was the only way to make her believable in the role.”
“She could have told someone,” Zara says, but she doesn’t sound as if she’s convinced herself. Leopold was so famous, so well loved. His productions were intense and beautiful, and if he was known for being unorthodox with his actors, well, that was what they’d signed up for, wasn’t it? That was the price of genius.
Who would Enna have told?
Who would have believed her if she cried rape?
Carl might have — he needs to believe that he would have — but Enna’s ability to trust had already been destroyed. She chose alcohol and pills as her comforts. Carl only learned all of this later, much later.
From Meg.
“Why did she keep coming back to the Aurelia?” Zara asks. She is trapped in this terrible story with him. It’s a tiny room with no doors and no windows, a room that there is no real escaping from. “Why did you?”
“I didn’t know. Not for the longest time. As for Enna . . . she didn’t want to stop acting, and Leopold was one of the only directors who would still work with her once her . . . reputation spread.”
Zara is shaking and shaking her head, as if that could make it untrue.
“Now he’s pushing you,” Carl whispers, the words a rumble in his chest. “And I never wanted that. But I had to save her. I had to.”
Zara swallows. It sounds dry and painful. “Save Enna?”
“No,” Carl says. “It was too late for that. It was like . . . she died years ago. I had to stop him from doing the same things to Kestrel.”
Carl is the closest that Kestrel has to a father. He watched her grow up. Took her to plays and dinners, bought her presents. He nursed her through her first heartbreak. There was no way he was letting Leopold have her.
Carl watches as understanding comes over Zara in a fuzzy patchwork. “You . . . You’re the one who stopped Kestrel from being cast as Echo.”
And suddenly the rest of the world rages at full volume, because they’re no longer alone. Kestrel has circled all the way around the room and come over to see them. She hovers behind Zara, who said that last stupid sentence without knowing Kestrel was right there.
Her dress is a blaze of blue. She’s gotten too thin. Carl can see her bones, like they’re trying to cut their way out through her skin. “I thought it was so nice to see you two talking,” she says in a shaky voice.
And then the screaming starts.
“Not here,” Carl says. But Kestrel’s mouth is stretched out, and her voice is strong. She has terrible nerves. Ever since she was a girl and her parents left for the first time of many, trusting her to the care of their ridiculous friends, she’s had these fits. Carl grabs her by the upper arm. “Sweetie, please. Everyone is watching.” The journalists gather, flies around a sticky-sweet spill. He doesn’t want them spreading stories about her in the morning. “Talk to me,” Carl says. “Just talk.”
Kestrel nods, and breathes, and it’s like watching a self pour back into her body. “I read for Echo five times. Leopold didn’t want me. Something was wrong. I knew it. I knew I was born for that role. Mama says so. Everyone says so.”
Carl nods with sympathy as he pats her back. He hates what he did. But he did it to keep Kestrel safe from a man who would force himself on her. A man who would happily abuse her and then say he was only serving a higher purpose, his art. Carl hates what he did, but he isn’t sorry. He’s done much worse things to keep the people he loves from misery.
Kestrel gives him a murderous look, but Carl knows that it will blow over. It has to. If it doesn’t, he has nothing left. “You were the person I trusted,” Kestrel says. She turns away, the razors of her shoulder blades moving up as she takes a breath. Holds it.
“Kestrel,” Carl says. “Sweetie.”
She picks up a glass from the nearest table. Zara tries to grab her, but Kestrel has gone white-hot, untouchable.
The glass flies.
She did what?”
Adrian is behind the little stage at one end of the ballroom, listening to the stagehands argue.
“Kestrel tried to take him out! Tumbler to the face!” one of them says, happy and merciless, like he’s talking about reality TV. (Adrian has nightmares about reality TV — the shark-infested waters that famous people are tossed into when everyone else is done with them.)
“Yeah, but she missed,” said another stagehand.
“Awwww,” says the first one, like he’s seriously disappointed.
Leopold asked Adrian to wait backstage. He did it with these apologies in his voice, like that would be a problem for Adrian, but Adrian likes it better back here. There are always people at parties who want to touch him, take pictures with him. Sometimes he loves it and sometimes it’s exhausting, and both of those reactions feel wrong. Smarmy or ungrateful. Take your pick.
Leopold walks in through the side door. Adrian can sense one of his hugs coming on. He steps away before it can happen. There’s always too much body heat and cologne involved.
“My boy, my boy,” Leopold says. “Tonight we make the public believe in Echo and Ariston’s love.”
“I thought this was just about shmoozing,” Adrian says with a nervous laugh.
“The photograph you posted online got people quite excited,” Leopold says, and Adrian gets to bask in the fact that he did something right. (He hasn’t basked in a while. It feels good.) But then Leopold’s arm is around him and he’s using his most urgent director voice. “You need to take things to the next logical step.”
“There is no next step,” Adrian says. “It was a picture. To make people excited about Zara. As Echo.”
“We want them excited about the two of you together,” Leopold says. And he whispers a plan into Adrian’s ear.
Adrian pulls away, and he can feel the depths of his frown. He was the one who wanted to tell Zara to go along with anything, but now he’s not so sure. “Don’t we want the audience to stay focused on the play? How good it is?” Adrian came here to impress people with his acting, not his ability to post a picture online and get hundreds of thousands of hits.
“Your Ariston, while perfectly adequate,” Leopold says, “is not enough to maintain this illusion. Not without a little help.”
Adrian sighs and attacks his hair with a nervous hand. “What about Zara? Does she want to do this? I mean, is she ready?”
“The girl is more than ready,” Leopold says. “She’s . . . eager.”
Adrian thinks of Kerry, on the patio of the tiny apartment she could barely afford, swigging blueberry lemonade straight from the bottle, hollowing out avocados to make guacamole. She won’t know that he’s doing this for the play, for the audience, for the marketing. She’ll only see him acting, and she’ll think it’s true, because that’s the one thing Adrian is good at. Utterly convincing.
And then he’ll lose Kerry.
(Really lose her.)
Maybe that’s good, though. Maybe that’s exactly what he needs so he can shove this whole thing into the past and get on with life. Adrian rolls his shoulders and says, “Let’s do this.”
Leopold claps him on the back and takes the stage before Adrian can rethink.
The lights in the ballroom dim, and the noise level goes from shout-to-be-heard to a hushed whisper. “You are here tonight because you want to fall in love,” Leopold says. He has a decent voice — not an actor’s voice, but the kind that you could imagine telling a story around a campfire. “Perhaps you used to slip in and out of love easily, when you were younger. Perhaps some of you are finding love tonight.” There are a few stray laughs. “I think you’ve waited long enough to see what true love looks like.”
Leopold waves his hand toward the wings, and Adrian strides out onto the little stage. This feels like practice for the Aurelia — but it’s also different, because during the play Adrian won’t be able to see the audience. The lights will drown them out.
Tonight, he can see ever
yone.
“Here is your Ariston,” Leopold says. “A young man who comes to us from a kingdom of plenty, which we’ve been battling for ages. I’m speaking, of course, about California.” The audience laughs, full-on. Adrian realizes he loves this part. When he sneaks into movie theaters in disguise, people are always on their phones or muttering to each other or making out, regardless of what he’s doing on the screen. This is better. This is more.
Adrian gives a bow, and the audience cheers.
“And here,” Leopold says, “is your early Christmas present.” He shades his eyes and peers out at the ballroom. “Echo? Where are you, my dear?”
A gasp rises as a little spotlight goes hunting through the crowd. It finds Zara standing alone near the entrance on the far side of the room. Even from this far away, Adrian can see that Zara looks surprised.
She really is a good actress.
She works her way through the crowd, and Adrian watches her along with everyone else. He can’t stop thinking about what Leopold said. (She’s eager.) The room narrows down from hundreds of people to just Zara. Her dress is white. Her hair is loose. Her cheeks shine like moons.
She looks beautiful.
And nervous. When she arrives onstage, Leopold pulls her in for a kiss on the cheek and Zara goes stiff. When she takes her place at Adrian’s side, he can feel her trembling where their arms almost touch. It reminds him of the first time he ever kissed a girl. He was eleven. It was for a movie, and he hated the idea that his first kiss would be fake. So he asked the actress, who was thirteen and a half, to practice with him in the studio lot. She pushed him against one of those little carts and his lips went numb, totally confused. Then her tongue was in his mouth.
He remembers how scared he was. And how grateful that she took the lead.
“Hey,” he whispers to Zara. “You okay?”
Echo After Echo Page 16