Echo After Echo

by Amy Rose Capetta

  But now, when they start kissing again, Zara has to work to hold herself in the moment. The curtains turn into a musty prison of trapped air and old velvet. Zara presses harder, anchors her hands in tangles of black hair.

  A creak comes from the theater — a creak that has nothing to do with their kissing. Zara’s eyes snap open.

  “Shit,” Eli mumbles, forming the word against Zara’s lips. One of the doors in the house just opened.

  Eli’s body hardens into a plank against Zara’s.

  If you have anything to hide, keep it hidden.

  The sound of footsteps on the stage holds Zara in place. She can feel Eli’s heartbeat fighting hers, out of time with each other.

  That’s when the singing starts.

  A soprano is onstage, her voice so high-flung and glittering that it sounds like stars in a cold night. It takes Zara a few words to place the song — “Tonight.” West Side Story. Another tragic play about love. The woman sings about how it is all beginning and the world is falling away.

  Zara is afraid to look, and at the same time, she can’t stop herself. There are too many mysteries in this theater, and one is standing right next to her, begging to be known. She uncurls the curtains just an inch. A figure stands downstage center, her blond hair shining in the dim light.

  Zara turns to Eli and mouths, Meg.

  Eli mouths a string of curse words, one after the other, firecrackers going off without a sound.

  Meg is tiny, but she seems to take up the entire theater. Whatever it is that makes people’s eyes stick to certain actors, she has it. Presence, beauty, a balance of human frailty and otherworldly strength.

  Zara can’t believe what she’s watching.

  Meg moves into the second verse, her voice growing stronger, and it’s like she dropped a stone into the most secret parts of Zara. The impact creates rings, and the rings move outward until they touch her lungs and she is holding her breath; they touch her eyes and she wants to cry.

  Then, from somewhere out in the house, Zara hears a sigh rise like steam. “That was beautiful,” Leopold says.

  Zara gasps.

  Meg turns and looks straight at her.

  Is something wrong, my dear?” Leopold asks, inspecting Meg’s face as she stares toward the wings.

  “No,” she says. “I thought I saw something, but it’s gone.”

  She turns back to face him, looking much more like a personal assistant than a starlet. She wears the same clothes she did at rehearsal: offensively boring khakis and a button-down shirt. Leopold pictures her in the white lace dress that she wore as Maria. And then he pictures her in nothing at all. There are so many versions of Meg, and they only have one thing in common.

  They are all his.

  She came from nowhere, like Zara Evans. No pedigree, little training. She was ready to be molded. People adored her Maria. And with each drop of their love, the dark sea of his jealousy grew.

  He decided to keep one actress for himself.

  Meg made it easy. She was in love. When Leopold was younger, women threw their bodies at him like birds against a windowpane. He had never been particularly interested — in women, in men, in anything but theater.

  But he heard them call Meg a goddess, and soon she would know they were right. She would leave the Aurelia. She would leave him behind, even though he made her what she so desperately wanted to be. So Leopold whispered three small words in her ear and — like magic — she stayed.

  West Side Story closed after seven hundred and twelve performances. It was easy enough to make a few discreet calls, to sow a few rumors. People were all too willing to believe that Meg was impossible, unstable, selfish. She was an actress, after all. He told them a story with a tired old script, which is exactly what people love best.

  When Meg came back to his apartment after auditions, Leopold would take her small hands in his and say, “Don’t worry, my dear. Parts will be flooding in soon.” After two dry seasons, when the money ran out, he said, “Work with me at the Aurelia.” He whispered into her ear, “You will never have to stop acting.”

  At some point he bought her an apartment. At some point he stopped touching her. He tried to explain that this is love in its purest form.

  He watches her. He worships her.

  The song ends on an impossible high note that sounds too pure to be formed by a human voice.

  Sometimes when Meg sings for Leopold, it quiets his mind. The visions let him be. He felt one coming on in his office, with Zara Evans standing there. He knew what was coming, so he called Meg.

  There is only one vision left that hasn’t come true. It keeps him up late, scratches at his mind until it is ragged. It tells him he must do a dark thing. He doesn’t want to think of that tonight.

  Meg stands on the stage, turned back into a woman creeping toward middle age.

  He knows how to make her beautiful again.

  “Sing another,” Leopold says. Sometimes he is soft with her. Sometimes rough and demanding. Meg always says yes.

  Zara presses her phone against her ear so hard that it generates heat. As if that will bring Eli closer.

  “What. Was. That,” Eli says.

  Zara is speeding through the lobby of Kestrel’s apartment building, past the fake Christmas trees. “I don’t know,” Zara says. “I don’t know.”

  They’ve been going over the same things in a loop since they left the theater.

  “Did she see us?” Eli asks.

  “She saw me,” Zara says.

  “But . . . us? Plural?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  The elevator dings and Zara gets in. Alone, thankfully. The doors slide closed.

  “Why was Meg singing?” Eli asks.

  It’s a good question. But Zara feels like they’re missing a more important one buried just beneath it. How was she that good?

  “Wait a second,” Zara says, shifting the phone away from her ear. She does a quick search for West Side Story, adding New York City — which dredges up too many results — and then Aurelia. Here are rave reviews of a production that happened when Zara was only a little girl. She thumbs down to a list of the cast and crew. Leopold directed it, of course. Right at the top of the cast is a name that Zara would never have noticed until tonight.

  She puts the phone back to her ear. “Meg played Maria at the Aurelia fifteen years ago.”

  “Meg?” Eli asks. “White-toast-with-nothing-on-it Meg?”

  “She was Margaret Jones back then.”

  “Ugh,” Eli says. “Of course Leopold would cast her in that role. Why not? There are so many leads for Latinas on Broadway.”

  Zara flares with anger. When she first came to New York, she expected a cast that mirrored the city — prettier, maybe, but just as diverse. Now she knows better, that most casts are mostly white, but Leopold’s Echo and Ariston is entirely white, as if anything else wouldn’t match his idea of perfection.

  The elevator rises up too far and Zara’s insides float. They lurch back into place as the elevator settles at Kestrel’s floor.

  Eli’s apartment is the only place Zara can imagine wanting to be right now, but there’s a possibility Kestrel will start caring where she’s been spending her time. Zara made up a lie about her parents being in the city last night, which only makes her feel a thousand miles farther away from them than she already did.

  “I don’t think Meg saw you,” Zara says again.

  “Good.” Zara pictures Eli sitting on her flowered couch, then jumping back up to pace. Eli flipping through the blades on her Leatherman, one by one. “I think we can trust Toby not to say anything. He’s gay. There’s an honor code.”

  Zara walks the long, quiet hall toward Kestrel’s door. “There’s also Adrian.”

  Eli’s voice bursts at the seams with disbelief. “You told Mr. Front Page that you’re having girl sex and you expect him to keep it to himself?”

  Zara comes alive with a full-body blush. “Well, we’re not ex
actly . . .” She tries again. “I mean we haven’t had . . .”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” Eli says, but underneath the bluntness, there’s a smile in her voice.

  Zara’s not blushing anymore. She’s officially on fire.

  She lingers outside Kestrel’s door, whispering in case her roommate is right inside. “I didn’t tell Adrian about you,” she says with a little muscle. “Just a general someone who isn’t him.”

  “I can’t tell if that makes me feel better or worse,” Eli says. “How can I want to tell everyone and also want to keep it a secret? It’s like being in the closet. Times a thousand. It’s like being in a thousand closets.”

  Zara feels it differently, like she’s standing onstage in the dark. She can play all the same scenes as she would with the lights on — flirting, kissing, falling in love — but no one else can see them.

  “Good night,” Eli says.

  “Good night,” Zara says.

  “Good night,” Eli says again.

  “We could do this forever.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” Eli says. “Call me if Kestrel does anything remotely strange. Including singing show tunes.”

  They say a few more rounds of good night, and then Zara hangs up.

  When she enters the apartment, it has an untouched quality, the quiet of a new snowfall. There’s a potted evergreen on the coffee table with tiny twinkle lights and a paper star on top that looks homemade. She wonders if it’s the one ornament that survived Kestrel’s childhood.

  Zara drops her purse in the corner of the little entryway and crosses the living room. Opens her door.

  The room has been warped past recognition. No more pristine white and modern glass — it looks like a murder scene without a body. Shredded sheets, broken windows, furniture marred by deep scratches. Worst are the pieces that don’t fit the scene, like artifacts ripped from a nightmare. A hacked-apart mannequin. A row of dolls staring up at her with those round, blinkable eyes. Words drawn and scratched on every surface, bleeding at her in shades of red paint. The same words, everywhere.

  STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.

  Eli finds herself skimming across the city in a late-night cab. Her feet carry her into a hotel, through a lobby filled with hideous armchairs and Christmas music played on a grand piano. Crystal lamp shades and chandeliers cast yellow light, making the whole place look stained. Eli double-checks the room number on her phone as she rides the elevator up. When she knocks, Zara answers.

  And then it rushes Eli all at once.

  Zara could have been in danger. Zara is in danger. And Eli can’t do a damn thing about it.

  Zara lets her in, crosses the room on timid feet, and curls up on a leather couch. Eli walks slowly through the suite. There’s a monstrous TV, a minibar, a king bed looming in the background. Zara must have spent a fortune.

  Eli told her to take a cab to her apartment, but Zara didn’t want to be anywhere that people from the Aurelia could find them.

  Zara is giving off porcupine vibes, so Eli sits down one cushion away. “It had to be Kestrel.”

  “Kestrel,” Zara echoes.

  “There’s no other explanation. Right?”

  Zara looks over, but not really at her. “Someone could have broken in.”

  “Was the lock forced?” Eli asks. “Was the door kicked in? Was the window over the fire escape broken?” God, she wants to help. She wants to be right. She wants this to be over so they can get to the real business of being in love with each other.

  Zara shakes her head. “Nothing like that.”

  “Look, we know Kestrel isn’t trustworthy.” She ticks the evidence off on her fingers. “Screaming at nobody? Throwing glass at people’s faces? Making up fake boyfriends?”

  “She never said it was a boyfriend,” Zara says with a bristle that Eli cherishes. “Just that she had a secret date.”

  “While I appreciate the open-mindedness, that still means she invented a significant other.”

  Zara nods, but it’s a hollow motion, all the meaning scooped out. “Kestrel’s like this little girl who never grew up.”

  “Wrecking that room doesn’t sound like a tantrum to you?”

  “The words on the walls, I can’t think of a single reason she would write them,” Zara says. She looks at Eli and actually connects with her for a second. “Cosima told me something like that when I went in the other day. Stop asking questions and get out.”

  Eli knows this is not the time, that she shouldn’t push, but what Zara is saying makes no sense. “You think an eighty-year-old woman stole a key and went uptown to re-create a scene from a horror movie.”

  Zara shrugs.

  She hands Eli her phone without even looking at it first. Eli has spent enough time watching Zara to know what she looks like when she’s being herself and when she’s being Echo. Right now — she’s nobody.

  “What’s this?” Eli asks, nodding at the phone.

  “I took pictures of the room,” Zara says. Eli opens the photo roll and the first thing that comes up is the bedroom at Kestrel’s. The warnings on the walls and the furniture and the floor — it’s way past creepy.

  “Those dolls,” Eli says.

  “Yeah.”

  Eli turns toward Zara fast: she can’t hold this in. She has something to say. Something real. Her pants give a soft flannel swish as she hikes a leg up on the couch. That’s when Eli realizes she’s wearing pajamas. She didn’t even notice when she left the apartment — she just ran in the direction of Zara. No wonder she was getting those spiky looks in the lobby.

  “I’ve seen them,” Eli says. “Those dolls. In prop storage.”

  “So you think Kestrel stole them?” Zara asks. “Or . . . what if she’s dating Barrett?” Her words speed up to match Eli’s racing pulse. “If he’s Kestrel’s secret boyfriend, he would have keys to the apartment.” Zara grabs her phone back from Eli, and their fingers brush. Just like old times.

  Zara scrolls through her pictures, all the way to the little dressing room right after Enna died. “Here,” Zara says, thrusting the phone into the space between them, which is getting smaller by the second. They push together, hip to hip, inspecting the handwriting on the walls of the dressing room. “It’s the same,” Zara says. “The handwriting is the same.”

  “No,” Eli says. “The Hamlet quote here looks different. That was the real clue. Barrett was trying to bury it.”

  “Shit,” Zara says.

  “Hey.” Eli nudges Zara’s shoulder with her own. “You stole my line.”

  Zara hasn’t let up her death grip on the phone. Her hands are about to explode the thing into tiny pieces. “But . . . why would Barrett kill Enna? Or Roscoe? It doesn’t make sense. There’s no motivation.”

  “That’s a very actorly thing to be worried about right now.” Eli pictures that props bastard passing through the secret walkway. Pushing Roscoe. It’s not hard to believe, not at all. “We don’t need to figure out why he did it. The police can be in charge of that. We just need enough proof to get them to pay attention.” She thinks darkly of her first trip to the police station. “Believe me, that’s the difficult part.”

  “We can show them the pictures of the handwriting,” Zara says.

  “We need more. If we go storming into the precinct without enough evidence, they can’t arrest Barrett.”

  Roscoe’s death has always been the wrong color, but it’s one thing to know that and another to be two breaths away from catching the person who killed him. Eli doesn’t know if she should be happy or terrified or just very, very tired.

  “I have an idea,” Zara says, her voice pre-stubborn, like she knows Eli will fight whatever she’s about to say next. “Kestrel knows more of the story than we do. She can tell us what happened.”

  Zara was right. Eli hates this idea. For one thing, she’s still not entirely convinced that Kestrel isn’t dangerous. She might have noodles for arms, but she’s not afraid to use them. “I’ll talk to her.”

&nb
sp; “No,” Zara says. “She barely knows you. She’ll talk to me.” Zara looks over at Eli like it just fully registered that they’re in the same room. “Previews tomorrow. We should get some sleep.”

  Eli nods down at her pajamas. “I came prepared.”

  Zara smiles. If she wasn’t looking at Eli before, she’s making up for it now with some very direct staring.

  Sleep would be good, Eli thinks. For both of them. But looking around the hotel room — two hotel rooms, really — Eli gets the feeling that they’re not going to take Zara’s very good advice.

  Zara has never kissed anyone like this — it’s a study in heat and impatience. She pushes against Eli with such force that she can’t feel skin, only pressure. The leather of the couch crackles as Eli slides against her.

  They were being careful with each other before, like they were holding something breakable between them. But now, with Eli’s hair spilling through Zara’s hands and her own body moving with a kind of spellbinding confidence, Zara’s not afraid. Or maybe she’s afraid of the right things. Barrett. Leopold.

  Not having this.

  Eli takes Zara’s hand in hers, and Zara lets herself be led, kiss by kiss, across the suite, although she has a very good guess where they’re headed. Eli stops just shy of the door to the bedroom, untangles herself long enough to ask, “Should we —”

  “Yes,” Zara says quickly. She doesn’t need to hear the rest of the question. If Eli is asking, the answer is yes.

  The bedroom is almost entirely filled with a huge white bed — a blank canvas. Zara gives herself one simple objective: get closer to Eli. There’s a winter coat between them, and two shirts, which are just getting in the way. There are Zara’s stiff jeans and Eli’s flimsy pajama pants. All superfluous.

  All gone.

  Eli’s fingers skim Zara’s stomach and sink into the low curve between her legs, fitting there. Snug. And then one finger gets adventurous and starts to draw circles, and soon Zara can’t breathe.

  Zara doesn’t know exactly when they cross that line — the one they left uncrossed in Eli’s apartment — but whether it’s one specific touch or all of them added together, they’re definitely having sex. Zara’s entire body is wired with brightness. It’s like Eli has taken what she can do with light and slid it inside Zara; she wouldn’t be surprised if her blood was running starry white. The good feeling between her legs reaches a breaking point, and when Zara’s back lifts off the mattress, Eli is there, cradling her hips.