I hear the water turn on and splash at the floor of the shower. Adam hums a nameless tune.
My eyelids close and in my head I hear six gunshots. Six lifeless bodies breaking and slumping to the floor. I hear the squishing and pumping of Stefia’s heart slowing. I hear her breath choking. I hear the chaos of gurgling and sputtering. I hear screams that are fading….fading…fading…
How is it that even after the light has gone out, she still manages to shine? How is it that in her death, she’s still more important than anything else that’s alive?
I’m not going to the funeral. I knew that when we got on the plane to come here. And I haven’t changed my mind.
I’m not going.
I’m not going.
I’m not going.
And then I can hear her voice. Her gurgling sputtering voice that’s choking on blood. Suddenly she’s not so pretty anymore. Suddenly she’s not the gorgeous supermodel type angel up on a pedestal. She’s fallen and is just lying in a pool of her own fluid.
Please. Be here, she says.
I’m not going.
I want you here, she says.
I’m not going.
Please don’t leave. I need you here.
I’m not going, Stefia.
Please. Be. Here.
No.
-Paul-
Community theater doesn’t just attract actors living in the immediate community. Every actor has a checklist of roles on their bucket list; Simon Bradford Collins from Don’t Mind If I Do was in my top three. So when the Crystal Plains Theater announced they were holding auditions for it last summer—directed by David Jeffery Hank, no less—I figured it was totally worth the hour and twenty minute drive to try my luck.
Last summer was the first time Crystal Plains decided to do two summer shows. Both were smaller productions involving less people and cost, but it was a great way to toss up the palette of theater goers in the area. They chose one family oriented show for the beginning of the summer, and ran an edgier show for the second half.
Don’t Mind If I Do was the edgier show. Some people thought it was too sinful for Granite Ledge to do. One of those “if you aren’t old enough to drive yourself to the show, you probably shouldn’t be in the audience when it’s running” kind of deals. But the two guys who started up the theater, Niles and James, knew how to make waves. It’s how they sold tickets. When someone from the local paper interviewed Niles about the questionable nature of the show they had chosen, Niles simply grinned and said, “If people don’t want to see it, by all means, stay home.”
Anyway, so I auditioned. And there were two surprises that happened. The first surprise being that I actually got cast in the role I wanted. The second surprise was that a 16 year old was cast opposite me, in a role meant for someone almost twice her age.
Now, at the time of the show, I was twenty-four. I wasn’t far off from Simon’s actual age of twenty-eight. But a sixteen-year-old in the role of twenty-eight-year-old Kate? I wanted to ask David why he hadn’t closed the auditions to minors, but you really shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.
So I showed up a few minutes early to the first full cast read through, and made small talk with the director trying to get a sense of what to expect from this Stefia before I met her.
“So…sixteen?” It was all I could think of to say.
“She’s almost seventeen,” David said. “Don’t let her age scare you off. I mean, I get it. I do. But really, she’s ah-ma-zing.”
He said it just like that: ah-ma-zing. And I figured she better be good, causing a grown man to talk like a total idiot and all.
“Trust me,” he continued, with an easy smile, “I’m the director. I know what I’m doing.”
And while I was wondering what I could say to back pedal so he wouldn’t worry about having issues between the two leads, Stefia walked in.
Shit.
Not that Stefia looked like she was sixteen. Because if you wouldn’t have told me otherwise, I would have assumed I could have taken her out for drinks after our read through. And not that she acted like she was sixteen. Because all she had to do was open her mouth and you’d have figured she was working on her PhD in Psychiatry. But she was sixteen. Like…eight years younger than me. In high school. Just starting to drive by herself. I had friends who were getting married and having kids…and the director wanted me to act out those crazy scenes against a sixteen-year-old?
Shit.
She was gorgeous. And when she opened her mouth for lines at that read through I probably looked like she'd hit me in the chest. I mean, a person could happily choke listening to the thick velvet ribbons that spun from her lips.
But she was sixteen.
Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen.
***
Anyone who tells you that what happens on stage is just pretend has never been on stage. I mean, it is pretend, it’s not real life…and yet it is its own kind of reality. Like being on stage is its own world, where the rules don’t matter. Relationships between actors in a play are deep and unexplainable. I mean, you’re not together…but you are. You’re more together on stage than you are with anyone in real life. There’s only so much acting that goes into making something believable…and the rest is real. You pour yourself into a role and you leave a part of yourself there. You get so deep into your character’s head that at some point it’s not possible to completely come back out.
I knew my last scene of the play was going to be rough to block. My character had to toss Stefia’s character around the stage like she was a ragdoll and have his way with her. It wasn’t just a quick thing, either. It was this scene that went on and on.
Stefia was only sixteen.
“Okay,” David said, sitting the two of us down before blocking. “Here’s the deal. This is a big scene. This is a huge scene. And this is one of those scenes an actor could get injured in.”
“Well, block it the right way so we don’t, David,” Stefia teased.
“Follow the blocking and you’ll be fine,” he corrected. “It's easy to get lost in what’s happening and find yourself out of control.”
“You’re the director,” Stefia said, with a polite curtsey. “We are your loyal servants.”
I snorted and gave David a sweeping bow, adding, “Good sir, we are here to do your will.”
“Okay, you guys,” David laughed. “I get it.”
David walked us through where he wanted us to stand, where he wanted us to move, what he had envisioned for the scene and how he thought it would play itself out. Lots of times he would give a direction, and then look to Stefia to see her reaction. Like then Paul is going to jump on top of you and straddle you with his knees… I mean, she was the sixteen-year-old, right? We had to be careful with her.
We tried it a few times, at every rehearsal, but it didn’t feel right. I thought once we were off book and weren’t fumbling with a script, it would get better, but it didn’t. It felt weird. It felt fake. And I knew it wasn’t right because David looked so tentative. He walked around the stage, rubbing his chin with his fingers, then he poked at his temples. He sighed three times before he said anything.
“You’ve got to let go,” he finally said to me. “You’re holding back.”
He was right. I was.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” I said. “I’ve never had to act a scene like this. How do you make this believable without causing actual pain?”
“I’ll let you know if it’s too much,” Stefia interrupted. “I’m not little. I’m not weak.”
“I’m not saying you are, I’m just…”
“Trust me. I’ll let you know.”
“But how are you going to let me know? If you say stop or you’re hurting me or don’t do that I’m going to assume that’s all part of your ad-libbed lines.”
“It helps to have a code,” David suggested. “Something that has nothing to do with lines so you won’t get confused that she’s ad-libbing. Maybe an action, but not something that�
�s obvious to the audience if it happens. So…think on that, okay?”
“Okay,” we said at the same time.
“Now, let’s run it once more,” David said. “And this time, I want you both to let go. I challenge you to try and make me stop the scene because it’s too much.”
Stefia grinned and said, “I’m always up for a challenge.”
And so we took it. At first it was hard to get into that hardcore character. There’s something embarrassing about being that physically violent—or physically vulnerable—when someone is watching. But we kept at it. Stefia’s eyes encouraged me to keep going, giving me a power that I wouldn’t have known I could even pretend to have. David just kept watching intently and nodding, so I knew we were getting closer.
By the time the scene ended, Stefia had smacked me in the face, I had called her a few names that weren’t in the script, and we were both breathing so hard I thought she was going to pass out.
I looked up.
David smiled.
“You’re getting there,” he said. “That was a huge improvement.”
I smiled.
“Was that okay for you, Stefia?” David asked.
She was still sitting on the floor by the bed where scene had ended, trying to catch her breath. But she nodded at David.
“Positive?” I asked, putting my hand out in front of her to help her up.
“Yes,” she said, pushing herself up on her own. “Positive.”
She stood up, gave me a quick smile, and straightened her clothes.
I got it. We’d keep it professional. In a role like that, it was easier for us to not get involved too much with each other. The better I knew her, the harder it would be to toss her around.
And besides, she was only sixteen.
**
After the last dress rehearsal, everyone went to a little place in town called Beidermann’s. Tradition, Stefia said. Burgers, fries, and shakes all on Niles’ and James’ tab.
“Nice guys, paying for all that,” I said, sitting by Stefia and waiting for our food.
“They’ve got money.”
“Are they a couple?”
“Oh, god. No,” she laughed. “James is married to Mary. Niles and them all went to college together. Theater geeks from the beginning.”
“Theater geeks…with money.” I laughed. “Is Niles married?”
She turned to take her food from the waitress who was balancing all of our food on one tray.
“Niles? No. Not married. Why?”
“Just trying to figure this whole theater group out,” I said, taking my own plate as Stefia passed it to me. “I’m not from around here, you know. Kind of seems like everyone knows everyone and everything about them, except for me.”
“You’re an implant.”
“An outsider,” I said, putting my hands up and wiggling my fingers like I was talking about a ghost.
“But that’s okay,” she said. “And besides. Not everyone knows everyone here. Or everything about them.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, taking a fry and pushing it through the puddle of ketchup I had squirted on my plate. “This is small town America.”
“People still keep secrets,” she said, and when I raised a doubtful eyebrow, she continued. “Okay. See the table over there?”
Stefia pointed at a teenaged couple sitting against the opposite wall. They were eating ice cream cones and laughing.
“First date?” I said.
“Nope. They’ve been dating six months.”
“They look happy.”
“She’s pregnant. Just found out a month ago.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not his.”
“Oh.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Wait. He doesn’t know she’s pregnant or he doesn’t know that it’s not his?”
“Neither,” she said. “He doesn’t know either thing.”
I wagged my head with an I-told-you-so smile.
“See, Stefia? That’s what I mean. This is small town. You know lots about lots of people. Everything about everyone, that’s how small towns work.”
She took a bite of her burger and then wiped a drip of mustard off her chin.
“But that guy with Miss Pregnant?” she said, pointing back at the couple. “He doesn’t know the biggest important news about her. Get it? Not everyone here knows everything about everyone.”
“I thought everyone in small towns liked to talk.”
“Oh, they do. But they also know how to keep secrets.”
The waitress brought our shakes and we all moved to make room for them on the table.
“Mmm, chocolate,” Stefia said when she sucked some of hers up the straw. “My favorite.”
“You know, you should really cut out of this little town,” I said.
“And go where?”
“Somewhere with a bigger theater district.”
“Oh. Sure. New York, where everyone’s dreams are chewed up and spit out.”
“No, not New York,” I said, shaking my head. “New York is too cutthroat. Everything they say about New York is true. You never get a chance to do a show. But there are a billion other hubs for theater around the country. I mean, even just head down to Minneapolis…”
“Or I could just stay here.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re really talented and they need people like you there.”
She shook her head and took another pull off her shake.
“Come on, Paul. You expect me to believe you don’t say that to all your leading ladies?”
“I don’t. I promise.”
“Paul, seriously.”
“Listen,” I said. I set my shake down and turned my chair to face her. “Look at me.”
She turned to look at me with a grin, but then saw how serious I was and her smile faded. “You’re a really talented actress. You’re good.” Then I leaned in closer by her ear and whispered, “You’re way better than everyone in this show. Shit, you’re better than me…”
“I am not.”
“I’m serious,” I said, sitting back in my chair
She smiled half-heartedly, but did not look away.
“That’s called a compliment, by the way. You need to learn how to take a compliment.”
“I’m fine with compliments,” she said, finally turning back to the table and swirling her straw in her shake. “I’m just not a fan of the strings that are often attached to them.”
I took my last fry and shoved it in my mouth.
“I just think you’re talented,” I said, “and I thought you should know. No strings attached.”
“Okay,” she smiled. “Thank you for the string-less compliment.”
She was gorgeous and she was sixteen and she was ah-ma-zing. No strings attached.
**
The opening night crowd for Don’t Mind If I Do was almost sold out. We figured that had something to do with all the local press talking up the sinful nature of the show, and Niles telling people to stay home if they didn’t want to see it.
An hour and seventeen minutes into the show, my big scene began. It started by me shoving her across the stage. She completed a well-blocked trip and fell on the ground, which wasn’t hard because my nerves had caused me to push her harder than normal. Then I sauntered over to her, kicked at her side and told her to get up. I screamed a ton of disgusting things at her, lines that you wouldn’t believe someone could actually put in a script, and yet if they were anything different, you’d call the entire scene unbelievable.
I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her kicking and screaming over to a dresser next to the bed. More lines were tossed out. We both blared and shrieked at each other until it seemed the stage lights might fall down on top of us. A few cast members off stage were watching, one stagehand biting her fingernails. I mean, biting her fingernails even after she’d watched it at least twenty-five times in rehearsal? Opening night made everything wa
y more intense. It was the lights, the audience…everything.
Two minutes and a bunch of dialogue into our scene, Stefia’s character was supposed to start fighting back. And I don’t know if it was nerves or what but she gave it all she had. And the more she gave, the harder I fought her. We got into it something serious. She was fighting back and I was fighting her and I wondered for a second if we weren’t acting anymore.
It was then I realized we’d never figured out the code to tell each other we’d gone too far. I mean, we had been following the blocking exactly, but everything seemed more sharp and vivid than it had ever been in rehearsal.
What was it David had said? These were the scenes when actors get lost in what’s happening and lose control? Everything was different with an audience. When people watched, it multiplied everything you did by a million.
I grabbed her by the neck and looked into her eyes. I searched for something on her face that said what we were doing was still okay. I pushed her backwards onto the bed. She flipped over and tried to crawl away on her hands and knees but I grabbed her by the ankles, pulled her towards me and turned her onto her back.
She is sixteen.
She is sixteen.
She is sixteen.
I was supposed to tear her costume right down the front of her. There were two reasons this was supposedly okay. First, since the bedding was positioned just so, and because of how she was blocked to lay on the bed as this happened, the audience would never see any nudity from Stefia. David had assured her of that multiple times. Secondly, her costume was specially made so that no matter how hard I tore the fabric, it would only rip down to a certain point. Which meant I would see minimal nudity, if any, from Stefia.
That’s how it was supposed to go.
She lay on the bed, still acting as though she was trying to get away, and I climbed on top of her, straddling her between my knees. I grabbed at the neckline of her costume and tore with the same force I’d torn in all the dress rehearsals.
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