Read My Lips (A College Obsession Romance)

by Daryl Banner

  He lifts a brow. “You want me to sleep with you?”

  “That’s not what I said!” I know he’s teasing me, but he stares at me as if that’s really what I asked him. I make the pinching sign again—No. “Am I doing that right?” I murmur, repeating the sign by pinching two fingers against my thumb twice.

  A devilish smirk crosses his face. “Isn’t this how we got into trouble earlier? Sign language lessons?”

  I blush, then lean back on the couch, crossing my arms. He laughs, then pours himself a single shot. After giving me a quick, daring look, he downs it. His eyes turn to water and he slams the glass down on the table too hard and hoots. He wipes his mouth with the back of a wrist, connecting his eyes to mine as he leans back into the couch himself.

  Then, he asks, “So why Texas?”

  I shrug. “It looked like a good Theatre program.”

  He doesn’t seem to be looking at my lips. He leans the side of his face into the couch, inclined toward me with his hands in his lap and his dark eyes zeroed in on mine. The way he watches me, I feel like he’s penetrating right into my thoughts. I lay the side of my own head against the couch too, mirroring him and gazing at him.

  Then, in a moment that’s so fast it startles me, he swipes the phone out of my grip, types on it, then shines the screen at me:

  What was so bad in New York City

  that u had to run all the way

  down here?

  His question makes me sit up, as if the words on the screen hit my face. I can hear Claudio screaming again. I see my sister’s disapproving look. I picture my mother filling another damn glass of chardonnay and ignoring me. I imagine the empty rows of seats in the theater, dreading the day they would be filled.

  Then I think about the knot in my stomach that’s there because of the secret I’m keeping. The secret I’ve kept from every single person I’ve met so far. How can I make any real friends here if I can’t even be honest with any of them? I’m a liar. I was a liar the moment I stepped foot on campus.

  Clayton is something of an outcast too, if even a hair of the rumors are true. We are both, in our own ways, running away from what people think—or could think—of us. I feel like there’s so much more about us that’s alike than I expected. I feel oddly safe.

  “I want to tell you something,” I murmur, my eyes averted, “but … you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Can’t tell anyone?” he asks, to be sure that’s what I said.

  I meet his eyes sternly. “Yes. A secret.”

  “Secret,” he echoes, his own eyes turning severe.

  I press my lips together, then take his phone from his lap again. I type it all out. I mention my parents and who they are. I type that I got here because my dad knew someone in the department and pulled a string. I type that I feel embarrassed by it, that all I wanted was a normal college experience, no special treatment. I didn’t want anyone to know who my family was. After typing it out, I stare at the message for a solid minute, debating whether or not to delete the whole thing and not show him the screen.

  Then, after a deep sigh, I clench shut my eyes and hand the phone back to him, looking away.

  I dread his reaction so much. I don’t know why, but I feel like this little factoid about me could ruin everything. Sure, he wanted to know more about me, but maybe he’ll change his mind now. That, or things will start to get weird.

  After too long a moment, I dare to open my eyes, peering at him. He seems to either still be reading, or rereading my mini-novel. After a second, he looks up, letting the phone drop to his lap.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt right away. “I wasn’t trying to lie to anyone. I just wanted to start fresh. I just—”

  “Start fresh,” he echoes in a slurred murmur. “I wish … I wish I could start fresh.”

  His words fall on the ears of all those misgivings inside me, rousing them. What isn’t Clayton telling me? What life, if any, do all those stupid rumors have? Why won’t anyone be upfront with me, least of all Clayton himself? I wish he would just volunteer the information, the same way I just did. Please, Clayton, don’t make me drag it out of you.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” he says to me, his dark eyes locking with my worried ones. “Our secret.” Then he makes a fist and taps the thumb-side of it to his lips twice.

  I repeat the sign back to him. “Secret?” I murmur.

  “Secret,” he confirms.

  I smile appreciatively, despite the worry that’s still doing somersaults in my belly.

  “So,” he mumbles, “you’re … famous?”

  I snort. “My mother is. Maybe my sister someday. Not me. I’m nothing. I’m nobody.”

  “No,” he says, frowning. “You’re Dessie Lebeau.”

  “Desdemona,” I say, overpronouncing the name. “That’s my full name.”

  “Desermona,” he repeats slowly, though the word is shapeless in his mouth, the vowels bleeding together.

  I type it quickly into his phone, then show it to him. “Desdemona,” I repeat when his eyes return to my lips. “Shakespeare’s Desdemona. From Othello.”

  “Shakespeare, right,” he says, following.

  “They named my sister Celia,” I go on. “You know, after Shakespeare’s As You Like It. So she’s named after a woman who falls in love and has a happy ending, and I’m named after a woman who’s smothered to death with a pillow. But, you know, of course I am.”

  Though his eyes hover at my lips, I get the feeling he didn’t catch all that. He seems to be getting sleepy, or else the alcohol’s doing its number on him. The way he studies my lips, it makes me feel like he wants to kiss me again.

  I’m one hundred percent positive that I would let him, and one hundred percent positive that it would lead to a second round of couch-wrestling that I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have the strength to resist.

  “I should go,” I murmur to him.

  At my words, the tiniest pinch of frustration runs across his face. Then, he lifts his head and says, “You sure?”

  “It’s late,” I say, not bothering with checking the time; I’m sure it’s hardly even eleven o’clock yet. “I have lines to learn before Monday. Like, a lot of them.”

  He doesn’t seem to follow what I’m saying. Now, the frustration in his face seems far less easy to hide. The alcohol is betraying him, showing all those truer feelings that he keeps trying to keep out of my view.

  “I gotta go,” I repeat.

  “Don’t go,” he mumbles, hardly intelligible.

  “Sorry.” I push myself off the couch.

  He’s on his feet as fast as I am, though his knee hits the coffee table in his effort of getting up and the shot glasses clatter loudly. “You sure?”

  That would be his second time asking. And no, I’m not sure. In fact, I do want to stay. I want to tackle him to the floor as well. I want to eat this man alive.

  “Yes,” I say instead.

  “Can I walk you back to your dorm?” he murmurs suddenly, his voice strained.

  Between him getting jumped today and Victoria’s warning my first day here, I give him a quick nod, and that seems to wash away all the frustration in his eyes.

  We cross the campus in silence. No ninjas jump out from behind bushes, and no ski-mask-wearing thugs emerge from around corners with guns. I was reluctant for a moment before we left his apartment, judging whether or not he was drunk or just “a little buzzed”, but as we stroll across the disconcertingly unpopulated campus at night, I find myself incredibly thankful to have him walking by my side. I couldn’t have a better escort than Clayton Watts, who does not look like someone you would want to mess with.

  We reach the Quad too soon. I wish the walk had lasted for hours.

  I pull out my phone and type out a message, then aim the too-bright screen at him, causing his eyes to squint as he reads it:

  Thanks for escorting me, Clayton.

  He scowls at me after reading, then plucks the phone right out of my hands and types on it for
quite a while. I’m about to ask what’s taking so long when he finally hands the phone back to me. I read:

  I gave you my number and took yours.

  Hope that’s OK.

  Text me sometime?

  I feel my heart lift up into my throat. I can’t fight the dumb grin that happens on my face. I nod at him with a bit more enthusiasm than I intend.

  “Good night, Dessie,” he murmurs, giving me the gift of his soft, velvety voice.

  “Good night, Clayton,” I return, giving him the gift of my moving lips in silence, then slip into West Hall, the doors slamming behind me with a big boom.

  I texted him to make sure he made it back safe.

  When my phone buzzed with his reply, I giggled and cuddled the phone on my bed like a dumb, crush-obsessed teenager. The script for Our Town was long forgotten for the rest of the night as Clayton and I texted back and forth until one in the morning.

  I learned what his favorite food is (teriyaki ribs), the name of his high school (Yellow Mills High), how horrible he is at math, that he’s an only child, how his mom’s a chain smoker and his dad’s a sex addict and somehow against all odds they’re still together, and how he had to take two semesters off because he couldn’t pay tuition during “a rough time” and that’s why he’s only starting his third year when he should be graduating this year.

  I also got a detailed description of how he’d light the stage if he was given the chance for Our Town, with a clever idea or two for how he pictures the funeral and graveyard scene to look in the third and final act of the play. I grinned stupidly for hours and, lost in a digital world full of Clayton, already couldn’t wait until the next time I would get to see him.

  When Sunday came, I had a quiet breakfast with Sam, who was all aflutter (read: almost undetectably less deadpan than usual) about a music composition project she’s been assigned by her Theory prof. I congratulated her absentmindedly, wondering how long I should wait before texting Clayton again.

  It was in the afternoon that I finally caved and sent him a text. The phone rested on my lap while I studied Our Town on a bench by the Art building, memorizing Emily’s lines distractedly while shooting glances down at my lap to see if he’d responded yet.

  He never did.

  I went to sleep that night with a scowl on my face. Sam had gotten some cheap composition software for her ancient laptop and wanted my opinion on a song as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and I pretended not to hear her, turned away toward the wall and staring at the blank screen of my phone, waiting for a reply that never came.

  So after a miserable Sunday like that, why would I expect Monday to bring me anything good?

  On my way into acting class, I see Victoria. She stands in front of the box office chatting with Eric at the window. They draw silent at my arrival. My stomach dances in the bad way at the sight of her. It’s the first time I’ve really seen her since the cast list was posted. How she’s managed to avoid me for this long is a total mystery, considering she lives directly across the hall from me.

  “Hello,” she says coolly.

  Between Clayton not answering my texts from yesterday and my own inner frustrations, I find myself in a state of having little to no patience. “Victoria.”

  “Desdemona Lebeau,” she murmurs, crossing her tiny arms and tilting her head. “Daughter of Winona Lebeau, Broadway star and film actor, and Geoffrey Lebeau, world-renowned lighting designer.”

  My heart stops. “Listen …” I try to say.

  “It’s called Google, honey.” Victoria scoffs at me, shaking her head. “Unless you’re about to proclaim that there’s actually two Desdemona Lebeaus—”

  “Please,” I beg her and Eric, rushing up to the window. “I didn’t mean to lie to anyone. I just didn’t want to be given any … special treatment, or … Listen, I just want to be another normal student, just like you guys, and—”

  “Ugh, I feel so normal,” groans Victoria mockingly. “Don’t you feel that, Eric? Don’t you feel that sting of normalcy? Gosh, we’re so bloody normal.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” I beg her anyway, despite how quickly all trace of hope for her to respect my wishes is evaporating. “Please, Victoria … Eric …”

  “Who would I tell? Who would care? You think we have nothing better to do with our days than sit around and talk about The Dessie From New York?” Victoria smirks. “Get over yourself. I have an audition at a community theater in-town tomorrow and an audition for Freddie’s play in November. I’m an actor and a big girl, Desdemona. When I don’t get cast, I get over it and move on. It’s an actor’s life.”

  Her words do their intended job of pummeling me in the stomach. It isn’t lost on me that she’s calling me by my full name deliberately. That almost bothers me more than anything she’s already said.

  Also, it hardly sounds like she’s moved on. “I’m sorry for lying to you. To both of you. I really am. Victoria, you were the first person I met here. Please, don’t let this ruin our—”

  “I’ll see you later, Eric,” she says, turning to him at the window. “Lunch, maybe?”

  He smiles tiredly, but it looks more like a grimace.

  Then, Victoria saunters off, departing through the front glass doors. When I look back at the window, Eric’s on the box office phone helping a customer, his eyes going everywhere except to me.

  What a lovely start to a lovely day.

  I text Clayton while I have lunch with Sam sitting across from me in the UC food court. I’ve already dumped all my frustrations on Sam, subjecting her to all my worries as of late, from Clayton’s refusal to answer my texts, to Victoria’s complete one-eighty (sans the whole who-I-really-am thing), to the fact that rehearsals start tonight for Our Town and I am still swimming in fractures of lines that I do not have memorized. Not to mention a voice class routine I need to have ready to perform by tomorrow. Or a Thai Chi group-thing for my movement class I’m assigned to do Thursday. All the stress has me passing a banana and another half of a sandwich off to Sam, insisting I can’t eat it and meaning it this time.

  When I finally get to the rehearsal room at six, my stomach feels hollowed out. I sleepwalk through the most of it, watching listlessly as the Stage Manager character is given the blocking for the opening scene—which basically means he’s told where to stand and who to direct his lines to and so on.

  For a solid hour, I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. I stare at the screen of my phone and consider all the logical reasons for why he’s not responding.

  I didn’t have sex with him. I put on the brakes.

  He’s bored with me. He’s moved on to some pretty chick he met in a math class, a chick who’s tutoring him and showing him exactly how to solve for X.

  He drowned himself in three more bottles of tequila and slept all day Sunday and simply missed my messages.

  He made a sudden career change and he’s an astronaut now. I’ll find him on the news walking the surface of Venus and insisting that it’s totally not as hot as scientists say, his flesh boiling and his hair bursting into flames.

  Then the voice of Nina cuts through all the turmoil of my head. “Desdemona.”

  I lift my eyes from the screen. Every actor in the room is staring at me. I’ve missed something.

  “Yes?” I say in a nearly inaudible choke, yet the word still carries perfectly in the dense silence.

  “Care to join us for this scene?” Nina’s patient voice rings through the room like a spear made of ice and stinging resentment, skewering me to the spot.

  I swallow hard. “Yes, of course. Sorry. Yes.”

  The script drops from my fumbling hand. I shove my phone away and pick up the script off the floor, thumbing through until I get to my first scene.

  “Stage left,” she dictates.

  I move, taking my place at where I guess to be the approximate entrance.

  “Your other left.”

  “Sorry.” I walk across to the other side of the room, my every foots
tep slamming against my ears. I feel the weight of every pair of eyes on me. Suddenly, I catch myself wondering if Victoria’s told anyone else what she discovered. Am I being paranoid? How many people in this room know who I really am?

  The rehearsal goes as rigidly and as horribly as I would have ever expected it to, regardless of mood. Every line I say is stiff and emotionless. Every place I walk to on the stage feels uncomfortable. I ask Nina to repeat her directions, feeling stupider each time I do. The cold, patient, half-lidded stare she gives me my whole time onstage makes me feel an inch tall.

  Rehearsal ends at ten and I can’t pack my things fast enough. When I throw my bag over a shoulder to go, a shadow drops over me. I look up to find Eric.

  “You look tense,” he notes with a grimace.

  I sigh, leaning against the wall. As most everyone else has left and it’s only us and a couple of stragglers chatting at the other end of the room, I drop my bag back down on the ground and blurt out, “I suck.”

  “Well …”

  “I suck so much, Eric.” I let it all out, exploding with every ounce of frustration these past couple days have packed into me. “Nina hates me. Ugh.”

  “Nina cast you. She doesn’t hate you.”

  “And Victoria hates me. And you hate me.”

  “No, no. I am not Victoria,” he tells me, wagging a finger in my face. “We are very separate people.”

  “You didn’t say anything when she went off on me in front of the box office,” I point out. “I just figured you agreed with her and—”

  “Victoria’s … touchy. She’s always been like that. Don’t think about her. And as for your sucking,” he goes on, “everyone sucks in rehearsal. That’s the point of rehearsal. The point is to suck. Did you even hear the Stage Manager’s twenty-thousand opening lines? He sounded like a cucumber with a mouth. So suck away, Dessie. Suck lots. Now is the time to suck.”

  I try to sigh, but it turns into a chuckle. “Is that what this is, then? Our Suck?”

  “Suck Town,” he agrees.