Little Disquietude

by C. E. Case

  The mention of opening night made Leah nauseous. She knelt next to Adam and breathed through her nose. Even Ward looked green, standing over them. Adam pulled out two tickets and offered them to Leah.

  Leah took them and said, "Adam? These are in Charlotte."

  "Did you think there was opera in Durham?"

  "But--"

  "You're not riding with us, either."

  Leah shrugged. She stood up and said, "It'll be a nice break. A way to remember there's something else to live for besides Poe."

  Adam looked wounded.

  * * *

  She went to the ensemble dressing room to change, nodding to the Macbethians gathered to gossip and get ready for the rehearsal. Then she slung her garment bag over her shoulder, checked that the opera tickets were in the back pocket of her jeans, and went upstairs to Sophia's dressing room.

  There was a sign taped to the door that said Sophia Medina, and another sign that said Joyce Tam and Erica Rosen, the female leads for South Pacific. South Pacific ran that night, after the put-ins and dinner, so Leah knocked cautiously.

  "Come in," Sophia's voice called.

  Leah turned the knob and swung the door open. Sophia, leaning down in front of the mirror to put her hair in a pony tail, smiled when she saw Leah's reflection.

  "I've never been here," Leah said.

  "It'll all be yours when we leave."

  Something cold settled into Leah's stomach. She put her hand over it and said, "Try to keep it clean, then."

  She let the door swing shut as she walked further into the room. Sophia had pictures, toys, and Nutrigrain bars on a high shelf labeled Sophia, and a black bag was next to her feet.

  "You can put your stuff down," Sophia said.

  Leah let the backpack slide to the floor, and then put her garment bag on top of it. "We got costumes today."

  "What does it look like?"

  "Come to opening night and see," Leah said.

  "Comp me some tickets."

  "Sure. I get four. You can sit next to my mother, my father, and my sister."

  "They're coming? That's so sweet."

  "Didn't yours come?"

  "Well...yes. Eventually."

  "I'm hoping mine won't be stuck next to any reporters. My dad tends to make comments."

  "Does he like musical theater?"

  Sophia was standing, facing her, but hadn't moved. She stayed rooted in spot, and so did Leah, feeling awkward, wondering what she was doing there, and what Sophia expected her to be doing.

  "In theory. But the things he's seen--the things I've done--I die in Poe twice. That's not going to thrill him. But at least I won't be going topless."

  Sophia's eyes dropped to her chest, and then the gaze returned to Leah's face. "Really?"

  "I was in college."

  "Sure you were."

  "Hey, I had a solo."

  They both laughed and Leah crept closer to lean against the makeup table. "Do you like opera?"

  "In the sense of--being in it?" Sophia asked.

  "Just going."

  Sophia shrugged. "I've only been to one. My mother took me to Amahl and the Night Visitors when I was four."

  "Golden opportunity, then."

  "Does Durham actually have an opera?"

  "Charlotte."

  Sophia frowned. "That's--"

  "South. Westish." Leah gestured in a vague direction.

  "I was going to say, the home of NASCAR."

  "Do you prefer that? Because I didn't get comped tickets to any races."

  "Opera it is, then."

  Leah realized Sophia had tacitly agreed without even asking when it was, to say she might be washing her hair. She blushed. "It's Monday."

  Sophia tilted her head.

  Leah dug out a ticket and asked, "Want to come?"

  "Yes," Sophia said. There was rose in her cheeks, too, and when she took the ticket from Leah's hand, her fingers brushed Leah's wrist.

  "There's a problem," Leah said.

  "What?"

  "We don't have a car."

  "I'll borrow one."

  "There's another problem."

  "You don't drive, do you?"

  "I'm from New York."

  "Welcome to the South, honey," Sophia said.

  "We could take a train. Amtrak."

  Sophia took a step closer. "Don't you trust me?"

  "Isn't driving hard?" Leah reached out and took Sophia's hands.

  "Not compared to acting," Sophia said, leaning over Leah, pushing against her hands.

  "How about singing?" Leah asked, and lifted up to kiss her.

  Sophia kissed her back, without comment, sealing their lips and wrapping her arms around Leah's neck. Leah pulled Sophia against her waist. She hugged Sophia tightly, rewarded when Sophia intensified the kiss.

  When they broke off to catch their breath, to soothe their racing heartbeats, they didn't speak. Sophia just nuzzled Leah's cheek, let Leah kiss her jaw and her neck, and then they kissed again, tongues stroking, teeth grazing lips, their mouths pressing together and breaking apart and pressing together again with more pressure. Leah could only hear her own panting, and Sophia's, and neither heard the knock on the door until Geoffrey stuck his head in and said, "Sophie, you're late."

  Sophia pulled back, breathing hard. Leah's face burned with embarrassment. She didn't look at Geoffrey, but Sophia grabbed her bag and left, her hand brushing Leah as she went.

  "Isn't that Leah Fisher?" Geoffrey asked, outside.

  "Yeah."

  "Holy crap."

  Leah crept to the door, to hear them as they reached the stairs.

  Geoffrey said, "She's the headliner!"

  "Well, I'm not an understudy anymore, Geoff."

  "Brilliant."

  Then they disappeared down the stairs, and Leah couldn't hear any more. She wrote down her phone number on a stack of stage manager notes, and added, as an afterthought, "Call me."

  * * *

  Leah went back to rehearsal, in one of the empty rooms away from the stage, just a piano and a folding table. Adam lost his temper. He moaned, raged, slammed his hands down on the keys to make awful sounds.

  "It's not you," he said. "It's just not coming together. The costumes aren't what I wanted. The stage is all wrong. The music won't flow into the words. Why can't you make it flow?" This, he directed to Leah.

  She turned to Ward, but he was just as terrified as she was. His eyes were wide, and he hadn't said much. Usually he'd boast and annoy her and tell Adam, "I can do this--Don't give me direction, I can do this."

  Today he mumbled his lines, stepped on hers, and forgot the lyrics to "A Dream within a Dream." She sat in a folding chair, since there was no wall to hide behind, and felt nothing as he and Adam rehearsed.

  Ward glanced at Adam. Adam said, "You stand..."

  "You stand..." Ward sang.

  Adam cut him off and said, "I stand."

  "I stand amid the roar," Ward sang, and though his voice was beautiful enough, there was nothing behind it, nothing in the room with them, to echo the words. "Of a surf-tormented shore."

  Adam played the piano louder, forcing Ward to sing over him, to yell, "How few! Yet how they creep."

  Leah laughed. Adam banged the keys, and she laughed harder. Ward stopped singing, and fled. He slammed the door, leaving Leah alone with Adam.

  "What's so funny?" Adam asked.

  "Nothing. Nothing." Leah continued to giggle. She put her cheek against the table.

  "Stop it," Adam said. "I need you, here."

  "Find someone else," Leah said, and laughed. Hurt flickered across his expression, but she didn't care. She felt nothing, except a sickening sense of dread.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sophia didn't call until Friday, after a week of tech rehearsals so endless and exhausting that Leah could barely bring herself to shower each day.

  "I've got the car," Sophia said. "If you still want to go."

  "That's fantastic. How's Macbeth?"
She hadn't seen Sophia, not even in passing, for days. Were they dating? At least Sophia hadn't forgotten her name. Or maybe she just really loved Die Fledermaus.

  "Oh, Mac. I just want it to be over. I'm so tired of being so hateful and awful every night."

  "Better than playing a victim," Leah said. She felt overly cheerful, elated by the thought of the opera, compared to Sophia's serious, distant tone.

  Sophia said, "Elaine says it's the material, not the character's age, really, that makes older women play this part. There's just so much rawness and power here. She says that Desdemona and Lady Macbeth should be flipped, that Desdemona has the layers and Lady Macbeth is driven by one thing alone, but that it's unsustainable."

  "Does Lady Macbeth have a name, you think?" Leah asked.

  "Like, Sarah Macbeth?"

  "Or Jodie," Leah said.

  "Her real name was Gruoch," Sophia said. "But I think naming her takes away from her identity being born in her husband's. What she makes of him, she makes of herself."

  "That's feminism for you," Leah said.

  "That's the best we get. The role of the woman in theater is not especially liberated."

  "Hm."

  "But I'm working with a four hundred year-old text," Sophia said.

  "Well, I'm inhabiting a thirteen year old virgin, and my text is only a hundred and fifty years old. I'm not sure we're making progress."

  "Oh, great. I look forward to the opera, then."

  "Well, unless it's subtitled, we'll have no idea how subjugated the girls are."

  "Oh, I think we'll be able to tell."

  Leah smiled. She pressed the phone against her cheek. Warmth radiated through her chest. She'd only known Sophia few weeks and already Sophia was her closest confidante outside of Adam. She couldn't imagine what life was like before meeting Sophia, and didn't want to think about going back to New York, alone, and pretending this hadn't been a part of her life.

  She sighed.

  "When should I pick you up? Sophia asked. "The opera's at eight, it's at least a two and a half hour drive."

  "Will I survive two hours in a car with you?"

  "I suppose we'll find out," Sophia said. She cackled into the phone, and then added, "I have no idea where to hide a body, anyway."

  "And I could take you," Leah said. Though she doubted that was true. Sophia was almost certainly stronger, and Leah had never been in a fight in her life. Whenever boys pulled her hair in school, she curled up into a little ball and cried.

  "Four, then?" Leah asked.

  "We'll leave from the theater."

  "What kind of car is it?"

  "Oh. You'll find out."

  * * *

  The car was a ten year old Sebring, and Leah, freshly showered and wearing slacks and a blouse with too many black sequins on it that Adam had produced from his suitcase, gazed at the car with trepidation. She said, "It's so...large."

  "It's the safest thing on the road," Sophia said. "Unless it breaks down."

  Leah bit her lip.

  "Can you change a tire?" Sophia asked.

  Leah whimpered.

  "It'll be fine. I think. I drove you home from the airport, didn't I?"

  "True." Leah got into the car. Before she buckled her seatbelt, Sophia got into the driver's seat, and gave her a shy smile.

  "Are you wearing lipstick?" Leah asked.

  "For a three hour drive? No way." Sophia patted her purse.

  Leah leaned across the gearshift and kissed her. Sophia let out a muffled mmpf and kissed her back, reaching up to touch her cheek. Leah's eyelids drift shut. Sophia's lips brushed hers, making them tingle. She pressed harder. Sophia parted her lips. Leah's tongue darted in and found the warmth of Sophia's mouth. Sophia's tongue, strong and pointed, brushed against hers.

  Leah pulled back. Sophia smiled. Leah shifted in her seat, balanced herself on her knee, and kissed Sophia again, harder, forcing her tongue into Sophia's mouth. Sophia responded immediately, and hungrily, sucking on her tongue, bringing them even closer. Leah stroked Sophia's shoulder.

  Sophia wore a dress, red and sheer, and her arms were bare except for the thin strap that Leah brushed with her palm. She trailed her fingers down Sophia's arm.

  A horn honked behind them. Leah lifted her chin. Adam, in the next car, glowered.

  "Why isn't Ward leading?" Leah asked.

  "Boys are dumb."

  Leah fell back into her seat.

  "Buckle up for safety," Sophia said, and she turned the key in the ignition. Leah buckled her seatbelt.

  Sophia dabbed at her lips. She glanced shyly at Leah. Leah reached up to run her fingertips down Sophia's arm, and the car swerved. Leah grabbed the handle above her window with both hands.

  "The interstate's coming up," Sophia said. "Do you want to navigate?"

  "West," Leah said weakly.

  "It's a north-south highway."

  "South."

  Leah closed her eyes as the car pulled onto the on-ramp. "Let me know when we get somewhere pretty." Her phone buzzed. She reluctantly pulled it out and read a text message. "Adam says you drive like his granny."

  "If he's not good, I'm going to slam on my brakes and turn his car's muffler into mush."

  "Go ahead. It's just a rental."

  Sophia giggled.

  Leah rolled back against the headrest and smiled. The thought of a two hour conversation with Sophia, who'd been the quiet sort in the few weeks they'd been friends, excited and terrified her. Energy buzzed between them in the car, making Leah sweat, making her nervous, wanting to touch Sophia but wondering if Sophia wanted to be touched by someone she hardly knew. So she attempted to make Sophia talk about herself instead.

  On Leah's fifth, "Really?" they both lapsed into silence, and trees and lights flew past the windows. Leah turned away from the window and watched Sophia instead, captivated by the curve of her neck, the slope of her nose, and the blush of her cheeks when she caught Leah staring.

  Sophia curled her lips over her teeth and bit down.

  Retreating now seemed the worst course of action, but neither could Leah will herself to reach out and touch Sophia. Rejection would make it a long night, and an even longer drive back.

  The radio was off; to turn it on would be an admission that they had nothing to say to each other. Leah glanced out the back window. Adam was still there. Ward was sitting next to him, too close.

  Leah waved.

  Adam waved back.

  Ward smirked.

  Leah rolled her eyes. "Do you hate anyone in your cast?"

  Sophia shook her head. "They're all nice."

  Leah nodded.

  "But the director makes me cry." Sophia said it thoughtfully, as if imparting some bit of poetic information, but rage churned in Leah's chest.

  "He what?"

  Sophia shrugged. "He wanted to direct Elaine. They're friends. Old friends. Even longer than you and I have known each other," she said, flashing Leah a smile.

  "Unfathomable."

  "So, yeah. He got me, and he picked me, which means I'm better than everyone else he could have picked. I know that. But I'm not Elaine, I guess."

  "You moved me when I saw you on stage. Isn't that enough?"

  "But I want perfection--no, that's the wrong word. Perfect understanding."

  "Yeah," Leah said.

  "But he just wants Elaine." Sophia's voice caught on the last word, like tears were in her throat, blocking her voice. Leah squeezed her wrist. Sophia shrugged and tried to smile. She asked, "What about you?"

  "I just want someone to realize how awesome I am," Leah said.

  "Yeah?"

  "I know that sounds--awful. It does. But I don't want them to talk about Poe's wife when they come to review me. I want them to talk about how well I do it, how beautifully I sing. Like, I guess that's terrible, but--I want my chance."

  "To be better than everyone else?" Sophia asked.

  "Like you said. To be perfect. To be me."

  "I get it," S
ophia said.

  "But really, I just sing. As I'm told. I can't imagine how hard it is for Adam, wondering every day if he actually sucks at writing music when he hears the songs coming out of my mouth. Is it me who's going to fail? Or him? Or if we're both perfect, is anyone actually going to care? It's the end of tech rehearsals. I don't even care. "

  "Remind me again why we're in this business?"

  "We're neurotics," Leah said.

  "Oh, yeah. In that case, I guess it's our parents' fault?"

  Leah thought of her parents, and how much they supported her, and how much she disappointed them, even with her successes, even past age thirty, when they were still coming to see her plays. She let her hand slide down Sophia's arm, and tugged for her hand. Sophia squeezed her fingers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The two cars parked side-by-side at the opera house's parking deck. Sophia unbuckled her seatbelt. "So," she said.

  "So." Leah said. "Do you--"

  Adam tapped on the glass. "Drinks, ladies?" he asked.

  Leah unbuckled her seatbelt.

  "Wait," Sophia said, lifting up a finger to stop Adam. He stepped back from the car. Sophia looked at Leah and asked, "What were you going to say?"

  Leah's cheeks burned. She forced herself to meet Sophia's eyes, and asked, "Do you like me?"

  Sophia bit her lip.

  "It's okay, never mind," Leah said.

  "No." Sophia put her hand on Leah's arm. "My show's ending in a week, and I don't know where I'm going, and…" She paused.

  Leah swallowed.

  "And I do. I think. I really like you," Sophia said.

  Leah grinned.

  "Who are you?" Sophia asked.

  Leah laughed. She patted Sophia's hand.

  Adam tapped the glass again.

  "The opera awaits," Leah said. She got out of the car. Adam offered her his arm. Sophia took Ward's. Leah felt like she was playing dress-up. They all giggled together, and went into the opera house.

  Ward and Leah opted for orange juice while Sophia and Adam split a flute of champagne.

  "Five bucks, do they think I'm royalty?" Adam said.

  "You're a famous playwright, darling."