by Emma Scott
“I don’t know.” I sat back in my seat, thinking. “You could say my father’s an overbearing ass, like Polonius.”
Isaac nodded, his expression thoughtful. “It was his idea to move you out here in the middle of your senior year?”
“Yeah. Well, no. His boss transferred him. Even though my dad’s a senior VP, he obeyed without question. My mom loves Manhattan but even that wasn’t enough to keep us there.”
“Do you miss New York?”
“Not really.” I swallowed hard. This was veering a little too close to a spot marked X. “Turns out I like it here,” I said. “Something about Harmony feels secluded, and I think that’s what I need right now.”
“Why?” Isaac asked, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.
I can’t tell you that, Isaac, I thought. Not ever.
I shrugged, as if a flick of the shoulder could disperse the weight I carried. “Manhattan’s busy and kinetic and I guess I got tired of the pace. Things move slower here. Maybe that’s why you don’t like it?”
Ball back in his court. Good. Except Isaac didn’t answer. He only looked at me for a long time. And I knew. I knew he could see right through my pathetic segues and my clumsy subject changes. He knew I wasn’t telling the story. Yet I sensed he respected the not-telling. The kind of respect for silence only someone who hadn’t spoken for an entire year could have.
“Yeah, I’m leaving Harmony,” Isaac said finally. “Martin has some talent scouts coming to the opening night of Hamlet.”
I set down my coffee mug hard. “He does? Oh my God. Isaac, that’s amazing.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see. I keep thinking it’s like a guaranteed ticket out but…”
“It will be,” I said. “They’re going to shit their pants over you.”
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe. There will be much shitting of pants.”
He smiled with one side of his mouth. I had yet to see a full-blown grin or hear a hearty laugh from this guy. I wondered if I ever would before he moved out of Harmony.
He’s leaving Harmony, I thought, as if test-driving it. I didn’t like it.
“The theater won’t be the same,” I said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “Martin will miss you.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“Won’t you miss it here? Even a little?”
Isaac met my gaze steadily. “No,” he said, and stared hard at something over my shoulder. I turned to look.
Outside, two Plastics and their boyfriends walked past the window. They slowed when they saw us, snickered to each other and continued on.
“Great,” I muttered. “Commence milling of rumors.”
Isaac’s expression darkened.
“Not about you,” I said. “Me. Jessica Royce and Company is under the impression I auditioned for the play just to follow you around.”
Isaac’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
“It’s total bullshit,” I said. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”
Not anymore.
I straightened and drank the last cold dregs of my latte. “Anyway, I don’t give a shit what they think. Do you want to get out of here?”
Isaac frowned. “And go where?”
“I don’t know. Let’s get out and walk. I didn’t see much of Harmony when it was under the snow. You can show me the highlights.”
“Harmony has no highlights.”
“Impossible. Every place is famous for something.”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “I know a place.”
Isaac
Willow and I stepped out the coffeehouse into the chilly air. As I blinked under the bright sun, it hit me how I’d told this girl—a virtual stranger—everything about my mother. Without feeling like I should be choking it all down. Telling secrets was part of Marty’s assignment, I supposed, but it didn’t explain why the words fell easily from my mouth. As easily as they did when I was performing. No acting this time. I’d been myself for a few precious minutes and it didn’t suck. It was bearable.
Willow made being myself bearable.
I hunched deeper in my jacket and glanced down at her, no longer seeing the Manhattan rich girl living a perfect, pampered life. She closed her eyes, turned her face to the sun and inhaled a deep, cleansing breath.
She needed Harmony in her veins. She left something behind in New York. Something that was destroyed or taken away from her. It wasn’t her idea to come to this town, but once here, she found her escape. Her chance to hide. Or maybe rebuild?
She wouldn’t tell me but she didn’t have to. She’d given me so much already.
“Where are we headed?” she asked.
“Just up here,” I said.
We turned a corner and I led us north, out of downtown. The shops and buildings lining the street were replaced by tall trees—maple, oak and dogwood—just starting to turn green again.
We passed through a small neighborhood, row after row of one-story houses, each no more than eight or nine hundred square feet. Kitchen gardens and low fences separated the lots. Children’s toys lay scattered on the grass, spilling onto the sidewalks, as if they belonged to everyone. Wind chimes played a hollow tune.
“These houses are so cute,” Willow said, her eyes lit up. “What is this neighborhood?”
“It’s called The Cottages. Artsy-type folk live here.”
“Is this what you wanted to show me?”
“No.” I glanced down at her. “You like it?”
“I love it,” she said. “So quiet. And peaceful.”
We passed a house with a pottery wheel in the front yard. Another with small wrought iron sculptures of Kokopelli with his flute, sunbursts and small horses.
“Can’t you picture it?” Willow said. “Having a little house like this? You come out in the morning with a script, drink your coffee and watch the sun come up?”
I nearly stopped walking as her words punched me in the chest. I passed by The Cottages hundreds of times—thousands of times. All the years I lived here, I never thought anything except how lonely it would be to live in this corner of the world.
As we passed the last row of little houses, I saw them through Willow’s eyes. The curtains of my imagination opened on a scene: sitting on a front porch with a cup of black coffee, a script in my lap. Watching the sun rise over the green of the trees and spill between the leaves. Soft arms went around my neck, a lock of long blonde hair fell over my arm and soft lips brushed my jaw, whispering, “Good morning…”
I shook myself out of the reverie.
Nice fantasy, dumbass.
Another curtain rose: me spending another twenty years living in Harmony with my shitty home life dogging me. Half the town afraid of me, the other half judging and whispering. My father’s drunken rampages more famous than my acting. The Pearce name associated with a rotting junkyard sign, not lit up on a marquee.
Fuck this place.
Willow didn’t miss the dark expression on my face this time.
“Not a fan?”
“No,” I said. “I want out.”
“Which do you think?” she asked. “Hollywood or Broadway?”
“Whichever will take me.”
She frowned. “You don’t care? Wouldn’t it be really different to act on film as opposed to being on stage? Wouldn’t you miss the energy of a live audience?”
“Yeah, I guess I would,” I said. “But I’ve never really thought about acting beyond as a means to an end. Using it to get out.”
“Really?” Her face scrunched up as if she had just smelled something rotten. She fell silent, but with more questions behind her eyes.
“Go ahead,” I said. “You can say it. I’m egotistical. Or ungrateful for what I have.”
She shot me a look. “Now that you mention it…”
A small laugh ground out of me like a rusty gear. Instead of feeling insulted, I loved that I didn’t intimidate her.
“I get it,” I said. “But I do
n’t think of what I can do as talent or a gift. It’s an escape.”
“But can’t you feel what it does to the people who watch you act? It’s like a gift of transportation. An escape for us too.”
I stopped walking and looked down at her. “I’m glad it can be that for you. For anyone watching. But for me…” I shrugged. “It’s all I have.”
“I feel the same,” she said. “Like I was a little bit lost and then Hamlet fell into my lap. To help me find my way again.” Her laugh was nervous. “That sounds all kinds of dramatic. And probably silly.”
“It’s not silly,” I said. “Things happen for a reason, I guess.”
“You think?” Her voice suddenly went sharp. She stopped, her expression twisting in confusion and disbelief. “Everything happens for a reason?”
I blinked at her sudden fury. “I don’t know. Martin’s always telling me—”
“Your perfectly healthy mom having a stroke and dying happened for a reason? You said yourself, it was meaningless.”
My jaw clenched, my own blood rising. I jabbed a finger at my chest. “I get to say what that meant to me. Not you. Not anyone.”
“Exactly,” she fired back. “It’s your story. I hate ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Like someone’s pain doesn’t mean anything yet, but someday it will and then everything will be all right again. It’s bullshit.” She looked up at me, and her expression changed again, tear-filled eyes almost begging me. “What do we do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Try to get by. To survive.”
She held my gaze a moment, then nodded. “I’m sorry but…” She ran her fingertips beneath her wet eyes. “Some things happen and it’s like the power going out. Or the volume turns down to mute.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Until.”
“Until?”
“It’s something my grandmother told me once. She said every story has an until. Something bad happens that shows the character what they want most. But where is the until that puts everything back together? When does the character actually get what they want most?”
“When they allow themselves to have it,” I said. My hands itched to brush the lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek. “Or when they go and take it.”
“That’s why you’re leaving Harmony,” she said.
“Yes.”
She nodded, then huffed a sigh. The strength returned to her voice. “I wish I was as brave as you.”
“Auditioning for a part in Shakespeare’s most famous play without having acted a day in your life sounds pretty brave.”
“Or stupid,” she said, with a small laugh. “I’m sorry for what I said about your mom.”
“Don’t be.”
“Too late. I am.” She was smiling again and my eyes were drawn to her full lips that glistened with a touch of gloss.
I wondered what it tasted like…
Willow jerked her chin down the street. “That must be what you wanted to show me.”
I followed her gaze to the Harmony Amphitheater across the street.
“Yeah,” I said, snapping my eyes away from her. “Yeah, that’s it.”
We crossed the quiet street and passed under a freestanding square arch of white stone. The theater was a circle made of tiers of cement stairs that wrapped all the way around with a stage in the center. Random, free-standing cement blocks were placed here and there around it, as a kind of abstract decor. Green grass surrounded the amphitheater, or it would be green once spring came. Now the sun beat down on muddy patches in the brown and yellow turf.
“I come here sometimes at night,” I said. “To smoke and be alone.”
“I can see why.” She held out her arms. “Why didn’t Martin stage Oedipus out here?”
“Too cold in January.”
“Oh, right. But summer time? Does he do shows?”
“No. Too expensive to rent.”
“Bummer,” she said. “Can’t you just see it? Shakespeare-in-the-park?”
“I can,” I said, easily imagining Willow building a life here. A house in The Cottages and a summer of Shakespeare in her backyard. While I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
“So can Marty,” I said. “He dreams of expanding the theater program to outdoor productions.”
“Why doesn’t he?” Willow said, climbing up on one oblong block of cement. She sat and dangled her booted feet over the edge.
“No funds,” I said. I leaned against the block, my shoulders level with her waist. “He won’t tell me much, but the previous owner of HCT didn’t manage the books very well.”
“Is it serious?” Willow asked. And the genuine concern in her voice made my damn heart swell.
“I don’t know. But it’s another reason I need to get out of here. I can’t make any money here. But out there,” I waved my hand to indicate basically anywhere but Harmony. “I have a shot. I can help him out.”
“You won’t forget where you got your start,” Willow said, her voice softening.
I shrugged, but smiled to myself and reached for my Winstons. “You mind if I smoke?”
“Yes and no.”
I glanced up at her, squinting. The sun was behind her, turning her long, wavy hair into a golden halo around her.
She looks like goddamn Lady Godiva.
I cleared my throat. “Yes and no?”
“Yes, I mind because it’s not good for you. No, the smoke won’t bother me.”
I nearly put my smokes away.
Do not start with that changing-yourself-shit, Pearce. You’re leaving.
I tapped a cigarette out of the pack, put it between my lips and lit it with my silver Zippo. As I exhaled my first drag, I noticed a small black X inked on the knee of Willow’s jeans. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” she said, a little too fast. “I doodle when I’m bored. Paulson was putting me to sleep the other day.”
I nodded. I wasn’t an expert on clothes, but I could tell her jeans didn’t come out of the bargain bin at The Outpost. Designer brands ran at ninety bucks a pair. Not something you wanted to mark up with black ink.
Let it go.
I took a drag and looked over the amphitheater. I liked coming here at night, when the white stones glowed in the moonlight. My own Stonehenge. In the light of day, the space echoed with all the activities it hosted in Harmony: the fair in summertime, the occasional wedding ceremony and the high school graduation I wasn’t invited to.
“I heard George Mason High holds graduation here,” Willow said, apparently reading my mind. “Are you going?”
“No.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Nope.”
“What about all the other school events and experiences? Football games…” She kicked her feet against the cement block. “Dances.”
I shrugged. “I’m nineteen. I’ve had enough of high school.” I glanced up at her. “I remember there’s a Spring Fling or something coming up. You going?”
Oh shit. It sounded like I was asking her. I didn’t even go to the school anymore; I couldn’t ask her. Could I?
“No, I’m not going,” she said slowly.
“There might be rehearsal that night,” I said, tossing my cigarette on the ground. “Is why I mention it.”
“True. And anyway, no one’s asked me.”
“Justin hasn’t asked you yet?” My voice was casual and I slouched as I looked out over the amphitheater. Just a guy making conversation. Oscar-caliber acting.
“What? No. Justin and I are only friends.”
“I got the impression…” I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“The impression I like him?”
I looked back at her. “That he likes you.”
“Oh,” she said, her brows coming together. “God, I hope not. He’s nice enough. I mean, he gives me a ride after rehearsal. But…”
I felt myself craning forward for the rest of her sentence, my ego gleefully throwing o
ut suggestions.
He’s dumb as a brick.
He secretly can’t read.
He farts when he laughs.
“It feels more brotherly to me than anything else,” she finished. “I suppose because he’s playing Laertes.”
“Yeah,” I said and my ego high-fived itself.
“I’m so…not into being with someone right now,” Willow said with a nervous lilt to her words. “Not for a while, anyway.”
I heard a whisper on the breeze, or ever again. A heaviness in her eyes hinted she had lost something and had almost given up trying to find it.
She hasn’t given up, I thought, a fierce admiration welling in me. That’s why she’s doing the play. To find it again.
In that moment, I vowed to try to cut out all the egotistical bullshit and jealousy over Justin. The dance was out of range now anyway. I couldn’t ask her to go even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. My job was to help her find what she was looking for in Hamlet, however I could. Even as it dented my eagerness to get the hell out of Harmony.
Willow shielded her eyes from the sun and squinted at me. “So what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you like anyone?” she asked, her voice a half tone higher than usual. She laughed. “That’s such a high school thing to ask.”
“No,” I said. “If all goes to plan, I’m leaving Harmony, remember? Stupid to start something now.”
“Sure. Makes sense.”
A silence fell.
“Yeah, so I probably won’t go to the dance,” Willow said. “I’m not good in that kind of situation anymore.”
“What kind of situation?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. I should get back.”
Willow started to scoot down off the block. I held my hand out to her to help. She hesitated for a fraction of a second and then took it. I held my other hand out and she took that too. I steadied her as she hopped down and then we were standing face to face. Close enough I could see her pale blue eyes had lighter shards of blue in them, like a topaz. Close enough to smell the sweetness of her breath—coffee tinged with sugar. Close enough to dance if we wanted.
“Thanks,” Willow said, gazing up at me.