Inevitable and Only

by Lisa Rosinsky

  So it was settled. Mom and Dad were leaving right after my Sunday matinee—in fact, they were catching an airport shuttle directly from Fern Grove. Rina Crane overheard me telling Micayla and Heron this news at rehearsal on Monday night.

  “Oh, cool!” she said. “So you’ll be hosting the cast party, right? Parents out of town, time to party down!” She did raise-the-roof motions and danced around in a little circle.

  Micayla, Heron, and I stared at her.

  “Um,” I said, “I don’t think my parents would really—”

  But Rina had already run over to Tori, Sam, Kieri, and Priya, and I heard her telling them, “Cadie’s parents are going out of town and she’s hosting the cast party Sunday night! Spread the news.”

  I looked at Micayla and Heron, who shrugged helplessly.

  “We’ll watch out for you,” said Micayla. “It’ll be fine.”

  Heron nodded. “Yeah, we’ll be the bouncers. Anyone gets too drunk or rowdy, we kick ‘em out on their asses.”

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. “You think people will bring booze?”

  They both burst out laughing.

  “Girl,” said Micayla, “you are so cute sometimes. I forget you’re only a sophomore.”

  “And a drama virgin,” Heron added.

  “What the hell is that?” I demanded, feeling grumpy.

  “It’s your first play,” Heron explained. “Your first time treading the boards, as Robin would say.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I groaned. Opening night was four days away, and my stomach felt like a volcano getting ready to blow. Gross, I told myself. Never be a poet.

  We had full-cast rehearsal every night that week, which meant I barely had any time at home. But when I was home, I noticed the difference in the air as soon as I opened the front door. Mom wasn’t bringing work home with her anymore. She seemed to be humming constantly. And she was playing the piano again—her old favorite Beethoven sonatas, Chopin nocturnes, even Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I couldn’t believe she remembered all that music after not playing for so long. Dad was coming home early from Fine Print—Cassandra wanted to work some extra hours, he said. He and Mom went out to the grocery store together after work, and then she’d perch on a stool at the counter and sip a glass of wine while he cooked. One night, dinner wasn’t ready even by the time I got home, so I went up to my room to start on homework. Ten minutes later, I flew down the stairs because I thought I heard someone shouting, and instead I found Mom and Dad roaring with laughter at the kitchen counter.

  It was good to see them getting along again. I couldn’t deny it.

  But also, it meant I was the only one left who was still mad at Dad. And that made me feel like an island of misery that everyone else had sailed past. I was disappearing on the horizon. I was a speck. Forgotten.

  It didn’t help that Elizabeth still wasn’t speaking to me. Not that anyone else would’ve noticed. She was very polite, as always, and if I asked her a direct question, she’d answer. She’d just use as few words as possible. As we were getting ready for bed one night, I tried again to apologize for what she’d overheard Raven and me saying about her on Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving, but she just shrugged and said nothing.

  I wanted to ask Dad what to do, but there was an awkwardness between us anytime we were alone together—which didn’t happen very often, since I never went to Fine Print after school anymore, what with my busy rehearsal schedule. Every time I thought about talking to him alone, one-on-one, my stomach twisted a little. I knew it wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t help feeling like he was a different person than I’d thought he was. And somehow, Mom forgiving him for it made me feel even weirder. What else was there that I didn’t know about Dad? About Mom? They’d had lives before they were my parents—strange as that was to imagine. There were things about them I’d never know.

  I couldn’t tell if it was these thoughts that were keeping me awake every night, or if it was the countdown to Friday.

  Opening night.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When Tori and Rina tried to sneak a peek at the crowd from behind the curtains, Robin almost had a stroke.

  “Get away from there!” he hissed, chasing them back into the wings like they were a pair of errant geese.

  He’d gathered us all backstage to do our centering exercise together. Since we were already costumed and couldn’t sit on the floor, he had us do a walking meditation. We walked in a clockwise circle at the pace of a snail with our eyes closed, fingertips brushing the shoulder blades of the person in front of us, for five full minutes. Then Robin gave a short speech.

  “Remember your lines, remember your cues, but remember this above all,” he said. “As the Bard told us, ‘All the world’s a stage.’ This stage you’re about to cross for a couple hours tonight—it’s only a tiny fragment of the larger stage where we’re all playing out our parts. In the grand scheme of things, you could argue that none of it matters. Or you could argue that since none of it matters, all of it matters. Every last drop.”

  He pressed the palms of his hands together as if praying, and pointed the tips of his fingers at each of us in turn. “People, I wish this for you on your opening night: that you may discover that the reason why you’re doing this, why you’re here on a Friday night spouting words you’ve memorized and wearing funny costumes”—he let his voice drop—“is because every last drop of it matters to you more than anything in the world.”

  His words sounded oddly familiar, but I didn’t have time to think about it. At that moment, the audience fell silent—the lights must’ve gone down in the theater. The opening music began to play over the speakers, and Robin mouthed, “Break a leg!” and hustled off into the wings. I was in the very first scene. I smoothed my shaking hands over my pants—Micayla had sewn Beatrice a pair of men’s trousers and a billowy blouse, instead of a dress—and walked with Priya and Kieri, playing Hero and Leonato, to center stage, where we were supposed to be when the curtain went up.

  Opening night was electric. Lines went zinging back and forth. We tossed cues at each other like Frisbees. Sam forgot a few of his lines (shocker), and at one point Jem Mark, playing Don Pedro, completely missed an entrance and there was a moment of panic onstage. But Rina managed to improvise until he came running out of the wings. We were all impressed.

  Mostly, though, I was caught up in my scenes with Zephyr. I’d been trembling when the curtain went up, but once I started speaking, I slipped into my Beatrice skin and lost my Acadia nervousness. The play seemed to sling Zephyr and me from one Beatrice-Benedick scene to the next, and each time, we brought something fresh to our dialogue, some new energy we’d never quite reached in rehearsal. Our stage kiss earned us hoots and cheers from the audience, who I’d nearly forgotten about in the intensity of our scene up until that moment. Even with his thumb against my lips, his mouth suddenly felt unnervingly close to mine, and my heart thudded so that the breathlessness of my next lines was entirely real.

  After that, I floated on a rush of adrenaline until curtain calls. Renata, Ruby, and Raven did throw flowers at me when I came out to take a bow, and I heard Dad yelling, “Yeahhhhhhh, Greenfield!” I knew Farhan had asked Elizabeth to go to opening night with him, but I didn’t see them in the audience in the brief glimpse I got between bows.

  I saw them after the show, though, waiting in the lobby with Dad.

  “Cadie!” Dad yelled the minute he saw me, running forward to throw his arms around me. “Oh my god. My little girl. You were incredible.” Weatherman Voice, but muffled. I finally pulled away, and my throat tightened when I saw the tears streaming down his face.

  The Woodburys and Max Frisch were there, too. Mom and Josh were at Josh’s dress rehearsal—even after everything that had changed over the past week or so, Dad hadn’t been able to convince Mom to move the rehearsal. Farhan had his arm around Elizabeth and was whispering something in her ear. Which … actually didn’t bother me. I poked at the Elizabeth-stole-Farhan feeli
ng in the pit of my stomach, and nothing happened. Huh.

  Then I saw that Max and Raven were holding a giant sign that said Acadia Rose Greenfield Fan Club. And they’d made baseball hats, too, with my initials on them. The hats said ARG. Something Mom and Dad had not considered when they’d named me, unfortunately.

  “You guys,” I said, “you’re so embarrassing.” But the afterglow from the show was still pumping through my veins, and there was a warm thrill in my chest at all the attention. “I’m just going to run backstage and change,” I said, “and I’ll be right back out. Don’t go anywhere, Fan Club.”

  “We made reservations at Tamber’s,” Raven called after me. “Celebratory masala and milk shakes?”

  “Perfect, I’m starving!” I called back.

  Almost everyone was still out in the lobby, greeting their families and friends. I didn’t expect anyone to be backstage when I turned down the hallways toward the dressing rooms.

  So I was startled to see two people standing just outside the dressing room door. Robin and Zephyr. Robin was grinning but his face was streaked with tears, just like Dad’s, and he gripped Zephyr’s shoulders tightly with both hands.

  I must’ve let out some noise of surprise. They both looked over at me, and Robin quickly wiped his eyes.

  “I’m—I’m sorry—,” I stammered.

  Robin looked at Zephyr, then at me. “You haven’t told her, have you?”

  Told me what?

  Zephyr shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cadie, I’m so sorry. Dad and I didn’t want anyone to know—”

  “Dad?”

  He nodded. “Robin’s my dad. We didn’t want people—the other kids—to think he was playing favorites or anything, casting me as the lead—”

  “And I don’t,” Robin broke in. “I give each role to the student I think will be able to do it justice, grow in it, bring something new—”

  “And I wanted to tell you,” Zephyr continued, “but I was worried—”

  “Whoa.” I held up my hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s fine. I just need a minute here.”

  Robin. Was Zephyr’s dad. Zephyr Daniels’s dad was Robin … Goodfellow?

  “But he’s a Goodfellow and you’re a Daniels,” I pointed out, feeling thick.

  My brain was doing somersaults, trying to wrap itself around this new configuration of reality. And some little voice was going, Is there one single adult in my life who is who I think they are? Is there anyone I can trust?

  “It’s my other dad’s last name,” Zephyr explained.

  “I didn’t change my name because of stage business,” Robin said, “and it took us forever to get legally married, anyhow.”

  “Oh!” I said, then realized that sounded pretty inadequate. “Congratulations!” I added.

  Robin laughed. “Well, thank you.” He tousled Zephyr’s hair. “Now, if we’re past all the awkwardness, I’d like to say officially, on the record, that you two smashed it through the park tonight.”

  I felt my whole face break into a grin. “We kind of did, didn’t we?”

  Zephyr grinned back. “Indeed, milady Beatrice.” He stepped toward me, as if he were going to give me a hug.

  But just then, I heard footsteps in the corridor behind me, and I turned to see two people coming toward us—a man with dark skin and hair, dressed in a blue pinstripe suit, and a slim white girl. The man threw himself at Zephyr and Robin, wrapping them both in his arms. “Zeph!” he said. He had a strong British accent. “You smashed it! I mean, right through the bloody park!”

  Zephyr extricated himself. “Cadie, this is my dad Julian.”

  Julian turned and noticed me. “Oh, and you! You! Perfection, Beatrice, you were simply perfection.” He grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down. “So pleased to meet you. Robin talks about you all the time, now I know why.”

  I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Thank you. Pleased to meet you, too.”

  “And this,” said Zephyr, clearing his throat and putting his arm around the girl who’d followed Julian down the hallway, “is my girlfriend. Ava, this is Acadia.”

  Ava gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her very beautiful large blue eyes, outlined in dark eyeliner. She was pale, even paler than Raven, with dyed-black hair cut stylishly just below her chin, and she was wearing a very low-cut black dress and white go-go boots. She looked like everything I’d imagined her to be: sophisticated, chic, gorgeous. She had New York written all over her.

  “You did an excellent job,” she said to me. “Congratulations.” She did not extend a hand to shake.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Well, I’d better be going. I have to change and then we’re all going out to dinner, my family and my fan club. You know, just my friends, but they’re calling themselves my fan club tonight. They’re being silly.” I willed my mouth to stop talking.

  Ava turned to Zephyr and flung her arms around his neck. “Baby, you were amazing,” she purred, and kissed him full on the mouth.

  I backed away, then ducked into the dressing room and leaned against the counter. My head was spinning. Probably from low blood sugar. I had to get something to eat. Robin is Zephyr’s dad. Focus on that.

  Micayla banged through the dressing room door. “Cadie! There you are, I’m collecting costumes. Holy Moses, did you see that girl out there wrapped around Zephyr? She step out of Glamour magazine?”

  I grimaced as I stripped off my costume and grabbed my street clothes. “That’s his girlfriend. From New York.”

  Micayla nodded. “And I guess that’s Robin’s boyfriend out there with them?”

  “His husband.” I pressed my lips together. Robin and Zephyr’s secret was safe with me.

  “Love his accent. And that suit!” Micayla continued to chatter away, about the show, her plans with the tech crew that night. “And any word about the party on Sunday?”

  I shook my head and groaned. “Don’t mention it. Maybe everyone will forget.”

  No one forgot, though. In fact, it seemed like the cast party at my house was all anyone wanted to talk about the next night, after our second performance. People kept asking me what they should bring, where I lived, what time they should come over.

  I almost wanted to cancel it—to tell people that my parents had decided to stay home after all, or that I was going out of town too. But by now it seemed too late. Everyone would know that I was lying, that I was chickening out. Besides, a tiny part of my brain said, so what if Mom and Dad find out? What are you so scared of, Acadia Greenfield? So what, if Mom and Dad trust you to be a perfect little daughter—what have they done to deserve your good behavior?

  Friday night, I’d had a nightmare that I was driving down a steep ice-covered hill and the brakes weren’t working. The car went faster and faster, and I kept stomping on the brake, but the pedal had turned into a sponge that just squelched under my foot. I’d jerked myself awake, sweating and freezing at the same time, to find that I’d kicked all the covers off the bed.

  Ava wasn’t at the Saturday performance. I didn’t want to ask Zephyr about it, but I felt a little lighter when I saw him standing with only Robin and Julian backstage after the show. “Hey!” I said. “I think a bunch of us are going out to the Charmery tonight, want to come?” I’d addressed the three of them, but Robin and Julian shook their heads.

  “Thanks,” said Robin, “but I never go out with the cast after a show. Ruins the fun for the students.”

  “Yes, thanks kindly,” said Julian. “You should go, Zeph,” he added, giving him a little shove. “Do you good to add on a few pounds. You’re turning into a beanstalk this year.”

  “All right,” said Zephyr. “I’m in.” He checked to make sure no one was around before giving his dads a quick double hug, then followed me out to the lobby.

  “Benediiiick!” Rina yelled. “Over here! Come with us!” She waved wildly, giggling. Sam had one arm around her and one arm around Tori. The three of them were acting so giddy, I wondered if it was really just water in the
water bottles they were sipping.

  “I’m riding over with Micayla and Heron,” I said, “if you want to join us instead.”

  “I think they might need a driver,” Zephyr said, frowning at Rina, Sam, and Tori. “I’ll meet you guys there.”

  The whole cast showed up, which meant we packed the tiny Charmery. Heron and Micayla and I shared an enormous sundae. Priya and Kieri sat with us, too. Priya ordered a double scoop of Fat Elvis (banana, peanut butter, and marshmallow), and Kieri had a cup of Vegan Chai Coconut Cookie. Zephyr just ordered a hot chocolate, which he took to a corner table where Troy and Davis from the tech crew were having a heated discussion about something that sounded like a video game. I caught the words “battle ninja,” “fighter pilot,” “super jets,” and “donkey tiara.” Or maybe I’d misheard that last part.

  Zephyr seemed distracted—I tried to wave him over to our table, but he didn’t see me. He was looking down at his phone a lot. I wondered if it was Ava texting him. He left early, after making sure that Rina, Sam, and Tori could get other rides home. They had stopped drinking from their water bottles and the ice cream seemed to have sobered them up, which was a good thing—I didn’t want them to get us kicked out of the Charmery.

  I felt my stomach twist, and I wasn’t sure if it was the lactose or not. If they’d managed to get that wasted while still on school property, what was the party at my house going to be like?

  The Sunday matinee was our best performance yet. I think we all felt the urgency of the last time, and everyone gave a hundred and ten percent. Rina, as Dogberry, was so perfectly over-the-top that I got a cramp in my stomach from laughing silently in the wings. Tori and Priya drew out the Claudio-Hero rejection scene at the altar a little longer than necessary, but not enough to make it cheesy—just enough to really milk the audience. I heard quite a few sniffles as Zephyr and I bent over Priya’s limp body and Friar Francis advised us to pretend that Hero was dead, so that her father, Leonato, would repent for the terrible way he and Claudio had treated her. Then Zephyr and I had our big scene where Benedick reveals his love for Beatrice, and the stage kiss. I thought Zephyr pulled away a little sooner than usual, oddly. Everyone else was drawing things out, savoring, trying to make the show last a little longer before it all evaporated.