by JP Delaney
When I’m done there’s a long silence before Aidan says, “Thank you.”
I resist the urge to gush at him—What did you think? What did you really think? Shall I do it again? Faster? Slower? Sadder? Funnier? What are you looking for? Do you like me?
Kathryn Latham’s words come back to me. Although she tries extremely hard to hide it, she craves approval like a junkie craving a fix. With a sinking feeling I realize my lack of confidence has just led me to do an audition that screamed Look at me!
What I did just now wasn’t acting. It was showing off.
“I’d like to do something else as well, please,” I say calmly.
Aidan glances at Mo, who shrugs, as if to say, We might as well, we’re here now.
“All right,” he says with a loud sigh. “What would you like to do, Claire?”
I dredge my memory for something that might be relevant to his play, to the part I’m trying to get.
And, intuitively, it comes to me.
You read it well…
Instead of a monologue, I do a poem. The poem I read with Patrick, the first time we met. Making my voice low, milking the rhythm.
ME
I have more memories than if I had lived a thousand years…
Halfway through I see Mo turn her head to glance at Aidan. His face gives nothing away. But, emboldened by her gesture, I trust my instincts and make the last few lines so still and quiet they’re barely there.
ME
Like some old statue of a half-forgotten god,
Abandoned in the desert, starved of blood,
Whose enigmatic, weather-beaten frown
Lights up, for a moment, as the sun goes down.
I finish, and Aidan frowns.
“Well,” he says, “there was a lot about that I hated, particularly the first piece. But I think I can work with you.”
He gets up, gives me a quick, professional handshake, and leaves. But not before I’ve seen the expression in his eyes.
He’s angry.
He was hoping I’d be terrible, I realize. That would have given him the out he needed. Instead, he’s got to work with an actress he hasn’t chosen.
69
“So,” Marcie says, reaching for her vape. “New York is talking about nothing else. Well, the small self-obsessed corner of it that’s interested in fringe theater, anyway.”
“It’s very exciting,” I say modestly.
“It’s very self-indulgent, is what it is.” Marcie blows a trumpet of vape smoke over my head. “But it changes everything as far as you’re concerned. If a director like Aidan Keating sees something in you, everyone else will jump on the bandwagon. Is there nudity?”
“Some.”
“Good. The reviewers will talk about it, and the bridge-and-tunnel crowd will come for it. Careers have been launched on less.” She stabs the end of the vape in my direction. “Don’t fuck this up, Claire. Second chances in this business come along maybe once in a lifetime. Third chances, never.”
“I’ll try not to. But even if it’s a success, won’t I still have the green card problem?”
She considers. “Realistically, yes. We can argue there’s precedent for you to go through the exchange program now, but most producers won’t bother for someone who isn’t a big name.” She studies me shrewdly. “How serious is it with this Patrick?”
“Pretty serious.”
“Wedding bell serious?”
I blink, surprised, and she continues impatiently, “Yes, very good, but don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. A wealthy U.S. citizen puts on a play just to see his favorite female actor in the lead role. Marry him, and you’ll get a green card and a Gold Card.”
“His last marriage didn’t work out so well.”
“That controversy won’t hurt the play either, by the way.”
“Which controversy?”
“They’re saying one of you probably bumped her off. Which I always say is stupid. I tell them your destructiveness is generally directed at yourself.”
“Thank you for that,” I say drily.
She bats my words away with the vape. “The general consensus is, you did it together.”
“That’s absurd.”
“If it makes them come to see the show, who cares?” She looks at me thoughtfully. “Have you heard who they’re considering for the other parts?”
I shake my head. “Patrick doesn’t know. Aidan insisted on full creative control.”
“The word is he wants Nyasha Neary for Jeanne Duval.”
I nod, impressed. Half Zimbabwean, half Irish, Nyasha was nominated for a slew of awards last year for her role in a harrowing slave biopic on TV. She has enormous eyes that can change expression from affection to withering scorn without a blink, and cheekbones so sharp she looks like a bust of Nefertiti. She’s one of the most beautiful women on the planet.
“And Baudelaire?”
“They’re talking to Laurence Pisano.”
I stare back at her, speechless. Laurence. The actor I fell in love with on my first movie shoot. The man I believed I wanted to die for.
And instantly I see what Aidan’s trying to do here. He’ll have heard the stories about me and Laurence. Hell, Marcie probably told him herself. He couldn’t refuse to cast me without losing Patrick’s money. But by casting Laurence, he’s hoping to force me to walk. Then he’ll be able to shrug and say, Well, it was her choice.
“And who do they have in mind for Apollonie? After they’ve pushed me out, that is.”
Marcie shrugs. “He’ll have his pick. If you walk away.”
“I’m not going to walk away.”
Marcie’s eyes glitter. “That’s just what I told them, Claire.”
70
And in the midst of all this, there’s still me and Patrick. Coming back every day to his quiet apartment overlooking the cathedral. Getting to know each other the best way possible: working together on a play.
“Now that you’ve lived with her awhile, how would you describe the real Claire?” I ask one evening as he cooks us dinner. Patrick is amusingly obsessive about his cooking. Jess and I thought we were following a recipe if we had more than half the ingredients in some random list we’d found online, but Patrick even looks down his nose at Julia Child and Elizabeth David. Tonight he’s openly debated which of two ancient French volumes to consult, Escoffier or Carême. He has a collection of knives no one else is allowed to touch, forged from razor-sharp Damascus steel and hammered like tiny samurai swords, and right now he’s chopping crumbs of garlic like he’s splitting the atom.
But I have to admit, a powerful man does look sexy in an apron.
Patrick thinks for a moment. “Mercurial,” he decides. “Messy. Loud. And endlessly fascinating. Just when I think I have a handle on you, I realize I don’t.”
“Maybe that’s because there’s no handle to get. Or,” I admit, “because I’m still trying to impress you. I can’t help worrying that when you know me better, you’ll be disappointed.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“I’m not always nice, Patrick. Or kind. You saw that yourself, with John and Alice.”
“Being nice all the time is for wimps.” He hands me a spoon, to taste his sauce. “More pepper?”
“But you’re nice,” I say. I swallow the sauce and nod my approval.
He shakes his head, smiling. “Only with you.”
* * *
—
As we eat, we discuss the rewrites Aidan’s asked for. Some deviate from the facts of Baudelaire’s life, and these Patrick is resisting; in all other respects, he’s being true to his promise to give Aidan full control. In the latest version, for example, when Jeanne discovers Baudelaire has visited Apollonie, she flies into a jealous rage. Furious, she tells him she int
ends to visit a famous nude statue Apollonie modeled for, to spit on it. But when she gets there, she finds herself mesmerized by the other woman’s beauty. The statue comes to life, and the two women make love. Only later do we discover the scene is in Baudelaire’s head, a re-imagining of one of his banned poems on lesbianism.
“You don’t mind?” Patrick wants to know.
I shrug. “Like you, I’m in Aidan’s hands. But what about you? Will it be hard for you, seeing me like that on stage?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not the jealous type, Claire. I’ll just be proud of you. Very proud.”
* * *
—
Aware I’ll be acting these scenes with a woman far more beautiful than me, I cut down on the French food and redouble my sessions on the gym machines. When that gets oppressive, I start jogging around the local parks. Morningside, the grass dotted with groups of students, and Riverside, with its spectacular views across the Hudson. That old feeling of Wow, this is like a movie replaced now with an astonished recognition that Wow, this is for real.
Wedding bell serious? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, Marcie had said cynically. And of course I have, and do. Who wouldn’t? But I’m trying to take each day as it comes, to give our relationship time to breathe.
Dr. Felix visits just once a week now. Gradually, our therapy sessions have become less about the police sting and more about my relationship with Patrick.
“I’ve always walked out on people,” I tell him. “Or forced them to walk out on me. Already this is the longest relationship I’ve ever had.”
“Are you waiting for someone to come and tell you it’s time to go? For…” He consults his notes. “ ‘For the invisible sirens to go off and the formal procedures of separation to kick in’?”
I’ve told him about meeting John and Alice. Dr. Felix took so many notes that session, he could barely keep up.
I wince at how melodramatic I must have sounded. “Of course not. Well, maybe just a little. I suppose I still feel like an imposter. Like I’m playing a part.”
“Which some might consider ironic,” he murmurs.
“Funnily enough, it’s only when I’m acting I don’t feel that. But being here, in Stella’s apartment, even wearing some of her clothes…”
“Yes, tell me about that. Was that Patrick’s suggestion, or yours?”
“His. But it’s just a practical thing. My own clothes are still in storage, and somehow with the play and everything there’s never been time to get them out.”
He makes another note.
“I suppose I’m wondering whether this is really what love feels like,” I say. “Or if I’m still doing what Kathryn Latham accused me of—getting too deep into the part.”
“It’s hardly surprising, given that for many years you were effectively forced to live both as part of a family and separate from it. It could even be why you were drawn to acting in the first place.”
“Meaning I’ll always feel like this?”
“I don’t think anyone can say that. Perhaps being in love is simply a new and surprising thing for you, Claire. Just try to enjoy it.”
* * *
—
And yet, if I’m honest, there’s something missing between me and Patrick now.
“I have a confession to make,” I tell him one evening.
I think how, once, those words would have set both our pulses racing. Not to mention our audience’s, the invisible watchers and listeners crouched over their dials.
But Patrick only lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I miss our games,” I say. “It was actually a thrill, not knowing if you were a murderer or not.”
His lips twitch. “Would you like me to kill someone for you?”
“Probably not. But perhaps I’m like Apollonie in your play—I don’t want to believe the poems reflect the real you. And yet, at the same time, a part of me hopes they do. Which is crazy, I know. You’re no more an evil person than Baudelaire was.”
Patrick stoops to kiss the top of my head. “You don’t know me yet, Claire,” he says lightly. “You don’t know everything inside my mind. That takes a little longer.”
71
Finally, we reach the first day of rehearsal, the table read.
I’m terrified, of course. Terrified of seeing Laurence again. Terrified Nyasha will show me up. Terrified the designer and the other department heads will know I only got the part because of Patrick.
Patrick seems almost amused by my nerves. He’s never seen me like this, he teases, and really there’s no need. I should just remember how good I am.
He and I get to the rehearsal room first. Aidan’s next, greeting me with a hug that almost seems genuine but which I instinctively mistrust. The four actors with smaller parts, three of whom will also be understudies, turn up together. Laurence arrives ten minutes before the call time and makes a point of hanging out with the lighting team, joshing around, just one of the guys. His pretty, boyish face has barely changed, but I’m relieved to discover I feel nothing for him, nothing at all.
“Laurence, have you met Claire?” Aidan asks eventually.
Laurence glances in my direction. “Yes, we met on Tumult.” He ambles over and gives me a perfunctory kiss on both cheeks. “How’ve you been, Claire? Really looking forward to working with you again.” The smile that once melted my heart flicks on and off. And that’s it. No acknowledgment we were once lovers. No apology, no mention of what I did. A simple word of affection or regret would have been all it took, but it seems I’m not even going to get that.
Doesn’t Count On Location, darling.
Nyasha arrives precisely on time. She’s dressed as if for a gym workout, in a gray tracksuit with a hint of crimson T-shirt showing under the zipper, a black baseball cap pulled down over her cornrow braids. It has the effect of dialing down her beauty, but nothing can dull the perfection of her cheekbones, or still her glittering eyes. She’s smaller than you’d imagine from seeing her on TV. She shakes my hand politely, almost shyly, her expression serious.
Aidan claps his hands and conversation immediately dies. He starts by welcoming us to what is now, he says, a family, a community. He talks about the word troupe, an old and noble word to describe a traveling band of actors relying on one another for their survival. He talks briefly about the production—how it should have the raw potency of Baudelaire’s own poetry, how it needs to challenge and provoke a modern audience, just as Les Fleurs du Mal challenged a century steeped in the sentimentality of Romanticism. And finally, he speaks about the read-through.
“Today’s not a performance. And certainly not an audition. Focus on clarity, on revealing the words on the page. There’ll be plenty of time for acting later. This is just us, as a group, taking a first look together at the project. No one here needs to impress anybody else.”
We all nod. I wonder if that last note was aimed at me. Nyasha takes off her baseball cap.
My first scene isn’t for a while, so to begin with I just listen. It soon becomes clear that, while Nyasha has heard what Aidan said and is simply reading the words out loud, Laurence has come along with some ideas of his own. Most noticeably, he reads Baudelaire’s part with a French accent. Patrick’s head goes up at the very first line, but Aidan says nothing for several pages.
“That’s great, Laurence,” he interjects at last. “I think let’s just read it straight for now, and we’ll come back to explore accents later.”
“Okay,” Laurence says. “Great.” He resumes reading with exactly the same accent.
Once again, Aidan stops him. “Let’s hold the accent for the time being.”
Laurence frowns. I realize he’s already directed himself in his head, and is now going to have a hard time letting go. When we resume, he manages to strip out most of the French inflections, but every so often one slides
back in. As he reads, he pushes his hair out of his eyes with an impatient flick. Once, I used to think that gesture impossibly cute. Now I just wonder why he doesn’t get a haircut.
Nyasha sits very still, scarcely moving, but her voice is a thing of beauty. She does almost nothing with it you could put your finger on, but I could listen to her for hours.
When it comes to my lines I try to follow her example and let the words speak for themselves. But my very first scene is the one where Baudelaire confesses that he’s the author of the violent, anonymous poems I’ve been receiving for the past five years, and I allow just a little of the scorn I now feel for Laurence to seep into the way Apollonie speaks to Baudelaire. I see Aidan look up from his script thoughtfully, but he says nothing.
Eventually we reach the end and applaud one another. Aidan tells us we’re all terrific. But really, I think, it’s the material that’s good.
This could be something amazing, I realize. This could be my breakthrough. I can hardly believe my luck.
We all get up and stretch. Laurence makes a beeline for Aidan—I hear him ask if they can discuss some ideas he’s had. Aidan says something polite but noncommittal.
Nyasha comes over and compliments me on my reading.
“This is going to be great fun,” she says in her careful, serious voice. She’s taken off her tracksuit top: The arms that emerge from her T-shirt are like slim black cables, woven plaits of hard muscle. Up close, I’m mesmerized by the otherworldly quality of her beauty.
She puts her hand on my wrist. “I hear you’re with Patrick,” she says quietly. “He seems really great.” She lets her gaze travel from Patrick to Laurence—the latter still engaged in intense discussions with Aidan—and says no more.