by Daryl Banner
“I can’t even begin to imagine,” I confess, staring over the counter at Nell and Sam as they keep going on about their favorite show. Brant’s little four-year-old Zara sits between them keeping herself occupied with a picture book full of mythological creatures Sam and I gave her. I can see the Pegasus on the cover from here.
“I sometimes envy you and Sam and Clayton and Dessie … this life you have up here … but then I remember how fucking cold it gets.”
I groan. “No kidding. I’m still not used to it.”
“And it’s supposed to snow tomorrow?” asks Brant, his face wrinkled. “Really? This Texan here is supposed to somehow survive that shit?”
“Hope you packed jackets.”
“Of course we did. This thirty degree shit you got going tonight, I’m gonna be bundled up like that kid from A Christmas Story. Won’t be able to bend my damned arms.”
I smile and fold my arms. “It’s gonna drop to below twenty in a matter of hours.”
“Fuck me.”
The pair of us continue watching Nell and Sam for a minute or two, during which the characters in my head cross their arms defiantly and glare at one another from across a shapeless, undefined waiting room of sorts. I swear, writer’s block is the worst. There is nothing more I desire in this wretched world than to let out this alleged masterpiece from my mind and weave the perfect story into existence before my eyes … and yet I sit in front of the computer and nothing comes. It’s like my characters are all pissed at each other and no one wants to talk.
I’m about to employ torture techniques on all of them, determined to make them speak. Tell me your stories! I’d demand of them. Tell me what’s in your heads so that I can get you out of mine!
“You ever miss Klangburg?”
His question catches me off-guard. “I was just thinking about it a couple days ago,” I admit. “Some of my classes. Some of the professors. The freedom. The campus. Throng & Song. Dessie’s weird, super emo songs she’d put on there. Yeah, I miss it.”
Brant smiles and kicks back his beer, then sets it on the counter and bats it back and forth between his rough palms. “Yeah, me too. Was thinking I might go back and actually, like, finish my degree.”
“Mister Drop-Out is going back, huh?” I laugh at the idea of a five-years-older Brant strutting across the campus like he still owns it. “And who’s gonna raise your daughters while you’re busy cradle-robbing?”
Brant wipes his face with a hand, then shakes his head. “It’s great to see you still think so highly of me.”
I chuckle. “To be fair, you have changed quite a bit. You know I’m teasing.”
“Sure, sure. Everyone’s teasing.” Brant throws me a look, then elbows my ribs. “They do offer online classes, you know. I can do it and still keep my photography gig up. Oh, and Nell’s got this amazing thing going at the Westwood Light …”
“Yeah, I keep seeing the photos on Facebook.”
Brant’s face warms as he stares at her over the counter. “Those kids freaking adore her.”
I smile at that, feeling a tickle of inspiration. Maybe I can write about an orphanage. Orphan kids. Maybe a sci-fi setting with orphans. A world full of orphans …
Ugh, I’ve gotten desperate and messy. My inspiration is everywhere. Quiet down in there, head. Not everything is a source of inspiration!
Brant nudges me. “You ever heard from Riley after graduation?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Total mystery. I always figured she got lucky with mister sweater vest and married him. Maybe she moved to Wisconsin and owns a cabin with a wraparound porch. I have no idea. Tomas, however …”
“Tomas? Oh, Sam’s bassoon-suckin’ dude. Yeah, what about him?”
I chortle. Brant’s going to think I’m dicking with him. “Dude. You know we went back home for Thanksgiving last year—the last time we saw you guys. Well, I might’ve forgotten to mention that we sorta ran into Tomas. It was a total fluke, running into him. Maybe he saw on Facebook that we were in town or something. But …” I fight laughter.
“Keep me in suspense,” Brant begs me. “No, really. Just never get to your point. I’ll stand here and nurse this beer for hours if I have to.”
“I don’t think it’s bassoons that Tomas sucks anymore.”
Brant’s eyes flash. “Say what?”
“Tomas is gay,” I finish.
Brant had gone for another swig. Now he’s choking on that swig as he slams his bottle down and screws his wet eyes onto mine. “No way!” he finally sputters when he stops coughing. “You’re totally fucking with me!”
“Babe,” calls out Nell from the other room. “Watch your damned language.”
Brant lifts his head. “Tomas is gay!” he calls out to her. “Tomas! Sam’s ex!”
Nell blinks. “Really?”
Sam nods, then pushes a finger into the bridge of her glasses. “It’s probably my fault.” She eyes me across the room. “Just kidding,” she deadpans. “I know you hate when I say that.”
I chuckle, then nod back at Brant. “Yeah, it’s no joke. Though, to be accurate and fair to Tomas’s life journey, as it were, I think he identifies as asexual. But he prefers males for … uh, he had a word for it … for ‘companions’. He likes kissing them. He likes cuddling with them. But he, like, never engages sexually with anyone. Or so he told us over three mugs of green tea and a plate of spring rolls.”
“Dude, that almost sounds like you from freshman year,” says Brant.
I shove him for that, which surprisingly almost knocks him off balance as he laughs. I’ve noticed that Brant’s put on several pounds over the years. Maybe even ten. Yet he still has retained his oddly charming, boyish face and that twinkle in his blue eyes. “I know you wanted me to be gay so badly,” I tease him, “but if you only knew what I was up to freshman year …”
“Oh yeah? What were you up to, mister subversive?”
I glance over at the beautiful woman on the couch next to Nell, the one with the stylish glasses, the cute black pixie hair (she recently cut off her long hair and donated it), the green dress with the slit up the side, and the brand new musical note tattoo running up her shoulder. “A pretty girl in my poetry class,” I murmur, staring longingly at her. “That’s what I was up to.”
Brant gives me a skeptical look. “Forgive my doubt. But seeing you trying to get in with a pretty girl in your poetry class is a bit of a hard sell for me.”
“You have it wrong. See, I didn’t realize … that she was the poetry all along.” I smile, thinking back fondly on the day Sam smacked me over the back of my head with her notebook and asked me to be her partner. If I’d only known that someday I would be her life partner … but I was young, and the beauty of my future to come was something I couldn’t possibly grasp. “Best year of my life.”
When Brant follows my sight to the couch, he puts two and two together and nods knowingly. “I think the best years are still to come, my man.”
“That much is true,” I agree, then wonder if my story should be about poetry. Are the characters in my head poets? Orphan poets? I shake my head, as if literally trying to dislodge my characters from the seats in which they’re all stubbornly sulking. “You and Nell ready to go soon? We should head out now if we want to be on time. The premiere tonight is completely sold out, every single seat, from what Clayton told me, so it’ll be packed and might take us time to get situated.”
Brant’s face tightens up, then he sets down his bottle, unfinished, and gives me an awkward nod. “Yeah, man. Let’s get our booties shakin’. Zara, Nell,” he calls out. “You two ready to go?”
I note Brant’s sudden discomfort, but I don’t say anything. Sam and Nell turn and look at us as if we’re the rudest individuals on the planet for interrupting their engrossing conversation about—whatever gory, horrifying murder it is that’s got their minds enslaved. I’m pretty sure I’ll be introduced to it tomorrow and then binge watching all eleven or twelve seasons from now until New Year’
s.
After a bus ride, taking the subway, and a jolly six-block walk, we’re standing in a lobby packed with excited murmurs and conversation. There are so many people here to see Dessie’s show that, even though I was previously warned, I still find myself floored. I knew Dessie’s career had majorly taken off over the years (she even starred in a week-long run of a show in London), but I must have lost track of exactly how large her following has become. Circles of excited high school theatre seniors are spouting off about how excited they are to get Desdemona’s autograph on their programs afterwards. Students from every university in the state are here blabbering on about their own dreams, projects, and how the work of Desdemona inspired them to pursue their craft.
And to think that just a handful of years ago, little Dessie was afraid she’d never live up to the grand Lebeau name.
Oh, my characters could be theatre student orphans. Theatre student orphans who like poetry!
Ugh. I can’t shut my mind off, ever.
“Sam! Sam!”
I turn to the sound of Victoria’s voice as she cuts through the crowd. She clutches Sam’s side the moment she’s within reach and gives her a quick hug.
“Hey, Vicki,” I call out to her.
Her eyes turn into that of a demon’s as she slowly turns her head toward me. “My … name … is … Victoria.”
My eyes flash. “Uh, sorry.”
She turns dainty the next second. “No worries, sweetness! Brant! Nell!” she calls out as she rises to her tippy-toes and gives them a wave. “I’m so glad you all made it! I just wanted to find you guys and make sure that Operation Brell was still a go.”
My face scrunches up. “Brell?”
Sam shoots me her flat-lipped smile. “Brant and Nell. Brell. It was my horrible idea.”
I fight a laugh. “I accept your apology.”
“I didn’t apologize,” she sasses me, deadpan.
Brant steps forward suddenly and leans in toward Victoria. “Are we, uh, gonna see them before the show? Clayton and Dessie? Or, uh, not until the after party? Or—?”
“After curtain call, honey,” Victoria explains. “Even I’ve been banished from backstage for now, so you definitely won’t be seeing them beforehand. Dessie is in her zone. Clayton’s in the lighting booth going over his cues as if he hasn’t been at every rehearsal and stayed late for hours every single night during tech week.” She grips Brant’s arm. “Trust me, it’ll be a complete and total surprise when they see you after the show. I can’t f … freaking wait.” She had to edit herself on account of Zara’s presence, which she just now takes note of. She bends down. “Hey there, sweetie! You excited to see the show?”
Zara scowls and hides behind Brant’s legs.
“Ah, sorry,” mumbles Brant, then gives his daughter a little pat on her head. “This is Aunt Victoria, sweetie. She’s a good friend of Aunt Dessie.”
“I’m Zara,” the four-year-old states bashfully, still hiding behind Brant’s legs.
“So … the surprise. Cool,” sputters Brant, swallowing hard, his eyes glassy with nerves. “Good. We’ll be the … total surprise after the show. Can’t wait.”
Victoria eyes him suspiciously. “You okay, Brant? You look like you’re about to shit a diamond.”
“I’m—nah, I’m fantastic.” He laughs it off, then shrugs and thrusts his hands into his pockets. “I’m great. Cool as a tool. Or pool. Or whatever the kids say. Where are the bathrooms? That way, I see the sign. I’ll be right back.” He heads off, vanishing into a thicket of twenty-somethings from NYU.
Nell’s hand is clung to little Zara’s tightly the next second, as little Zara apparently needs a new place to hide. Nell shrugs at the rest of us. “It’s … been a long time since Brant’s seen either of them. He’s nervous because we had to turn down the last several times they invited us on account of us being entirely unable to stop being so goddamned fertile.”
“Bless you, child,” murmurs Victoria.
Nell shrugs. “We’re going to have to put up with him being weird for a bit, I think.”
Victoria nods. “Figured that’s what was going on. Oh, where’s Eric?” she asks suddenly, turning toward me. “Wasn’t he coming with you guys?”
I shake my head. “He’s going to have to see the show tomorrow or the next day. Bailey’s got him by the nuts, last I heard, and they’re being forced to do some sort of other obligation. Shitty, I know, but Bailey’s turned into a bossy little queen, so …”
Sam’s hand runs up my back, then comes to rest on my shoulder, pulling me against her side. “It’s too bad he can’t be here with us. I do … love … that Bailey kid.”
I shoot Sam a teasing look. “You just like reminding Bailey that the day you met him, you nearly karate-chopped him in half and made him soil his big boy underwear.”
Sam shrugs innocently, then slides her hand up to the back of my head, as if to nurse an old, old wound. “I seem to have a knack for catching boys by surprise the first time they meet me.”
At that, I grin, then bring my lips to Sam’s for a deep, breath-stealing kiss.
“Eww!” shouts Zara.
Sam and I pull apart with laughter while Nell quietly admonishes her daughter. “That’s not nice! Do you remember what daddy told you before we left home?”
Zara scowls. “Yes. Cake. Sowwy.”
“Good. Do it for the cake, sweetheart.” Nell gives her daughter a kiss on the top of the head, then smiles at the rest of us.
I smile back. “Oh, if only little Zara knew how you and daddy met, she’d be ‘eww’-ing until the New Year’s Eve ball drops in Times Square.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Nell warns me, pursing her lips.
The lights in the lobby dim twice, signaling that the show is about to start. Victoria chirps, her hands practically trembling as she scurries off. Two minutes later, Brant has returned, and then the five of us head into the auditorium to find our seats, which are surprisingly close to the stage—aisle seats in the second row, at that. Brant fidgets so much that his chair won’t stop squeaking. Nell preens her daughter’s dark hair.
Sam is flipping through the program, reading the bios. She looks up at me and catches me staring at her. “What?” she blurts. “Is there something on my face?”
“Yeah, a kiss.” I press my lips to her cheek. “Oh, look. Another.” I go for her other cheek. “And yet another.” I peck at her nose.
I finally get a giggle out of Sam as she pushes my face away from hers. “You’re especially playful tonight. Almost made me forget it’s Christmas in a couple weeks. It totally doesn’t feel like December, what with our busy past few months and your blog column and …” She reels, thinking of all the craziness and deadlines and work our life has been filled with lately.
I smile evilly. “Just wait for the snow, sweetheart.”
“Ugh.” Sam faces forward, staring at the stage despondently. “I hate snow.”
I wrap my arms around her and hug her side, then draw my lips to her ear where I put another kiss. She flinches, smiling and tickled by the sensitive place where I put my mouth. “Is it bad,” I whisper, “that even though Brant and Nell just arrived, I already can’t wait for them to leave so that I can have my way with you in our apartment?”
Sam’s face flushes from chin to forehead. “It was your idea to have them stay with us instead of getting a hotel room,” she reminds me in as much of a hushed whisper.
“Bad, bad idea.”
“We’ll punish you later for it.”
“How?”
“I’ll let you pick something out of our box of ‘toys’ to use on you.”
“I can’t wait.”
The lights fade out, and soon, the audience is brought to complete silence as the stage swells with a rich blue light. The artful attention and detail of color, shape, and intensity is all Clayton’s genius at work right before our eyes as we drink in the visuals. Then Dessie walks on stage from a simple door, and more light pools about her, b
ringing her to life like an angel.
Ooh. Angels who are student poets—and orphans.
Shut up, brain.
Soon, Dessie’s story overpowers any thought I could possibly give to the nonexistent one in my own head. It’s a simple concept, but moves my soul to a place of inspired excitement as I watch the story unfold. It’s about a relationship counselor with a screw loose named Emily—played by Dessie, who named the character after the first role she was cast in at Klangburg University—and she sings a song about how she can pull any two people together, keep them happy for life, but can’t seem to do a damned thing for herself. Her office secretary—a cute and totally gay sidekick—suffers a similar fate of being perpetually single, despite going on a date with a new guy every single weekend of his life. “I’m a serial datist,” he sings in his own song.
Then Dessie’s character Emily is faced with her most troubling clients yet: a sassy woman dressed head to toe in rich black and red (Victoria’s genius shining through) and a lively man dressed head to toe in vivid creams and whites. They are a married couple who are constantly at war with one another and desperately need Emily’s help.
But they are not who they seem. As it turns out, the woman is actually Death herself, and the man is Life. “We have tried everything to save our marriage,” sings Death in her hilariously grim, powerhouse voice that rings with the dark entitlement of a diva. “Our careers get in the way!”
“My wife is afraid of an overpopulated world!” sings Life in a loose, jazzy voice that complements Death in its slinkiness and swagger. “What’s wrong with more Life, Death?”
“What’s wrong with more Death, Life?” she sings right back, sassy as ever. The line earns a punch of laughter from the audience. Maybe it’s the way she pops her hips on the high note. “My career only exists because of yours!”
“My sweet love,” Life sings right back. “Our work complements one another, don’t you see? You complete me.”
The line is funny and ironic and all that—and the audience goes wild—but I find myself pulled in by that line more than I’m likely expected to. I even lose the next part of Life and Death’s playful banter as I get lost in my thoughts, yet again, and grow curious about why the characters in my head keep so silent.