by Tanya Chris
“Sherry tells me my assessment wasn’t wrong.”
I’d never considered my ass’s worthiness before. I craned my neck over my shoulder, trying to get a view of it.
“Don’t worry,“ Joshua said. “It’s still there. I’m keeping an eye on it for you.”
~~~
Deb behaved herself for the most part, only an occasional glare between scenes making it clear that nothing had changed between us since last night. Too many people around to make a scene, I figured.
She was the only actor with any lines memorized. I never bothered trying to get off-book until the director had finished blocking our movement, since I needed my script in hand to write down my blocking anyway. Pete would be the last actor off-book if history was any indication. Luckily for me, Joshua would have to deal with the frustration of having a scene partner who couldn’t remember his lines, not me.
Carol kept rearranging us as she moved from one seat to another to get the view from all angles. I could’ve told her there was no way to make it work from every angle simultaneously, but she was a new director and would figure it out herself eventually. In the meantime, I tried to be patient, shifting from one foot to another in my latest assigned spot. Shakespeare never thought to have his characters sit.
Finally, Rebekah pointed out that we were overdue for a break and Carol gave us fifteen minutes. She and a few cast members headed outside for a cigarette. I gravitated towards Joshua who’d been left eavesdropping behind some imaginary potted plants, currently represented by a folding chair. Deb bore down on us from the other side.
“Can we talk about the way you’re upstaging me in that throne room scene?” she said to me, without so much as a hello first.
“If you don’t like the blocking, take it up with the director. Nate’s only doing what he’s been told to do.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Josh.”
“Joshua.”
“I’m sorry, Joshua.” She drawled out the Joshua. “I didn’t realize you were picky. Good luck with that with Nate. What does he call you? Jay-jay? Schwa?”
“He calls me Joshua,” Joshua said, looking quizzically at me. He hadn’t learned about my habit of handing out nicknames yet. Deb had been a firm Debra before I’d started shortening it.
“And what do you call him? Nathaniel?”
“I call him Nate. Don’t I, sweet pea?” He threw an arm around my shoulders and I grinned up at him. Deb’s expression got even more sour.
“Is that what you’re doing now, Nate? Men? You go through all the women in the theater?”
“Is that your problem, Deb? Has he already gone through you?”
“What did you tell him about us?” Deb pushed herself into my face. “I should’ve known better than to trust you to keep your mouth shut.”
“He didn’t tell me anything.” Joshua shifted so his shoulder forced some room between me and Deb. “You’re making it obvious with the jealous shrew routine.”
His diversionary tactic worked. Deb swung her fury back in his direction.
“Jealous shrew? Nice. I suppose that’s what you call your wife when she complains about you flirting with other women.”
“My wife and I have an open marriage, and no, I don’t call her jealous shrew. I call her Sherry, because that’s her name. Sometimes I call her baby, ’cause I’m sweet that way. You’re very interested in what people call each other.”
I choked back a laugh. This was a side of Joshua I hadn’t seen yet. I’d seen protective, but protective had segued into defensive. Joshua would defend what fell under the umbrella of his protection, and somehow that included me.
“Open marriage.” Deb shook her head as if to dislodge something stuck between her ears. “Here I thought Nate was schooling you, and all along you were the master. You’re not Black Nate. He’s Joshua Junior. Is this what you want to be when you grow up, Nate?”
Joshua stood with arms folded and a guarded expression on his normally kind face. The black titanium ring on his left index finger made a dark line across the brown of his bicep.
“Yeah, it is.”
His expression softened as he turned to face me. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“I’m so jealous of you,” I admitted, ignoring Deb’s flouncy departure.
“Yeah, Sherry’s a blessing more than I deserve.”
“I don’t mean Sherry. I do—she’s fantastic—but I mean the whole thing. The open marriage, being bisexual.”
“You too can be bisexual. Say the word, anytime.”
“Not being bisexual itself. Being ... who you are without hurting anyone doing it. Being free and grown-up at the same time. I still feel like an irresponsible kid playing at who I am, stepping on toes and fucking things up.”
“I fucked up plenty. Still do. Don’t let Deb get under your skin. She’s been drinking, and you can’t beat yourself up for what someone does to themselves while they’re drinking. All of that just now had way less to do with you than you think.” He stopped and ran a hand over his hair. “And I need to stop being antagonistic to her or I’m never going to be in a position to help her. I’m going to see if I can talk to her before break’s over, OK?”
I watched Joshua approach Deb in the highest row of seats where she’d gone to glower. As soon as he sat down next to her, she jumped up. She stood over him, her face angry, her phone clutched in both hands in front of her body while he talked. She shook her head violently a couple of times, and then, surprising me, nodded once and sat back down.
When Rebekah called the rehearsal back to order, the two of them walked down the risers together to the floor of the auditorium, still talking until Rebekah shushed everyone and the scene resumed.
~~~
After rehearsal, Joshua grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the stream of departing cast members. “Wanna come over? Watch a movie or something?”
“I can’t tonight. I promised myself I’d get to bed early and show up at work on time tomorrow.”
“Work,” he repeated, making a face at me.
“Yeah, work.” I leaned against the wall and raised my eyes the extra inches to meet his. “It’s a daily activity that sucks the life force out of my soul but allows me to drive a car and eat food.”
“I’m familiar with the concept, unfortunately.”
“I’m lucky I have a job. Or so the story I tell myself goes.”
“If you hate it, you should look around for something else. You any good with computers? I could probably get you in where I’m at. Honestly, you don’t even need to know computers to work Help Desk. It’s all scripted these days, like playing the role of Helpful Technician #1. If you can read and type and you don’t swear at the customers, you’re high functioning.”
“Yeah, I should totally do your job, because you love it so much.”
“I’m not on the Help Desk anymore. I got upgraded to Level Two.”
“Look at you, Level Two. That’s out of how many? What’s the highest level?”
“X.”
“X like in Algebra? Like they don’t know how many levels there are?”
“No.” Joshua laughed. “There are four levels: one, two, three, X.”
“So X like in X-Men—Super Techno-Geek. Are you going to be Level X someday?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Level Two is stressful enough. Basically, anything One can’t solve goes to Two. You can imagine what kind of shit X has to deal with. I fucking hate computers. No, that’s not fair. I hate customers. It’s almost never the computer’s fault.”
“So what are you doing here, Joshua? Listen to your wife. Go be an actor.”
“She’s got you on that, too, huh? Sherry has her talents, but reality isn’t one of them. It’s all dragonfly tattoos and power ballads to her.”
“Reality’s overrated. Look where it’s gotten us: day jobs we hate and nights rehearsing for shows no one will see.”
“Go to New York then,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”
<
br /> “Back at you. Hey, I should get going. Early night, remember?” I pushed myself away from the wall but before I could move towards the door, he stepped in front of me. I leaned back again, Joshua’s presence forming a solid imposing barricade between me and the door.
“Friday, then?” He braced a forearm on the wall behind me. His hand toyed with one of the curls at the nape of my neck. “No rehearsal Friday night, no work Saturday morning. Sherry’s playing at a wedding—not something I can crash. Come watch a movie with me and when Sherry gets home, if you’re into it and she’s into it, I’ll make myself scarce.”
I looked into the depths of Joshua’s eyes. His irises were a three-dimensional shift of shades of brown. “Did you just pimp out your wife so you could spend time with me?”
He sighed and straightened up. “I did say ‘if she’s into it,’ but yeah. Not good.”
“Not necessary.”
“Come on, sweet pea. Let’s get you home.”
“Yes, by the way,” I said, as I passed through the door Joshua held for me. “I’ll bring the pizza.”
~~~
Derek was still awake when I got home, mooning around the living room like a lost puppy because on Mondays Amanda went to a yoga class and then home to sleep in her own bed.
I dropped down onto the couch next to him with a beer to unwind before heading to bed. He flipped through channels on the remote, pausing now and then when one of us had a comment to make, watching a few minutes of a program or a game, then clicking away when a commercial came on.
“I need to talk to you about something.” He glanced over at me while the Knicks and Celtics ran back and forth across our television screen.
I braced myself for another Jenny lecture, or perhaps Lissie had enlisted Derek to campaign on Deb’s behalf. Lissie sometimes thought she knew more about what Derek and I wanted than we did ourselves.
“My lease is up in July,” he said when I nodded at him to go on. “When you moved in last October, I said you could stay a year because I assumed I’d renew it, but Amanda and I are thinking we’d like to rent a house. Something with more privacy and higher ceilings.”
I didn’t need Derek to expand on the higher ceilings comment. I knew it was a matter of clearance. “Sounds nice.”
“I feel like a lousy friend for asking, but July gives you three months.”
“Sure.” I’d known this was coming. We couldn’t go on being bachelor buddies forever. If Desi would move out of my mother’s, I’d go back home, but sharing a bedroom with a small boy wasn’t an option and Desi showed no signs of moving out. I’d have to find a new roommate situation since there was no way I could afford my own place.
“Hannah might be looking for someone. I don’t know if you’d want to get involved in that. It’s a small place, but you’re not home much and you’d have your own bedroom. You want Amanda to feel her out?”
When I first met Amanda’s roommate, Hannah, she’d demonstrated interest in me—so much interest, so transparently, that I’d known better than to get involved. Fortunately, she’d switched allegiances pretty quickly and now dated Pete, but I still knew better than to get involved.
“No. Thanks, but no.”
“Don’t blame you. I only asked because Amanda wanted me to. She feels bad about moving out on Hannah, but Hannah’s much more stable now. She’s got a job and a hobby and Pete. I think she’ll be OK. Maybe Pete will move in.”
“I wish her luck with that.”
Pete and Hannah dating each other were proof that there was someone for everyone.
“If we get a house, we’ll probably have a second bedroom. I mean, we wouldn’t want you there forever, but if you needed an extra month or two ...”
“I’ll be fine.” I smiled my reassuringly-confident smile. “Hey, maybe I’ll take over this place and get a new roommate.”
“Sure. That would work.” Derek looked relieved.
I stood up and carried my empty bottle into the kitchen. “I’m going to bed.”
“Really?” Derek checked the clock by the front door.
“Really.”
Three women in the last three days. Sometimes I was as bad as people thought I was. Tomorrow I’d meet Jenny at the gym and Friday I’d see Sherry, but tonight I’d settle for a quick wank and then straight to sleep. One thing you could say about jerking off—it didn’t keep you up nights.
Chapter 10
Before getting out of my car, I checked myself out in the mirror. I needed a haircut. I never got it cut between shows, figuring I might as well wait to see what the next director wanted me to do with it, though I refused to go short unless the character really required it. For Othello, Carol had said I could pull it back and tie it off with a ribbon—Elizabethan noble meets Moorish warrior—so I was growing out the layers my sister had insisted on adding at my last visit to her salon.
For now, I tucked the wayward strands behind my ears and straightened the collar on the blue button-down I’d worn to play on Sherry’s nickname for me.
Before I could even ring the bell, Joshua had the door open. He took the pizza from me and brought it into the living room.
“I’ll let you pick the movie. You can’t go wrong since they’re all mine. I’ll get us some drinks.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and I flipped straight to the DVD I already had in mind from the last time I’d been over: the original Mad Max.
“Good call.”
“Never seen it, if you can believe it.” I took the Molson’s he handed me, a little surprised by it.
“It’s what you ordered at Billy’s. I can get you something else, if you’d rather.”
“This works.”
We ate on the couch while the movie played, ending up sprawled on the fake fur rug in front of the television by the time it was over. Joshua put in Road Warrior and brought me a second beer. I propped myself up against the couch and considered the beer in my hand.
“How’d you get Deb to change her mind about you like that?” Ever since their private talk at Monday’s rehearsal, Deb and Joshua had been acting like friends.
“It’s all about the charm. I had to lay it on pretty thick.”
“Do you really think there’s a problem with her drinking?”
“I think if I want to stay on her good side, I’d better not talk about her to you, but I can tell you how it went with me. There was a time I pretended I didn’t have a problem. Then there was a time I knew I had a problem but didn’t care because solving the problem seemed harder than having it. It took a while before I got to the point where having the problem was worse than solving it.”
“How bad did it have to get?”
“Jail time bad.”
“DUI?”
“No, I was lucky there by not having a car. When I drink, I fight. I fight with the guy on the barstool next to me, I fight with his buddies who come to defend him, I fight with the bouncer trying to throw my ass out, and then I fight with the cops called in to arrest me. Nobody wants to put you in jail for shit like bar fights, but I eventually talked them into it.”
“So is jail more fun if you’re bisexual?”
“Do you think before you talk?”
“Only when I’m talking to women, I guess.”
Joshua shook his head. “You’re so completely inappropriate sometimes. Don’t try to turn jail into a gay porn movie. It’s more like an army barracks—lots of regulations, no privacy, and it pays to keep your hands to yourself. It’s all about not doing anything stupid while you’re in there so you can get the fuck out of there. Turns out when I’m not drinking I’m pretty good at not doing anything stupid. Longest I was ever in for was ninety days.”
“Is that how you got sober? I mean, after ninety days ...”
“You’d think that, but no. After ninety days, I got drunk. I’d been waiting ninety days, right?”
“Then how’d you get sober?”
“With a little help from a friend. That’s why I try to pay it for
ward. Hey, let’s not get all maudlin. It’s Friday night and we’re two dudes waiting for one woman. What could be more fun than that?”
Two dudes and one woman was exactly my idea of fun, actually. I toyed with the idea while we watched Road Warrior. Sherry still hadn’t come home by the time it ended, so Joshua extracted Thunderdome from his shelf and waved it at me.
“I can’t believe you even have that.”
“Gotta have the complete set. I live in hope that the next installment will be worthy of the series. Should I put it in?”
“I’m trying to decide if Sherry is worth watching Thunderdome for, given that I’m already in a pizza-and-beer-induced coma. What are the odds I’m getting some action tonight?”
“I wouldn’t bet against you.”
I considered the fantasy my mind had been entertaining, not sure if pursuing it would be a good idea. When I’d talked Derek into a threesome with Lissie, there’d been no concerns about him taking it the wrong way. Derek was staunchly heterosexual, almost homophobic. He’d only agreed to the threesome under the most rigorous “no touching each other” conditions, although when things got hot, incidental contact had naturally occurred. By then, neither of us had been rational enough to worry about it.
But if Joshua and Sherry and I fooled around, I’d be the one worrying about unwanted contact. And worrying, once again, about sending Joshua the wrong message.
“You and Sherry ever have a threesome?” I asked, a combination of curiosity and lust overriding my better judgment. It didn’t hurt to ask the question.
He took his time answering. He popped the DVD into the player, then sat down next to me on the floor and leaned back against the couch. He took a drink from his bottle of water, then screwed the cap back on and tossed the bottle lightly back and forth between his hands a couple of times. Finally, he nodded.
“Yeah.”
“With other guys or other women?”
“Other guys. Sherry doesn’t swing towards women.”
“Other bisexual guys?”
“What are you getting at, Nate?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Just spectating, I guess. It’s hot—two guys and a girl. I did it once. No guy-guy action, but, yeah, two guys and one girl. It was sort of a fantasy, so when I had the chance ... Anyway ...” I realized I was rambling and shut up. Joshua’s eyes were disconcertingly unwavering. I wished I could read what was behind them.