Isaac
Of course, I thought, watching Willow leave with Justin Baker. That’s how it should be.
“Isaac.”
Martin nudged my arm. Too late, I yanked my gaze from Willow’s retreating form. Martin kept watching her head down the stairs, then turned back to me, a small smile on his lips.
“So. Willow Holloway.”
“What about her?”
“She’s going to make a fantastic Ophelia, won’t she? She’s nervous and a little stiff right now, but she has so much raw talent. In Act Four, we turn her loose.” His eyes gleamed as he waved at cast members as they filed out. “It will be magnificent.”
I agreed, but the thought made my stomach twist. Willow’s raw talent was born of something deep and dark. I witnessed it in her Woolgatherer audition. I recognized the heaviness in her eyes because I had it too. Loss and pain pressed down on her. She pushed through it with small smiles and a tough facade that wilted the second she turned away.
Willow was here for the same reason I was: to find some relief. To tell her story. For the first time in a long time I felt nervous about a performance, only it wasn’t my own.
“I don’t know, Marty,” I said. “It might be too much for her. Too difficult. I mean, because she’s so new to acting,” I added quickly.
“I think she can handle it,” Martin said, as the last player departed.
“If you say so,” I muttered.
Why do you care anyway?
Willow was a distraction and it was getting fucking annoying. During the entire read-through, I’d tried to keep focus on the play while my damn eyes kept going to her, radiant in a soft white sweater and jeans. The amber overhead lights threaded gold strands down the long waves of her hair. When she read her lines, her voice had a soft lilt with an undercurrent of steel. Perfect for Ophelia.
Ophelia was stronger than her dipshit brother or conniving father thought she was, and judging from her reading, Willow knew it too.
Goddammit.
I dragged my thoughts away from her hair—again—and vowed to get my head on straight. Do my job. Martin’s talent agents were coming for me. I needed to give them the best goddamn Hamlet they’d ever seen, not worry about the mental health of a high school girl.
Who is currently sitting in the front seat of another guy’s car.
The room was empty now, and I helped Martin stack up the chairs. The silence crackled and I could feel him gearing up to interfere in my personal business. He couldn’t help himself.
“Justin Baker seems like a nice young man.”
I grunted a response as I stacked chairs.
“But sort of bland, if I’m being honest,” Martin said. “He has a clean-cut earnestness that’s perfect for Laertes.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You don’t think so?”
I shrugged. “You’re the director, Marty. I don’t have a thought about him one way or another.”
“You sure about that?” Martin smiled gently. “I saw you looking at him and Willow—”
“For fuck’s sake—”
“And I saw her looking at you.”
I froze, six chairs in my arms. “What?”
Martin’s smile widened and he shrugged. “I see everything. That’s my job.”
“Whatever,” I said, and carried the stack to the wall. “I’m not in high school anymore.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Baker’s her age. I’m not. He’s got money. I don’t.”
“So you’re interested in her?”
I let a stack of chairs slam down. “Mind your own business, Marty.”
He sighed and shoved his hands in the front pockets of his cords. He wore a kind smile I’d never see on my own father’s face.
“I can’t help it, Isaac. Somewhere along the way, you went from being an actor I admire to a young man I care about.” He shrugged. “I want you to be happy.”
He said ‘happy’ as if it were something you just plucked out of the goddamn air anytime you felt like it.
“I’ll be happy when I get out of Harmony,” I said. “But if you really care about the play, you’ll want me to be miserable. Hamlet’s a tragedy, remember?”
“I’m not worried about the play,” Martin said. “But I am concerned that Willow won’t always have a ride to and from rehearsal. Her father—”
“She has a ride,” I snapped. “Justin Baker’s her ride.” I slammed the last stack together. “I’m done. I have work early tomorrow. Good night.”
“Isaac—”
“Good night,” I called again, already halfway down the stairs.
Martin’s fatherly concern was something I craved and yet it chafed me. I was leaving Harmony. I needed to sever connections, not make them stronger.
Or make new ones with beautiful, talented girls.
I started my truck and let the engine idle. It would only stall if I tried to drive before it was warm. I supposed Justin Baker had a car built in this decade. Something sleek that didn’t freeze up or belch black smoke at stop signs. With heated seats. Willow was probably used to heated seats. Used to guys like Justin, who hadn’t spent a day in their lives worrying about money. Willow would be perfectly comfortable in his car, driving to her big house with a guy cut from the same wealthy cloth.
Good, I thought. Let her find her happy ending with Justin because it sure as hell wasn’t going to be with me.
But as I drove my shitty truck to the shitty end of town, a thought hung on the horizon like a growing storm: at the end of the play, Laertes and Hamlet kill each other over Ophelia’s grave, and no one gets a happy ending.
At Friday’s rehearsal, Marty moved us to the stage. While he blocked a scene, the rest of the cast paired up to run lines. Willow and Justin worked together. Naturally. I swore I didn’t give a shit, yet I studied her every move with my actor’s eye. Was she smiling more? Did her eyes soften when she looked at him? Did she move more easily into his space?
You’re turning into a goddamn lunatic, Pearce.
Marty was blocking Act 1, Scene 5, where Horatio and Marcellus show Hamlet his father’s ghost. They warn the prince not to follow the apparition but he does anyway, leaving his friends behind. Then it’s Hamlet alone onstage, speaking to an unseen spirit.
It’s a scene that requires full commitment to witnessing something otherworldly, or it falls flat. I tried, but my attention was split in half: my body onstage, my eyes sweeping the theater to find where Willow and Justin huddled together in the dark.
“Take five, everyone,” Marty said. He pulled me aside as the others hopped down from the stage. His fatherly smile was gone and his director’s mask was firmly in place—lips drawn down, his eyes full of thoughts and ideas.
“What’s going on?”
Out of professional courtesy, I never bullshitted him about acting. “I’m unfocused.”
“You’re angry.”
I frowned. “What? No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. So instead of trying to force the moment, let’s work a scene where we can use it. We’ll jump to Act Three, Scene One.”
“To be or not to be? Already?”
“Not yet. We’ll start just after the monologue.”
When the cast returned from the break, Martin put a hand over his eyes to shield the lights and scanned the theater.
“Willow? There she is. Willow, come down here please?”
The overheads blared down on Willow, bathing her in a cone of gold light. She wore jeans, boots, and a long gray sweater. My stupid heart clenched at how goddamn beautiful she looked.
“We’re going to give Act Three, Scene One a go,” Martin said.
“Okay…” she said, drawing the word out and flipping through her script. Her eyes widened and she looked up to glance between Martin and me. “The nunnery scene? Already?”
“I don’t work scenes in order,” Martin said. “I work the scenes I feel the energy in the room needs. So. Hamlet has just delivered his most famed of speeches ruminating on whether to take his own life or not. Polonius has convinced the King that Hamlet’s madness is his love for Ophelia. She’s given Polonius a love letter Hamlet wrote to her, and she’s ending the affair on her father’s orders.”
Willow bit her lip. “So…is Ophelia happy about this? Does she want to break up with him?”
Martin shook his head. “No direction right now. I just want your instinctual read.” He looked at us both expectantly. “Well? Let’s go.”
As usual, Martin was right and anger was serving the right purpose. Hamlet was a complete dick to Ophelia in this particular scene, and I had no shortage of motivation. I was no longer the poor bastard with a shitty truck who lived in a trailer and worked his ass off to be here, while she waltzed in on Justin’s arm with the scent of privilege flowing off her clothes like perfume. I was a fucking prince. She was nothing but a henchman’s daughter.
“Ha, ha, are you honest?”
Willow recoiled at my withering, merciless delivery. The uncertainty in her eyes was real, until something caught fire and a line of hers that was supposed to meek and quailing came out with bite.
Martin listened and watched, one arm across his midsection, the elbow of the other resting on it, his index finger curled over his lip. Not two minutes later, he shook his head and stepped between us.
“Stop, stop, stop.” He smiled faintly. “Okay, I take it back, I’m giving direction after all. This scene reveals everything about Ophelia and Hamlet. Some analysts contend the pair never consummated their relationship. Others say they were most definitely lovers.”
Willow’s lips parted in a tiny gasp, and a surge of heat swept through me.
“I hold to the latter idea,” he said. “If they were lovers, so much more is at stake. It’s a richer choice that holds more possibilities. Use that concept as actors: when confronted with yes or no, choose yes. Every time.”
Willow and I exchanged glances.
“Hamlet truly loved Ophelia,” Martin said. “It was all off the page, before the play starts, but that love needs to live behind every word that’s on the page. The betrayal and agony of this scene is more potent if their love is dying here.” He turned to me. “Your Hamlet is pissed off.”
I shrugged. “He’s supposed to be pissed off. Ophelia’s dumping him and conspiring with Polonius and King—”
“Yes, yes, that’s all true. But you’re only pissed off and that’s merely one layer of emotion in the scene. Ophelia’s being forced to leave him and Hamlet knows it. She’s squashed between her love for him and her duty to her father. But the love…” Martin’s eyes were full of the zealous enthusiasm that made him such an extraordinary director. “The love was there first.”
He smiled and put a hand on each of our shoulders. “This play doesn’t work unless we feel that. So on that note, instead of coming to rehearsal this Saturday, I want you to go out together. Grab lunch or something.”
My eyes widened while Willow’s darted to me and back, her lips parted in another little gasp.
“I’m not asking anything outrageous,” Martin said. “I want you two to hang out. Get to know each other. Be friendly. Become real to each other as human beings. I need you to see each other as more than co-actors on a stage.”
Willow and I glanced at each other again and I noticed some of her stiffness had mellowed, her shoulders dropped a little, her frown loosened.
“Do this,” Marty said, and looked to me, “and the next time we run this scene, every cutting word you say to her will cut you back.” He looked at Willow. “Obeying your father, instead of staying true to Hamlet, will be the hardest thing you ever do. You see?”
She nodded.
Martin beamed. “Great. Moving on.” He clapped his hands once and moved off stage. “Act Two, Scene Two. Will someone please wake up Rosencrantz and Guildenstern…?”
He left us alone in the center of the stage.
“Is this a normal thing to do?” she asked, hugging her script to her chest. “Have the actors hang out together, outside of the theater?”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “I’m not going to force you.”
“No one’s forcing me,” she said. “If Mr. Ford thinks it’s a good idea, then…okay.”
“Okay,” I said. “So… What do you want to do?”
Fuck, why was this so hard? Usually I texted one of my hookups a time and a place and that was it.
Willow shrugged. “I don’t know. “Lunch at The Scoop? Or maybe coffee if it’s too…” She ran a toe along a crack in the stage floor.
“Too what?” I knew damn well what: too expensive.
“Too…Harmonious?” she said.
A smile tugged at me. “Something like that. Do you need a ride?”
“No, I can… I’ll meet you here,” she said, hugging her script tighter.
“Okay.”
“One o’clock?”
“Fine.”
“All right. So…see you then?”
“Yep.”
It’s a date, snickered a voice that sounded like Benny.
Still hugging her binder, Willow went down the stage steps. She passed Justin in the front row. He half rose from his seat, but Willow only gave him a fleeting wave before moving toward Lorraine and Len a few rows back.
Justin sat down, glanced up and caught me watching him. He stared. I stared back until he looked away and started gathering up his shit.
It was a stupid, meaningless win. Willow still left with him at the end of rehearsal.
When the last cast member had gone, Martin locked the side door and crossed the stage. He stopped when he saw me sitting in the front row, arms crossed, my boots kicked up on the lip of the stage.
He held up his hands. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s for the good of the show, I swear.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really.” He came to the edge and sat on his heels. “You can turn your Hamlet into a jerk who rants and raves against Ophelia and chalk it up to his madness. And ninety-nine percent of the audience won’t know the difference. But two people will.”
He pointed at himself and then me.
“I know you have more than that in you. And yes, I’ve seen the way each of you looks at the other when the other can’t see…” He rubbed a hand over his incoming beard. “I’d love to see something happen there.”
“Jesus, Marty…”
He held up his hands. “None of my business. The quality of the play, however, is my business. At the very least, you two need to be on stage in a way that says, ‘this is not the first time we’ve been in the same space.’ Right now, you both look like boxers getting ready for a match.” His hands became fists, protecting his face.
Despite myself, a little laugh snuck out. He laughed too and knocked my boot with his hand.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
We closed and locked up the theater. As we headed to our cars, he tripped on a crack in the cement. My hand shot out to grab him before he could fall.
“Yikes, thank you,” he said clutching my arm. “That’ll take ten years off a guy.” He glanced down at the crack, shaking his head. “It’s bad. This entire block, actually. It all needs work.”
We walked on, my gaze fixed on the sidewalk. He was right: cracks snaked along much of the cement, like black lightning.
“How are things with the theater?” I asked, a sudden lump of worry sitting heavy in my gut. “Money-wise?”
“Things,” Marty said with a smile, “are fine. You concentrate on your part.” He headed to his older model Lexus. “And have fun tomorrow on your date.”
I sighed. “Marty.”
“Your working date.”