Willow
Monday morning in English class and Mr. Paulson was at his usual spot, rifling through papers. Angie was at her desk, wearing baggy jeans, Dr. Martens boots and a black T-shirt that read, I’m pretty cool but I cry a lot.
When she saw me, she pulled out her phone, shook it and put it to her ear with a perplexed look on her face.
“Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?” She let her hand drop and gave me a pointed look. “That was a rhetorical question, in case you were wondering. How do I know this? Because my real friends, Caroline and Jocelyn, called me over the weekend.”
“Sorry,” I huffed, slouching into my desk. “I didn’t feel like talking okay? I don’t always feel like talking on the phone. In fact, I hardly ever feel like talking on the phone.”
“I get that. Most people don’t like talking on the phone anymore. That’s what the text function is for.” She turned in her seat and leaned over her arm toward me. “You told me you’d call after I dropped you off downtown. I assumed that meant you would call me. But you didn’t. So I had to call you. You didn’t answer. I then spent the weekend thinking Isaac Pearce murdered you and dumped your body in a ditch.”
“You did not think that,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Does it matter to you what I thought? My guess is no.” She whirled in her seat to face front, then she whipped back around. “Look, I don’t know how they do things in New York, but here friends don’t just go silent on each other whenever they feel like it.” She held up her hands, empty palms facing me. “I’m not a stalker, I’m not your mother, I’m not your babysitter. But you could’ve texted me. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
She turned around. And that was all she had say to me for the rest of the class too.
So what? I thought, trying to find my protective layer of I-don’t-give-a-fuck. I’d stopped putting effort into friendships long ago. My New York friends told me the exact same things Angie did. Told me a hundred times until one by one, they gave up on me. Michaela, my best friend, stuck it out the longest. She suspected something had happened that summer, but I refused to talk to her at all, about anything, afraid the worst story would come tumbling out. By Thanksgiving, she stopped calling me. Her last text was the week before Christmas break:
Please talk to me.
I didn’t respond. When we moved to Indiana, we got new phone numbers and I cut off everyone who knew me before. X’d myself out of their lives.
Angie’s back to me hurt more than I was prepared for.
The bell rang and she hurried out of the classroom without a glance at me. I grabbed my stuff and followed her to her locker.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I truly am. You’ve been such a good friend to me and I just… I forgot what that’s like.”
She gave me a funny look then turned to her locker to exchange one textbook for another. “You didn’t have friends in New York? I find that hard to believe.”
“I had friends,” I said. “Then I didn’t. And that’s the way it’s been for a while now. Until you.”
Angie shut her locker and turned to look at me, clutching her binder to her chest. “Why has it been that way?”
I couldn’t look at her. “It just had to be.”
Angie wilted with a sigh. “You know, if there’s something you want to talk about… I’m here. Okay? Whenever you want.” Her dark eyes met mine. “Or…whenever you’re ready.”
I started to tell her I had nothing to say. “Thanks, Angie,” came out instead on a low whisper of breath.
She nodded briskly, her long black curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Great. And if we’ve dispensed with old business, can we now move onto new business? Namely, the great non-date with Isaac Pearce?”
A small smile came over my lips without my permission as we started down the hallway together. “It was really good,” I said. “Isaac’s not what people think he is.” She gave me a look and I nudged her elbow. “I know how that sounds, but I’m serious. People around here paint him as criminal or acting savant and that’s it. But he’s actually a complete human being. He’s really smart and he thinks on different levels…”
“Sounds like you guys hit it off. Why do you sound so sad when talking about him?”
“We were doing fine until two of the Plastics saw us having coffee together. I’m worried one of them was Tessa Vance and that she’ll tattle. If my dad finds out, he’ll pull me out of the play.”
“Sounds like a legit concern,” Angie said. “But we’re sad because…?”
“I can’t explain that to Isaac. He’d know I heard the gossip about him and Tessa. Worse, he offered me a ride home. When we got to my street, I told him to park half a block away from my actual house because I didn’t want my mom to see him. And I know he knew it wasn’t the right house. I’m making him feel like shit for all the wrong reasons, but I’m afraid he’d be more hurt by the truth. That my dad forbids me from associating with him outside of the play.”
Angie opened her mouth to speak and then nudged my arm. She leaned into me. “Tessa Vance is standing right over there,” she said through her teeth. “Reddish brown hair.”
I followed her eyes to the Plastics, standing together near the drinking fountain, and immediately recognized two of them from Saturday.
“Shit, that’s her.”
“And shit, they see us eyeballing them now,” Angie replied.
Tessa gave me the fakest of smiles and then pointedly leaned to whisper to her friends. They all turned to look at me with wide-eyed amusement and disdain.
“And I’m fucked,” I said.
“Come on.” Angie hooked her arm through mine and pulled me down the hall. “Don’t look back.”
“I’m totally fucked. I don’t give a shit what they think, but if she tells her dad…”
“So what? Angie said. “Just tell your dad she’s a lying little bitch—” she turned to shout over her shoulder, “—who can’t mind her own business.”
My laugh degenerated into a groan. “What am I going to do? I need this play.”
“You need it?”
“I’ve just…grown attached to it. To the director and the actors.”
“And Isaac.”
“Yes, okay? But he’s leaving Harmony in a few months so we’re just friends. We can only ever be friends.”
Angie rolled her eyes. “Famous last words.”
As the day wore on, I became more and more convinced Tessa would rat on me. The silly paranoia fed on itself, fueled by my fear of Dad pulling me out of the play. I’d told Angie the truth. I needed the play. I still hadn’t found what I was looking for in Ophelia, but it was there, on the horizon, like a hint of dawn on a new day. An optimistic sun rising against my ever-present darkness.
And what about Isaac? Starting over with a new Ophelia might throw him off his game. I didn’t want to be responsible for anything disrupting his flow or whatever process he had. Talent agents were coming to see him. He already had enough to contend with. The last thing he needed was drama from my dad’s ridiculous prejudices.
As the last bell rang, I grabbed my homework out of my locker and shut it. I jumped back with a little cry to see Justin Baker standing there, leaning casually on a shoulder.
“Hey,” he said. “Missed you Saturday, but you’ll be at rehearsal tonight, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said.
Right after I recover from the mini-heart attack you just gave me.
“Cool.” He looked out over the hallway and the milling students going here and there. A lazy prince surveying his kingdom. “Listen, there’s a dance coming up in a few weeks. The Spring Fling?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Cool.” Justin said again. “You think Martin will give us the night off from rehearsal to go?”
“I…I don’t know.”
I stepped back. My eyes took in Justin’s handsome face. Blond hair, blue eyes and an easy smile. There was nothing threatening about him, but then there’d been nothing threatening about Xavier either.
Over Justin’s shoulder I saw Tessa, Jessica and a couple the other girls watching us.
“So? You want to?”
“Do I want to what?”
He laughed, perplexed. “Go with me.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“Go to the dance…?”
A dance. Bodies writhing in the dark. Pulsating music. A hand on my hip. A voice in my ear, “Can I get you something to drink?”
I pushed the black memories away. The longing to be normal and have normal experiences was a hunger in my stomach. I wanted to go to a dance. I wanted to go shopping for a pretty dress and feel a tingle of anticipation in my stomach when my date came to the door, with a corsage in a plastic box.
But in my short-lived imagination, Mom opened the door and cooed over how devastating my date looked in a tuxedo. My father shook his hand and welcomed him inside his home. I came down the stairs, and it was Isaac who was waiting for me, and he smiled…
I blinked and came back to Justin’s expectant grin.
“Oh, I’m not really… I’m not looking to be with someone…seriously. Not that you’re asking me to be serious. I mean…”
His smile widened and he leaned deeper against the lockers, as if he were used to girls stammering over their words for him.
“Great,” he said. “We can go as friends, and just…see what happens.”
My stomach clenched at the momentary gleam in his eye, and the ceiling suddenly felt like it was an inch above my head.
“We need to ask Martin…”
“What’s up, guys?” Angie asked, sidling up beside me. She gave Justin a hard look, which he returned with his easy-going smile.
“Not much,” he said. “Just working out Spring Fling details.”
Angie’s eyes flared and her finger moved between us, pointing. “You guys are going to the dance together?”
I opened my mouth to speak.
“Yeah, we are,” Justin said. “We’ll talk more at rehearsal. I gotta go.” He jerked his chin at me in a kind of farewell. “See you tonight.”
“Yeah…see you,” I said.
“See you,” Angie echoed and dragged me outside. “I am so confused. Justin?”
The early-spring afternoon was brassy and cold, bringing me around.
“Well…sure. Why not?” I said, fighting for my equilibrium. “Now there’s nothing for Tessa to blab about. Right? And…when Justin shows up at my house, my dad is going to hump his leg, he’ll be so happy. I won’t have to worry about him pulling me out of the play. Yeah. Perfect cover.”
Angie looked doubtful. “I guess, but for a second there it looked like you got railroaded—”
I stopped walking. “I did not,” I said, too loud. “I get to say. I can go to the dance with whomever I want.”
Except Isaac.
I fought for calm. Isaac flat-out told me he was done with high school. If I wanted my normal, I’d have to go and take it. Just like he said.
“Okay, okay,” Angie said. “But Willow—”
“We’ll just go as friends. All of us. Together. You and Nash, and Joc and Caroline, right? We’ll all go together, okay? Please?”
Angie’s brows came together. “Yeah, sure,” she said slowly. “If that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want. Yes, of course it is.”
To be normal. That’s what I want. That’s all I’ll ever want.
“Willow, dear,” Martin called from the stage. “Come up here?”
Rehearsal hadn’t started yet. The cast milled in the audience, chatting in low voices. Isaac stood onstage with Martin. As I took the steps to join them, my eyes took in Isaac’s tall body, slender yet packed with lean muscle. He stood with arms crossed over his chest, his long legs in jeans and scuffed black boots. His biceps strained at the sleeves of a white T-shirt.
Why do I notice these things about him? Why can’t I stop looking?
“I was just chatting with Isaac about your outing on Saturday,” Martin said. “Not too torturous, I presume?”
“I survived,” I said and ventured a small smile for Isaac.
He returned a faint, disinterested nod but his gray-green eyes were intense as they looked me up and down. His lips—always pressed together—parted slightly. Then he abruptly tore his gaze from me. “Yeah, it was good,” he said. “Really good.”
“Really good?” Martin said, his eyebrows raised in comical disbelief. “You hear that, folks? On this day in history, Isaac Pearce found something to be really good.”
“Knock it off, Marty.”
Martin winked at me. “I have a good feeling about this.” Louder, he said, “Let’s run your dialogue for Act Three, Scene Two.”
Thanks to afternoons in the library with my script and a Spark Notes translation, the play was no longer blocks of vague poetry. I was familiar now with every Act. The scene Martin wanted to run was a play-within-a-play—Hamlet’s scheme to have a troop of actors reenact his father’s murder. During the performance, Hamlet tortures Ophelia with bawdy jokes and sarcasm.
Two rows of chairs were set, facing stage left and cheated out so they weren’t in profile to the audience. The King and Queen were to sit in the front row. I sat behind, beside an empty chair. Isaac waited offstage for his cue.
I was off-book for this scene, as was Isaac. Dialogue committed to memory, it was the first time we’d be acting without the buffer of scripts in our hands and I didn’t know what to do with mine.
“From your entrance, Hamlet,” Martin said. He’d slouched into his usual pose—one arm across his middle, the other elbow resting on it, fingers over his mouth.
Isaac slipped out of the shadows of backstage. Eyes wide and with a loose, jangly smile he never wore in real life.
Martin cued him with Gertrude’s line, “Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.”
Isaac’s manic gaze fell on me and softened. “No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive.”
He rushed toward me and slid to his knees at my feet. His expression was pretended innocence, and his eyes storm-tossed and wicked.
“Lady, shall I lie in your lap?”
I startled and sat up straighter, face forward, hands folded. “No, my lord.”
“I mean, my head upon your lap?” he said and did exactly that, resting his cheek on my thigh.
A shiver rippled out from where he touched me. Half danced down my calf, the other rest rocketed between my legs and settled there warmly. My first intimate male touch since X. Instead of tensing up or shutting down, my body liked the weight of Isaac’s head in my lap. The dark brush of his stubble so stark against the white of my jeans.
A blush burned my cheeks as I whispered. “Aye, my lord.”
Isaac turned to prop his chin on my thigh. The scene called for him to show mocking disdain hidden under false humor, but his delivery bordered on flirtatious.
“Do you think I meant country matters?”
I already knew from Spark Notes that country matters = sex.
My flush deepened and I sat up straighter. “I think nothing, my lord,” I said, my thoughts full of his thick brown hair and wanting to sink my fingers in it.
“That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.”
God, another flush of heat swept through me, settling between my legs, as if his voice had commanded it.
“W-what is, my lord?” I asked, stammering Shakespeare’s words.
“Nothing,” he said.
I tried to remember Hamlet was toying with Ophelia, but my line came out on a small, provocative laugh. “You are merry, my lord.”
Isaac smiled knowingly. “Who, I?”
“Yes, merry indeed,” Marty said, breaking the moment like a sledgehammer. “A little too merry, methinks. I’m going to give a little direction here.”
Isaac lingered a moment more, then lifted his head from my lap and sat in the empty chair beside me. I put my hand where he’d been, to touch the warmth there a little longer.
Martin rubbed his chin with one hand. “I love the progress you two have made. I can feel the difference in how you relate to each other, the familiarity.” He turned to Isaac. “But you’re too nice.”
Isaac sniffed. “I’m nice?”
“First time for everything,” I said.
He shoved his shoulder against mine playfully, not looking at me, but his Oedipus curtain call smile slipped out, and it put a crack straight across my block of ice. A sliver of light in the dark. I knew he forgave me for not showing him my house, while I hated even more that I’d had to hide him.
I don’t want to hide him. I feel good with him.
“Last time, Isaac, you were too pissed off,” Marty said. “This time, too nice. Go back to pissed off and layer it over the feelings you have for each other. Build on what we worked through last Saturday.”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
Martin turned to me. “Willow, I love the nervousness. Ophelia’s a proper lady and Hamlet is being quite inappropriate for a prince. Your initial stiff, shocked reaction was brilliant. But later, you… How do I put this delicately? You looked turned on.”
My eyes widened and a tingle of electricity shot down my spine.
Martin turned to Isaac. “You look smitten too, come to think of it. Right now, this scene plays like something out of Romeo and Juliet.”
Unable to look at Isaac, my eyes sought refuge in the audience. They found Justin sitting in the front row with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—two college actors he’d become friends with—watching me blankly.
“If you’re building an emotional castle in this scene,” Martin said, pulling my attention back, “the foundation is the love. The ruin of that love is the ground floor. Upstairs is his madness. And in the attic, a healthy dose of sexual tension. Okay?”
Martin checked his watch. “Damn. The Equity actors need their break.” He clapped his hands. “Okay, everyone. Take five.”
Isaac and I were left alone on the stage, a thick silence between us where words whispered.
The feelings you have for each other…
You look smitten…
More like Romeo and Juliet…
“Well,” I finally said. “Martin’s a very…colorful director, isn’t he?”
Isaac rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, he gets some wild ideas.”
“I like his ideas,” I said. “I mean, him. I like him.”
Isaac met my gaze. “Yeah. Me too.”
The moment shimmered. His gray-green eyes so warm in mine and the yellow stage lights shining down. Then Martin clapped his hands to call attention, making me jump in my skin.
“Martin also likes to clap,” Isaac said. “A lot.”
I laughed. “I noticed.”
“Just a friendly reminder about memorization. It’s been two weeks.” Martin said. “How is everyone doing getting off-book?”
A few murmurs and nods, a few groans. Len Hostetler grabbed his own throat with both hands and mimed being choked to death. Then he smiled brightly and gave a thumbs up. “Going great, Marty.”
Justin raised his hand. “I have a question. Willow and I are going to the Spring Fling dance next Friday night at the school. Are we going to be able to get the night off?”
An icy cold bloomed in the pit of my stomach and spread out. I looked at Isaac. He stared back. For half a second, the hurt was evident in his eyes. A little boat floating in the green-gray waves, then swiftly sinking. His face closed up and he looked away.
“You have to say yes, Herr Direktor,” Len said in his booming voice.
“Indeed,” Lorraine said. “A spring dance is a milestone in any high school experience.”
“I will make an exception this time,” Martin said, frowning a little. “But one night is all I can spare. Anyone else? Put your hand down, Len.”
Everyone laughed and Justin looked pleased with himself. The weight of my guilt and embarrassment was so heavy I couldn’t lift my eyes to meet Isaac’s.
Why do you feel guilty? He’s leaving town. He said he’s done with high school…
“Okay,” Martin said, with a clap of his hands. “Let’s get back to work. Willow? Isaac?”
We ran the scene again, this time with no flirtation. No niceness. Isaac delivered his lines with barely-concealed disdain. A wounded prince mocking the lover who betrayed him. His head in my lap was a heavy stone. We weren’t playing roles now. We were just being ourselves.
It had only taken one Saturday afternoon to make a connection. Isaac shared private information with me. I let him come closer to my story than anyone. The time we spent together was the foundation of the scene. My going to the dance with Justin was the betrayal. Hamlet’s pain was Isaac’s. Ophelia’s regret was mine.
When it ended, Martin clapped again and this time it was applause.
“Perfect,” he said. “That was perfect. It adds so much more dimension to the scene. Good work everyone. Moving on…”
At the end of rehearsal, I hurried to grab my stuff and get out. Then I remembered Justin was my ride home. He was waiting for me at the theater entrance, looking smug and triumphant. I hated him a little for that.
I tried to jam my script into my bag too quickly, dropped it and the three-ring binder busted open as it hit the floor. Pages spilled out and I kneeled to gather them up. A figure crouched beside me and I smelled gasoline, aftershave and cigarette smoke.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to go,” he said, muscles showing in his clenched jaw.
You said you were done with high school, I wanted to shout.
“I changed my mind,” I said, thrusting my own chin out. “I’m allowed.”
He sniffed a short, hard laugh. “Yeah, you are.”
He started to hand me the stack of papers, then froze, his brow furrowed over the crawl of little black X’s in the margins, like an infestation of insects.
“Are rehearsals that boring?”
“They’re not. It’s just doodling.”
“You said you doodle when you’re bor—”
“Give me those, please.”
The hard angles and lines of his expression softened as he handed over the pages. Almost reluctantly. As if he didn’t want to give all those black X’s back to me.
“Night, Willow,” he said softly, and rose to his feet.
“Good night, Isaac,” I said, but he’d already walked away.