Eli is under the stage.
She’s been down here for hours in the cavernous dark, searching for equipment. There’s no time left to make this work. Tech is already halfway over, the lighting plan is set, and Leopold hates it.
The trapdoor in the stage above her creaks open. When it lands, the whole stage shudders.
There are Zara’s feet, testing the thin rails of the ladder. She’s wearing her winter coat, the one that Eli is getting attached to. It has an orange silk lining and a button missing from the cuff.
Zara hits the bottom of the ladder and looks around. “Could you have found a creepier place to meet if you tried?”
“The East River,” Eli answers without hesitation. “Or the laundry room in my apartment building.”
Zara whips to face her, several degrees more feisty than usual. “You shouldn’t be down here.”
“This is my job,” Eli says. “This is where my equipment lives.”
Zara shakes her head and corrects herself. “You shouldn’t be down here alone.”
Eli never feels alone when she’s making art. It’s a conversation she’s having. This is what to care about, she tells people when she’s lighting a scene. Mira, esto es importante. And they look where she wants them to look. They sit up and pay attention.
Zara’s fingers twist up in her purse strap. “I’m worried about you.”
Eli doesn’t know how to process that kind of concern. When she lived at home, her parents seemed like they were always worried about her — but really they were worried about themselves. How she made them look. How she made things hard on them. She knows because they told her, almost every day, from the age of four or five until she moved out.
Eli is hoping Zara will drop it, but she goes from worry straight to scolding. “People are getting hurt. It’s not safe.”
“This is New York City!” Eli says, heat kicking up through her chest. “What exactly did you expect?”
“You told me that if I stayed, we would look out for each other. Well, that’s what I’m doing.”
Eli feels the tap of guilt on her shoulder and brushes it away. “I’m not the only one who takes chances. You were out with Toby. By yourself.”
Zara’s face goes blunt. “He made me talk to him after he caught me looking through Carl’s bag.”
Eli has to beat back a smile. This is the girl she saw at auditions — the one who climbed onstage and tossed her feelings around with such force that everyone in the room felt it. Zara’s been softening her edges lately. Making herself less. Trying to keep Leopold happy.
She should always be like this.
Eli’s thoughts act like a spotlight on her own desires. How much more she wants. The things she hopes might happen between the two of them. Dios. She’s being absurd again. This girl has been in love with Ariston her entire life. She dates boys. She’s told Eli about dating boys. Not one mention of a cute girl in there. Eli would have noticed.
So then why is Zara doing the thing where she twists her fingers up like she’s folding an invisible love note? Why are her eyes getting wider, their black centers turning huge?
Oh, right. Because she’s an actress. She’s in it for the attention, which Eli keeps giving her.
“The lighting design,” Eli mutters. “It’s still not right. Let me show you what I figured out.” She goes around making a few last-second adjustments, the blades on her Leatherman flashing. Then she comes back and squares herself up to Zara.
“I need you to say a few lines.” Eli’s been waiting for this moment for hours and now she’s too surly to enjoy it. But the surliness is doing an important job, keeping the rest of her feelings pushed back.
“Okay,” Zara says, crossing her arms tight. “What part do you want me to —”
“Whatever,” Eli says quickly. “A monologue. Just keep talking.”
Zara nods, leaving her chin tipped slightly upward at what Eli is starting to think of as the Echo angle.
Eli gets a flash of that photo, the soft-eyed girl pressed up against Adrian Ward. For two whole seconds she worried that Zara had been messing with her the whole time, that she was just Adrian’s girlfriend-in-waiting. But that’s not the Zara she knows. That Zara’s not even real.
Which is a serious problem. No matter who Zara likes or doesn’t like, she’s the star of a story that’s being told by somebody else.
“Take off your coat,” Eli says roughly.
Zara sheds it like a winter skin she doesn’t need anymore. Eli watches her soft arms move, revealing the rest of her body: the proud sweep of her shoulders, the sweet pinch of her waist.
Zara’s breath drops in that trained actor way. Eli’s eyes trail downward, following the rise of Zara’s breath as it moves from her chest to her stomach, where it pulses. Softly. Zara’s voice spreads through the dark space.
“The gods have not given me leave to speak,
And yet I will,
For to leave this unsaid would be a violence
Against all things . . .”
This is Eli’s favorite monologue. Whether she hates the play or not, there are some truths in life that can’t be denied. This monologue is one of them. The words fill Eli’s chest with bright-hot-white feelings.
“I love this part,” Eli says. Zara pauses at the end of a line and mouths the words Me too.
Eli picks up the piece of equipment that took three hours to find. Zara takes a deep breath and continues.
Eli’s hands explode with light.
This, too, is undeniable. The way this fire looks on Zara’s face, her shoulders, her collarbones.
The keys that Eli gave her.
All through the basement, Eli has set up reflectors. Their shimmering skin grabs the light and throws it back. Zara looks around with a ferocious sort of wonder. Eli presses the lantern closer to Zara, and her curves take on exhilarating brightness. This is how Eli wants the whole show to look. Close and intimate. Candles and flame.
“Ariston should be the one lighting you,” Eli says, trying to make it sound obvious, like she unlocked the answer when she was staring at her notebooks or remembering some talk she had with Roscoe instead of tossing in her bed at night, one hand pressed between her thighs. “Echo’s normal life is going to be murky. Blues and charcoal, bruise-colored. And then, when you meet Ariston . . .” She holds up the lantern to illuminate Zara’s face.
Pink and gold mingle on her cheeks. Her lips stand out, heart-stopping against her smooth skin.
“It’s perfect,” Zara says, holding up her fingers. She turns them slowly, drenching them in light. “I love it.”
Eli’s breath hitches. “There’s more.”