Zara’s second night at Kestrel’s is harder than the first because sleep is replaced by red, red dreams. She commits to being awake around dawn, and does everything she can to distract herself. Runs her lines, unpacks her clothes, kills a week’s worth of homework. A few hours after waking up, she leaves the room to snatch breakfast — nothing that requires the stove or the shiny appliances. They look like they could be dusted for fingerprints and come up clean. Zara grabs a yogurt from the fridge. Kestrel is on the couch, flipping back and forth from reality TV to a French film without subtitles.
“Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?” Kestrel asks, her face sad in a way that looks measured — like she had to think about just how much sadness would be appropriate before she pursed her lips and wrinkled her forehead.
“No.” Zara thinks back to what Eli said. “I didn’t really know him.”
And going to the funeral would mean facing the company again, without Leopold. At the read-through, he was the only thing standing between Zara and complete humiliation. He’s gone for the entire week, in Toronto.
“I’m going to stay here and work on my lines,” Zara says.
“Right,” Kestrel says, suddenly interested in her toenail polish. “You have so many lines.”
Zara hurries back to the guest room. She can’t help that she’s been cast as Echo at Kestrel’s theater, but living in her space makes everything sharper. Zara’s afraid to be caught touching Kestrel’s things. Breathing her air.
She settles onto the bed, her script in one hand. She has a whole week to sit here, trying not to think about Roscoe. She won’t be able to do it, though. He’ll slip into thoughts of the Aurelia. He’ll visit her dreams every night. A week of this, before she goes back to the theater. It’s like sitting shiva for someone she never knew.
Zara’s phone comes to life. Maybe it’s Leopold. They can talk about the play and forget all this for a while. Zara sets her yogurt on the bedside table and checks the screen.
It’s her mom.
She’s left seven messages since Zara got to the city two days ago. Zara knows that she can’t put this off forever. “Hi.” Her voice is fluttery, weak.
“Zara, love,” her mom says in a way that she usually pairs with a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Zara misses that. She could have gone home this week, but she was afraid that when she came back to New York, she would have to start all over again, from scratch.
Besides, she’s going home for the holidays. Some of them, at least. Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away. And Christmas isn’t their holiday, anyway.
“How is the city?” her mom asks. “How is the theater? Did you leave anything at home?”
“Good, and beautiful, and no, I did not.”
Her parents pile on the questions like this. It’s one of their rituals. Now she’s supposed to ask her mom at least three questions back.
“Something happened,” Zara says, breaking the pattern. She can feel her mom waiting for an explanation on the other end of the line. She can picture her in the kitchen — black coffee in one hand, a to-do list on the table in front of her. She probably just crossed out Call Zara.
Zara smiles, knowing that it will infuse the way she speaks. “First of all, everything is fine.” This is the right way for them to hear about Roscoe. Newspapers would make it sound cold, sensational, or terrifying, and it was none of those things. It was an old man who fell, and a trip to the hospital. Zara can make her parents see it that way if she tries hard enough.
Isn’t that what acting is for?
“When I came in on the train . . .” she starts. It takes ten minutes to tell the story and another forty to convince her mom not to drop everything and immediately come see her. Zara promises to call her dad and tell him, too, although her mom will get to it first, so the hard part is done.
At the last second, after a round of good-byes, her mom’s voice goes flat. “You shouldn’t be there. You never should have gone.” This is exactly what Zara needed her not to say. “It’s just a play.” Zara winces like she’s been thrown into cold water. “If you were good enough for them to pick you once, someone will pick you again.”
Not at the Aurelia.
Not by Leopold Henneman.
Not as Echo.
A new text comes in, from a New York number, with no name attached.
Is today tomorrow?
“Mom, I have to go,” Zara says.
And she hangs up. Without a good-bye. She’s never done that before. Zara reads Eli’s text again.
Is today tomorrow?
Plays are usually filled with people who become close for weeks and months, who spend every minute together and learn each other in ways that normal friends never do. They confide, reveal, peel back fears and secrets to see what’s underneath. They dream together. They wrestle and fight and laugh too loud and kiss for no reason. Zara has her mom’s words trapped in her head, like a line that she memorized and will never be able to unlearn. It’s just a play. She needs a friend who knows better.
Eli looked at Zara like she belonged at that table, like she was meant to be there.
Zara takes a quick breath and types.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
As soon as it’s sent, she falls backward on the bed and hits the pillows with a hard thump. Zara can’t seem to get anything right. Who quotes the most morbid monologue from Macbeth when someone just died?
Eli worked with Roscoe. Zara watched him die. Maybe that’s why Zara needs Eli to like her.
Her phone lights up.
All our yesterdays have been shit. Let’s get new yesterdays.
Zara smiles, lying on her back and holding the phone up with both hands as she types.
Where do you want to meet?
Eli picks the Aurelia, which is perfect. Maybe Zara should want to avoid it, to get some distance, to forget what happened to Roscoe. But the truth is, she would have been intimidated if Eli picked any other place. The rest of New York City overwhelms Zara: the subways and the choked sidewalks, the people who would happily murder her for not walking fast enough.
The Aurelia feels like hers.