Willow
That afternoon, Angie helped me pore through plays and books of audition monologues. While she searched, I flipped through Hamlet itself, scanning Ophelia’s scenes. The words were English, yet I needed a translator. What the hell was Shakespeare saying? I couldn’t connect to anything in Ophelia’s lines.
“Focus,” Angie said, pulling the play away from me. “You can’t audition for Hamlet with Hamlet. It’s bad form. Find another Shakespeare monologue to show you can handle him.”
“I can’t handle him at all,” I said. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing or what this play is even about.”
Angie took on a fake Spanish accent. “Let me e’splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: Hamlet’s the prince of Denmark. His dad, the king, died and though it’s only been two months, his mom married his dad’s brother, Claudius. Now Claudius is king. Hamlet thinks that’s whack.”
“Sounds just like Shakespeare.”
“One night, three guards see a ghost and they tell Ham. Ham sees it too. It’s Dad. Dad says Claudius poured poison in his ear and killed him. Hamlet’s mind is blown. But hold up, he’s been dating Ophelia, daughter of Polonius. Polonius is Claudius’ right-hand man. Polonius tells Ophelia that Hamlet’s losing his marbles and she has to break up with him.
“Ophelia and Hamlet are in love but, like, the fucking patriarchy, right? She caves to her dad’s pressure and agrees to break up with him. Ham’s devastated and rants that all women are traitorous bitches, and Ophelia should go to a nunnery and never reproduce. Then Ham confronts his mom while Polonius eavesdrops and—whoops!—Ham kills Polonius.
“Ophelia, having lost her man and her dad, proceeds to lose her mind. She goes nuts, sings a bunch of dirty, sexy-time songs, and drowns herself in the river. Then a bunch of other shit happens until pretty much everyone else in the cast is dead. Curtain.” Angie sucked in a breath, her smile bright. “Got all that?”
I stared a moment, then begun a slow clap. “Angie, I can’t even…”
“I know,” she said, laughing. “I amaze myself sometimes.”
Even with Angie’s verbal Spark Notes, Shakespeare still looked like a foreign language. I was certain to crash and burn if I tried to audition with one of his monologues.
I was ready to scrap the whole endeavor for the millionth time when I read a synopsis for a play called The Woolgatherer. The lead characters were Rose, a shy young woman and recluse, and Cliff, the lonely truck driver she brings home one night.
Tears stung my eyes when I read Rose’s climactic monologue, a recollection of a night at the zoo. She went there to watch the elegant cranes stand in the still, dark water. A group of rowdy boys came through the zoo one night, blaring music and talking loudly. They threw rocks at the birds, breaking their legs and killing them while Rose screamed and screamed…
I read it again. Then once more, my heart aching.
I had my audition piece.
Dinner silverware clinked against dishes. Dad held a fork in one hand, his phone in the other. Mom picked at her soufflé, then exchanged her fork for the wine bottle and poured herself a third glass. I ate more of my dinner than usual. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this hungry, not just for food but for the days ahead. I had something to look forward to, even if it were only making a fool of myself in front of the director of the HCT.
But I’m going to try. That’s something.
I smiled a little, thinking Grandma would be pleased. For the first time since X marked the spot, I wasn’t sitting in a block of ice, merely trying to get through dinner so I could make a half-ass attempt at my homework, then curl up on the floor of my room in my comforter and hope for a decent night’s sleep.
“So, I decided what I’m going to do for an after-school activity.”
My parents’ heads shot up with comical sameness.
“Really?” My dad chewed his food slowly and swallowed. “This is encouraging.”
“A tad too late,” Mom muttered. “College deadlines for the best schools have come and gone. The best she can do is community college—God help me—and try for a spring enrollment.”
“What’s so terrible about community college?” I asked. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to go to college in the first place.”
She looked stricken. “Of course you have to go to college. Why wouldn’t you go to college?”
“Regina,” Dad said in a warning tone. He looked at me. “We can talk about college later. First, tell us what you’ve decided to do. Debate? You were always quite good at debate.”
“I’m going to audition for the play at the HCT.”
My Dad stared harder, his jaw working in a way that meant he had a lot to say on the matter, though I couldn’t imagine what.
Mom sniffed as if smelling something distasteful. “Acting?”
“Yes.”
My father slowly chewed a bite of green beans almondine from side to side, then wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Hmm. That’s not exactly…academic.”
“It’s what I want to do,” I said.
“Why?” Mom asked, as if I’d said I wanted to join a circus.
“I just told you why,” I said. “As an after-school activity.”
My father held my gaze with his hardest stare. “It’s not because of that boy, is it?”
I froze.
He knows. He knows about X. And the party. And what happened…
Mom gaped between us. “What boy? Who…?”
My dad set his napkin down, my petrified silence seeming to confirm for him the truth of everything he was about to say.
“A fellow at the office has a daughter at George Mason. When he found out I did too, he gave me an earful about a boy named Isaac Pearce.”
A sigh of relief loosened my tensed limbs and I sagged in my chair a moment. Then indignation flared through me, making my hands strangle my napkin under the table. My father, who would’ve been hard-pressed to name a single one of my friends from New York, now pin-pointed Isaac Pearce. Why should he interfere in my life now when it was too late? Why the fuck didn’t someone at his office give him an earful about Xavier Wilkinson?
“Who is Isaac Pearce?” Mom demanded.
“He’s a guy at school,” I said. “I hardly know him—”
“Gary Vance, my coworker, says Isaac’s a senior, but much older than the kids. He was held back a grade and there’s talk about some trouble with the law—”
“He was held back because his mother died and he stopped talking for a year,” I snapped. “You make it sound like he’s a moron or a degenerate. He’s neither.”
My father pursed his lips, and nodded to himself, as if I’d just confirmed his worst suspicions. “Gary says he lives with his alcoholic father in a trailer in a junkyard, and worse—his father is one of our franchise owners. Gary says his station is a disgrace.”
My mother’s hand flew to her throat. “Jesus, Willow.”
“What?” I gaped at my father’s smug expression. “Judgmental much? So he’s not rich off dirty oil money like we are, so what?”
“Dirty,” my mother said with a sniff. “Who’s being judgmental now?”
“Business aspects aside, the boy has a reputation,” Dad said, as if he were the official Pearce Family Historian. “Apparently, he’s something of an actor. He does plays at the community theater.”
He deals drugs to small children, would’ve sounded the same in my dad’s mouth.
Mom whirled on me. “Is that why you want to act? To follow this boy around?”
“That’s the first thing you think of?” I cried. “Guess what? Isaac Pearce isn’t a criminal. He happened to defend me today from some meathead jock, and even so, even so…” I was shouting over their knowing looks now. “He’s not why I’m auditioning. Jesus, give me some fucking credit, why don’t you. You wanted me to do something, so here I am, doing something.”
“You watch your language,” Dad said, his voice hardening. “And let’s keep in mind you’ve never acted a day in your life. Suddenly you want to be on stage in front of the entire town?”
“Is Isaac Pearce going to audition too?” Mom asked, saying his name like it was a dirty word.
“Yes,” I said, fighting to control my anger. “Probably he’ll get the lead because he’s brilliant. And back to the point, I probably won’t get a part. Because, quote, I’ve never acted a day in my life. So just forget I said anything.”
“We don’t want you hanging around boys like him,” Mom said, deaf to everything I’d just said. “We came here so you could get a fresh start, but of course, you immediately latch on to the worst elements—”
“Oh my God,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Assholes come in all shapes and sizes, Mom. City or country. Poor and rich, alike.”
Sons of CEOs especially.
“And I’m not latching on to anyone. I’m trying to…”
Find myself in the dark.
Dad and Mom exchanged glances in which she silently pleaded with him to put a stop to this. Dad folded his napkin on the table in his signature I’ve-just-made-a-decision-move.
“I’m not going to forbid you to audition if you think you want to. But no matter what happens,” he said, “at the theater or at school, you’re to keep your relationship with that Pearce boy strictly professional. He’s legally an adult. You’re seventeen-years-old. Do you understand what that means?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I heard myself say aloud. “Jesus, you’re a worse gossip than the kids at school.”
I inwardly cringed when I thought what would happen when Dad’s informant told him that Isaac had been suspended for punching Ted Bowers. My parents held no moral authority over me; one of the many things I’d ceased to care about after X was done with me. But he could make things hard if by some miracle I got a role in Hamlet.
I lightened my voice. “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I’m auditioning because I want to try something new. It has nothing to do with any guy.”
“Let’s hope not,” Mom said. “It’s not as if this town has a plethora of good families to begin with.”
“For God’s sake, Regina,” Dad said. “Have you looked out the window? You live on a street of houses just as big and beautiful as ours.”
“There’s New York City well-to-do, and then there’s country-well-to-do,” Mom said, putting her wine glass to her lips. “There’s a difference and you know it.”
“So you’re biased against the entire state of Indiana,” I said. “And Dad’s biased against a poor guy who lives in a trailer. Congratulations, you’re both equally shallow.” I stood up, gathering my plate. “And I’ve lost my appetite.”
I’d never spoken this way to my parents. Ever. Yet I ignored Mom’s gasp at my rudeness and ignored Dad’s hollered order to sit back down. I stomped to the kitchen and dumped my dish in the sink.
Then I felt like shit.
I sighed. If things were different, I’d have been just as snotty and prejudiced about Indiana as Mom. No question. I was a Manhattan girl, born and bred. The old me would’ve looked down her nose at George Mason and made up her mind about everyone in it, before stepping one foot in the place.
X changed all that. You can’t look down on anyone when your own self-worth is ground into the dirt, shattered into pieces, and then pissed on.
I liked Harmony. I liked Angie and her friends. I liked Isaac for standing up for me today at school and for the possibilities he’d shown me with Oedipus. After months of frozen apathy, caring about anything or anyone was like holding something fragile. I had to protect it before it slipped out of my hands and shattered too.
I went back to the dining room. “I’m sorry I spoke to you that way. I promise I’m not auditioning because of any boy, but because I want to. May I be excused to go upstairs and do my homework?”
My parents stared.
“Homework?” Mom said. “This is the first we’ve heard you say the word—”
“Yes.” Dad said, cutting her off. “But another outburst like that and there will be no play. Understood?”
“Understood.”
And I did. My dad had zero control over his work under Ross Wilkinson but in our house, he was the boss, ruling with an iron-clad fist that hadn’t bothered me before, because I’d always fallen in line. Daddy’s little girl.
Xavier X’d that out too.
I hurried upstairs. Behind my locked door, I dug the photocopied Woolgatherer monologue out of my backpack. I read the words over and over, losing myself in Rose’s world. Letting her words be mine.
It was easy.
They gave me a needle to make me stop screaming…
Rose screamed on the outside the way I screamed on the inside. On and on, all day long, every day, screaming from somewhere way down deep. Screaming like vomiting. Screaming until the sound exploded my bones. Mustering the courage to look into the mirror and being shocked I was still in one piece. I’d read books about people going fucking crazy. How was I still doing this one-foot-in-front-of-the other bullshit?
You still burn, Grandma whispered.
I grabbed my laptop and opened it, punched in the URL for the Harmony Community Theater. The site loaded to a flattering shot of the brick building under a blue, cloudless summer sky. Photo stills of the latest show, Oedipus Rex, were posted below, almost all of them showing Isaac Pearce, bearded and bloody, his naked emotions spilling out of the screen.
At the bottom of the page was an audition sign-up sheet for Hamlet. I typed in my name and contact info and hit send.