Since You've Been Gone

To my relief, Frank, as Duncan, had more than held his own. I wasn’t sure I was going to encourage him to change direction and start auditioning for all the school plays, but he spoke his lines clearly, followed along with the script, and faced the right way. He also revealed an innate sense of comic timing I’d never guessed he had. So I was feeling like the evening hadn’t been a total disaster, and had actually gone okay, as Frank and I took the stage together for the final scene.

Duncan and Cecily had been on quite the whirlwind together, as they went from enemies to friends, until Cecily became convinced Duncan was only pretending to be her friend after it appeared he had turned against her during her court-martial after the color war. But it was just a misunderstanding, and in the final scene, on the last day of camp, the smoldering embers of what remained of Camp Greenleaf behind them, they finally cleared things up.

“I’m sorry,” Frank-as-Duncan said to me.

“He crosses to her, stage right,” Beckett intoned from his perch on the kitchen stool just offstage. He had been the true star of the night, always staying on top, reading the stage directions and jumping in with assistance when people lost their place.

“You should have told me what was happening,” I said, as Cecily.

“I know,” Frank said, glancing up at me and then looking down at his script again.

“I didn’t think I could trust you,” I said.

“But you can,” Frank said. “I’m here.”

“He takes her hand,” Beckett read out from the stage directions. Both Frank and I looked over at him, but neither one of us moved. “He takes her hand,” Beckett repeated, more loudly this time, and Frank glanced at me, then took a step closer.

I swallowed hard and could feel my heart start to pound. I tried to tell myself that it was just acting. It wasn’t a big deal.  And it certainly didn’t mean anything. I transferred my script into my left hand and met Frank’s eye. He gave me a small, embarrassed smile, then reached out toward me. I met him halfway, our fingers awkwardly colliding until we got our palms lined up and he threaded his fingers through mine. His hand was cool, and I was suddenly aware how nicely our hands fit together, our fingers overlapping easily.

My heart was beating hard, and I could feel the blood pulsing in the tips of my fingers. How had this even happened? How was Frank Porter holding my hand?

“Cecily?” Beckett prompted, and I was jerked back to reality as I tried to turn to the last page of my script with only one hand.

“Sorry,” I muttered, and there was low, polite laughter from the audience. I glanced up long enough to see my parents standing in the back, my dad’s arms around my mom, both of them looking more present, and more relaxed, than I’d seen them in a while. I was just relieved that neither one of them seemed furious I had ruined their masterpiece. I flipped to the last page of the script, and there it was, in black and white, two lines away—They kiss.

I must have totally blocked out that this would be happening. I could feel my pulse start to race, and I worried my palm, still pressed against Frank’s, was going to start to get sweaty very soon.

“Um,” I said, struggling to find my place in the script. “And you’ll always be here?” I asked him.

Now, just a bit too late, I remembered perfectly what came next. Duncan had the line that was always the last laugh of the play, about how he’d be there at least until his mom came to pick him up and take him back to Weehawken. And then Duncan and Cecily kissed while the rest of the campers filed onstage and sang the Camp Greenleaf song.

I didn’t want Frank to feel like he had to kiss me, like he had clearly felt compelled to take my hand. I couldn’t even imagine having to kiss Frank Porter, especially in front of all these people, and my parents and younger brother.  Also, he had a girlfriend. And while real actors kissed other people all the time, this was different. This was—

“. . . back to Weehawken,” Frank said, finishing the line I hadn’t heard him start, and there was laughter from the audience and I knew what was coming. I glanced, panicked, at my brother.

“They kiss,” Beckett read, and I could practically feel Frank’s shock and the expectant pause in the audience.

Frank and I looked at each other. We were still holding hands, but he still seemed impossibly far away from me, and I couldn’t even imagine crossing that gulf to kiss him. Mostly because I couldn’t even imagine kissing him. It was one thing to get to know him, and go running with him, but—

Keeping his eyes on me, Frank took a tiny step closer, and it was like my brain was wiped clear of thoughts. It was like the world had started moving in slow motion as he moved a little closer to me still, and then started to tilt his head to the side.

“Lights down!” Beckett yelled, jerking me back to reality, and I blinked, trying to catch up with everything that had just happened—or almost happened. “Curtain!”

Everyone started clapping, and the rest of the cast filed out and we all joined hands—Frank and I hadn’t stopped holding hands since Beckett told us to, I realized—and took a bow, and then people started getting up and putting the chairs away and drifting back into the kitchen to see if there was any food left.

Frank and I looked at each other, and after just a moment like that, we dropped hands. He stuck his hands in his shorts pockets and I grabbed the script with both of mine, twisting it into a tight roll, trying not to think about how cold my hand now felt.

“Hey!” Dawn said, coming up to us and giving me a smile. “That was really great.”

“Thanks,” I said, glancing at Frank, wondering what he was thinking about what had almost happened, but he was frowning down at his phone.

“Nice work, you two,” my mother said with a smile as she passed me, giving me a quick hug as she went. I caught my dad’s eye from across the room and he gave me a very dorky thumbs-up.

“Thanks,” Frank said, glancing up from his phone for a moment before typing a response into it, then looking up at me, his brow furrowed. “Hey,” he said. “So here’s the thing.” He seemed to notice Dawn for the first time, and turned to her, holding out his hand in a manner that practically telegraphed I’m the student body president. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m Frank Porter.”

“Dawn Finley,” she said as they shook. “You did a really good job.”