Aftermath of Dreaming(17)
Tim nodded as if that explained all, and smiled. Then the two of them caught up on each other’s lives while I watched Holly cleave onto Karen. I don’t think she was aware I was there, but I knew who she was from the local news stories she did, mostly movie premieres, fashion stuff, and celebrity interviews.
Our exit came before theirs. We said our goodbyes; Tim and Holly’s husband promised to have lunch, Karen shook my hand, and Holly lolled against her more firmly—as if the departure of total strangers was too much a foreboding of what tomorrow held in store. When Tim and I were halfway across the platform, I heard through the still-open train doors a long trill of Holly’s laughter descend into a distinctive wail; then the subway bell rang its two-note tone, the doors slid shut, and the train carried them off. The reverberation of that cry left me unsettled for days. Her husband had seemed like a nice man. I wondered what he was really like inside.
Anyway. Andrew and Holly have settled into their seats at the theater just a few rows in front of me and a little to the right. That’s closer than I’d like, but safe, I decide, because I am completely out of their (Andrew’s) view.
Okay, so I just need to make it to the lights going down, which should be any minute now, then the show will distract me, I hope, or at least keep me under the cover of darkness until it ends and I can get out and run. I am immediately grateful to Sydney for not having an intermission; at least I’m saved from that hellish interval of milling around. The outburst over Andrew has subsided to a low thrilling roar of whispers and nudges from an audience completely flustered since the most famous and talented performer is sitting among them and not appearing onstage.
The lights flicker once, then go back up, then flicker again. Just go down, lights, please, and plunge us into wonderful concealing darkness so I can’t see Andrew and he can’t see me and I don’t have to look at Holly. Suddenly, as if my thoughts were his cue, Andrew turns around and looks at me.
Just looks at me. The way he used to gaze at me across his bed.
Then he waves. A fingers-up-and-down wave. Which I find odd, and wonder if it is a habit he picked up from his two kids. And still he is looking at me. A time-has-stopped look. A no-one-else-is-here look. Then he waves again. But I still haven’t responded to his first wave, other than the fact that my eyes are unable to leave his. Unable to leave his the way the earth is unable to leave the sun. My hands feel glued to my lap and I am suddenly finding it very hard to get the muscles of my mouth to smile, and exactly what size smile do you use for an ex-never-thought-you-could-breathe-without anyway? I cannot figure this out, so I just kind of half-wave, half-cover my sort-of-smiling mouth and look away.
The houselights suddenly go down as if they were timed for him. Then Sydney comes on stage singing a big grand song and I try to stay focused on her, but I can’t stop looking at Andrew. The patter Sydney does between the songs helps a bit, and her jokes are distracting to an extent, except that all I do during each one is compare when I laugh to when Holly does and try to figure out which one of us is more in sync with him. Then during what I guess would be called a “romantic number,” Andrew’s and Holly’s heads lean toward each other in an aren’t-we-enjoying-this-the-most-since-we’re-married sort of way, which I have a strong little feeling is for my benefit. At least on his part. I have no doubt she doesn’t even know who I am, much less that I am here.
Mercifully, the lights fall to complete darkness, signaling the show’s end, then they come up bright, brighter, brightest for Sydney to receive her applause. The crowd is on its feet, clapping and whooping, and the audience between Andrew and me conveniently blocks my view of him, so his of me. The irritated looks I get from the people in my row as I trip and push past them to get out to the aisle as they try to keep applauding are worth the freedom I gain as I use this perfect chaotic moment to slip out.
The second I am outside the theater, I break into a run to my truck like I am being chased by banshees, then I quick get in, even locking the door behind me as if that will keep Andrew from seeing me from all the way inside. And Holly. That’s an introduction I have no desire to repeat. Not that she’d remember me. Or that Andrew would even greet me in front of her, or offer an introduction. Though actually, he might. With him, who knows? He might think it’d be fine, no reason in the world not to.
Hightailing it out of the parking lot, thank you, Chevy engine, I remember that I was supposed to go to the opening-night party afterward, so I leave a “loved your show; can’t—cough, cough—make the party” message at Sydney’s home, so she’ll know how sincere I am.
When I reach a secure distance from the theater in that barren part of the 10 near Centinela, I pull over to the shoulder, put my truck into park, and lift my hands to cover my face. I thought tears would come, but they don’t. I am in too much shock.
There are moments right after something has happened to me, catalytic or catastrophic, when I am truly amazed that the physical objects in my life continue to look the same as they did before. Like when I was in the waiting room, right after the doctor told me and Suzanne that Momma had died, I could not believe that the hospital I was sitting in was still standing, hadn’t shattered and crumbled to the ground, no longer able to hold itself up. “My entire world has just changed,” I thought. “How can this physical object still be the same?” I figured maybe I had stumbled on a koan, one of those Zen Buddhist mysteries you meditate on, and supposedly after you sit still long enough, it reveals itself to you. The emptiness is revealed. You can finally see past the illusion into the truth. But I didn’t know—I had never tried.