All's Well(103)

“Ms. Fitch!” someone says to me. A young boy dressed as a lord. “Ms. Fitch, we did it!”

“Ms. Fitch? I’m Helen, my lord.” I wink at the boy. “Where is the Countess of Roussillon?”

He looks at me, confused. “What?”

“Am I late?” I whisper. “I don’t want to miss my cue.”

“Your cue? Ms. Fitch, the play’s already—”

“Wow, they’re really applauding, can’t you hear them? God, what a rush, isn’t it?”

“Ms. Fitch, wait! What are you—”

I walk out onto the stage, smiling even as tears are still streaming from my eyes. Laughing and crying. It’s a problem play, remember? Neither a tragedy nor a comedy. Both, always both.

Onstage, I’m immediately blinded by a light brighter than the sun. It warms me to the bone. Everyone is still standing in a line. I watch them take a bow together. What’s this? Are we already taking bows? How can that be?

“Ms. Fitch,” they cry, “congratulations. We did it!”

“I’m Helen,” I whisper.

“Ms. Fitch, are you okay?” they say. “Ms. Fitch, where are you going? Ms. Fitch…”

The stage is so soft beneath my feet. Like the softest carpet in the world, the gentlest earth. It tilts slightly to one side. It spins slowly. Strange. Perhaps that’s some kind of newfangled effect they added? This play is the cosmos reversed, after all. Still, I wish someone had told me about this. The tilting and spinning makes it hard to walk a straight line toward the front of the stage where I belong, where it seems like a young girl and boy are already standing, holding hands. Bowing together. Everyone in the audience is applauding so wildly for me. Whistling and whooping and stomping their feet. I’ve only just stepped onto the stage and look, they’re already on their feet.

“Thank you,” I tell them. “Thank you so much.”

The young man and woman have turned to look at me as I approach. They’re waving me up to the front of the stage. Is this how the play starts? Where am I supposed to stand in mourning for my broken heart? Probably the director told me once, but now I can’t seem to remember. I’ll have to ask someone onstage, that’s awkward. I’ll have to whisper it. I’ll ask that boy and girl waving me over. The boy is dressed like a young courtier. He must be Bertram, my costar. He’ll know. Or that girl beside him. Who is she supposed to be? She’s wearing a red dress like I am. She’s holding a bouquet of wildflowers. Helen? It can’t be, I’m Helen. She must be my understudy. They asked her to step in because I’m late, because I got stuck talking to that lord backstage. Well, I’m here now. I walk over to the young woman dressed as Helen, who is taking her bows, who is holding my flowers. I’m Helen, I’ll have to explain. I’m the one.

She looks at me and smiles. “Professor Fitch,” she says.

“Helen,” I say. I think I’ll have to fight her for the role on the stage, and I’m ready to do that. My hands are curled into fists. But she just hands me the flowers.

“For you,” she says. Face flushed and shining. Beneath me, the stage continues to turn like the earth. The theater seems to be turning too.

“Where do I start?” I whisper to the other Helen. “Did I miss my cue?”

She frowns like she doesn’t understand me. “Professor, the play is over.” She looks at my toga dress. “Are you okay?”

I better say my first line before it’s too late, before she takes it from me. What’s the line again? Oh yes. I look at the audience and smile.

“?‘I have supped full with horrors,’?” I say.

The audience quiets. Clapping peters out. Wait, is that the first line? Definitely not that. I turn to the other Helen, who’s looking at me, afraid now. Oh no, I’ve said the wrong first line. Shit. Better try again.

“?‘I will not be afraid of death and bane till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane,’?” I shout.

The audience is still now.

“Professor Fitch,” hisses the other Helen, tugging on my arm. Her face begins to spin just like the stage, just like the walls, just like the clapping bodies in the dark. Everything spins and tilts. No wonder Helen appears to be panicking. She takes my hand.

“Take a bow with me, Professor,” she pleads.

I bow and the audience cheers again. They applaud wildly, so sideways. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see someone approaching. A young woman dressed as an old man. She’s got a fake beard and scepter. A rhinestone crown sits on her burnished curls. The King coming toward me. To ask me to heal her, of course. She’ so very ill.

“Miranda,” the other Helen whispers, “come with me.”

“Wait,” I tell her, “it’s the King. I have to heal her. She’s in so much pain.”

But the King doesn’t look in pain at all. Her face is glowing. Her cheeks are flushed with health. She’s positively beaming as she bounds toward me, calling, “Ms. Fitch, Ms. Fitch!” Completely unbothered by the tilting, spinning stage. Tilting and spinning more quickly, more fiercely now.

I stare at the King running toward me. Her bright leaf-green eyes fixed on me. Not the King, I realize. Mine enemy. Mine enemy reaching out her hands to kill me. To take her revenge for everything I have done. Right here on the stage in front of my wildly cheering audience.