All's Well(35)

So here we are, Miranda. No going back now. Too late for that. I asked for this, her face says, as I join her now on the stage.

I face her, mere feet away from where she’s standing now, surrounded by her little army.

I smile at them all. I try to. Play dumb. It’s the only way.

“What’s going on here?” I ask.

I look at Ellie standing a little distance away from the circle. She looks at me, then at the floor like she wants it to swallow her. Trevor is embarrassed for me too. Won’t look me in the eye at all. Just stands next to Briana with his shoulders hiked up to his ears, hands in his pockets, a reluctant groom, but he’s at the altar; he’ll say the scripted words when it’s time.

Sorry, Miranda, but we all feel…

None of the students will look at me. The Ashley/Michelles are looking intently at their phones. Ditto all the other ones, my children, the ones who are but a blur of mediocrity. Only Briana looks at me. Right in the eye. Her smile doesn’t break, I have to hand it to her. Her little chin stays lifted up. Her eyes don’t blink. She is breathtakingly unafraid of me. So unafraid that I feel fear, queasy. Of course she is unafraid. Look at you. Withered and wavering on your feet in your Ann Taylor sack. Smelling of demonic pub wine. Looking at her blearily through your drug mist. Unable to say your words in one cohesive string. Your sentences breaking apart like brittle. Pauses that go on for minutes during which you just stare at dust, while they all cough pointedly. Hardly an inspiration. Authority? Forget authority. You have no authority here. You have lost.

Oh, but I refuse to lose.

This is a standoff. Have I had them before? Yes, I’ve had them before.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on, please?” I ask this kindly. Inquiring, merely inquiring. Like I’m curious.

You know what’s going on, Miranda. You see the script in my hands that is not your script, that I’m holding in such a way that the title is visible to your eye. But Briana is also taken aback by my approach. I’m not throwing a fit. I’m playing dumb, confused, she didn’t expect that. And I’m good at it. She forgets I was an actress once. On much bigger stages than this, oh yes. I played festivals. Critics raved about me in reviews. A shining light. An impressive performance. Competently portrayed.

Briana’s smile wavers. I watch her white neck redden, her freckled chest flush, and it’s delicious, the sight, it emboldens me. Even though a part of me feels shame. Because she’s just a child, isn’t she? The lip gloss, the absurd butterfly clip in her hair, the challenge in her green gaze. Just a child, Miranda, remember.

But then I hear chimes clinking. Fauve. Emerging from the shadowy wings with the softest steps. She places jangling white hands on Briana’s shoulders as if she’s her mother. She’s going to make it all right.

“Everything okay here? I heard shouting.” Fauve looks at me. So concerned, so fake confused. But she’s a hack. What did she do, community theater?

I look at Briana, who’s looking away now. Smiling a little to herself. Biting her thickly glossed lower lip.

“Fine,” I say. “All’s well.” I say it meaningfully.

Fauve smiles sorrowfully at me.

“Miranda.” She pauses, like my name is its own sad thing. “Did the dean speak with you?” As if she didn’t already know this. Help orchestrate it. Nudge Briana along. Perhaps she even walked Briana to the dean’s office herself. Come along, dear. You’re doing the right thing. You’re so very brave. Bolstered her story of my steamrolling with evidence. Tapped a talon at the date/time in her silvery-blue book.

“Yes,” I say, “he spoke with me.”

“Oh, good.” I watch her fingers encircling Briana’s neck lightly. I think of the fat man caressing my face. She pats Briana’s shoulder as if it’s all sorted now. The hurly-burly done. The battle lost and won. There, there. Not because she loves Briana, no, no. Because she hates me that much. Doesn’t believe this pain business. Thinks I’m faking. Talk about theater, Miranda. If only I’d put that kind of theater into my work here. We shouldn’t even be doing Shakespeare, anyway. We should be doing Bye Bye Birdie. Meet Me in St. Louis. That’s theater. But if we’re going to do Shakespeare we may as well go, you know, big. Some witches, for god’s sake.

“How’s your hip, Miranda? Or is it your back? I always forget,” she says, “if it’s your hip or your back.”

“Both.” You know it’s both! I look at Briana’s face. Cradled and beaming now between Fauve’s jewel-suffocated hands. Suddenly I’m so tired. To the bone, the cell. Just standing on my concrete leg makes me sweat. I’m losing steam.

“You certainly are standing a little funny, Miranda. Perhaps you should sit down. Take it easy.”

They both smile. They won. Fauve gets to see me in my directorial death throes. Her smile is the smile of the fat man looking at me when his body was a blue sky and I was pinned to the floor bearing the black tar of his pain.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

“Well, if you need my help, you just call. I’m right across the hall, you know.” Watching you. Willing you to fail. Fauve pats Briana on the back, walks away, clinking.

I look at Briana. Who feels protected now. Happy. Relieved. I watch her exhale. Perhaps she was a little afraid of me after all. I look at her cradling the script in her hands, holding it close to her young body, so little and lithe. I look at her rib cage rising and falling, the prideful heart beating beneath.