All's Well(56)

“No?” Really, Ellie? “Well, as you know, we’re at that time of year again.”

I gesture to the window and smile. Budding branches. Pale green leaves. Spring. Spring, does she see that? A time when everything is in bloom. Everything is having sex. Everything is so damp and fragrant and fuckable. Showtime, in other words. Right around the corner.

She nods nervously. Yes. Yes, she sees that.…

“Given that we’re at this point in the production timeline, opening night not too far away, and our lead still…” I feel a smile creep across my face as I say this. I bite my lip, attempt to appear mournful. “Absent.”

Ellie nods sadly. Yes.

“I’ve had to make some difficult decisions.”

I stand up; I pace the floor to demonstrate the difficulty. My new boots click along the floor. Haven’t taken them off since I bought them. Drove to the mall one night. Skipped into the shop. Said to the shoe man, I’d love a pair of leather boots. With a heel, please. High. Spiked.

She looks at me, suddenly very alert. “Decisions?” Ellie says. “What sort of decisions?”

I spin around deliciously. Hop up onto my desk again. Easy. So very easy to hop and spin these days. I recross my legs of flesh. Not concrete anymore, flesh. I look at my Helen and smile.

“Casting decisions, Ellie.”

I watch Ellie hold her breath. She knows. She’s waiting for it.

“Ellie, I’d like for you to play Helen. For this year’s production.”

She closes her eyes. Lowers her head.

“Me,” she whispers.

“You’re perfect for the role, Ellie. You make Helen’s pain, her love, her loss, her determination, your own.”

Ellie says nothing. She’s still looking at the floor. Her hands are still trembling.

“Ellie, surely you could see this was coming? It’s your fault, really.”

Suddenly she looks up at me, white with fear.

“My fault?”

“For being so wonderful. For being so luminous. Truly I’ve never seen Helen so luminously played. We’re all riveted by it every afternoon. I know I am.”

She looks back down at the floor. She begins to shake more violently now. I put my hand on Ellie’s shuddering shoulder. I lift her head up, expecting to see tears. And there are tears. But what I see too is a flash of a smile on her face. A flash of glee. Obscene glee. Which she quickly conceals. I watch her bite her lip. Lower her head again.

“But what about Briana?” she says.

Oh, Ellie. So determined to take the honorable road. Even though she wants the part so bad she can taste it. I play along.

“What about her?” I say.

“It’s her part,” she says quietly. “I’d hate to steal it from her.”

Standing at the precipice of her own desire. Shaking her head at the bottomless chasm.

“Of course you would,” I lie. “But Briana’s not here, is she? I don’t see her here, do you?” I lean back, pretend to look for Briana behind my desk. I lift my desk calendar up. Nope. No Briana in sight, see?

Ellie looks around at the empty air, afraid.

“What if she comes back?” she says.

“She won’t come back.” Again, I say this too quickly. “She’s still not… well… as you know.”

Ellie nods. “It’s so sad.”

She looks genuinely troubled now. All traces of that strange happiness gone. So I appear mournful once more. Pensive. Surprised by the turn of events that has led to this. Not at all ecstatic. Not at all dancing inside.

“It’s very sad, of course,” I say. “We are all in mourning. But we must soldier on. The show must go on, as they say.” I smile sadly.

“Who’s going to play the King?”

“Forget the King,” I snap. “Do you really want to hobble around the stage playing an ailing, old wretch with a fistula? If I’m being honest, Ellie, I never wanted that for you. Never.”

Suddenly I can’t help but feel like my mother backstage. The way she’d look at me furiously whenever I used to get stage fright as a child, her painted smile tight. Why won’t I simply go out there and shine like we talked about, huh? Like we’d practiced so many times in the living room? Me in my fourth-grade Dorothy Gale costume and red satin shoes, my mother nodding gravely from the couch in her kimono, goblet of wine in one hand, cigarette in the other, mouthing the words along with me. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

Outside, the sun is going behind a cloud. I watch its shadow pass over Ellie’s still-troubled face.

“Just leave all that to me, okay?” I tell her, gently now.

“Helen,” I say, “is the most important thing right now. And I really can’t think of an actress more suitable. Will you do it, Ellie?”

She’s smiling again. That grin is creeping across her face in spite of herself. It reminds me of when I first tried pork belly, the curl of my lips at the first taste of the crackling.

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll do it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miranda.”

“You only have yourself to thank, Ellie. Really. You earned it.”

“I mean, thank you for seeing something in me. Most people—”