All's Well(88)

But Grace said she should look like a wretch.

There again, Grace, I had to smile at your intrusion, our little collisions of interpretation around Helen. I missed you in that moment, I did. But you need your rest, of course.

Well, Grace isn’t here, is she? Besides, Grace and I discussed it again, at length. A lie to the students, Grace, is probably easier in this case than the muddy truth, I’m sure you’ll agree.

And happily, now we all agree. Helen needs to look hot. And formidable.

When Helen—I mean Ellie—first tried on the dress, she took my breath away. And nothing these days takes my breath away. She would have taken your breath away too, Grace.

Oh, Helen, I said. You look beautiful.

And Helen looked at herself in the mirror, and she burst into tears. Overcome, I suppose. How could she not be? She’s lived so long in the shadows. She cried and cried and cried. A little too intensely. I wanted to tell her to calm down, really.

All of this emotion should only help Ellie’s performance, of course. Should work so wonderfully for her Helen. When she’s onstage, delivering the lines All’s well that ends well yet, though time seems so adverse, and means unfit, I shiver, Grace. And I tell her this, I tell her, “Ellie, you’re making me shiver.”

The problem, Grace? The problem is it’s incapacitating her. She’s running to the bathroom a lot, presumably to cry. She stops in the middle of her lines like she’s lost.

The final day of tech week: I call the line and Ellie doesn’t speak it. She just looks at me like I’ve spoken gobbledygook.

“Do you want the line again, Ellie?”

And she just continues to stare at me like she isn’t sure who I am.

“Is something wrong?” I ask her.

Then her expression shifts. “Miranda,” she says quietly, “can I talk to you, please?”

And can I tell you that when she says that I know exactly what’s coming? Because how many ledges have I talked them off over the years? How many tears have I wiped away from their cheeks? How many hyperventilating bodies have I told to breathe, just breathe, my dear. Watched their small chests heave as they tried to just breathe. Now, I’d say, talk to me. And then they’d tell me their stories. Depression stories, anxiety stories, misfit stories, bullying stories, parents-who-don’t-understand-me stories, so many dead grandmothers, so many dearly departed dogs. Stories that make them stammer, that make them look at the floor, that make their eyes well up again to tell. Hyperventilate anew. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Always the same ending: Ms. Fitch, I just don’t know if I can be in the play after all. I just don’t know if I can go up there.

Stories that tighten my chest, that make me heavy with panic, that make my heart go like a drum. That have kept my spine a different shape. Made it bow like a branch. That used to light up the red webs. Grace, it’s no wonder, really, that I had a dead leg for so long.

I look at Ellie now. Standing there like she’s about to faint. Her fingers twitching of their own accord at her sides. It’s so perfect, her anguish. So scene-appropriate. If only she would speak her line. All’s well that ends well yet, though time seems so adverse, and means unfit.

“Here is your line, Helen,” I say encouragingly. “Speak.”

But Ellie runs offstage, her red dress billowing behind her.

“All right, everyone,” I say. “Take five.”

I float out into the hall, where I find her sitting on the floor against the brick wall. Clutching her knees to her chest. Head in her hands. Weeping, presumably. This is the moment when normally I would crouch down to the floor. I’d say, What’s wrong? What can I do? But these words, even though I mean to speak them, I want to speak them, don’t leave my lips.

Instead I just stare down at her hunched pathetically on the floor.

She becomes aware of my shadow falling over her. Looks up.

“Miranda,” she says at last through her tears. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s all right, Ellie. Of course it’s all right, I should say. But I say nothing. My lips stay closed, smiling. My silence has the effect of making her gather herself.

She stops crying abruptly. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Professor,” she says again. “I just don’t know if I can do this.”

“Do what?” I say. And I’m surprised to hear that my voice sounds cold, threatening, impatient. She looks at me like I’ve slapped her. Then she looks back down at her knees. Shakes her head sorrowfully. “This is all my fault. All of it.”

“All your fault? I don’t understand.”

“I shouldn’t be in the play anymore.”

I crouch down low before her. I lift her chin up to meet my eye. Her face looks punched. Her colorless eyes are swollen. Snot is trickling from her nose down to her lips, which are crackled and trembling.

“Please don’t make me play Helen, Miranda. It’s too much.”

“Ellie, of course you’re going to play Helen. You are Helen.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

I reach out my hand and trace her face with my finger. She doesn’t flinch. She closes her eyes at my touch. This is what she wanted. All she wanted in the first place. My consolation. My understanding. Fresh tears stream down her cheeks. Oh, the pain of loving this idiotic boy.

“Ellie, sometimes pain is a gift for an actor. And we can use it to deepen our performances. Pain can make us better. It’s actually made you a better Helen, it really has.”