Night Film(192)
I went opening night, in a small theater. As soon as the lights went down and the heavy black curtain was noisily hauled aside, there was Nora in blue light, her blond hair in two long braids, climbing up to a rickety castle lookout tower made out of plywood. She was surprisingly good—infusing all of her lines with the comical, wide-eyed guilelessness I’d heard so many times. When she encountered Hamlette’s mom’s ghost (who in a strange costume choice was wearing a garter belt and white teddy and thus came off as a strung-out spirit who’d sauntered in from not purgatory but the Crazy Horse in Vegas) and Nora tripped and stumbled backward, na?vely announcing, “ ’Tis here!” and “It was about to speak, when the cock crew!” the audience erupted with delighted laughter.
The play ran without intermission. When it was finally over—after Ophelio offed himself by throwing back too many Xanax, Hamlette finally had the nerve to off her bitchy stepmom, and, at long last, Fortinbrassa and her army of gal pals arrived fashionably late at Elsinore wearing nylon miniskirts straight from the Ice Capades—I remained in my seat.
When the theater emptied, I was surprised to see someone else had remained behind, too.
Hopper. Of course.
He was sitting in the last row in the very back. He must have snuck in after the lights went down.
“McGrath.”
Like me, he’d brought Nora a bouquet of flowers, red roses. He’d gotten a haircut. And though he was still wearing his gray wool coat and Converse sneakers, he had on a white button-down shirt, which looked as if he hadn’t found it on the floor of his apartment, the circles no longer carved so deeply under his eyes.
“How’ve you been?” I asked.
He smiled. “Pretty good.”
“You look good. Have you quit smoking?”
“Not yet.” He was about to add something, but his gaze moved behind me, and I turned to see Nora stepping out from the curtain. I was relieved to see she was still sporting the old transvestite’s wardrobe—black leggings, one of Moe’s purple tuxedo shirts—that she hadn’t changed. Because New York could do that to you in no time, streamlining and sanding, polishing and buffing you into something that looked good, but like everyone else.
Nora gave us the tightest of hugs and waved goodbye to her cast mates.
“Bye, Riley! You were amazing tonight!” (Riley, a pretty bleached blonde, had played Hamlette and delivered “To Be or Not to Be” with all the gravitas of wondering, “To Text or Not to Text.”) “Drew, you left your hat on the prop table.”
Nora, beaming, amped up on theater energy, pulled on her coat and suggested we all go grab a bite. As we exited the theater, she linked her arms through ours, striding down the sidewalk—Dorothy reunited with Scarecrow and Tin Man.
“Woodward, how’ve you been? I missed you. Oh, wait. How’s Septimus?”
“Immortal, as usual.”
“You both brought flowers? You guys got chivalrous all of a sudden?”
We went to The Odeon, a French brasserie on West Broadway open late. We piled into the booth, Nora staring at our faces like they were foreign newspapers she’d finally got her hands on, filled with the latest news from home.
“You both look good. Oh.” She yanked off a glove to display the inside of her right wrist, across it a small tattoo of three words.
Do I DARE?
“So I never forget her.” She bit her bottom lip, glancing nervously at Hopper. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head. “Ash would have loved it.”
“I went to Rising Dragon for the tattoo. But that guy we talked to, Tommy? He moved back to Vancouver, so this other guy did it. It hurt like nothing. But it was worth it.”
I’d completely forgotten Tommy, the tattoo artist. Then Gallo had sent him on his merry way, too.
Nora took my startled look for disapproval. “I knew you wouldn’t like it. But it’s tiny. And I can cover it up with makeup. And before my wedding I can always get it lasered.”
“What wedding?” I demanded.
“One day. If I have one. But Woodward, will you give me away? I was thinking that I didn’t have anyone to do it.”
“Yes. Provided it’s twenty years from now.”
We ended up staying out until five in the morning, getting drunk and loud, leaving Odeon for some unmarked speakeasy in a Chinatown Laundromat where Hopper was a regular; leaving that for an after-hours club where Nora’s friend Maxine was a hostess; leaving that for some dive bar on Essex Street to play pool and take over the jukebox—playing Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (“This is our anthem,” Nora said, as Hopper, displaying remarkable dancing skills, spun her around the room). They told me what had happened in their lives since those two months we’d spent holed up together, chasing the truth about Ashley—and Cordova.
Nora was fully committed to conquering off-off-Broadway—fitting in auditions posted in Backstage with a full-time job at Healthy Bakes. (Healthy Bakes, the brainchild of Josephine, Nora’s hippie landlord, was a highly appetizing vegan, sugar-and-gluten-free, macrobiotic cupcake shop in the East Village.) Nora showed us her new head shots, which featured her eyeing us over her shoulder, her hair straightened and cascading. Nora Edge Halliday, the picture announced in elaborate cursive. If the headshot had a voice, it would be a husky British whisper on Masterpiece Theatre.