You'd Be Home Now (46)

    “Good night, Emory. Get to bed, all right?”

“Good night, Dad,” I say, and make my way up the stairs to my bedroom.

In bed, I touch a finger to my mouth. My lips feel fuller, swollen almost, and softer. A gentle electric feeling creeps over my body.

My phone pings.


I like what we have



Yes, I type.


Not a thing, but something good, just between us



So he was listening, in the pool house, before we started.

Go slow, I tell myself. Baby steps. Not all at once. One thing at a time.

Okay, I answer. For now.


Give me some words



I think, the quietness of my room wrapping around me. If I got up, would I see him in his window, looking back at me? Or is he in bed, too, wondering about his own swollen mouth?

Let the stars, I type, speak for us.





20


MONDAY AFTER SCHOOL, WE are all standing on the stage, watching Simon Stanley sitting in a wooden chair. His legs are crossed and he’s holding a paperback copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

“Who am I?” he asks.

No one says anything. I shift from one leg to the other, trying to rest my knee.

“I mean, just by looking at me, do you think you know me? By the way I’m sitting. By the way I’m holding this book.”

“Um,” says the red-haired girl. “You look relaxed. Your legs are crossed.”

“Good,” Simon says. “What happens if I do this?” He slouches down in the chair, uncrosses his legs, rolls his head to one side so it almost touches his shoulder. Giggles from the circle.

“I’d say you’re stoned, dude,” another girl says.

Simon smiles. “Perhaps, yes. What about my book? What does that say about me?”

Liza smirks. “That’s a salacious book, Mr. Stanley, so I’d guess you have a lot of saucy stuff on your mind.”

Simon laughs. “Indeed. My point is, when we are thinking about our roles in a play, the play gives us direction, and an idea of how to construct our character, but not too much. So, as actors, we have to really think about our characters. The way they sit. The way they speak. Why they sit the way they do. What that tells an audience about their whole character, but also about what is happening in the scene in question. No two actors play the same role in the same way. Each approaches their role as a whole, but the character in pieces. They fill in the backstory. The seams of the garment, so to speak. The thread that holds everything together.”

    “Say what?” someone murmurs.

Simon paces among us. “I’m made up of all my experiences up until this moment, do you understand? Things you will never know have made me who I am, right now, in this moment. Sometimes we have to construct that for characters, even if it is never referenced in the play. Now, let’s play.”

I shrink back, behind the red-haired girl. I don’t want him to pick me. I just want to watch for now.

He gestures to Jeremy. “In the chair, my friend.”

Jeremy says, “This isn’t my favorite part.”

“Bear with me,” Simon answers.

Jeremy lumbers over to the chair. Simon hands him the book.

“Jeremy, you are no longer Jeremy, solid, good-guy Jeremy who makes wonderful sets and is always on time. Now you are an angry person. Give me a hint as to why.”

Jeremy hesitates.

Simon waits.

I hold my breath. This seems a little scary. I look over at Liza. She’s watching Jeremy intently. I wonder how much she knows about him. About Luther. I wonder how much Jeremy knows about her and her parents.

Suddenly I wonder if Liza ever thinks about me now. How my story has changed into something like hers used to be. If it seems ironic to her that the very thing my mother broke up our friendship for is now something that’s warped our own family.

    And I think of Joey. All his wrongs building up into something that made him feel so terrible he wanted to feel…nothing.

I feel like Jeremy, all of a sudden. This is not my favorite part, either.

Jeremy clears his throat. He’s still for a minute and then leans his elbows on his knees, one fist clenching the book. He jiggles his legs. Works his face into a frown.

“Good,” Simon says. “Now, why are you angry? What’s the backstory in your mind? Our playwright can only tell us so much, which is why one actor will play a character one way and another actor will play the same character differently. They’ve both considered the text, and what may be beneath the text.

“Why are you so angry in the chair, not-Jeremy?” Simon’s voice is soft.

The stage is very quiet, like we’re all holding our breath. It feels kind of magical to me, this anticipation. Like when you’re reading a really good book and your fingers can’t wait to turn the page. That breathlessness of not knowing what’s next. But I’m nervous, too.

Jeremy’s forehead creases. His legs jiggle faster. “I’m waiting for someone to come see me. He’s late. He’s always been late. And I know when he finally comes out of that gray door, he’s not even going to be happy to see me. He’ll call me names, make fun of me, because that’s what he always does, and why do I keep trying? I took a bus two hours to get here because no one else will see him and I had to read this stupid book for homework and everything sucks.”