In Harmony(35)

“I think she can handle it,” Martin said, as the last player departed.

“If you say so,” I muttered.

Why do you care anyway?

Willow was a distraction and it was getting fucking annoying. During the entire read-through, I’d tried to keep focus on the play while my damn eyes kept going to her, radiant in a soft white sweater and jeans. The amber overhead lights threaded gold strands down the long waves of her hair. When she read her lines, her voice had a soft lilt with an undercurrent of steel. Perfect for Ophelia.

Ophelia was stronger than her dipshit brother or conniving father thought she was, and judging from her reading, Willow knew it too.

Goddammit.

I dragged my thoughts away from her hair—again—and vowed to get my head on straight. Do my job. Martin’s talent agents were coming for me. I needed to give them the best goddamn Hamlet they’d ever seen, not worry about the mental health of a high school girl.

Who is currently sitting in the front seat of another guy’s car.

The room was empty now, and I helped Martin stack up the chairs. The silence crackled and I could feel him gearing up to interfere in my personal business. He couldn’t help himself.

“Justin Baker seems like a nice young man.”

I grunted a response as I stacked chairs.

“But sort of bland, if I’m being honest,” Martin said. “He has a clean-cut earnestness that’s perfect for Laertes.”

“Okay,” I said.

“You don’t think so?”

I shrugged. “You’re the director, Marty. I don’t have a thought about him one way or another.”

“You sure about that?” Martin smiled gently. “I saw you looking at him and Willow—”

“For fuck’s sake—”

“And I saw her looking at you.”

I froze, six chairs in my arms. “What?”

Martin’s smile widened and he shrugged. “I see everything. That’s my job.”

“Whatever,” I said, and carried the stack to the wall. “I’m not in high school anymore.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Baker’s her age. I’m not. He’s got money. I don’t.”

“So you’re interested in her?”

I let a stack of chairs slam down. “Mind your own business, Marty.”

He sighed and shoved his hands in the front pockets of his cords. He wore a kind smile I’d never see on my own father’s face.

“I can’t help it, Isaac. Somewhere along the way, you went from being an actor I admire to a young man I care about.” He shrugged. “I want you to be happy.”

He said ‘happy’ as if it were something you just plucked out of the goddamn air anytime you felt like it.

“I’ll be happy when I get out of Harmony,” I said. “But if you really care about the play, you’ll want me to be miserable. Hamlet’s a tragedy, remember?”

“I’m not worried about the play,” Martin said. “But I am concerned that Willow won’t always have a ride to and from rehearsal. Her father—”

“She has a ride,” I snapped. “Justin Baker’s her ride.” I slammed the last stack together. “I’m done. I have work early tomorrow. Good night.”

“Isaac—”

“Good night,” I called again, already halfway down the stairs.

Martin’s fatherly concern was something I craved and yet it chafed me. I was leaving Harmony. I needed to sever connections, not make them stronger.

Or make new ones with beautiful, talented girls.

I started my truck and let the engine idle. It would only stall if I tried to drive before it was warm. I supposed Justin Baker had a car built in this decade. Something sleek that didn’t freeze up or belch black smoke at stop signs. With heated seats. Willow was probably used to heated seats. Used to guys like Justin, who hadn’t spent a day in their lives worrying about money. Willow would be perfectly comfortable in his car, driving to her big house with a guy cut from the same wealthy cloth.

Good, I thought. Let her find her happy ending with Justin because it sure as hell wasn’t going to be with me.

But as I drove my shitty truck to the shitty end of town, a thought hung on the horizon like a growing storm: at the end of the play, Laertes and Hamlet kill each other over Ophelia’s grave, and no one gets a happy ending.





At Friday’s rehearsal, Marty moved us to the stage. While he blocked a scene, the rest of the cast paired up to run lines. Willow and Justin worked together. Naturally. I swore I didn’t give a shit, yet I studied her every move with my actor’s eye. Was she smiling more? Did her eyes soften when she looked at him? Did she move more easily into his space?

You’re turning into a goddamn lunatic, Pearce.

Marty was blocking Act 1, Scene 5, where Horatio and Marcellus show Hamlet his father’s ghost. They warn the prince not to follow the apparition but he does anyway, leaving his friends behind. Then it’s Hamlet alone onstage, speaking to an unseen spirit.

It’s a scene that requires full commitment to witnessing something otherworldly, or it falls flat. I tried, but my attention was split in half: my body onstage, my eyes sweeping the theater to find where Willow and Justin huddled together in the dark.