Look Both Ways(71)

I should tell her Zoe and I broke up, that I’m not really sure I want to date any more girls. But in her eyes, the rest of my summer here has been a failure, so if I’ve failed at wanting Zoe, I’ve failed at everything. I decide not to say anything for now. Dinner on Friday won’t really happen once I convince my parents not to come, and when Allerdale’s over, I can pretend Zoe and I have drifted apart naturally.

“I’m really glad you like her,” I say.

“I can’t wait to see both of you. Oh, sweetie, I’ve got to go. Christa’s calling on the other line. But I’ll see you Friday.”

“Sure,” I say. “I love you, Mom.”

The second I hear the click of the line disconnecting, the crushing complexity of my life rushes over me like a tidal wave, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to walk to the theater and go about my day. My beautiful show, the one thing that was actually going well for me, feels small and silly and tainted after hearing my mom belittle it. I squat down right there in the middle of the Ramsey lawn, put my hands over my face, and try to pull myself together.

“Brooklyn?”

When I look up, Russell’s standing right next to me, looking concerned. I stand up and try to paste on a smile. “Oh, hi.”

“Are you okay?”

I’m about to say I’m fine, but there’s really no point in pretending; I’ve obviously been crying. “Not really,” I say.

“What’s up?”

“I…kind of got dumped last night.”

A horrified expression comes over his face, and he actually takes a step back, like my angst might be contagious. But then he recovers and pulls me into a hug. “Oh no. Brooklyn, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were dating someone. You never mentioned him.”



I ignore the pronoun. “It wasn’t, like, a long-term relationship or anything.”

“Even so, that totally sucks. Take care of yourself today, okay? I’ll cover for you if you need to take some time out of rehearsal.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“Not really, but thanks.”

Russell guides me toward Legrand, one arm still tight around my shoulders, and we’re there all too soon. He holds the door for me, but I hover outside. “You go ahead,” I say. “I’ll catch up with you.”

“Why, what’s—” Russell’s eyes widen. “Wait a second. You were dating a guy from the cast, weren’t you?”

“No,” I say, and I hope he can’t tell from my face how close he is to the truth. “It’s not that. I just need a minute.”

“Okay. I’ll wait for you inside.”

I hide around the corner of the building and try to prepare myself for seeing Zoe, but the passing minutes only give me more time to imagine horrible new scenarios. What if she confronts me in front of everyone and accuses me of using her? What if Livvy hears and tells Jessa, and all my friends turn on me again? What if Russell finds out what happened and decides he doesn’t like me anymore?

I tell myself none of that is going to happen. Zoe’s upset, but she’s not vindictive. All I have to do is avoid her until she cools down, and that should be easy if she’s onstage and I’m in the audience. Maybe in a few days, she’ll see how wrong she was to yell at me for being honest about my feelings, and then she’ll apologize, and we can go back to being civil. Maybe we can even go back to being friends.



I spot her the second I walk into the theater, stretching onstage with the other two girls playing the witch doubles. I search her face for any sign that she regrets the things she said to me last night, but when she catches my eye, all I see is cold, hard anger. My chest tightens and aches, and I look away as Stage Manager Lauren whistles for our attention.

“We’re going to start at the top of the show and work our way through with the orchestra,” she says. “If you have any problems and you need to stop, stick your hand in the air and one of us will call ‘hold’ and help you work it out, okay?”

I wish I could stick my hand in the air right now and pause the entire world until I feel ready to deal with it again.

The actors know their lines and their lyrics, and the orchestra knows their music, so the stumble-through ends up being mostly about the awkward transitions when the doubles have to switch places with the Shakespearean actors to perform their songs. Nobody needs the lyricists for that, so I sit quietly next to Russell, reviewing every moment of Zoe’s and my relationship and trying to figure out what I should’ve done differently. Every time she comes onstage, I scrutinize her words and gestures for some hidden meaning, something that might make me feel better about what happened between us. But all her movements are choreographed, and all the words she’s singing are ones I wrote for her. There’s nothing to decipher.



I’m concentrating so hard that I nearly have a heart attack when Alex, the Macbeth director, sits down behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about act two, and I think we might be missing a song,” he whispers.

Russell jumps in right away. “Did we skip one?”

“No, but I feel like we need to give more weight to the moment when Macbeth learns that Lady M is dead.” I flinch at the word “Macbeth”—it’s bad luck to say it inside a theater, and the last thing I need is more bad luck. I remind myself that the rule doesn’t apply when you’re rehearsing the production.