Off Book

22. Ian

22

IAN

“. . . reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” Act III, Scene I

In all my years of walking into the theater for a show, this is my first as an actor. I expected to dread this day more than I do. To my surprise, I haven’t felt an ounce of dread. A healthy dose of nerves, sure, but not the “couldn’t sleep last night for fear of being on stage” kind of worry. I slept like a log last night.

It might have something to do with seeing Jade again. She’s been busy since we got back from her mom’s house, and she seems distracted, but what theater kid isn’t half-zombie for tech and final rehearsals?

Part of me is nervous that the show being over means Jade and I might be over, but after the experience we had at her mom’s house, I’m not as worried about it. There’s something more here than just two actors building chemistry for a show. And maybe performing tonight, the one thing I thought I had no courage for, might give me the courage I need to tell Jade how I really feel. To her not-sleeping face.

Jade is already in the dressing room when I arrive, her hair in big curlers, applying what looks like the final touches to her makeup.

“Hey,” I say and lean in toward her to give her a quick peck. She leans away and gestures to the other people in the room with a pointed look.

“Makeup,” she says. “And . . .” Her eyes dart toward the other people.

The sting of rejection is quick and sharp, like an actual wasp has stabbed me. I give her space and try to be understanding, but something about it seems odd.

As I change into costume, the look on her face when I leaned in to kiss her replays in my mind. Any nerves I have about the play are replaced with nerves about why Jade wouldn’t kiss me. She isn’t really the type to care about public displays of affection, and although the theater department is a gossip mill, Jade is also not the type to care about that. So why use that as the reason not to kiss me?

When I rejoin her in the dressing room, I take the open seat next to her to style my hair. I’m about to ask her about it when Anastasia shows up.

“Don’t you two look just perfect?” she says, clapping her hands together as she saunters into the dressing room. “I just came to wish you all the broken legs, and to tell you that you’re absolutely going to smash it out there. I don’t know what you two did, but your chemistry is perfect, and I could not be more proud of both of you.”

“Thanks, Anastasia,” Jade says. “Hey, I’m gonna grab my costume, but I’ll meet you backstage to check props.” She says this to me and darts out of the room before Anastasia can say anything else.

I’m about to follow her when Anastasia lays a hand on my arm.

“Hey, Ian, do you have just a second?” she asks.

“Yeah, sure.” I shrug and follow Anastasia out into the hallway.

I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of Jade, but there’s no one out here but Anastasia and me.

By the time I turn back to Anastasia, I realize she’s already started talking.

“. . . been meaning to say something, I just never found the right moment, and now that the final performance is tonight, this seems like as good a time as any. So I was thinking, after the show closes tonight, maybe we could go out sometime. Just you and me. As, like, a date, you know.”

I blink a few times, trying to process what she’s saying. She’s said all of it without any trace of an accent, so it must be real, but it seems like a joke. Date Anastasia? Is she really that oblivious to what’s happening right under her nose with me and Jade? Or is she seeing our chemistry and thinking it’s really just . . . acting?

Did Jade say something to her?

Anastasia is waiting for me to say something, her eyes eager and expectant.

“Listen, I’m . . . That’s really nice of you, Anastasia, but I . . . I don’t think it’s a good— I’m not— I already have . . . Jade and I . . .”

Understanding dawns on Anastasia’s face, and she turns a deep shade of red. “Oh gosh, of course. Yeah. No worries. Break a leg!” she says and then disappears.

I let her go, and even though my anxious mind would love to dwell on this, my brain is already too crowded tonight.

I make my way through the bowels of the theater toward the black box stage. I need to check my own props, and I want to try to get in a word with Jade before the show. The performances have already started, and Jade and I are toward the end of the lineup. There’s time. Not a lot of it, but some.

The room off the side of the black box theater that serves as the wings, the tech booth, and the prop space is dark except for a blue lamp that dimly lights the room, but there’s enough light to check my props. Everything is where it should be, and even though Jade has to check her own props, I check hers too.

The soundboard operator waves at me. She can’t chat while there’s a performance on, but I stand by the sound booth under the loft anyway. The light board operator for all the one-acts and the stage manager for this one-act are up in the loft above us, calling cues. I thought I’d be envious of them doing the job I usually do while I have to perform, but I’m not. I’m unexpectedly excited to show off all the hard work Jade and I have put into this one-act.

Movement in my peripheral has me checking to see if Jade is walking in. She is, and even in the dim light, I can see she gives me another tight smile before sitting down at an empty table with her script.

Man, she really must be nervous. Or maybe something is wrong . . .

I take the seat next to her so I can speak as quietly as possible.

“Are you okay?” I ask, quieter than a whisper. Even a normal whisper the audience can hear. Almost everything that comes from the two side rooms connected to the stage can be heard in the theater.

She nods and waves me off, turning back to her script.

“Talk to me,” I say, laying a hand on her arm.

A flash of annoyance crosses her face, and she gestures to the wall between this room and the stage and shakes her head.

“Jade,” I say, but I say it just a little too loud. The stage manager shushes me from the loft. I hold up my hands in apology.

The audience claps, the lighting on the stage changes, and the actors join us in the backstage area. They barely notice us, silently celebrating their performance. A stagehand follows shortly after, carrying a wooden block off the stage. The stage manager in the booth climbs down from the loft, and the next one goes up.

There’s a quick transition onstage, a scuffle of actors and set pieces, and then the lights are up and the performance has started.

All the while, there’s a gnawing in my stomach that won’t let me forget that something is off. Something is wrong. And I won’t be okay until it’s resolved.

“Jade,” I try again once the show has started, this time quieter. I tighten my grip on her arm ever so slightly, trying to communicate that this is urgent.

Jade huffs and stands, taking me by the hand and dragging me out into the hall and back down toward the dressing room, away from the stage. We’re next to perform, but there’s still some time before their one-act is over.

She finds a small nook, out of the way and private. It’s somewhere between the stage and the dressing rooms, and she steps back into it, releasing my arm.

“What is your problem?” she asks. Her defensive tone takes me by surprise.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to ask you,” I say. “You’re acting weird. I just want to know if you’re okay.”

If we’re okay.

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m just . . . distracted.” She waves her hand around.

“And since we got back Wednesday . . . you’ve barely spoken to me . . .”

I don’t mean to bring it up, but my anxiety gets the best of me. The gnawing won’t stop until I have answers.

She presses her lips together in a tight line. “I guess, but it’s only been two days,” she says. It’s hard to tell in the low light, but I think she holds my gaze for just a second before it drops down to her shoes.

Is she not going to explain why she was distant? I assumed it was because of the stress of catching up, but what if it’s something else? What if she’s feeling really vulnerable after—well, everything, and she just doesn’t really know what to do with all that vulnerability? Something inside me softens. The gnawing eases. This isn’t about me.

I reach for her, placing a hand on each arm in the hope she’ll find it comforting. “If this is about your mom, I want to assure you that I don’t see you any differently. Like, nothing has changed for me.”

“I’m not— It’s not that, Ian.”

“What is it?” My mind whirs like an engine coming to life. If it’s not about her, then what is this about? I’m running through the list of things it could possibly be in my mind, but I’m only coming up with one thing.

But surely Jade isn’t like that. I thought . . .

“Is it because we had sex and you were my first?” I withdraw my hands, but she grabs them, reassuring me.

“No! No, Ian, it wasn’t that. I don’t care about that.”

“Okay, because that was, like, a nonissue for me, and you said?—”

“It’s what you said after,” she says, and everything goes still.

My heart stops for a beat. And then it beats too hard. Too loud.

I thought she was asleep.

She heard me tell her I love her.

And she didn’t say it back.

And she started avoiding me afterward.

Fuck.

The gnawing in my stomach settles and turns into full-on dread, because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s about to happen between me and Jade. And this is not how this was supposed to go.

“You heard me?” I ask. She nods—that much I can see in the low light. “And you don’t— You . . . Why didn’t you say anything?”

I can’t decide whether the squeezing my chest is humiliation or disappointment or anxiety, or all three.

“What did you want me to say, Ian?”

I love you too. I wanted you to say “I love you too.”

She’s quiet, like she’s holding back from what she wants to say, or like she doesn’t know what to say. It’s likely the first thing, as Jade has never had any problem finding words or saying them. Her holding back now makes the dread in my stomach spread to my chest, my back. It wraps itself around my arms and creeps up to my neck. My chest feels heavy, and I have to remind myself to breathe. I’m running out of time to resolve this. We’re going to have to go onstage soon, and we can’t do it like this.

But I’m hurt. She heard me confess my feelings for her, and not only did she not say anything in the moment, but she hasn’t said anything all week. She’s pulled back and she’s pulling away, and I may not be very experienced, but I know when I’m about to be dumped.

Jade told me from the very beginning who she is—that she isn’t someone who does feelings—but I can’t reconcile that with everything that’s happened. What I feel isn’t one-sided. It can’t be. I want to shake her; to tell her to look at what she’s doing, how she’s acting, and to wake up.

“You could have at least acknowledged that you heard me. Pretending to sleep after I said that is kind of shitty,” I snap, the anxiety making me irritable.

“And you could have just had the courage to say it to my face, not while I was sleeping,” she says, her snappy tone matching mine.

I rear back like I’ve been slapped. “You have to be kidding me, right? If I had?—”

“Ian? Jade?” Madison’s voice comes down the hall, whispered but sharp. “You guys need to get into place.”

I wait for Jade to argue, for her to insist we need more time to finish this conversation, but she pushes past me and follows Madison back down the hall.

I follow, silently fuming. If I were a cartoon character, fire would be shooting out from the top of my head. Jade knows as well as I do that if I’d told her I loved her to her face, it would not have gone well.

It didn’t go well anyway.

As we wait backstage, ignoring each other, letting the sounds of the play on the stage and then the clapping of the audience surround us, I squeeze my eyes shut and transform all my feelings into another shape, like Play-Doh. I shape my frustration into Ben’s frustration. I shape my shame into Ben’s shame. I have to channel what’s happening to me into Ben, or I’m not going to make it through this performance.

I take the stage on my cue, our argument still simmering between us, but channeling my feelings into Ben’s seems to work. Sitting in the dark on the stage, waiting for it all to begin, my heart hammers in my chest. The first sound cue goes, and someone in the audience coughs. My heart rate kicks up even more, and I remind myself that I’m not in a college theater; I’m in an apartment in New York City in 2001. I fiddle with the flip-phone prop, telling myself I’m supposed to call my wife and tell her I’m not dead. And by the time I’ve convinced myself that I am Ben, Jade has walked in and said her first line.

I give everything to Ben and Abby, knowing this is the last chance I’ll get to share the stage with Jade. Everything else fades into the background as we volley our lines back and forth, exactly like we did in rehearsal. If the audience reacts in any way or makes any noise, I don’t hear them. I’m zeroed in on Jade as Abby; on the reality of my own character.

I’m both in the moment and in every rehearsal that led us to this moment. Every movement and touch and line feels both totally natural and like the moves of a dance given to us by a choreographer. Jade seems in the zone too. Neither of us forget a single line. Neither of us miss a beat of blocking.

And when it comes time for me and Jade to kiss, for my character to convince her character that I really do love her, I kiss her so thoroughly that afterward, the way she looks at me is all Jade, no Abby. But the look in her eyes is sad, and I almost forget my next line for fear of what that sadness means.

It is unequivocally our best run of the show, all the emotion of our argument downloaded into these characters. Call it the repetition of rehearsal, or finally understanding acting, or just relating to my character emotionally in a way that I haven’t been able to before, but it was much easier to access my character tonight than it ever has been before.

There’s a sense of power and pride that comes with the performance—something that didn’t happen in rehearsal. I don’t know if it’s the audience or just the magic of performing. There’s some unnamable force when you take the stage in someone else’s shoes, knowing all your hard work is being appreciated by friends, family, and strangers. It’s the alchemy of art, conjured by creatives and those with an appreciation for creative work. I’ve felt this in some small way when designing lights for shows, but there’s something different about being on the stage.

By the end of the performance, still riding the high of the past half-hour, I’ve practically forgotten my name. After our final bow, Jade and I exit the stage, and I gather her up in a hug, everything that happened before the show forgotten.

But the way she hugs me back is quick, and when she releases me and rushes out of the room, it’s a fast reminder of where we actually stand. The two of us ignore each other for the remaining one-acts, packing our things up in the dressing room without a word to each other, acknowledging the praise from our peers about the show.

When it’s all over, everyone meets in the lobby, mingling with the people who came to see the one-acts, mostly family and friends of the performers and other acting students.

I know I should feel relieved that it’s done. I got my credit, and now I can graduate, and I never have to perform again if I don’t want to. But I don’t know what this means for me and Jade, and based on our earlier conversation, I don’t have a lot of hope.

“Hey, man, congrats,” Seth says, coming up behind me and pulling me into a hug. “Had no idea you had it in you.”

“Ever the supportive friend,” I say and roll my eyes at Seth. He’s brought Alexis, and she leans in to hug me too.

“Seriously, great job, Ian. I’m not really into the acting thing, but I thought you were great,” Alexis says.

Seth beams at her as she compliments me. He’s got it so bad.

I thank them both and try to keep an eye on Jade in the crowd. She’s with Jessie and Mac, chatting. Jessie has her arms around Jade, and her smile is huge. I catch Mac’s eye, and he waves me over. Excusing myself from Seth and Alexis, with a promise to text, I join Mac, Jessie, and Jade.

“Ian!” Jessie says and throws her arms up in the air. She grabs me for a hug, and then Mac hugs me too. Their warm welcome is surprising and probably gives me more hope than they mean for it to.

“Congrats,” Jessie says at the same time Mac says, “Man, you did great.”

“I thought the two of you had such great chemistry,” Jessie says. “I don’t know what your director was on about.”

Jade gives a tight smile but intentionally directs her eyes to the floor.

“Daaahhhhhlings!” Anastasia croons, approaching us with open arms, apparently not that torn up by my rejection earlier. She pulls me and Jade in for a weird three-way hug and then holds us at arm’s length, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I’m so proud of both of you. Your chemistry was truly amazing, and all your hard work was on display tonight. You stole the entire showcase. I do hope you’ll celebrate tonight.”

Someone calls her name, and with a final weird hug, Anastasia disappears into the crowd.

“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” Jade says, and I try not to take it personally, but the stabbing feeling in my chest is hard to ignore. “Anyway, I’m pretty beat. I think I’m going to head back,” she says to Jessie.

They hug, and without so much as a glance at me, Jade leaves, walking through the double doors. I look to Jessie, lost and confused, my brow furrowed.

“Go,” Jessie encourages me. That’s all it takes, and then I’m outside looking for Jade.

I don’t hesitate and take off toward the parking lot. I catch her heading to the apartments.

“Jade,” I yell after her, but she doesn’t turn. I jog to catch up with her but slow before I reach her completely. “Jade, come on. Let’s talk.”

She still doesn’t slow or turn, and I speed up to catch her by the arm.

“Jade, what are you doing? Talk to me.”

She spins around, and I rear back as the ends of her hair whip my face.

“And what if I don’t want to talk?” she asks, a tight edge to her voice.

“You don’t think you owe me a conversation?”

“I don’t owe you shit, Ian. I’m not your girlfriend.” She starts to walk away again.

A crack of thunder rolls across the sky, a storm threatening to bowl through.

“I’m asking for clarity, Jade, not a fucking marriage proposal,” I say.

“Two weeks ago, I thought we were on the same page, and now I feel like I’m not even reading the same book as you. I just want to understand what’s going on. You don’t owe me anything, but I think I deserve to understand what’s going on, because I’m confused.”

Jade crosses her arms and shifts her weight, considering my words. She uncrosses her arms to crack each knuckle and then sighs, recrossing her arms. I wish I could fast-forward to the part where she starts talking and puts me out of my anxious misery. My stomach swirls with anticipation.

“Okay,” she says. “All right, fine. Here it is . . . I think we had a good run, and this was a really fun couple of months, but the show is over, and we’ve got graduation and postgrad to deal with, and so this is probably not the best time for anything anyway. I’m sure we’ll see each other around. I’m not saying we can’t be friendly, and, you know, if you want to hang out sometime, I’m sure Jessie and Mac would love to see you too. If you want to be friends, we can.”

I barely know where to start.

We were never together, so she’s not breaking up with me, but we were definitely more than just friends. And now she’s making it clear she wants to step back from whatever we’ve been and not forward. We’ve been in some kind of limbo since that first kiss in the stairwell, and I was okay with not having any kind of label for things. I guess I assumed the feeling between us was so undeniable that even Jade couldn’t say it didn’t exist and would agree we should at least give this thing an honest go.

But my lie has just crashed and burned. Jade isn’t coming around. Jade is backing off.

And she wants me to do the same. She wants me to just shut off my feelings like she’s doing. But it doesn’t work like that for me. It would be impossible to just be Jade’s friend—my feelings are too strong for that. I fight the heat behind my eyes, tears threatening to spill. I’m not going to cry right now, because I am not giving up on this. Not yet.

“I don’t have ‘just friends’ feelings for you, Jade.”

She shakes her head, eyes closed, like what I just said was a matter of opinion and not fact. Another low rumble of thunder cuts across the sky. Jade cranes her neck toward the sound, searching for rain.

“No. No, see, you’ve gotten your feelings from the one-act all mixed up with us. I know how you think you feel, but I’m telling you, it’s going to pass.”

“It’s not a fucking kidney stone, Jade. These are real feelings that aren’t just connected to our characters. I know that, and you know that. You feel them too, and it scares the fuck out of you—that’s why you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Stop talking like you know me so well. It’s been—what, two and a half months? You don’t fucking know me.” She stares at me like I just stabbed her. Her nostrils flare, and she grinds her teeth.

“I do, Jade. I do know you. I know you prefer canned Diet Coke to bottled. I know you put on makeup like armor—that you feel more confident when you have it on than when you don’t. I know you wear those space buns in your hair because you watched Star Wars once with your mom when you were a kid, and she commented on how cute Leia’s hair was, and so you’ve been doing your hair like that since you were eight. I know there’s a scar on your palm from cleaning up broken glass in your kitchen when you were fifteen. I know lavender is your favorite color to wear, but sunflower yellow is your actual favorite color. I know?—”

“None of that proves anything, Ian,” she says, but her voice is shaky. She doesn’t even believe the words she’s saying.

Hope dares to bloom in my chest.

“It proves you wrong, Jade. It proves that I do know you, and that maybe I’m right. That you feel all the same things I feel for you, and you’re fucking terrified.”

Her eyes glisten the same way the ocean does under moonlight. She’s on the verge of tears, and I am too. I know she can see how much she’s hurting me right now. Her chin quivers, but her lips are sealed.

I can’t make her say the words I want to hear, and she isn’t budging.

“I’m fighting for you,” I say, pleading. “Can’t you see that?”

“Why? We don’t want the same things. You want a wife. You want a picket fence and a two-car garage, and you want to know where your next paycheck will come from, which is why you’re struggling to decide about the job at Red Barn. You think you want a life of traveling the country and hopping around, but you like safety. You like stability, and I just don’t give a shit about that—about any of it—and I never will. I don’t want that life.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jade.” I groan, dropping my face into my hands.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong,” I say without even blinking. “You’re dead fucking wrong. I don’t need any of those things.”

“From the beginning of this . . .”—she gestures between us—“you made it clear you believed in love and romance. Your parents’ story, the fact that all you’ve ever wanted to be is a husband. You’re looking for a relationship I can’t give you.”

I know what she means. I know she means she never wanted a relationship to begin with. I know logically it’s not about me, but it feels so personal. It feels like she’s saying she doesn’t want me. And I so desperately don’t want that to be true. Though I’m bloodied and battered, a soldier on his last breath, I still can’t stop fighting.

“And if I told you I didn’t care about any of that . . . that I just wanted you . . .” I step closer to her, frustration leaking from my voice. All I have left is the desperation to keep her close—to not lose her. “That I don’t need a label on a relationship, a white picket fence, or a steady paycheck, and I would be happy traveling the world in a fucking shoebox if it meant I could do it with you . . . Could you at least admit that you want me? That you want to be with me?”

“No.”

The syllable is harsh and crystal clear, ringing out into the cool November night. I try to swallow around the lump of emotion in my throat, but I can’t. And I can’t get a full breath past it either. My white flag of surrender goes up as I lose all my fight. Lightning illuminates the sky.

“So that’s it?” My voice wobbles, and I don’t fight the tears that finally fall, rolling down my cheeks and my chin.

“I guess so.” She starts to turn but stops halfway, looking over her shoulder at me. “It’s better this way, okay?”

“For who, Jade?”

“For both of us.”

It starts to rain. Fat droplets dot my face, and another crack of thunder rolls through the sky.

She stares at me for half a second more and then turns and walks away from me.

This time I let her go.