Off Book

24. Ian

24

IAN

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” Act I, Scene II

It’s hard to watch rehearsals for a romantic play when your own love life is more like a tragedy. A Midsummer Night’s Dream isn’t the height of romance, but it involves just enough to make me regret coming to rehearsal tonight. Unfortunately, lighting design stops for no man. I wanted to run through my light cues one more time before I programmed them, and a full rehearsal was the way to do it.

Tucked up in the top row of the theater, I try to focus only on the thing I’m supposed to be focusing on—the lights and the cues—but it’s hard when I keep hearing snippets from the show like, “ Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. ”

It’s also hard to focus when I keep looking for deep auburn hair shaped into space buns. Jade never appears. And by the time the cast gets to intermission, I haven’t done enough with my light cues to make it worth staying. I’ve got a two-and-a-half-hour drive home anyway, so I’m going to call it a night on this.

I sneak out of the audience, trying to avoid anyone who might want to chat. It’s been a week since I last saw Jade, but every time I’m in the theater building, someone asks me where she is. They don’t know we aren’t talking, and they don’t know that question makes me feel like I’m being stabbed, so I want to avoid it altogether tonight if I can.

I’m almost in the clear, the front doors in sight, but someone familiar is sitting on the benches in the lobby. Unfortunately, that person is dating Jade’s best friend.

“Ian, hey!” Mac says, standing and giving me one of those bro hugs that’s something between a high-five, a handshake, and a one-armed hug.

“Hey, Mac. What are you doing here?” It’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving and a lot of the student body is already gone for the week off. I don’t even comment on how late it is, because there’s no such thing in the theater. People are in this building at all hours of the day. I’ve been known to focus a full grid of lights at midnight because it was the only time I had in my schedule.

“Got a rehearsal for my acting class. The final is next month, and neither my scene partner nor I are leaving to go home ’til tomorrow, so we thought ‘What the hell.’ Figured the theater would be quiet. Wasn’t expecting there to be a Midsummer rehearsal.”

He’s beaming talking about rehearsing. His excitement for it all—the rehearsals, the energy—I get it. I feel the same about lights and designing shows. As for performing? I was never excited about rehearsal, just about seeing Jade.

And just like that, I’m thinking about Jade again. Standing here with Mac, I’m itching to mention her. Her name is right on the tip of my tongue.

Mac has surely seen her since last week. They live in the same apartment. Maybe he knows how she is. Maybe she’s talked about me or?—

“So do we talk about the elephant in the room?” Mac asks, and I can’t decide if I should laugh, cry, sigh deeply, or just thank him for saving me from myself.

“We don’t have to,” I say, even though I desperately want to. Mac is cool, though, and I need to play it cool. “I don’t want to put you in a weird position.”

He just shrugs. “She is my friend, but mostly she’s my girlfriend’s friend.”

It’s all the permission I need.

“How is she?” I ask, words spilling out of me.

He pulls his lips kind of tight and tips his head from side to side. “Okay, I guess? You know, it’s weird, because she went through a breakup a few months ago. Earlier this year. She was with . . . Oh, what were their names?”

“Greg and Anna,” I say.

“Yes. Greg and Anna. She was with them, and Jessie told me they were saying ‘I love you’ to each other.”

“All three of them?” Jade didn’t mention they were exchanging “I love yous.”

“No, no—Greg and Anna said it to each other. Or maybe it was just one of them who said it first. I don’t know. All I know is that after they said it, and Jade didn’t say it back, Jade just, like . . . left.”

I don’t know how much he knows and the shame of whatever Jade told Mac and Jessie burns my cheeks and my neck. I bet those splotches have appeared.

“Yeah . . . that’s pretty familiar . . .” I say, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

“After that breakup, she was sad for, like . . . I don’t know, maybe a week? And then she was over it. Literally just wasn’t sad one day. Jessie says she’ll do that—she’ll be, like, sad about a breakup and then just decide she’s over it one day, and she just . . . is.”

I’m not sure what he’s getting at, because it’s been eight days since Jade and I stopped talking or “broke up”—whatever we’re calling it—and now I’m wondering if he’s trying to tell me that the expiration date on her sadness is approaching. Why would Mac be standing here telling me this? He’s looking at me like I should be picking up what he’s putting down, but I’m not.

“I guess I’m not really following what you’re saying,” I say.

“I’m saying she’s still sad. She’s been listening to Sondham the whole week.”

“Sond heim . What does he have to do with anything?”

He explains the levels of sadness that Jessie explained to him, except he doesn’t remember anything except the first one and the one where she listens to Stephen Sondheim.

“Did you just say she gets super drunk after a breakup?” I ask.

“Yeah, well, it might not have to be a breakup. I think it’s just, like, when she’s sad. I don’t know the specifics. You’ll have to ask Jessie.”

He checks the time on his phone. It may be lost on Mac, but that pattern of behavior sounds too familiar now that I know about Jade’s mother. It worries me, because even though Jade probably didn’t do anything reckless while she was drunk, how long will it be before she starts to if this is the path she’s taking?

I’m aching to reach out to her, to text her and see if she’s okay. Maybe I missed the point of what Mac is saying, but maybe Mac doesn’t know the whole story.

“So is she . . . okay? Like, is she still drinking?” I ask.

“I think she went out one night last week and got super drunk, but not since then.”

A knot in my chest eases, tension I didn’t feel creeping up suddenly releasing like a balloon losing air.

“But she’s still listening to her sad music?” I clarify.

“Yes, and that’s what I’m saying. Apparently, she’s never been like this after a breakup. And those are Jessie’s words, not mine.”

It feels taboo to get the best friend’s perspective, like some secret I shouldn’t have access to. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with this knowledge, but I can’t ignore the tiny spot of warmth—of hope—in my gut cutting through the cold insecurity that’s been my companion all week.

“What about you? How are you holding up?” Mac asks.

I don’t know how much he does or doesn’t know, but I’ll go with the honest answer. What do I have to lose?

“Um, ya know, I’m okay. I’m bummed, but I don’t regret anything. I’m glad I said what I said and that she knows how I feel. I think I would have regretted not telling her. I just . . . hoped it might go differently.”

Mac nods, understanding passing over his features. The doors to the lobby swing open, and another student I haven’t seen before flies in.

“Hey, Mac. God, sorry I’m late,” the girl says.

“No problem,” he says. “Gave me a chance to catch up with my friend.” Mac slaps my shoulder affectionately and looks me dead in the eyes. “Just give her time, okay?”

I hold my hand up in a sort of half-wave as Mac and his partner descend the steps to the black box theater.

I drive home in silence. Two and a half hours alone with my thoughts, bouncing between Mac’s words and my argument with Jade. He told me to be patient; she told me it was over. I can’t think of a time I was more grateful to be going home. My dad will know what to do. What to believe.

It’s 11 p.m. by the time I pull into the driveway, the warm porch light greeting me against the dark night. All the lights inside the house are off, except a living-room lamp I’m guessing someone left on for me. I sling my duffel over my shoulder and let myself into the house, where, to my surprise, someone is in the living room.

“Dad?”

“Hey, kiddo. How was your drive?”

My dad stands to hug me, and I nearly break right there, but I hold it together, swallowing back the feelings. It’s late; I can wait until tomorrow.

“I’m okay,” I say, but I don’t think that answer convinces either one of us.

“You hungry? We’ve got a dinner plate for you.”

I nod because I am hungry, and I know he’ll hang out with me while I eat.

Part of me feels bad for keeping him up, but I really need to talk to him.

I follow him into the kitchen and sit at the table in the dining nook, soaking in the comfort and familiarity of my dad heating up food for me, the beeps of the microwave, and the smells of my childhood home. I know so many students who dread going home for holidays, but I love to come home.

Dad leans against the counter, facing me. “How was rehearsal?” he asks, a big smile on his face.

“I ended up leaving early. I just couldn’t focus.”

“Jade stuff got you down?”

He knows all about the argument last week. My dad has always been the person I talk to after breakups.

I pick at a hangnail on my thumb while I wait for my dinner to heat up. “Part of me isn’t ready to accept that it’s over, and another part of me, a much bigger part, is just, like, really bummed about it.”

The microwave beeps, and my dad brings my plate over with a fork and a napkin. The plate is full of mashed potatoes and pot roast, with some roasted carrots and peas. I dig in right away, not realizing how hungry I was, but the smell of my mom’s home-cooked meal hits me hard.

My dad sits, leaning an elbow on the table, encouraging me to continue.

“And then earlier tonight, I ran into my friend, Mac—Jade’s best friend’s boyfriend—and he told me not to give up hope. Like, told me she wasn’t doing too hot, in, like, a way that maybe makes him think she might come around. But I don’t want to get my hopes up, you know?” I say all this between bites, wolfing down the meal like I haven’t eaten in weeks.

There’s nothing like your first home-cooked meal on a break from school. It’s one of those things that makes me think maybe that tech director job wouldn’t be so bad.

“I do know. I know a lot about losing someone you love and giving up hope or holding on,” my dad says with an empathetic smile.

“I know you do. You and Mom have the best story.”

He chuckles. “It didn’t feel like the best story at the time.”

“Why not? You guys dated for a year, which is like . . . half the time you were separated.”

This time Dad laughs—a full-on belly laugh.

“Yes, but you’re missing the part where your mother and I went almost completely no-contact for six months. And for at least part of the time we dated, she dated other men.”

My jaw goes slack, and I nearly drop my fork.

“I don’t remember that,” I say. “How did you do that with kids?”

“We had a friend, a really good friend, who helped us coordinate your transitions between my house and your mom’s when we were no-contact.”

I think back to that time when I was living with my dad in a one-bedroom apartment, sleeping on a pull-out sofa bed and spending every other weekend with my mom. I remember I’d be dropped off at school one Friday by my dad, picked up by my mom, and she would drop me back off at school Monday, and I’d get picked up by my dad at the end of the day. I never thought about what was happening behind the scenes. I had no idea they didn’t speak for so long. It’s a crack in the stone wall of a story I’ve carried with me for much of my life.

“And then, after six months . . . what?” I ask. “You reached out and asked if you could date her?”

“Not quite. We met, just the two of us, in that park that used to be by your high school. We talked for a long time, and your mother expressed an interest in seeing other people.”

“Not divorce?”

“Divorce was brought up. But I told her I wasn’t ready for a divorce. I said if she needed to see other people, that would be okay, but that I wanted a chance too.”

These are details my dad definitely left out before. Which makes sense. Why would you talk to your teenage son about the almost-divorce you didn’t get or the fact that his mother wanted to see other people? I understand it, but it also stings of betrayal. It feels a little like realizing the mansion down the street you admired your whole childhood is actually a regular-size home and it just looked big because you were so small.

But he’s telling me now, when I need to hear it, and that makes even more sense.

“Were you scared she’d find someone else?” I ask.

“Hell yeah I was. And I trusted what we had. I trusted our love, and I trusted that she would find her way back to me. I took to heart every word she said about why she wasn’t happy, and I got my shit together—excuse my French.”

“And then you dated?”

“Actually, after that park conversation, I waited another three months before I asked your mom on a date. I went to therapy every week?—”

“I remember that,” I say.

“—and did a lot of work to make sure I was the kind of man your mother would want to marry again.”

I already knew the looser, less detailed version of the story, and for years I filled in the blanks myself. I thought their story was deeply romantic, and, zoomed out, I guess there is something kind of romantic about it.

But zoomed in, the story is way less romantic. It’s actually kind of gritty, and there must have been a lot of hurt feelings and crying. I’m trying to reprocess a story I’ve clung to for years, trading it for the reality of what happened, all while fighting tears, because there is something deeply comforting in knowing that my father knows something about loneliness and loss. He knows what it’s like to miss someone.

“You know, the thing is, our stories are rarely linear. We don’t get from point A to point B in a straight line. That’s just not how it works when there are people involved and feelings and traumas and histories. The journey is up and down. The lows are often very low, and the highs are euphoric. Sometimes we hit a low point, and we know there’s more beyond that, so we fight for another high. Sometimes the low is the end of the story, and all you can do is pick yourself up and dust yourself off and keep on walking.”

I know what he’s getting at, implying the possibility of the end of the road for me and Jade, but my dad knew in his bones there was more to the story for him and my mom, and while I don’t have the same sense of knowing, I know what kind of ending I want.

“But what if I don’t want to keep walking without them?”

“You have a couple options. You can wait for them, and you can stand still and see if they’ll catch up to you. But you might get stuck there looking backward and hoping for something that will never happen. Your other option is to go get them and see if they’ll come back to you.”

Jade made it clear she was done, but I know she was just scared. I know she was running. And after talking to Mac . . . that spark of hope in my chest feels a little bigger. A little brighter.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime, kiddo,” he says and takes my clear plate to the sink.

Before he goes to bed, Dad pats my shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

“Turn off the lights when you’re done down here?”

I give him a thumbs-up and scroll on my phone at the kitchen table a little while longer.

A new makeup tutorial Jade uploaded recently stops me in my tracks. I watch it too many times and practically break my thumb resisting the urge to “like” it. She might think I’m doing it for attention—or worse, she might not notice it at all.

I click through to her page and find a photo of her—just her—smiling. The urge to call her, to hear her voice, her laugh, to hear her say my name, hits me like a punch. A feeling I know all too well.

I think back to my dad’s words about the pathways I could choose. Do I stand still and wait for Jade to catch up? Do I risk getting stuck? I already know chasing her won’t end well—her instinct is to run. She’s run in the past, and she’d probably run farther and faster than I could keep up with.

But maybe I can do both. Maybe I don’t have to choose. Those were my dad’s pathways, but I think it’s time for me to make my own.

Before I fall asleep, I make a phone call, leave a voicemail, and hope for the best.

Red Barn Playhouse hasn’t changed since I first stepped into it as a middle schooler. The building smells vaguely of a woodshop and freshly printed programs. Not much decor has changed in the lobby except a few new photos of more recent productions that have been added to the collection of Red Barn Programs—framed after each production and added to the wall in the lobby. Even the benches for visitors to sit on are the same bright red, squeaky leather ones that have been there for at least a decade.

Robert invited me to swing by the theater so we could have a chat today about the job position, but he has a virtual meeting overlapping our time by about ten minutes. He left the building unlocked for me so I could let myself in.

“Feel free to explore the old stomping grounds,” he’d said on the phone last week. I’m taking him up on the offer as I wander through the building. It’s not as big as the theater at MPC, but there’s a good-sized stage and a couple hundred chairs.

I look up first, taking in the light fixtures hanging along the grid pointing toward the stage. Between the lights and the mostly built set, I realize they must be prepping for A Christmas Carol. Every other year, Red Barn does the Charles Dickens book-turned-play, alternating with A Miracle on 34th Street . It’s similar to how ballet companies do The Nutcracker every year. I’ve been the light designer, light crew head, and light crew for both shows multiple times. These two Christmas shows are both deeply comforting for me and something I would be happy to never do again.

But being the tech director here would mean doing these shows every year. Unless, like my dad mentioned, I had some say in what programs we do.

We.

As if I already work here. As if I’m already part of the team, part of the group of people who make shows happen at this small local theater.

I take a seat in the audience, the silence of the theater wrapping me up like a blanket. I love this space. This stage is the first one I ever fell in love with. The scene shop here is as familiar to me as my childhood home. Everything about this place is safe.

“ Sounds . . . safe. ”

Jade’s voice is so clear, I turn my head to see if she’s actually sitting next to me. She’s not. I’m still alone in here. As alone as I can be with the ghosts of all my previous shows.

Little Shop of Horrors , when I hung my very first light fixture.

Company , the first show I ran follow spot for.

The Miracle Worker , the first and last show I did props for.

My Fair Lady , not my first show for which I worked on the set, but my favorite.

Jesus Christ Superstar , the first show I was the crew head for the light crew.

And the most formative memory for me: Jekyll and Hyde . I was sixteen years old when I got the opportunity to design lights for that show, my first one. To this day it’s one of my favorite musicals. Besides being wildly underrated in the theater community, I will forever associate that show with realizing that I didn’t care what it took; I would find a way to do lighting design for the rest of my life. I remember telling my dad that I didn’t care if it paid pennies—I couldn’t believe people got to do that for a living.

I haven’t listened to the soundtrack in ages, but now that I’m thinking about the show, I bring it up on my phone and throw in my earphones. “This is the Moment”—my favorite song from the show—plays like surround sound in my ears. It takes me right back to being in high school, listening to this soundtrack on repeat, colors and concepts looping in my mind for weeks. My grades at school suffered for a couple months because I was singularly obsessed with lighting this show. I barely slept; my parents had to remind me to eat. I was a teenage boy lovesick over a musical and its lighting design.

I still get this way when I design a show. It’s one of the few things that, when I’m in the zone, I lose track of time and space and self. I try to imagine a version of my life where only a fraction of my time is spent on the lighting design and I’m forced to split my energy and attention between all tech aspects of a show. My limbs feel heavy and the theater seems smaller.

As a thought exercise, I consider my life if I focused solely on lighting design. On what it might feel like to chase opportunities but to always be doing something that makes me feel alive. My limbs don’t feel so heavy anymore.

Maybe I’ve always known what I wanted to do. Maybe the issue isn’t the knowing.

“Ian?” Robert says my name, but it sounds far away.

I shake my head, clearing my thoughts, and realize that Robert is standing in front of me. And probably has been for a bit. He’s waving and I pop my earphones out and back into their case.

“Sorry, I was— Actually, I was listening to Jekyll and Hyde . Thinking about my first show here,” I say, but I feel like I’ve been caught. Like he could hear my thoughts.

“What a fun show. You did a great job lighting it. As good as people twice your age have done for shows here.”

Robert takes the seat next to me, surveying the stage.

“I love it here,” he says. His voice is softer, somehow more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard it. “I won’t stay forever, but it’ll kill me to go.”

I relate to his words more than I expected to. “Are you thinking about retiring?”

“Maybe in a few more years. There’s life in me yet.” He turns to me with a grin. “And you? Will you pass a few years here?”

He asks like he knows the answer and yet still asks with hope.

“I think I’d regret choosing this,” I say with a shaky voice. “As much as I love it here, I don’t think this is my final destination.”

Robert nods, his smile never faltering. “I feel there’s only one appropriate response to that,” he says.

I know what’s coming. Robert says this at the end of every show closing. He gathers the cast and we stand in a circle, holding hands, awaiting the benediction. Even now, he puts a fatherly hand on my shoulder and recites the words I know by heart.

“Your name is forever etched into the walls of this theater. Your voice forever absorbed into its foundation. You are stamped upon the heart of this stage. Whether this is your first time here, your fifth, or your last, you will always have a home here at Red Barn.”

And now, as it always does, his words bring tears to my eyes. It feels right, saying no to the safe thing, something I never thought I’d say.

But I’m a different man than I was three months ago.

All thanks to a one-act I never even wanted to be in.