“I have a cat! I do!” Damn it… why couldn’t I ever remember my imaginary cat’s gender? “ Um… she’s gray and adorable and her name is… “ I said the first thing that popped into my head, “Hamlet.”
I was a genius. I couldn’t even invent a girl cat with a girl name. It’s like there was this bridge in my brain between the rational and the absurd, and somehow I had burned it.
“You have a cat named Hamlet?”
“I do.” Kill me now. “I definitely, definitely do.”
That was it. I was going to have to get a cat.
“Fine. So, if you’re not dating Cade, what’s going on between the two of you?”
I could feel heat leeching into the skin of my neck. “Nothing.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
I was a terrible liar. My ears probably looked like I’d spent an hour in a tanning bed. “It’s nothing. It’s just something that happened Friday when I was… how do you British people say it? Pissed? Sloshed?”
He sat back away from me, but left his hands clenched on the back of my seat. “Did you sleep with him?”
“What? No!”
He didn’t lean back toward me, but his grip on the chair loosened. One of his knuckles brushed against my arm. “Good.”
“Garrick…” He was going to that place we weren’t supposed to go.
He smiled cheekily. “What? Just because I can’t have you right now, doesn’t mean I’m okay with him having you.”
My brain tripped over that right now phrase again, but I forced my thoughts away from it. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just refer to me like property to be owned.”
“Can’t we own each other?”
If brains could have orgasms, I’m pretty sure this was what it would feel like. I shouldn’t like it, but there was possessiveness in his words that was echoed in his dark eyes, and it sent shivers down my spine until my fingers felt numb with their emptiness. I couldn’t answer his question, so I asked my own. “What has gotten in to you? I thought you promised me we wouldn’t do this again.”
He pulled his hands through his hair, his curls sticking out in adorable ways that made my stomach flip-flop.
“I don’t know. I just… I’ve been going crazy thinking about the two of you together.”
“We kissed. Nothing else.”
He flinched back like I’d said Cade and I were getting married and having a houseful of children. I couldn’t look at his face. It made me want to do insane things. I repeated myself, “It was just a kiss. It didn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t want anyone else to kiss you.”
“Garrick…” I was starting to hate the warning tone in my own voice. If he kept pushing like this, I wouldn’t be able to say no much longer. I was going to throw myself at him, most likely just in time for Eric to walk back in.
“I know I’m not being fair. I’m being a right bastard, actually. I keep telling myself to leave you alone, but the truth is… I’m not sure I can. And now that I know you’re not with Cade…”
“What are you saying?”
The backstage door creaked, and I realized how close we were. My heart thrumming like a plucked guitar string, I moved over a few seats seconds before Eric re-entered the space.
He held up his notebook triumphantly. “Got it! And I brought down a real script for you, Bliss, so you don’t have to use the sides.”
I fought to calm my heart when Eric handed me the play.
Don’t look at Garrick. Don’t look at him.
It didn’t matter… I was hyper aware of him. Even if I moved several rows away from him, I was certain I would know every time he shifted or breathed or looked at me.
The small book felt good in my hands, still warm from Eric’s grip, and I had to resist the urge to begin pouring over the words that very second to distract me from Garrick. The Stage Manager, Alyssa, who was a year younger than me, came in the room to announce that we were ready to begin whenever Eric was.
He nodded the go ahead, and then turned to me. “Bliss, we’re starting with Hippolytus. I’m going to have them perform their monologues one more time, then I’ll have you jump up there. Just stick with what you were doing in your monologue. Play the objective—you want him, but your shame, your fear is your own obstacle.“
I glanced at Garrick. Should be simple enough.
Alyssa came back in, Jeremy walking calmly in her wake. She took a seat at the tech table, and he stood center stage, his shoulders back, his chin up.
He looked good. I smiled in pride at him. Our little sophomore.
“Hi Jeremy. I’d like to start by seeing your monologue one more time, just to get things going. Then we’ll see how you do with Bliss.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. Paused for a moment.
I loved that moment before. It was the height of anticipation and hope. It was like diving off a cliff, knowing what would come after was terrifying and beautiful and the point of living. That moment… it was addicting.
I have let myself run on too far.
I see my reason has given way to violence.
There was desperation in Jeremy’s performance as he began, but he sounded young. He looked young. When he spoke, his words and his emotions came rushing out. Like once he’d begun his confession of love for Aricia, there was no stopping the outpour.
My soul, so proud, is finally dependant.
For more than six months, desperate, ashamed,
Bearing throughout the wound with which I’m maimed,
I steeled myself towards you, and myself, in vain…
I hadn’t realized until then that both Hippolytus and Phaedra were in love and ashamed—Phaedra because of whom she loved, and Hippolytus because he loved at all. I could see the shame in Jeremy’s performance, eating away at him, and I wondered if that’s what I looked like in my audition… if that’s what I looked like every time I thought of Garrick.
Present, I flee you: absent, I find you again.
Garrick’s eyes were on Jeremy, glancing back occasionally at the notes he was writing on the notepad in his lap. That last line was echoing through my head like music, a melody that gets stuck and won’t give you any rest.
Present, I fled him. But no matter the distance between us, I kept coming back to him. It all kept coming back to him.
Eric stood from his spot and said, “Good. Good. Let’s see you with Bliss.”
I tore my eyes from Garrick, and fumbled for the script. I walked toward the stage, my knees a bit weak, and my feet somewhat numb.
As much as I loved Jeremy, it was clear to me within minutes that he was not Hippolytus. For one, he was not the heroic, handsome young man who could turn Phaedra’s heart so inside out. He was more of a boy. He had the passion, but sometimes even that wasn’t enough.
We moved through two more boys who were also lacking—both in confidence. Those auditions went quickly.
Then it was Cade’s turn.
I’d always thought Cade’s best asset was his voice. On stage, it took on this low rumble that no matter the volume held power. And with a play that was so much about the text and the lyricism in the lines—his voice was perfect. It was always hard to read Eric’s face, but he definitely looked happier with Cade than he had the previous two auditions.
When things fell apart was when Cade and I took the stage together. We were doing the scene where Phaedra first reveals her feelings to Hippolytus. They were speaking of the death of Theseus—Phaedra’s husband and Hippolytus’s father. Hippolytus had never liked his stepmother. He didn’t know that she’d treated him poorly, so that she might more easily keep her distance because she’d loved him even before Theseus supposedly died.