You down with OCD? Yeah, you know me!
Cindy finished her sushi and lay down on the green room couch. She closed her eyes and let the music enter her bloodstream as she focused on her breathing and began going over her lines. She had just finished her big scene with Macbeth, the one after he murders Duncan, when something startled her—movement, a chair scraping on the floor.
Her eyes sprang open.
It was Bradley Cox.
He sat at the green room table with his earphones plugged into his laptop—caught Cindy’s gaze just as she opened her eyes and jerked his chin to say hello.
Such a dickhead, Cindy said to herself.
She had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, but knew he’d moved his chair on purpose to get her attention and fuck with her while she was focusing. He’d loosened up over the past week; had tried making casual conversation with her during the technical rehearsals and (and Cindy could not believe this) had even tried flirting with her backstage before final dress. The bruise she’d left on his ego had finally healed, she thought. Only took two fucking semesters.
Cindy nodded her hello and closed her eyes—tried to relax into the music again but quickly became irritated with herself when she realized her costar’s presence was making her uneasy. She turned up her music, but her iPod wasn’t loud enough to drown out what she heard next.
“Hey, Amy,” Cox called. “You hear about this shit?”
“What?”
Cindy opened her eyes to see Amy Pratt entering the green room. The fiery redhead threw down her book bag and stood behind him, rubbing Cox’s shoulders as she looked at his laptop. Cindy’s stomach flipped with disgust as she thumbed her volume down to hear what they were saying.
“Says they found some guy dead in the woods,” Cox said. “North of Raleigh. Says he was stuck in the ground with a pole up his ass. Been dead for over a month. Cops think it’s a serial killer. Vlad the Impaler, they’re calling him.”
Cindy had seen the breaking news report earlier that afternoon as she was getting off the treadmill at the gym. She couldn’t hear the newscaster above all the hip-hop and the drone of the elliptical riders, and only got the gist of the story when she opened her AOL homepage on her computer back home. She glanced at the article quickly: some guy found impaled, details still sketchy, might be connected to the murder of some lawyer in Raleigh.
“Ew,” Amy Pratt said, reading. “That’s sick. People are so fucked up nowadays.”
“Maybe you should give him your number, Amy,” Cox said. “Word on the street is you like it up the ass, too.”
Amy giggled and slapped him playfully on his shoulder—but she kept massaging him and whispered something in his ear. Cox smiled, then looked over at Cindy and nodded. Cindy pretended to turn down her volume.
“You say something?” she asked.
“Just wanted to know if you were ready for tonight,” he said smugly. Cindy didn’t take the bait—knew that he and Amy had an inside joke going and wanted her to say “yes” so they could pretend she was agreeing to whatever it was that Amy had just whispered in his ear. Their version of the “Douchebag says what?” game.
Childish, asinine, easy to defuse.
“You mean am I ready for the show?” Cindy asked.
“Yes,” he said, smiling wider. “I mean for the show.”
Amy smiled wider, too—thought it brilliant, Cindy could tell, the way Bradley had salvaged their little joke by emphasizing show.
Okay, whatever, Cindy said to herself. She didn’t feel like playing, but at the same time she didn’t want to leave the green room and let Mr. and Mrs. Dipshit win.
“Just go with your heart, Bradley,” she said, deadpan. “Therein resides the only answer you’ll ever need.”
Bradley looked momentarily confused—as if he couldn’t figure out if he’d just been insulted—then sighed and rolled his eyes over to Amy.
“Guess I’m not good enough for a straight answer,” he said. Cindy could tell he was about to follow up with a snide remark, when the break she was looking for came over the intercom.
“Testing, one-two-three,” said the stage manager. “It’s ten minutes ’til our official call. Don’t forget to sign in on the callboard.”
And in a flash Cindy was off the couch. She’d signed in nearly an hour ago but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get away. She turned up the volume on her iPod and hurried down the hall, past a group of students and straight for the electrics shop. She hoped the door was unlocked—wanted to find a quiet corner to finish going over her lines before going back to the dressing room.
I should’ve had one of the star dressing rooms upstairs, Cindy thought, while simultaneously chastising herself for being such a diva. Who cares if Mr. Dickhead and his boys have more quick changes—
The doorknob pulled away from her hand just as she reached for it—startled her and caused one of her earphones to fall out.
It was Edmund Lambert.
He stood in the electrics shop doorway looking down at her—black T-shirt, his face dusty but unfazed. He’d been checking the trap to make sure everything was running smoothly, Cindy knew. Even more OCD than I am, she thought, and felt her face go hot at the thought of liking him all the more for it. She hadn’t had much time to speak with him over the last week—they kept missing each other because he was out in the house with Jennings or under the stage in Hell—and she hoped he couldn’t see how happy she was to finally talk to him alone.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was going to see if the door was unlocked. Needed a place that was quiet to focus before the show.”
“I can lock the doorknob, if you want,” Edmund said. Cindy was confused. “So no one will bother you. The doorknob is only locked on the outside. Jennings gave me the keys. You can leave whenever you’re finished. See?”
He locked the door and turned the inside knob; demonstrated by closing the door, then opening it from the inside.
“That’d be awesome, Edmund. Thank you.”
He smiled and let her in, unfolded a chair, and placed it in the corner behind a rack of coupling cables. He was so cool around her—but in a good way, Cindy thought; not aloof, not superior, yet not awkward or trying too hard to be smooth like Bradley Cox. Edmund Lambert was just … well … present was the only word Cindy could think of to describe him. He listened to her when she spoke; really listened for the sake of listening only. No hidden agenda. No underlying intention of wanting to bang her. He was just there, taking her in with his steel-blue eyes. And when he smiled—which she had never seen him do with any of the other girls—well, she never had to question whether or not that smile was genuine.
But what Cindy really liked about Edmund Lambert was how she felt when she smiled back.
“I’m going to watch the show tonight,” he said, “but I’m not part of the running crew. Won’t be back until photo call on Sunday unless something goes wrong with the trap. Means you’ll have to get a stage manager to let you in here from now on.”
“I should be all right tomorrow,” Cindy said. “I can find another place if it’s locked—but this is great. Just opening-night jitters, I guess.”
“You shouldn’t be nervous.” Cindy loved the way he said nuh-vuhs. “You’re doing a great job. You steal the show from Bradley Cox.”
Edmund was so matter of fact in his compliment, yet at the same time so devoid of any pettiness toward Cox, that Cindy felt herself blushing.