“I . . . just . . . ,” I said, reaching forward and taking my own paper-wrapped chopsticks, unwrapping them mostly to have something to do with my hands while I tried to sort out what I wanted to say. “I don’t know.” I took a breath and realized that even though I might not know exactly what I wanted to say, I was pretty sure I knew where it was coming from—it was like something had been churned up since the press conference. I wasn’t sure if it was seeing my mother’s painting, or reading what my dad had written, or even if it was just this, the reality of the two of us struggling to talk to each other when there were no distractions to hide behind.
I looked down at the table, wishing I’d never brought it up. Wishing I hadn’t asked. I should have known the answer would be something like trying to avoid the traffic.
When Wanda arrived bearing food, we busied ourselves with our meals until there was just the sound of silverware on plates, and it seemed to take up so much time and energy it was hard to imagine how we would have talked, anyway.
We ate in silence until Wanda came back to check on us and my dad told her that we’d love the check, please—we were ready to go, but that everything had been really wonderful, no complaints, just great.
Chapter
SIX
“He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts!” the actors on the stage chanted in singsong unison. I was about to ask Palmer what the hell was going on, when the group continued. “He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts!”
“What. Is. Happening?” Toby said from her seat next to me, her eyes wide and fixed on the stage, where the cast had begun to jump around in circles, chanting, “Red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather.”
“Vocal warm-ups,” Palmer said with a shrug. “You learn to tune it out after a while.”
I looked at the stage again. Everyone was now lying on their backs, rolling from side to side, and I could swear they were meowing. “Really?” I asked skeptically.
“You can tune anything out,” Bri said with authority from my other side. “I’ve now seen Space Cowboy fourteen times. I swear, I’m not even hearing the dialogue anymore. Yesterday, I watched it just for the cinematography choices.”
“What?” Toby gasped, leaning across me to whack Bri on the arm, but hitting me in the process. “You’ve seen it fourteen times and you haven’t snuck me in once?”
“You know I will, at some point. Just let me work there a little longer before I start breaking the one rule they gave me.”
“I thought the one rule was to always wash your hands before operating the popcorn maker,” Palmer said.
“Well, that, too,” Bri acknowledged.
We were all sitting in the back row of the Stanwich Community Theater, where Palmer’s stage manager table was set up. The three of us had the day off (more or less—Bri was working the evening movie shift and I had to walk Bertie at four), so we’d decided to hit the beach for the first time that summer. When we’d been figuring out our plans over group text, Palmer had been whining about the fact that she had to stage-manage and how she was stuck alone in a theater all day (with her boyfriend, which Toby had pointed out, but that Palmer hadn’t seemed to appreciate). So we’d decided to stop by with lunch from Stanwich Sandwich on the way to the beach. I had not realized that by agreeing to come over with food and hang out with Palmer, I would be watching tongue twisters performed onstage.
“What a to-do to die today at a minute or two to two,” the group onstage started chanting, while bending from side to side, apparently done with their meowing. “A thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do.”
“So is this your job?” I asked, as the group continued with this one, saying something about a dragon and a drum. “You just have to sit here and watch this all day?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Toby said, leaning forward in her seat and squinting. “That one guy up there is cute. I’m pretty sure. Is he?”
“When are you going to get glasses?” Bri asked her for what was probably the millionth time.
“When they stop making me look like an owl,” Toby said, still squinting at the stage.
“You could always get contacts,” Bri said, leaning closer to Toby and putting her finger on her lens, wiggling it around on her eye, causing Toby to shriek and turn away.
“Stop it,” she said, though she was laughing. “You know I have a phobia of hands-near-eyes!”
“I wonder why,” I said, knowing it was almost entirely because Bri had been doing this to Toby ever since she got contacts in sixth grade.
“Which guy did you mean?” Palmer asked as Toby pointed.
“You think he’s cute?” Bri asked, shaking her head. Bri and Toby never liked the same guys, ever. Tom had a theory about why their taste never overlapped, but it involved Venn diagrams and math, and we hadn’t let him get very far with it before we made him stop talking.
“Oh, that’s Jared,” Palmer said. “He’s in college. And he has a girlfriend.”
“Damn it,” Toby said, as she sat back again.
“It’s okay,” Bri said, patting her arm. “He isn’t that cute.”
“He is. I think.”
“I write down blocking, when it gets set,” Palmer said, leaning forward to answer my question. “But my real job comes when we go into tech and performance. Then I have to call all the light and sound cues.”
“Look at you,” Toby said proudly, nudging Palmer’s arm, “sounding like you know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay!” a bearded man who looked like he was in his forties stood up in the front row. “Good warm-up. We’re starting from the top of act two in fifteen.”
Palmer jumped up. “Fifteen minutes!” she yelled, as actors started to jump down from the stage and stream up the aisles. “Be back in fifteen, guys.”
“He just said that,” Toby said.
“I know. But for some reason, it’s my job to repeat times loudly.”
“Hey, guys.” I glanced over and saw Tom walking down the row to join us, looking slightly out of breath. “When did you all get here? Are you going to stay and watch the rehearsal?”
“No,” Bri, Toby, and I said in unison, and Tom took the water bottle Palmer handed him, looking hurt. It was nothing against Tom—but I really preferred to watch a play when it was rehearsed and costumed and lit and people weren’t wandering aimlessly around the stage clutching their scripts.
“But it’s really good,” Tom said enthusiastically, pulling his script out from his back pocket. I turned my head to read the title—Bug Juice. “It’s this total classic, been around forever. But the writers just won a Tony this year for their play about Tesla. . . .” We all looked at him blankly, including Palmer. “We went to see it together, P,” Tom said, sounding pained.
“Oh, right,” Palmer said quickly, after shooting us a quick look. “That one. It was really . . . great.”
“How’d the ham thing go?” I asked, only to see Tom’s face fall even further. We really weren’t making it a very good rehearsal for him. “Well, you probably didn’t want that anyway,” I said, talking fast. “To get locked into a role like that. You need to, um . . . show your range.”
“Totally,” Palmer said, reaching up and giving his cheek a quick kiss, then widening her eyes at me in thanks.
“What’s happening with cool-T-shirt guy?” Tom asked.
“You mean Dogboy,” Toby corrected, turning to me. “Any progress?”