Look Again

24

DEXTER

Ipull the door closed behind me and stride through the crunch of fallen leaves. Not that I’m all that interested in striding right now. Just putting as much space as possible between myself and the old chapel.

Between myself and Joey Harker.

Cold wind blows around me, and my face radiates the heat of shame and humiliation.

I was so amused watching her stand there talking to herself, so enraptured by the uninhibited way she spoke and gestured. She was delightful. She was lovely. She was confident and adorable. I was thinking of nothing but her charm. Right up to the moment she made it ugly.

Is that what she really thinks of me? That I’m faking this? That everything is an act? I’m letting her do the hard parts and taking credit for them, pretending it is all thanks to me? That I’m doing the least possible work for the highest reward?

Is she wrong?

And who told her I was a Newsie?

I mean, I was a Newsie, not that I bring it up here. And it was a great show. I love that show. I was great in it, insofar as an ensemble member can be great. I might have blended in to the point of being forgettable, but that is an important skill when playing a background part.

My whole life was a background part.

But I did love being part of that run, and the way she spoke about it, well, it sounded like what I’d done was childish. Silly. And that’s unfair.

But even in my righteous indignation, I feel the hurt of truth. I am here at Chamberlain because it is comfortable. It’s easy. Routine. I don’t need to learn a new part or any new lines. I’m good at what I’m doing, and everyone just lets me keep doing it.

I arrive home to find that my heat is, once again, off. First time it’s happened this year, but over the past few winters there have been some very chilly nights in the teacher’s residences at Chamberlain. Old heating systems, strains on the grids, whatever. Faculty housing heat is always on someone’s fix-it list, but the student needs come first. Faculty is encouraged to keep layers available.

I pull a sweatshirt over my head and then wrap a blanket around my shoulders. Opening my laptop, I type a few sentences into the open document before the screen goes dark. Dead battery. Awesome. I can’t be bothered to get off the couch to plug in.

I pick up my phone and read emails. One from my dad. One from the lighting supplier asking about gobos I ordered. One from someone named Grayson Flanders, which I almost delete without reading, because I have no idea who this guy is, but something makes me open it.

Save the date.

Please join us for an evening of celebration on the upcoming wedding of Candace Leila Holland and Grayson Mercer Flanders on November 27th. Dinner and dancing at the Yeardley Hotel on Long Island.

Beneath the decorative text image,there’s a simple typewritten message.

Dex! You have to come! Please say you’ll come! And bring someone! A friend! Or a special friend! Can’t do this without you!

Love,

Canada

I ignore my instinct to throw something, since the only things in close reach are expensive electronics.

But really? That woman. That overeager, exclamation-point-abusing, insufferable woman.

Who does she think she is, demanding (!) my attendance (!) at her engagement party? And using my pet name for her? Does her fiancé (Grayson, I remind myself; Grayson, oh please) call her Canada, too? Does Grayson laugh at her when she takes a wrong turn and ends up at border crossing checkpoints without a passport? Does she laugh back?

How would it have been, I wonder, if she had kept laughing? Would we have been able to push past her disappointment in my ambition (or, as she saw it, my lack of ambition)? When did she stop thinking we were on a great adventure together? If I had to hazard a guess, I bet it was right about the time I decided that I wanted to keep doing shows on Broadway. At least that was the first time I heard her complain about my “childish need” to perform for people.

So I finished my run (incidentally, the thing I loved doing more than anything I’d ever done before) and enrolled in grad school, and she seemed pretty supportive of all that until the second she understood that my degree would be in education. Her pretty little (reconstructed) nose had turned up as if she smelled something rotten.

If I remember correctly (and I am very sure I do, because I can’t get the words out of my head—they ring there on sleepless nights), her exact words were, “A teacher? You want to be a teacher? Why don’t you do something important?”

That wasn’t the beginning of the end. It was more like the end of the end. I am a good actor. I know it. But even I can’t pretend I’m okay being with someone who so clearly holds me in contempt. I ended it with Candace, and she moved on, and I am exactly talented enough to act like I never missed her.

I reposition myself in my leather chair and google Grayson Mercer Flanders. I do not snort aloud as I thumb in the name.