She had known almost from the beginning that Peter was married and had children. There had been nothing new divulged this morning. That wife and those children were no more real now than they’d ever been. But now she’d seen them. That was what destroyed her peace.
Out of sight, out of mind. How could she allow that of herself? That was for people with amnesia and brain damage. That was for newts and frogs. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she hold things in her mind? There was no comfort to be taken from her inability, no excuse.
This was a different game she was playing. Not a playground challenge or a warm-up or a scrimmage. It was real and it counted. Peter was an adult. She was an adult. They had real lives to make or lose.
She could flit around and show off in front of the married man. She could kiss that married man and pretend it was all big, mischievous fun. But it wasn’t.
As she walked she shuddered. It was time to grow up. She looked ahead of her and saw the crest of a hill. That crest stood for growing up, she decided as she willfully crossed it.
She stood up her straightest, to her full woman’s height of five feet and ten and a half inches. If she didn’t take her life seriously, who would? She was becoming the person she’d be for her whole life. Each thing she chose contributed to that person. She didn’t want to be like this.
Carmen liked being in the theater. Even the longest, crankiest late-night rehearsal was preferable to being in her dorm room. Andrew Kerr could take her down with a look, but even at his scariest he was friendlier than her roommate.
Carmen had transformed from invisible to visible in the eyes of everyone on campus except for one person. For two long weeks, even though they shared a small room and slept within five feet of each other, Julia had acted like Carmen wasn’t there.
Which was why it surprised Carmen in the third week of rehearsals when Julia turned to her and said, “How’s the play going?”
Carmen was pulling off her socks at the moment it happened, exhausted but also excited at having tried on her costume for the first time.
“It’s going pretty well. At least, I hope so.”
“How is it working with Ian O’Bannon?” Julia asked.
She asked this like they’d been having friendly chats night and day. Carmen was scared to believe it was actually happening.
“He’s…I don’t even know what he is. Every day I think I can’t be more amazed and then I am.”
“Wow. Lucky you, you get to work with him.”
Carmen sifted through these words, girding herself for jeering or sarcasm, but she didn’t hear it.
“It is really lucky,” Carmen said warily.
“It’s like…the experience of a lifetime,” Julia said.
Again Carmen weighed these words, studied Julia’s face. Julia’s face, which had seemed so beautiful and commanding at one time and now seemed furtive. The qualities Carmen had most admired in her seemed extreme now. She was too thin, too poised, too careful.
“I think it is,” Carmen said.
Carmen fell asleep that night wondering what had brought about the thaw, scared to trust it, but more than anything, grateful that it had happened.
So that when she woke up the next morning, she was still doubtful, though still hopeful.
“You should wear those green pants. They look really good on you,” Julia said when Carmen was rummaging through her drawer.
Carmen turned. “You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.” Carmen put on the green pants even though she didn’t think they looked so good.
“What are you rehearsing today?” Julia asked.
Carmen counseled herself to take the friendliness at face value and just be glad for it. “I think it’ll be Leontes going bonkers for the first part. Perdita doesn’t even come in until act four, scene four, but Andrew wants me to watch. ‘Watch and absorb,’ he always says, and he shakes his fingers over my head. He thinks that’s entertaining for some reason.”
“He’s kind of an oddball, isn’t he?” Julia said.
“He is,” Carmen said, though she suddenly felt protective of his oddness. “I have no experience or anything, but I think he’s a good director.”
Julia could easily have said something cutting then, but she didn’t. “He’s got a huge reputation,” she said.
“Does he?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Huh.” This was enough pleasant conversation to last Carmen for the week, but Julia kept going.
“I can read with you if you ever want some extra practice,” she said.
Carmen looked at her carefully. “That’s nice. Thanks. I’ll let you know.”
“Seriously, any time,” Julia said. “My part in Love’s Labour’s is not exactly consuming, you know?”
Carmen didn’t want to be caught agreeing. “You have the last word, though. That’s a big deal.”
“As an owl.”
“Well.”
Julia’s expression was openly rueful. “R.K., our director, asked me if I’d give a thought to helping with sets during my downtime.”
Carmen tried to keep her expression neutral. “What did you say?”
“I said that sets really aren’t my thing.”
Carmabelle: Wow, Leo’s black?
LennyK162: Yeah. Half, anyway.
Carmabelle: You really are trying to kill your father.
LennyK162: Pretty much any color boyfriend would do it.
Carmabelle: Does Leo identify more with his black side or his white side?
LennyK162: What?
Carmabelle: I’m a woman of color. I’m allowed to ask these things.
LennyK162: I still don’t know what you’re talking about.
Carmabelle: Okay, does he listen to U2?
Bridget ended up that evening not in China, but on her dirt floor with a bad sunburn stinging her shoulders.
She was glad to have her floor again. She had worried that the joy of her floor somehow depended on Peter, but she now realized it didn’t. It was her own separate joy and could not be taken away.
She was glad to hear that Peter had gone with his family into town for dinner. She wanted to skip dinner, but she didn’t want to skip it on his account.
She continued this busy overthinking, feeling it an annoying by-product of adulthood. Were people in her work team treating her too carefully?
At least her hands still knew how to seek out the floor. She was down to the final couple of feet left over from last night. She couldn’t draw it out much longer.
She dug and sifted and sorted. At the final edge, her finger touched something hard. She was used to that by now. She assumed it was a piece of terra-cotta, like so many of the other bits were. She shook if off and held it up, but the sunlight was too faded to help. She felt it between her fingers. It was tiny. It wasn’t porous like clay. It wasn’t heavy like metal.
She recorded its provenience and hopped up the stairs to find a flashlight. Holding the little thing under the light, she felt her heart begin to thump.
She took it to the lab, glad that Anton was working late.
“What’ve you got?” he asked her.
She handed it to him. “I think it’s a tooth.” She was shaken by it. She felt a shaky chill in her abdomen.
He looked at it. He held it under magnification. “You’re right.”
“A baby tooth.”
“It certainly is.”
“Can you tell who it belonged to? I mean a boy or a girl?”
He shook his head. “You can’t discern gender from any of a child’s bones. Before puberty, boy skeletons and girl skeletons are exactly the same.”
Why was Anton looking so jovial about this when she felt sickened by it?
“I found it in the house,” she said. “In the new room.” Her breathing was moist and a little bit ragged. “I expect to find this kind of stuff in mortuary, but not in the house.” She really did not want to cry.
Anton looked at her carefully. “Bridget, it wasn’t in mortuary because the kid didn’t die.”
“It didn’t?”