Just One Year (Just One Day 2)

Forty-three

So much to do. There’s an all-cast rehearsal at noon. Then a tech run-through. I need to run back to the flat, grab some things, tell the boys. And Daniel. Yael.

Broodje is only waking up. Breathlessly, I tell him the news. By the time I’ve finished, he’s already on his phone, calling the boys.

“Did you tell your ma?” he asks when he hangs up.

“I’m calling her now.”

I calculate the time difference. It’s not quite five o’clock in Mumbai, so Yael will still be working. I send her an email instead. While I’m at it, I send one to Daniel. At the last minute, I send one to Kate, telling her about Jeroen’s accident, inviting her to tonight’s show if she’s at all in the area. I even invite her to stay with me and give her the address of the flat.

I’m about to log off when I do a quick scan of my inbox. There’s a new message from an unfamiliar address and I think it’s junk. Until I see the subject line: Letter.

My hand’s shaking a bit as I click on the message. It’s from Tor. Or relayed from Tor via some Guerrilla Will player who doesn’t abide by the email ban as she does.

Hi Willem:

Tor asked me to email you to say that she ran into Bex last week and Bex told her that you hadn’t gotten that letter. Tor was pretty upset because the letter was important and she’d gone to a lot of trouble to try to get it to you. She wanted you to know it was from a girl you’d met in Paris who was looking for you because you’d dicked her over and pulled a runner. (Tor’s words, not mine.) She said that you ought to know that actions have consequences. Again, Tor’s words. Don’t shoot the messenger. You know how she is.

Cheers! Josie

I sink down onto my bed as very different emotions battle it out. Dicked her over, pulled a runner. I feel Tor’s anger. And Lulu’s too. Shame and regret well up but then just stop there, held at bay by some invisible force. Because she’s looking for me. Lulu is looking for me, too. Or she was. Maybe just to tell me to piss off. But she was looking for me like I was looking for her.

I don’t know what to feel as I wander into the kitchen. It’s all just too much for one day.

I find Broodje cracking eggs into a frying pan. “Want an uitsmijter?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“You should eat something. Keep your strength up.”

“I have to go.”

“Now? Henk and W are on their way over. They want to see you. Will you be around at all before your big debut?”

The rehearsal starts at noon and will take at least three hours, and then Linus said I’d have a break before I go for a run-through at the amphitheater at six. “I can probably get back here around four or five?”

“Great. We should have the party plans well under way by then.”

“Party plans?”

“Willy, this is big.” He pauses to look at me. “After the year you’ve had—the years you’ve had—we should celebrate this.”

“Okay, fine,” I say, still half dazed.

I go back into my room to pack up a change of clothes for under the costume, shoes to wear. I’m about to leave when I see Lulu’s watch sitting on my shelf. I hold it in my hand. After all this time, it’s still ticking. I hold it in my hand a moment longer. Then I slip it into my pocket.

Forty-four

At the theater, the rest of the cast has assembled. Max comes up behind me. “I’ve got your back,” she whispers.

I’m about to ask her what she means, and then I see what she means. For the better part of three months, I have been mostly invisible to many of these people, a shadow-cast member. And now, the spotlight is glaring and there’s no safety in the shadows anymore. People are looking at me with a particular mix of suspicion and condescension, a familiar feeling from when I was traveling and walked through certain neighborhoods where my kind didn’t tend to wander. As I did when I was traveling, I just act like I don’t notice and carry on. Soon enough Petra is clapping her hands, gathering us together.

“We have no time to lose,” Linus says. “We will do a modified run-through, skipping over scenes that Orlando is not in.”

“So why did you call all of us in?” mutters Geert, who plays the swing roles of one of Frederick’s men and Silvius; he has almost no scenes with Orlando.

“I know. Sitting around watching other people act is such a bloody waste of time,” Max says, her voice so sincere that it takes Geert a few seconds to have the good sense to look chastened.