The Darlings in Love Page 13

  “Hi, Victoria,” said Rajiv and Lily. “Great show, right? Sorry you couldn’t stay.”

  “Oh, totally!” Victoria was glad to hear how enthusiastic her voice sounded.

  “See you later!” said Lily.

  “Later!” Victoria smiled as Rajiv and Lily turned to go.

  When they were alone, Jack held out his sandwich to Victoria. “Bite?”

  Victoria was so tired that the thought of eating anything made her stomach turn over. She shook her head.

  He nodded, then put his arm around her, walking along in the direction she’d been heading. “Listen, Rajiv and Lily are going to come over after school, and we’re going to listen to the final mix of the album. Want to come?”

  Did these people do anything but listen to music?! She shook her head, glad to have an honest excuse for why she couldn’t join them. “Can’t. I have to work on a report with Maeve.”

  “Got it,” said Jack. “In that case, any interest in a Twilight Zone marathon Saturday night? A bunch of us are going to Rajiv’s.”

  Victoria wrinkled her nose. She could fake an interest in music, but not science fiction. Years ago she and Emily had watched Alien, and the memory of it still grossed her out. But luckily, she didn’t have to tell Jack she hated something he apparently liked. “I can’t. I’m going to see Casablanca with Jane and Natalya.” Suddenly she had an idea. “Do you want to come, instead of going to see The Twilight Zone? I think Jane’s boyfriend is coming.”

  Jack briefly made a face that gave Victoria the impression he liked Casablanca about as much as she liked The Twilight Zone. Then he shook his head. “I’m kind of cohosting the Twilight Zone thing, so I don’t want to bail.” He posed like a bodybuilder and made his voice deep and dramatic like a sports announcer’s. “You’re looking at the official popcorn maker of this year’s marathon.” Then he dropped his arms and his voice went back to normal. “Besides, I’m not that into old movies.”

  “Twilight Zone’s old, isn’t it?” Was she nagging? This was starting to sound a little like nagging.

  He considered her question, then said, “Okay, let me qualify that as old romantic movies.”

  Victoria didn’t know what to say. She wanted to be with Jack, but she didn’t want to watch The Twilight Zone. And he had said he wanted to be with her, just not enough to bail on his friends or to get over the fact that he wasn’t into old romantic movies.

  The warning bell rang.

  “Well, maybe you’ll come by before you go to the movie?” Jack suggested, squeezing Victoria’s hand.

  Remembering her conversation with Jane, Victoria squeezed back. “Maybe you’ll take a break from the marathon and come to the movie.” She felt good for having said it, proud that she hadn’t just caved and agreed to sacrifice her plans to meet Jack.

  He laughed, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and said, “Maybe,” before heading off to history class.

  Part of Victoria wanted to call for him to come back, to ask him why he didn’t want to see her enough to go to a movie he might not otherwise have gone to, to remind him that she’d gone to the concert with him for no other reason than that it was important to him.

  But what if he said, Well, Victoria, maybe I’m not as into you as you’re into me?

  Just thinking about Jack’s loving her less than she loved him made her feel awful and empty, as if she’d gone without food for a week. Besides, he hadn’t said no. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t come to the movies with her. He’d said maybe.

  Maybe could mean yes, Victoria reminded herself.

  All the way to class she kept saying, Maybe could mean yes, Maybe could mean yes, over and over in her head. But despite having repeated the sentence more than a hundred times, when she sat down and took out her algebra homework, she still hadn’t managed to convince herself.

  JANE NEARLY DROPPED her tall cappuccino when Natalya called and informed her of her plans for Saturday afternoon.

  “Okay, first of all, you’re so not going to Colin’s house,” Jane said into the phone. She wrapped her fingers more firmly around her drink.

  “What?” Natalya sounded genuinely shocked, which surprised Jane. “Of course I’m going. Why shouldn’t I go? We’re friends.”

  “You’re not friends,” Jane shouted. The barista who’d just made her cappuccino looked startled, and Jane shot her an apologetic look.

  “Thanks a lot,” Natalya shot back.

  Jane stepped outside, and the chilly air calmed her down a little. “Sorry. What I should have said was that your friendship is…problematic.” Then she couldn’t resist adding, “In that you like him.”

  “Okay, fine. I like him,” Natalya admitted. “And your point is…?”

  Jane took a sip of her coffee. “You’re going to get hurt.”

  “No I’m not!” Natalya said firmly. “I know he doesn’t like me. And I’m fine with that.”

  “You seriously expect me to believe that?” asked Jane, wiping a drop of foam from her lip with the back of her hand.

  “Yes.”

  The light changed, and Jane crossed the street, heading back to school for rehearsal. “And you’re not hoping anything is going to happen with Colin on Saturday.”

  “Exactly. Alison’s my friend.”

  Jane stood on the sidewalk in front of school but did not walk up the steps into the building. “So, you’re not, like, going to ask me what you should wear to his house.”

  Natalya didn’t answer. She was thinking about how much she wished Victoria had answered her phone earlier. There followed a lengthy silence.

  Finally, Jane said, “I want to go on record as saying that your going over to Colin’s strikes me as an extremely bad idea.”

  “Fine,” Natalya said curtly. “Duly noted.”

  As soon as they hung up, Jane replayed their conversation in her head. She couldn’t help feeling she’d failed Natalya, that if only she’d said the right thing, she could have convinced her not to go over to Colin’s on Saturday.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t figure out the magic words that would have gotten Natalya to change her mind.

  When Jane arrived at rehearsal, Simon and Mark were already there, moving extra chairs out of the way. They looked up as she banged through the door. She could not believe how stupid Natalya was being.

  Despite being irritated, one look at Simon calmed Jane down. No matter how many times she saw him, Jane could never get used to how beautiful he was. He was like a great painting or a Beethoven symphony or a Shakespeare sonnet. Seeing him, even if it happened several times a day, always took her breath away. She made her way over to the center of the room. Simon slipped his arm around her shoulders. Standing there pressed against him, Jane felt…complete somehow. Like nothing could be wrong in the world as long as Simon was in it and they had their arms around each other.

  “I commend you on your ability to get into character,” Mark said as Jane wrapped her arm around Simon’s waist. “But let us remember that Jason and Medea have a subtextual love.”

  Jane was about to say something snotty, but before she could, Simon shook his head in mock sadness. “Subtextual. Get your mind out of the gutter, would you, Mark?”

  They all laughed as Jane and Simon crossed to their positions and Mark grabbed one of the audience chairs, swung it around, then straddled it.

  Once Mark was seated and had indicated they should take it from the top, Simon launched into his lines. “‘This is not the first occasion that I have noticed how hopeless it is to deal with a stubborn temper. For, with reasonable submission to our ruler’s will, you might have lived in this land and kept your home.’” As Mark had told him to be, Simon was in a deep rage. When he said, This is not the first occasion, he really sounded as if he’d said the same thing so many times before that he was barely able to find the patience to utter it again.

  Jane and Simon circled each other, speaking their lines and glaring at one another. Medea accused Jason of having betr
ayed her. Jason responded that Medea had brought exile on herself by cursing the king’s family. Medea told Jason that she’d only cursed the king’s family because it was Jason’s family.

  Jane knew her lines, and she knew her blocking, but she still didn’t know how to do what Mark kept telling her to do. Simon seemed to be okay. Mark had told him to act impatient with Medea, and he was looking at Jane as if he just wanted her to shut up already. Mark’s direction to Jane, however, was completely useless. She tried to yell without yelling, but you were either yelling at someone or you weren’t.

  Round and round they went, growing angrier and angrier, until they were definitely screaming at each other. Finally, Jane shouted the final line of the scene at Simon: “‘Your marriage will be one of regret and horror!’” Her voice was hoarse from all the yelling she’d done. Though she was trying to stay in character, she made a mental note to drink a lot of tea with honey on the night of the performance. If she didn’t, her voice was never going to hold out for the entire scene.

  Simon stormed offstage. There was a long moment of silence.

  Mark sighed and shook his head. “Jane, I just feel like you’re not…” He pulled at his hair in frustration. Was he annoyed by her performance, or by his own inability to find the words he wanted? “It’s like…you’re just yelling. It’s too much.”

  Jane was embarrassed. She knew she was doing a bad job, but she couldn’t figure out how to do a better one. And how dare Mark criticize her when he was the one who was giving her the meaningless directions that were causing her to humiliate herself?

  Before she could stop herself, Jane snapped at Mark, “Or maybe I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She gestured from herself to Simon. “Maybe we have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Simon opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Mark asked Jane, “I’m sorry, who nominated you to be the official spokesperson for this cast, again?”

  “Simon’s just too polite to tell you that everything you’re saying is ridiculous.” She imitated his slightly ponderous way of giving directions. “Keep the love subtextual. Yell, but don’t yell. This is a subtle manifestation of a complex theme. Blah blah blah blah blah. This isn’t an English essay, okay? Give me something I can use.”

  Mark got to his feet. “I’m trying to give you something you can use. But you’re not using it.”

  “Um, guys…” Simon said hesitantly.

  “Directors have to direct.” Jane raised her voice, speaking over Simon. “They need to say things that translate into practical suggestions. For example…” She began to count off sentences on her fingers. “Look at this person like you want to kill him. Look at this person like you want to kiss him. Shout this line. Whisper this line.” Now she looked at Mark, five fingers held up in the air for him to see. “These are directions that are helpful. On the other hand…” She held up her other hand and extended her index finger. “Yell but do not yell? Yell at this person in a loving way? That’s a cool idea, Mark, and I can totally see why you’re psyched about it. But if you want to be a director someday, you should probably know the truth, okay? And I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you, but here it is. All that crap you’ve been spewing? It’s not called directing. It’s called wasting everybody’s time.”

  There was a deadly silence in the black box. Both Simon and Mark were staring at her—Mark furious, Simon with a horrified expression on his face.

  Jane knew she’d gone too far, which only made her angrier. “What?” she demanded, her voice defensive. Okay, maybe she hadn’t said it as gently as she might have, but she’d only been telling the truth. Couldn’t they see that?

  “Jane, sometimes you’re a real bitch, you know that?” Mark said finally. And with that, he stormed out of the theater.

  There was a long silence.

  “Um, you’re gonna call him, right?” Simon asked Jane finally. He’d dropped into a chair when Mark left, and now he toyed with a strip of loose rubber on the sole of his shoe. “You’re planning on working this out?”

  “Oh, come on, Simon. What would I say if I called him? You know I didn’t tell him anything that wasn’t true. I’m the one who has to be onstage looking like a total idiot. Am I just supposed to accept that? Am I supposed to set myself up to be embarrassed?”

  Simon gave her a sad smile, then stood up, walked over to her, put his arms around her, and gently kissed the top of her head. “Just call him, okay?” he whispered into her hair.

  Jane pulled away and looked into Simon’s eyes. “For me, okay? Talk to him before Saturday,” he said. The next time they’d been able to reserve the black box was Saturday morning at seven a.m. No surprise, it wasn’t exactly a popular hour to rehearse.

  “Simon…” Jane began to object, but he put his finger to her lips and just kept staring down at her. She began to smile. “You know I can’t resist when you look at me like that.”

  “I know. Why do you think I’m looking at you like this?” Simon asked, smiling back at her.

  God. Could he be any cuter?

  “Fine. I’ll talk to him.” She wagged her finger at Simon. “But I don’t regret saying what I said.”

  “Okay.” Still smiling that same smile, Simon said, “You know, it’s a delicate balance.”

  “What?” Jane had no idea what Simon was talking about.

  “Being honest and being kind,” he answered.

  Jane didn’t hesitate. “It’s more important to be honest. There’s nothing kind about lying.”

  “I think there’s a difference between being kind but honest and lying.” Simon spoke slowly, as if he were developing the theory while articulating it.

  Jane made a face. “You just want me to be nicer to Mark.”

  Simon made a face back at her. “I just want you to remember that nobody’s perfect.”

  “You’re perfect.” Jane held out her hand to Simon. “Or at least, extremely close.”

  He took her hand and held it tightly. “No, I’m not.” His voice was sad, and Jane felt guilty. She hadn’t meant to make Simon feel bad. Just evil Mark.

  She closed the distance between them and pressed her head against his shoulder. “Buy you a latte?” she offered.

  “Sure,” said Simon.

  She hoped that leaving the theater would put Simon in a better mood, but for the whole time they were at Starbucks, he was sad and distracted. She couldn’t understand his feeling that bad about what she’d said to Mark, but she didn’t see what else he could have had to be upset about.

  ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT Natalya lay awake until nearly dawn. For part of that time, she was thinking about her annoying phone call with Jane, but mostly she was thinking about Alison. Specifically, she was trying to figure out if she should have said something to Alison about being friends with Colin.

  That morning Natalya had gotten to first-period English early. Extremely early. So early, she was the first person to arrive, and she took her seat in an empty classroom. She told herself she wasn’t waiting for Alison, but every time the door opened and another blond head crossed the threshold, Natalya’s heart beat a little faster until the discovery that it wasn’t Alison made it return to its normal pace. When Alison’s familiar face did appear, Natalya was so worked up she half expected her friend to cross the room, shove her finger in Natalya’s chest, and announce, I know what you’re planning on doing Saturday afternoon, so don’t even think about going over to Colin’s house.

  But Alison just smiled at Natalya, gave a little wave, and sat down. When class ended, they fell into step beside each other as they often did when they had Bio right after English.

  “You missed a killer soccer game yesterday. We kicked serious butt.” Barely breaking stride, Alison demonstrated a quick shot on goal.

  “I was working on a paper!” Natalya almost shouted. “Pretty much all night.”

  Alison sighed. “I’d rather have a paper than a test. I know Dr. Brixton’s going to give us a map, and I totally
suck at maps. All that spatial-relational stuff—” She gestured in the air before her, as if sliding pieces of something together and apart. “I’m a lost cause.”

  “Yeah,” said Natalya, sympathetically. She was finding it hard to concentrate on what Alison was saying.

  Was it weird that she hadn’t told Alison she and Colin were friends? Hey, I played chess with your boyfriend Saturday in Washington Square Park. I mean, I didn’t know he was your boyfriend at the time. But then he told me. Because I asked him out on a date, only he already had plans with you. Because you’re his girlfriend. And now I’m going over to his house this weekend.

  Maybe Colin had already told Alison that Natalya was coming over. Maybe he’d been like, I have this dorky, ugly, poor girl I like to play chess with, and she’s coming over Saturday. You don’t mind, do you? Her name’s Natalya Petrova. And Alison had said, Oh my god, I love Natalya. She’s so nice. But also dorky and ugly and poor, like you said. Of course I don’t mind.

  “You too?” asked Alison hopefully.

  “Me too?” Natalya had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

  “Maps?” Alison reminded her.

  “Right!” Natalya laughed with relief at having regained the thread of their conversation. “No, actually, I’m pretty good with maps.”

  “So’s my boyfriend,” said Alison, chuckling and shaking her head with amazement. “You guys are so lucky.”

  Natalya thought she might drop dead from shock right there in the hallway. Literally. She could imagine the feel of the cold floor as her head slammed against it, could see the students in the hallway gathered around her body in a distraught mass. For the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to have an out-of-body experience.

  “Um…” Natalya groped for a response.

  Okay, Alison had never, ever mentioned having a boyfriend. She’d mentioned her younger brother, her older sister, her dog (dead), her cat (alive), her grandparents, and her parents. She’d told Natalya about a cousin she had at Brown (where she hoped to go) and a girl from her summer camp whose parents were Russian.