Fic: Stage (Fright)
Title: Stage (Fright)
A/N: AA contribution 2012. Trust me to write an AA story that doesn't fit a single prompt I have come up with over at shitennou_ai. Fail, Lytton, fail. Sequel to Secondhand and Homesick. As always, I am mucb obliged to Charlie: thanks for helping me, my dear!
"Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined."
~ Toni Morrison, Beloved
Joe and Mina are sitting on their ratty old couch, and all around them, chaos reigns. There is a book bag on the floor, vomiting its content on the pink and purple flower rug, and a number of dirty dishes all around it. Plus, of course, the predictable dirty underwear of Mina’s.
“When’s Una coming back?” Mina asks while flipping through the channels.
Uttering words he would never have believed possible, Joe takes the remote from his flatmate.
“Can’t be soon enough.”
Una had gone on a cruise with Grandpa and Grandma Wilson. They had invited her this year, and promised to take Joe next year. Personally, Joe’s totally fine with not going on a cruise with lots of old people, but Una’ll llike it. She’d finally be around people who don’t mind her constant chatter. The downside is that without his baby sister around, Mina has reverted back to her sloppy self. Right now, she is removing her nail polish and he is sure that she won’t toss the red-stained cotton balls into the trash but leave them right there on their brand new, $5 coffee table from IKEA until the dog eats them. Robbie the Pekingese sure is stupid enough.
They’d driven to Centennial just last week. 78 miles, the gas money by far outweighing their budget, but they’d gotten some gift vouchers from Joe’s parents for their one-year housemate anniversary. Mina had even cried a little as she thanked Joe’s ma, and once again Joe had wondered why her own parents never called or wrote or cared. His father too had noticed, and had pulled him aside, slipping him another ten bucks so that Joe could buy Mina some wonky Swedish cake. He’d done so, and Mina had rewarded him by not picking four pink mugs, but only two, allowing him to choose the colour for the others. He’d picked a blue and a green one (the latter being for Zach when he comes to visit).
“Hey, there is a student production of--- damn, I forgot which play. Something Shakespeare. Do you want to go?” He casts her a sideways look. Mina loves going to the movies, and she has all sorts of DVDs. The DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet is basically on permanent repeat, so he figures this must be right up her alley.
But her face closes off and Joe can’t help feeling like he just fucked up. Big time.
“So you don’t want to? Hey, fine by me. I’m not too keen on watching English majors strut around the stage wearing tights and speaking gibberish.”
“Shakespeare is not gibberish!” Mina exclaims and gets up.
“Where are you going?”
“To bed,” she replies with finality, and struts out, leaving the cotton balls - just as Joe knew she would - on the table. He sighs and picks them up just as she slams her bedroom door upstairs.
***
The student production is Hamlet, and Mina has been eyeing the posters all week, not that she'd tell Joe. Throwing herself backwards on her bed, she has to fight the urge to cry. Instead, she wipes at her eyes, the coconut smell of her nail polish remover wafting to her nose. A little chemical, but better than the straight-up acetone smell most other removers have. She bought a bottle for Una too, a little welcome home gift for when she gets back.
Una would go to the play too, Mina thinks, and unlike Joe, she would pester Mina to come with until she gave in. Joe is more respectful of her boundaries and every time she pushes him away when he tries to do something nice, she feels like shit. But she can’t go and watch Hamlet. She can’t. Too many memories, and not all of them bad, which makes it even harder.
“Say you? Nay, pray you, mark. He is dead and gone, lady. He is dead and gone. At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone,” Mina murmurs, reciting the lines from memory. She’d been Ophelia once, for a few glorious nights.
Remembering the roses, the blinding stage lights and the cheer, she smiles for just a second, before she remembers everything that followed.
And then, in her bedroom upstairs, with Joe and all her pets downstairs, Mina begins to cry.
*** *** ***
“Mina, Mina, have you heard? David Morton will be directing Hamlet here and he is using an all-student cast!”
Mina sits up, entangling herself from her boyfriend’s embrace. They are outside in the sunshine, sitting against a tree, removed from the usual hustle and bustle of campus on a weekday.
“The David Morton? The Broadway director?”
Elizabeth nods, her red curls bobbing. Mina squees, and flings herself in her friend’s arms. The two girls jump up and down on the spot for a solid minute before Ryan clears his throat.
“Girls, you’re embarrassing yourselves.” They turn to him, but the smile on his face belies his scolding. “So babe, you still coming to the game with me tonight or are you going to be brushing up on your Shakespeare?”
Mina beams at him. Here she is, 19 years old, second year of college, with a wonderful and understanding boyfriend, sun shining on her head, her best friend’s hand in her own, and a student production of Hamlet ahead of her. She has to be Ophelia, she just has to. “Shakespeare,” she says with conviction and bends down to give him a kiss. It feels as if right now, her future has finally begun.
***
She always wanted to be an actress. As a child, she put on plays in her mother’s living-room, re-enactments of the fairytales she loved so much. As a teenager, Mina Harris was in every school production, center stage and ready. When her parents divorced, it was reading A Streetcar Named Desire that kept her sane, even as she was called to court to testify on her father’s infidelity and her mother’s drinking. One day, Mina knew, hoped and prayed, she would play Blanche DuBois on Broadway, earning rave reviews, winning the hearts of audience and critics alike.
But her parents insisted she’d go to college, and a good one at that. They wanted Harvard, she wanted Broadway, and after long negotiations, Brown was reached as a compromise. Mina chose drama as her major and finance as her minor (a small effort to placate her father) and then she packed her stuff and moved from Darien, Connecticut into her dorm at Brown. Mina struck gold with her roommate: Elizabeth Barrows was a drama major too, liked pink and purple and boys and candy and long movie marathons, and the two had been inseparable from the first minute. Thirty minutes into their friendship, they walked across campus with their arms linked, giggling and gossiping and trying to find the computer center.
Two weeks into her first semester, she met Ryan in the dining hall. He was nice, liked his parents, came from a good family, and knew how to pull open a door for a girl. She went to his Lacrosse plays, he went to her drama recitals, and Mina found herself happy, were it not for the feeling that she ought to be somewhere else. Her ambition was burning a hole in her heart, and while college was enjoyable (the right mixture of challenging and fun), Mina longed to be on a stage. She wanted to play all the great roles, the Ophelia, the Desdemona, the Blanche, the Maggie, the Madame Lyubov, the Gretchen. The Juliet and the Lady Macbeth. She wanted to make people forget her real age, convince them that she could be anyone. She wanted more than her world held now, and Elizabeth felt the same.
The girls dreamed of what could be, imagining themselves on the big stage, acting, accepting awards, wearing gowns, living the dream.
And then David Morton came along.
***
Elizabeth and Mina are sitting outside the assembly hall in which the audition has taken place. Both girls are already done, but they don’t want to go home, not just yet. They want to watch how everyone leaves their auditions, see who they can rule out already. There are plenty of competitors and Mina knows she wasn’t at her best today. She choked, right in her first line, and David Morton, the David Morton, had to prompt her. The rest went okay, but first impressions count, and hers wasn’t... well, it just wasn’t.
“I think I did well,” Elizabeth says, giddy with excitement. She did not choke. She brought the director’s assistant to tears, a feat Mina hadn’t managed.
“I’m sure you did,” Mina answers on auto-pilot.
“It has to be either your or me,” Elizabeth continues, “the others aren’t as good as us.” She falls silent, and eyeballs Mina. “Of course, you look more like Ophelia than I do.” Elizabeth reaches over and touches Mina’s long blond hair. “If we were equally good, then that might tip the scales.”
“Liz, we weren’t. I choked, I messed up the first line.”
Just then, the door opens and girl hurries out, hugging herself, obviously trying very hard not to cry.
“One more down,” Elizabeth mutters before turning her attention back to Mina. “It can’t have been that bad,” she says, but Mina knows that it was, and so does Elizabeth. She is just trying to be a friend. But even as good a friend and actress as Elizabeth is, she can’t hide the glimmer of hope and relief in her eyes.
Mina is out of the running, and both girls know it.
***
Elizabeth has gone to call her parents, Ryan is at practice, and Mina is wandering the campus alone. The sun is setting, and a breeze is tugging at her hair and pink scarf. Her future was always so certain. Finish high school with a really good grade, go to college, and then take the theater world by storm. Never had she imagined that she would fall short of her own expectations. But when she had walked onto the stage tonight, the weight of this audition had pressed down on her, like a wave crashing over her head. It had been just one moment, but she’d lost her footing and had needed help to regain it. But surely, that can’t be it, right? One messed up shot, and she is out of the running? It makes her feel that like Ophelia, she is going to go crazy. But unlike Ophelia, she can get out of this, she can turn it around, use her agony for something good. The fear, she knows, would inform her performance, give it an edge, make it irresistible. She can be more than another rich girl from a broken home.
She knows that she needs another chance to prove herself to David Morton. One more minute on the stage, as Ophelia. She can nail it. She is the best. She wants it the most. She wants it more than Liz.
The question is, Mina thinks, where she can find a moment to shine.
***
The university has a guesthouse for visiting lecturers. It’s on the other side of campus and the director’s assistant, the small square woman Elizabeth had reduced to tears with her performance, had told Mina - albeit reluctantly - that David Morton was staying in apartment 5b.
Without delay, Mina makes her way over there. She can’t wait, or she might lose the nerve to impose herself on the famous director after her botched audition. She knocks on the door, slightly out of breath, her hair a mess because of the wind, and her heart hammering in her chest.
The door is pulled open and reveals Morton, a wine glass in his hand. He frowns. “Miss-- Harris, I believe?”
Mina nods, perhaps too vigorously. Everything depends on this moment, and the desperation makes her bold. “I need to audition again, Mister Morton. Please.”
“The stage does not offer second chances,” he replies slowly, taking in the image of the windswept beauty in front of him. He had had high hopes for her when she walked onto the stage, but she had faltered. Even so, her performance had been fantastic, bested only by the girl that auditioned after her.
“Please,” Mina pleads and he can just see her in a loose white gown, carried onto the stage with lilies in that long hair. Elizabeth Barrows had been good, self-assured and confident, and his assistant was convinced that she was the perfect Ophelia. But the role required a vulnerability that Barrows didn’t have. Ophelia is pain and innocence and so is the tortured girl in front of him, who came to his apartment in the evening, trying so very hard to keep her hands from shaking.
He pulls the door open and steps aside. “Come on in, then.”
***
“Congratulations, babe!” Ryan shouts and picks her up, twirling them on the spot. Mina laughs, exhilarated. She’s Ophelia! She still can’t believe it, but it’s her name on the bulletin board. Elizabeth’s name is pencilled in underneath her own; she’s the understudy.
“Yes, congratulations,” Elizabeth says slowly when Ryan sets Mina down again before she visibly shakes herself. “I mean-- this is great, Mina, you will be wonderful.” Mina leans into Elizabeth’s hug and hopes that they’ll be okay. When the two girls break apart, and she sees the proud and happy look on Liz’s face, she knows they will.
***
Weeks and weeks of rehearsal have led to this point. Mina stands behind stage, heart racing, Elizabeth holding her hand. It’s opening night. “You’ll be fine,” her friend assures her and Mina nods, trying to believe her.
Then David appears. “Break a leg,” he whispers into her ear, and nudges her on the stage.
***
The play is a success. There are theater critics from the regional papers, and even some from the Times, and Mina knows that she did good. No, she did better than good. She killed it tonight. Ryan too had been in the audience and is now talking to Elizabeth and the director’s assistant in a corner. He tossed red roses on the stage for her.
The after-play party is in full swing. Mina is still in her Ophelia make-up, but she did change back into a normal dress. Beside her, David laughs and Mina focuses her attention back on him. He has given her the chance of a lifetime, and is just now telling the journalist about how she has a frailty that makes her special, how she is a natural on the stage, how her future will be bright and how he hopes that she will star in his next play on Broadway. That takes her breath away, and she turns to Ryan, wanting to call him over. He has to hear this!
But Ryan is already looking at her, and for the first time since they met, he doesn’t do so lovingly. He is disgusted. Why is he disgusted? Mina’s eyes flit over to Elizabeth, who too is staring at her, the assistant’s arm wrapped around her thin shoulders. When their eyes meet, resolve flares up in Liz’s face and she stalks over.
“You slept with him,” she hisses, and David and the reporter fall silent.
“What?” Mina asks, dumbfounded.
Elizabeth jabs her finger in David’s direction. “That’s how you got the part. Mary-Anne told me how you asked for his address the evening of the flunked audition, how you begged her to give it to you. How could you, Mina? You stole the part from me!”
David lifts his hand in a gesture of self-defense. “This is not what happened,” he says, addressing the journalist. Mina blinks. She wants to explain to Elizabeth that Mary-Anne got it all wrong, but the words don’t come to her because that’s when Ryan leaves.
He doesn’t look back.
***
Everything changes from thereon out. Elizabeth doesn’t talk to her and it cuts deep. Their dormroom is as silent as a grave. If Mina had anywhere else to go, she would have been long gone. Elizabeth, whose family is from Iowa, would have surely done the same. But instead, they are stuck in their small dorm room, with the two pink and purple flower print carpets they bought together, with their mutually owned DVD collection, and the history of their friendship. Mina tried to explain, but Elizabeth didn’t believe her. The hardest part is that she can’t blame her. Mina did call the assistant, did ask for David’s address, did go to the apartment, did knock on the door, did go in, and did get the part. She didn’t sleep with him, but who would believe that when her first audition was a bust and she only got the part after she’d been alone with the director?
Ryan doesn’t take her calls. Mina thinks that this is bad, but at least she can still play Ophelia. As long as she is on the stage, she feels whole, invincible. But the second the applause dies down and her world goes silent again, she forgets how to cope. She fails her History of Theater exam.
And then the story spreads and everyone knows. And where it used to be only her roommate and her boyfriend giving her the silent treatment, now the rest of the campus does too. Nobody talks to her, but everybody has something to say about her. Sometimes, they wait until she is out of earshot. Most of the time, they don’t.
Slut.
Hooker.
Whore.
In one week, she hears it all.
So does David Morton. The university sends him packing, the production closes down. They call her father.
***
“You will have to transfer,” her father says. He didn’t come to Brown for the play’s opening night, but he did come to have a talk with her. He is sitting in her desk chair, while Mina is perched on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. The tears on her cheeks have not yet dried.
“Daddy..,” she whispers, but he makes an impatient hand gesture. “I don’t have to tell you how disappointed I am. I was always happy to indulge your hobby, Mina, but I expected you to know better. To sleep with your director... I am very ashamed. You better hope my friends and colleagues don’t hear about this.”
“But Daddy, I didn’t---”
“Mina, stop.” His voice is severe and she falls silent.
“Do you think this will land in the papers?”
She shrugs, feeling helpless and small.
“Well, I can make a donation to the school, that should make this go away. No blemish on your record. As long as you stay off the stage, naturally. Which college do you want to transfer to?”
She doesn’t want to transfer at all. She wants her friends back. She wants Ryan back. She wants to be able to walk down a hall without people whispering about her. She wants to get on the stage and play all the great roles.
She chokes, and her father leaves.
He hasn’t hugged her once.
***
There are two more months until the semester is over. Ryan slams the door in her face five times before Mina gives up for good. Elizabeth puts a box of condoms on Mina’s bookshelves, resting on her Complete Shakespeare. Other than that, the silent treatment continues. When there is groupwork in class, Mina sits alone until the lecturer forces some group to take her in. All of her ideas are shot down. When she sits down at a table in the dining hall, people get up and leave.
Mina is supposed to spend the summer with her mother, but a phone call from her aunt Lois alerts her to the fact that her mother is in rehab, and all summer plans are cancelled. Going to her father and his new wife is not an option - he doesn’t even take her calls, but does send her a weekly email to ask which university she will transfer to in the fall.
One night, Mina comes home to her dorm to find Elizabeth, Ryan, and a small group of her friends in her room. They are laughing, watching a movie. Everyone falls silent when Mina enters. She notices Elizabeth is sitting next to Ryan, his arm casually draped over the pillows she is resting against.
“Hi,” Mina murmurs and walks over to her bed. She drops her bag, conscious of all the eyes on her. She thought Elizabeth would be alone: this is the first time since the opening night that they have visitors, that Elizabeth has stayed here to meet people rather than go out.
Elizabeth glares at her.
Mina teeters on the spot. This is her room, she has every right to be here, she hasn’t done anything wrong, in fact, she hasn’t done anything at all, but five sets of angry eyes on her make her want to run for the door.
“Umm, what are you guys watching?”
Elizabeth gets to her feet and walks over to her. Mina notices that she's wearing new earrings. They are pretty. Normally, she would tell her, ask where she bought them, and then they’d giggle and plan their next shopping trip. Mina hasn’t been shopping since before the play. It’s no fun going alone.
“Mina, you leave or we leave. Which one is it?”
Mina looks over Elizabeth’s shoulder, where everyone is draped over the narrow bed. There is a bowl of popcorn, some red vines (Ryan really likes them, she knows) and a stack of DVDs. They are having fun. They seem so normal. Three months ago, she would have been among them, curled up against Ryan, ankles entwined with Elizabeth, chatting with Rene, Michael and Isabel. But if she were to walk over now, they’d just get up.
She casts her eyes to the floor. “I’ll go.”
Leaving her bag where it is, she just takes her laptop computer.
Three hours later, she has twenty-nine tabs open, each one for a different college. None are within a driving distance, none are on the east coast, and none are Ivy.
***
She emails her dad.
“Colorado State.”
He responds by mailing her the admission form.
***
One more month of classes. Mina now lives in the library. She’s there all day, every day. She only goes to her dorm to sleep. She showers in the gym at six in the morning, when it’s still empty. She eats lunch at 11.30 like an old person, just to make sure she is more or less alone in the dining room. She still doesn’t know where to go for the summer holidays.
***
Ryan and Elizabeth begin dating. People tell Mina about it at any opportunity, trying to gauge her reaction. After the complete silence, the mock sincerity and caring almost feel good.
Almost.
When she walks in on Elizabeth and Ryan in her room, Mina calls her father and asks him to give her money so that she can move somewhere else.
“You need to deal with this like a grown-up, Mina,” he tells her. “You can’t make mistakes like this and expect them to have no consequences.”
For the first time, Mina feels anger instead of desperation. She drives out to the next car dealership and without hesitating, sells the lime green Volkswagen Beetle convertible her father gave her as a high school graduation present.
She spends the rest of the month in a dingy flat off-campus. She has three flatmates and the bathroom is moldy. The fridge is broken. She sleeps on a mattress on the floor, not wanting to spend money on getting furniture. At some point, Mina can’t stand the bleakness and loneliness anymore, so she takes the bus to the pet shelter.
“I want the pet that no one wants,” Mina says to the admin person there.
“Looks like Artie will finally find a new home then,” he mutters and leads her down a corridor to a hissing cat. The fur is an indistinguishable color. “He won’t let us wash him,” he says by way of apology. Taking in Mina’s book bag, her neat ponytail, her pink nail polish, he sighs. He can’t have this pretty girl loaded up with the demon cat from hell. “Listen, we’ve got a nicer pet that people aren’t too keen on either. He’s kind of ugly, but a sweet little guy. How do you feel about dogs?”
“I’ll take him,” Mina replies, her eyes still on the hissing cat in its cage. “But I want the cat too.”
***
Her arms are covered in scratches. Naturally, everyone believes she is a cutter now. But just like nobody would give her the time of day to explain that she hadn’t touched David Morton, nobody is willing to listen to her tales about Artie the angry cat.
She gets called into her advisor’s office and leaves it with a stash of leaflets. Self-help groups: drugs, cutting, mental illness. The whole lot. Mina tosses them in the next trash can and walks back home to her off-campus flat in the light summer rain.
By the time her father finally returns her call, she is packing up her few belongings. She has some of the car sale money still saved up; it will buy her a new vehicle when she gets to Colorado.
“Mina, have you given any thought where you will spend the summer?”
No word about her really good grades, about her change of address, about the pictures of Artie (who is now white and clean) and Robbie (who is still ugly). All that news she had relayed by email, but he doesn’t care. Never has.
“I wanted to go mom’s, but she’s in rehab.”
“Then I don’t see why you can’t stay in her house. It’s empty anyway.”
She doesn’t reply, and he sighs into the receiver. “How much money will you need in Colorado?”
“Can you put up the tuition?” she asks in a small voice.
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” She takes a deep breath. “Then I don’t need anything else. I’ll get a job.” She has never had a job, but she won’t depend on him anymore. She’s done.
“Fine. Call me if you need anything.”
She hangs up.
***
It’s the last day of classes. If her life would be like the rom coms she and Elizabeth used to watch, she’d now bump into Ryan somewhere and they would exchange forgiving looks while moving forward with their lives only to be reunited before she moves all the way to Fort Collins, Colorado. There’d be regret and apologies and love and make-up kisses and Elizabeth would burst in and realise everything has been a mistake and could they please be friends again?
Instead, the day passes with the normal whispers, the jeers, and Mina still walks around with an imaginary scarlet letter on her back. She doesn’t participate in the end of term discussions many lecturers hold.
What I liked about this semester: being Ophelia. Being normal. Having friends.
What I didn’t like about this semester: losing everything.
Suggestions for academic improvement: start over somewhere else.
*** *** ***
Joe knocks on her door and opens it without her calling him in.
“I don’t like Shakespeare,” he mutters and offers her a plate. It holds a soggy sandwich.
She accepts it and indicates the space next to her on the bed. He walks in, almost timid, and sits down. He normally doesn’t hang out in Mina’s room. His ma impressed on him that if he wants to live with a girl, then he has to respect her space. She always needs to feel safe around you, Joseph, his mother had said and wagged her finger. Joe knows his ma is right, but he also knows that whenever Una was in a funk, his mother brought her food and made sure she really ate it.
“I like Shakespeare,” Mina says softly before taking a bite. It feels like swallowing brick, which has nothing to do with Joe’s sandwich and everything to do with Shakespeare, but she eats it anyway.
“We can do something else,” he suggests and awkwardly pats her head. “Zach and I want to play WoW later tonight. Una likes it too, she says it’s colorful. If Una likes it, you might too.”
Mina, who has seen her share of WoW and only really likes the commercials for the game, smiles and shakes her head. She is almost not crying anymore.
“Thanks, Joe,” she says and leans over, placing a kiss on his cheek. Joe immediately takes on a deep red hue. “Yeah, whatever. It’s only a sandwich. I have to set up the computer now.” Shooting her a lopsided grin (that goes very nicely with his blush), he leaves the room, shooing Artie and Robbie into it as he goes.
“Here are the beasts,” he calls to her and then closes the door.
***
She goes to see the play, alone.
She didn’t tell Joe. Too many explanations, too many old wounds where the scabs have barely healed.
When she leaves the theater, nobody spares her a second glance. But nobody calls her a whore, and nobody questions her right to be there.
This Ophelia wasn’t as good as she had been.
Mina cries at the end anyway.
***The End***
A/N: AA contribution 2012. Trust me to write an AA story that doesn't fit a single prompt I have come up with over at shitennou_ai. Fail, Lytton, fail. Sequel to Secondhand and Homesick. As always, I am mucb obliged to Charlie: thanks for helping me, my dear!
"Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined."
~ Toni Morrison, Beloved
Joe and Mina are sitting on their ratty old couch, and all around them, chaos reigns. There is a book bag on the floor, vomiting its content on the pink and purple flower rug, and a number of dirty dishes all around it. Plus, of course, the predictable dirty underwear of Mina’s.
“When’s Una coming back?” Mina asks while flipping through the channels.
Uttering words he would never have believed possible, Joe takes the remote from his flatmate.
“Can’t be soon enough.”
Una had gone on a cruise with Grandpa and Grandma Wilson. They had invited her this year, and promised to take Joe next year. Personally, Joe’s totally fine with not going on a cruise with lots of old people, but Una’ll llike it. She’d finally be around people who don’t mind her constant chatter. The downside is that without his baby sister around, Mina has reverted back to her sloppy self. Right now, she is removing her nail polish and he is sure that she won’t toss the red-stained cotton balls into the trash but leave them right there on their brand new, $5 coffee table from IKEA until the dog eats them. Robbie the Pekingese sure is stupid enough.
They’d driven to Centennial just last week. 78 miles, the gas money by far outweighing their budget, but they’d gotten some gift vouchers from Joe’s parents for their one-year housemate anniversary. Mina had even cried a little as she thanked Joe’s ma, and once again Joe had wondered why her own parents never called or wrote or cared. His father too had noticed, and had pulled him aside, slipping him another ten bucks so that Joe could buy Mina some wonky Swedish cake. He’d done so, and Mina had rewarded him by not picking four pink mugs, but only two, allowing him to choose the colour for the others. He’d picked a blue and a green one (the latter being for Zach when he comes to visit).
“Hey, there is a student production of--- damn, I forgot which play. Something Shakespeare. Do you want to go?” He casts her a sideways look. Mina loves going to the movies, and she has all sorts of DVDs. The DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet is basically on permanent repeat, so he figures this must be right up her alley.
But her face closes off and Joe can’t help feeling like he just fucked up. Big time.
“So you don’t want to? Hey, fine by me. I’m not too keen on watching English majors strut around the stage wearing tights and speaking gibberish.”
“Shakespeare is not gibberish!” Mina exclaims and gets up.
“Where are you going?”
“To bed,” she replies with finality, and struts out, leaving the cotton balls - just as Joe knew she would - on the table. He sighs and picks them up just as she slams her bedroom door upstairs.
***
The student production is Hamlet, and Mina has been eyeing the posters all week, not that she'd tell Joe. Throwing herself backwards on her bed, she has to fight the urge to cry. Instead, she wipes at her eyes, the coconut smell of her nail polish remover wafting to her nose. A little chemical, but better than the straight-up acetone smell most other removers have. She bought a bottle for Una too, a little welcome home gift for when she gets back.
Una would go to the play too, Mina thinks, and unlike Joe, she would pester Mina to come with until she gave in. Joe is more respectful of her boundaries and every time she pushes him away when he tries to do something nice, she feels like shit. But she can’t go and watch Hamlet. She can’t. Too many memories, and not all of them bad, which makes it even harder.
“Say you? Nay, pray you, mark. He is dead and gone, lady. He is dead and gone. At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone,” Mina murmurs, reciting the lines from memory. She’d been Ophelia once, for a few glorious nights.
Remembering the roses, the blinding stage lights and the cheer, she smiles for just a second, before she remembers everything that followed.
And then, in her bedroom upstairs, with Joe and all her pets downstairs, Mina begins to cry.
*** *** ***
“Mina, Mina, have you heard? David Morton will be directing Hamlet here and he is using an all-student cast!”
Mina sits up, entangling herself from her boyfriend’s embrace. They are outside in the sunshine, sitting against a tree, removed from the usual hustle and bustle of campus on a weekday.
“The David Morton? The Broadway director?”
Elizabeth nods, her red curls bobbing. Mina squees, and flings herself in her friend’s arms. The two girls jump up and down on the spot for a solid minute before Ryan clears his throat.
“Girls, you’re embarrassing yourselves.” They turn to him, but the smile on his face belies his scolding. “So babe, you still coming to the game with me tonight or are you going to be brushing up on your Shakespeare?”
Mina beams at him. Here she is, 19 years old, second year of college, with a wonderful and understanding boyfriend, sun shining on her head, her best friend’s hand in her own, and a student production of Hamlet ahead of her. She has to be Ophelia, she just has to. “Shakespeare,” she says with conviction and bends down to give him a kiss. It feels as if right now, her future has finally begun.
***
She always wanted to be an actress. As a child, she put on plays in her mother’s living-room, re-enactments of the fairytales she loved so much. As a teenager, Mina Harris was in every school production, center stage and ready. When her parents divorced, it was reading A Streetcar Named Desire that kept her sane, even as she was called to court to testify on her father’s infidelity and her mother’s drinking. One day, Mina knew, hoped and prayed, she would play Blanche DuBois on Broadway, earning rave reviews, winning the hearts of audience and critics alike.
But her parents insisted she’d go to college, and a good one at that. They wanted Harvard, she wanted Broadway, and after long negotiations, Brown was reached as a compromise. Mina chose drama as her major and finance as her minor (a small effort to placate her father) and then she packed her stuff and moved from Darien, Connecticut into her dorm at Brown. Mina struck gold with her roommate: Elizabeth Barrows was a drama major too, liked pink and purple and boys and candy and long movie marathons, and the two had been inseparable from the first minute. Thirty minutes into their friendship, they walked across campus with their arms linked, giggling and gossiping and trying to find the computer center.
Two weeks into her first semester, she met Ryan in the dining hall. He was nice, liked his parents, came from a good family, and knew how to pull open a door for a girl. She went to his Lacrosse plays, he went to her drama recitals, and Mina found herself happy, were it not for the feeling that she ought to be somewhere else. Her ambition was burning a hole in her heart, and while college was enjoyable (the right mixture of challenging and fun), Mina longed to be on a stage. She wanted to play all the great roles, the Ophelia, the Desdemona, the Blanche, the Maggie, the Madame Lyubov, the Gretchen. The Juliet and the Lady Macbeth. She wanted to make people forget her real age, convince them that she could be anyone. She wanted more than her world held now, and Elizabeth felt the same.
The girls dreamed of what could be, imagining themselves on the big stage, acting, accepting awards, wearing gowns, living the dream.
And then David Morton came along.
***
Elizabeth and Mina are sitting outside the assembly hall in which the audition has taken place. Both girls are already done, but they don’t want to go home, not just yet. They want to watch how everyone leaves their auditions, see who they can rule out already. There are plenty of competitors and Mina knows she wasn’t at her best today. She choked, right in her first line, and David Morton, the David Morton, had to prompt her. The rest went okay, but first impressions count, and hers wasn’t... well, it just wasn’t.
“I think I did well,” Elizabeth says, giddy with excitement. She did not choke. She brought the director’s assistant to tears, a feat Mina hadn’t managed.
“I’m sure you did,” Mina answers on auto-pilot.
“It has to be either your or me,” Elizabeth continues, “the others aren’t as good as us.” She falls silent, and eyeballs Mina. “Of course, you look more like Ophelia than I do.” Elizabeth reaches over and touches Mina’s long blond hair. “If we were equally good, then that might tip the scales.”
“Liz, we weren’t. I choked, I messed up the first line.”
Just then, the door opens and girl hurries out, hugging herself, obviously trying very hard not to cry.
“One more down,” Elizabeth mutters before turning her attention back to Mina. “It can’t have been that bad,” she says, but Mina knows that it was, and so does Elizabeth. She is just trying to be a friend. But even as good a friend and actress as Elizabeth is, she can’t hide the glimmer of hope and relief in her eyes.
Mina is out of the running, and both girls know it.
***
Elizabeth has gone to call her parents, Ryan is at practice, and Mina is wandering the campus alone. The sun is setting, and a breeze is tugging at her hair and pink scarf. Her future was always so certain. Finish high school with a really good grade, go to college, and then take the theater world by storm. Never had she imagined that she would fall short of her own expectations. But when she had walked onto the stage tonight, the weight of this audition had pressed down on her, like a wave crashing over her head. It had been just one moment, but she’d lost her footing and had needed help to regain it. But surely, that can’t be it, right? One messed up shot, and she is out of the running? It makes her feel that like Ophelia, she is going to go crazy. But unlike Ophelia, she can get out of this, she can turn it around, use her agony for something good. The fear, she knows, would inform her performance, give it an edge, make it irresistible. She can be more than another rich girl from a broken home.
She knows that she needs another chance to prove herself to David Morton. One more minute on the stage, as Ophelia. She can nail it. She is the best. She wants it the most. She wants it more than Liz.
The question is, Mina thinks, where she can find a moment to shine.
***
The university has a guesthouse for visiting lecturers. It’s on the other side of campus and the director’s assistant, the small square woman Elizabeth had reduced to tears with her performance, had told Mina - albeit reluctantly - that David Morton was staying in apartment 5b.
Without delay, Mina makes her way over there. She can’t wait, or she might lose the nerve to impose herself on the famous director after her botched audition. She knocks on the door, slightly out of breath, her hair a mess because of the wind, and her heart hammering in her chest.
The door is pulled open and reveals Morton, a wine glass in his hand. He frowns. “Miss-- Harris, I believe?”
Mina nods, perhaps too vigorously. Everything depends on this moment, and the desperation makes her bold. “I need to audition again, Mister Morton. Please.”
“The stage does not offer second chances,” he replies slowly, taking in the image of the windswept beauty in front of him. He had had high hopes for her when she walked onto the stage, but she had faltered. Even so, her performance had been fantastic, bested only by the girl that auditioned after her.
“Please,” Mina pleads and he can just see her in a loose white gown, carried onto the stage with lilies in that long hair. Elizabeth Barrows had been good, self-assured and confident, and his assistant was convinced that she was the perfect Ophelia. But the role required a vulnerability that Barrows didn’t have. Ophelia is pain and innocence and so is the tortured girl in front of him, who came to his apartment in the evening, trying so very hard to keep her hands from shaking.
He pulls the door open and steps aside. “Come on in, then.”
***
“Congratulations, babe!” Ryan shouts and picks her up, twirling them on the spot. Mina laughs, exhilarated. She’s Ophelia! She still can’t believe it, but it’s her name on the bulletin board. Elizabeth’s name is pencilled in underneath her own; she’s the understudy.
“Yes, congratulations,” Elizabeth says slowly when Ryan sets Mina down again before she visibly shakes herself. “I mean-- this is great, Mina, you will be wonderful.” Mina leans into Elizabeth’s hug and hopes that they’ll be okay. When the two girls break apart, and she sees the proud and happy look on Liz’s face, she knows they will.
***
Weeks and weeks of rehearsal have led to this point. Mina stands behind stage, heart racing, Elizabeth holding her hand. It’s opening night. “You’ll be fine,” her friend assures her and Mina nods, trying to believe her.
Then David appears. “Break a leg,” he whispers into her ear, and nudges her on the stage.
***
The play is a success. There are theater critics from the regional papers, and even some from the Times, and Mina knows that she did good. No, she did better than good. She killed it tonight. Ryan too had been in the audience and is now talking to Elizabeth and the director’s assistant in a corner. He tossed red roses on the stage for her.
The after-play party is in full swing. Mina is still in her Ophelia make-up, but she did change back into a normal dress. Beside her, David laughs and Mina focuses her attention back on him. He has given her the chance of a lifetime, and is just now telling the journalist about how she has a frailty that makes her special, how she is a natural on the stage, how her future will be bright and how he hopes that she will star in his next play on Broadway. That takes her breath away, and she turns to Ryan, wanting to call him over. He has to hear this!
But Ryan is already looking at her, and for the first time since they met, he doesn’t do so lovingly. He is disgusted. Why is he disgusted? Mina’s eyes flit over to Elizabeth, who too is staring at her, the assistant’s arm wrapped around her thin shoulders. When their eyes meet, resolve flares up in Liz’s face and she stalks over.
“You slept with him,” she hisses, and David and the reporter fall silent.
“What?” Mina asks, dumbfounded.
Elizabeth jabs her finger in David’s direction. “That’s how you got the part. Mary-Anne told me how you asked for his address the evening of the flunked audition, how you begged her to give it to you. How could you, Mina? You stole the part from me!”
David lifts his hand in a gesture of self-defense. “This is not what happened,” he says, addressing the journalist. Mina blinks. She wants to explain to Elizabeth that Mary-Anne got it all wrong, but the words don’t come to her because that’s when Ryan leaves.
He doesn’t look back.
***
Everything changes from thereon out. Elizabeth doesn’t talk to her and it cuts deep. Their dormroom is as silent as a grave. If Mina had anywhere else to go, she would have been long gone. Elizabeth, whose family is from Iowa, would have surely done the same. But instead, they are stuck in their small dorm room, with the two pink and purple flower print carpets they bought together, with their mutually owned DVD collection, and the history of their friendship. Mina tried to explain, but Elizabeth didn’t believe her. The hardest part is that she can’t blame her. Mina did call the assistant, did ask for David’s address, did go to the apartment, did knock on the door, did go in, and did get the part. She didn’t sleep with him, but who would believe that when her first audition was a bust and she only got the part after she’d been alone with the director?
Ryan doesn’t take her calls. Mina thinks that this is bad, but at least she can still play Ophelia. As long as she is on the stage, she feels whole, invincible. But the second the applause dies down and her world goes silent again, she forgets how to cope. She fails her History of Theater exam.
And then the story spreads and everyone knows. And where it used to be only her roommate and her boyfriend giving her the silent treatment, now the rest of the campus does too. Nobody talks to her, but everybody has something to say about her. Sometimes, they wait until she is out of earshot. Most of the time, they don’t.
Slut.
Hooker.
Whore.
In one week, she hears it all.
So does David Morton. The university sends him packing, the production closes down. They call her father.
***
“You will have to transfer,” her father says. He didn’t come to Brown for the play’s opening night, but he did come to have a talk with her. He is sitting in her desk chair, while Mina is perched on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. The tears on her cheeks have not yet dried.
“Daddy..,” she whispers, but he makes an impatient hand gesture. “I don’t have to tell you how disappointed I am. I was always happy to indulge your hobby, Mina, but I expected you to know better. To sleep with your director... I am very ashamed. You better hope my friends and colleagues don’t hear about this.”
“But Daddy, I didn’t---”
“Mina, stop.” His voice is severe and she falls silent.
“Do you think this will land in the papers?”
She shrugs, feeling helpless and small.
“Well, I can make a donation to the school, that should make this go away. No blemish on your record. As long as you stay off the stage, naturally. Which college do you want to transfer to?”
She doesn’t want to transfer at all. She wants her friends back. She wants Ryan back. She wants to be able to walk down a hall without people whispering about her. She wants to get on the stage and play all the great roles.
She chokes, and her father leaves.
He hasn’t hugged her once.
***
There are two more months until the semester is over. Ryan slams the door in her face five times before Mina gives up for good. Elizabeth puts a box of condoms on Mina’s bookshelves, resting on her Complete Shakespeare. Other than that, the silent treatment continues. When there is groupwork in class, Mina sits alone until the lecturer forces some group to take her in. All of her ideas are shot down. When she sits down at a table in the dining hall, people get up and leave.
Mina is supposed to spend the summer with her mother, but a phone call from her aunt Lois alerts her to the fact that her mother is in rehab, and all summer plans are cancelled. Going to her father and his new wife is not an option - he doesn’t even take her calls, but does send her a weekly email to ask which university she will transfer to in the fall.
One night, Mina comes home to her dorm to find Elizabeth, Ryan, and a small group of her friends in her room. They are laughing, watching a movie. Everyone falls silent when Mina enters. She notices Elizabeth is sitting next to Ryan, his arm casually draped over the pillows she is resting against.
“Hi,” Mina murmurs and walks over to her bed. She drops her bag, conscious of all the eyes on her. She thought Elizabeth would be alone: this is the first time since the opening night that they have visitors, that Elizabeth has stayed here to meet people rather than go out.
Elizabeth glares at her.
Mina teeters on the spot. This is her room, she has every right to be here, she hasn’t done anything wrong, in fact, she hasn’t done anything at all, but five sets of angry eyes on her make her want to run for the door.
“Umm, what are you guys watching?”
Elizabeth gets to her feet and walks over to her. Mina notices that she's wearing new earrings. They are pretty. Normally, she would tell her, ask where she bought them, and then they’d giggle and plan their next shopping trip. Mina hasn’t been shopping since before the play. It’s no fun going alone.
“Mina, you leave or we leave. Which one is it?”
Mina looks over Elizabeth’s shoulder, where everyone is draped over the narrow bed. There is a bowl of popcorn, some red vines (Ryan really likes them, she knows) and a stack of DVDs. They are having fun. They seem so normal. Three months ago, she would have been among them, curled up against Ryan, ankles entwined with Elizabeth, chatting with Rene, Michael and Isabel. But if she were to walk over now, they’d just get up.
She casts her eyes to the floor. “I’ll go.”
Leaving her bag where it is, she just takes her laptop computer.
Three hours later, she has twenty-nine tabs open, each one for a different college. None are within a driving distance, none are on the east coast, and none are Ivy.
***
She emails her dad.
“Colorado State.”
He responds by mailing her the admission form.
***
One more month of classes. Mina now lives in the library. She’s there all day, every day. She only goes to her dorm to sleep. She showers in the gym at six in the morning, when it’s still empty. She eats lunch at 11.30 like an old person, just to make sure she is more or less alone in the dining room. She still doesn’t know where to go for the summer holidays.
***
Ryan and Elizabeth begin dating. People tell Mina about it at any opportunity, trying to gauge her reaction. After the complete silence, the mock sincerity and caring almost feel good.
Almost.
When she walks in on Elizabeth and Ryan in her room, Mina calls her father and asks him to give her money so that she can move somewhere else.
“You need to deal with this like a grown-up, Mina,” he tells her. “You can’t make mistakes like this and expect them to have no consequences.”
For the first time, Mina feels anger instead of desperation. She drives out to the next car dealership and without hesitating, sells the lime green Volkswagen Beetle convertible her father gave her as a high school graduation present.
She spends the rest of the month in a dingy flat off-campus. She has three flatmates and the bathroom is moldy. The fridge is broken. She sleeps on a mattress on the floor, not wanting to spend money on getting furniture. At some point, Mina can’t stand the bleakness and loneliness anymore, so she takes the bus to the pet shelter.
“I want the pet that no one wants,” Mina says to the admin person there.
“Looks like Artie will finally find a new home then,” he mutters and leads her down a corridor to a hissing cat. The fur is an indistinguishable color. “He won’t let us wash him,” he says by way of apology. Taking in Mina’s book bag, her neat ponytail, her pink nail polish, he sighs. He can’t have this pretty girl loaded up with the demon cat from hell. “Listen, we’ve got a nicer pet that people aren’t too keen on either. He’s kind of ugly, but a sweet little guy. How do you feel about dogs?”
“I’ll take him,” Mina replies, her eyes still on the hissing cat in its cage. “But I want the cat too.”
***
Her arms are covered in scratches. Naturally, everyone believes she is a cutter now. But just like nobody would give her the time of day to explain that she hadn’t touched David Morton, nobody is willing to listen to her tales about Artie the angry cat.
She gets called into her advisor’s office and leaves it with a stash of leaflets. Self-help groups: drugs, cutting, mental illness. The whole lot. Mina tosses them in the next trash can and walks back home to her off-campus flat in the light summer rain.
By the time her father finally returns her call, she is packing up her few belongings. She has some of the car sale money still saved up; it will buy her a new vehicle when she gets to Colorado.
“Mina, have you given any thought where you will spend the summer?”
No word about her really good grades, about her change of address, about the pictures of Artie (who is now white and clean) and Robbie (who is still ugly). All that news she had relayed by email, but he doesn’t care. Never has.
“I wanted to go mom’s, but she’s in rehab.”
“Then I don’t see why you can’t stay in her house. It’s empty anyway.”
She doesn’t reply, and he sighs into the receiver. “How much money will you need in Colorado?”
“Can you put up the tuition?” she asks in a small voice.
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” She takes a deep breath. “Then I don’t need anything else. I’ll get a job.” She has never had a job, but she won’t depend on him anymore. She’s done.
“Fine. Call me if you need anything.”
She hangs up.
***
It’s the last day of classes. If her life would be like the rom coms she and Elizabeth used to watch, she’d now bump into Ryan somewhere and they would exchange forgiving looks while moving forward with their lives only to be reunited before she moves all the way to Fort Collins, Colorado. There’d be regret and apologies and love and make-up kisses and Elizabeth would burst in and realise everything has been a mistake and could they please be friends again?
Instead, the day passes with the normal whispers, the jeers, and Mina still walks around with an imaginary scarlet letter on her back. She doesn’t participate in the end of term discussions many lecturers hold.
What I liked about this semester: being Ophelia. Being normal. Having friends.
What I didn’t like about this semester: losing everything.
Suggestions for academic improvement: start over somewhere else.
*** *** ***
Joe knocks on her door and opens it without her calling him in.
“I don’t like Shakespeare,” he mutters and offers her a plate. It holds a soggy sandwich.
She accepts it and indicates the space next to her on the bed. He walks in, almost timid, and sits down. He normally doesn’t hang out in Mina’s room. His ma impressed on him that if he wants to live with a girl, then he has to respect her space. She always needs to feel safe around you, Joseph, his mother had said and wagged her finger. Joe knows his ma is right, but he also knows that whenever Una was in a funk, his mother brought her food and made sure she really ate it.
“I like Shakespeare,” Mina says softly before taking a bite. It feels like swallowing brick, which has nothing to do with Joe’s sandwich and everything to do with Shakespeare, but she eats it anyway.
“We can do something else,” he suggests and awkwardly pats her head. “Zach and I want to play WoW later tonight. Una likes it too, she says it’s colorful. If Una likes it, you might too.”
Mina, who has seen her share of WoW and only really likes the commercials for the game, smiles and shakes her head. She is almost not crying anymore.
“Thanks, Joe,” she says and leans over, placing a kiss on his cheek. Joe immediately takes on a deep red hue. “Yeah, whatever. It’s only a sandwich. I have to set up the computer now.” Shooting her a lopsided grin (that goes very nicely with his blush), he leaves the room, shooing Artie and Robbie into it as he goes.
“Here are the beasts,” he calls to her and then closes the door.
***
She goes to see the play, alone.
She didn’t tell Joe. Too many explanations, too many old wounds where the scabs have barely healed.
When she leaves the theater, nobody spares her a second glance. But nobody calls her a whore, and nobody questions her right to be there.
This Ophelia wasn’t as good as she had been.
Mina cries at the end anyway.
***The End***