Comedy/Tragedy
Title: Comedy/Tragedy
Author: Kate Monster
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Theresa ruminates on life, love, Eddie, Ryan, and Anton Chekhov, somewhere between "The Homecoming" and "The Heartbreak".
Author's Note: This is a little different for me, so bear with me. Somewhere between real life and fantasy life, I've been discussing The Seagull a lot and I've been discussing The OC a lot. For some reason, it took me this long to see the parallels. While it's not an exact homage, the Eddie/Theresa/Ryan/Marissa love rhombus is very reminiscent of Chekhov's Medvedenko/Masha/Konstantin/Nina rhombus. I somehow suspect that Theresa would get that, too.
Disclaimer: Characters by Schwartz and Chekhov are not by Kate Monster.
The last book Theresa ever read for school was for Mrs. Delgado's third period Honors World Literature class.
By that point even she knew it was a lost cause. School. School wasn't paying for the mortgage on her mom's house, it wasn't paying for the gas in the car (the car that was now hers with no Arturo around to use it), and it wasn't putting food on the table.
The book - or the play, rather - wasn't a big hit in class discussion, but you had to give it up for Honors third period, at least they had a lot to say. Theresa was usually content just to sit in the back of the room and doodle on her notebook. Last year she'd been a cut-up in Honors American Lit sixth period with Mr. McLarin, but last year she'd had Ryan to cut up with.
The play was hard. Difficult to follow. Boring? Yes. But something in it grabbed her for some reason. And she knew she could tune everything out, she would be forfeiting the semester by the end of the month, after all. But she wanted to talk about it. She wanted to understand.
Elliott, the skinny gap-toothed kid who liked nothing more than getting a laugh, called it a masturbatory acting exercise on paper. That got a few gasps from the class, but Theresa stayed silent. She merely raised her eyebrows at Mrs. Delgado, who actually laughed and admitted Elliott wasn't the first to say it. Sometimes Elliott was too smart for his own good, really.
"So is The Seagull a tragedy, then?" she asked the class, clearly attempting to return to the topic and calm things down before any administrators wandered in. She'd already been written up twice this year on account of third period being too lively, which was a bit of a running joke to the kids.
"Yeah," Tracy blurted out. In other classes you got yelled at for speaking out of turn, but it was okay in Mrs. Delgado's class, as long as you didn't interrupt anybody and you had something decently intelligent to say. "I mean, like, Konstantin, he kills hisself, right?"
"No, you're wrong, it's a comedy," Elliott corrected her.
Mrs. Delgado pointed at him. "Why?" Theresa yawned and leaned over her notebook. A new, blank page. Ideas in her head needing to fill it.
Elliott held up his book. "Cause it says so on the title page?" He got the intended laugh and high-fived a buddy.
Mrs. Delgado paced the front of the room, cradling her copy of the book in one arm, the other moving as she collected her words. "Chekhov always insisted The Seagull was a classical comedy, though Tracy, you're not the first person to disagree. But any ideas as to why?" She looked around. Theresa sank down in her chair. "Anybody?"
Theresa straightened up. "Cause," she said. "It's ridiculous. All the characters are just stupid. They all keep wanting things they can't have, and can't see what's in front of their faces."
Mrs. Delgado was nodding, and Theresa slid back in her metal seat, satisfied that she at least had her participation point for the day. She tilted her head to the side, her hair brushing over her shoulder, as she studied her spiral pad intently. "What do they all want?" the teacher continued. "Anybody? Carly."
Carly twirled a piece of hair, distracted. "Love?" she said aloud, in the half-statement, half-question voice that she'd perfected. "They all want love?"
"Love," Mrs. Delgado said firmly. "Love, and is anyone in this play really in love?"
"No," Vaughn murmured, and the sounds of agreement came from around him.
"Maybe," Theresa found herself saying aloud. She wasn't quite sure why she felt like dissenting. She just did. Maybe she was just pissy today. "Maybe they just deny it."
Mrs. Delgado frowned at her. "Chekhov doesn't really give us evidence of that though, Theresa."
She cast her eyes down. "Right." Of course. Mrs. Delgado was right. Theresa didn't like that answer, but it was true. Pissy or not.
"Let's take Masha as an example. Is Masha a tragic or a comic figure? What does she want?" Mrs. Delgado was now waving her book back and forth, punctuating her words as she spoke. Theresa rolled her eyes. Obvious. Dumb question, but then, some of the kids in here were pretty dumb. It was hard to find enough bright kids to fill an Honors section around here. That was the only reason why they used to keep letting Ryan take Honors, even though he was chronically truant, chronically slacking off.
"Konstantin," a few voices said. Ryan still did better than most of the kids in the class. Some of the time. The rest of the time, well, at least he was smart.
Too smart. In the end, he'd outsmarted them all.
"Right you are. Masha craves Konstantin's love. And what does Konstantin want?"
"Nina," Elliot blurted out.
"His mommy!" Laughter. Even Theresa had to roll her eyes and grin at Stevie.
"Respect," Ronnie called.
"To create," Andy said quietly.
The answers were varied. Theresa glanced down at her notebook. Blank. She knew she'd be done before the exam, anyway. Finished. No point to taking notes, really. But still, Theresa had always found that she focused better staring at a pen and paper than she did staring at a teacher. Even if she wasn't taking any notes.
She scribbled the word "M A S H A" and looked at it. She doodled a flower above the M. Blossoming. She shifted in her seat.
She had her participation point, but she couldn't help it. She had to say it. "You know what he doesn't want. He doesn't want Masha," she said aloud without thinking. "And Masha, she knows that. And she'd rather love Medvedenko, but she can't, so she just marries him anyway." She shrugged. "She's practical."
She inched the pen around the wire rim of the binder, etching a round decorative outline.
"And Konstantin?" Mrs. Delgado pressed, urging her on.
Theresa slowly etched her own name onto the page beneath Masha's. T H E R E S A. She scratched the image of a sword above it. Sharp. Piercing.
"He's an idiot," Vaughn said.
"A fool, right," the teacher said with a smile. "Konstantin isn't practical like Masha is. He can't accept that Nina and Arkadina don't love him, and as a result he dies. Do you all understand why Chekhov calls it a comedy?"
Theresa wrote the word "K O N S T A N T I N" beside Masha's name as the class murmured assent.
"It's still tragic," Theresa said aloud, firm. "I bet Masha wouldn't call it a comedy." She ducked her head, feeling the stares, and etched more lines onto her notebook.
She stared at what she'd written beneath Konstantin's name, beside her own.
R Y A N.
So.
It was a tragedy after all.
*
She found herself curled up on Eddie's couch that night, idly flipping the pages of her library copy of The Seagull, her feet in Eddie's lap as he gently massaged them with one hand, his other hand scarfing popcorn as he watched the ballgame.
Masha never held Konstantin in her arms, shaking and dizzy with terror, to soothe his acrophobia. Masha and Konstantin never hid under the bushes outside the high school, frantically giggling and pouring out beer bottles as the cops searched the campus trying to see where they'd gone. They had no private jokes. No memories that were theirs and theirs alone.
So it wasn't a perfect metaphor. But still, Theresa couldn't help but feel a pang of grief along with Masha, who understood Konstantin so much more than he realized, who saw his need to be loved by his mother, his need to create, and who watched him slip away anyway-
"Okay, stop, that tickles," she said, rolling her eyes as she kicked her foot away from Eddie's lap.
"Sorry," he said half-heartedly. She dropped her feet to the carpet and straightened up, leaning away from Eddie as he pulled the popcorn bowl into his lap with both hands.
"Popcorn?"
"No. Thanks." Theresa curled into the nook of the couch and pulled the book closer to her face.
The light of the ballgame flickered off Eddie's face as he stared into the depths of the television, his hand moving automatically, rhythmically, from the popcorn bowl to his mouth and back again… Eddie was so predictable. The bowl. The mouth. Predictable. But constant. Eddie was constant, and Eddie was loyal, and Eddie was reliable. Eddie was there. January 2004 and Eddie was there, in her life, on her radar. And Ryan was...
When Trigorin asked Masha if she was happy with Medvedenko, she didn't respond. Theresa knew why she didn't respond. It was in the subtext. Trigorin, now there was a fool. A villain and a fool. Of course Masha wasn't happy. But maybe Masha's tragedy was that she never tried hard enough. She thought love would just come to her, but maybe she had to work at it. Theresa didn't have to be unhappy. Did she? Did Masha?
And then, to twist the metaphor upon itself, there was Nina. Konstantin's fantasy, to the exclusion of Masha. But Theresa got that one, too. Nina ran from Konstantin. She pretended to love him, she performed his play, and the whole time she didn't understand a word of it. She didn't even see the grief she caused him. She was blind. He brought her something beautiful, a seagull, and it repulsed her, made her livid.
Nina came back. She came back to Konstantin. Why? Not because she loved him. Because she had to regroup before she could survive. Coming back meant nothing. She came back and left again as soon as she could. Ryan wasn't, then, the first person in the history of the world to try that maneuver.
Theresa tried not to think about Ryan that much, which was harder at times. Times like now, when she couldn't think of anything else. Didn't he know she hadn't chosen Eddie last summer, that Eddie had just come along and enveloped her? He'd seemed so hurt when she first started seeing Eddie, but he didn't get it. He wasn't dependable. They never had any commitment. Ryan was afraid to tie himself down. And maybe, deep down, Theresa had expected the Eddie thing to be a wake-up call. She expected confessions of love, apologies, devotions. She hadn't expected him to sink further and further into his shell, to thug around with his brother all summer until one day he finally just disappeared. Vanished. No call. No letter.
There was just no Ryan at all.
And then she expected him to call, or write, or somehow finally realize where his heart truly lay. She'd pictured Ryan alone, lost, desperate - on the streets, in the system. She'd never pictured him neatly dressed, in the lap of luxury. Spoiled rotten with some stuck-up princess at his side, his hair casually trussed into one of those expensive cuts that only looked shaggy and cheap because it was trendy.
She hadn't expected that Ryan really didn't care.
Ashamed. Embarrassed. Maybe that's what he felt towards her. Pity, did he pity her? Maybe. But he was resolute, staunchly going forth with his life, leaving behind Theresa, the drowning seagull. And not caring.
And here was Theresa. Still doing the Eddie thing.
The Eddie Thing set the popcorn bowl aside and leaned towards her, making an amusing grunt of pleasure as he snuggled around her. Theresa smiled wryly, wiggling her arms free of his crushing embrace so she could still read her book.
Masha was a comic figure after all. Happiness was a choice, wasn't it? And who couldn't be happy here, with a solid man - a man! Not a boy - who had a good job, a steady demeanor, and a heart fully devoted to her? Maybe Eddie wasn't as smart as Ryan, or funny, or interesting, and maybe he didn't need her in the way she fancied that Ryan did. But then, Ryan didn't really need her, either, did he? In the end?
And didn't she need Eddie?
Didn't she?
She could feel Eddie's heartbeat against her breast, his head tucked onto her shoulder, his hair tickling her neck. There was so much more of Eddie to account for. Where Ryan was compact, powerful, a tightly wound spring ready to go off at any time, Eddie was lanky, gawky, clumsy and loose. Kissing Ryan was warm, slick, powerful. Kissing Eddie was wet, scratchy, confusing. But she knew what to expect. Eddie would never lull her to sleep and then steal out the window. He would never lie about the fresh red mark on his chin, telling her it was from a fight at school, when she knew there had been no fight. Eddie wasn't ashamed of her. Ever.
Maybe the real tragic figures were the ones who couldn't move on. The ones who settled for unhappiness were the comic ones. And at least comedy wasn't tragic. Sometimes it could make you smile.
Commercials. Eddie bent his face to her shoulder, gently nipping and licking at her. Theresa let the book drop and sighed.
"I talked to my mom yesterday," she said. "We decided. If I get that job at the catering company, I'm taking it."
Eddie stopped, sat up and stared at her, blinking in confusion. "But I thought your school schedule-"
"School can wait. The mortgage can't."
Eddie nodded slowly. The colored light of the television flickered off his cheekbones. "Oh. Okay." Sometimes Eddie talked just to make sounds. Hadn't Ryan said that? Once? "Does that mean you still have to read that book?"
"I like it," she whispered faintly. Her fingers toyed with the corner of the page, flicking it absent-mindedly.
He shrugged and grabbed for another fistful of popcorn. He seemed suddenly fascinated by the Subway commercial on TV. He shoved the kernels into his mouth, crunching away furiously.
"Is that all you're gonna say?" she pressed.
"Whuh ess you wah?" he asked around the popcorn.
Theresa shook her head. "Never mind."
At least Ryan hadn't made fun of her when she wanted to sign up for Honors Lit with him. Even though they both knew he could run circles around her academically when he tried. If he ever tried.
And now she was alone in Honors, while he enjoyed his free prep school education. And soon, she wouldn't even have Honors third period at all.
Did Marissa know how to steadfastly pretend with Ryan until he fooled even himself into believing things were okay? Did she know how to slowly nibble down his thigh until he was ready for her? Did she know how to get him to sleep singing Beatles songs? Did Ryan ever tell her about the fight, the horrible, tearful, awful fight that she was so sorry for, every day of her life now, even if he had started it in the first place? Did Marissa know how Ryan ran away from the slightest hint of having to depend on someone, the first dawning realization that he needed them? Had she figured out that he could only tolerate the bluntest honesty, despite his own less-than-truthful ways?
Theresa would guess that she didn't, and that moreover, maybe that was what Ryan saw in the girl. And she knew that it was a tragedy for sure.
Eddie didn't understand her. Not like Ryan. Ryan would scream at her for even thinking of dropping out of high school. She wanted Eddie to yell at her, to put his foot down, to stomp around in fury. But the game was back on, and he cared about that, and he was practical and black and white and he knew this was the right thing, he thought it was fine. And here was Theresa, together, alone, with Eddie.
But without Ryan, everything in the world around her was a duller color. Things that once incited passion in Theresa now struck her as pointless. Maybe, just a little bit, Theresa was a fool. She was never meant to be with Ryan. His destiny was far away from hers, and maybe she was starting to understand that. Wanting what she couldn't have. Letting it affect her own happiness. Ridiculous. Really.
"There are people who go and people who stay," she murmured aloud, causing Eddie to turn to her suddenly, in alarm. She'd read that somewhere. Once. Where? It reminded her of Ryan years ago when she first heard it. And now. Even more. "We're staying."
Eddie groped for the remote and flipped the TV off. "Okay," he sighed. "What is it now?"
"I'm staying," she said. "You're staying. You and me, we're people who stay."
"Theresa," and he was shaking his head. "Baby. It's too late at night for this."
Theresa bit her lip. Nights spent sleepless, talking for hours about politics, about sports, about movies, about everything that didn't matter. Not with Eddie.
"If you could be anywhere in the world right now?" she asked seriously. "Where would it be?"
"Right," and he leaned in, kissing her forehead. "Here." He pulled back, meeting her eyes from inches away.
"Hmm," she said, glancing away. "That's what I thought." She glanced at the quilt on the couch that Eddie's aunts had made. Woven together, worn from years of use, hadn't left the house in decades. She got it. Eddie was just here. Here. That was all.
"What's that mean?" he protested, backing off, his eyes still fixed on her.
She shook her head. "It's late. I got school tomorrow."
"But you're quitting."
"Not tomorrow. And maybe not."
Eddie nodded, accepting this. "I can drive you home?"
"Yeah. Sure."
She could never forget. Everything reminded her of Ryan. It was impossible to convince herself even for a moment she was with Ryan. Eddie moved fast, and firm, and desperate. For all the years he had on Ryan, he was years less experienced. Ryan was careful, Ryan was slow, and Ryan was sensual. Eddie always made sure she finished, but Ryan never had to. With Ryan she just - she did. There was no trying about it.
She had to forget. She wouldn't let herself be Masha. Happiness was a choice. It was, and it was all Theresa ever wanted. She could forget Ryan. She could. It was a choice.
"Maybe tomorrow we could go see a movie?" Eddie was saying.
"What? Yeah," Theresa agreed. "Yeah… sure. Great." She tried to smile.
"Oh, you know what I been dyin' to see? There's that boat movie out."
"Russell Crowe?" She stiffened. "No. I don't - no."
"Okay, then," he said quietly. Looking down. "No Russell Crowe, then."
No Russell Crowe. No Ryan Atwood. The present was Chino, and Eddie, and work. Popcorn and Honors third period (for a few more days) and Eddie and Chino. And here. And now.
And if Trigorin asked if she was happy, she couldn't say yes, but maybe she couldn't really say no, either. And that was why Masha didn't answer. Because what good would answering do? What good was wanting what you couldn't have? It would only lead to sorrow. That was what Nina learned, too. Better to live to fight another day.
And Theresa was going to fight on another day.
And she was going to be happy.
And she was going to forget about Ryan Atwood.
And she could learn to love Medvedenko - Eddie. She would learn to love Eddie.
She would. Because she had no other choice.
Maybe, Theresa thought, it was a comedy after all.
Author: Kate Monster
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Theresa ruminates on life, love, Eddie, Ryan, and Anton Chekhov, somewhere between "The Homecoming" and "The Heartbreak".
Author's Note: This is a little different for me, so bear with me. Somewhere between real life and fantasy life, I've been discussing The Seagull a lot and I've been discussing The OC a lot. For some reason, it took me this long to see the parallels. While it's not an exact homage, the Eddie/Theresa/Ryan/Marissa love rhombus is very reminiscent of Chekhov's Medvedenko/Masha/Konstantin/Nina rhombus. I somehow suspect that Theresa would get that, too.
Disclaimer: Characters by Schwartz and Chekhov are not by Kate Monster.
The last book Theresa ever read for school was for Mrs. Delgado's third period Honors World Literature class.
By that point even she knew it was a lost cause. School. School wasn't paying for the mortgage on her mom's house, it wasn't paying for the gas in the car (the car that was now hers with no Arturo around to use it), and it wasn't putting food on the table.
The book - or the play, rather - wasn't a big hit in class discussion, but you had to give it up for Honors third period, at least they had a lot to say. Theresa was usually content just to sit in the back of the room and doodle on her notebook. Last year she'd been a cut-up in Honors American Lit sixth period with Mr. McLarin, but last year she'd had Ryan to cut up with.
The play was hard. Difficult to follow. Boring? Yes. But something in it grabbed her for some reason. And she knew she could tune everything out, she would be forfeiting the semester by the end of the month, after all. But she wanted to talk about it. She wanted to understand.
Elliott, the skinny gap-toothed kid who liked nothing more than getting a laugh, called it a masturbatory acting exercise on paper. That got a few gasps from the class, but Theresa stayed silent. She merely raised her eyebrows at Mrs. Delgado, who actually laughed and admitted Elliott wasn't the first to say it. Sometimes Elliott was too smart for his own good, really.
"So is The Seagull a tragedy, then?" she asked the class, clearly attempting to return to the topic and calm things down before any administrators wandered in. She'd already been written up twice this year on account of third period being too lively, which was a bit of a running joke to the kids.
"Yeah," Tracy blurted out. In other classes you got yelled at for speaking out of turn, but it was okay in Mrs. Delgado's class, as long as you didn't interrupt anybody and you had something decently intelligent to say. "I mean, like, Konstantin, he kills hisself, right?"
"No, you're wrong, it's a comedy," Elliott corrected her.
Mrs. Delgado pointed at him. "Why?" Theresa yawned and leaned over her notebook. A new, blank page. Ideas in her head needing to fill it.
Elliott held up his book. "Cause it says so on the title page?" He got the intended laugh and high-fived a buddy.
Mrs. Delgado paced the front of the room, cradling her copy of the book in one arm, the other moving as she collected her words. "Chekhov always insisted The Seagull was a classical comedy, though Tracy, you're not the first person to disagree. But any ideas as to why?" She looked around. Theresa sank down in her chair. "Anybody?"
Theresa straightened up. "Cause," she said. "It's ridiculous. All the characters are just stupid. They all keep wanting things they can't have, and can't see what's in front of their faces."
Mrs. Delgado was nodding, and Theresa slid back in her metal seat, satisfied that she at least had her participation point for the day. She tilted her head to the side, her hair brushing over her shoulder, as she studied her spiral pad intently. "What do they all want?" the teacher continued. "Anybody? Carly."
Carly twirled a piece of hair, distracted. "Love?" she said aloud, in the half-statement, half-question voice that she'd perfected. "They all want love?"
"Love," Mrs. Delgado said firmly. "Love, and is anyone in this play really in love?"
"No," Vaughn murmured, and the sounds of agreement came from around him.
"Maybe," Theresa found herself saying aloud. She wasn't quite sure why she felt like dissenting. She just did. Maybe she was just pissy today. "Maybe they just deny it."
Mrs. Delgado frowned at her. "Chekhov doesn't really give us evidence of that though, Theresa."
She cast her eyes down. "Right." Of course. Mrs. Delgado was right. Theresa didn't like that answer, but it was true. Pissy or not.
"Let's take Masha as an example. Is Masha a tragic or a comic figure? What does she want?" Mrs. Delgado was now waving her book back and forth, punctuating her words as she spoke. Theresa rolled her eyes. Obvious. Dumb question, but then, some of the kids in here were pretty dumb. It was hard to find enough bright kids to fill an Honors section around here. That was the only reason why they used to keep letting Ryan take Honors, even though he was chronically truant, chronically slacking off.
"Konstantin," a few voices said. Ryan still did better than most of the kids in the class. Some of the time. The rest of the time, well, at least he was smart.
Too smart. In the end, he'd outsmarted them all.
"Right you are. Masha craves Konstantin's love. And what does Konstantin want?"
"Nina," Elliot blurted out.
"His mommy!" Laughter. Even Theresa had to roll her eyes and grin at Stevie.
"Respect," Ronnie called.
"To create," Andy said quietly.
The answers were varied. Theresa glanced down at her notebook. Blank. She knew she'd be done before the exam, anyway. Finished. No point to taking notes, really. But still, Theresa had always found that she focused better staring at a pen and paper than she did staring at a teacher. Even if she wasn't taking any notes.
She scribbled the word "M A S H A" and looked at it. She doodled a flower above the M. Blossoming. She shifted in her seat.
She had her participation point, but she couldn't help it. She had to say it. "You know what he doesn't want. He doesn't want Masha," she said aloud without thinking. "And Masha, she knows that. And she'd rather love Medvedenko, but she can't, so she just marries him anyway." She shrugged. "She's practical."
She inched the pen around the wire rim of the binder, etching a round decorative outline.
"And Konstantin?" Mrs. Delgado pressed, urging her on.
Theresa slowly etched her own name onto the page beneath Masha's. T H E R E S A. She scratched the image of a sword above it. Sharp. Piercing.
"He's an idiot," Vaughn said.
"A fool, right," the teacher said with a smile. "Konstantin isn't practical like Masha is. He can't accept that Nina and Arkadina don't love him, and as a result he dies. Do you all understand why Chekhov calls it a comedy?"
Theresa wrote the word "K O N S T A N T I N" beside Masha's name as the class murmured assent.
"It's still tragic," Theresa said aloud, firm. "I bet Masha wouldn't call it a comedy." She ducked her head, feeling the stares, and etched more lines onto her notebook.
She stared at what she'd written beneath Konstantin's name, beside her own.
R Y A N.
So.
It was a tragedy after all.
*
She found herself curled up on Eddie's couch that night, idly flipping the pages of her library copy of The Seagull, her feet in Eddie's lap as he gently massaged them with one hand, his other hand scarfing popcorn as he watched the ballgame.
Masha never held Konstantin in her arms, shaking and dizzy with terror, to soothe his acrophobia. Masha and Konstantin never hid under the bushes outside the high school, frantically giggling and pouring out beer bottles as the cops searched the campus trying to see where they'd gone. They had no private jokes. No memories that were theirs and theirs alone.
So it wasn't a perfect metaphor. But still, Theresa couldn't help but feel a pang of grief along with Masha, who understood Konstantin so much more than he realized, who saw his need to be loved by his mother, his need to create, and who watched him slip away anyway-
"Okay, stop, that tickles," she said, rolling her eyes as she kicked her foot away from Eddie's lap.
"Sorry," he said half-heartedly. She dropped her feet to the carpet and straightened up, leaning away from Eddie as he pulled the popcorn bowl into his lap with both hands.
"Popcorn?"
"No. Thanks." Theresa curled into the nook of the couch and pulled the book closer to her face.
The light of the ballgame flickered off Eddie's face as he stared into the depths of the television, his hand moving automatically, rhythmically, from the popcorn bowl to his mouth and back again… Eddie was so predictable. The bowl. The mouth. Predictable. But constant. Eddie was constant, and Eddie was loyal, and Eddie was reliable. Eddie was there. January 2004 and Eddie was there, in her life, on her radar. And Ryan was...
When Trigorin asked Masha if she was happy with Medvedenko, she didn't respond. Theresa knew why she didn't respond. It was in the subtext. Trigorin, now there was a fool. A villain and a fool. Of course Masha wasn't happy. But maybe Masha's tragedy was that she never tried hard enough. She thought love would just come to her, but maybe she had to work at it. Theresa didn't have to be unhappy. Did she? Did Masha?
And then, to twist the metaphor upon itself, there was Nina. Konstantin's fantasy, to the exclusion of Masha. But Theresa got that one, too. Nina ran from Konstantin. She pretended to love him, she performed his play, and the whole time she didn't understand a word of it. She didn't even see the grief she caused him. She was blind. He brought her something beautiful, a seagull, and it repulsed her, made her livid.
Nina came back. She came back to Konstantin. Why? Not because she loved him. Because she had to regroup before she could survive. Coming back meant nothing. She came back and left again as soon as she could. Ryan wasn't, then, the first person in the history of the world to try that maneuver.
Theresa tried not to think about Ryan that much, which was harder at times. Times like now, when she couldn't think of anything else. Didn't he know she hadn't chosen Eddie last summer, that Eddie had just come along and enveloped her? He'd seemed so hurt when she first started seeing Eddie, but he didn't get it. He wasn't dependable. They never had any commitment. Ryan was afraid to tie himself down. And maybe, deep down, Theresa had expected the Eddie thing to be a wake-up call. She expected confessions of love, apologies, devotions. She hadn't expected him to sink further and further into his shell, to thug around with his brother all summer until one day he finally just disappeared. Vanished. No call. No letter.
There was just no Ryan at all.
And then she expected him to call, or write, or somehow finally realize where his heart truly lay. She'd pictured Ryan alone, lost, desperate - on the streets, in the system. She'd never pictured him neatly dressed, in the lap of luxury. Spoiled rotten with some stuck-up princess at his side, his hair casually trussed into one of those expensive cuts that only looked shaggy and cheap because it was trendy.
She hadn't expected that Ryan really didn't care.
Ashamed. Embarrassed. Maybe that's what he felt towards her. Pity, did he pity her? Maybe. But he was resolute, staunchly going forth with his life, leaving behind Theresa, the drowning seagull. And not caring.
And here was Theresa. Still doing the Eddie thing.
The Eddie Thing set the popcorn bowl aside and leaned towards her, making an amusing grunt of pleasure as he snuggled around her. Theresa smiled wryly, wiggling her arms free of his crushing embrace so she could still read her book.
Masha was a comic figure after all. Happiness was a choice, wasn't it? And who couldn't be happy here, with a solid man - a man! Not a boy - who had a good job, a steady demeanor, and a heart fully devoted to her? Maybe Eddie wasn't as smart as Ryan, or funny, or interesting, and maybe he didn't need her in the way she fancied that Ryan did. But then, Ryan didn't really need her, either, did he? In the end?
And didn't she need Eddie?
Didn't she?
She could feel Eddie's heartbeat against her breast, his head tucked onto her shoulder, his hair tickling her neck. There was so much more of Eddie to account for. Where Ryan was compact, powerful, a tightly wound spring ready to go off at any time, Eddie was lanky, gawky, clumsy and loose. Kissing Ryan was warm, slick, powerful. Kissing Eddie was wet, scratchy, confusing. But she knew what to expect. Eddie would never lull her to sleep and then steal out the window. He would never lie about the fresh red mark on his chin, telling her it was from a fight at school, when she knew there had been no fight. Eddie wasn't ashamed of her. Ever.
Maybe the real tragic figures were the ones who couldn't move on. The ones who settled for unhappiness were the comic ones. And at least comedy wasn't tragic. Sometimes it could make you smile.
Commercials. Eddie bent his face to her shoulder, gently nipping and licking at her. Theresa let the book drop and sighed.
"I talked to my mom yesterday," she said. "We decided. If I get that job at the catering company, I'm taking it."
Eddie stopped, sat up and stared at her, blinking in confusion. "But I thought your school schedule-"
"School can wait. The mortgage can't."
Eddie nodded slowly. The colored light of the television flickered off his cheekbones. "Oh. Okay." Sometimes Eddie talked just to make sounds. Hadn't Ryan said that? Once? "Does that mean you still have to read that book?"
"I like it," she whispered faintly. Her fingers toyed with the corner of the page, flicking it absent-mindedly.
He shrugged and grabbed for another fistful of popcorn. He seemed suddenly fascinated by the Subway commercial on TV. He shoved the kernels into his mouth, crunching away furiously.
"Is that all you're gonna say?" she pressed.
"Whuh ess you wah?" he asked around the popcorn.
Theresa shook her head. "Never mind."
At least Ryan hadn't made fun of her when she wanted to sign up for Honors Lit with him. Even though they both knew he could run circles around her academically when he tried. If he ever tried.
And now she was alone in Honors, while he enjoyed his free prep school education. And soon, she wouldn't even have Honors third period at all.
Did Marissa know how to steadfastly pretend with Ryan until he fooled even himself into believing things were okay? Did she know how to slowly nibble down his thigh until he was ready for her? Did she know how to get him to sleep singing Beatles songs? Did Ryan ever tell her about the fight, the horrible, tearful, awful fight that she was so sorry for, every day of her life now, even if he had started it in the first place? Did Marissa know how Ryan ran away from the slightest hint of having to depend on someone, the first dawning realization that he needed them? Had she figured out that he could only tolerate the bluntest honesty, despite his own less-than-truthful ways?
Theresa would guess that she didn't, and that moreover, maybe that was what Ryan saw in the girl. And she knew that it was a tragedy for sure.
Eddie didn't understand her. Not like Ryan. Ryan would scream at her for even thinking of dropping out of high school. She wanted Eddie to yell at her, to put his foot down, to stomp around in fury. But the game was back on, and he cared about that, and he was practical and black and white and he knew this was the right thing, he thought it was fine. And here was Theresa, together, alone, with Eddie.
But without Ryan, everything in the world around her was a duller color. Things that once incited passion in Theresa now struck her as pointless. Maybe, just a little bit, Theresa was a fool. She was never meant to be with Ryan. His destiny was far away from hers, and maybe she was starting to understand that. Wanting what she couldn't have. Letting it affect her own happiness. Ridiculous. Really.
"There are people who go and people who stay," she murmured aloud, causing Eddie to turn to her suddenly, in alarm. She'd read that somewhere. Once. Where? It reminded her of Ryan years ago when she first heard it. And now. Even more. "We're staying."
Eddie groped for the remote and flipped the TV off. "Okay," he sighed. "What is it now?"
"I'm staying," she said. "You're staying. You and me, we're people who stay."
"Theresa," and he was shaking his head. "Baby. It's too late at night for this."
Theresa bit her lip. Nights spent sleepless, talking for hours about politics, about sports, about movies, about everything that didn't matter. Not with Eddie.
"If you could be anywhere in the world right now?" she asked seriously. "Where would it be?"
"Right," and he leaned in, kissing her forehead. "Here." He pulled back, meeting her eyes from inches away.
"Hmm," she said, glancing away. "That's what I thought." She glanced at the quilt on the couch that Eddie's aunts had made. Woven together, worn from years of use, hadn't left the house in decades. She got it. Eddie was just here. Here. That was all.
"What's that mean?" he protested, backing off, his eyes still fixed on her.
She shook her head. "It's late. I got school tomorrow."
"But you're quitting."
"Not tomorrow. And maybe not."
Eddie nodded, accepting this. "I can drive you home?"
"Yeah. Sure."
She could never forget. Everything reminded her of Ryan. It was impossible to convince herself even for a moment she was with Ryan. Eddie moved fast, and firm, and desperate. For all the years he had on Ryan, he was years less experienced. Ryan was careful, Ryan was slow, and Ryan was sensual. Eddie always made sure she finished, but Ryan never had to. With Ryan she just - she did. There was no trying about it.
She had to forget. She wouldn't let herself be Masha. Happiness was a choice. It was, and it was all Theresa ever wanted. She could forget Ryan. She could. It was a choice.
"Maybe tomorrow we could go see a movie?" Eddie was saying.
"What? Yeah," Theresa agreed. "Yeah… sure. Great." She tried to smile.
"Oh, you know what I been dyin' to see? There's that boat movie out."
"Russell Crowe?" She stiffened. "No. I don't - no."
"Okay, then," he said quietly. Looking down. "No Russell Crowe, then."
No Russell Crowe. No Ryan Atwood. The present was Chino, and Eddie, and work. Popcorn and Honors third period (for a few more days) and Eddie and Chino. And here. And now.
And if Trigorin asked if she was happy, she couldn't say yes, but maybe she couldn't really say no, either. And that was why Masha didn't answer. Because what good would answering do? What good was wanting what you couldn't have? It would only lead to sorrow. That was what Nina learned, too. Better to live to fight another day.
And Theresa was going to fight on another day.
And she was going to be happy.
And she was going to forget about Ryan Atwood.
And she could learn to love Medvedenko - Eddie. She would learn to love Eddie.
She would. Because she had no other choice.
Maybe, Theresa thought, it was a comedy after all.