Blue Rose In Chelsea (6 page)

     “Why are we just standing here?” I demand, after ten minutes of struggling not to be mowed down by frenetic but fashionable crowds.

     “Evan is meeting us,” Dylan announces, with what I could swear sounds like gloating.

     Despite my absurd plot to avoid him for the next four lifetimes, my heart flowers at the prospect of Evan’s face appearing suddenly from somewhere in the crowd.

     And then there he is, wearing black jeans and an expensive-looking sky-blue sweater and impressive shoes.  How can a struggling actor always be so impeccably dressed?  Perhaps he stocked his wardrobe when he was still receiving his hefty paychecks from the ballet company?  Joe and Dylan observe us as if we are exotic birds suddenly placed in the same cage, as if something interesting may happen between us.  Dylan shakes Evan’s hand and I pretend to fuss with something in my sweater pocket, when Evan plants a kiss on my cheek.  He smells of his usual clean laundry hanging on a clothesline on a sun-soaked day.  The Roomies walk ahead of us, arguing some political point.

     “I don’t think I’m on the brink of greatness,” I blurt out, but in a hushed tone so the others won’t hear.

     “What?” he says gently, as if his ears have played tricks on him.

     “I don’t think I’m on the brink of greatness,” I repeat.

     “Okay,” he says, solicitously and then, after a moment, “Do you want to be?”  His arm lightly brushes my waist, guiding me around some construction.

    “No, I just want you to know that I don’t think that I am.”

     “Okay,” he says, looking charmed but confused.

     I am wondering now if Dylan was pulling my leg, or if Evan is simply being gracious in pretending that he doesn’t remember.

     Evan sips coffee from a Styrofoam cup and offers me some.  I apologize for the rim of red gloss that I get on the cup, but he smiles and nods as if it doesn’t matter.  When my black sweater with the pink hearts slips off one shoulder, he gently eases it back.  On the way to the theatre we chat about books and movies and favorite foods and seventies sitcoms, silly lighthearted things, while all around us the clashing sounds of the city seem somehow to keep at bay, as if we alone float in the crisp and insulated tube of an autumn sunbeam.

     We arrive at the Quaigue Theatre.  There is a Dramathon running, where aspiring playwrights may showcase their short works.  Evan shows his actors equity card and gets in free.  The bored-looking box office guy waves me in, perhaps because I’m with Evan, or maybe Dylan has mercifully paid my five-dollar fee.  Evan notices that I can’t take my eyes off our ticket taker—he’s just so spectacularly peculiar, with the blackest hair I’ve ever seen, a shimmering spandex striped shirt, and a bendy, Gumby-like physique and wildly expressive gestures.  “He looks like a French mime,” I whisper, because Evan looks wounded that I’m staring at another guy.

     The theatre is small and dark, and nearly empty.  There are five actors onstage.  It is a play about a minor league baseball team and their mascot, a bunny, and the conflict is that someone will be chosen to move up to the Majors, but Who Will It Be?

     “This plot is so simplistic, you could have written it.”  Dylan slaps his palms against his knees and slumps in his chair.  It’s only five minutes into the piece and Dylan’s patience has been exhausted.

     “Gee, thanks, I think,” I say.

     “It’s so obvious that it’s the bunny who’s going to the Majors.  And where the hell is Brandon?  The play is half over and he hasn’t even made his entrance yet.  He said he had a major role.”  Dylan can’t sit still, and thumps his leg with the fervor of a cat scratching fleas.

     “I think Brandon is the bunny,” I say, hoping to be of help.

     “What?  No way, Bran can’t be the bunny.  He said he had a starring role.  Where is the bunny?”  Dylan straightens in his seat, leaning out of his violet velvet coat, his silky hair falling over his enviably high cheekbones.

     “The bunny is stage left,” Evan Candelier, the actor, offers.

     We all observe the guy in the fuzzy white bunny suit.  I can tell by the way the bunny’s leg is crossed over the other as he reclines on his chair that this is indeed Brandon.

     “Can’t be,” Dylan states.

     “Bran is the bunny,” I confirm.

     “Bran is the bunny,” Evan agrees.

     “That is so fucked up,” Joe says.

     “I guess he does have a
Major
role,” Evan quips.

     Evan is beside me.  I made sure that we filed into the seats in such order that Evan would be next to me.

     Just then it is revealed that it is the bunny, and not one of the ball players, that has been chosen to move on to the Major Leagues.  The bunny rises with a furry grace to inform his teammates of his sudden but shocking good fortune.

     Evan nibbles peanuts, raining the shells to the dingy floor, and placing one on my knee.  I’m wearing pale ballet-pink tights with a back seam, and a black knit dress that isn’t really a dress, it’s a dance cover-up, and it’s not covering much.  Dylan showed up at my dance class and whisked me away to the recording studio with no forewarning.  I nibble the nuts Evan gallantly shells for me.  Without looking at me he smiles and places another peanut there, sometimes resting his hand a moment on my knee, pretending to see if the peanut is secure.

     “You don’t write about bunnies, do you?” he asks.

     “She writes about cats.”  Dylan answers almost instantly, and I realize that he’s more attuned to my conversation with Evan than the play.

     With a mouth full of peanuts all I can manage is an incredulous glare and a hand gesture at Dylan that begs an explanation.

     “All your poems are about cats,” he insists, and I want to say, “Not since fifth grade!” but I have a mouth full of peanuts.  What is Dylan talking about?
     “You like cats?” Evan asks in earnest.

     “Cats!  Everything is about cats!” Dylan cries, in some mad cat delirium, and I’m wondering if he’s lost his marbles.  Perhaps witnessing his best friend morph into a bunny has pushed him over the edge.

     “That’s fucked up,” Joe says.

     “I don’t write about cats!” I hiss, in a feline fury, gulping the peanuts, and trying to keep a respectful tone for the bunny’s big moment.

     The bunny steps into the footlights to deliver his monologue, thanking his teammates for the opportunity they have afforded him to showcase his fine mascot talents, and waxing philosophical on how he won’t ever forget them, how he is confident that when he reflects back on his life, that his years in the Minors will inevitably seem the best years of his life.  There is a smattering of clapping.  We pick up the slack and offer thunderous applause for our bunny.

     Evan spies a book poking out of my knapsack,
Winter Trees
, a collection of Sylvia Plath poems.  He lifts the book out, and asks if I like her work.  In answer, I brush the pages rapidly to my favorite passage and point, so that he may read it.

     “She stole it from the library.”  Dylan rats me out, although earlier that day he commended me on this very act.  The book is out of print, and the theft my only chance of owning it.

     “Does that make you a cat burglar?” Joe asks.

     “Sylvia killed herself.  You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?” Evan inquires, with that disarming mixture of earnestness and mockery.

     “I just might kill myself if this play doesn’t end soon,” Joe says.

     Exiting the theatre, I am ahead of the boys.  As I climb the steps ahead of him, Joe reaches out and lightly grips my calf, which is the only part of my leg exposed above my boot and below my footless tights, which are rolled up just below the knee.  “Dancer legs,” he says.  He does this with the same innocent curiosity as a child having a feel of a woman’s fur coat or a tug at a cat’s tail.  I glance at Evan, who, amused, winks at me.

     We linger under a yellow awning, all doing a slight jog in place to throw off the chill of the misty air.  When Brandon joins us, reeking of wet fake rabbit fur, we offer feedback and encouragement on his performance.  “I had fun,” Brandon says, almost apologetically, as if suddenly ashamed of his bunny debut.  “Well, as long as you had
fun
,” is the sarcastic Dylan’s lame contribution to our critiques, as he cups his hands to light a cigarette against the wind.

     “Look, Sylvia, there’s your gloom and doom moon.”  Evan directs my gaze to the disc that shimmers despite the daylight.  I’m wondering how he knows that Sylvia is big on moon imagery.

     It’s decided that we’ll head back to the loft that Brandon now shares with two roommates.  I follow them reluctantly onto the elevator, and Dylan watches me as the doors close.

     “Haley hates elevators,” he reports.

     “There are stairs,” Evan offers, moving as if to accompany me, but the doors have shut and we’ve already begun the ascent.  I steel myself to remain calm in Evan’s presence, shooting Dylan a withering look.

     “You’re turning white,” the ever-helpful Dylan observes.

     “We could die,” the bunny says, his long bunny ears bopping Dylan in the head when the elevator lurches suddenly.  The doors won’t open.

     “Any last confessions?” Evan encourages, edging closer to me.

     “Any plagiarized cat poems you want to ‘fess up to?” Dylan needles.  When the doors remain closed Evan senses my alarm and takes my hand, but when the doors suddenly open he releases it, aware of Dylan’s disapproving glare.

     And then we’re in the loft, with its space all cordoned off into small partitions, the furniture sparse, the sunlight flaring through a wall of windows, and a lizard lounging under a lamp in a cage on the floor.  This is the iguana that belongs to the female roommate, a wildlife photographer.  Brandon says she takes the scaly creature to bed with her to cuddle when it cries in the darkness.

     The Roomies are still kicking around ideas for a new name for the band.  They have satisfactorily completed two songs for their six-song demo.  Dylan has them booked at The Cat Club this weekend.  I suggest Red Hunting Hat.

     “It’s from
The Catcher In The Rye
,” I say.  “Holden wears the red hunting hat all the time.  And he bought the hat in New York, so there’s a hidden New York reference.”

     “That would sound cool in interviews,” Joe says.

     “I hated that book.”  Dylan stretches his long legs before him, one arm resting along the back of the couch, a black shirt tucked out over his jeans, his hair caught into an inch of ponytail.

     I glance at Evan as if to say, Can you believe this is my brother?

     “You pride yourselves on being these big rebels.”  I rest on the red velour overstuffed easy chair and Evan sits beside me on the arm of the chair.  “It would be an
homage
to one of the great rebels in literature.”

     “A what?” Joe asks, and I clarify, “a tribute.”

     “The guy was a trust fund brat who brought all his problems on himself, because he had way too much time on his hands.  If he had to work for a living he wouldn’t have had so much opportunity to brood and get into trouble.”

     “Dylan thinks all the problems of the human condition can be solved by gainful employment,” I say, sipping the tea that Evan has brewed for me.

     “Gainful employment goes a long way.  I’m keeping a tab.  You owe me for today’s train and theatre fare.”  Dylan smirks in spite of himself, and I know he doesn’t really mean it.

     “You are the most generous creature in the world,” I tease, and I do mean it.

     “You can relate to Holden because you both blew a shot at a great education,” Dylan pontificates, perhaps embarrassed by my sudden sentiment, and I roll my eyes because this is becoming a theme with Dylan.  “My sister is brilliant, but always dissatisfied and unable to stick with anything.”

     “But I’ll always stick with you, my brother,” I say, saucily.

     “Holden had the same ability that you do, to really see through to the essence of things.”  Evan looks gently down at me from his position on the arm of the chair.

     “Here’s a little reality check for the Holden fan club over there.  Newsflash!”  Dylan flicks his hands like high beams.  “The guy ended up in a mental ward.”

     Evan winks at me.

     “Red Hunting Hat.”  Brandon savors the words, giving it serious consideration.  “Why did he wear that hat?” he asks the air, straining to remember.

     “It was symbolic of his alienation,” I offer.

     “Cool.  We could wear red hats onstage,” Joe says.

     Dylan pulls a face that says that won’t be happening anytime soon.  Dylan knows his gorgeous silken hair gives him Samson-like powers over women, and he won’t be stuffing it under some hat anytime soon.

     “I think he wore the red hat because of his brother, Allie, who died.  His brother had red hair.”  Evan leans his chin into his hand, sitting balanced on the arm of the chair, his strong muscled physique evident even through his thick clothing.

     “I never thought of that,” I say, and I realize suddenly that I’m mirroring Evan, my chin in hand, as I look up at him thoughtfully.  I straighten, self-consciously, and sip my tea.