Crossing (3 page)

I instantly smiled and I don’t know why, but I screamed, “My people!” and then pointed to my sequined halter-top.

The loveliest lady sauntered over to me, her eye shadow four shades of blue. “You look good girl! Are you having fun tonight? ’Cause you aren’t dancing, and a sparkly little thing like you should be dancing, honey!”

She extended her long gloved hand, and I put mine into it and let her pull me out onto the dance floor.

I close my eyes. I raise my arms. I dance and dance and dance. I feel the music. It’s my pulse. I like myself like this.

I try not to look for Liam on my way into Villard Hall, but fail miserably, feeling a little disappointed when he’s not there holding the door to the Little Theatre open for me.

But then my disappoint melts away because he’s waiting in the back row, saving me a seat instead.

Sliding into it, I drop my backpack to the floor. “Hey, thanks.”

“No problem.” He smiles and then reaches down into his backpack, coming up with a black cardigan sweater, much like the one I left at RUMORS on Monday night. “Here, I think this is yours. At least I hope it is or I stole some chick’s sweater by accident.”

I take it from him and wad it up in my lap. “Uh, thanks? Were you at RUMORS on Monday night? I didn’t, uh, see you there and can’t remember or something?”

Rarely do I drink so much that I don’t remember what happens, but I have had plenty of fuzzy nights that have needed a kickstart to jog my memory.

“I work there.”

I lower my eyes at him. “Liam, are you a drag queen?” I tease.

His expression surprises me. I expect him to be all indignant, but instead he gives me a half grin. “No, I’m a bar back. Monday was crazy. It’s been way busy since they started having drag shows every night.” He taps his index finger on my arm. “Are you sure
you’re
not a drag queen? Didn’t you call them
your people
?”

I kind of want to die, but I also kind of want him to give me his sober perspective on what I looked like while dancing. I shrug. “I was wearing their native costume.”

He chuckles, bringing up the other side of his mouth for a full-on sexy smile. “You looked nice. I might hang out and raise my alien baby with you after all.”

I hold my left hand out. “Ooh, are you gonna put a ring on it?”

He shakes his head. “My kind still believes in open relationships, regardless.”

“That’s too bad. My kind doesn’t,” I snap, turning away from him to face the front of the room. I don’t know why I said that. I’m a ruiner of things.

He’s talked to me twice. I’m sure he can
totally
sense all of my lifelong issues in two ten-minute conversations, especially when five minutes of each conversation consisted of talk about alien sex and child rearing.

He makes an air sucking through his teeth sound. “Ouch. You’ve been burned, huh?”

I round on him, unable to keep my ruining train from derailing. “What does a pretty-boy like you know about getting burned? Please.”

Liam rolls his eyes at me. “You’re warped. Of course I’ve been burned. It happens to everyone.”

I don’t believe him. “So, what, you liked a girl and she made you wait until the eighth date to get in her pants or something?”

Liam sits up taller in his seat and leans away from me. “Screw you,” he snorts. “My ex, Ariana, who is the only person I’ve ever been with by the way – my girlfriend since junior year of high school – broke up with me last spring because she’d been fucking a football player since October. We lived together and I had to move out of our apartment without any help into a studio way the fuck across town near the dump.”

I shake my head. “Bullshit.”

He yanks on the collar of his shirt, exposing the shoulder that’s facing me. Curving around the top of his impressive triceps is curly tattoo script spelling out the name Ariana.

“I’m an asshole,” I say, immediately. My heart plummets to my gut.

Liam faces forward. He lets go of his collar. It’s all stretched out. That’s my fault, too.

Maren stands. “All right, let’s get warmed up and then you guys get five minutes to practice your open scenes before it’s showtime.”

We file down the stairs and get into a circle. I stand across from Liam again and can’t wait until we get to kabuki lion because I am going to finesse the shit out of it and get him to smile at me.

Fuck. He’d had the same girlfriend for, like, six years. Long term. Only person he’d ever been with and she just left him to go screw a tight end? Not cool. Goddamn, that kabuki lion better hurry itself up. I need to kabuki my face and make myself laugh.

Yeah, he’s been burned. Who am I kidding? I haven’t ever been burned, not really. Passed over? Used? Sure. Had my heart ripped out of my chest? Nope. Not even close.

We stretch. We do Sun Salutations. We wheeeooooo, wheeeoooo. When it comes time to make the funny faces though, Maren changes things up.

“Find a partner, stand across from them. Form two lines.”

India is making a beeline for Liam, but I cut her off and plant myself across from him. She pinches me, hard, on the back of the arm, but I ignore her. Ignore the pain. Fuck her. Liam looks at me, his expression blank.

“I’m an asshole,” I say.

“You said that already. Come up with something better.”

Public humiliation is my big time go-to. “My lady parts are riddled with STD’s!” I shout, drawing shocked looks from everyone in the theatre.

He cracks a smile.

Maren clears her throat and all eyes are back on her. “Okay, folks. You’re looking at your scene partner for the next two months. You’ve got ten seconds to make a switch if need be.”

“Do you want to switch?” I ask.

Liam’s eyes meet mine. “No, asshole, I don’t want to switch, but I would suggest you get some antibiotics stat.”

“Good, fuckface, because I like being partners with you. It’s what’s best for our alien baby.”

A couple of other people do switch partners, which I think is kind of awkward. I got lucky getting paired with Liam. He could be good for me. He can keep up and keep me in check.

X

“Why does it matter?” I say, looking away from Liam.

He puts his fingers under my chin and turns my face toward him. “Because…”

We wait a beat and then link hands and bow for the audience.

“Excellent job, Liam and Dani.” Maren shuffles through a stack of papers and pulls out two sets of stapled-together pages. “I think this scene from
Acolyte
will work for you two.”

We take the papers and go back to our seats. Liam holds up his hand for a high-five and I slap it.

Promptly, we get to checking out our real scene while the rest of the class finishes up their inferior open scenes.

“Huh,” Liam drawls, in a way that’s not really a question.

“What?”

“Um, nothing.” He shakes his head and directs his attention to the stage.

“What?”

Liam flips to the third page of our scene and points to the stage direction at the bottom of the page.
They kiss.

Which means that we kiss.

“Oh. Huh.”

Liam chuckles. “Whatever. No big deal.”

No, I suppose it isn’t for him. He’s had six years of kissing practice. I bet he’s spectacular at it. I’ve never kissed the same person more than once, so I have to adjust my game every time. I have no idea if I suck at it or not. Guess I’m gonna find out.

“Will I be the first person you’ve kissed since…?”

We both scooch down in our chairs.

“Yeah, but like I said,” he whispers, “no big deal. It’s an assignment.”

“So there’s no way,” I whisper back, “that you would actually kiss me in real life. Is what you’re saying?”

He pulls at his hair, but doesn’t raise his voice. “Jesus, I’m not saying anything. Will you just chill the fuck out and stop acting like I’m insulting you all the time? I barely know you, so no, I’m not going to stress over a kiss in a scene for a
class
. Not because I think you’re gross or unkissable. Because I haven’t thought about or wanted to kiss anyone lately. Okay?”

“Have I mentioned that I’m an asshole?”

He shakes his head and scrubs his hands over his face. “You have.”

“Let me buy you a coffee after class to make up for my assholism.”

“I can’t. But I’ll take a rain check. And that’s really exactly what I mean. I have a prior commitment and I will go to coffee with you another time.”

We go back to pretending to watch what’s happening on stage.

The open scenes end and Liam stands, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. I grab my bag and drop my sweater onto the floor. He picks it up and hands it to me.

“Should I just keep this in my bag since you can’t seem to keep track of it?”

I take it from him and cram it into my backpack and climb over my chair.

He nods at me. “See you on Friday.”

“Hope your prior commitment goes well.”

“Hope your assholia clears up.”

X

On my way out of the theatre building, I have a hard time getting around a cluster of students standing in front of the notice board. My curiosity piqued, I skirt around the edge of the group until I can get close enough up front to see what everyone is texting themselves.

It’s an audition notice for
Townsend House
directed by one of the grad students, to be performed in the Little Theatre. I follow suit and take the information down. We need to prepare a two-minute monologue and be ready to do cold readings from the play. Simple enough.

“I saw a bunch of monologue books down in the Green Room,” I hear India say to Steve, who is her scene partner. “Want to go check some out and work together?”

“Sure. You’re totally right for the lead.”

India smiles. “That’s what I was thinking too.”

I walk past them. “Dani, you gonna try out?”

I nod. “Thinking about it.”

“Which part?” Cassandra says, coming over with her scene partner Jackson.

I’m not really familiar with the play, but I do know there’s the lead and then there’s her Eccentric Best Friend and girls like India and Cassandra expect girls like me to be dying to play the EBF to their lead. “Probably the lead,” I say and then turn around and walk out the door, hearing Jackson snort a laugh. He is so not my gay.

I decide to go get coffee anyway since my next class doesn’t start until four. I grab a plain black coffee because that’s how I like coffee – like my men, boring and bitter. Ha. I take a seat at a table by the window that faces 13
^th
Street, the main drag out of campus, and start mulling over the monologue portion of the audition.

I don’t really want to look through monologue books and all the old scripts I did in high school…nothing really works. We did a lot of musicals and comedies and
Townsend House
is definitely not either of those. It’s a period piece set in the Depression. If I remember correctly, the lead has some sort of crisis of conscience.

Hmm. I don’t know. The poem I wrote about Chase’s beating comes to mind. How I stood there not coming to his rescue for fear of getting hit myself. The one time my loud mouth couldn’t save me or him. That’s a crisis of conscience, right? Feeling helpless? Knowing you’re not doing the right thing? I brush a tear from my left eye. Fuck. Haven’t thought about that in a while. Probably should think of that every day. But college is different. People are better here, right? I don’t actually know. There are still cliques, but they mix it up a little more often, I guess.

I wonder if it will work for or against me that the poem is contemporary? I feel like I want to ask Liam’s opinion on this for some reason. Maybe because he’s a very solid guy. He’s a long-term relationship solid kind of guy.

I take a drink of my coffee and stare out the window.

Liam’s across the street standing in front of the University Bookstore – the Duck Store. He’s got his hands jammed deep in his pockets and he’s looking down the street. His expression goes from passive to smiling. I follow the direction of his gaze with mine and see a woman coming toward him, waving. She’s carrying a reusable shopping bag from Trader Joe’s. It’s filled to the brim with stuff.

Liam holds his arms out like he’s going in for a hug, but she takes that opportunity to put the bag handle in his right hand. Then she leans in and gives him a quick peck on the cheek before backing a step away. Liam’s shoulders slump and the smile fades from his face.

She gestures to the bag and he bends down and looks through it, sort of, and then nods. They stand there talking for a moment, lots of nodding and shrugging and awkwardness happening.

The woman is beautiful. Tall with a black pixie cut. She has the thin face and long neck that can pull off that hairdo. It makes her look completely feminine even though her hair is shorter than Liam’s. She’s wearing dark denim skinny jeans and a gray chunky long sweater that skims nicely over her hips.

The woman has to be Ariana. This is the kind of woman that goes with Liam. She’s on his level.

They finish up talking and there’s another weird, reluctant hug. I guess that’s how it is between people who have spent a lot of time together and then suddenly don’t anymore. He probably doesn’t hate her even though he’d like to. He probably still loves her, as much as he’d like to not have to see her and collect a Trader Joe’s bag of crap from her.

Projection? I have a tendency.

I envy her a little. The way she looks. The time she got to spend with him. But I pity her too, for having such a cowardly heart that she had to cheat on her first love to move on.

I notice I’ve got a death grip on my coffee and relax my hands. What do I think I’m gonna do, throw it at her? Dumb. She’s probably really nice, despite being a football player fucker.

Ariana walks past Liam toward campus and Liam heads over to the bus stop. He gets on the #23, which goes way the hell over to the other side of town out by Freddy’s.

I wait until the bus drives away before getting up and heading to my next class. I don’t want him to know that I saw him vulnerable. I owe him that much.

Stepping off the #67 bus at Valley River Center, I hurry through the pouring rain toward the mall. Auditions are coming up, and while I’ve decided to turn my poem about Chase into a monologue for sure, I still want to dress vintage. I’ve got the perfect shoes, skirt, and sweater already, but I’m lacking something that will make me feel like a leading lady.