Just Friends (23 page)

At the end of the session Jack collected up the students’ efforts and distributed copies of a piece for next week’s discussion. When Candace handed him her paper she surreptitiously showed him the palm of one hand, on which she had written, “See you Saturday!” with a smiley face underneath. As Jack rattled homeward on the subway, he realized that he was relieved not to have her chattering at his side, even though he was warmed by her girlish affection. Candace was a doll, but sometimes he needed to relax and think his own thoughts. Like why he couldn’t write, for example. The question became more agonized and urgent each day, but there was no one he could talk to about it.
Be honest,
he’d told his students.
Look into your heart and write.
But he couldn’t do it. Something blocked his view.

As he emerged from the subway station, he caught the eye of a woman walking toward him—stylish, self-possessed, maybe forty-five, very attractive. As she passed, she gave him a look of cool amusement, as if to say, “Yes, I’m marvelous. Thanks for noticing. Now get lost.” Jack loved women like that. He wondered where she was going, whether she was married, what she liked to talk about. He began to compose a scene in his head: a dusky summer’s evening, two people in a restaurant, both attractive and intelligent—himself, say (a little thinner), and the mystery woman (a little younger). They would be arguing—an intellectual argument, not a domestic squabble, but with an undertow of intimacy. She would be married, or unavailable for some reason, but the reader wouldn’t know that yet. He could see the woman leaning toward him, her face beautiful and fierce, her expressive hands cutting the air as she—

Wait. Here was the pizza place. Jack pushed the door open and sniffed appreciatively. He was starving. As he debated what to choose, his thoughts turned to Freya, wondering if she’d be in the apartment when he got back. Probably. She didn’t seem to be having much of a social life at the moment. Poor old Freya. Her attempts to find Mr. Perfect weren’t working out; they never did. No wonder she was so bad-tempered; it must be frustration. She should just dip in and out of the sexual smorgasbord, as he did.

Suddenly Jack had a marvelous idea: why didn’t he buy Freya a pizza, too. He knew what she liked: no mushrooms, no pepperoni, double anchovies, and lots of olives—black not green. It would be a peace offering. He’d played a mean trick on her, but the Bernard thing was only a joke. She was a good sport; she’d get over it. Jack pictured his arrival at the apartment. She’d be washing her hair or watching TV; she wouldn’t have bothered to eat, so she’d be hungry, and grateful. They’d sit outside and talk. He’d tell her about Candace’s cloak-and-dagger act in class tonight, and make her laugh. It would be like old times.

CHAPTER 15

Freya could bear it no longer. She shifted her weight off one numbed buttock, uncrossed her legs, and recrossed them the other way. The seat beneath her let out a loud creak, and the guy in front of her twisted his head to glare. The ring through his eyebrow gave him a particularly malevolent look.

“Sorry,” she mouthed.

She returned her attention to the stage, where an actor dressed as a Buddhist monk had been standing in the same spotlit position for the last twenty minutes, eyes lowered, palms pressed together. So far nothing else had happened. Freya wasn’t sure whether this was very meaningful or if something had gone wrong backstage. This was off-
off
Broadway, after all.

Wait, she could hear something: a low, rhythmic hum like a fridge in the night. Very gradually, body parts began to emerge from the darkness of the wings—one hand, a bare foot, a flexed elbow, a head penitently bowed. Over the next ten minutes or so they inched onstage in a series of agonized
tai chi
movements, eventually revealing a group of very solemn young American men and women dressed in sarongs and shifts made of drab sacking. Brett was not among them. Freya curbed her impatience; perhaps they were saving him for a special role—a naked god, for example. She had asked Brett about his part, but all he’d said, with that shy half-smile that seemed to sock her about four inches below her belly button, was, “We’re opening Tuesday night. Why don’t you come?”

Freya’s fingers tightened on her rolled-up program as her mind drifted back to last Saturday and the image of Brett’s back view cycling ahead of her—rather fast, frankly; it had taken some effort to summon a breezy smile when he looked back at her, and find breath in her lungs to answer his shouted remarks. But there had been ample opportunity to take in the athletic, pumping legs and the broad back, with its peekaboo strip of bare flesh, flaring out from taut, slim hips. Once they were in the park he had slowed his pace and started to do tricks for her—riding no-handed, slaloming along the track with a graceful weave of his body, turning back with a grin to check that she was watching, while the wind flipped up his hair. Freya laughed and began to copy him, and soon they were playing follow-my-leader. Overtaking him, Freya lifted her feet from the pedals and stuck her legs out sideways; she flapped her elbows like a funky chicken; and for a brief, wobbly moment let go of the handlebars and stretched her arms wide with a whoop of triumph. Then it was Brett’s turn again. Passersby paused to watch them, and smiled. It was fun, flirtatious, exhilarating. She realized what she’d been missing with Michael, whom she could not imagine on a bicycle, unless equipped with a safety helmet, military-style shorts and a rucksack. By the time they stopped, breathless with laughter, they were halfway to intimacy.

“Come on, you crazy girl. I’ll buy you an orange juice.”

“No way.
I’m
buying.”

And they’d fought about it; and that was fun, too. Once they were in the juice bar, there didn’t seem much to say. Freya liked it that way. Sitting opposite each other, he smiled at her and she smiled at him as they sucked frothy, fruity slush through straws. She discovered that he came from Denver and was one-eighth Iroquois, which explained the angled planes of his face and the slanted eyes set under straight, black eyebrows. Physically, he was the human equivalent of a T-bone steak; looking at him made her hungry. Of course, he was ridiculously young. But did age really matter? In her heart, Freya felt no older than twenty-three. It was a relief to jettison all that baggage of career and family and failed relationships to be—well, just a “crazy girl.”

Freya blinked and refocused her vacant gaze on the stage. She really must concentrate. The humming had now been enlivened by a random warble from an unseen flutelike instrument, while the actors (pilgrims? peasants? nameless husks of humanity) separated into groups to enact slow-motion pantomimes—tilling soil, drawing water, scattering seeds. Center stage, a couple appeared to be copulating joylessly; on one side of them, a woman was making heavy weather of childbirth; on the other, a tubby man lay on the floor, arms outflung, head back—presumably dead: the cycle of life, Freya deduced. She had been to art shows like this, except the crowd was better dressed. Probably it was very good, if you were in the right mood. The audience seemed rapt. When the “dead” man suddenly sneezed, they politely ignored him.

A slow drumbeat began. Bong. Bong. Bong. The actors stopped what they were doing—all but the monk, who was still praying—and turned their faces wonderingly upward. Was it going to rain? The drumbeat speeded, the harsh lighting turned soft and golden, and grains of rice—real rice—showered onto the stage. Oh, right: the harvest. Released from their sluggish trance, the actors began to whirl and leap and stamp in a frenzied dance, while falling rice caught the light and sparkled like golden rain. Sarongs flew and shifts twirled as the drum built up to an ecstatic crescendo. After a good five minutes of this the actors catapulted themselves offstage and into the wings, one by one, until only the monk remained, impassive under a final trickle of rice that pinged onto his pate. Freya remembered now that the play was called
Grains of Truth
. Aha!

The drum stopped abruptly. In the stark silence that followed, Freya could hear the blood in her ears. The audience held its breath. Into this silence stepped Brett, dressed in a saffron-yellow loincloth and carrying a long wooden rake over one shoulder. Freya leaned forward. He walked with slow solemnity to the center of the stage, lowered his rake to the floor in a graceful curve, and began to draw the piles of fallen rice, slowly and rhythmically, into a pattern, while the unseen flute recommenced its husky drone. Brett’s head was bowed, his expression concentrated and inward. His body had been covered with gleaming makeup that emphasized every bone and muscle. Now
this
part of the show was very effective, Freya thought approvingly. Brett circled the stage with his rake, around and around, sweeping the rice into a pleasing spiral pattern. When at length he reached the front he straightened up and lifted the rake back onto his shoulder. There was a final
bong!
from the drum, then the rest of the cast emerged from the wings in a dignified procession and lined up on either side of him. It was the end.

The small theater erupted in generous applause, surprising the actors into smiles that instantly took ten years off their age. Freya let go her program and clapped enthusiastically, sitting tall in her seat, her eyes on Brett. When he caught sight of her, he lost his composure and had to hide his face by bowing prematurely. Freya laughed aloud with delight.

The stage emptied, the lights dimmed, the theater filled with the bustle of departure and a rising roar of chatter. Freya joined the shuffling exodus. The audience was mainly young, probably friends and rivals of the cast, with a smattering of older luvvies and professionals and a few overdressed couples whom Freya took to be parents in various stages of pride or bemusement. When she reached the foyer, she ducked into the ladies’ room to check herself out in the mirror: ripped, faded jeans teamed with an immaculate white T-shirt and minimal makeup. She had opted for the dressed-down look, one of the kids rather than the glamorous older woman. Was this right? She caught her reflection grinning at her, goofy as a teenager, and turned away, embarrassed by her own excitement. He was only a man, for God’s sake.

At the stage door she joined a small scrum of hangers-on and gave her name to the guy on the door. A few moments later Brett burst out of the exit, still in his costume, glowing and gorgeous, adrenaline pumping from every pore. Before she could formulate her congratulations, he threw his arms around her.

“Wasn’t that
great
?” he demanded.

He smelled of makeup and sweat and excitement. His skin was hot and slick against hers.

“Fabulous.” It came out in a croak. She took a breath and tried again. “Totally fabulous.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d come. When I saw you there I couldn’t believe it!” he gabbled. “Listen, I’ll be a few minutes. I need to help bag up the rice and get cleaned up and stuff. Will you wait?”

“Probably.” But she was smiling.

“We’re all going over to Julio’s to celebrate. I’ll be as quick as I can.” He bounded off, then pivoted neatly in the doorway and fixed her with a slow-burn look. “Don’t go away.”

Freya shook her head. As if she could.

Julio’s turned out to be a scruffy, studenty tapas bar, much frequented by the cast during rehearsals, to judge by the proprietor’s ebullient welcome. In the noisy confusion of their arrival, as bags were stored and tables pushed together, Freya made her way to the bar and quietly paid for two bottles of champagne before taking her place next to Brett, now dressed in black jeans and a soft blue shirt, hair still gleaming from his shower. Everyone talked at once, drowning out the flamenco music. There was a rumor that Hal Prince had been out front. Or was it Cameron Mackintosh? No, it was Cameron Diaz. Bullshit: Cameron Diaz was shooting in Nevada; there’d been a picture in
Screen
. Well, anyway, some of the papers had sent a critic—the
Post
,
Village Voice, Paper
. What would the reviews say? Oh, God, it was too agonizing to think about.

The champagne arrived, provoking an excited whoop and a flurry of speculation. When the waiter indicated who had bought it, eyes swiveled curiously to Freya, then to Brett.

“This is Freya, everyone,” he announced. “She came to see the show tonight.”

There was a tiny, awkward pause. Freya saw that her extravagant gesture had been misjudged. It set her apart: not one of the kids but someone richer, superior, different—a sugar Mommy. She grabbed her glass and raised it. “You were all fantastic,” she told the blur of young faces. “Here’s to”—her memory stumbled sickeningly, then righted itself—“here’s to
Grains of Truth
.”

The toast was taken up enthusiastically, everyone clinked glasses, and to Freya’s relief the hubbub continued.

“Hey, that was really nice of you.” Brett’s voice was low and warm in her ear. She turned her head to find his eyes inches from her own. The open collar of his shirt had slid sideways, revealing the smooth skin of his shoulder. She wanted to go to bed with him.
Now.

“I got you something, too,” she said, reaching into her bag. She had spent hours trawling through the shelves of the Gotham Book Mart looking for the perfect present, toying with secondhand editions of famous plays or Broadway memoirs, before settling on a paperback copy of Anthony Hopkins’s autobiography. After a great deal of thought and several false starts she had inscribed it, “For Brett, on his opening night—one of many,” signing herself simply “Freya.”