When in Rome (18 page)

SEVENTEEN

Franz and I haven’t had a chance to talk privately over the last few days, which is good, because I wouldn’t know what to say to him. In my opinion, the interruption of our kiss was providential. The cosmic forces do not want us to be together. And neither do I. I’m sure Iriza doesn’t either, although she continues to pretend that it doesn’t bother her. She asks about our trip and merely shrugs when I tell her everything, including the almost-kiss.

“You’re not mad?” I ask, surprised. “At me or him? You don’t want to run me over with a tank engine?”

Iriza gives me a sad smile and a logical answer. “First of all, you didn’t actually kiss. Second, it’s not like he and I are even together. Besides, you can’t make somebody love you.”

“I know, but—”

“I can’t pretend that I don’t wish I were you. I can only hope that Franz develops feelings for me over time. But trying to force my life to go a certain way, just because I want it to . . . That’s ridiculous. Whatever happens, happens. It’s all up to destiny. Life has taught me that there are things you just have to learn to accept, and that makes you a better person.”

I don’t see any resignation in her eyes. Instead, she’s warrior-like in her seemingly cold wisdom. I admire her. “You’re right. But please know that nothing will ever happen between me and Franz. You can at least consider that obstacle circumvented.”

Between conversations here and hard work there, the show finally arrives. On opening night, the theater is full, a turnout I didn’t expect. Lara and Giovanna are here, along with Giovanna’s new boyfriend, Roberto, who she says hasn’t made a move on her yet. She thinks it’s out of respect; I think he’s gay.

The dolls are proudly displayed in a glass case. The actors are so pale in their makeup and costumes that they look like ghosts. Rocky is wearing his usual scarf and seven layers of black eyeliner. Rose attempts her usual ass-grab as Franz passes by and, as usual, he expertly scoots out of the way just in time. Nothing new here. I’ve grown fond of this madhouse. I’m afraid that I will miss it when it’s all over.

During the show, the audience is attentive and interested. Apparently, they appreciate Rocky’s update. I wander around backstage, listening to the lines that I’ve heard so many times that I know them by heart.

However, I sense something strange going on during intermission. Despite how smoothly everything is running, Rocky seems nervous. I have no intention of asking him what’s wrong, so I try to avoid him by slipping into the dressing rooms and stumble on something quite unexpected. Romina, the actress who plays Laura, is in tears in one of the rooms while Rose attempts to console her. A young woman from the costume department is with them, and she obeys Rose like a soldier when she commands her to find Rocky. She returns with him moments later. I don’t mean to eavesdrop at the door, but once you start, it’s impossible to stop. Rose, who’s usually so protective of Rocky, lashes out at him with bitterness I’ve never heard—as if he were the Big Bad Wolf just caught trying to devour Little Red Riding Hood.

“You will take responsibility for this, I swear to God,” she says. “You will not abandon this girl and leave her to a life of ridicule. You will marry her, and our family will finally have a legitimate son after all these years. That’s how it’s going to be—I’ve decided.”

Rocky tries to stammer out a protest, but his attempts are futile. Romina groans and yanks open the door. She doesn’t even notice me standing outside as she rushes to the bathroom with a hand over her mouth. I hear her throwing up into the toilet. I guess Rocky knocked her up. I’m surprised that his swimmers were able to procreate, and I’m even more surprised that he’s capable of making love to a woman. I’ve called Rocky a lot of names, but bastard hasn’t been one of them—I really didn’t believe he was the type of director who would take advantage of his actresses . . . Now I understand why Romina has gained weight! And the asshole had the nerve to admonish her for it in front of everyone.

Now the poor girl is crying her eyes out in the bathroom. I feel compelled to comfort her. After all, I just had a pregnancy scare myself, and I didn’t have a grandmother like Rose forcing me to marry the villain of my story.

“I’m so nauseous,” Romina murmurs, gripping the toilet bowl like a life raft on the open ocean. “I tried to hold it in during the first act, but I can’t do it anymore.”

“You can’t do what?” I ask, vaguely alarmed.

“The rest of the show! I can’t puke onstage.”

“Of course you can’t, but what can we do?” I’m asking myself more than her. “We don’t have an understudy. We’ll have to stop the show.”

“Poor, darling man,” Romina mumbles between dry heaves. “He’s worked so hard on this.”

It takes me a few moments to realize that the poor, darling man in question is Rocky. It’s very difficult to imagine him as sweet and precious. Love is truly a mystery.

Rose comes into the bathroom, followed by Rocky, face contorted into a pout that resembles a chicken’s backside.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she says, “Carlotta will step in for you.”

Who is Carlotta?
I wonder. Then it hits me. She means
me
.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Rocky and I both yell simultaneously, me like Tarzan standing off with a group of poachers.

“There’s no other way,” Rose says. “Otherwise, we’d have to suspend the show and refund everyone’s tickets. You know the lines by heart, my dear, and with all this makeup, no one will notice that you’re a different actress.”

“They’ll notice, all right!” I shout. “I’m not an actress. What about my hair? Romina’s hair is silky smooth, and mine looks like a rat’s nest!”

“Trivial details. We’ll figure it out,” Rose insists. “It’s not like you can really do that much to make this show worse.”

Rose’s comment so offends Rocky that he seems to forget all about her suggestion.

“I refuse,” I exclaim. “Acting is beyond the scope of my contract.”

But Granny just won’t let this go. “To hell with your contract! Your friends are asking you to do this. A queasy expectant mother is asking you to do this. An old woman is asking you to do this. And when Franz finds out, he’ll be asking you to do it, too, because I know he doesn’t want to reimburse people for their tickets.”

Damn, she’s good.

“Absolutely not,” says Rocky. Apparently finding out he’s betrothed and a father is enough of a surprise for one night; he can’t handle the idea of me acting in his show. “I won’t have it. She’s unfortunate-looking and dull. Just looking at her hair makes me sick. Her elocution skills are terrible. I will not allow you to ruin my work. You’ll play that role over my dead body!”

After this string of compliments, someone speaks out vehemently: “Then prepare to die, asshole, because there’s gonna be another Laura in the second act, and she’ll knock your socks off.”

I almost faint when I realize that voice is mine.

I’m ready. We solved the hair issue with a wig. I’ve got full stage makeup on. The dress fits me like a glove. I remember my lines . . . I think. Franz told me repeatedly that I don’t have to do this, that we can postpone the performance, but I can’t let Rocky get away with everything he just said. I am determined to show him I’m better than what he thinks of me.

As soon as the curtain rises, though, I curse myself for giving in to my pride. Couldn’t I have just brushed off the insults and let bygones be bygones? But I can’t let either Laura down—the character Laura that I love so much or the Laura whose name appears on the poster for the show. So I decide to throw myself into this performance, both for myself and for every woman out there who’s in love with a man who ends up marrying someone else. I’m terrified, but here I go.

I am Laura as her mother forces her to wear a new dress in the hopes of catching the eye of their guest.

I am Laura as she trembles at the thought of being inadequate.

I am Laura as she curls up on the couch in front of her only friend, a laptop.

It comes naturally to me because I’m not acting. I’m being myself onstage. And everything happening onstage connects to my own life.

She loved him in high school.

He wouldn’t even look her way.

She has no self-confidence.

He asks her to dance.

She shows him her collection.

He breaks the most important doll. It’s an accident, but still.

Jim tells her,
“The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They’re one hundred times one thousand. You’re one times one! They walk all over the earth. You just stay here. They’re common as—weeds, but—you—well, you’re—blue roses!”

I almost cry as I dance with Jim, who I imagine to be Luca. I do cry as he kisses me. And when he reveals to me that he’s engaged to be married, the tears come down my cheeks like waterfalls. No one expected this. Romina never cried in rehearsals. She looked sad and upset, but she didn’t cry. I look like an orphan lost in the woods. But how can I hear him say, “Being in love has made a new man of me! The power of love is really pretty tremendous!” without thinking about how much I’ve changed? Or without asking myself what will become of me and where I will go from here?

Everything comes crashing down during the final scene—not just figuratively. I remain alone onstage, looking out into the audience, as the guy who plays Tom Wingfield tells me to turn off the light. I’m about to slowly press the switch, which will trigger the wings to fold in two after I leave the stage. But something catches my eye: Luca, in the front row. Despite my tendency these past few weeks to imagine him everywhere, this time I know I’m really seeing him. But this doesn’t bother me quite as much as the fact that Erika is sitting next to him. What are they doing here? Why are they here together?

My thoughts jumble as I stare at them. I don’t even notice the stagehands gesturing at me to get out of the way. I know I need to put one foot in front of the other and walk backstage, but at seeing them together, something inside shuts down. I can do nothing but stare. The backdrop falls and hits me in the head. I collapse to the floor. Now I see nothing.

I open my eyes to find myself in one of the dressing rooms. Lara, Giovanna, and Iriza are next to me. My head hurts. I’m having trouble extending my arm, as if I borrowed it from someone else and it’s too big for my body. I curl my fingers, and I can feel them starting to swell already. Throbbing pain sears my whole arm.

“Fortunately, the backdrop is hollow,” I hear Iriza say.

Giovanna places a bag of ice on my head. “How are you?” she asks.

“Let’s get you to the emergency room right away,” Lara whispers.

“Why didn’t you move?” Iriza asks.

Lara and Giovanna look at each other, both grimacing. Their eyes do all the talking.

“You don’t have to talk in sign language,” I murmur. “I saw them together.”

Lara’s grimace turns furious. “We saw them, too. The nerve of them. They wanted to come see how you were doing. But I told your sister that if she even came near you, I’d kick her ass. The asshole, however, is waiting outside the dressing room.”

“Luca is—”

“He’s insisting that he has to talk to you. But if you let yourself—”

“I’m not going to see him. Not now, not ever,” I say firmly.

My voice scares me. It’s hard and sharp, which matches my mood exactly. He already hurt me so badly; I won’t let him jerk me around anymore. What does he care about me for? He’s got Erika now. The blow to my head seems to have turned on a lightbulb in my head. As painful as all of this is, I can see that I’m not at a crossroads. Instead, there’s only one path to take, and there are no forks in the road.

“But you were so great,” Iriza says. While she may not understand everything that’s going on, she can tell that I’m upset about more than the head injury. “Your acting was incredible. Even Rocky went so far as to admit that you were tolerable. And I heard someone in the audience say that when you collapsed in the final scene, it was so realistic that you really seemed to be unconscious. You may want to consider a change in career.”

“I don’t think so. Wait, how are the Barbie dolls? Are they okay?”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Tell Rocky that I’m never doing this again. He’s either going to have to get Romina a stash of antinausea drugs for the morning sickness or find a replacement. And Lara, if Luca’s still around, I hereby authorize you to kick his ass. Although be careful, because he’ll probably interpret it as flirting. Can we please go to the hospital now? I don’t feel so good. But let’s take the back exit. I don’t want to run into anyone.”

The emergency room doctor looks at me like I’m an asylum escapee. I don’t blame her. My face is still caked with stage makeup and tears have plowed tracks down my cheeks. I feel dizzy, or drunk (although the only thing I’ve had to drink is a sip of juice that Lara forced me to suck through a straw). The hospital fixes me up a bed and admits me even though nothing is seriously wrong with me. In bed, I’m surrounded by a quadrangle of attention—Lara, Giovanna, and even Franz and Iriza, who insisted on tagging along. All this affection moves me. What more could I want? Well, for starters, I would have loved to have not noticed Luca and Erika. I wonder whose bright idea it was to come to the show.

I keep thinking about this even as the doctor examines me and asks me how I’m feeling. I respond mechanically until he asks about the play. Then I tell him that it was wonderful—even though the director’s an asshole, the costume designer can’t stop playing grab-ass with the executive producer, the lead actress had her head in a toilet half the night, and I came away with a head injury.

When the hospital releases me, Giovanna tries to persuade me to let her spend the night with me, but I want to be alone with my thoughts. I’m fine. I feel as fresh as a daisy. Or rather, a blue rose.

Franz insists on accompanying me home. He supports me as we walk to the front door of my apartment building. “Was that him?” he asks me as I dig in my purse for my keys.