I gave him one last chance to follow my gaze back to his table, and when he did not, I sighed. “Fine. I am always the understudy, as I learn lines rather more quickly than is typical. I also have no interest in any of the graded tracks in class, and being on call for the actors gets me out of having to paint sets, run lights, or direct. In all, it is easy and makes me look well rounded to university gatekeepers. That, and that alone, is why I take drama.” I nodded to sell the lie but betrayed myself by clutching the script more tightly in my hands. He stared into my eyes, but I didn’t for a moment think he’d missed my gaffe. “The trainers are what I brought to wear home from school today. As you noted, the ailing actress whose place I’m taking in the rehearsal is smaller than me, and while I can stuff myself into her costume, I could not make my feet shrink three sizes to wear her slippers. Now, as to the more pressing matter—”
“Eidetic?” Sherlock asked, adding, “Your memory. It is what allows you to learn the lines.”
If I hadn’t thought it would entertain him utterly, I might have growled aloud before I answered with a curt, “Yes.”
I shouldn’t have said. He stepped toward me, some of the fire returning to his gaze—as though I were a flask of liquid that had suddenly turned an intriguing shade of scarlet. But then he narrowed his eyes, studying my face as he spoke again. “I’m not wrong about your mother. That copy of the play was hers.”
I narrowed my eyes in mocking return, but the way he spoke of my mother so freely set me on edge.
“My mother is—is dead.” I hadn’t meant to say that, exactly. But I was determined not to show him my internal surprise. Nor was I ready to hear his theories on why I kept taking drama in homage to her memory. So I leaned enticingly close to Sherlock Holmes, so close that I noticed how the blue of his eyes was the exact same shade as my own. And then I whispered, “I believe that you should go back to your tubes and burners now.”
He took in a deep breath, and I felt a trace of his exhale against my cheek as he asked, “And why is that?”
I leaned back enough to stand up straight and offered him my best smile. “Your blood is overflowing.” I spun round to leave just after I’d spoken, though I took enormous pleasure in the fading sounds of his scrambling and cursing as I walked away.
Chapter 2
Albert Einstein once said, “The monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
Gandhi said, “Monotony is the law of nature,” like the rising of the sun day after day.
I tend to side with the ladies on this subject, like Edith Wharton, who called it “the mother of all the deadly sins,” or Ana?s Nin, who, in her simple way, said, “Monotony, boredom, death.”
It’s why I carried dice in my pocket, one black and two whites. Running probabilities was an easy way to calm my thoughts, and the fall of the dice was unpredictable but straightforward, while still providing an uncomplicated backdrop for my thinking. I’m not some übergenius who feels compelled to chant equations while tromping the halls, but maths come rather easier to me than to most. I follow the path of an equation like a string through a maze. And I enjoy the puzzle of it.
Some days, like that March 4, when the idea of taking the same bus home to the same stop to the same sidewalk made me want to shriek loudly and in public, I used my dice to break the monotony. The dice gave me an excuse to try something new. And after my ridiculously irritating day, a little newness appealed.
After a late rehearsal I changed out of the gown and into jeans and a sweater, instead of my uniform. I hated wearing my uniform home; it drew the worst kind of attention. It made me approachable. Once my costume was put away, I pulled out the dice and rolled them across the dressing room counter, with a result of Black = 1, White = 1, White = 1. One chance in 216 to get a roll like that. The strangeness of it might have been an omen, if I believed that the hidden powers of the universe applied omens to dice games. Or if I believed in omens at all.
In my game, the black die told me what transport I’d take, bus for odd and tube for even, and the whites told me which bus and stop to take. Any cockeyed dice meant I’d be walking the whole way. I had to completely plan the trip in my mind before taking my first step. It was my way of memorizing my part of London. My roll meant I’d take the first bus and get off at the first stop.
Unfortunately, the first bus that came was the 27, which was the bus I would’ve taken without the game, because the first stop was less than a block and a half from home. It was literally the shortest possible commute to come from the longest of odds. So, I decided to go with the spirit of the dice rather than be ruled by them, and walked down to Gloucester Place, then didn’t cross over to Baker until Crawford. It was technically going the wrong way first, but it turned a two-minute walk into a ten-minute walk, the longest way round the block.