“Don’t say that till you hear it,” I tell him, and they all laugh like I’m kidding, but I’m not joking at all. I’ve never performed a completely original song for anyone before, and I’m even more nervous than I usually am when I sing other people’s work. I sit down at the piano in the orchestra pit, shake out my hands, and try not to care how my voice sounds—the notes and the words are what matter, not the way I execute them. I tell myself this is just like the night Russell and I wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dreamgirls. Maybe I can’t imbue other people’s music with new life the way the rest of the apprentices can. But I can create something out of nothing, and that’s even better.
My eyes scan the auditorium for Zoe, and I find her on the other side of the room, changing her shoes and getting ready to go to dinner with some of the other actors. There are so many things I want to say to her, and I’m not brave enough to say any of them face to face. But if she hears my song, maybe she’ll at least know how upset I am that I couldn’t be everything she wanted me to be. I better play it now, before she leaves.
“Brooklyn?” Alex says. “Are you ready?”
I send the universe an image of my lyrics working magic on Zoe, softening her and healing the huge rift between us. And then I start to play, singing the words loudly enough that she can hear my imperfect voice all the way across the room.
I know that I have failed you, though I promise you I tried.
I should’ve had tomorrow and tomorrow by your side.
I thought you’d always be my braver half, my champion and my friend,
and my love, my sweet love,
I’m not ready for the end.
I wish we could go backward to the way things were before.
I should’ve stilled your quick, ambitious hands before they dripped with gore.
The crowd loved Duncan, I loved you. How will we ever mend?
Oh my love, my sweet love,
I’m not ready for the end.
Forgive me, please; I loved you in the best way I knew how.
I know it wasn’t good enough; it doesn’t help you now.
I thought that we were happy, but you had to have the throne,
and once you did, it drove you mad, and now I am alone….
Life’s but a walking shadow now that your brief candle’s out.
It seems bizarre that I’m still here, still stumbling about.
When your mind consumes you from within, there’s no way to defend,
and my love, my sweet love,
I’m not ready for the end,
no, I’m not ready for the end.
When I finish, Russell and Alex applaud, and I force myself to look up at them instead of at Zoe. “I really love it,” Russell gushes. “You did an awesome job.” It’s possible he’s saying that only because he knows what a terrible day I’m having, but his smile looks sincere.
“Yeah, it’s a really good start, Brooklyn,” Alex says. “Maybe a tad maudlin, but we can fix that. Can you teach it to the pianist and Macbeth tomorrow, after we iron out some of the kinks?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Excellent. Really good work.”
But I can’t even hear the praise, because I’m watching Zoe walk up the aisle and out the far door, chatting with her friends like I haven’t bared my soul to her. My music used to impress her so much, but now, when it matters most, she didn’t even bother to listen. It’s not like I expected her to rush up onstage and tell me she was wrong about everything, but I didn’t expect her to ignore me completely, either.
She doesn’t look back as the door closes heavily behind her, and I feel something slam shut inside me, too.
I expect that the pain of seeing Zoe at rehearsal every day will lessen as time passes, but it doesn’t, not even a little. Now that she’s unattainable, everything about her fascinates me again—her boisterous laugh, the inflections of her speech, the way she sings and does her eye makeup and acts like other people’s personal space is nothing more than a friendly suggestion. Little by little, her stuff disappears from our room, and it depresses me to imagine her dresses in someone else’s closet and her towel hanging on the back of someone else’s door. I only meant to cool things off with her, not end them completely, and the way she’s carved me out of her life is heartbreaking. A few days ago, I was the first person she saw when she opened her eyes in the morning and the last one she talked to before she went to sleep. Now I don’t even know where she’s living.
The stupid, ironic thing is that the moment I’ve stopped being able to enjoy it, everything else at Allerdale is finally going well for me. I feel like an important part of the company, I have plenty of people to hang out with, and the show is coming together beautifully. By the time Thursday night rolls around and it’s time to tell my parents they shouldn’t bother to come upstate because I’m “too sick to perform,” part of me regrets that they won’t see what I’ve created. If only they had different ideas about what constitutes important work, they might actually be proud of me.
I call home during the intermission of our dress rehearsal, and as the phone rings, I prepare to make my voice sound hoarse and phlegmy. But when my mom picks up, she doesn’t let me get a word out before she starts talking. “Brookie! I’m so glad you called. I have the best news! We ran into Kristen Viorst at a benefit earlier this week, and I convinced her to come up to Allerdale with us to see you perform tomorrow!”