Between You & Me - By Marisa Calin Page 0,37
looks more like a shutter. I take the paintbrush back and sweep a thin streak across your cheek.
ME
Thanks, I was just getting to that!
I turn away triumphantly. Greeted by too long a silence, I peer back at you. You’ve pressed your entire palm into my palette of paint and are coming toward me. Shrieking, I run for it.
THEATER COURTYARD. AFTERNOON. THE NEXT DAY.
The rehearsal schedule for today lists my scene with Gabe near the end of play. Mia and I are alone, waiting in the theater courtyard. We’re here under the sky because the scene is outdoors and Mia says we should rehearse in an open space. We’re sitting on the wall beneath the arch. Gabe is fifteen minutes late. She looks over her shoulder for him, and I watch the tendons spring in her graceful neck. She hops down off the wall.
MIA
Well, as you’ve taken the time to be here, let’s rehearse.
I look at her, filled with nerves. The sun has come out between the treetops behind her, giving her a halo-like glow. I stand up and we move beneath the evergreen laurel trees lining the path. The undersides of the leaves are so peaceful, pale and vulnerable like the belly of a tortoise.
Standing face-to-face in the dappled light, we are closer together than ever before. I can see her necklace at her open collar. I have never seen it this close and she notices me looking.
MIA
Cassiopeia.
I meet her eyes.
My necklace.
She clasps it delicately between finger and thumb, and I feel the thrill of being let in on something personal.
ME
Where did you get it?
MIA
It was a gift.
She doesn’t say who from, but I’m guessing boyfriend. I step even closer.
ME
Can I see?
She nods and raises her chin. She lets go before I have the necklace properly between my fingers, giving me the chance to lift it gently from the notch in her collarbone where it falls. I realize with a quickening pulse that it’s the first time I’ve touched her. I tilt the tiny constellation to look at it in the sunlight, a delicate twist of silver.
MIA
She was beautiful and vain, Cassiopeia.
ME
So nothing like you. I mean, not vain.
Help. I think I just called her beautiful!
MIA
Nothing like me—
—She smiles.
I wear it as a reminder that vanity can be a downfall.
I nod my head wisely, then speak entirely without thinking.
ME
I have a Cassiopeia in freckles.
MIA
You do?
I’m still holding her necklace so she can’t move away but she doesn’t seem to mind. My skin is mostly clear so I’ve always thought it funny that five freckles should arrange themselves exactly like a constellation. I come to my senses and let the necklace rest back against her neck.
MIA
Can I see?
I hesitate, wondering why in the world I mentioned it.
ME
Oh, it’s on my body—I mean, not immediately visible.
Left to the imagination it’s just sounding worse so I realize it’s probably better to show her. I carefully lift my shirt—hoping my slim-cut jeans are doing me justice—and on my left side is the small and exact replica of the “W.” She looks closer.
MIA
That’s amazing. Perfect alignment!
She can’t see my nod as her face is inches from my body.
ME
Best yet, I don’t need a necklace to be reminded of the perils of vanity.
She laughs, and I almost stop breathing. I’m so aware of her. Can she feel how aware I am? She has to. I can almost see the tentacles of blue electricity flaring off my body and reaching for her, like the globes in science. She straightens up, still smiling, and it takes me a second to realize I haven’t let go of my shirt. Now I’m just voluntarily holding it in the air! I quickly smooth it back into place, feeling ridiculous. I fill the millisecond of silence.
ME
So there we go!
She brings us coolly back to the play with a comment about Lily’s vanity masking her insecurity, and we run through the scene. Mia turns to me thoughtfully at the end.
MIA
What’s she really saying here?
My senses are working overtime, I can feel everything. The ground beneath my feet. Gravity. The breeze. The sun filtering through the trees. Mia’s gaze.
ME
She’s trying to give the impression that she doesn’t have feelings for him. She’d never want him to know. I’m not sure she even fully admits it to herself. But there’s a part of her that has to accept it. She loves him, and she wishes she could take a chance, that he feels it too.
She smiles.
MIA
Good. So, say the lines as if you want him