I started to laugh, too, but my smile faded as Tara’s mother took a moment to glare at me before disappearing into the darkness.
“This is the problem,” I said, gesturing at the theater door. “Why I have to get out of here.”
He looked over his shoulder, but mother and daughter were already gone. “What’s the big deal? You and Hamlet are stopped all the time.”
“Since the wedding and the party pictures, it’s different. And no matter what strangers say to me, I have to be nice because otherwise my rudeness will end up being the new buzz.”
“That girl was sweet.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be anyone’s role model… or their cautionary tale, for that matter.” My stomach sank at the thought of daughters being warned not to be like me. “I just wanted to argue with you in peace.”
He half smiled. “It’s peaceful now. Argue away.”
I looked down and shook my head. “I’m going inside.”
“If you hate it so much, why are you here?”
I scanned the lobby. People were starting to trickle into the theater, so I lowered my voice. “My dad told me I had to come see this show. Gertrude and Claudius are coming. Gertrude wants to placate Hamlet by having a big crowd for this show he’s put together, and Claudius doesn’t want his wife to be anywhere near Hamlet unaccompanied. And Claudius told my dad it’s a command performance for everyone. So, according to my dad, even though Hamlet hates me, ‘everyone’ means I attend, too. And until I’m ready to make a clean break from this place, I’m going to play the dutiful daughter. My father’s barely talking to me as it is.”
“Help me understand why you did what you did. I can’t imagine a reason big enough that you’d hurt Hamlet like that.”
“I was embarrassed, Horatio. I’m eighteen, for Christ’s sake. What other eighteen-year-old has a sex tape floating out there?” I paused. “Maybe there are some, but I never thought it would happen to me. I didn’t want everyone—Everything that’s happened helped me see how much I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want him anymore.”
He furrowed his brow and studied me. “I don’t believe you.”
I sighed and felt a lump forming in my throat. “Okay.”
I wouldn’t have believed me, either. It had been a tumultuous few years, and Horatio had been close enough to know that Hamlet and I always ended up together in the end. For some reason, we couldn’t help ourselves. Yet Horatio wasn’t in my head. He couldn’t know the shift I felt. He couldn’t know that I was convinced that this time I meant it. At least, I thought I did.
Strangers and friends were milling around the lobby, some blatantly watching us, some pretending not to. He suggested quietly, “Let’s go in. It should be a laugh at least.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
We started walking toward the ornately carved double doors that lead into the elegant theater, but Hamlet came up the stairs, so Horatio changed course. Hamlet said hi to Horatio while eyeing me hatefully. Unable to stand his gaze, I went inside and sat alone, hoping to slip away at some point.
The audience buzzed around me, and I pretended to lose myself in studying my surroundings. Carved cherubs danced around the proscenium arch, and in the middle of the painted oval ceiling, flights of angels sang a sleeping baby to rest. Molded crowns jutted out between the boxes, and banners hung floor to ceiling on each side of the stage. So much care had been taken to decorate a room that remained dark for most of its existence.
Horatio and Hamlet entered together and stood under the box seats talking for a few minutes while Gertrude and Claudius sat up front at Hamlet’s instruction.
Claudius called out, “Dear Hamlet—note I did not call you ‘son’—how are you?”
“Great, though things seem to change so quickly around here. Who knows how I’ll be in a minute? But being with you makes everything better, doesn’t it? Just ask my mother. Or my father. Oh, right, you can’t because of what you did.”
Claudius looked at Gertrude, then back at Hamlet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hamlet smiled with angry eyes. “Me neither.”
“Dearest,” called out Gertrude with her sweet manipulation, “come sit with me.”
“No, Mother, here’s someone more attractive.” He acted as if I were a magnet and, against his will, he was being pulled to me. His comment would have stung Gertrude for a variety of reasons, and he knew it. First, he