She nodded. “Don’t give an inch. She sounds like someone who will take a mile.”
“I don’t mind that what I’ve set out to do is difficult. I expected it to be so. I’m just having some early worries about it all.”
“I’d worry about you if you didn’t. You’ll know when to give up if that’s what you have to do, Emma. Remember what I said about most people having to do something else in their lives. I had ambitions, too. Although I didn’t have half the grit you do.”
“I’m far from the point where I would give up,” I said. “Although it would please my father. He’d run my life from first morning breath to closing my eyes at night if I went home defeated.”
“Have you spoken to your parents yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Your father will ease up. Time and distance put out flames,” she said.
“My father doesn’t have flames; he has hot coals.”
She laughed.
Because of my extended hours, she left way before I did. When I got to the apartment, Piper was sprawled on the sofa, a box with leftover pizza on the floor beside her. She opened her eyes.
“Jerome just left,” she said. “He wanted to do something to please you so he bought all this pizza. He suffers guilt, which makes him easy to exploit.”
“That’s terrible.” I looked around. “I see you haven’t done much to clean up after your party.”
“I’d hardly call it a party, being we were forced to keep so quiet and stifle our fun.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I left a message for you by the phone.”
“Message? From whom?”
“Whom? The casting director at the audition you attended.” She shrugged. “She said thank you, but they’ve filled the role.”
“Oh.” I was tired, exhausted, but the news, especially coming from her, seemed to drain me of my last bit of energy.
She saw it, too, and put it in terms I wouldn’t think she was capable of expressing. “You look like a kite after the wind dies down and it floats back to earth.”
“The wind always comes back,” I practically spit back at her.
She smiled. “Maybe.”
“Clean up this place,” I snapped, then scooped up the message she had scribbled and went to my room.
For a few moments, I just stood there.
And then it happened.
I had my first real cry.
SIX
She knocked softly on my door. I ignored it, but she knocked harder.
“Hey, Emma. Can I come in?”
I wiped away my tears quickly. She wasn’t someone I’d ever want to see me cry.
“Come in.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about your not getting the role. Don’t take it so hard. I’m sure you’ll get one soon.”
Coming from her, a prediction involving my future in the theater wasn’t worth the effort it took to hear it.
“Okay. Thanks.”
She lingered. I could feel what was coming. Often in life, you realize something significant and unpleasant about someone you’ve met and nevertheless in some way have to be involved with or need. The tendency at first is to ignore what you know instinctively. Avoiding the truth that’s staring you in the face is what you choose to do, but if you’re honest with yourself, you know that eventually you will regret it. Truth is a stubborn thing. It’s like a bubble in a balloon. You can push it down, but it will pop up somewhere else in the balloon. It will never go away.
Even though I was anticipating the bad news, her deft pause sent rumbles of thunder down my spine. In the short time I’d known her, I realized she was quite expert at smoothing over her own failures or coming up with excuses.
“What is it, Piper?”
“Don’t get upset, but I’m a little short on funds. They cut me back on work this month.”
“Did they cut you back, or did you miss it because of your partying?” I asked, fixing my gaze sternly on her. “I was wondering how you can sleep late so many mornings and how you can be at Jerome’s place so much when you were supposedly working.”
I paused when it came to me. It wasn’t exactly an epiphany, but it was surely a logical realization.
“They didn’t cut you back. They fired you, didn’t they?”
“Don’t bust my chops. Just tell Grandpa we’ll be a little late. He’ll let it slide.”
She started to turn to leave, as if what she had declared was a fait accompli.
“I won’t do that,” I said, turning her back around. “You never paid your half of the deposit, just the first month’s