Don't Touch (22 page)

An awkward silence falls between us. This is how my friendship with Mandy dies . . . again. Already, I feel it coming. I took the part she wanted, and now I'm too afraid to do it right. That would make me crazy if I were her.

“I want it,” I say. “Don't think I don't want to play her.”

“Caddie,” she says. “I've been wanting to ask you something. You got
so
upset at the audition. I mean, in a good way for the scene. But you seemed like you felt it so much. I wondered . . .” Mandy's almost embarrassed to ask me, “How much of it was acting and how much of it was real?”

“Isn't that what Nadia's been trying to teach us in class—that it's both? So what does it matter?” I hear the defensiveness in my own voice.

Mandy nods but doesn't look convinced. She catches one of my gloved hands and pinches my fingers between hers. “What are these really about?”

“Just for fun,” I say, wiggling my fingers.

“They won't be a part of your costume,” Mandy says. “Can you get through a rehearsal without wearing them?”

“I could if I wanted to,” I say, “but I don't.” I make a wide arc around her, past her.

I've got the horror-movie creeps that she might be right behind me, ready to grab at me, but I resist the urge to check.

I sketch in my Ophelia journal so I'll have an excuse to not look at Mandy when she follows me into rehearsal. My sketches have fallen into a theme: Ophelia, always falling, fallen, felled. Sometimes I write words around the pictures, but mostly I draw. Sometimes the emotion comes first and I sketch how it feels. Other times the drawing takes shape, and it hits me, Ophelia's sadness—that's when I feel most like her.

Right now, it's her face that pours from the tip of my pen—her uplifted face in a circle of water, soon to sink like the rest of her. I put a star overhead and write, “Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.”

Across the aisle and close to the stage, Peter and April are talking. She has class in the theater last period and, recently, she lingers. She's sitting one row behind him, but he leans over the back of his seat, talks too close for their voices to carry—until April laughs, sharp and trilling, knives tapping on crystal.

Ophelia's father is right to warn her about Hamlet. Hamlet toys with Ophelia. He swears that he loved her, but he says that only after she's died. Only after he's used her, made fun of her, abandoned her. She didn't stand a chance with him.

Ophelia should have had a good pair of gloves. I'll suggest it to Nadia.

Just Peter and Mandy and I are called for the start of rehearsal. Normally, anyone's allowed to watch, but today, Nadia tells April and our other observers to give us “privacy.”

The four of us sit in a tight circle on stage as if we're all on equal footing. “Mandy and I have been talking about some of the thoughts she brought to the audition,” Nadia says, and nods to Mandy.

“Well.” Mandy talks straight to Nadia, avoiding eye contact with Peter and me. “We were talking about how I think Ophelia and Hamlet have been pretty physical with each other. It was a good thing between them, but for a whole bunch of reasons, it couldn't survive the . . . you know, the cruelty of the world! I mean, that's pretty tragic. If they never cared about each other, then it doesn't mean anything when they lose what they had.”

Nadia nods.

I see where Mandy's going with the kiss, but it's not a direction I can follow.

“So Nadia and I talked about having a silent scene to show the physical relationship, so that, you know, it will be more clear what they're losing.”

The meanest thought occurs to me—that Mandy knows. She asked about the gloves. If she can make me feel bad enough, I'll drop out and she can take my part.

“There's the speech,” Nadia says, “where Ophelia describes Hamlet coming to her room, and he's supposed to be crazed with love. We want to improvise some physicality that we can layer over that speech, like a memory. We're inviting the audience to step inside Ophelia's mind for a moment. He'll kiss her, and the moment will be broken.”

“That's cool,” Peter says.

Kiss. He'll kiss her. He'll kiss me.

Gloves won't be an issue. I'll need a veil, a medical mask, wax lips . . .

“All right, Director, what's first?” Nadia asks Mandy.

“Um . . . let's hear Ophelia's speech,” Mandy says.

I know it by heart, but I go for my script anyway, take my time getting off the stage the proper way by the stairs, and once I reach my bag, I pretend to rifle through, touching the top of my script again and again.

“Mandy has a copy if you forgot yours,” Nadia says.

“No, I have it here. I want my own. So I can mark it up.” I take the long way back, not that the delay helps. My mind's wriggly, no one thought staying still long enough for me to form a plan.

At the lip of the stage, I pause, and Peter says, “Caddie, you okay?”

I stare inside myself. “I'm not feeling so hot.”

Mandy looks down at the stage so I can't read her face, but her body is tense. Nadia's concerned—more about my attitude than my health, I bet.

“You'll let us know if you need a break,” Nadia says. “Let's hear the speech.”

“Okay.” In my place, Mandy would be confident, eager. That's what I'll do—I'll pretend to be her. I sit up straight, shoulders back, and read about how Hamlet comes to Ophelia, half-dressed, and takes her by the wrist, touches her face, shakes her arm. Mandy's idea makes sense—even though the moment's passed, Ophelia speaks in present tense, in a panic as if it's still happening.

When I finish, Nadia says, “Good. Now, up on your feet, you two.” She and Mandy stand by the edge of the stage. Nadia takes my script, carrying away my only shield. “Take it away,” Nadia says to Mandy.

Mandy still won't make eye contact with me, but she plunges ahead with whatever plan she and Nadia have made: “Okay, so imagine you have a set amount of space between you.”

That sounds good.

“Maybe the length of a broom handle. Keep that space no matter what. Let's start with Peter leading. Caddie, it's your job to keep the distance steady. Only move when Peter moves.”

He holds my eyes and takes a single step toward me. I step back. He circles me, always keeping the distance, and I hold my ground. Then he takes two big steps forward, and I scurry back.

“Good. Now . . . try to hold her,” Mandy says.

“Crap,” I mutter under my breath, and Peter laughs. He sends me running around the stage. I'm always the one changing direction, which makes it hard to hold the distance. He gets closer, and I grab a curtain and swing it between us. Peter's arms close around me, wrapping me up in the curtain like a mummy.

Nadia and Mandy laugh, but they can't hear the rushing. A tunnel of air, empty space sucking me down. I'm falling toward Peter, and when I hit bottom, I'll drown.

“Now, Caddie,” Mandy says, sounding more sure of herself, “try pulling him. Peter, don't move any closer to her than the length of a broom, but you have to stay exactly that close. If she moves, you move with her.”

He backs away, giving me space to untangle myself from the curtain, to breathe, and when I step out, it's almost like dancing. We don't even have to look at each other to stay in sync. He senses which way I'm going and follows. It's safer this way—there's power, control, in being the one who leads.

“Now, you'll close the distance,” Mandy says. “As near as you can without touching.”

I stand still but Peter steps in toward me, breathing so close.

The same air goes in him and out of him and into me. Everything touches everything else.

“I'm going to read the lines,” Mandy says, “and I want you to mime the gestures, but don't touch her. Keep some distance.”

He runs his hand down the length of my arm, his hand at the side of my hand. And when he makes a shaking motion, I mirror it.

“Good,” Mandy says. “Now, raise your hands. And then bring them together.”

Her voice is so sneaky and soothing, I could almost pretend that it's not me here. It's Hamlet and Ophelia—action figures for Mandy and Nadia to play with—and if they want to wave us around in the air and push our plastic faces together, so be it. No big deal.

Peter closes the distance between our hands, and I sip air. The gloves make it safe—safer—but the warmth of his fingers, him, seeps through.

“Good. Close the space now,” Mandy says. “Like magnets. No space in between.”

We bend our elbows, so our arms can line up. Peter presses in close, and his chest bends toward mine. He's asking for permission with his eyes.
Is this all right? Okay?
His head tilts. His arms drop. One hand folds around my back; one hovers at my cheek.

“Stop.”

Peter freezes, then abruptly backs up, like I'm a live wire in the street, the kind they warn little children about—step back, hands up, stay away.

“What's wrong?” Nadia asks.

“I can't. I'm sorry, I can't do this.”

I'm back in my bubble, submerged, but it doesn't hurt. No gasping for breath in a bubble. No coming up for air ever, ever.

“Caddie.” She says it. One word. A sentence to stop me, but I'm not stoppable.

“I'm so, so sorry. I have to go.”

And I'm walking offstage, down the stairs, up the aisle. Mandy calls out, “Caddie, wait! Can we talk?”

When did I become this person who runs away from her friends? I'm a mess, an unstoppable mess who hurts and gets hurt, and there's no sense in trying to change that. Still, I can't help looking back at them.

Mandy stands at the edge of the stage, but she's turned her back on me.

Peter sits cross-legged, chin in his hands. He looks small.

I'm so sorry I made him look small.

I go into the restroom to pull myself together, and when I come out, I half-expect to see Mandy searching the halls for me, but instead, there's Peter. He's just left the theater, and he walks right past me. I keep thinking he'll turn and offer a smile, even a half-hearted one, but no.

“Peter, can we talk?”

When he turns, his face is polite and blank. I'm just a girl in the play. I did not, nor have I ever suggested that I'd have a problem with kissing him, or if I did, it didn't occur to him to take it personally. We are professionals, Peter and I.

“I'm not the one you should be talking to,” he says. “They asked me to leave so they could conference about you.”

“I'm sure.”

“What do you need from me?” The coldness in his voice makes my chest tight.

“Do you have a second?”

He nods, one swift gesture, eyebrows up.

“I mean, maybe we could sit down for a second and talk?” I don't like how high and anxious my voice sounds.

He adjusts his glasses. “That's going to take more than a second, Caddie.”

“Okay, so a few minutes? Please?”
Please let me make this right
.

Finally, Peter softens. “Yeah, where do you want to go?”

The halls are still busy. I realize I've pressed myself into the space between a water fountain and a locker bank. I don't even have to think about it anymore, protecting myself comes so naturally. “Somewhere away from people,” I say, and Peter nods.

“It's chilly out. We could sit in my truck.”

The idea of sitting in Peter's truck again, with only the gear shift between us, gives me two kinds of tingles. But Peter won't be reaching out for me. Peter's mad. I nod.

He turns his back on me, and I follow him down the hall and out, feeling pulled like we're still playing Nadia's game. I have to do two things: one, convince him that the way I reacted wasn't personal so Peter won't hate me; and two, convince him that the kiss is impossible. It's not in the play, so there's got to be a way around it.

Peter gives me space, several feet of space, as we walk toward his truck. We're like magnets with opposite poles. All the way down the hill to the lot, Peter speaks only once. “October's so tricky. I never know how to dress.”

I speak once back. “I know.”

When we get to the truck, Peter unlocks the passenger door first, but he doesn't hold out a hand to help me up. I use the handle to haul myself into the passenger seat and unlock the driver's-side door for Peter.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, swinging himself up and in.

It's already hard to breathe next to Peter. Once he closes the door, the cab of this truck's going to feel like the last air bubble at the bottom of the ocean.

And SLAM. We're shut in.

“Thanks for talking,” I say.

Peter nods. “You wanted to talk,” he says. “Let's not talk about talking. Let's talk.” His voice is harder, and the skin at his neck, at his cheeks, has started to flush. He's angrier than I thought. And he's struggling to keep it in check.

“If you're going to get angry, maybe we should talk later.”

“Caddie.” He turns to me with his lips set. “Are you
trying
to drive me insane? You asked to talk to me. I'm right here. Talk.”

“The scene we were doing,” I start.

“Yes?”

“It's hard for me.”

Peter shrugs, listening, but unimpressed. He says, “You're a good actress. You'll figure it out.”

“I mean the kissing.”

“Uh-huh.” He starts cleaning his glasses,
not
looking at me.

“I mean, the kissing part is hard for me because I've never actually kissed anyone.”

My heart's beating so fast, Peter might as well have his finger poised to touch my lips, my throat, as I wait for him to speak. What I said was the truth, but using this truth so he'll never kiss me makes it feel like a lie.

I want Peter to be my first kiss, I realize. I want to share that moment with him. Maybe afterward, I'll tell him that he was my first. And because he's Peter, he won't mind too much if it's painfully clear. He'll tease me and say, “We have a lot of time to practice.”