Playing With Her Heart (24 page)

She holds up her thumb
and forefinger. “Just a tiny bit?”

I run a hand through my
hair. “Just annoyed. In general,” I admit. “But I’m not
anymore.” I pat the edge of the stage. “Come here.”

She hops up on the
stage and sits next to me. She fidgets with the cuffs on her sweater.
Rolling them up. Pushing them down. “I was worried all day.”

“You were?” There’s
a part of me that’s glad she felt that way, though I know that
makes me seem cruel. But it gives me a flicker of hope that maybe
this isn’t a one-way street.

“I don’t want you
to be mad at me and think things with Patrick…” she says, but she
doesn’t finish the thought.

I want to ask if she’s
still in love with him. I want to know if he’s still on her mind
all the time. But I also know I can’t handle the answer if it’s
yes. I can’t keep going there.

“Jill, if you have a
chance to act in a film when your contract is up, and that’s what
you want, you should pursue it. Even if it’s with him,” I say,
focusing on the professional side of things, though it takes every
ounce of my strength to get those words out without sounding like a
jerk.

“Can I ask you a
question? Why are you so nice to him? I know how you really feel
about him. But you’re always so nice to him, like this morning in
the hallway.”

“Because that’s
what he needs to perform,” I say, as if the answer is obvious. But
it’s only obvious to me, because this is the way I work. This is
the way I manage actors to get the best from them. “I know Patrick.
I’ve worked with him. He’s one of those people who was born
skipping, and he’s an amazing talent, and he needs to be happy all
the time. That’s what he needs to give the best performances. And
that’s what I want.”

“The best
performance?” She raises an eyebrow, as if she’s considering this
for the first time.

“Yes. Of course I
want the best performance. Nothing less.”

“So why did you tell
Alexis that day at the studio that she was your Ava?”

“You heard me say
that?”

She nods.

“Because that’s
what
she
needs.” I run my index finger along her face. Her
skin is so soft, and it’s impossible not to touch her. A soft sigh
escapes her lips.

“So you give her what
she needs?”

“Look,” I say
firmly. “Alexis needs to feel as if she’s the center of the
universe. That’s how she gives the best performance that her fans
love. But even though I told her she was meant to play Ava, that
doesn’t change that you’re the one I wanted
more
for the
part. But that’s what I had to tell her to get her to deliver for
me.”

“So you play us all?”

I give her a look as if
she can’t be serious. “Is that what you think I’m doing to
you?”

Jill

I shake my head.
Because I don’t want to think he’d do that. I can’t even
contemplate that he’d toy with me. So I won’t believe it.

“Jill, you have to
know I’m not playing you,” he says in his cool and controlled
voice. He’s the consummate pro now. The man who wins awards, and
rains money down on the show’s backers. He’s not talking to me as
a lover. He’s talking to me as a director. “But this is how I
work, and every actor needs something different.”

“What do I need then?
As an actress?” I want to know how he categorizes me. He’s
brilliant at his job, and I want to understand how he does it. How he
knows what we need. How he makes us give it to him. How he drives us to work harder for him.

“You,” he says, and
he stares out at the audience, as if he’s finding the answer there
in the vast expanse of empty chairs. In the row after row of red
upholstered seats that will creak and groan with theatergoers in two
more weeks. With patrons who will never know the blood, sweat and
tears that were shed on the path to opening night, but will hopefully
fall in love with the artifice that seems real. “You need someone
to see you. To know you. To understand you. That’s what makes you
so good in this role. Ava needs so many of the same things, and
that’s why you connect with her character.”

I am reminded of the
day he told me the news. Of the time we had drinks and talked about
what he saw in me when I played Eponine. Maybe it sounds vain, maybe
it sounds egotistical, but it thrills me deep in my heart and soul to
know that he admires my talent. That he thinks I have talent. That he
thinks I’m more than good enough. This is what I’ve always
wanted, to be able to move people with a performance. I want him to
know that. I swivel around so I’m sitting cross-legged and I take
his hand in mine. “It means the world to me that you gave me this
chance. You know that right?”

“Of course I know
that,” he says in a calloused voice that surprises me. Maybe he’d
rather not hear how much I admire his work. Maybe what he wants from
me right now is something I’m not sure how to give.

“Now let’s get to
work because if I spend all night talking to you, we’ll never get
this show ready. I want to work on the scene where Paolo finally
breaks down Ava. Where he gets her to open up to him and admit all
her truths about being alone her whole life and he helps her make the
best art.”

Breaks down Ava.
Those words reverberate in my head. Paolo breaks down Ava, and
there’s a voice inside me, a quiet little voice that’s asking if
Davis is doing the same to me. If that’s how he’s getting what he
needs from this actress.

But maybe I want to be
broken down too.

* * *

We are oddly silent as
we pack up three hours later. I grab my coat and my purse and he
gathers his phone and his notes, and the silence between us is full
of unsaid things. As if neither one of us knows what happens next. Do
we go our separate ways or do we find a way to reconnect when we
leave the theater together? I want to say something, to ask a
question, to make a joke. But I don’t know where to start. I don’t
know what’s happening with us.

Then my stomach growls
loudly as if it’s an ornery creature begging for food, and he
laughs deeply. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh like
this, the kind of laugh that takes over your body.

“Do I need to feed
you?” he says in that playful way he has, and I can’t help but
smile and crack up too.

“Evidently, I could
really go for a burger and fries. Would you care to take me out on
another date?”

His eyes light up, and
whatever sadness filled the day is wiped out in that grumbling sound.
I’d like to send a thank you note to my hungry belly for giving me
a reason to spend more time with him. Time away from the play. “Yes.”

At the diner, we talk
more and I ask him questions about all the shows he’s done and he
tells me about his productions, sharing stories and anecdotes. I love
hearing him talk about what he loves, and as he does, I realize I
haven’t thought about Patrick in a long, long time. Not the way I
used to. I haven’t lingered on images of Patrick’s face. I
haven’t sought him out like he’s the balm for my strung-out
heart. I haven’t needed him as a drug anymore.

A wave of understanding
smacks me hard. That’s what Patrick has been. A drug. A good drug,
a gentle drug. But a drug nonetheless.

And I hardly need my
fix anymore. Because of this man here with me.
This man
is
changing me.

And I don’t know what
the hell to do next.

“What are you
thinking?” he asks, as he bends his head to kiss my neck. A soft
kiss. A sweet kiss.

That you make me
feel all sorts of things. That everything with you scares the hell
out of me. That I don’t know how to hide or pretend this isn’t
happening anymore.

“That these fries are
awesome. Did you know they’re my favorite food?”

“Ah. You say that as
if you let me in on your darkest secret. But I suspect that’s not
what you were thinking.”

“Chinese food is
actually my favorite. Cold sesame noodles,” I say, then I look away
and he pets my hair. “But, that’s not what I was thinking.”

“What were you
thinking about?”

I can’t tell him my
darkest secret. I can’t tell him all that I’m feeling. I’m not
even sure what this is, or what it could be. But I manage one small
step.

“You,” I whisper,
and he leans his forehead against mine, sighing deeply as I trace the
ends of his hair with my fingers. “I was thinking about you. I
think about you all the time,” I say, and the admission terrifies
me, but it also makes me feel lighter. Like I can start to have all
the things I’ve denied myself. All the real things.

“You do?”

“Yes. So much it
scares me,” I say, and my throat hitches, but I keep it together.

“It’s okay to be
scared. It’s okay to feel,” he says in a soft, tender voice. It’s
such a contrast to how he spoke to me back at the theater.

I pull back and look at
him, seeing him in a newer light than I always have. He’s always
been heart-stoppingly gorgeous with his dark hair, ink blue eyes, and
strong jawline. But he’s beautiful in a different way now. Because
I know who he is, beyond the man in the second row of the St. James
Theater who called me in for the chance of a lifetime. That chance
still exists though, and I need to protect it. “We still have to be
careful at the event this weekend, okay? I don’t want people to
talk about me. We can’t arrive together, and we can’t leave
together.”

“Can I get you a
dress though?” He looks so hopeful, like he’s been dying to do
this for me.

“You don’t have to
do that. I can find something to wear.”

“I know you
can
,
Jill. I know you’re perfectly capable of doing everything on your
own. And I know I don’t have to. But I
want
to do something
special for you.”

“Then I would love to
see what you choose for me. But there’s something I have to do
first before I go with you.”

“What’s that?”

I tell him what I need
to do, and I think I might have made him the happiest I’ve ever
seen him. Then he smothers me in a kiss that makes me forget we are
in a public place. But there’s a part of me that no longer cares.

Jill

When I first saw
Patrick perform in
Guys and Dolls
, it was exactly six months
after Aaron’s final letter. Six months after his death. Six months
of nothing but my own unflinching blackness, my relentless disgust
over what I’d done. After he died, I made it through each day by
going through the motions. By waking up and running. By going to
school and running. By eating dinner and running. I’m sure my
family thought they knew why I was wrecked. But they didn’t know
the half of it. I mastered running when I was younger, and it was
because I tried to run off all the things I could have done
differently. To run away from the things I couldn’t stop.

But then I made a
choice. To keep going. To keep living. To move forward. And I did it
when I saw
Guys and Dolls
. Maybe it’s weird in some ways
that a musical would jolt me out of the pain. But maybe it’s not
weird, because theater was always my true heart, my unfettered joy
that couldn’t be touched by anyone. That could never be tainted,
never be harmed. There I was, at the Gershwin Theater in the balcony,
and the overture began, and I was transported, out of my world, and
into a better one. The kind that only illusion, only artifice can
bring. It wasn’t so much the role that Patrick played, but it was
how he’d done it. How he took over, saving the show on such short
notice. From his golden boy looks, to his save-the-day talent, I
imagined him to be everything I ever wanted, and when he stepped onto
the stage after only forty-eight hours of rehearsal, seamlessly
becoming someone else as I so longed to do, I suspended disbelief.
Because I needed something desperately. I needed something that was
pure joy, pure goodness in my life, something I couldn’t ruin. So I
latched onto him. To the possibility of a love that wouldn’t wound
me, consume me, and ruin me.

More importantly, the
kind of love that wouldn’t ruin someone else.

Love without pain. Love
without fear. The kind that only exists from afar.

I held onto him for the
next six years. He became the brace that stabilized my foundation for
all that time. Because I suspended disbelief not only for one night
at the theater, but for the next six years of my life. Then when I
met him, he seemed to be everything I always thought he would
be—kind, nurturing, and most of all, so very happy.

Now I no longer need
him. So I don’t even look at Aaron’s letter when I return from my
run the next morning, get ready for rehearsal and head to the
theater. I don’t look at his last note to me because I don’t need
to put my finger in the flame any more. I simply march forward.

Even though my feet
feel like cinder blocks when I reach the stage door. My stomach
twists with nerves as I walk up the steps, because I’m ending six
years of imaginary love. But it’s just the fear of letting go of my
crutch. Of stepping out on my two feet again, and learning how to
walk without help.

Somehow I make it down
the carpeted hallway and stop in front of his dressing room. The door
is ajar, and I hear music playing. The Black-Eyed Peas “I Gotta
Feeling.” My lips curve into a closed-mouth grin, because this is
Patrick. He’s the happy guy. He needs to be in a good mood all the
time, and he’s listening to one of the poppiest numbers in recent
years to get himself there.

Just do it.

I take a deep breath
and knock. He leans back, taps out a few beats on the wooden arms of
the chair, and waves me in. “Jill! Come in.”

I try to excise the
feeling of walking the plank. But this is Patrick. Patrick won’t
hurt. Patrick won’t be ruined. We only went out twice.