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She brushed away a few hot tears and breathed deeply. Old hurts weren’t so easy to leave behind. In the excitement and desperation to get away, perhaps it was naive to believe that only the items jotted down on her packing list would accompany her on this journey. Four days ago when she was packing in her Tallahassee bedroom, it seemed much more black and white.
One loyal companion from her old zip code was settling in just fine: Paddington Bear. As a child, Alex loved away Paddington’s fur and eyes, leaving him threadbare, so every birthday her dad gave her a new bear—until she turned six and he moved overseas. Invested with fifteen years of unconditional love, this cherished toy had comforted Alex through her parents’ traumatic split and beyond. He chilled comfortably on the futon, a paw’s reach from her bouquet of pink and yellow snapdragons, smiling their lopsided grins and lending much needed joy to the bland space.
The Sunday stillness of the abandoned flat beckoned Alex to tell a story. She hugged Paddington, burying her nose in his matted fluff. Returning the bear to her pillow, she curled up with her laptop, its keyboard letters scuffed from years of typing and its scratched case decorated with half-peeled superhero stickers. She eyed the hardcopy of her suffragette play, lying on top of her laptop bag with its cover page bent backwards. Olivia must’ve read it last night. She placed it on top of her thesaurus, opened the saved version on her laptop, and started typing.
Nine
The shower’s taps squealed, waking Alex on her first Monday morning in the flat. She turned over, dozing until a new sound assaulted her ears—the urgent stutter of Olivia’s high heels. Their sharp clickclickclick meshed with Harry’s stern voice instructing someone over his phone. He paced in the hall and then wandered out of earshot. Alex tossed the covers over her head and closed her eyes, hoping to squeeze out another twenty minutes of sleep.
The front door slammed shut. Silence. Alex waited fifteen minutes in case Tom stirred, but the flat remained still. Perhaps he never came home last night.
She wandered through the lounge and into the kitchen where Harry’s cup and tea bag, and Olivia’s lipstick-kissed mug sat abandoned near the sink. A plate of half-eaten toast smeared with strawberry jam grew cold, a lone fly plodding across its stickiness. Thai food cartons, new additions to the lingering mess from Friday, lay jumbled in the sink. How do they live like this? Alex dumped the trash into the smelly bin and loaded the dishwasher.
Still no sign of Tom. Alex grabbed a pen and scrap of paper from the counter, and scribbled a note, displaying it prominently on the kitchen table:
‘Morning, Tom! I hear you’re coming with me to the Royal Court this evening. Curtain rises at seven thirty, so I’ll meet you back here at five. Alex’
The bathroom was finally hers, the shower dousing her skin warmly this time. Bliss. Thank goodness for a late start and a replenished water heater. She missed the wake-up call of American-level water pressure, but at least her teeth didn’t chatter while lathering up today.
The cleaning lady arrived at ten o’clock in the midst of Alex’s last milky spoonful of Lucky Charms. She spoke to the middle-aged Polish woman, but the lady just smiled and nodded. Alex grinned politely, loaded her bowl and cutlery into the dishwasher, and flew out the door to tackle her to-do list. The most pressing tasks: sorting out her health care number with the National Health Service and the purchase of a new SIM card for her phone.
On route to her first errand, Alex spotted bright red letters screaming ‘Help Wanted!’ from the window of a small café on nearby Mare Street. The part-time job sounded ideal—a few hours mid-morning until after the lunch rush, leaving most of the afternoon free to write. She completed her application for the crinkly-eyed owner and flashed her brightest American customer service smile.
• • •
Alex and Tom rushed into the Royal Court Theatre just ten minutes before the play’s start. Tom couldn’t be trusted to show up on time. Next time—if there was a next time—she’d meet him at the venue and spare herself his contagious lateness. She rubbed her jaw. It still ached from clenching it tightly on the packed Tube journey.
Excited theatre patrons swarmed the lobby and streamed up the stairs from the downstairs bar. Alex envied them, soaking up the pre-theatre atmosphere, sipping drinks, and browsing the theatre’s bookstore. She purchased a program at the door and followed Tom straight to their seats, her blue flowery blouse, black knee-length skirt, and crisp beige trench coat fitting in with the dressy-casual vibe.
She gave tardy Tom the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps an audition or meeting with his agent ran long. “Hectic day racing between auditions?”
“Auditions? You’re kidding, right?” He shoved the arms of his black blazer up to his elbows and shifted his denim-clad butt back into his seat. “I was lending Harry a hand at Bespoke.”
Tom gave off a pungent whiff of alcohol as he spoke. If lending a hand meant tasting the libations on offer, then his tale was true.
Seated seven rows from the stage in the stalls, Alex’s head scanned up and down, back and forth, like a curious owl surveying new territory. Tom looked up from his phone. “You’ll give yourself whiplash craning your neck like that.”
“I can’t believe I’m here!” She clasped his forearm, giving it a shake. “The Royal Court, Tom. I’ve waited years for this moment.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re a freak. It’s just an old building.”
Alex took a break memorizing every corner, every row of the theatre and flipped through the program.
“This is crazy.” Alex pointed at a page. “This thing has every single line from the play. It’s not a program at all. It’s a proper book. They should do this on Broadway. So much better than a Playbill.”
Tom shook his head, his finger swiping up a storm on his Tinder app. “It’s a play text, Alex. It’s hardly the second coming.”
The theme to BBC’s Sherlock blared from somewhere. Alex didn’t notice, engrossed in the book’s cast bios. When the music didn’t stop, Tom elbowed her in the ribs. Whoops. She fumbled in her bag and muted the ringer, sending the call to voicemail. She didn’t want to be that person.
• • •
Alex ambled outdoors into the brisk May air, play text hugged to her chest and Sharpie in hand—tools of the fangirl trade—hoping to meet the play’s star, Amanda Abbington. She adored Amanda’s portrayals of Mary Watson in Sherlock, and Miss Mardle in Mr. Selfridge but TV roles didn’t match the magic of watching her on stage. Amanda’s live performance imbued the playwright’s words with an icy passive-aggressiveness that made the audience despise her character. The play was satirical and thought provoking, the kind of story that tumbles around in your mind for days afterwards.
Several other enthusiastic theatregoers gathered in the stage door alleyway, as did four paunchy ‘professional’ autograph hunters, equipped with binders of eight by ten publicity photos. These slimy guys—all beer guts and baseball caps—gave theatre geeks a bad name. Once signed, they’d hawk the promotional photos on eBay at exorbitant prices. Not cool. Neither was it cool to show up at the stage door when you hadn’t even seen the play. A cluster of ‘fans’ ran out of the Sloane Square Tube station and joined the queue. The theatregoers in front of Alex shook their heads and grumbled into their chests.
“Tom, when Amanda, oh…where are you?” Also not cool—Tom’s disappearing act.
Alex peered around the dark alley and couldn’t see him. A clique of pretty girls, underfed and willowy like a gang of runway models, swarmed the side entrance of the Royal Court, smoking, posing, and tossing their glossy manes. When three of the tallest members shifted, she spotted Tom ensconced in the middle of the group, bumming a cigarette and flirting. Typical.
