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He laughed heartily. “I don’t know what kind of happy pills you’ve been taking, mi amigo, but keep’em coming.”
Little by little, everyone cleared out of the dressing room, leaving only Justin Baker and me.
“I know you think you’re hot shit,” he said, straightening his vest in the mirror. “But you’re just the son of the village idiot. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing with Willow.” His lip curled. “Happy pills, my ass.”
Which was bullshit. If he knew something concrete, he would’ve spilled it. I stood up, towering over him by a good three inches and holding his gaze. Then I offered him my hand. “Break a leg.”
“Fuck off, Pearce.”
I shrugged and walked out. He wasn’t worth my time. I was fucking flying on a pre-show high, or maybe it was just the exhilaration of making a plan for the future that wasn’t based on desperation and regret.
Martin called us altogether on stage in a circle, and my eyes sought Willow.
She stood across from me, stunningly gorgeous in a simple white dress, square cut across her chest to reveal the swells of her breasts. Her hair was tied in a loose braid, tendrils escaping a gold circlet on her forehead. She was perfectly Ophelia, and I was perfectly Hamlet, and onstage, we were going to destroy each other.
But offstage, our story won’t be a tragedy.
She flashed me a small smile, then looked away, her cheeks coloring.
My blood stirred. Now that I had my plan to be with her, I wanted all of her, all at once. My hands itched to touch her, to hold her, have her beneath me…
Calm the fuck down, I told myself, grateful the material of my costume trousers was thick.
Marty, in his Polonius costume of a purple robe with gold trim, gave us his usual pep talk, then led us through vocal warm-ups and breathing exercises. The tech crew had been in over the weekend loading lights and filters, the sound crew testing levels. The set was done but looked deliberately unfinished. Marty never used elaborate sets for his classic plays. He claimed he preferred keeping things simple and letting the words do the work. I knew his visions were thwarted by lack of funds. Ticket sales and concessions all went to handle rent and back taxes.
I’m going to fix that too, Marty.
An artist friend of his had painted a beautiful watercolor backdrop of Elsinore Castle. A local antique dealer donated a pair of elaborate, throne-like chairs. Everything else was easily brought off and on by a single crewmember in black, and props were minimal.
Including the love letter Hamlet wrote to Ophelia.
The props team designed the piece of parchment, tied with a red ribbon and affixed with a wax seal. Martin, always wanting things as organic as possible, had me write the words myself:
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
The words were ours now. Mine and Willow’s.
“Never doubt,” I told her, always leaving out the rest of the line. My heart crashed against my chest again because that was something left to tell her too. How I would come back and live here with her, if that’s what she wanted.
Frank called places. I waited backstage, watching the two armed guards take their places on the apron. Willow was somewhere in the dark of the opposite wing.
I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. I didn’t push away thoughts of Willow, or Justin, or my father, or anything else. I let it all in. Let my life’s experiences meld with Shakespeare’s words so I could give them life with my life.
The play began.
My scenes with Willow were exactly as Marty had envisioned: layered with pain beneath the mocking jokes and wordplay Hamlet used to confuse and outsmart everyone around him.
The love was there first…
Willow was astounding, but it was her scene toward the end of Act Four that blew the house down. When Laertes came back from Paris, ranting about avenging Polonius’s death, only to find Ophelia unraveled by madness.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
