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Drew/Orlando replies that he came within an hour of his promised time. I say to be even an hour late when you’ve made a promise in love’s name puts in question whether you’re truly in love. He begs my forgiveness. We banter a bit more, and then I, as Rosalind as Ganymede feigning Rosalind, ask, “What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?”
Drew pauses, and I find that I’m waiting, holding my breath, even, for his answer.
And then he replies, “I would kiss before I spoke.”
Drew’s eyes are blue, nothing like his, but for a second, it’s his dark eyes I see. Electric and charged, right before he kissed me.
I’m kind of rattled as I deliver my next lines, advising Orlando that he should speak before he kisses. We go back and forth, and when we get to the part when Orlando says he would marry me—her—I don’t know about Rosalind, but I’m feeling dizzy. Luckily, Rosalind has more grit than I do. She, as Ganymede, says, “Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.”
Then Drew says, “Then in mine own person I die.”
And then something in me just comes undone. I can’t find the right line or the right page. And I seem to have lost something else too. My grip on myself, on this place. On time. I’m not sure how much of it elapses while I stand there frozen. I hear Drew clear his throat, waiting for me to say my next line. I hear Professor Glenny shift in his chair. Drew whispers my line to me, and I repeat it and somehow manage to regain my bearings. I continue to question Orlando. Continue to ask him to prove his love. But I am no longer acting, no longer pretending.
“Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her?” I ask as Rosalind. My voice no longer sounds like mine. It is rich and resonant with emotion—full of the questions I should’ve asked back when I had the chance.
He answers, “For ever and a day.”
All the breath whooshes out of me. This is the answer that I need. Even if it doesn’t happen to be true.
I try to read the next line, but I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. I hear a roar of wind in my ears and blink to stop the words from dancing all over the page. After a few moments, I manage to choke out the next sentence, “Say ‘a day’ without the ‘ever,’” before my voice breaks.
Because Rosalind understands. Say a day without the ever. That after the one day comes heartbreak. No wonder she won’t tell him who she truly is.
I feel the hot tears in my eyes and through their veil see the class, silent, gaping at me. I drop my book to the floor and bolt toward the door. I run out into the hallway, past the classrooms, and into the ladies’ room. Crouching in a corner stall, I gulp deep breaths and listen to the hum of the fluorescent lights, trying desperately to push back against this hollowness that threatens to swallow me alive.
I have a full life. How can I be this empty? Because of one guy? Because of one day? But as I hold back my tears, I see the days before Willem. I see myself with Melanie at school, feeling all cocooned and smug, gossiping about girls we didn’t bother to get to know or, later on, on the tour, pantomiming a friendship sputtering on fumes. I see myself with my parents, at the dinner table, Mom with her ever-present calendar, scheduling dance class or SAT prep or some other enrichment activity, leafing through catalogs for a new pair of snow boots, talking at each other but not to each other. I see myself with Evan, after we slept together for the first time and he said something about how this meant we were the closest people to each other, and it had been a sweet thing to say, but it felt like something he’d gotten out of a book. Or maybe it was that I hadn’t felt it because I’d begun to suspect that we’d only gotten together because Melanie had started dating his best friend. When I’d started to cry, Evan had mistaken my tears for joy, which had only made it worse. And, yet, I’d stayed with him.
I have been empty for a long time. Long before Willem entered and exited my life so abruptly.
I’m not sure how long I’m in there before I hear the squeak of the door. Then I see Dee’s pink Ugg knockoffs under the stall.
“You in here?” he asks quietly.
“No.”
“Can I come in?”
I unlock the stall. There’s Dee, holding all my stuff.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him.
“Sorry? You were stupendous. You got a standing ovation.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my parents were coming. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I bungled everything. I don’t know how to be a friend. I don’t know how to be anything.”
“You know how to be Rosalind,” he says.
“That’s because I’m an expert faker.” I swipe a tear with my hand. “I’m so good at faking I don’t even know when I’m doing it.”
“Oh, honey, have you learned nothing from these plays? Ain’t such a line between faking and being.” He opens his arms, and I step into them. “I’m sorry too,” he says. “I might’ve overreacted a hair. I can be dramatic, in case you haven’t noticed.”
I laugh. “Really?”
Dee holds my coat, and I slip into it. “I don’t like being lied to, but I do appreciate what you tried to say to me. People have never known what to make of me—not in my neighborhood, not at high school, not here—so they’re always trying to figure it out and tell me what I am.”
“Yeah, I know something about that.”
We look at each other for a long minute. A whole lot gets said in that silence. Then Dee asks, “You wanna tell me what all that was about in there?”
