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Rachel
Then…
The theatre was once again empty.
Earlier that afternoon the theatre staff had filed in with their cold coffees and overdrawn bus passes and begun setting up for that night’s performance. The other dancers and I had arrived a couple hours before curtain call to run through stretches, practise this element or that, and devour the day’s gossip over greasy burgers and limp fries. Then it had been slapping on makeup, struggling into fishnet hose, and emptying half a bottle of hairspray into my root all while the audience and their low hum of excitement made their way to their seats. The lights went up, the burlesque show began, and the theatre rose to a standing ovation as sweat dripped down my back. There had been the usual mingling with creepy old men who wanted pictures, Midwest families who were in town for the spectacle, the all-you-can-eat buffets, and the runaway girls who wanted to be just like me (the poor things). Drinks with the girls backstage. Lifting up our glasses and bottles for the cleaning crew. Goodnights all around.
And just like that it was over. The theatre was once again empty.
Empty save for Mason and me.
We sat across from each other cross-legged on the stage, our bare, dirty toes pressed up against one another’s. Only the low half circle of lights that ringed the outer edge of the stage were on, but the old wooden floor still kept some of the heat from those big, blinding spotlights. It reminded me of the beach. Of the sand. Of long afternoons with nothing to do but lie there and soak up the sun.
“What do you think of a seaside wedding?” I asked Mason before plopping a dumpling into my mouth.
After the show Mason had arrived with a horde of food for us. Takeout from half the Asian places on the strip. Doggie bags from his hotel’s complimentary breakfast: muffins and assorted fruits and cold pancakes sticky with maple syrup. He’d brought baguettes and wine, half of McDonald’s menu, Frosties from Wendy’s, a steak and pomme frites from one of the nicer steak houses in Vegas, a vegan lentil curry, what I was certain was a trough of fettuccini alfredo, and a stack of pizza boxes, each with two different topping combinations. He’d practically needed one of those carts hotels use for luggage to haul it all in. When I’d asked him why all the food, he just shrugged and said he didn’t know what I liked. I told him the answer was all. All of it.
Mason picked a pineapple piece off a slice of pizza with a turned-up face. I snatched it from him with a roll of my eyes as he said, “You’re not going to make me wear khakis, are you?”
Mason had brought the world of food to my stage, but he hadn’t brought much in the way of glassware. I sipped my rose from a mug I’d snatched from the gift shop with a picture of yours truly pasted across it.
“Khakis and bow ties, obviously. Seersucker, I think,” I said. “And I’m going to have twelve bridesmaids and they’re all going to wear the same beige-coloured dresses that wash them out.”
From the end of wooden chopsticks, Mason wrangled a dumpling into the little plastic cup of sweet and sour sauce. “Sounds horrible.”
I wiggled my toes against his and he looked across at me with a grin.
“Well, what do you think then?” I asked. “What kind of wedding should we have?”
“A drunken one,” Mason replied.
I dipped low, as if in a bow and said, “Naturally.”
We clinked our stolen mugs together, cheap wine spilling out over the sides and dripping onto our half-finished steak. We continued in silence for a little while. It was all just for fun, really. Us talking about silly things like marriage and weddings. I mean, the whole situation was ridiculous when you thought about it.If I was out there in the audience right now, looking onto the stage, this is what I would see:
A little runaway trailer park girl dressed up as a burlesque dancer. An Irish stranger. Tattoos. Big muscles. Sharp green eyes. A man pretending his home isn’t far away. His life isn’t far away. Way too much fucking food between them. Way too much fucking unknown between them. A nice little dream. A sweet little moment. A snapshot. Not a forever. Just a now.
And yet, as I was staring out at the dark folded-up seats, row after row, and imagining that person out there, seeing us, seeing the truth about us up there on that stage, Mason dipped his finger into the Frosty and said, “I’d marry you just about anywhere.”
I turned to him in surprise. We’d been playing around, but Mason didn’t sound like he was playing around anymore. I laughed because what the fuck else was I supposed to do? We’d danced around something real, Mason and I. Something lasting. Something forever. But it was a fire neither of us was willing to walk across. Afraid to get burned, I guess. What else was new?
I held up the finger where I’d apparently had a candy ring. I’d scrubbed at it, but still some faint colour remained. I wiggled it at him. “We can go to the Little White Chapel right now.”
Mason smiled and ducked his eyes before replying, “I’d do it, you know.”
I bit my lip. Hesitant. There was that fire again. There we were dancing around it. Or maybe it was just me who was avoiding its heat. Maybe Mason had walked right through it and was already on the other side. Waiting for me.
The tone of his voice frightened me a little. The sincerity. The earnestness. I mean, for God’s sake, we’d just met. And half the time we’d shared together, as wonderful and thrilling and fucking hot as it had been, we couldn’t even remember! Or at least I couldn’t. God knows what insanity we’d gotten into. But none of that meant it was anything more than a fantasy to think we could stay together. Be together. None of that except Mason’s voice. Right there. On that stage. His words soft as he circled his finger round the lip of his mug.
A part of me wanted to say, “Fuck it.” A part of me wanted to stand up. Shake off the crumbs from all the food. Extend a hand down to Mason. Tell him it was time to put his money where his mouth was. A part of me wanted to go do what all those couples on the lash do when in Vegas: find an Elvis, squint an eye closed to make the signature line on the marriage certificate stop spinning all around the page, slur some vows, and get fucking hitched. A part of me wanted to give a big ol’ middle finger to that faceless person out there in the audience watching. To yell at him or her. To scream. To scream, “We can make it, you know?! This can be real! We can be more than play pretend! This, this can be us! Forever! Forever!”
But I was afraid.
I’d always been afraid.
So I said to Mason, “I’d be a damned good wife, you know?”
He raised an intrigued eyebrow over a bite of a Big Mac, sauce dripping down his chin.
