Beautiful Monster 2(3)

 
“It kind of is, if you continue to tease me like that,” he replied. “Are you ready for your last show?”
 
“I guess. How exactly does one end something they’ve been doing for 3 months? I am ready to come home, though. I miss you a lot.”
 
“I miss you too,” he said softly, his voice full of emotion which told me how much he meant it. “Have you booked your train ticket yet?”
 
“No, not yet,” I admitted. “But the trains run all day long, so I’ll just jump on the first one as soon as I wake up.”
 
“Ok, give me a call when you know. We’ll have a good meal and… evening…” he said provocatively, which made me laugh. All I wanted to do was be snuggled in his arms after months apart. True, we had our little visits here and there, but it wasn’t enough.
 
“Alright.” I told him I loved him and then hung up. It was just in time, because a knock came at my door.
 
“AMY!”
 
“Jesus,” I said, throwing the phone on the bed and checking myself to make sure I was decent. Throwing open the door, I found Drago standing there.
 
A transplant from Russia, Drago was our fight director. He had an explosive career, having worked with some of the top names. He was incredibly young and moving up the ranks. But a shattered leg from a car accident had left Drago unable to perform on demand anymore. Luckily, by then he already had quite a name for himself, and so people hired him as a stunt coordinator, ignoring his limp.
 
We had hit it off immediately when I told him my father was a chef and that was my backup career. A foodie himself, our game was to get each other to try the strangest food in town. Our bond became closer when he revealed he was also leaving the Gatsby Tour, two weeks after me, to work on a production that was staged not two miles from Leopard Academy. I was excited to find someone who shared my feelings of excitement, and sadness at leaving.
 
Today, he carried a brown bag, unmarked.
 
“What’s that?”
 
“Goat’s tongue wrapped in duck and fried in olive oil.”
 
“Oh,” I said, holding open the door to let him in. This was a normal conversation between us. “Ok.”
 
He burst in, heading straight to the table which contained small tea saucers. Deeming then good enough for his purpose, he opened the bag, pulled out a plastic knife and container, and divided up the food.
 
“Found it in a little back alley place. They were called ‘Waste not.’ They claimed to eat every part of the goat and not waste anything.”
 
“Uh…” I was adventurous when it came to food, but I could think of several parts of the goat that I did not want to eat. “Is that what you spent the night doing? Thinking up ways to give me food poisoning?”
 
“Well, now that your replacement is a day away, I thought we’d be safe.” He grinned at me, sitting on the bed, his injured leg extended out in front of him. I gingerly picked up the plate that he had left and bit in.
 
“Isn’t it weird?” he asked, changing the subject. “Going back to school after doing a professional show? It’s kind of… counterproductive…”
 
I shrugged. “I don’t know what weird is because I don’t have a normal life either. A year ago, I was a homeschooled sheltered kid whose acting experience consisted of performing for her stuffed animals that were probably bored out of their minds too. And then all of a sudden, I’m the scholarship winner, and I get this part, which most people can’t even dream of, and now I’m going into graduate studies at the school I spent my whole life drooling over.”
 
“And dating a Hollywood heartthrob,” Drago pointed out.
 
“There is that.” I grinned.
 
He smirked at me. “It’s so weird. You’re leaving today, but everyone is acting like it’s a normal day.”
 
“Well, it is a normal day for everyone else. No one is going to notice that the chorus girl is leaving, really.”
 
“I’ll notice,” he said.
 
I shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ll see you soon.”
 
“My only salvation…” He finished his food and put the plate on the table for the maid to clean up. “…in between then and now is that I have to redo the choreography.”
 
“Why?”
 
“Because the next 3 theaters we are going to are smaller, so we can’t fit five backflips in a row for the Gatsby dancers.” He stretched his leg, wincing. “I’m getting too old for this.”