Then the voice of Nina cuts through all the turmoil of my head. “Desdemona.”
I lift my eyes from the screen. Every actor in the room is staring at me. I’ve missed something.
“Yes?” I say in a nearly inaudible choke, yet the word still carries perfectly in the dense silence.
“Care to join us for this scene?” Nina’s patient voice rings through the room like a spear made of ice and stinging resentment, skewering me to the spot.
I swallow hard. “Yes, of course. Sorry. Yes.”
The script drops from my fumbling hand. I shove my phone away and pick up the script off the floor, thumbing through until I get to my first scene.
“Stage left,” she dictates.
I move, taking my place at where I guess to be the approximate entrance.
“Your other left.”
“Sorry.” I walk across to the other side of the room, my every footstep slamming against my ears. I feel the weight of every pair of eyes on me. Suddenly, I catch myself wondering if Victoria’s told anyone else what she discovered. Am I being paranoid? How many people in this room know who I really am?
The rehearsal goes as rigidly and as horribly as I would have ever expected it to, regardless of mood. Every line I say is stiff and emotionless. Every place I walk to on the stage feels uncomfortable. I ask Nina to repeat her directions, feeling stupider each time I do. The cold, patient, half-lidded stare she gives me my whole time onstage makes me feel an inch tall.
Rehearsal ends at ten and I can’t pack my things fast enough. When I throw my bag over a shoulder to go, a shadow drops over me. I look up to find Eric.
“You look tense,” he notes with a grimace.
I sigh, leaning against the wall. As most everyone else has left and it’s only us and a couple of stragglers chatting at the other end of the room, I drop my bag back down on the ground and blurt out, “I suck.”
“Well …”
“I suck so much, Eric.” I let it all out, exploding with every ounce of frustration these past couple days have packed into me. “Nina hates me. Ugh.”
“Nina cast you. She doesn’t hate you.”
“And Victoria hates me. And you hate me.”
“No, no. I am not Victoria,” he tells me, wagging a finger in my face. “We are very separate people.”
“You didn’t say anything when she went off on me in front of the box office,” I point out. “I just figured you agreed with her and—”
“Victoria’s … touchy. She’s always been like that. Don’t think about her. And as for your sucking,” he goes on, “everyone sucks in rehearsal. That’s the point of rehearsal. The point is to suck. Did you even hear the Stage Manager’s twenty-thousand opening lines? He sounded like a cucumber with a mouth. So suck away, Dessie. Suck lots. Now is the time to suck.”
I try to sigh, but it turns into a chuckle. “Is that what this is, then? Our Suck?”
“Suck Town,” he agrees.
I pull my phone up to my face. Nothing. “Maybe I’m also letting a little … something else … get to me.”
“Wanna spill about boys at the Throng together?”
“Eric, I’m exhausted.”
“Me too, and I have an early morning class. But we’re still going to the Throng.”
“Ugh. We are?”
Twenty-five minutes later, Eric and I are sharing that same booth near the tiny circular stage at the Throng & Song. Being a Monday night, it’s far less noisy than it was before. The same musicians are playing—that sexy guitarist Victoria’s obsessed with and his piano sidekick—while Eric and I vent over our respective boy troubles.
“So I told him, ‘Listen, I’m not into anal,’” Eric goes on, “and he called me a ‘gay anomaly’ and said I needed to give it up or else give him up. Who the hell makes an ultimatum like that?”
“And here I am,” I say, spilling my problem at the same time he’s spilling his, “waiting on texts from him after we had an amazing night Saturday … I mean, what the hell? It went well. It ended well. And now I’m staring at my phone like some lovesick—”
“I wouldn’t put up with that for a second,” Eric spits back. “Do you even know how many guys have asked me if you’re single? Guys that I wished played for my team? You lucky bitch.”
“The only one I want is him,” I complain, mashing my face into my hands and sulking.
“Hey, you.”
The voice echoes through the room, startling Eric and I out of our conversation. I glance to the side and notice the musician staring at me, his guitar resting in his lap and the microphone bent to his mouth.