Read My Lips(77)

Twice my wet hand slips on the handle before the damn thing lets me inside. Then, once my feet meet the tiled entrance, I nearly slip, catching myself on the trunk of a fake plant near the door. I don’t bother glancing at the lobby to see if anyone witnessed; I just rush ahead, pushing through a crowd of freshmen who look like they’re waiting out the storm before heading to their next class.

I make a quick trip to the restroom, using some paper towels to dry off my hair and shirt as best as I can. It doesn’t matter how I present myself. I know the outcome of this meeting is going to be the same no matter which way my hair’s falling.

I fight an urge to punch the reflection in the mirror. My knuckle’s bled enough today.

The office is eerily empty. I see Dr. Thwaite’s door is open, so I let myself in. He sits at his desk, an older woman in a chair by his side laughing. When the pair of them look up, the laughter ceases.

I’m ready.

Dr. Thwaite gestures toward a free chair in front of his desk. I take my seat and stare at him. Then, as he begins to speak, the woman at his side moves her hands. Oh, she’s the interpreter.

I’m back in high school again, meeting with the principal because of another not-so-innocent kid I beat up, an interpreter seated by the desk, and my sad, irritated parents sitting across from them.

But there are no parents here. Just me, the Doc, and some woman I’ve never met, an interpreter who is not about to get banged in a supply closet after this meeting’s over.

The woman signs his words: Thanks for dropping by on such short notice. We’ve had a situation arise. Kellen has had an emergency. He let me know through an apologetic email, and he’s returning to New York at once.

I swallow hard, my eyes reeled in on the woman’s long, wrinkled hands with the intensity of a hawk.

The woman goes on: I know the lighting work is mostly finished, but there are still details to iron out before opening night. You are the most intimate with Kellen’s design. Is it possible for you to finish it on your own, because of Kellen’s untimely and sudden departure?

I feel sweat all over my forehead. My breath is so heavy, every effort at filling my lungs is exhausting. The room spins around me. Am I the butt of some joke right now? Is Kellen fucking with my head?

The woman prompts me again: Clayton? Are you able to? If it is too much work, Dick can easily do it on his own. I simply wanted to extend the opportunity to you.

“Yes,” I finally say, out of breath. “Yes. Thank you for the chance,” I say to the woman’s hands without being able to look Doctor Thwaite in the eyes. I feel like if he saw them, he’d somehow know the truth.

The woman smiles. Good, she signs.

I stagger out of the office twenty minutes later after he covers all the details, which basically adds about six to eight more hours this week of work at the theater, which I am more than willing to do, considering I thought, after the incident, that I’d be spending exactly zero more hours at the theater.

I take some time to calm down by the side door where the smokers live in a permanent cloud of smoke around that Arnie dude who always seems to be out here. It’s on a bench outside that side door that I stare at my hands and try to make sense out of what happened.

Did Kellen literally just pack up his things and go?

Did I scare him so badly, he opted to hightail it back home instead of confront me again?

Did his guilt over what he did to Dessie outweigh the arrogance he displayed to me?

Maybe that’s it. Maybe he couldn’t risk me—and maybe also Dessie—exposing what he’d done, ruining his reputation with Dessie’s dad and/or Thwaite.

But that doesn’t quite add up either. He could simply have played a her-word-against-his sort of thing. I’ve seen guys like that before, guys who push their weight around, who wear their importance or their family name like armor, invincible to anything that comes their way.

Though, his soft face and those fuck-off designer glasses didn’t prove so invincible to my fist.

Rehearsal glues me to Dick and to the lighting instruments more than it does to the stage, which is regrettable since I wanted to watch Dessie and give her some words of encouragement when I see her later. Every action seems surreal now with Kellen gone, likely with the bruise I left on his cheek still smarting, and having had not only no consequence served to me, but being given a reward instead. Dick is far calmer, far more fun, and arguably even more educational to work with. We become a team and end up finishing Monday’s work in half the time than we’d expected. Because part of Kellen’s work for the funeral in act three wasn’t finished, I even get to implement that idea I had, if I were able to design the show myself. Dick goes along with it, happy to just have the work done. “What the hell was Kellen doing with you that took him so damn long?” Dick jokes to me, if I got his words right. I tell him it would take anyone longer to hang and focus lights with a stick up their ass, and Dick laughs a bit too hard at that.