The Me You See (17 page)

David had blocked the end of the scene to be absolute
physical chaos. But I didn’t want that for Stefia. Not that night, anyway.

Instead, I held her arms above her head and pinned to the
bed. Then I got close to her ear and whispered
stop fighting
.

She did.

So I traced my finger over the tip of her nose, down her
neck, and between her breasts that were barely covered with a white lace bra. I
closed my fingers and rested my hand over the word hate.

Then I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye.

I saw Trevor off stage getting ready to enter stage right
for his part which was to pull me off of her, and I knew our improvisation was
almost over. There had been no kissing blocked into our scene,  but I decided
at that moment to kiss her harder than I’ve ever kissed anyone in my life
before or since, like an apology for whatever she was going through that made
her slice hate into her chest. The kiss lingered and my tongue slid its way
into her mouth.

She kissed me back. I know she returned the kiss.

And then she bit my tongue.

She bit my fucking tongue as hard as she could.

Trevor ran in to pull me off of Stefia and was supposed to
toss me with a well-blocked shove out the door stage left. But I was so caught
off guard at the kiss, the bite, and that I could taste blood that I tripped
and cracked my hand against the doorframe so hard that I wondered if the
audience knew it was an accident.

I stumbled into the wings, catching myself by the curtain
and sat down, cradling my hand. Oh, my god…the fucking pain…

Henny, the stagehand came running over.

“Is it broken, man? Did you break it?”

“I…I don’t know,” I said. “Just let me sit here a minute. I
don’t feel good…”

Henny ran to get David. I laid my head back against the
heavy curtain and closed my eyes. My heart was pounding. I was going to pass
out. I felt like shit.

I knew it didn’t have anything to do with my hand.

**

After wincing my way through a bow that night, it came to
our attention Dr. Patton was in the audience. He came backstage to look at my
hand and assured me it wasn’t broken. I went into the guys’ dressing room and
sat with an ice pack because I needed to sit.

I just wanted to sit and think.

David came in to check on my hand, again. He commented that
our fight scene was the best he’d ever witnessed, the most ah-ma-zing ever, and
congratulated me for really throwing myself into it. But I could also tell he
was paranoid that I was going to be mad for the injury. I figured it must be
hard to be a director because on one hand, he was pleased the scene had been so
intense and convincing, but he wasn’t stupid and he could tell something had
caused that scene to be what it was.

I assured him it was fine, it would heal, and that I was
completely okay to do the rest of the nine shows we had scheduled.

“I wasn’t talking about your hand,” he said.

Stefia walked in. David looked at her, then back at me. I
hadn’t told him anything about what led to the most amazing scene ever on
stage, but he knew by the heavy air between Stefia and I that we needed to
clear something up.

“You okay, kid?” he asked Stefia.

“I’m fine,” she said, “and you know I’m not a kid.”

David smiled at the both of us, went to the door, looked
back one more time, and finally left.

I looked down at the floor while rubbing my thigh with my
good hand.

She said nothing. And after a full minute of silence, I
couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Okay. What was that?” I asked.

“What was what?”

“Come on. Don’t play games.”

Her eyes were so pristine, so faultless, that I almost
wondered if maybe the whole thing had just been a case of two actors getting
caught up in what was happening on stage.

But then there was a snag in her breath. Just the slightest
slip. And I knew I hadn’t misread anything.

“You’re a cutter.”

She breathed in, slowly.

“Why are you a cutter?”

She breathed out, slowly.

“Why did you bite me?”

Still, no answer.

“Stefia, you obviously came in here for a reason, and it
wasn’t just to stare at me. So say something.”

“I bit you to distract you,” she finally said.

“From what?” I said. “My lines? The blocking? The fact we
were on stage?”

“The cutting. I knew from the look on your face you saw it.
You weren’t supposed to see it. How is your hand?”

“Don’t worry about my hand,” I said.

“Can we talk about something else?”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“Paul,” she said, quickly, “I need you to not tell anyone
about what you saw…”

“Why are you cutting?” I interrupted.

“I can’t talk to you about this.”

“Then what did you come in here for?”

She stopped and I watched as her gaze fell down the length of
the dressing room table. The stage makeup was lined up in boxes, mostly cleaned
up and put back where it was supposed to go for the next night’s performance.
She started fiddling with the things in the boxes, stacking cakes of foundation
and putting tubes of mascara into the cup that kept them separated.

“Just please don’t tell anyone what you saw,” she said,
without looking away from the makeup.

“Stefia, why do you do it?”

“Have you ever wanted to dig something out of your life?”
she said, looking up at herself in the mirror. “Ever wanted to get rid of
something that you knew wasn’t yours to get rid of?”

I didn’t respond. I just kept looking right at her, hoping
she would look at me.

 “If you can’t get rid of that thing,” she continued, “if
you can’t dig it out or cut it up…”

“I get it,” I said. “If you can’t cut that thing out of
your life…you just cut yourself. I get it.”

“You do?”

“My sister was a cutter.”

“Then why did you ask why I did it?”

“What is the thing you want to get rid of that you can’t? That’s
what I wanted to know.”

“You don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head and biting
at her top lip. “I can’t tell people the truth. I can’t.”

“Just open your fucking mouth and say something. You do it
all the time on stage.”

 “I read lines, Paul. That’s all I do.”

“What do you want to say that you can’t say? Just open your
mouth!”

“You are not pulling me into this,” she said, coming right
at me and pushing a finger at my face. “I did not ask for you to see those
marks.”

“But they are there, Stefia. They are there and I did see
them and someone else besides me is going to see them. You’re going to get
measured for a costume or go skinny dipping at the beach or god knows what else
and someone is going to see them.”

“And then what?” she said, raking her fingers through her
sweaty, over sprayed hair. “Paul, nobody is going to see them!”

“Yes, they will,” I said, standing up and pointing at her.
“And you know what? They’re going to care enough to say something.”

“Why would they care?”

I stared at her incredulously, wondering if her callous
detachment from what she was saying was for real or just a front.

“Why
wouldn’t
they care?”

 “Listen, I’m sorry you saw it. This is…what you saw is the
first thing I’ve cut. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal, and I will bet you every dollar I have
that it’s not the first time. Don’t lie to me…”

“I don’t owe you the truth,” she hissed, stepping closer to
me so no one would heard us outside the door. “I don’t owe you anything. We
just have to get through this run of shows and then you can go back to your big
fancy ass theater in the cities and you never have to deal with me again. You
don’t have to worry about it.”

“That’s not the first carving you’ve done,” I said,
ignoring her outburst.

“It’s the first
word
,” she said, as if her
correction meant anything.

“Why did you carve
hate
?”

“You wouldn’t get it…”

“Try me.”

“Why? Why the hell should I tell you anything?”

“Because we have to get through this run and then I can go
back to my big fancy ass theater and not have to deal with you or worry about
you. So why don’t you just go ahead and tell me why you carved
hate
?”

She pulled at a stack of three rubber bands wound around
her wrist, itching the mark the elastic had worn into her skin. Her jaw was
locked in an attempt to squash back anything else that should never have come
out. She stared. She focused her fiery little eyes right onto mine and finally
unhinged her jaw.

 “I carved
hate
because when I scratch at the
surface of myself, that’s what comes out.”

There were no magical words I could conjure up to hurl out
of my mouth at her to make the situation any better. The first time I’d seen
her, I saw a put together, happy, absolutely beautiful woman who was sixteen,
but so not sixteen. Now I just saw a churning ball of pain whose acidic insides
were seeping out.

Of course. It’s always the ones you don’t suspect. Just
like my sister.

David announced himself with a knock on the door and then
walked in.

“Everything okay in here?”

“Fine,” we both answered as shortly as we could. Stefia
stared at her bare feet and I fixated on the throbbing in my hand.

“Listen, guys…if we need to change the scene…I mean….if
it’s too much…”

“It’s not too much,” Stefia said, emphatically. She looked
up at David, took a deep breath, and then plastered a smile on her face. “It’s
not too much. It’s perfect the way it is.”

“It’s only opening night, you guys,” he said. “You’ve got
nine more shows. I mean, the performance was amazing but…geez. I don’t know if
I can take nine more times of you guys freaking out…”

“Who said we’re freaking out?” I asked.

“We’re fine,” Stefia said. “It’s fine.”

“I heard voices in here. I heard you…”

“It has nothing to do with the scene,” Stefia said.

“Completely unrelated,” I agreed.

If we would have been in a movie right then, the camera
would have panned around to show each of our faces individually, fraught with
worry. Then it would have fallen back to see the three of us in the dressing
room in an uncomfortable dance of who was going to be the next person to speak
up.

“No issues I need to worry about, then?” David finally
asked.

“None,” Stefia answered quickly, her eyes rising to meet
mine.

“Everything is fine,” tumbled out of my mouth, even though
it was a total lie.

David walked out closed the door.

“So, let me get this right,” I said. “Basically, you just
want me to pretend I didn’t see anything. You want me to pretend there is
nothing wrong.”

“Yeah,” she said, full of sarcasm. “Gosh, I know. It’s
crazy. I’m asking you to act.”

 “Stefia, I’m not on a fucking stage right now…”

Hot stinging tears washed over my eyes. I wanted to break
the mirror. I wanted to...

“God, Paul. Don’t you get it?” she said, with a tired sigh.

"Get what?" I screamed.

“We’re always on stage. Always."

She walked out of the dressing room and I kicked over the
chair I'd sat in, sending it towards the door that she'd closed. I balled up
two fists to hit the mirror but stopped short as pain stabbed through my hand,
reminding me I’d already screwed it up enough.

Then the tears spilled over, hot and fast, and I didn't
even bother to wipe them away. Do you know why? Because Stefia was right.

She was absolutely right.

We are never
not
on stage.

Stefia was a train wreck waiting to happen.

Well, actually a car wreck, like when Old Man Rogers barreled
his big ass farm truck down Main Street and plowed into that little car. But
everyone always calls a bad situation a train wreck, so I’ve always thought of
Stefia like a train.

So, train wreck. Car wreck. Whatever. It’s like seeing
something coming and knowing it’s going to be bad. Knowing its coming, watching
the disaster happen, wanting to look away, but not being able to. Just like
when I was coming out of the drug store that one day a couple years ago and saw
the mess Old Man Rogers made. It was horrible but we all just kept staring at
the wreck.