Page 10 of In What World
Now I’m the one doing the texting and FaceTiming, because Dallas didn’t get a sub for any of his classes or tell me a single thing about how he wants our first day of dress rehearsal to go. After two rigorous tech rehearsals, our cue-to-cue going until ten thirty p.m. both nights, I find it impossible to believe he still doesn’t havepagesof notes to provide.
Our principal, however, has zero concerns about Dallas’s unexplained absence. “It’s his last month here,” Dr. Adamson says as he licks his thumb to leaf through a stack of papers, which seems like more of a symbolic gesture of feigned busybehavior than an actual act he needs to do. “He’s clocked out. It’s no surprise. This happens all the time.”
Dr. Adamson is wrong, as he usually is about anything to do with the drama department, but I bite my tongue and head out of the front office in pursuit of someone who will actually care. I’ve never seen Dallas more committed than he’s been in the week leading up to his disappearance. He has been meticulous in rehearsals. Almost obsessive. He sees one false breath and we run the scene from top to bottom until he believes every single syllable.
“And you’ve called him?” Jim, our tech guy, asks when I show up in the sound booth and immediately start pacing, incapable of facing the reality that I will be running this rehearsal alone. The very rehearsal our entire administration will be watching, since they know Dallas is about to retire and his empire will soon be mine alone to run.
This is their chance to put a leash on me before I even get out of the gate. They want nothing more than to be free of the controversial show choices and bold casting decisions Dallas has made his legacy. I need Dallas here to prove to them the risk ofthisshow choice is worthwhile.
“More than anyone would consider healthy,” I tell Jim with a tight smile.
“This isn’t like him,” he replies.
“Thank you!” I throw up my arms in a relieved gesture that must be too aggressive, because Jim recoils.
Jim is a simple man who is openly afraid of theater kids past and present, which means that for the most part, we communicate through very short exchanges, lest I begin performing a Shakespearean monologue unprompted. Prior to this situation, the most meaningful conversation we ever had was the day my old car’s alternator died. Suddenly Jim was leafing through myglove compartment, reading up on my vehicle’s maintenance history the way I would read someone’s birth chart, like my admittedly infrequent visits to AutoZone told him so much more about what kind of person I am than any of my other actions. I tried to joke that I was really sorry that I wasn’t the kind of lesbian who cared about cars, and instead of laughing like I hoped, he just looked at me and said, “Okay. I am a gay man who does.”
It’s hard to get any kind of verbal observation out of him, so his agreement that Dallas’s behavior is unusual is exactly what I need to take action.
“I have to go to his house. Maybe he’s injured and can’t reach his phone.” I move so quickly toward the exit that the inside of my head does a strange whoosh, which is how I remember I haven’t had my coffee today.
I double back, horrified anew. Ineverforget my coffee. It’s a crucial part of my daily routine. During every lunch break, I swing by Sawyer’s Coffee to pick up my large cold brew with one pump of lavender syrup, a splash of half-and-half, and very light ice—a ritual so consistent in my life that when I got the flu and missed a whole week of pickups last fall, the owner of the shop reached out to the school to make sure I was okay.
“You’re leaving?” Jim asks. The color has drained from his face. He looks like he also forgot to drink his coffee today.
Jim’s run tech for the department since before I was in high school, but anyone in the arts can tell you that that side of things is very different from the performance side. He would prefer holding out slabs of meat to a pack of hungry wolves to being left alone with a group of teens prone to bursting into song.
“Hold on. I’ll get Alice to watch everyone,” I tell him.
Taking too sharp of a turn, I catch the corner of a locker on my way to Alice’s classroom.
“Fucking shit,” I say, clutching my shoulder.
Who should walk by at that moment but Billy Larsen, on his way to the auditorium I’ve just fled. “Let’sgooooo, Marlowe.” He puts up a hand for a high five. “I love it when a teacher swears.”
“That’s enough,” I tell him, ignoring his hand—and his use of my first name—while fighting the urge to wince. My shoulder fucking hurts.
“Is your sweater-vest okay?” he asks.
I’m in no mood to dignify his question with a funny response, so I cut him a warning look that wipes the smile clean off his face and say, “Let me wear my vests in peace!”
Alice stands in front of her desk, stuffing her empty glass lunch container into her tote bag. “Oh hey,” she says, smiling when she notices me. “I was just about to get going.”
“Dallas is missing,” I blurt out. “I need to go to his house and make sure he’s not hurt.”
Alice takes me in—my heavy breathing, sweat trickling down my forehead, my glasses askew. “Whoa, whoa. Slow down.”
It’s well-meant. I’m sure it is. But in the moment, when my heart is pumping so hard in my chest I can almost taste blood, that is just about the most insulting thing she could say. I can’t slow down. I’m already behind. Every second is precious.
She asks me to explain why I think Dallas is missing. I tell her about his obsessiveness, his pristine attendance record, and the most damning piece of evidence—he’s cast himself in this show. It’s another one of his traditions. He always gives himself a part in our musicals, and he never has an understudy. I even tell her about forgetting my coffee, believing it to be a worthy piece of evidence.
“This doesn’t seem that bad to me,” she says when I finish. “He might just be running late.”
I struggle to stay calm as I ask, “You think that’s why he couldn’t answer my one hundred and seven calls and fifty-three texts?”
“You called him one hundred and seven times?Marlowe.”
“Something’s wrong,” I tell her. “I know it is.”
