Page 5 of In What World
“I was committed!” Cilla protests in good nature.
“And it sure paid off, didn’t it?” Dallas asks. When Cilla blushes, batting her hand at the screen, Dallas waves his own impatiently. “Go on,” he says. “Tell them your news.”
With zero hesitation—not even a single breath ofaw shucksbashfulness—Cilla blurts out, “I was nominated for my first Golden Globe this morning.”
First. As if more are sure to follow. Knowing her luck, they probably are.
Our students lose it again.
“Ohstop,” Cilla says. “It’s not a big deal.”
Dallas is beaming. “Of course it is.”
“You’re gonna win an Oscar!” Billy yells.
Cilla laughs. “God, no. They don’t do Oscars for TV.”
“They should!” Billy says.
“All right, Billy, that’s enough,” I tell him. “This moment isn’t about Cilla. It’s about you guys.”
I don’t mean for it to come out as a dig. Or at least, I don’t anticipate the teeth it has until Cilla’s eyes shift to whatever lives beyond her laptop as she nibbles on the edge of her lip.
Maybe there’s a world where my teenage rivalry with her has morphed into adult pride. Someone who grew up in Garden Meadows, Iowa, is now a successful actress with a big-time award show nomination under her belt. It’s huge, especially for the WRHS drama department that raised us both.
I really believed I lived in that world. Two minutes in Cilla’s digital presence and I’m forced to acknowledge that I might actually live in the world where she hurt me for the sport of it, more than once. It’s an old wound, sure, but it’s the kind that still aches, like arthritis when it rains.
“Marlowe’s right,” Cilla says. A familiar redness creeps up her neck, something all the training in the world can’t seem to school out of her. “This is totally about you guys, not me.Spring Awakeningis going to be incredible! I can’t wait to come see it!”
In trying to fix things, she’s managed to make it worse—the Priscilla Covington-French special. Our kids are no longer excited aboutSpring Awakeningat all. They’re thrilled that the famous Cilla Cove has promised to come back to Iowa and watch them perform.
“I’m so sorry I can’t stick around and chat any longer,” she says. “But I’m so excited for you all, and so, so proud of Dallas.” She blows kisses to the screen.
“Love you, darling,” Dallas says, blowing kisses in return.
“It was nice to see you, Marlowe,” she tells me.
“Always a pleasure,” I respond.
2
Priscilla
My new assistant,Erik, holds my phone with both hands, unable to hide his shock as he stares at all the notifications on the home screen.
“Have you ever read a single text in your entire life?” he asks. “Or opened an email? Or answered a call?”
“That’s why I need you, my dear,” I say. “Congratulations! You’ve been cast in the role of Cilla Cove! Feel free to do anything with the part that you please.”
“You don’t have any requests on messaging?” he asks. “Tone? I don’t know who or what matters to you in here.”
“That makes two of us,” I tell him with a laugh.
This is exactly what I hoped for when I hired Erik to help me through this awards season. He’s a twenty-one-year-old gay kid who grew up in Los Angeles. He understands there isn’t any need to treat working actors as some species other than human. To him, actors are people like his friends’ parents or hisclassmates in school. He believes in very little of the supposed glamour of this job.
“Just go through everything that’s unread from the last few days,” I continue. “I deleted any past conversations that would make this job weird for you and I hid any pictures that aren’t for your eyes, so no worries about seeing something you shouldn’t. You can commit me to whatever sounds like a good time. Ignore any messages that seem like they’ve come from someone who only wants to talk to me because they think I might be relevant again. And most of all, have fun with it. Feel free to make medazzling.”
Erik settles into a seat at my dining table to begin his work. I stand around for a while in case he has any other questions, but he never looks up. Even when he pauses to sip his iced coffee, he keeps his gaze on the screen, his other hand still typing and swiping without interruption.
