Page 72 of In What World
Even though deep down I knew Dallas had cast Hedda correctly, I couldn’t shake off my jealousy. I never committed to my own role half as much as I should have.
Some of my most prevalent stress dreams are of me being asked to perform Hedda again with zero notice. Sometimes the dream will be about something else entirely, and I’ll think I’m stepping into another room only to realize I’ve walked onto the WRHS stage, it’s my first scene as Thea, and I don’t remember any of my lines. Sometimes I storm off, embarrassed. Sometimes, I make things up. Sometimes, I get through it but the audience boos because I’m so stiff and terrible. In every iteration, Marlowe is there with me, hitting every mark, no matter what version of events I throw at her.
The closer the man gets to us, the less generous his expression becomes.
“He’s reacting to our level of queer. It’s scaring him,” I whisper. Louder, I offer him a “How goes thee?”
Marlowe groans. “I said Hedda, not Shakespeare.”
“I know. I’m panicking,” I whisper.
“Just let me talk, then.”
She straightens her spine, narrowing her eyes at the man in the top hat. She’s in her sheer white tank, looking like eitherDanny Zuko or Kenickie, nipples protruding, lesbian tattoos up and down her lesbian arms, holding the gaze of a random man from the 1800s like she’s supposed to be here.
“Hello there,” she says to him. “Wonderful morning we’re having.”
“It’s half past noon,” he informs us.
“My apologies. We’ve been rather occupied,” she says. “Have you the date, perchance?”
“It’s the twenty-seventh of April,” he says.
My hands twist into knots.
“Forgive me, but what of the year?” Marlowe asks.
“1893,” the man tells us.
My adrenaline spikes.
“Ah, yes,” Marlowe nods. “It is indeed.”
“Why are the two of you dressed so strangely?” asks the man.
“A play,” Marlowe tells him without waver. “We are rehearsing.”
“Quite an odd production.” He has moved from reserved judgment to open skepticism, one of his impressively bushy eyebrows lifted into an aspirational arch.
“We’ve traveled here from Illinois,” she explains. “Chicago. We are performers in the World’s Fair. Or, excuse me, the Columbian Exposition. If you know not of what I speak, someday soon you will, I assure you that.” When he says nothing, she still maintains her cool, saying, “I’m Marlowe. And this is Priscilla.”
She didn’t call me Cilla.
She used my real name.
Holy shit.
She used my real name.
“Wilbur,” the man says.
“Hello!” I wave, all my reservations floating off into the 1893 Iowa wind. “This is Garden Meadows, yes? Lovely town.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Wilbur says.
“Have you a favorite feature? We’d love to see more of this place once we finish our rehearsal.”
Just as I’ve started to warm up to this, hitting my stride with my inner 1890s Priscilla, Marlowe grabs hold of my arm. “Wilbur, forgive me, but would you allow us a moment to converse alone? We will be back momentarily, I assure you.”
