The Summer Set Read online

  At rehearsal, Charlie had taken to wearing her hair piled on top of her head, and their lark always seemed to be staring at him now, judging him, questioning his life choices. It was all he could think about when he would steal into the rehearsal room daily to watch her float up toward the ceiling, gliding and flipping as she delivered her lines. Each day stronger, more effortless.

  If he watched that lark on her neck, as she swept through the air, it almost looked real. It reminded him so much—too much—of that night, and he wished he could tell her that, wished he could ask if she remembered it too.

  Maybe that was why he now found himself standing at the tiny log cabin, a very sparse museum really, that they had broken into those many years ago. It had been her idea, of course, as everything the least bit illicit always was.

  It had played out like a fever dream.

  That next morning, Nick had awakened minutes before Charlie. Time fleeting, he had committed it all to memory: the single ray of sun streaming in that window, her hair fanned out, the soft rise and fall of her breathing. She wore his T-shirt, perhaps putting it on in the middle of the night when the air had grown cool. He felt her move, yawn, stretch her arms. The lark had flown in the window just as she’d opened her eyes.

  46

  IS IT OKAY IF I SCREAM?

  “I feel like we’re betraying Charlie just by being here,” Sierra whispered to Ethan in the back of the auditorium at Jasmine Beijao’s sold-out Q&A. The Chamberlain had even brought in that talk show host from Boston, Grace Garfield, to moderate. The event had been mandatory for apprentices, or technically, it was considered a perk. But Sierra didn’t see it that way.

  “...and I’m so glad you asked.” Jasmine fluffed her hair. “For a long time it really was a curse, looking the way I do. It’s a struggle, beauty. And then I got Canis Lupus and my entire world changed—”

  Ethan rolled his eyes at Sierra.

  “This, of course, was the film about a woman in the Alaskan wilderness who’s essentially raised by wolves that scored you an Oscar nomination,” Grace said, as applause broke out. Jasmine put her hand to her ample chest, mouthing thank-yous as though winning a pageant. “Tell us how you were able to get into character.”

  “Well, Grace, it wasn’t easy. She was very...ugly, frankly. It was really out of my comfort zone—”

  “The character is actually quite warm and loving though, which is the point of the film—”

  “No, I mean, physically ugly. I had to dig deep to imagine what it might be like to not be as blessed as I am. It was a lot of work, especially with the prosthetics. But you know, a rewarding journey.”

  Sierra looked at Ethan. They’d both had enough. Without a word, they quietly left their seats and the theater.

  * * *

  Charlie had missed her days of solitary flying sessions so much that she had been arriving early ever since moving to the main stage to rehearse with lighting, sound and set pieces. The pendulum with her wires and harness was already attached to the flight track above the stage—evidence that Mason was here, somewhere—and she’d started to strap herself in when the doors flung open.

  “Look who I found!” Mason called out as Danica trailed him with Gianni at her side.

  “Sally had a meeting, so he’s coming to rehearsal,” Danica said, frazzled.

  “Hey, buddy.” Charlie crouched down on the stage, holding out her hand for a high five, which turned into their secret handshake.

  “I brought Sparky,” Gianni reported, hitting his enormous backpack.

  “Welcome, Sparky,” Charlie called as though the robot might be able to hear.

  “Can we see you fly?” Gianni asked, unzipping the bag, taking out an iPad.

  In no time, Charlie was buckled into her harness, Mason at the wires hoisting her up. Gianni stood in the aisle, not even taking a seat, yelling up question after question as he watched her flip and soar.

  “How do you do that? Have you ever gotten stuck? Can I try that? Is she heavy?” he shouted.

  “Let’s see, to answer everything,” she started. “You arch your back and dive. Not really. No, you can’t try. And—Mason?”

  “She’s pretty light, mostly because of the way the system is weighted so I’m lifting half of her weight instead of all of it,” Mason called down to Gianni.

  “Can I see? If I promise not to touch?” the boy asked.

  Mason allowed Gianni to stand beside him and watch, prompting even more inquiries. Gianni even programmed Sparky to roll to the center of the stage and wave at Charlie as she hung upside down like a bat.

  As the cast trickled in, Charlie grounded herself, slipping out of her harness. Nick still hadn’t arrived. It would be a long day. When she looked down at Gianni, already bored and tired, playing a game on his iPad, which he would be doing for the next five hours, it felt like watching her own childhood, electronics aside. At least this wasn’t typical life for him. He seemed to have so much more stability than she’d had. Charlie thought of every actor who had ever been kind to her.

  “Have you ever seen a trapdoor?” She knelt beside Gianni’s seat. He perked up, shook his head. “Ask your mom if it would be okay.”

  Two minutes later, Charlie and Gianni were running through the halls down to the storage room under the stage, with Mason. Danica had been highly suspect when Charlie had asked permission.

  Charlie helped Gianni step up into the pop-up toaster, a clear cube, no top, set on a hydraulic lift directly beneath the trapdoor. She crouched down, holding his hand as Mason slid open the passage above them.

  “So curl up like this.” Charlie folded herself into a ball. “And then it’ll toss us up into the air.”

  “And then we’ll be on the stage?” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  “On three,” Mason said. “One—”

  “Is it okay if I scream?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” she said, then muttered to herself, “That’s a question I ask myself daily.”

  * * *

  As they waited for rehearsal to start, Harlow gabbed on and on. She seemed on edge.

  “I just think maybe they shouldn’t have scheduled the New York trip so close to opening,” she said.

  “When else would it be? It’s like the only day the theater’s dark,” Alex said.

  Sierra wondered if Harlow was concerned less with scheduling and secretly about seeing supposed friends of hers on Broadway, celebrating their success.

  “Sorry! Let’s get started.” Nicholas jogged up the aisle now, fifteen minutes late.

  “Is it just me or has he been kinda weird since closing night?” Ethan asked Sierra, sounding guilty.

  “Maybe it has to do with whatever happened with you and Charlie.” Harlow turned to them, overhearing.

  “Tripp was on his morning run and said he saw Nicholas coming out of that log cabin thing,” Sierra reported.

  “Tripp runs?” Harlow asked.

  Tripp appeared beside them now, slinking into an aisle seat. “Yes, Tripp runs,” he said, offended. “A body like this doesn’t just happen through sheer force of will.”

  “Last day of dress rehearsals, so, we gotta focus today,” Nicholas announced to them. “Who are we missing?”

  As he scanned the group, there was a BOOM and a scream, as Charlie and Danica’s son, Gianni, shot up through the cutout and landed on the stage.

  47

  YOU’RE GIVING ME VERTIGO

  Nick was spent. They had run the entire show. Twice. Lights, costumes, wires, turntable, smoke, effects, everything. A lot had gone wrong, but enough had gone right that he felt confident wrapping for the night.

  “No, that’s wrong,” he said into the radio, trying to resolve a lighting glitch. The lights beaming on stage grew too bright, too red. “No, this looks like a circle of hell, which, while accurate for me perso
nally, is not in tune with this particular play.”

  When he turned around, Charlie dropped in front of him, upside down—“Hi,” she greeted him, as he jumped. “Sorry!” She turned right-side up, landing on her feet. The lights around them came up vibrant blue this time, as though underwater.

  “What’s going on up there?” he said into the headset.

  One of his directing fellows sat in the booth, the other in the audience.

  “Just wanted to do a few more of these before calling it a day,” Charlie answered him, lifting off the ground again. “What’s the problem?”

  “Not you. Up there.” He pointed to the lighting booth. “Them.” The lights burned violet now.

  “They’re probably exhausted, go easy on ’em,” Charlie said, flipping to his other side.

  “Wrong again,” he said into the mouthpiece. “But closer.”

  “Too close?” she asked, hands on his shoulders to propel her next flip.

  “Not you,” he said again. “But while I have you, sort of—did you get my text?”

  She floated back down into the space just above him again, patting at her pockets. “Um, no, I don’t have my phone on me.” She flipped over his head again to land on his other side.

  “I’m gonna need to know if you’re staying,” he said, curt.

  “Right now?” she asked, another rotation in the air.

  “Soon. Like, in two days, by opening night.” He watched her. “Do you have to keep doing that? You’re giving me vertigo.”

  He scribbled in his notebook, ripping the sheet out as she flipped over him. He grabbed her midflip, stopping her again. “Read this.” He held up a folded piece of paper, tucked it into the sleeve of the bodysuit she wore beneath her gauzy costume. “And see you tomorrow.”

  He stepped offstage to consult with his directing fellow. He didn’t want to watch to see if Charlie read the note or not.

  * * *

  Hovering in the air, Charlie turned once more and stopped upside down to read the note Nick had just slipped her. An invitation of sorts.

  Avoiding the actual onstage rehearsals for so long had at least calmed the ferocity of her anger toward him. But she wasn’t sure how she felt yet. For now, she crumpled the note, intending to shove it back into her sleeve...just as she was jerked upward.

  “Whoa!” she shouted at Mason, the paper falling to the stage as she grabbed the wires on either side to steady herself.

  “Sorry!” he shouted back. “Muscle cramp.”

  But he had been at this all day: through two full run-throughs of the show. “It’s okay, we’re good here,” she said as he lowered her, only now realizing how much her body ached after six hours of flying. Her numb legs barely felt attached to her anymore. Nine days left.

  PART THREE

  We are such stuff as dreams are made on...

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

  THE TEMPEST

  48

  IT’S, LIKE, AYAHUASCA 2.0

  Their buses arrived late into New York, torrential downpour slowing their progress, but Sierra didn’t mind. Like everyone else, she had slept nearly the entire ride, the intensity of the past few weeks catching up with her. She had awakened to a soundtrack of honking horns as they swerved into Manhattan, Ethan’s head on her shoulder, peaceful, while cars and taxis zipped between swarms of pedestrians and bikers. She felt the pace instantaneously enter her bloodstream.

  They stashed their bags at their Times Square hotel—assigned four to a room, in the same pairs as the dorms, unfortunately—and changed. (“Is that what you’re wearing?” Harlow asked of Sierra’s satin tank and pleated skirt, which did seem tragically demure alongside Harlow’s little black dress.) Then they embarked on a preshow whirlwind: touring the Winter Garden theater—home of Abby’s Road; a Q&A with the writer/director/composer himself; dinner at a hole-in-the-wall pizza place; and back for showtime. They slipped into their balcony seats minutes before curtain.

  Sierra clutched her program the entire show, feeling every note echo in her heart, reverberate through her veins. She had been to a Broadway production only once before—a Phantom of the Opera revival—but this felt so brand-new, exotic. And to be just one degree of separation from three cast members—two of the soldiers in the chorus and the girl in the lavender hoop skirt were Harlow and Alex’s friends—gave Sierra a shot of inspiration that felt like pure adrenaline. This kind of life was possible. She had never been in such close proximity to people her age, living the life she dreamed of. This, all of it, was what she, Sierra Suarez, wanted.

  Ethan and Tripp watched beside her just as rapt. Harlow, seated a row in front of them, shifted endlessly. She swung her leg, tied her hair back, took it down, tied it back again. Scowling during John Adams’s death scene, she whispered something to Alex, then perched her head on her fist, looking bored.

  After the curtain call, they were invited into the tight corridors of the backstage to meet the cast. Sierra hung back in the pack, but loved viewing these creatures up close. They looked even younger, slighter, and it was hard to fathom that those voices had come from some of those bodies.

  It was midnight when they returned to the hotel and 12:01 when Alex pulled Harlow, Ethan, Sierra and Tripp aside. “Still in for the after-party?”

  Ethan and Sierra raised their eyebrows at each other, lucky to be included.

  Alex and Harlow—quieter than usual, still scowling—led them to the fifth-floor walk-up their three friends shared above a Greek restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. The grimy shoebox of a two-bedroom apartment, posters and playbills taped and tacked onto the walls, was nothing short of thrilling to Sierra. These three were living an artist’s life, here in the middle of this chaos and madness. It seemed incredibly romantic, gutsy, intoxicating, and any bit of supposed suffering just made it all the more alluring. Sierra was almost too excited to speak.

  * * *

  Ethan was still in a heady fog—from the show, which had infected him, and the lights of Times Square and the energy and the everything—when they arrived at the after-party, music spilling out, along with an herbal, musky, charred scent he couldn’t quite place.

  Alex led them straight through the dim-lit, thumping-bass dance party to the kitchen, like he owned the place. Tripp peeled off from their group, beelining for the runway-model-looking guy who had played Charles Adams. In the kitchen, they found several pots on the stove top, a bearded, skinny hipster in thick glasses stirring them with the care of a DJ spinning. He and Alex shook hands, slapped each other on the shoulder. “Looking good,” Alex said to him. Then to the group he said, “This is Stone.”

  Stone nodded, Ethan reciprocated.

  “And you guys know each other? And all these people?” Sierra asked, in awe.

  “Juilliard.” Stone pointed at Alex and himself. A man of few words.

  “Wow, so this is Juilliard Drama.” Ethan surveyed the room.

  “I’m ballet,” Stone said. “He’s drama.” He pointed at Alex.

  “And also a lot of NYU. Harlow knows everyone too.”

  Sure enough, Harlow already stood at the center of a group, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, chatting and looking relieved to be home. Ethan could only imagine what she was telling them about her summer. He suspected a lot of exaggeration.

  “This ready to go, man?” Alex asked.

  Stone shrugged, nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  “So what’s goin’ on with all this?” Ethan asked, aware he was confirming his utter lack of cool.

  “Oooh, is this ayahuasca?” Sierra leaned over Ethan, peeking into the pots, which bubbled like three soups of varying consistencies.

  “Seriously?” Ethan looked at her in disbelief. “What do you know about ayahuasca? They do a lotta this at Wellesley?”

  “What do you know about ayahuasca?” she laughed. He was 99 percent sure she kne
w as much as he did, which was nothing.

  “Ayahuasca is over,” Stone cut them off, expressionless.

  “Good to know.” Ethan nodded.

  “This is what you need to be doing now,” Alex said. “This is, like, ayahuasca 2.0.” Stone combined the three saucepans into a larger pot, ladling the concoction into disposable coffee cups. “It’s, like, next-level stuff. It’s, like...” Alex put his hand to his head to signal an explosion and mouthed BOOM.

  Ethan and Sierra looked at each other like they had walked into some kind of college drug-movie shoot. “It seems kind of complicated,” Sierra said. “For something that’s ultimately supposed to be freeing or whatever.”

  “It’s cool, it’s herbal, so it’ll blow your fucking mind but it won’t kill you or anything,” Alex said easily.

  “Bonus,” Ethan said.

  “It’s all natural, and practically FDA approved,” Alex went on, handing them cups.

  Ethan held it near his lips: it smelled like dead flowers and gasoline.

  “Cheers,” Stone said, tapping his cup to Ethan’s and Sierra’s, then slipping into the low lights of the living room, the throbbing music, the roar of chatter, the party respectably raging.

  Ethan watched him and Alex get swallowed into the dancing crowd, and when he turned back around, Sierra was knocking back her drink.

  “Wait!” Ethan grabbed her forearm. “You really think it’s okay?”

  “It’s weirdly delicious.” She shouted to be heard over the music, which had cranked up. “And I feel like, I don’t know, maybe I’ll make tonight a night I’ll remember in twenty years when I’m old and probably boring—especially if this whole acting thing doesn’t work out—and I’ll be like, damn, I was exciting once when I drank that crazy poison during my seventeen hours in New York.”