“No, I’m an MBA student, but I thought—”
“Run crew positions are reserved for undergrad theater majors fulfilling their practicum requirement,” Sophia said, speaking more slowly and enunciating her words.
“Oh,” Caroline said, cheeks flushing, because that was probably on a page somewhere that she could have read instead of wasting the stage manager’s time. “If you need any other help though, I can, um, I could carry something—”
Sophia’s expression was inscrutable as she edged toward the open door to the rehearsal space, but whatever reply she’d prepared to make was cut off by another student popping her head into the doorway.
“Oh my God, Sophia, is that a volunteer?” said the new student, a short, curvy woman whose curly black hair was mostly covered by a coral silk headscarf. “I’m only a third of the way through the props list.”
“I can reassign some of the first-years from the set shop if you really need help,” Sophia objected, not looking at Caroline.
“I can help,” Caroline put in hopefully.
“We haven’t asked for volunteers,” Sophia objected.
“Well,Ican put this one to work, at least,” the other student said cheerfully, her navy trench coat swishing as she took Caroline by the arm, introducing herself as “Rima, props.”
Caroline’s mood began to rapidly improve as the girl towed her away from Sophia and down the hall to the props shop. Rima talked very fast, but she seemed friendlier than anyone else Caroline had met on campus. She gave a steady stream of chatter about the production and the schedule and how far behind she was, stopping only to draw breath or for Caroline to grunt her agreement with some proposition.
Caroline managed to gather that Rima’s job was to obtain and manage all the objects the actors would manipulate onstage, that Rima was in her second year of her PhD program, and that Rima took it for granted that Caroline knew what she was doing there, although she did not.
One side of the props shop was a fabrication area with woodworking equipment and paints, and the other led into the prop closet, which looked like the world’s most eclecticflea market, with floor-to-ceiling shelves cluttered with everything from animal skulls to Greek vases to surfboards. The atmosphere was enchanting. Caroline didn’t know where to look, but she wanted to look at everything in the room. She hoped she got the chance.
Rima retrieved her own giant binder off a shelf and flipped through it until she came to a set of old black-and-white photographs of saloon interiors.
“So, if you’re in business school, does that mean you’re good at buying things?” Rima asked, tapping a close-up shot of old gin bottles with a carefully shaped fingernail. “I need someone to scour secondhand shops for these specific shapes. I can give you a tax-exempt order form—”
Caroline’s face spread into a grin. Adrian was right. This part, at least, shecoulddo.
“I’ll do it. Buying things is becoming, like, a core skill of mine,” Caroline said.
It was well past dinnertime when Adrian unlocked Tom’s front door, but he hadn’t eaten all day. He’d forgotten to pack up some leftovers for lunch, and the day’s events had made it obvious that he needed to conserve every possible dollar for application fees going forward. His complaining stomach and low blood sugar had combined to give him a sour mood and throbbing headache. He smelled pizza, but that had to be from the neighbors. Tom wouldn’t waste money on pizza when he could bring home nearly unlimited food from his restaurant.
Adrian was confronted by an unexpected deluge of sensations and emotions when he stepped into the living room. The television was displaying a grainy, poorly focused video of a student performance ofInto the Woods.A half-eaten four-cheese pizza was cooling in its deliverybox on the stove. Caroline was on the couch, giggling at something Tom had said. Tom wasalsoon the couch with what could have been Sour Patch Kids but what Adrian strongly suspected was a bag of edibles.
So, there was an initial positive reaction—Thereispizza; oh, hello, Caroline, you’re here too—and the subsequent angry one, because what the hell was Tom doing?
Tom was the one facing the door, so he greeted Adrian first.
“Hey!” he called happily. “You’re finally home.”
“Did I miss a text?” Adrian gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“Um, no. Forgot to text. But if I’d known you’d be so late, we’d have waited on the pizza. It’s still probably hot though. Or you can heat it up. You know. In the oven. Or in the microwave. Or even on the stove, maybe?”
Tom was luminously high, buoyant and serene. Christ.
“I’ll do that. But first, can you help me with something?” Adrian said as politely as he could, jerking his head at his bedroom.
“Of course!” Tom chirped, not taking the cue and getting up. “What do you need?”
Caroline swiveled around to see Adrian in the doorway, the slow loll of her head indicating that Tom had been sharing his bag of gummies.
“Guess what,” she said proudly, gesturing to the black T-shirt she wore. Black vinyl lettering across her chest proclaimedCrew. The shirt was too small for her, and the lines of her lace bra showed clearly through the fabric.
Adrian was getting too familiar with her underwear. He tried to rub out the mental image of the demi cup she was definitely wearing under the T-shirt like a stray pencil mark.
“I’m helping the props master for the fall show. She gave me a T-shirt,” Caroline said, fortunately oblivious to his thoughts.
