“Do you want me to call Tom? It’s not too late for birthday shots in Kendall Square.”
Caroline laughed. “That’s a cliché, and I have class tomorrow. No, this was perfect.”
If she’d seen and heard some clichés that evening, there was probably none worse than him, because after his long run of shoddy life choices, what was more terribly predictable than falling for the pretty young woman he couldn’t help but be bad for? He stood breathing in the scent of her wet hair until their taxi arrived, wondering how long he had until she figured that out.
Chapter Twelve
Caroline managed to be late and wear the wrong thing twice in one day, which had to be a record, even for her. The first time was probably not her fault: she happened to check her student email on the way to the gym and saw that Rima had apologetically forwarded an invitation for a tech meeting that started in five minutes. The gym was ten minutes away from the theater, so Caroline had to awkwardly jog across campus, only to arrive after Sophia had already started.
There wasn’t any space on the risers, so Caroline climbed up the scaffolding and precariously straddled a crossbeam until the set designer spotted her and waved her to a space he created by sliding up against the follow spot.
“Thanks,” Caroline whispered to Nathan.
This drew a dirty glance from Sophia, who muttered “weirdo” under her breath. The lavender-haired woman paused long enough for everyone to turn and look at Caroline before she continued with changes to lighting cues.
Maybe Adrian had been wrong about this, after all.
After the meeting, there was a lot of work going on backstage as the various departments sprang into action to incorporate the stage manager’s notes. Caroline found thatmany things needed to be carried to other places—her theatrical specialty, she thought with a little self-deprecation.
She ended up helping Nathan carry the heavy cardboard boxes containing the printed programs from the department van in the faculty parking lot all the way to the front box office. He pulled a bottle opener key chain from the pocket of his faded black denim trousers and used the sharp edge to slice the boxes open.
Caroline began lifting programs out and setting them beneath the desk, then breaking the boxes down for recycling.
“So, uh,” Nathan said after a minute, “you like color, I guess?”
Caroline stopped and stared at him in confusion. It took her a minute to figure out that he was referring to her leggings, which were striped in orange and lime green, matching her sports bra and windbreaker. She really hadn’t bought much stuff since she’d moved. But she had bought nice workout clothes, and she’d justified it to herself that they’d last much longer than the cotton-blend gear from Walmart she’d owned before.
He was waiting for her answer, as if he’d thrown out an important scientific hypothesis and she needed to either support or rebut. Liking color wasn’t a personality trait, was it? Who would take the opposite position?No, color’s no good, actually.
“Sure, but why do you ask?” she finally said, finishing with the last box.
“No reason,” the burly set designer mumbled. “You just see most people in theater wearing black, I guess.”
“Should I be wearing black?” Caroline asked, alarmed. She had never been very good at intuiting the unspoken rules that everyone else seemed to live by. She had noproblem withfollowingthe rules. Most rules. But first, she needed to know what the ruleswere.
“Oh, no, you’re fine. You don’t have to until tech week. Or even until actual performances, really, since there’s no audience to see you until then,” he said, stammering.
Caroline watched him to see if he was willing to divulge more systematic truths, but he pressed his lips together and opened one of the programs as though he might find the secret of life written within.
Caroline grabbed one for herself and examined it at arm’s length. The cover picture was a painting of a wine bottle. She thought Adrian’s work had probably been better even when he was a student. Then she flipped to the back to look at the cast and crew list. She scanned for her name and didn’t see it. It went straight from Rima to the run crew members.
“Wait, where are you?” Nathan asked. “Aren’t you assistant props?”
“Just informally, I guess,” Caroline said, stomach sinking down toward her bladder, regardless, in a familiar picked-last-at-recess sensation.
Nathan frowned. “I’ll tell Rima,” he offered.
“No, no,” Caroline said, straightening up. She’d missed her gym window already. She needed to get to class.
“I’m going to say something,” Nathan declared. “You’ve done a lot of work.”
“You really don’t have to,” Caroline said, ducking out the door. “It’s not like I need it for my résumé. I’m just doing this for fun.”
The fun had been only intermittent so far.
Before she could hear his reply, she took off back toward the business campus, walking at top speed to put distance between herself and the theater. Normally, shewould have put jeans and a sweatshirt on to go to class, but plenty of college students went in pajamas and whatever, so as long as she kept her windbreaker zipped, she imagined that her “colorful” attire wasn’t a problem for class.
Her mind was tempted to wander; she’d heard the same lecture about organizational behavior back in undergrad. She’d do better to pay attention though. Nothing about management was intuitive to her, and she appreciated that someone had taken the time to distill it down to plans and principles. If only other areas in her life were as susceptible to organization.
