“I mean... I’m not seeing anyone else,” Jasmine says. “Are you?”
“No. Of course not.”
“So we’re exclusive then.”
“Yeah. Just, I told you, I want to take things slow.”
“I know, I know,” Jasmine says. “Somethingsomething putting a label on it, right? But it’s our six-week anniversary!”
Boyfriend.
“Cool,” I say, louder than I mean to. At least I think it’s loud. My ears feel full, like someone dunked my head underwater, or like a storm is rolling in, one of those big summer thunderstorms you can feel behind your eyeballs the day before.
I can’t be here.
“Anyway, keep up the good work.”
***
After lunch—pizza onstage, a workday tradition, even though it’s against the rules—Denise pulls Jasmine and a couple other painters aside to have them start working on the backdrop. We’redoing one big, apocalyptic-looking upstage drop, gray skies and gnarled branches and vague crumbling buildings. I bring in lineset 15, where we normally hang the cyclorama, as Denise gives out directions. Once everything’s locked off, she comes over to the rail.
“Hey. Can you find Liam and get his fake blood sorted out?”
“Okay.”
Fake blood is a complicated thing. It has to look good to the audience—in multiple lighting situations—not stain costumes or skin, andpreferablybe nontoxic.
If Cam was the one getting bloody, I wouldn’t care so much, but I don’t want to poison Liam.
I grab the plastic bag of ingredients—corn syrup for viscosity, red food coloring and cocoa powder for color, distilled water for volume, and a little bit of cornstarch for clumpy bits—and head into the scene shop. The big doors are cracked open now, after we moved the flats out, but I still have to push my way through.
Liam’s inside, at the huge paint sink in the corner. His back is to me, and the water is running as I approach.
“Liam?”
He spins around, startled, flinging orange-tinged water across the floor. He’s got his smoothie bottle in hand.
“Jackson! Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” But he’s still holding the smoothie bottle in hand. “Ah, just cleaning up.”
Jasmine made him a mango-grapefruit-oat-milk smoothie this morning but I never saw him drink it.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He bites his lip. It’s red, and I can’t tell if it’s from pizza sauce or making out with my sister.
Boyfriend.
“Can I be honest?”
“Sure.” I can’t be honest, but he can.
“It’s so sweet of Jasmine to make me smoothies, but, um... I like yours better.”
Heat flares behind my chest, like someone lit an incandescent lamp. “I’ve got a bit more practice.”
