Then my mouth opens without warning. A short, misplaced laugh slices through the gravity. “Surely your grandfather would notice I don’t look like him?”
Take it back.
Especially the laugh.
How did he die?
A question I won’t ask.
I need a man to play my dead brother.
The table rattles. The coffee sways. And I can’t stop laughing.
I feel sick.
Trent murmurs, “If someone fits the shape of a memory, Grandpa fills in the rest. He thinks my brother is still... that he’s just travelling. And he wishes he’d return home. He wants him home.”
You can’t bring the dead back to life with lies. Can’t bring the dead back to life at all.
My throat hurts.
I’m still laughing.
My reaction is too much. I see it on his face, the way he holds my gaze. At first like a hand of offered support, like he’s saying ‘it’s okay you’re shocked’, but then his frown deepens. Like he’s wondering why I’m still shaking, still laughing, still outraged.
He can’t know why.
He doesn’t know why.
The idea of playing that part. Takingthatplace...
Trent’s gaze grows limper with every passing second. Disappointment. Deflation. I’m not right for the job after all.
I don’t want to be right for such a job! My stomach is heaving now at the thought. I can taste the bile. I can taste regret.
And I can taste the sourness of rejection. I felt it earlier, and it’s back again. A tighter tug this time. My chair screeches as I stand.
His hold on my gaze tightens again and through it I feel a fiery pulse. From limp to relentless. His gaze pierces, hooks, promises to pull. But I don’t want to be caught.
I shake my head and rock on my heel. “We shouldn’t do lies like this.”
“Why?” His paper comes up and down against the table. Not angrily. Like a judge’s hammer. “Why can’t I want him to laugh again? Why can’t a lie be worth those smiles? Why can’t I make his last dream come true?”
His voice is steady, unwavering. I’m not.
I walk away, but I feel his gaze following me. Or is it a line he might yank to flip me back towards him?
How can a fleeting moment, such a fresh connection, have such force already?
I ball my hands to stop the shake and force myself away from that strange, unwanted pull.
The improv studio is a small, functional space. There’s the hallway reception with cubbyhole storage, and the theatre room with large windows covered by long thick curtains.
I’m buried under wigs and foam swords and sequined costumes as I wade through the props cupboard, looking for feathers for the class Moana’s about to teach. I push aside a sparkly vest, the sequins catching the dim light like the gleam of a paua shell under a ripple of water. The feathers should be here. Somewhere. I tossed them in here last week.
I touch something silky in the dark. It tickles my palm, slipping through my fingers when I try to catch it.
Then I hear it?—
