He tugged his phone from his jacket pocket.
“What is she doing up there?” Mona hissed in his ear. “Is this why we came here?”
“Shh,” Andie said. “It will be okay. Give her some credit. Also, Elliot, put your fucking phone away. You don’t have to be a reporter at all times on all things.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” Mona snapped. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“Maybe it’s not up for you to like,” Elliot said, surprising himself, that he’d choose Birdie’s side over his twin’s. He set his phone back in his pocket. Andie was right: he could be a reporter when all of this, whatever it was, was over.
Mona scowled. Elliot scowled back. They all turned their attention back to the stage.
“Yes, well, about that ex,” Birdie was saying. “Well, about everything. If you don’t mind, Clay, can I steal your spotlight for a second?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s already been stolen,” Clay replied, “with or without asking my permission.”
The audience’s applause was thunderous, and Birdie, Elliot was relieved to see, broke into a genuine grin that reminded him of high school, of her belting out those songs. He wondered if it was possible to die from an exploding heart, and if so, if that was going to be his fate.
The lights dimmed, and a spotlight went on. Clay faded to theback of the stage, and then it was just Birdie, beautiful Birdie, all by herself. The auditorium hushed to a near-dead silence.
“So,” she said. “Well, gee. I thought I’d be better prepared to say something now.”
Someone in the mezzanine shouted, “Birdie, you can dump me anytime!” And that seemed to electrify the audience all over again, which in turn electrified Birdie.
“Whew, okay, well, thank you, kind sir,” she said, and Elliot could sense her relaxing, so he unclenched his own jaw, his own shoulders, which he was holding up to his ears. “So... I guess some of you are aware of what’s been... happening in my life these days,” she said. Her voice was still a little wobbly, and Elliot found himself squinting, as if he could telepathically will her some confidence. Birdie carried on. “So, um, while I have your attention, I wanted to say something to you guys, the public, the people who have made my career.” She inhaled, smiled, and continued. “I owe you all a real apology. Not the canned, filmed thing that you saw a few weeks ago. But from me. Just... me. I screwed up on set. I thought I was doing the right thing by speaking out against our director, um, you guys know Sebastian Carol, but I turned something private into something public—um, I guess like what I’m doing right now—and that cost a lot of people their jobs. My fight with Sebastian was not the right one to have, and for that, I’m sorry.”
Someone a few rows behind Elliot shouted, “Fuck the patriarchy, Birdie!” and Elliot was pretty sure he saw Birdie blink back a swell of tears.
“Anyway,” she said. “Obviously, since then, I’ve been in sort of, um... a personal spiral.”
“Jesus,” Mona muttered beside Elliot. “What is she doing?”
“Her own thing,” Andie said. “She is doingher own thing. It’s amazing.”
Birdie kept talking. “And, um, in this personal spiral, I guess, you now know that I am also a bit of a mess when it comes to my love life. I’m not the girl you’ve come to know at the movies—sunshiney, easy, or really all that interested in getting married actually. And... well, I don’t want to drag anyone else into this public morass of my messiness. So, since I’m already canceled, I want to say that my hunt for my anonymous ex is over.”
The crowd stirred and everyone started talking at once. Then the booing began at the back of the house. Elliot spun around. How could anyonebooher? How couldeveryoneboo her? He jumped to his feet, then felt Mona’s hand on his arm, pulling him back down.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Birdie said. “I know you want the happily-ever-after. I get it. I do. I’ve spent ten years acting out that happily-ever-after, and it’s hard to let go of.” The booing droned on, and Elliot, who had never been violent, never had the urge to hit a person in his life, wanted to excoriate every single ticket holder. One by one. Let him at them. He’d clock them all right in the nose even if he broke all his knuckles.
“You can’t quit now!” some woman shrieked.
“How can you do this to us?” someone else cried. “We need to find Mr. Anonymous!”
Birdie shifted from one foot to the other.
“What I’m trying to say,” she managed, pulling the mic too close, feedback blaring throughout the theater, “is that it doesn’t matter who wrote it. We can have a happy ending without it.”
“The hell we can!” another woman yelled.
Birdie glanced around, her eyes searching. Whichever wayshe’d imagined this would go, Elliot didn’t think she’d imagined this. She was trying to write her own ending, her triumphant independent ending, and the audience, who had grown so used to her fairy-tale happily-ever-afters, wasn’t biting.
Clay stepped forward from the shadows, ready to steer the ship back to his show.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Come on, friends, let’s go easy on her.”
The booing started up again, but Clay held his fingers to his lips and, incredibly, the entire venue stilled.
And that was precisely when the back doors to the theater clanged open and Kai Carol strode in. He did have immaculate timing, Elliot thought. He always knew exactly when to ride in on his horse, a white knight, ready to save the damsel in distress.
