Oh my God, am I jealous?
I look away from him and catch Peter’s uncommonly hard gaze on my hickey.Has the penny dropped?
Jonas pays Giselle a compliment, drawing my attention back to the pair.
“Can it be that you, Sir, possess a genuine interest in me?” she asks him.
Oh wow.Either she doesn’t know her lines, or she’s ad-libbing. In which case, this would be the third significant departure from script I’ve witnessed in the last five minutes.
“Indeed, I do,” Jonas replies.
Peter maneuvers us so close to the leading couple that I can hear Giselle’s next line, whispered after she covers her mic with her hand. “I mean, inme, me.”
“I am filled with admiration for your accomplishments, Madam,” Jonas whispers back, blocking his own lavalier.
What in the world?
She beams, delighted.
He scans the audience until he spots the elegant couple he’d greeted warmly before the show began. Friends, I assume. They’re dancing at the other end of the room.
As if reassured, he returns his focus to Giselle. “I should be overjoyed if you would allow me to learn more and to visit your museum,” he whispers.
What museum?
Ah yes, I remember something about Giselle being so into Regency that she has amassed a big enough collection of objects and works of art, thanks to Daddy’s money, to open a small private museum.
After that brief exchange, the pair free their mics and return to the script.
What just happened?
I flounder through the rest of the show in a dark, confused state of mind. My thoughts scatter all over the place. They leap from Jonas to Peter to Jean-Paul Sartre, and I conclude that all men are bastards. But worst of all, I recognize that my performance today sucks. I even forgot a line toward the end, which earns me one of Sandra’s dreaded stares of displeasure.
Will she keep me for the season in Bath?
Right now, I can’t even bring myself to care.
When the show and the talkback are finally over, I hang back in the Sky Hall and watch Jonas exchange pleasantries with the chic couple.
He won’t look at me.
Is it all my fault?
Did I fuck up without realizing it? Did I do or say something that Jonas found so unpalatable, so awful and shocking that his fascination with me turned into repulsion?
Was it my feminist views?
He’s been aware of them since day one, and they didn’t seem to repel him, despite our diverging opinions.
If only he’d tell me what turned him off like this!
I won’t give up on my principles—if, indeed, it was my principles—but at least I’d now.
To distract myself, I let my gaze meander around the room.
Oh, look who else is still here!Giselle, waiting in the wings to talk to Jonas.
He shoots her eloquent glances from time to time as if to beg her to wait a little longer until he’s done with his social obligations. Judging by Giselle’s coy smile and the fact that she stays put, she catches his drift.
