“You’re going to have Roshni with you,” I assure her.
“I know that, but as amazing as Roshni is, she isn’t even involved in the theater. She’s here for a fun summer job, and then she’s becoming a pharmacist.”
Juliette isn’t exaggerating there. Roshni’s mom is her lawyer and longtime friend and was the main facilitator in organizing this two-month position we created just for her.
“Even so,” I say, “you’re not going to be on your own. There’s a director and a cast and a crew already in place. You’re really just going to oversee everything and offer advice.”
“Yes, I’m aware that I’m basically only invited for a glorified photo op, but what if this is make-or-break for me? This trip could be exactly what I need to get things moving again creatively, and maybe it’s what you need, too.”
I sigh as I feel my resolve starting to weaken. I think about the playwriting contest I’m planning to enter. The contest that can finally wipe away my former theatrical humiliation. The contest that can give me the validation that I wish I didn’t desperately need, but I do.
If I go on the trip, I can still get work done. Of course, it won’t be the same as having uninterrupted free time, but it’s doable. I just have to finish off the ending and polish the rest. Some of the best playwrights on earth have found inspiration in London. (I’m looking at you, Caryl Churchill!) Maybe a little jaunt across the pond wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Or maybe it will be a jaw-dropping mistake.
Indecision gnaws at the back of my mind as I focus back on Juliette, knowing that I need to give her a serious answer, one way or another. I make a mental note to call my dad. I was supposed to have dinner with him this weekend.
“What do you say, kid? Are you in?”
When she says it like that, when she calls me “kid,” it’s so easy to think that she’s saying it in a maternal way—that she thinks of me like a daughter. I’m not positive that’s how she means it, but that’s how I hear it, and it pulls at my heartstrings with undeniable force.
I shake my head, already half regretting my decision.
“I’m in.”
2
So, this is me taking back every negative thing I’ve ever said about flying first class. Much as I enjoyed my previous moral high ground, I am beyond comfortable right now and feeling fancy AF. Is this experience completely unnecessary? Yes. Do I feel like an imposter? Undoubtedly. Am I going to turn Juliette down if she offers to spring for the same seats on future flights? Hell to the no. I’m currently half-reclined, sitting up with my legs fully extended and covered by a luxurious blanket, with a shiny little table suspended over my lap. I’m working on my play, as I always do, while simultaneously finding a reason to procrastinate, as I also always do.
As I look at the laptop screen, my open document is more in the background than in the forefront as I read through a group chat I’m in with some of my graduate school friends and our favorite professor. We all talk fairly regularly, forever inviting each other to shows and workshops. But now, more often than not, everyone is announcing the staging of their plays or a producer they’re meeting with or something else along those lines. Everyone moving forward as I stay stagnant. Comfortable, but stagnant.
Avery just told us she signed with an agent. And I’m happy for her, of course I am, but a twinge of jealousy inevitably reverberates through my psyche. I know this is incredible news for her, but it also sometimes feels like there’s only a finite amount of success to go around, and if I don’t get my share now, I never will.
I close out the chat and attempt to channel my emotions into my writing, into the same play that I’ve been tweaking and twisting around in my brain for the past four years. It’s a nonlinear comedy with what I hope has plenty of depth and thought-provoking moments. I’ve always felt a little out of place writing comedy while my friends penned hard-hitting dramas, but I’ve also enjoyed etching out my own little artistic space. A place that offers laughs and sighs as well as complexity and social relevance.
I scroll through the document now, going back to adjust a scene in the second act, when I hear Juliette quietlypssting at me, trying to be mindful of the other travelers who are already asleep. I glance over to my right and find her across the aisle, half-reclined. Roshni is passed out to her left with a silk mask over her eyes that says Beauty Sleep Mode.
“What are you doing over there?” she asks, nudging her chin towards my computer. “Discreetly reading fan fiction?”
“Don’t judge fan fiction. It’s the next literary frontier.” She rolls her eyes, and I twist my body to face her. “I’m just trying to finish up my project.”
“You still haven’t given it a title yet?”
“I will when it’s done. Like how some parents don’t name their babies until they’re born—I have to see what it looks like first.”
Juliette nods. “I came up with the title forThe Lights of Trafalgara year before I wrote it. I just kept saying it over and over in my head until I willed it into existence.”
“Maybe that’s where I went wrong. I’ll have to start referring to this asThe Award-Winning Play that Saves Me from My Looming Mental Breakdown.”
Juliette smiles and reclines her seat a little more, looking up at the overhead light above her before turning back to me. “At least you still have time. When I was your age, ideas and plots sprang from my mind like fruit from the branch. Now I’m nothing but a termite-infested stump.”
“You are not a stump. The fact that we’re currently traveling internationally to restage one of your plays proves how un-stump-like you are.”
“Restaging,” she scoffs. “Now, that’s a generous description.”
I try to think of something to appease her, but I know nothing will work. The fact thatThe Lights of Trafalgaris being mounted in an outdoor pop-up location at Regent’s Park rather than a traditional theater always rubbed her the wrong way, and clearly, she’s yet to get on board.
“A pop-up play is still a play, Juliette. Some would say it’s better. When you shy away from convention, you unlock aspects of a piece that may have never been explored before.”
