It was the cruelest thing about bipolar disorder, I thought; there was never one thing that worked forever. No one med,no one dose, no one routine. My mom said it was like walking on a rope bridge, where every step was slightly different from the last and sometimes you had to stop and just hold on until you could find your balance again. But she also liked to remind me that sometimes the views from her bridge were incredible too.
“If you need me to come home...” I started, but she was already shaking her head.
“I didn’t get low because you left,” she said firmly. “And I’m feeling better now. Remember? I made a wreath today?”
“You and I both know you made that wreath to get Barb off your back.” Barb was a lovely woman with a heart full of kindness, but she was the kind of person who used to work sixty-hour weeks, and in her retirement sewed an entire quilt every month. She seemed to think that the cure for depression was keeping busy, and so she was always encouraging Mom to make things or bake things or volunteer at the community garden by our house. She meant well, but it was also exhausting to have to explain over and over again thatdepression didn’t work like that.
Mom smiled a little, a real smile this time. “Okay, yes. Maybe I did.”
“Will you let me know how your follow-up with Dr.Sam goes tomorrow?” I asked. “And if you need to call or talk at any time, and you can’t get ahold of me, Kallum can come over right away.”
“I know, I know.” She gave me another real smile. It was weary and I could see the strain of the last week in her eyes, but it was still a genuine April Kowalczk smile. “Stop feelingguilty,” she said. “I’m excited you’re there, doing this. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
“Okay,” I said, regret squeezing me everywhere. If only I’d known what a shitty contract INK was signing with our old manager; if only I’d kept a better hold on the money I had managed to get; if only I had more skills or more degrees or moresomething.
If only I’d been like Isaac and stuck the landing on a successful solo pop career instead of accidentally throwing it in the dumpster at the Duluth Olympics.
But I couldn’t go back and change the past. I could only fix the future.
Only a few hours after falling asleep—damn you to brocade hell, whoever invented the dressing gown—my phone jolted me awake with a sound like I was on a submarine that had just been struck with a missile.
“Shit, fuck, shit,” I sputtered, my heart racing as I slapped at the phone, trying to get it to shut up. I finally succeeded, glanced at the window, where it still looked like midnight outside, and briefly hated my life. If there was any good thing about professional theater, it was that it skewed nocturnal. These early movie morningssucked. Especially when I also woke up with a hard-on that felt like it was ready to go to war.
And of course, when I finally did sit up, the first thing I saw was the bottle of gingerbread lotion on my end table, taunting me with its silky, Christmas-scented goodness.
It would only take a little dollop, and then I could feel so muchbetter—
No!No.
I swung myself out of bed and raced into a lukewarm shower—I tried a cold shower, but I was shivering too hard to wash my hair—and tried to psych myself up for another day of implementing the No Orgasm Component of my Bee Strategy. But all I could remember was the way her bottom lip felt against mine last night as we Lady and the Tramped that cheese fry and the way the hem of her costume dress had fluttered around her plush thighs as we’d walked around the town square.
The way it had felt to hold her close and stroke her tongue with mine at fake Frostmere Manor...
I can help youuuuu, the gingerbread lotion called from the table.Let me fix it with the moisturizing glide of gingery, cinnamony wonder. Let me be the holiday salve to your poor, aching, throbbing—
I stalked over to the end table, grabbed the bottle, and then locked it in the room safe under the bed, where its siren song would be silenced. For now.
I managed to dress, gathered my things, including my newly re-belt-looped dressing gown, and headed to the fake toy shop. All with an angry boner that only abated to a semi once I found the Danish tray and helped myself to a flaky breakfast treat.
Luca wasn’t there, which wasn’t surprising, and after I was haired and makeuped into a Victorian duke, I changed into my costume on my own. Tight, dark breeches and a puffy shirt, followed by the dressing gown, belted tight against the cold.
Fifteen minutes before call time, I was in the town square, where Felicity and the duke would be spat out into the present day. I stood by one of the portable heaters and watched Pearlwrite furiously in a notebook, then scratch out what she’d written, and then scribble something new. I really, really hoped it was the last page to the script, since none of us still had any idea what the real meaning of Christmas was going to be.
Cammy the PA was darting around making the movie happen, except that at some point it became clear that the moviecouldn’thappen because we were missing Bee.
“Did anyone see her at the inn this morning?” Gretchen asked as Cammy tried calling Bee’s phone.
“I did,” one of the camera guys volunteered. “She was on her way to the toy shop.”
“She made it to the toy shop,” Denise said, “because she got her hair and makeup done before Nolan. She said she was going to find Luca to help her with her costume.”
“I’ll grab her,” I offered. “I left my water bottle in there anyway.”
Just then a gust of icy wind threatened to blow papers and cups everywhere. I was waved off while everyone else wrestled their things back into submission, and so I strode down Main Street to the toy shop and went inside.
“Hello?” I called, expecting to hear Bee’s laugh or the drone of anotherTrue Crime in Ice Skatingpodcast. But I heard nothing. The hair and makeup room was empty. Theentire placeseemed empty.
“Bee?” I tried again, and this time I heard something muffled from the back of the space. I passed the makeup tables and the stacks of totes and racks of costumes to find a door, which I knocked on. “Bee? Are you in there?”
