Dreamcatcher -- Chapter Ten

Dreamcatcher: Chapter Ten

Back when Sarah was in sixth grade, Ms. Archer, her English teacher, had asked the class to write an essay about what they’d do if they suddenly found themselves with only one day left to live. At the time, it was probably wishful thinking on the part of the long-suffering Ms. Archer, but at least it had certainly presented a more interesting scenario to tackle than the usual “How I spent my summer vacation” twaddle. Sarah couldn’t remember what she’d written anymore; pretty standard stuff, probably. Spend time with loved ones, eat a favorite meal, visit a favorite place, meet a favorite celebrity, maybe.

She was fairly certain, however, that her itinerary hadn’t included sorting laundry.

Still, as she tossed whites into one pile and darks into another, she had to admit that it seemed as good a rote physical chore as any to distract her energies. What neither sixth-graders nor Ms. Archer could have guessed was that in the face of the actual stark indisputable certainty of the imminent end to one’s existence, a philosophical “carpe diem” attitude was a hard thing to muster. Just about the only way to keep from running and screaming was to refuse to dwell on it at all -- and the only way to put that particular topic out of one’s mind was to focus for dear life on the banal and mundane routines which comprise the heartbeat of the humdrum, the normal rhythms of the everyday.

Besides, what loved ones did she have to spend time with? Her well-meaning father could see only a painful ghost of Linda when he looked into her face and listened to her chatter worshipfully about her mother’s latest play; every time he told her in hushed tones how much her beauty reminded him of her mother, she always knew what he really meant. He alienated Sarah with the thoughtless way he wrapped himself in the comfortable cocoon of his new family, while she alienated him with her thoughtless hero-worship of the woman who had walked out of both their lives when she walked out onto the stage. Her favorite celebrity, her mother, was every bit as out-of-reach as if she bore no bond of blood relation. Her favorite place was a sentimental memory of home she’d never really experienced outside of delusional dreams. She had to face facts: whenever her mother had given her so much as a grain of affection, she’d immediately constructed an entire sand castle of fantasy around it, then found herself bereft of shelter when it dissolved with the changing tides. You really can’t go home again, if home was never there to begin with. She was a silly child, crying for the moon, reaching up with sore and grasping fingers that were repeatedly slapped away. It was pathetic, really. Almost nineteen years old and still pining for love, yet ironically incapable of giving or receiving it. She continually bared her heart to Linda Williams’ death of a thousand cuts, then jealously shielded the festering wreckage from everyone else with an adamantine wall of control. As she’d grown, she’d stopped petulantly slamming the door to her room, and started slamming the door to her heart instead. She winced at the cruel perfection of it; in the course of her single-minded quest to win her mother’s love, Sarah had spent eighteen years forging herself into the selfsame shape of inconsiderate emotional isolation. In her quest to win her mother, she’d unwittingly lost herself.

It was enough to ruin her appetite for a last supper.

The tip of her tongue, a soothing memory of moisture, darted nervously over the sandpaper surface of her lips. Life as she knew it would draw to a close tonight; on that score, she had not the slightest doubt. She couldn’t possibly withstand another assault. Her mind and her body were crumbling, undone by the weight of her own deformed dreams; her will was sure to follow. She now knew the answer to that old Harlem Renaissance poem: “What happens to a dream deferred?” Straining vainly against the cutting bonds of its constrictions, it scars and warps its way into the mother of all nightmares.

He was winning; they both knew it, now. He held all the cards this time, including the most unthinkable ace in the hole: the unflinching force of truth. When she’d gazed into his crystal, she’d seen reflected back nothing but the sere and barren desert of her heart. Wandering in that desolated wasteland, no thirsty traveler could long resist a dream of water, heedless that the tainted draught had the salt-bitter burn of tears. She would barter desiccation for drowning, trade one extreme for another. In the end, she would despairingly accept the lure of liquid crystal from his hands and from his eyes, and then . . . she would finally cease to be alone. She would finally cease the crippling fights with him; with her mother; with herself.

Of course, with Jareth, there would be a heavy penalty for losing. She might, in fact, simply cease to be; or at least cease to be anything more than his plaything. However he chose to end the game, the essence of Sarah Williams would not survive the night intact.

Not that it would be much of a loss. Not that it had ever been intact to begin with . . .

She impatiently shoved a ratty lock of hair behind her ear, her eyes hollow and haggard, staring past her present tasks with the unfocused intensity usually reserved for prophets and lunatics. She felt a certain kinship with them both.

It would all come down to winning and losing, no two ways about it. The language of the game formed the very conceptual basis of his vocabulary. She’d thought she’d won the first time around, for the first time in her life; now she knew, a bit too late, that winning a battle did not entail winning the war. Certainly not for a born loser like herself.

She stopped in mid-sort, angrily hurling a T-shirt against the door, where it connected with the unsatisfyingly weak slap of fabric. Who the hell did she think she was fooling with this farce? She couldn’t think about anything but tonight; couldn’t taste anything but the metallic tang of rancid fear upon her tongue; couldn’t smell anything but the sharp, sour scent of her own sweating panic. God, she couldn’t forget the way it felt when he touched her mind and her body. No, not touched; took. Anything short of complete control and possession was an alien concept to the Goblin King. Every moment of contact was a wonderful, terrible foreshadowing of what it would mean to be overwhelmed, to lose yourself completely in that delicious moment when the struggling swimmer allows exhausted muscles to finally fall limp, succumbing to the embrace of the sea . . .

Let me take you to that place where nothing ever hurts again . . .

She tried vainly to focus on anything but the dreamcatcher, whose continuous beckoning sway seemed to suggest, clearly as a sideshow hypnotist, that she was getting very sleepy. Leaden eyelids sliding closed. Utterly relaxed. Drifting . . .

She roughly rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes and ears, as if she could erase the torment of her senses once and for all. See no evil, hear no evil . . .

The near absolute silence of the overcast autumn morning seemed a heavy-textured, stifling thing, the musty air oppressive and clinging as a wet wool muffler. It was just too damn quiet in here; just her and her battalion of restless thoughts, clustering peevishly into a migraine formation. All alone with the voices in her head.

Slamming the window shut, she kicked a resentful path through her roommate’s trash, reached over, and clicked the volume knob of the radio onto full-blast. At this point, why should she give a damn if she alienated her neighbors with the racket? After all, she wouldn’t be around to complain to for much longer.

“There’s such a fooled heart, beating so fast, in search of new dreams, a love that will last . . .”

Oh, God, no. His song. His voice. . . .

“ . . . within your heart, I’ll place the moon, within your heart . . .”

She threw herself forward, feet skidding out from under her on the slippery detritus of wadded paper and crumpled clothing. As she fell to her knees, she grazed her shin against the edge of the bedframe, a thin layer of bloody skin peeling back like old parchment. Ignoring the sting, she twisted the channel tuning button viciously to the right. She was wide-awake; she didn’t belong to him yet. He would not have her one second sooner than was his due.

“ . . . as the pain sweeps through, . . . ”

Sarah continued twisting, turning the knob with the frenzied alacrity of a mad scientist regulating the flow of electricity into his latest creation.

“ . . . makes no sense for you . . .”

Every station. Every goddamn station.

“ . . . every thrill has gone, . . .”

She yanked the cord out of the wall.

“ . . . wasn’t too much fun at all . . .”

She stared at the cord in disbelief. This thing didn’t have a battery backup. It couldn’t be playing.

“ . . . but I’ll be there for you . . .”

But it was.

“ . . . as the world falls down . . .”

She had to override it somehow. There had to be a way . . . She had to try something . . . She plugged the power back in, grabbed a random cassette from the table, slammed it in, and hit “play.” Too late, she noticed that the cassette was Monty’s.

Time to face the music, one way or another.

A slow, pulsing rhythm filled the room, steady and gentle as the recordings of the human heartbeat used to soothe newborns. It was familiar; she’d heard the song at least a dozen times before on the college radio station, but heard it the way one hears a pleasant background noise, without ever really listening to it or noticing it on a carefully conscious level. Rather the way she treated Monty, come to think of it.

This time, she listened.

“Only tell me that you still want me here
When you wander off out there
To those hills of dust and hard winds that blow
In that dry white ocean alone

Lost out in the desert
You are lost out in the desert

But to stand with you in a ring of fire
We'll forget the days gone by
I'll protect your body and guard your soul
From mirages in your sight

Lost out in the desert . . .

If your hopes scatter like the dust across your track
I'll be the moon that shines on your path
The sun may blind our eyes, I'll pray the skies above
For snow to fall on the Sahara
If that's the only place where you can leave your doubts
I'll hold you up and be your way out
And if we burn away, I'll pray the skies above
For snow to fall on the Sahara

Just a word and I will cover your shoulders
With veils of silk and gold
When the darkness comes and darkens your heart
Leaving you with regrets so cold

Lost out in the desert . . .

As the rhythm faded away, Sarah pressed stop. Then rewind. Then play.

Then, when the song was over, she did it again. And again.

She finally stopped in the middle of rewinding, her forehead pressed against the edge of her dresser, concentrating on the feel of the sharp wood pressing into her skin, narrowing the perimeter of her universe to encompass only that sensation.

Sarah had truly thought that Jareth was holding all the cards. Neither she nor he had reckoned on the value of the Joker.

Monty had chosen that song? Monty, the comic relief, the tutor, the friend? My God, how the hell did he understand how she felt? How did he know her that well?

Lost out in the desert . . . you are lost out in the desert . . .

She closed her eyes, opened her heart, and remembered. Remembered a hundred offhand remarks and half-regarded gestures. Remembered the concern in his voice and his eyes, how he had always been the first to notice the smallest flicker in her moods. Remembered how he had played the fool to make her laugh, while she’d just played him for a fool.

Only tell me that you still want me here . . .

She rose to her feet and paced the room agitatedly, like a caged tiger, intermittently reaching down to rub her sore shin.

Only tell me . . .

He couldn’t know what he was asking, couldn’t begin to comprehend the sum total of the carnage of her life, her heart. She was damaged goods, one of the walking wounded, shattered and reassembled haphazardly as a Picasso, all jagged edges and wrong perspectives. Monty’s offer was tempting, but she couldn’t go and dump her problems on him like that; she couldn’t just keep using him to hold on to like a Helping Hand, to delay her plunge into the oubliette for just a little bit longer. She cared about him too much.

She stopped in her tracks.

She cared about him.

My God, she did, didn’t she?

The full force of the realization hit her with the shock of icewater, hurling her back down upon the bed as it yanked away the emotional foundations of her world and replaced it with something about as comfortably solid and familiar as Jello.

She cared about him.

She tucked her knees up under her chin and held on for dear life as the Jello quivered madly.

True to form, he had eased his way into her consciousness gradually, unobtrusively. Bit by piece, her memory had tucked away every trait and feature like a crow will hoard a brightly colored trinket, oblivious to the greater value. Now, the disparate pieces merged into an utterly unexpected mosaic: his contagious crooked smile; the wryly practical perspective that made you see the punch line in even the worst situation; his way of explaining things so you realized that you knew the answers all along; his easy, unassuming manner; the unshakable solidity of his broadly muscled shoulders; his large, warm hands; the lazy rumble of his voice, golden-warm as hundred summer days, rich and baritone as the drowsy humming of a hundred summer-sated bees; the June-sky essence of his eyes -- they were all so different from Jareth, who personified the dagger and the dream. A marvelous study in contrasts and parallels, they were: Jareth as the searing light that cast the shadows; Monty as the beacon which dispelled them. Jareth urging her to hide from her wounds; Monty urging her to heal them. Jareth offering her a crystal; Monty offering her a . . . a Chapstick.

She started to laugh, rocking back and forth, choking little hiccups of escaping tension bubbling out like the spurting seepage from a safety valve on a tank filled to overflowing. She was finally losing her mind. Either that, or finally regaining it, one or the other.

It was all so clear; not clear like crystal, but clear like amber, glowing with the radiance of preserved sunlight and living memory. As she’d sunk deeper into herself, she’d pushed him away; yet even then, during the dreams, she’d thought of things he’d said or done, and had gained strength from simply who he was. Now, she found that he was still there, still watching and listening and waiting for her to give him the word. Not trying to control, but to assist. Monty loved her. She didn’t know if she loved him, or if her damaged heart was even capable of love, but she couldn’t deny that she cared about him.

It frightened the hell out of her.

Only tell me . . .

The sobbing laughter faded into a fresh tide of tears. When you cared about someone -- when you gave them access to your heart, your dreams, your soul -- you lost control. You gave them power over you. Inevitably, that power came back to haunt you. If experience had taught her anything, it had driven that lesson home with the stinging strokes of a riding crop wielded against her tender flesh. She loved her mother; she was infatuated and fascinated with Jareth. She had lowered her defenses to their glamour, and both had nearly succeeded in obliterating her. Like Juliet, she had found the script was already written as a tragedy, in an indelible ink of blood and tears. Written with her blood and tears, fluids she greatly begrudged sharing. No wonder she felt drained, crisp and dry as an autumn leaf.

But Monty specialized in turning tragedy to comedy, didn’t he?

Only tell me . . .

No. This time would be no different. She knew exactly what would happen if she listened to his plea. If she talked to him, if she truly opened her heart to him, he’d run so fast he’d leave a cartoon trail of dust behind. He naively hoped that they could solve her problems together because he was blissfully ignorant of the sheer surreal magnitude of them. Hell, her tale of a Labyrinth and a Goblin King and a magical dreamcatcher sounded insane even to her. She’d lose him, she’d be rejected, and it would be the killing blow. It was better to cut her losses and spare herself that final pain before slipping into the emotional euthanasia Jareth promised, the best and final mercy he could offer. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.

Juliet said it best, didn’t she? “My dismal scene I needs must act alone.” The poet who professed that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all was either an idiot or a liar. At least this way, she couldn’t lose what she never had. Better to be the one to run, than to be the one he ran from. As long as she could still feel, it was better to keep the ruined remains of her heart closed tight; control and closure were the safest course to follow. Weren’t they?

Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,/To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,/And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

Closure was claustrophobia, wasn’t it? Closure was stasis. Closure was death. Closure was what Jareth offered, enclosure within the perfect control of a crystal. Life, on the other hand, rather like the metaphysical equivalent of a robbery-plagued 24-hour convenience store, unavoidably entailed remaining open, with all the attendant risks. You couldn’t pick and choose; life demanded you stay open to fear and pain as well as love, all of them the most primally disturbing and fundamental four-letter words imaginable, words which sported ski masks and brandished revolvers. You had to gamble to play the game, otherwise you lost before you even started. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 dollars.

She massaged her temples, willing the kettledrum pounding to go away, and retrieved a band-aid from the medicine cabinet. What did it even matter? She had about the same odds of winning as the odds of . . . snow on the Sahara. Her resultant smile was laced with bitterness and shadowed with regret. Tonight, Jareth would have the last word. Everything else would be a moot point.

Well, it was her last chance to speak, then. She’d spent her entire life training to be an actress, reciting someone else’s lines. She’d never been completely honest with anyone, even herself; that’s what had made the truth become a blade in Jareth’s hands, vivisecting her from neck to navel. Nothing would change the fact that he would come for her tonight to finish what they’d started years ago. But she still had today.

Last chance. Carpe diem. Seize the day.

Wasn’t that, ironically enough, what Jareth’s song had instructed her to do last night?

Only tell me . . .

The questions wheeled and circled, buzzing like the winged scavengers at the messy end of the food chain, waiting for their next meal to stop kicking. Like Monty said, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition; nobody expects their gift from Santa Fe to be a brutal test of faith. When you were up against Jareth, though, all you had left was your faith: your belief in others, and in yourself.

Her thoughts were going nowhere in twisting, nauseating spirals, but throughout her emotional figure-eights, one inescapable fact stood firmly at the hub, drawing her back with the intractable emotional magnetism of true north. She cared about Monty. If she left him thinking she didn’t give a damn, she would be as selfish as her mother, or Jareth. She’d be hurting him for the sake of her own self-interest, her own fear of being hurt. It wouldn’t be fair.

Only tell me . . .

To hell with fair. It wouldn’t be right.

. . . tell me.

As she pasted the band-aid over the scrape on her shin, her features adopted a rueful smile, finally free of bitterness, if not regret. He always did have a knack for making her smile.

“All right, then. You asked for it.”

As Ian MacKenzie talked, Linda Williams smiled. She was extremely good at smiling. She could conceivably have won awards for it, leaving an entire regiment of beaming beauty queens weeping in their crowns. However, even the most accomplished smiler has her limits, and the numb, strained ache of cheek muscles informed her, in no uncertain terms, that Ian was testing hers. Even her teeth ached.

In the course of an hour, she had learned volumes about Ian’s academic background, family life, culinary preferences, medical history, romantic history, and favorite brand of toothpaste. He leaped from random tangent to digression with the crazed and aimless energy of a flaming kangaroo. The only discernable common thread binding the crazy-quilt of his conversation was, (un)interestingly enough, his enduring fascination with Ian MacKenzie. Every tactful attempt she made to steer him back to the topic at hand felt as futile as trying to lead Narcissus home through a forest of wading pools. It was, she reflected, rather hard to believe the nerve of some people.

Nodding politely, Linda let herself drift, borne up by the muted hum of the conversations around her, every last one of them no doubt a thrill-a-minute in comparison with Ian’s endless monologues. She idly half-watched the space over Ian’s right shoulder, where she was afforded an amusing view of a slim and youthful tray-bearing waitress, all honey-blond hair and custom-tanned skin, dodging awkwardly around one of the profusion of ornamental silk potted plants dotting the aisle like flags on a ski run. Probably an aspiring performer, judging by the look of her; the joke always went that there were no waitresses in this town, only unemployed actresses. She shivered slightly, wrapping her fashionably tailored suede jacket a bit more tightly around her. There was a newly savage, snow-scented bite to the air which seemed to penetrate even inside the resolutely controlled environment of the cafe; the wind blustered outside like an irate tourist without a reservation. The seasons were shifting, although it seemed to her as if autumn had barely begun to play its part. Winter was coming early this year.

“. . . and so then I said, ‘Come on, who the hell do you think I am, Andrew Lloyd Webber?’” Upon finishing his latest irrelevant anecdote, Ian folded his arms and settled back into his chair with an expectant expression, his body language as quietly demanding as a flashing “applause” sign. Watching him through glazed eyes, Linda laughed dutifully, ever mindful of her cues. Andrew Lloyd Webber, indeed. He should be so damn lucky. She should be so damn lucky . . .

Abhorring a vacuum even more than Nature itself, Ian swiftly leaped to fill the millisecond’s lag in the conversation. “I mean, like I told Sam, art is life, and life is pain. Not pretty little melodramatic, hearts-and-roses, ‘oh-that’s-so-sad-it’s-lovely’ pain, but real pain, where the soul screams right before it goes under, you know? That’s what ‘Juliet Dreaming’ is all about. Real tragedy. It’s time to give this complacent damn town a wake-up call.” As he paused for air, Linda saw and seized her golden chance.

“So what exactly is the play about, then, Ian? The actual plot, I mean. I haven’t seen a copy of the script yet.”

Ian nodded sagely, stroking his chin in such a way as to make it seem a pity that he lacked a venerable gray Beard of Wisdom to accentuate the gesture. “Well, Linda, it’s a bit deceptive to speak solely in terms of plot. I mean, look at ‘Waiting for Godot.’ If you want to talk plot, it’s about two guys talking and, well, waiting. You can see how that would be reductive, really. Plot as such has lost its meaning in the ontological construct of postmodern theater. Our guiding paradigm has really shifted.”

Although Linda was certainly ignorant of the meaning of his pretentious rhetoric, more crucial was her failure to comprehend that Ian MacKenzie, having arrived in the theater world fresh from graduate school, dropped words like “ontological” and “paradigm” in the same manner that the newly-rich will flash hundred dollar bills and gaudy evening clothes at an exclusive country club. Anxious insecurity had bred a misguided desire to impress; to overcompensate for his nagging sense of inferiority, Ian had quite unconsciously assumed the persona of an obnoxious, condescending twit. If Linda had only possessed the insight into human nature necessary to appreciate this simple fact, perhaps she could have controlled her temper more effectively. As it was, all of her ex-husbands would already have noticed the telltale alteration in her demeanor, the way her muscles tensed and her delicately curved fingernails flexed for the kill like a set of unsheathed knives. Unlike the unfortunate Ian, they would already have started heading for the hills.

“I see,” she almost purred, her voice dripping with exaggerated sweetness. “Well, then, let me rephrase my question. What will I, as Juliet, be doing for the two hours or so that I’m onstage? I won’t just be lying there unconscious, I hope? You don’t plan on taking the concept of ‘Juliet Dreaming’ too literally, do you? Although that might be the ‘postmodern’ thing to do, I suppose, no danger of any plot sneaking in there.”

Blinking slowly, Ian stared at her with the dumbly bewildered expression of a mildly stunned water buffalo. Linda smiled, genuinely this time, savoring his discomfiture. She watched with satisfaction as a dull blush surged from underneath his black turtleneck, suffusing his entire countenance with a ember-red hue. The prominent tips of his ears almost seemed to glow.

“Um . . . Linda . . . I . . . I think there’s been some misunderstanding. God, I’m sorry, I just assumed Sam said something when he told you about the play. I mean, I thought you knew, anyway . . .” Squirming awkwardly in his seat, he trailed off wretchedly, all poise and pretense gone. He suddenly looked very much like a little boy dreading a sound scolding. “You see, Linda, it’s just that . . . well, the part of Juliet’s already been cast awhile ago. What I want you to play is the part of Juliet’s mother.”

The words dropped heavily as stones in water, the ripples spreading outwards with a symmetrical inevitability. Linda simply stared at him, her face turning a dreadfully white counterpoint to his flushed visage. He floundered on helplessly, resolutely digging himself in deeper. “I mean, I thought that the part of Juliet needed to be played by someone younger . . . um, not that you’re not young, but someone closer to the age you were when you played it last time. I thought it would make a really neat sort of coming full-circle, you know, playing first Juliet, then Lady Capulet. The role’s a really good one, though, it’s much larger than the one in the original play. It’s a crux of the whole story, really. It could be as important as Juliet, even. I think. ”

Then, for the first time in recorded memory, Ian MacKenzie found himself at a loss for words. He finally lapsed into a desperate silence, the pathetic, apologetic pleading in his voice shifting mutely to his eyes. One look at him could leave no doubt that he was telling the truth, not simply retaliating for her snide comments about his play. His miserable embarrassment was as tangible as his blush. No, not just embarrassment; there was another element in his eyes.

Pity.

The little bastard was genuinely sorry for her. Her! Linda Williams!

Linda looked away, livid with rage, a dozen vicious replies struggling for supremacy in her head. Of course Sam hadn’t said anything; his sense of self-preservation was far too finely honed for that. Well, she would deal with him later. Right now, she was simply going to tell Ian to take his play and shove it where proctology would be of more help than ontology. She was going to explain to him precisely, stopping just short of using a multi-media presentation of slides and charts and diagrams, what a worthless, insignificant, pitiful little nobody he was. She was going to tell him all this, and a whole hell of a lot more, then take his pity and toss it back on top of the heap of derision as a sort of parsley garnish.

Unfortunately, she had turned towards the wall with a mirror. Mirrors are not known for displaying pity.

Without her omnipresent smile, a spiderweb of tiny dry lines showed clearly on her countenance, their disfiguring graffiti marring the elegant set of her eyes and mouth. Her foundation only accentuated what she sought to hide, the thick beige layers caking into miniature deltas flanking the tracks eroded by the rivers of time. Time, gravity, entropy, chaos; the physics at the heart of life insisted upon crafting their own drama etched in yielding flesh, as antithetical to the stage’s aesthetics of controlled and perfect immortality as Monty was to Jareth’s nightmare Romeo. In Linda’s jaded eyes, Juliet had been the lucky one, martyred to a never-ending dream of eternal youth and beauty even as she lost her life to the dagger’s twist.

The hated lines furrowed and deepened as her vision was obscured by the shadow of the waitress pirouetting by once again to refill her water glass, her skin crystal-smooth and luminous with the nascent glow of youth and fresh potential. The reflection unequivocally confirmed what directors had been telling her for years. She was still an attractive woman, but she was no longer young. The theater world, a fickle Romeo at best, would lavish its attention on other star-crossed lovers, reveling in the eternally seductive procession of Juliets of the moment, an endless, gorgeous dance macabre shrouded in textures of lushly rotting velvet and fading shades of ocean blue. It was the rudest of awakenings, finding herself imprisoned in this crypt of age, with nothing but decaying memories for company. The dream was over.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the biggest fool of all?

Blinking madly until the rising flood surged inward, she hastily averted her burning eyes and instead focused grimly on the abstract mauve paisley pattern of the tablecloth, concentrating on the hazy swarm of dots and lines and colors. Everything was floating on relentless waves of nausea. She was going to be sick. She was going to pass out. She could see the tabloid headline now: “AGING ACTRESS COLLAPSES IN TRENDY MANHATTAN CAFE.” Ah, but no. Who was she kidding? She probably wouldn’t even rate a tabloid headline anymore.

Now, in the harsh clarity of hindsight, she could see that “Simone” had been the beginning of the end. At the time, Sarah had facilitated her denial, viewing the icicle-bright glitter and gauze trappings of Linda’s Fairy Queendom with the dazzled eyes of youth. In Sarah’s mind, Linda had won the glamorous role of a lifetime. Deep down, though, Linda knew that the Fairy Queen was nothing. Simone was the play, quite literally, from the title on down. Clich�s notwithstanding, veterans of theater knew that there were both small roles and small actors, and the former were generally relegated to the latter. Anyone who played Juliet quickly learned that the title characters were the ones who mattered, who formed the spine and soul of the play.

Linda had fought for the role of Simone with everything she had. She’d lobbied and demanded and even begged. She could still remember that final casting meeting, held in the director’s unnaturally white office, sterile as a surgical space. Clearly as yesterday, she could still hear his infuriatingly reasonable voice explaining how she was just a bit too old for Simone, but just the right age for the Fairy Queen. Just the right age to prance around as a second banana Titania wanna-be in a glorified tutu.

She had accepted. She had smiled. Linda always smiled.

Then she had gone home, buried her face in her pillow, and screamed.

“Linda?” Ian’s voice, vibrating with concern, disrupted her thoughts. She looked up, lips closed in a tight line. “Linda, I didn’t mean to --”

“Don’t be silly, Ian. I knew I would be playing Lady Capulet. I just said the wrong character. All this has brought back memories of playing Juliet, I suppose, and I misspoke myself out of habit.”

Linda’s reply quite possibly ranked as the worst performance in the history of western civilization, but Ian accepted it as gratefully as a drunk would take free Ripple. “Oh, yeah, um, I guess it would bring back some memories, wouldn’t it? You know, I just have to tell you again, I really do think that’s still the best staging of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ I’ve ever seen. Everyone else has said this too, but I’ve got to agree: your ‘Come vial’ monologue was just terrific.”

Linda ran her finger around the rim of her water glass in smooth and seamless circlings. “Thanks. May I ask, what did you think of my role in ‘Simone’?”

“Didn’t see that one, I’m afraid. I heard good things about it, though. You played Simone, right?”

“Actually, no. I played the . . . Fairy Queen.” She said the words like a prude might pronounce a particularly nasty expletive. “Another mother role, more or less.”

“Ah. Well, I’m afraid musicals aren’t really my thing. I’m more into tragedies myself.”

“I see. Well, I suppose I am too.” Smiling wanly, Linda grasped the stem of her crystal water glass, raising it to the light. The colorless liquid rocked and swirled gently with the motion, tiny prismatic rainbows shimmering at the heart. Like a waterskiing savant gliding through an endless summer, she had always skimmed upon the mirror-bright surface of life, never dreaming that her self-created season in the sun and the effortless equilibrium which could put the most agile waitress to shame couldn’t last forever. Now, the woman who had never even endured the discomfort of wet feet was learning she was ill-equipped to swim, too far at sea to learn, and constitutionally incapable of admitting her need for a lifeline. So that’s how it would end; going down with a muffled whimper and a mouthful of saltwater. No drama, no dignity, no bang. Not even a decent scream. That wasn’t tragedy; it was farce.

“Do you know,” she whispered softly, half to herself, “I was never really completely happy with that monologue. I always thought the sleeping potion should be blood-red or midnight-blue or something. I wanted to maybe even let a little bit of it trickle down the corner of my mouth before collapsing. I thought it would be so much more dramatic. The director absolutely insisted that I use water in a plain glass vial, though. I remember, he told me, ‘Technicolor Death, only you would think of something so over-the-top, so . . . hammy.’ Can you imagine that? I still think he was wrong. There should have been a little more to the moment. Juliet deserved at least that much.” She closed her eyes, replaying the argument in the shabby cineplex of memory. No matter how the drama played, as tragedy or fairy tale, the director always won in the end. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t goddamn fair.

She abruptly shifted her gaze back towards Ian, eyes carefully empty, lips twisted into a reasonable facsimile of her earlier cheery smile. “God, still obsessing over details. It’s hell being an artist, isn’t it?”

Fiddling with his own water glass, he groped for an appropriate response, finally settling for the comfortable, familiar, and ultimately meaningless path of clich�. “Um, yeah, it’s . . . well, it’s certainly no piece of cake.”

Cycles and circles and irony. It was enough to make a director proud.

Somewhere, not quite here nor there, a Goblin King laughed. Then again, perhaps it was just the quiet tinkling of glassware and silver.

Linda laughed too, the sound tinny and jarring as hearing a music box where an orchestra should be. “Truer words were never spoken, Ian. But of course, it’s all worth it, in the end, right? A toast, then, to our favorite monologue, and ‘Juliet Dreaming’. ‘Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink -- I drink to thee.’”

Shifting uneasily, Ian raised his own glass to touch hers, eardrums tingling at the oddly resonant, perfectly pitched tone that only truly fine stemware can produce, more harmonious than a Greek chorus. As a self-proclaimed aficionado of tragedy, he understood that sometimes the final sounds of a soul screaming could be as quiet as the inexorable flow of the waters of time, and ordinary as the musical chiming of crystal.

Feather image edited from Graphics by Tammy; Moon image edited from Yahright Graphics Archive; Background from Joerg Doehring's Backgrounds.