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“This is good,” Rebecca mumbles, shoveling in rough breaths on a haphazard beat. “Totally great. Awesome. I’m living my dreams. Theater is wonderful. Elliot Ellison is wonderful. This song is wonderful. I’m having the best time.”
She looks down at the sheet music in her hands, the words swimming through an unfocused gaze. They’re probably better that way, honestly. Soft, scrambled, hazy. Indistinct.
Behind her, she hears commotion, Josh’s voice calling, “Head’s up!” and the whooshing sound of something lowered via rope. From out on the stage, she hears Tim running through vocal scales under Connie’s shrill direction, and Valencia’s voice reaches her from the dressing room area backstage, where she’s apparently still working on convincing the costume coordinator that her dress needs to be even poofier.
As she focuses on these external factors, outside senses, Rebecca feels herself relaxing, inch by inch.
Despite everything, there’s just something soothing about being in the theater. The energy, the buzz, the passion of it all.
In the time it takes her to relax and calm herself, Connie has sent Tim back to wherever it is Tim comes from and pulled Nathaniel out to center stage.
Rebecca lingers in the wings for a moment, watching. She’s supposed to be working on her own performance, probably, or consulting with the hair and makeup folks, or—doing something, but she leans against the curtain instead, and watches as her—what? her ex-boss? ex-boyfriend? castmate? actual friend?—as Nathaniel, magnetically casual in jeans and a plaid button-down, listens to Connie’s direction with an expression of attentive focus, carefully finding his mark on stage and squaring his shoulders in preparation to sing.
Rebecca still can’t really figure out what he’s doing here. It’s so outside the sphere of the Nathaniel she expected, that she thought she knew, pieced together out of post-its and paper clips.
He’s softer now, she knows, a little better about expressing himself and his desires and the parts of himself that aren’t quite so prototypical-Plimpton, but—singing on stage, in public, in what she is sure will be a very elaborate prince costume, is a pretty big leap even from his everyday boss-man persona, not to mention his moments of especial hardassedness.
When Nathaniel starts singing, his voice is clear and even, confident without undue brashness or bravado. He sounds competent and like he knows he’s competent, the way he sounds in court or running a meeting at work, in those rare moments he’s not getting derailed by Maya or Darryl or Tim or, back in the day, Rebecca herself.
Connie stops him at the end of the first chorus, gives him some note, and he nods, intent, and runs a hand through his hair. A chance glance to his right has him catching Rebecca’s eye, and he smiles, casual, easy, unexpectant. Like it’s nice to see her, without pressure or supposition. And then, before she has a chance to react or overthink her own blossoming smile, he turns back to the task at hand and starts running through the song again.
It's not that it completely convinces Rebecca that he’s not here in some kind of misguided bid to win her back—not that she thinks that, it feels incredibly, absurdly, disgustingly, unabashedly narcissistic and presumptive to think that, not everything is about you, Rebecca, sometimes people do things that have nothing to do with you, just get over yourself, you stupid bitch—but it is refreshing in its authenticity. Nathaniel is here to work, and when Nathaniel works, he excels. When he cares enough to try, nothing can stand in his way.
Well. Rebecca thinks about a force of nature armed with BPD workbooks and a soft sweater, pushing him away with fear and longing and absolute terror. And she’d managed it. She’d overcome his protests, talked down all his excuses, and left him. She'd won, as bitter as winning felt.
Or maybe he’d just let her.
She thinks about a force of nature in a leather jacket accessorized with too much eyeliner and alcohol and self-loathing, and how he pushed that version of her away, too. Because he’s over her, probably. Which makes sense. Which is okay.
But he’s still here. And he still has a smile for her. And that’s all she really wants, right? For him to be happy. And her to be happy. They’re all just—happy.
“Hey, Bex!”
Josh appears at her side, bursting with enthusiasm and energy, and it’s easy enough to turn and grin back at him, pushing away the darker trend of her thoughts.
“Hi, Josh,” she says. “How’s it going?”
“So awesome,” he says, transparently honest. “I forgot how much fun all this theater stuff is. Are you having a good time?”
“Yeah!” she says, the lie coming to her lips easily in the face of his cheerfulness. Her heart gives a jolt at the realization that it really is a lie. Not that—she is—she is having fun, sort of, but also she feels a little bit like she’s going to puke or cry and she wants to go home and she wants to start screaming and she wants to sing, sing something better than Etta Mae’s Misogynistic Marvel of a Melody.
But instead: “It’s awesome! Just like being back at camp.”
Josh grins, and there’s something familiar and hypnotic in the simplicity of his friendship.
“Hey, look,” he says. “Maybe when we get home tonight, we can hang out, watch a movie? I was looking up theater stuff, and one of those weird old movie channels is playing a version of Macbeth. That might be fun, right?”
“Who said that?” Connie’s shriek rings out before Rebecca has a chance to reply, and even before she has a chance to parse Josh’s tone and figure out if he’s saying—is he trying to suggest they hang out, or that they hang out? Like, romantically?
No.
No way.
She’s definitely reading into that.
Right?
“Who said that?” Connie repeats. “Who named the Scottish Play in my theater?”
“Oh no,” Rebecca says.
And that’s when the giant grandfather clock, just delivered today for use in “The Tick Tock Clock,” falls and shatters. And all hell breaks loose.
There’s a lot of chaos and panic and honest-to-goodness screaming, and it takes a while for things to clarify. Josh gets a lot of dirty looks sent his way, and Connie only barely refrains from kicking him off the production entirely—and even that is mostly because Rebecca assures her that she had misheard Josh, no, of course he didn’t say that word, he said Macduff, because of course he knows better than to name the Scottish Play inside a theater, and the clock falling was just a freak accident, see how the crew hadn’t secured it to the wall properly yet?
Miracles do happen, because Connie is eventually soothed, even to the point of deciding the broken clock didn’t match her vision for the piece anyway.
“You owe me,” Rebecca tells Josh with a grin, in an undertone, and he smiles widely.
“Totally,” he says. “So, about tonight—”
Before he can finish his thought, Connie snaps her fingers to gain his attention.
“You! Negligent stagehand! Clean this up!” She waves indicatively at the wreck of the clock before flipping her scarf over her shoulder and storming off to the main stage.
As cast and crew slink around, afraid to set Connie off again, Rebecca notices a conspicuous absence.
“Hey, you seen the prince anywhere?” she asks Valencia, who rolls her eyes.
“No, and I don’t really have time to worry about it,” she says, studying herself in a mirror critically. “I have to prepare. Being a bride is a lot of work!”
“V, you know you’re not actually getting married, right?” Rebecca asks, only half kidding, and Valencia shoots her a glare.
“No, Rebecca, I had no idea that I’m going to be unwed for the foreseeable future!” she snaps. “I completely missed the lack of ring on my finger, thank you so much for your incredible insight.”
She storms off before Rebecca can form a response, and Rebecca makes a mental note to check in on that whole thing sooner rather than later before she starts poking around backstage.
“Hey,” she hears as she’s leaving an apparently unoccupied storage room stuffed to the gills with extra costume pieces and bolts of fabric.
Jumping, she whirls to see Nathaniel, sitting cross-legged on the ground, half covered by a shimmery curtain of blue silk. She bursts into startled laughter. “Oh my gosh, you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing down there?”
“I’m hiding from Connie,” he admits. “It sounds like she’s still on the warpath and earlier she told me I need to project a more princely radiance. I’m afraid of what will happen if she finds me and I’m still not projecting it.”
“You're probably fine,” Rebecca says. “What’s she going to do to you? You won’t be any more princely dead, so it’s not like she can off you.”
“I don’t think that’s as comforting as you think it is.”
She smirks. “I’m not here to be comforting, I’m here to investigate why our leading man has sequestered himself away from the team. I know you can’t go home before Her Majesty dismisses us, but she seems pretty distracted presently.”
“I may also be hiding from Alexis,” he admits.
Rebecca blinks. “Who?”
“One of the crew members,” he says. “She was there when Connie was giving me notes and she told me she thought I had a very princely radiance. And also definitely tried to proposition me outside the bathroom.”
Rebecca definitely doesn’t have to tamp down on a hot flash of jealousy rushing through her at his words. She definitely doesn’t have to, because she definitely doesn’t feel jealous. Obviously not. He can get propositioned by whatever cute stagehands he wants to. Not that he said she was cute. But she probably was. Not-cute girls don’t have the guts to proposition princes outside backstage theater bathrooms.
“Oh,” is all Rebecca says.
“Yeah,” Nathaniel says, awkward now, like he realizes that was a messy thing to share with someone who has seen you in every state of physical and emotional undress but no longer does so. “But interpersonal nightmares and smashing grandfather clocks are all part of the experience of local theater, from what I can tell. Am I right? You’re the expert here.”
She relaxes at his clumsy subject change.
“It’s a little bit crazy,” she admits, feeling her eyebrow twitch at her own word choice. “But it’s fun, right?”
He pushes himself to his feet and runs a hand through his hair again. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, definitely. I mean, if nothing else, at least we know our fashion choices are gonna be rockin’, with a selection like this.”
He gestures to the costumes surrounding them, most of which look like rejects from either a seventies-themed party gone very wrong or a Mardi Gras parade gone very right. Nathaniel picks up a fedora and plops it on his head, ignoring the fact that is almost comically too big for him, has a wrinkled brim, and is bright orange.
"How do I look?” he asks, striking a pose.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, princely as fuck.”
Things must have settled down outside their hiding spot, because the sounds of preparation kick back up—voices calling back and forth, the shuffle of set pieces and the clatter of footsteps.
Marjory, one of the cast members Rebecca hasn’t really talked to yet, takes the stage to do a runthrough of her song. The piano kicks in, stumbling a little but finding its pace, and Nathaniel turns to face Rebecca again.
“May I?” he asks, the picture of gallantry, holding out a hand, palm up, tempting as anything.
She can’t help but let out a nervous giggle at the sight of him, truly every inch the gallant prince even in blue jeans and a stupid hat.
“I don’t know if ‘Good Bosses and Friends Let Their Employees Soar Elsewhere If Need Be’ is really conducive to dancing,” she says, but she’s still smiling. It’s so nice to be able to talk to him again, to stop feeling like she can’t look him in the eye, like she’s broken everything that ever held them together.
He’s smiling, too, expression soft, but he looks happy, not seductive, not pining, and that’s why she takes his hand, letting him pull her in, and she marvels at the fact that it doesn’t feel like too much—like some friendly sheen of the spirit of theater rests between their clasped hands, their chests, keeping it from meaning more than it does.
They step mostly in sync with each other and utterly independent of the music, none of the grace or smoothness of the last—the only other—time they danced, or any of the times they—well, you know.
It's goofy and ridiculous and he steps on her foot and laughs when she swats at his chest, open and friendly and easy, and this is why she loves theater—it's people, it’s fun, it’s connection, and Connie’s voice shouting in the background as Nathaniel flashes her a bright, unbridled grin and spins her out into a twirl.
---
two years later
---
She’s laughing as he pulls her back in from a twirl, half collapsing into his arms, totally fumbling the choreography.
Rebecca doesn’t seem to mind, though, and of course he doesn’t, not when she’s relaxed and giggling. They keep swaying together, and they’ve given up on actually hitting the correct footwork, and when Valencia notices she’s going to yell at them, but Nathaniel can’t really bring himself to care, when instead he can press his lips into Rebecca’s hair and enjoy the warmth of her hands on his back. They’ll figure out the steps later. They have time. The show doesn’t open for weeks.
In a way, Nathaniel feels like he should be nervous, being in a show with her for the first time since they started dating again. Or, well, it’s her first show since they started dating again, too, it’s not like she’s been doing this a lot, but he can’t help thinking of the Ellison revue. Even though everything about this show is about a thousand times better—no Connie, no terrible offensive songs, no fruitless hopeless pining for the girl he now gets to go home to every night—there does seem like an element of risk involved with getting back in this dynamic.
But it’s honestly just—a lot of fun. Like now, dancing with Rebecca, light and easy. He’s ridiculously pleased that they were cast as love interests—one of the background couples, not the leads, but with a reasonable amount of stage time and lines—and Rebecca is fond of teasing him for his possibly-a-little-too-method soppy expressions whenever he looks at her onstage.
“Hey,” she says, and her tone is serious suddenly, her gaze open and sincere. “Thank you.” She squeezes his hand. “For doing this with me. It means a lot. I know this isn’t really your thing.”
Nathaniel thinks about blowing it off, smiling blithely, saying he’s happy to do it, implicit agreement. But as nice as it is to come across as cool and collected and unaffected by his surroundings, it’s nicer to be open and honest with his girlfriend.
“It’s not just for you,” he tells her. “I know that’s why I joined the Ellison revue back then, and it’s—I probably wouldn’t have thought to do this if you weren’t involved, but I wouldn’t have auditioned just to hang out with you this time around. I see plenty of you at home.”
She makes a suggestive face when he says that, pinching at his side.
“Oh, do you?” she asks, and he laughs as he jerks and tugs her hand away, pulling it up to his lips as he continues.
“But seriously,” he says. “It’s—fun. To be part of a show. To be someone else for a little while, in a safe and temporary environment. To—well, it’s not exactly creating something, not in a normal way, because it disappears while you’re doing it, but...it’s still happening. It’s bigger than just one person, and it’s borne out of love and passion, not for money or bragging rights or anything else my father would ever care about. And I like being part of it.” He’s rambling, so he tries to wrap it up. “And even just—the theater itself. The energy. There’s just...something soothing about it.”
Something sparks and darkens in Rebecca’s gaze, and he’s opening his mouth to ask what’s wrong when she flings her arms around his neck and pulls him down into a deep, desperate kiss.
“Wow,” he says, when she breaks away. “What was that for?”
She slides a thumb along his cheekbone, and he tries not to let out a contented sigh as he leans into it.
“I love you,” she says, and it’s not like it’s the first time—not even close—but it still thrills him to hear it. “I just—I know we’re so different, and that’s great, that’s awesome, but sometimes you just—it feels like you can see inside my heart. Like maybe our hearts are built from the same stuff.”
He blinks at her, buzzing as always from her closeness and her passion and her.
“It’s just nice,” she says softly. “To feel known.”
He leans in to kiss her again, to let actions speak louder than the words he can’t find to express himself, and he’s just barely caught her mouth with his when—
“Oh, shit,” he hears someone say, followed by a burst of vitriolic exclamations from Valencia.
Valencia has seemed—stressed, to say the least, throughout her stint as director of this possibly ill-advised local production. It probably doesn’t help that she was roped in at the last minute by Nathaniel’s very enthusiastic but sometimes overconfident girlfriend, after the other director—not Connie, thank goodness, he wouldn’t have auditioned for anything with her fingerprints on it even if she’d let him—had to bail. Valencia was already planning to be in town for a few months, putting way too much energy into planning Josh and Rosa’s wedding, and Rebecca took that as a sign from the universe.
“It’ll be so perfect!” she’d squealed. And it was, kind of, more or less, or as perfect as anything like community theater can be. Valencia is detail-oriented and thorough, with an eye for making things look right that translates surprisingly well from place settings to people. But as Josh and Rosa’s big day comes closer on the same timeline as opening night—seriously, a week apart, why did anyone think that was a good idea? Because they didn’t ask him, obviously—she's been a bit...on edge.
“Oh, shit,” Rebecca echoes, pulling away from him. “I think I’m on damage control.”
She leans up to peck him on the cheek and he laughs at the sight of her kicking off her heels and hiking up her not-yet-properly-fitted costume skirt, barreling towards the main stage.
“V, breathe!” she’s yelling as she goes, beautiful and ridiculous, and he trails after her at a more reasonable pace.
It turns out the programs were delivered, which doesn’t seem like much of a disaster to Nathaniel. But then he learns that the font the printer used is incorrect, which—still really doesn’t seem like much of a disaster.
Valencia disagrees, and she shouts at the delivery guy; the crew member who double checked the proof before it was sent; Josh, when he tries to make a joke; and Nathaniel, when he dares imply that maybe the font doesn’t matter that much and these programs are perfectly adequate for their purposes.
The whole thing ends with a tornado of programs flying through the air like weapons, and Valencia storming backstage, barking orders at half a dozen cast and crew members as she goes, sending them scattering into action.
“It’s like Connie’s spirit overcame her,” Nathaniel says, something like awe in his voice.
“No,” Rebecca says, stifling a laugh. “That’s all Valencia.”
She kisses his cheek again and follows her friend, presumably to offer directorial assistance and maybe additional feminine comfort, and Nathaniel heads back to the scene of the crime, where Josh is nudging piles of scattered paper into one big heap, cardboard box in hand.
“Hey man,” Nathaniel says, approaching the wreckage. “How’s it going?”
Josh shrugs. “At least it’s not broken glass and wood this time, right? Paper I can handle.”
Nathaniel laughs. “Always the optimist. Here, let me help you.”
Despite Valencia’s impressive range of aim, it’s quick work to gather up all the discarded programs and dump them in the overflow recycle bin outside the stage door, chatting about the show prep and recent sporting events and the antics of Rosa’s little sister, who’s staying with them in the weeks leading up to the wedding.
“So hey,” Nathaniel says. “Big day’s really coming up, right? How are you feeling?”
Josh lights up even more than his standard state of being, and Nathaniel realizes with a jolt that this is probably what he looks like when people ask him about Rebecca, or when he looks at Rebecca, or when—well, Rebecca.
It’s not as embarrassing a realization as he might have expected.
“I can’t wait,” Josh is saying. “I know it’s not the typical cool-guy way to feel about marriage, but. I love her so much, dude. I can’t wait for her to be my wife.” He pauses, apparently realizing something. “You know, a couple years ago, I might have said I can’t wait to be married. Or to have a wife. But—it's Rosa. I wouldn’t want it to be anyone but Rosa.”
Nathaniel smiles; he can’t help it. Josh Chan has proven truly unhateable. “I’m really happy for you, man.”
Josh grins. “Me too.”
“Nathaniel!” Tim calls, drawing his attention. “Can we run through our big scene from Act II? I don’t think I really feel our dynamic yet.”
“Our dynamic is that I'm your boss and I can fire you at any time,” Nathaniel mutters under his breath.
“Huh?”
“I said sure, Tim.”
Unlike at his actual job, Theater TIm is motivated and hardworking, dedicated and attentive to detail. And he is, apparently, determined to perfect this particular scene by today. By their eighth attempt at it, though, Nathaniel has circled around from impressed to murderous.
The only thing that keeps him from blowing up at Tim is Rebecca’s reappearance. Valencia must have calmed down, because the two of them huddle around the piano with the choreographer and the musical director, all of them poring over a script, occasionally making marks in the margin or calling someone else over to look at something. While he watches, Rebecca throws her head back in a laugh, and Nathaniel grins even though he didn’t hear the joke. It’s lovely to see her so in her element, so absorbed in something that makes her so happy.
Like she feels his eyes on her, she glances over and meets his gaze. She raises her eyebrows in question, but he just shoots her a thumbs up. She replies with a smile and turns back to the script, so he makes himself turn back to Tim and start the scene over, falling back into the rhythm of it. And he enjoys it, too. He’s in his element, too.
It’s hard, sometimes, still, letting himself do things just to enjoy them. Not just as a tool to spend time with Rebecca, or to show off, or to gain something material. Just because he loves it, loves learning lines and embodying a character, and yes, a little bit because he loves the way Rebecca looks at him when he’s acting or singing, with so much excitement and what could reasonably be called heart eyes and sometimes a considerable dash of lust.
And it’s a stressful environment, sure. More chaotic than he’d like, if he was given the choice. A lot of big personalities blending, taking every little issue and blowing it way out of proportion.
But there’s something soothing about the energy of the theater. He understands why it's always been a safe place for Rebecca. Why it can be a safe place for him as well.
They’re happy here, the two of them. And sure, they’re happy other places, too. He can’t imagine a place he couldn’t be happy with her. But he likes this one. This one, more than any other, is theirs.