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Sheila paced around backstage, feeling the sweat pooling under her arms and in her palms. Where the hell was Ruth??
She couldn’t do this alone. Stand there in front of all those people and lay her soul bare. For the first time she’d be on stage without the comfort of her furs, without the wolf. And without a wrestling persona to cloak herself in. This was real. This was her.
Bobby rushed past her, arms flailing, shouting towards a stagehand.
“Has anyone seen the green dress?! Get me out of this fucking corset, my god.”
She tried to take a deep breath as she looked past the velvet curtains into the sea of shimmering fabric and smiling faces, but the air rattled in her lungs. She could practically hear her heartbeat and her ears were hot.
What if Ruth didn’t make it.
What if I go up there and disappoint everyone.
And Bobby will see that he was so so wrong.
She thought of the way Bobby had looked into her eyes at that first show. The feeling in her chest like a key turning in a lock. No one had ever looked at her that way. No one had bothered to see past her hair and fur and eye makeup at the first glance. But Bobby had seen the wolf and her. And now she was going to let him down so spectacularly.
Debbie strode past her then, purposeful, and beautiful as ever in her top hat and tux.
“Debbie!” she called, reaching a desperate hand for her arm. “Debbie, have you seen Ruth? She was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
Debbie looked past her and gestured to one of the stagehands who was helping set up a throne for the next number.
“I’m sorry Sheila,” she said and gave her a brief look of pity. “Maybe you should make a backup plan.”
Something crashed from the dressing room, and Debbie turned abruptly. “I have to go. But I’m sure you’ll figure something out!” she called over her shoulder.
Sheila put her face into her hands, breathing out through her nose. She noticed a fleck of glitter on her shirt.
The only monologue she knew by heart. Miss Julie. The one she had ached to perform as soon as she read it. But it scared her. She’d practiced it in the mirror, watching the words fall off her lips too true and raw. It awakened something deep in her chest, the possibilities of who she was that she couldn’t even put words to. And it spoke to the anger she’d kept for so long, the one she tried to mask with the wolf – who was allowed to be angry and also… not a girl. But the wolf hadn’t let her be Sheila, not really.
If she performed that scene… what if the crowd saw her for real? The whole thing. The angry, sad, excited, not-a-girl person. The vulnerable person. One who could be rejected because she actually opened herself up to them.
She took another breath, watching a blonde lock flutter away from her face, and then looked up and into the crowd again. She knew she had really decided the minute Ruth was late. Maybe she had even decided to do this when she burned her furs in the desert. Or when she auditioned for GLOW. Or when she first felt the stirring of something more at age 12, looking across the pond by her family’s house.
She was going to do something true and important, for all these people who were also doing something true and important by showing up here tonight.
She took another deep breath and this one came smoothly.