I pulled open the door and stepped inside. I’d assumed there would be a box office, that it would look more like the Broadway theaters I was used to, but there was only a small lobby. A bathroom, a threadbare couch, a refreshment stand with paper cups selling wine and sodas. There was a guy behind a card table with a cash box in front of him.
I crossed my fingers that it wasn’t sold out as I approached. There were a few people milling around the lobby, but not many—the rest must be inside already.
“Hi,” I said, as the guy looked up from his phone. “Are there still tickets for tonight’s performance?”
“Um. Yeah,” he said. “Fifteen.”
“Okay,” I said, reaching into my coat, deciding to try one last time. “Can you… break a hundred?”
“No,” he said flatly, looking at me like I was crazy. “I can’t.”
“Okay,” I said, silently thanking Cary as I pulled out his twenty and handed it over. The guy handed me a five, then pushed a photocopied program—black and white—at me. “Do I… get a ticket?” I asked, feeling stupid that I didn’t know how this worked.
“Just sit anywhere,” the guy said, gesturing toward the theater. He gave a short, humorless laugh. “There’s plenty of seats.”
“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t any of this. I told myself that maybe this was like edgy independent theater or something. Like how Rent started off-off-Broadway and just grew a huge following, and Hamilton started scrappy and small at the Public. “Okay.” I walked through the door and blinked.
It was a very small theater—maybe even smaller than our blackbox theater back home. There were sections of seats, a narrow aisle between them, and a small stage without a curtain. Maybe it was the fact that we were in a basement, but I couldn’t help feeling a little bit claustrophobic, like the walls were pressing in on me as I took a seat on the aisle, in the middle.
The guy had been telling the truth—this was not a very full house. There were only a handful of people in the audience, and what made it worse was that everyone was spread out. If everyone could have grouped together, maybe it would have seemed fuller?
I chose a seat on the aisle, took off my coat, and flipped through the program. My eyes widened as I saw that the play was written by, directed by, and starring Brett Campbell. I hadn’t realized I was going to see Mr. Campbell act. He directed all our productions, of course, and we all knew that he was writing a novel, and he’d told us how a play of his had won some big award a few years ago. But acting? Aside from the old commercials I’d found online, I’d never seen Mr. Campbell perform.
I had just started to read the description—it took place in South Florida, in 1995—when the lights dimmed. I closed my program and smiled. I was going to get to see, finally, one of Mr. Campbell’s productions. I’d have to take mental notes so I could tell Stevie all about it—the better to speculate wildly about what might happen in the second act.
The lights came up, and I settled back in my seat to watch the first half of the play.
CHAPTER 19
Stevie
The law offices of Genereux, Meyers, Ennis & Young were in a medium-size building in midtown. I had been here a lot when I was younger—back when I was thrilled to spend time, while my dad was working, in a conference room with a stack of papers, coloring diligently and telling anyone who passed by about the important work that I was doing. When I’d outgrown my coloring phase and moved into middle school, I’d still liked to go to the office—even just doing my homework while I waited for my dad felt somehow exciting. There was something about working in wood-paneled offices, with shelves and shelves of uniform law books all surrounding me, that made doing English or social studies homework seem somehow elevated.
But as we approached the building, and Matty pulled the door open for me, it was hitting me that it had been a while since I’d been there. The lobby was the same as ever—fairly stark, white marble, and a guard behind a desk reading the Post.
“Hi,” Matty said, giving a winning smile. “I’m here to pick up something from my mom’s office. Joy Lampitoc?” The guard just raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything. “She said she would call,” Matty said after a pause, glancing at me, his expression clearly saying ruh-roh. My stomach clenched. Were we, now that we were on the verge of finally getting the keys, going to be stymied at the very last minute?
“Lemme check on that,” the guard said, closing the paper and turning away from us as he picked up the phone.
“Welcoming place,” Matty said quietly to me.
“Yeah,” I said, silently praying that this would all be resolved, and soon. Whatever her flaws, Joy really did seem on top of things—so hopefully this was just a failure to communicate. “I hope I don’t have to go through this every day this spring.”
Matty frowned at me. “Why would you?”
“Oh—I’m applying for an internship here,” I said, standing up a little straighter as I said it.
“Oh?” His expression hadn’t become less confused at this explanation.
I nodded. “It would be great to have on my CV. I’m hoping to get into Northwestern, prelaw. Double major in history and political science, then straight to Harvard Law.”
Matty looked taken aback by this. “Wow. That’s—quite a plan.”
“Thanks,” I said, giving him a smile, even though I wasn’t sure he entirely meant it as a compliment.
“Northwestern, then Harvard for law school,” he said slowly. “Isn’t that the same thing Stephen did?”
I flexed my toes in my unfamiliar boots and crossed my arms. This was hitting a little too close to what Kat had said in the subway. “Yeah,” I said, not liking at all the defensive tone that was coming into my voice. “So?”
“Nothing,” he said, holding both hands up. “You just impressed me with your acting tonight. With the Raptor,” he added, “not when you were trying to pretend your feet didn’t hurt. That was just awful.”
I laughed. “Shut up,” I said, then immediately wondered if I shouldn’t have. Had I just crossed some line?
But Matty just smiled. “You shut up,” he said. “It was bad.”
“What are you studying?” I asked, realizing belatedly—and ashamedly—that I didn’t know, because I had never asked. “At Columbia?”
“I’m not sure,” he said with a shrug. “I mean,” he added, when he must have seen my expression, “I know what classes I’m taking. But I’m not sure to what end yet.” He rocked back on his heels. “I want to cast as wide a net as possible—to see what I like. So I’m doing marketing and art history and medieval literature and psychology.”
“Wow. That makes—no logical sense at all.”
Matty grinned. “Exactly.”
“Okay,” the guard said, hanging up the phone and facing us again. “Go on up. Seventeenth floor.”
“Cheers,” Matty said. The guard buzzed open the automatic turnstile security entrance thing and we walked up to the elevator, which was waiting in the lobby. Matty pressed the button for floor seventeen, and then just as the doors started to close, I pressed the button for thirty-eight.