CHAPTER 27 (2)
Those are the most words I’ve heard my roommate string together in my presence, and now that she’s talking, I don’t want her to stop. “Three people who set the tone for everyone else. You can always find three people in a crowd. No one will admit they’re watching them or even knows consciously. But they are. If you’re spinning, you gotta get to know them. Live inside them. You move them, they move the room.” Before I can ask more, we’re outside the doors of the venue. Comedy Palace is smaller than Leo’s, and Rica scans the foyer as if she’s looking for her three people even now. We find a table at the back. We’re barely seated when two hands land on my shoulders and I whirl in my seat. Jacob grins down at me. “Hey, ladies.” “What are you doing here?” I ask, feeling the smile pull across my face already. “We were invited.” Before I can ask who “we” is, my gaze lands on the guy next to him, and I stiffen. Timothy’s dressed in jeans and a dark-blue button-down that makes his chocolate eyes look even darker. But the most surprising part isn’t his presence—it’s how not disappointed I am to see him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but by who?” I ask lightly. Timothy looks between me and Rica, who picks at her leather jacket innocently. Every combination of people has its own sense, its own chaos. Apparently, Rica liked our brand of chaos enough to recreate it. The guys grab chairs and pull them up to our table. Timothy’s forced to tuck his in close to mine so Rica can still get out and head for the bar. “You want?” she asks Jacob, jerking her head. “Yeah, sure.” He follows her. “Did you tell Eddie and Haley you’re at Vanier?” Timothy asks me when Rica’s gone. His bluntness has me straightening. “No.” “You’re going to have to.” “Why do you care?” “Because I care about you.” Something flickers behind Timothy’s eyes. “And I care about them,” he goes on. Before I can argue, Rica and Jacob return, and the house lights dim. The first performer is a guy who talks about his pets for the entire time. Andie’s the second performer. We cheer as she takes the stage. “Here’s the thing about being twenty in New York—everyone assumes you came from some piece-of-shit city to be an overpaid trader or an underpaid actor. I take offense to that. I came from the country to be an unpaid comedian.” The audience chuckles as she strolls across the stage, the lights following her. “I have three younger brothers, but my dad died when I was ten.” My stomach falls, but she continues. “So, I had to keep my mom laughing. Because them wetting the bed every night wasn’t doing it.” The backs of my eyes burn as I think of our exchange in the hallway earlier about my dad, how I gave her shit for making him sound better than he is. I’d asked her about her baggage once, and she said it was too much to talk about. I duck my face to swipe at my damp eyes, and my gaze finds Timothy’s, holds it. He’s feeling what I am—compassion, sadness, understanding, and I’m glad he’s here. I force myself to focus on the rest of Andie’s set, then the remaining performers, and the heaviness gives way to laughter. Everyone has their own pain. Andie uses it to connect people, weaves the hard times in with the good ones. When the houselights come up, I pull out my phone to text Andie, but Rica grabs my arm. “Don’t. This wasn’t about us.” The crowd outside is laughing and tipsy as we wind our way out to the street. I fall into step next to Jacob, behind Timothy and Rica. “Let’s get something to eat,” Jacob decides. We find a diner a block away. I hold the door for Rica, and she shakes her head, holding up a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket. Before the three of us can find a booth, Jacob’s phone rings. He checks the screen and starts toward the door. “Order me a Coke,” he calls. “I’ll be back.” Timothy and I slide into the booth across from one another. There are people of every kind in the restaurant. There’s an elderly couple across from a young couple, and I wonder what they’re talking about, what their lives are like, if they act brave in the daylight, if questions they can’t answer start to circle their minds when the lights go out. “I know I have to tell him,” I blurt, turning back to find Timothy watching me, impassive. “But I want him to understand why I’m doing it. I want him to see that I’m good enough to make a career at this. Last year, I was so focused on getting into Vanier. It was this singular thing I could picture. I told myself everything would be easy once I was surrounded by people who got what it meant to want this life, to be on the stage. But now that I’m here, it’s not easy. Maybe it never will be again. Do you ever feel that way?” My voice is just audible over the chatter and clinking cutlery and plates. I sink my shoulders back against the booth. I feel more vulnerable than when he found my Polaroids, than when I stood in front of him naked, because this it the truth—the thing that haunts me, that I don’t have an answer to. It’s not my past, it’s my future. “More than you know.” Timothy shifts forward in his seat. His shoulders are tight under his button-down. “When I left Dallas for New York, I had a contract with a label. Was supposed to start in the studio a week in. But my third day here, I got a call from Philly. My dad wrecked his car driving drunk and was in a coma in the hospital.”
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