Rosemary for Remembrance

When Thursday morning rolled around, all I wanted to do was stay in bed. Not only was it opening night, which I didn’t feel remotely rested enough for, but it was also the day I had class with Zac. For days, it had been so painful to face him, but this was worse.

We weren’t together anymore. He had ended it.

It hurt so much to even think about it, but it seemed that was all my mind would focus on. I feared that when I opened my mouth to speak my lines that night, nothing would come out but his name. And I knew I was going to cry when I saw him. There was no doubt in my mind about that.

But he didn’t show up for class. I thought it might have been a fluke when he skipped the morning class; he wasn’t a morning person in the best of circumstances. When he didn’t show up for English either, I knew he was avoiding me. At first, I breathed a little easier, but I didn’t understand why he was still so keen to avoid me. I was the one who should have been hurting; he had ended it, not me. I had finally begun to pour my heart out to him, and he threw it back at me.

Was he hurting, too? I supposed he could have been, but I couldn’t quite understand it. His pain should have ended now that I wasn’t in his life. As I sat there in class, staring at the desk Zac should have been sitting in, passing me silly notes, I wondered if it was possible that he missed me, too. I supposed that, technically, anything was possible, but I just couldn’t quite imagine it. Not with the way he had looked at me, the words he had said to me, and the way he had walked away from me. That last look was burned into my memory, and it brought tears to my eyes every time I thought about it.

Somehow, I made it through the day. It was all a haze, though. I didn’t hear a single word that any professor said during class, and I couldn’t listen to any of the mindless conversation going on around me in the food court. Countless people offered me advice for opening night and told me to break a leg. But my normal joy and anticipation for a show’s opening had left me. And I had only myself to blame for it; as much as I wanted to blame Zac, it was my own failings that had pushed him away.

At dinner, I couldn’t do more than push the food around my plate and pretend to eat it, but no one pointed that out. I’m sure they noticed, though, but decided just to chalk it up to stage fright. When it was finally time for me to report to the theatre, Whitley, Justine and Evan all wished me well one last time and promised to be in the front row, supporting me. I appreciated the thought, but knowing they would be right there was going to be a major distraction.

I didn’t tell them that, though. I just offered them the best smile I could manage, thanked them, and scurried off to the theatre. It was a pretty long walk from the food court and there was definitely a chill in the air, so I pulled my jacket tight and walked as fast as I could. My anxiety to just have the night over with meant that I arrived pretty early, well before the time we were all supposed to report.

Every actor was required to sign a check in sheet – to prevent the stage manager from having any unnecessary heart attacks – before going to the dressing room to prepare for the night. As soon as I walked in the theatre door, I made my way to the bulletin board that held the check in list, found my name on it, and initialed the spot beside it.

“Victoria?” Adrienne called out from further down the hallway. “There’s something for you in the dressing room.”

I turned to face her and blinked. “Something for me?”

“Yeah. You’ll see when you get there,” she replied with a grin and a twinkle in her eyes. I had no clue what that meant. I didn’t even know her very well; she was a senior, so we didn’t share any classes and she hadn’t really interacted with me outside of issuing orders during rehearsals. I had no clue what could cause her to grin so much or what could possibly be waiting for me in the dressing room.

I hurried through the complicated series of hallways that made up our backstage area, anxious to see what was waiting for me. I pushed the door open and rushed in, not even caring if all the girls in the room were indecent.

Cecily was sitting on a stool near the door, putting curlers into her hair. She turned to me and smiled, the same knowing smile that Adrienne had given me. “Looks like someone made a delivery here for you, Victoria.”

“Why does everyone keep telling me that? What is it?”

She nodded toward a spot further down the makeup table. “See for yourself.”

I glanced down to the spot she had indicated, and my heart leaped into my throat. A large bouquet sat upon the table; not only the traditional red roses, but a mixture of other flowers. As I closed in on it, I could see that the flowers were chosen very particularly. No rosemary for remembrance, but there were pansies and violets for faithfulness and daffodils for forgiveness. And, of course, the red roses – true love. It was a wonderfully geeky way to say it all, and the message got through loud and clear. I had no doubt at all who the gift was from. Zac had sat with me in my room when I read the worksheet Dr. Ansary had given me on the meaning of flowers. I knew the bouquet was without a doubt from him even before I noticed the envelope behind it with “VICTORIA” written on it in his chicken scratch.

I tore the envelope open and saw that it contained another one of his drawings. It was a comic strip in his adorable anime style. The wide eyed, messy haired boy in the pictures was no doubt meant to be him. I strained my eyes to read the tiny text.

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Zac. He was a twat. He fell for a girl who was totally clueless, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to make her as happy as she made him.

I laughed as I recalled the night Zac had called himself a twat, and I had agreed. Then I blushed as I remembered what had happened immediately afterward. Luckily, he hadn’t chosen to illustrate that. Instead, he had drawn a picture of me, with him chasing behind, his eyes turned to huge hearts.

They were both bad to each other because they were too stubborn to admit their feelings. So he wrote her a song and it totally wasn’t creepy or anything.

I laughed aloud at that, and the accompanying drawing of Zac cursing at the piano. My laughter was loud enough to draw Cecily to my side. I was a little embarrassed to share his comic with her, but I didn’t think it could hurt anything. The next panel showed the two of us dancing.

Somehow, the song worked and she admitted that she felt the same way! Everything was perfect for a few days.

The next panel made me tear up. His sad eyes stared at me, a single pale blue tear running down his face. Even in his silly anime style, he had perfectly captured the look on his face when we were stuck in the elevator together.

Then she asked him a question and he blew up at her. She apologized, but he wouldn’t listen. Because, as we’ve already established, he’s a twat.

“He’s a twat?” Cecily asked, laughing a little.

I nodded. “Yes. He is. It’s part of his charm.”

So he bought her flowers and drew her this comic, because she’s the ONLY girl he wants to draw pictures of. And he really hopes it’s enough for her to forgive him and take him back.

“Of course it is!” I said out loud, even though he wasn’t there to see or hear it.

Christin chose that exact moment to burst into the dressing room and she raised an eyebrow at me and my massive bouquet, but didn’t say a word. I was glad for that, because I was too full of emotions – too many to even put a name to – to deal with her. I tucked Zac’s note into my backpack so that Christin couldn’t find it and comment on it and hurried to do my hair and makeup.

If my performance at our last few rehearsals had suffered due to my sudden depression, then this one suffered for a different reason entirely. With my own emotions bubbling to the surface, it was nearly impossible to put myself into Ophelia’s mindset. In between scenes, I stood backstage impatiently tapping my toes and fighting the urge to squeal. I hadn’t expected Zac’s apology at all, and I still felt like I owed him at least a dozen of my own.

Still, I gave the show as much of myself as I could. When I came onstage at the end to take my bow, the audience’s applause made me forget my worries about how awful I might have done. We took two bows and when I raised up after the second one, a wide grin on my face, I saw Zac standing in the front row, clapping and grinning right back at me.

I’ve never rushed off a stage as fast as I did that night. As soon as I was behind the curtain, I had the dress pulled up to my calves so that I could sprint through the hall to the dressing room. I began pulling the pins from my hair as soon as I was through the door, and as soon as the door opened again I called out for whoever it was to unzip my dress.

“Impatient much?” Cecily asked from behind me.

“Yes!” I replied, too breathless to even explain why, and not really relishing the idea of talking about it with Christin only feet away.

She only laughed, probably figuring out from reading that comic over my shoulder just what was going on in my mind. I hung my costume up as carefully as I could given my trembling hands, and began pulling on my clothes.

A knock came at the door and all three of us, in various states of undress, stared at each other. We were the only girls in the play, and none of the females in the crew would bother knocking. The door creaked open and Zac’s voice rang out. “Toria? Are you in there?”

I rushed to the door, my shirt held up over my chest. “Yes. And so are two other naked women.”

He glanced down at my nearly bare chest and blushed. “Shit, I’m sorry – I really wasn’t trying to see you naked. Not that I don’t – umm. I’ll just shut up now.”

“That’s probably in your best interests,” I replied, giggling. “I’ll be dressed in a second.”

I shut the door before Zac could lodge his foot even more firmly into his mouth, and hurried to finish dressing. I didn’t even bother to take time out to wash off my stage makeup. With all my clothes finally back on, I scooped up my backpack and the huge vase of flowers, and rushed toward the door.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Christin asked. From her tone, I could tell she was trying to set me up for another little barb, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. “Ooh, and who are those from?”

“I’m going to spend some time with my boyfriend. You remember him, right? The one who sent the flowers. The one who doesn’t want you.”

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