“All right, whenever you two are ready.” Mr. D’plume lifts a mug of coffee to his lips, huffing steam out around his face.
“I didn’t expect to see you out here.” Harriet chuckles, rolling her eyes away from me, toward the filth of her home. It doesn’t matter where she is or how dilapidated this part of town looks. She makes everything around her beautiful. “Has there been a change of plans?”
Plans. The plans about my cheap revenge against my rival, Lewis. I’m just angry at my position and want to take it out on someone who I decided scorned my name long ago. It’s stupid, and I hardly care about it anymore, but it’s what’s keeping us together, so I let the nonsense continue. Allowing a sour smile to overcome my face, I turn away from Harriet. “No. Is it so wrong for me to want to see you?”
I feel her crossing the stage to be nearer to me. It doesn’t matter that I can visualize the line in the script dictating the action; Ifeelit. I feel her hand lift. It doesn’t touch me. Her voice comes, steady and calm. “Is something wrong?”
She knows.
Because Harriet knows Kenneth. She sees him without any guise. She feels his bitterness. Sheknowshim. And that’s why he loves her.
With her, there’s no pretense or pretending. She sees through his every act and cares about more than status.
I turn, catching her hand.
Calypso’s eyes widen a fraction.
“Little magpie,” I breathe, and this is torture. Both Kenneth and I want to blurt everything, but neither of us can. “There’s something I must tell you, but I don’t know how to say it.”
Calypso touches my cheek. Her hands are cold, and I still, feeling each of her fingers indent in my skin. I can’t help myself. I close my eyes and turn my lips toward her palm, leaving a single kiss. Harriet doesn’t flinch. And I feel that she already knows what I can’t put into speech.
Does Calypso already know?
“Tell me one word at a time,” Harriet offers. “That’s the only way to—”
Jo screams, and I can just hear the groans that will overwhelm the audience.
Harriet is no longer mine as she pulls away to face her friend. She puts distance between us. It’s immediate and vast.
Rebecca comes marching onto the stage, waving her arms frantically. “What are you doing?” Jo grabs Harriet by the hand and hisses into her ear, casting wary glances in my direction. “What’shedoing here?”
“How should I know. You interrupted.” Cold and blunt, Harriet says exactly what she means, all the brief softness I felt gone.
Jo flinches, a moment of pause ushering in her realization that things have changed between her and her lifeline in this world. It’s not news she takes well. Sneering, she drags Harriet behind her and glares at me. “Your kind isn’t welcome here,my lord. It’s thanks to you people like us have to grovel and scavenge just to exist.” Lifting her chin, Jo fixes me with a hateful gleam, all the chipper brightness of Rebecca hidden away. “Harriet will do your dirty work—ah, yes,Iknow about the agreement—then, we’ll take your dirty money and leave. That’sallyou have to do withus.”
My fists clenches, and I stare at her like I’m talking to my father. Detached. Void of all emotion. “I can see I’ve come at a bad time.” Maintaining the coldness, I glance toward Harriet, finding a mimic of my cool detachment writ upon her gentle features. Until she meets my eyes. Then her breath leaves her, andis Harriet already supposed to be in love with Kenneth at this point? She fights any hint of attachment so hard and wears such a flawless mask, I don’t even know.
But, in this moment, it feels as though she is.
Harriet’s hopeful eyes touch me, and the hardness I thoughtI was supposed to wear right now softens. I can’t do it. I can’t address her with that same emotionless tone. My voice doesn’t come out in the way I originally planned—coarse andbusiness.It breathes past my lips, like a promise or a secret. “Maybe next time.” Before I can dare to linger too long, I whirl around and leave the stage to the girls. To their fight.
Harriet claims that I may have had vital information about the job, and Jo accuses her of getting too close to her mark. The collapse of their relationship comes out in full force, leading into the next scenes, where we meet again while Jo watches from afar, singing “Left Behind.”
And the soft moment after that?
That’s the confession. The first kiss. Harriet running.
What?
My brows furrow. Harriet and Jo’s voices rise behind me as the scene intensifies. I find my way to my satchel and read the script. Nothing hints at Harriet needing to touch my cheek in this scene. Calypso added that in.
It felt so natural, I didn’t even second guess it. Am I letting my opinion of Calypso shadow these characters?
Making my way down the steps while the fight continues, I meet Mr. D’plume at his seat. His weary eyes find me, and he doesn’t even move his coffee cup when he murmurs, “Hm?”
“I had a question about the scene.”
“Oh?”
