Roomies by Christina Lauren
sixteen
Every day, Calvin has three hours of rehearsal with Ramón before Luis and Lisa take over for the evening performance. And after each rehearsal, Calvin locates me backstage, and he’s smiling like he’s been plugged into a generator. The music makes him glow in a way I find hard to believe; sometimes it seems there is a candle burning just beneath his skin.
Robert rehearses with them sometimes, but once or twice a week, he hands over the reins to the assistant musical director, Elan. Because Robert composed the music, he feels the notes physically, and directs the musicians with instinctive, fluid movements. But I notice that Elan focuses on technical precision more than artistry, and the days he is there, the music loses some instinct, some deeper emotion that hasn’t been fully transferred from Robert to Ramón and Calvin.
I’ve seen it happen before, how Robert’s passion is slowly fed into his musicians; how he trains them to feel it, not just see the notes. The key, the rhythm, the dynamics become an action themselves: a deeply drawn breath, a sob, a triumphant fist in the air. They are no longer individual notes, but constellations of them pulled together to make something nearly otherworldly.
Today was not an otherworldly day.
“What didn’t work out there?” Calvin has barely exited the stage when the question is out, and he stares at me with intense expectation. He shifts his guitar in his hands, nodding to the stage behind me. “Something felt off, and I’m not sure where.”
Normally I’d balk at the idea of advising him at all on how to more masterfully play his guitar, but I’m wrapped up in his glow and feeling emotional from the impending start of his theater run. “Lean into the deceptive cadence in ‘Lost to Me,’ to draw out the tension just a bit more. You and Ramón are both letting it resolve too soon.”
He stares at me for a full ten seconds without speaking, and my stomach sinks. I’ve never criticized him before, not once.
I think I’ve just done something catastrophic.
The quiet continues over dinner. He eats quickly at the coffee table before reaching for his guitar and, bending over it, forming a private cocoon. Retreating to my bedroom, I hear him playing the section again and again until I fall asleep to the sound of it, and dream of chasing him through the woods.
But the next day, onstage during rehearsal, he meets my gaze just as he’s playing this section, and the emphasis of the notes, the astonishing beauty of them, makes tears spring immediately to my eyes.
I was right, and this is how he tells me.
Trust your muse.
Later that night, for the first time in months, I’m able to write. It’s only a paragraph, and it isn’t the fictional world I’m desperate to find—it’s about the way it felt to hear Calvin and Ramón play, the sensation of having my chest so full of emotion that I nearly felt weightless—but I typed. I put words on a page.
Every evening, from the wings, Calvin, Ramón, and I watch Luis and Lisa perform together. I can almost hear Calvin mentally reciting the lines and cues, and—at the opening note of each show—counting down the remaining nights before he and Ramón debut.
Months ago, Michael Asteroff released the news that Ramón would replace Luis in mid-February. But the showrunners have made no statements yet about the changes in musical direction—namely Calvin on guitar. While it’s common knowledge that the lead violinist left, the press seems to assume that Lisa will continue on in his place. I know Robert is waiting until the work permit comes through before announcing anything, but given the crew’s reaction to Calvin and the way he’s treated like a new celebrity backstage—not to mention the way Lisa is being mildly bashed on social media in the more hard-core Broadway circles—I don’t think it would hurt the production to get some buzz rolling about Calvin soon.
Three weeks after he started rehearsals, and just under a week away from his first performance, there is an official-looking letter waiting for us when we get home. We tear into it like starving dogs.
Our application has been accepted and, according to Jeff, that’s good enough to move forward with the paperwork Michael needs to submit to get my husband officially hired.
Within hours, Michael’s assistant has called to schedule joint photo shoots and interviews for Calvin and Ramón, to launch during their opening week. Although the primary media focus will be on Ramón, Calvin still gets a haircut, a fancy shave, a manicure—though he politely declines a chest wax.
We’ve opened a joint checking account, which required that we share the very basics of our finances, and they are equally bleak. Other than the three hundred dollars in our shared account, I have some money in savings that I never touch. Calvin is in much the same boat . . . minus the savings. For various interviews and appearances, he’ll have to buy a suit, some dress shirts, new shoes. Our balance dwindles, but it’s so much less stressful with someone else at my side . . . and any stress we do feel dissolves as soon as we step into the theater and frenetic energy explodes around him.
Our last few days before the debut performance should be accompanied by a soundtrack. Ideally Chariots of Fire. More realistically, Jaws.
There is a looming baseline thunder, and I swear it’s not just in my head. Social media is on fire speculating about the person replacing Seth—that it’s a guitarist is sparking a lot of controversy. Fans mob outside, hoping to hear any bit of music to quench their curiosity. We practically live at the Levin-Gladstone. Michael, who rarely comes by the theater, paces the aisles, listening in on every note of rehearsal. The Law brothers—who, before, were never around and trusted Robert to run the production just fine with their money—are occasionally spotted in the balconies. Brian is a maniac backstage, barking out orders, laying into the crew if they’re caught hanging around when they should be moving things. Robert is tense and bellowing at the smallest mistakes. Ramón is a perfectionist and demands to do something again, and again, and again until he’s nearly hoarse and Calvin’s fingers are practically bleeding. But Calvin still finds me backstage after every grueling rehearsal, with a giant grin. It’s as if he’s been waiting years for this, and he is Pressure Teflon, or maybe the thrill outweighs the terror.
I see the cast and crew eyeing him, eyeing us. We look like any other married couple. Calvin touches me freely and kisses me—on the forehead. We come together and leave together, even though I’m not needed here a fraction of the time I’m around. And while I’m not completely unfortunate-looking, I know everyone is half wondering how I ended up with someone like him. I’m that girl with the freckles, the one with snagged tights who spills her coffee awkwardly on her boobs, the one who knocks into everyone with my camera. Calvin, by contrast, drifts gracefully in and out of spaces, and we’ve already established how he can eat a salad without greasing up his chin.
It really is unfair.
I find Calvin leaning against a wall backstage, talking to Ethan—a member of the ensemble who I’m sure would love to pull my husband even farther into the shadows for a far more private interaction. The fact that Calvin is straight seems to cause acute physical pain to many of our male coworkers.
He immediately spots me, expression relaxing as he steps around Ethan to come to my side.
Ethan gives me an annoyingly fake smile. “Hey, Holland.”
I mimic the expression. “Hey, Ethan.”
I nearly jump out of my shoes when Calvin pulls my back to his front and presses his mouth to my jaw. “I’m going to take my beautiful wife to dinner.”
I can’t even look at him over my shoulder because he’s so close: we’d nearly be kissing.
“Take me to dinner?” I step forward, putting a little distance between me and he who is my husband, he who smells like the woods and fresh air, he who sleeps practically naked only a room away from me every night.
“A proper date.”
Imaginary Holland stands up and waves the That Means Sex! flag, but I tell her to have a seat until we obtain clarification. “ ‘Proper’?” I say faux-demurely.
He seems to get the meaning the same time I do, and with a little cough pulls his lip balm out of his pocket, smoothing it over those lips I really, really like. “Proper.” He snaps the cap back on with a grin. “Food. Drinks. Fun.”
Did he lean into the word fun? Did he growl it a little? I look to Ethan, wishing there was a way I could ask him to corroborate this, but in our surprising moment of flirtation, I don’t think either Calvin or I noticed that Ethan has already disappeared.
“I’m always down for food and drinks and fun.”
“It’s why I like you.” Calvin threads his arm through mine, and I catch a longing, droopy look from another one of the stagehands. Tugging, he leads me toward the side exit. “You need to put on a proper dress, with proper heels, and put your hair up.”
My brain is still trying to compute all this, to decide whether I love or hate that he’s telling me what to wear, but then his hand slides around to cup the back of my neck, and his lips land on my cheek, lingering there, warm and soft. When he speaks, he speaks against my skin. “Your neck is my kryptonite,” he says, and I feel his smile curve against me. “I suppose I should text you more about that.”
I emerge from the bedroom in the only proper dress I think I own: it’s black, hits just above my knee, and has a fitted bodice with a flowy, pleated chiffon skirt.
And clearly Calvin likes it, too, because when I step out, his mouth hangs slightly open like he was about to launch into a thought and has completely lost the thread of it. I admit to being stunned stupid, too. He’s wearing his new suit with a lavender shirt he’s left unbuttoned at the collar, letting the sharp edges of his collarbone flirt with my eyeballs.
After a few seconds of scanning every inch of me, he simply says, “Right.”
“This works?”
His eyes land on my neck; I have my hair in a high, messy bun. “Christ, yes.”
We walk a few blocks to Taboon, and even though there is a line of at least ten parties waiting outside, Calvin shakes hands with a man at the door, who points us to a table in the back. I follow, noticing how heads turn slightly when the Irishman casually slips out of his tailored navy blazer and folds it over his arm.
When he pulls out my chair for me, I ask, “You knew that guy?”
“Juilliard.” Calvin makes a faintly sour face. “Brilliant cellist. He’s not had the best luck since.”
I feel the impulse claw its way up my throat; the desire to help every stray. But no matter how amazing Robert is, or how elaborate his orchestra is for the modesty of the Levin-Gladstone, he can’t hire every out-of-work musician we meet.
Still, even if I suppress it, Calvin reads the reaction in my eyes and it softens the tight line of his mouth. “He’ll land on his feet. Maybe we can help, down the road.”
We.
Down the road.
I swallow thickly, working to give a neutral shrug. In unison, we look down, scanning the menu, and butterflies land in my stomach, tensing.
A proper date.
We’ve had so many nights on the couch eating takeout. So many happy hours spent with Robert and Jeff or even Lulu before we head home together. What about tonight makes this . . . different?
Calvin looks up at me. “Want to share the cauliflower starter and the branzino?”
Holy crap, I love having a decisive eater as a husband. “Done.”
He slides his menu onto the table and reaches over, taking my hand. “Have I said thank you?”
This makes me laugh. “Once or twice.”
“Well, I’ll say it again, just in case.” His eyes take on a glassy, sincere glow. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Of course.”
After a little squeeze, he lets go of my hand and sits back to smile up at the waiter who’s materialized at the table. This married game we are playing sure does seem easy, and Calvin sure does seem sincerely dedicated, but I get these tiny pulsing flashes of awareness that remind me I don’t really know him all that well. I’ve memorized his face—the olive skin, the greenish eyes, the perfectly imperfect teeth—but his brain feels like a mystery still.
We order our shared dinner, and he turns to pull something out of the inner pocket of his blazer, producing a small pink box. “For you.”
I am the worst about accepting compliments and gifts, so as expected, Appalland makes an appearance and I stammer out a few things that vaguely translate into Oh my God, you’re so ridiculous, how dare you.
Inside the box is a delicate gold claddagh ring, and a storm erupts inside me.
“I realize it seems stereotypical to wear these,” Calvin says through my stunned silence, “but we do. Please don’t think I’m being trite. This doesn’t just represent love—with the heart—but I suppose we think of the hands as friendship, and the crown as loyalty.” He makes a self-deprecating little grimace as he slides it on my right ring finger, exposed from the cast, with the point of the heart toward the wrist. “Like this, it means you’re in a relationship.” With a smile aimed at my hand, he fusses with it a little, twisting it straight on my finger. “Normally, because we’re married, you’d wear it like that on your other hand, but you’ve got the wedding ring there.”
I’m so afraid of saying something inappropriate or flippant that I don’t say anything, I just touch it with the fingers of my left hand and smile up at him.
“Do you like it?” he asks quietly.
This is where I could so easily reveal that I’m completely infatuated with him, and that his giving me a ring has essentially Made My Life Complete, but I just nod, whispering, “It’s so pretty, Calvin.”
He leans back, but the vulnerability doesn’t entirely leave his expression. “Do you enjoy watching me in rehearsal?”
An indelicate snort escapes. “Is that a serious question?”
He gives that self-deprecating grimace again. “Well, yeah. Your opinion is the one I value most. Your advice is . . . everything.”
This leaves me momentarily stunned. “I love watching you rehearse. You’re spectacular—you have to know that.”
The waiter brings our wine, and we each take a sip to approve the bottle, thanking him. Once he’s gone, Calvin looks at me over the rim of his glass.
“I think Ramón and I sound great together, yeah.” He bites his lip thoughtfully. “But—I mean—the entire time I’ve been here, I’ve wanted this—exactly this. Did I ever tell you, once Possessed debuted, I would play the music alone and imagine being in the production?”
Something squeezes my heart in its fist. “Really?”
He nods, quickly swallowing another sip. “After I graduated, I thought something like this would come. I thought that break was only a few months off. Or I would run into someone at a party, and give them my information and hope it would change everything. A year turned into two, and two turned into four, and I wanted to be on Broadway so much I just stayed. I really screwed myself, I know I did.”
“I can completely see how that would happen, though.” It’s like me with the book, I think. I expect the idea to sprout tomorrow, next week, in a month. And here I am, two years out of graduate school with nothing written.
“So, I suppose what I mean is that this is so obviously worth it to me. Whether we are only friends or . . . you know. I want this marriage to be worth it to you,” he says gently, “and I’m not quite sure how to make that happen.”
Whether we are only friends or . . . you know.
Whether we are only friends or . . . you know?
My brain is on a loop, barricaded from working past what he’s just said in order to help assuage the guilt I can tell he’s feeling. The reply We could start having regular sex is so close to the surface. So close.
I take a few deep gulps of wine and wipe my hand indelicately across my mouth. “Please don’t worry about that.”
“I could help you think about your book?”
I get that sinking feeling in my stomach that I always get when I imagine opening my laptop and working.
We could have sex tonight.
I take another deep drink of wine.
“I’ll try to think of something,” he says quietly.
