I have a memory of that alley behind the theatre. The streetlight that buzzed and flickered, yet never managed to light the way.
We played in that prop room. Do you remember? The one with the rotted window frame. Sneaking in while our parents auditioned, rehearsed, became close. Running and creeping, lost in shadows and play.
The lights dim, ghost stories believed. Spinning and twirling across the stage. The black floor creaking soft under foot. A scolding. Then a curtsey. You would bow. Cackles and running.
The smell of moth balls and fresh paint. Turpentine. Costume fittings, adults squeezing into vintage waistcoats and character shoes. Blisters and band-aids. Stolen sips of vodka. A cracked mirror in someone’s great-grandmother’s purse.
‘Line!’ Mr. Manningham yelled, dropping character and his pretend wife teased. They smiled at each other. They always smiled at each other. More running for us, ducking framework and 2x4s propping up make-believe walls. Passing a velvet couch with Queen Anne legs made for the stage. Bouncing over a chaise, leaping from an ottoman to warnings and laughter. Behind a dresser, saturated in varnish, we kissed. We giggled with wrinkled noses, wiping our mouths with the back of hands.
We watched from the wings when the cast watched Gaslight, the film adaptation. The two of us reading through dialogue like we understood the toxic parts of marriage. Instead, we adopted accents and traded hats. Practiced grand exits and accidently broke a lamp backstage.
Rehearsal over we scurried out the side door to the alley, to the intermittent flickers and the gravely walk to cars. Witnessing the fingers of my mother and your father intertwining in secret, in shadows.
And that chandelier outside the bathroom? The one with the tarnished medallion? We each stole a crystal. That wooden ladder giving way. Both of us wearing peasant dresses layered over our street clothes. The dresses we found next to the tattered lace frock in the costume room. You cried when your dad yelled at you for wearing that dress.
Tech week. Rehearsals ran late. Roused from lumpy seats in the back of the auditorium. Walking that alley, hands latched with parents. No moon. Air bitter. Cold. Was it one AM or two? The shimmer of flurries. We climbed into the backseats of our parent’s respective cars. Buckled. Groggy between dreams. We heard them. The low reverberation of your father’s voice. The hesitation, the crack of my mother’s. Their regrets. Their parting.
The show opened and closed. The crowds sparse and dwindling each night. My dad met your mom. And someone groused that we disrupted rehearsals. How we suffered impulse control and manners. They’re nine, someone defended. Others whispered about you. All whispered about our parents.
They struck the set. We played one last time. A sword fight with 1x2s. Splinters and reprimands. A final walk down that alley. A crystal sequestered in a lacquered box is all I have.
No more auditions after that. We became conjured memories, gaslighted into fractured timelines.
Penny Pennell received an M.A. in English from the University of Illinois at Springfield. Her fiction is forthcoming or has appeared in Harpur Palate, jmww, Portland Metrozine, Jersey Devil Press, 3Elements Review, Nightingale and Sparrow, Barnstorm, and other places. She is an avid gardener and Chicago Cubs fan. You can find Penny on Twitter at @pennyrpennell and on her website pennypennell.wordpress.com.
Photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash.
