So Much It Hurts (2 page)

Katie brings her hand to her mouth. “Yikes, Iris. Sorry. I swear I didn't mean it. You get me back now, okay?” She turns to me, closes her eyes and grins.

She knows I'd feel awful if I hurt her. I'd feel awful if I hurt anyone. I'm the kind of person who'd rather scoop a spider up in a napkin and carry him outside than flush him down the toilet. Slapping Katie is even harder for me than getting slapped.

“Who's that guy in the corner?” Katie whispers.

“How should I know?”

“He's seriously hot.”

“People!” Ms. Cameron claps again. “Now that you're warmed up, I'd like to introduce a friend of mine. This is Mick Horton.”

Mick Horton gives us a businesslike nod; then he turns to Ms. Cameron and nods at her too, like he's giving her permission to continue. “Mick is an award-winning stage director in Melbourne, Australia, and he's come to Montreal to consult on a project here. He's kindly agreed to sit in on our class today.”

Katie leans in close to me. “D'you think Mick and Ms. Cameron are getting it on?”

“How should I know?”

Mick Horton sits on a tall stool, watching as we start rehearsal. Is it my imagination or does he have a permanent scowl on his face?

Ms. Cameron wants us to do some work on the end of Act 1, Scene 3. Which is where Ophelia comes in. Drop shoulders, soften face. It's time for my Ophelia mind-meld.

I feel Mick Horton's eyes on me as I say my lines. I don't know if it's because he thinks I'm talented—or terrible. Terrible, probably.

Polonius is rattling on and on the way Polonius does. He criticizes Ophelia for giving her heart too easily to Hamlet—he says she has not placed a high enough value on herself.
Tender yourself more dearly
, he tells her. Poor Ophelia—stuck with such a depressing windbag for a father.
Do not believe his vows
, he warns her, and then he orders Ophelia to keep away from the Danish prince!

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,

Have you so slander any moment leisure,

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to't, I charge you
.

I bow my head. Ms. Cameron is always telling us to draw on our deepest feelings to bring our performances alive. I think about how my father's not around to warn me against guys he doesn't like. I know what it feels like to miss a father. So I take that feeling and try to find the love inside. How much I'd love my father if I only knew him! How torn apart I'd be if he told me Lord Hamlet was no good for me. Because I love the Danish prince with every fiber of my being.

“ ‘I shall obey, my lord,' ” I say—I mean, Ophelia says. Only it's both of us speaking, me and Ophelia in one breath.

When I look up, Mick Horton is still watching me.

“Nice work today, people,” Ms. Cameron calls out when the bell rings.

“That was deeply felt, Iris,” she says when I pass her. “Fine work—as usual.”

Mick Horton is standing next to her. His nose is too big for his narrow face. Still, Katie's right—there is something hot about him. Something magnetic. I can't help hoping he and Ms. Cameron are not getting it on.

Then Mick Horton does something I'd never have expected. He plants his hand on my shoulder. His fingers are long and slender, like a pianist's; his touch is cool and dry, but something about it makes me feel privileged. I have the feeling he's a person who keeps his distance, and yet he is not keeping it with me.

“The way you slouch,” he says, looking right at me (he has the darkest eyes I've ever seen), “works for Ophelia. Especially when she's submitting to her father. But you should do something with your hair. Comb it away from your face.”

Katie is next to me, but we don't say a word till we're outside the theater room. “I can't believe he said that about your hair! I love your hair! The guy's got some nerve. You shoulda told him that soul patch looks like pubes.”

CHAPTER 2

“Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be.”
—HAMLET,
ACT 2, SCENE 2

A
family of four sits down at one of my tables. I grab two menus and some crayons. When I get to the table, I look at the mom, avoiding direct eye contact with the dad. Parents want crayons for their kids. Crayons keep kids occupied and, with a little luck, quiet. And even if it's usually Dad who leaves the tip, a waitress who makes too much eye contact with him risks being considered by Mom to be flirting with her husband—adversely affecting the tip.

Waitressing is just another role I play—one I happen to be very good at. Sundays from twelve to six, I become a cheerful, charming and efficient waitress. I greet every customer with a smile, put others' needs before my own and take pleasure in my life of service.

At the end of each shift, my apron's heavier than the shield they make me wear at the dentist's office when they x-ray my teeth. Only my apron pockets are filled with coins and bills, not lead.

Four months of working here and I could write a book about tipping.

I worked full-time over the summer. I wasn't planning to keep working once school started, but the manager, Phil, is flexible about my hours. He gives me time off when I'm performing. “I know it's important to support the arts, Iris. A person's gotta have balance. A person can't think
business business business
all the time.” That's what Phil told me when we were working out my schedule. He's a decent guy, even if he's a little too into speechifying. I'm also used to the tips. Mom's decluttering business is doing okay now, but she still has to be careful with money, and this way, I don't need to ask for spending money.

On the other hand, there are some things I really hate about this job. Number one: my uniform. It's supposed to be retro, but even when I try thinking of it as a costume, I still despise it. It's a brown-and-white-checked blouse with short puffy sleeves, and over the blouse is an awful brown apron-dress made of scratchy polyester. The shoes are worse, and though we get the uniform for free, we actually have to buy the shoes. They're the kind nurses wear—thick white leather with white leather laces and gray crepe soles that stick to the floor, especially after some kid has spilled his milkshake.

I open my order pad to a fresh page. “Have you ever tried our bubblegum ice cream?” I ask the two kids, who are already drawing on their place mats.

“Bubblegum!” The two kids look up from their masterpieces.

The little girl is the spitting image of her dad. Same wavy red hair. She doesn't notice when her brother takes one of her crayons and adds it to his pile.

The mom looks up at me, smiling. I can tell she feels sorry for me that I have to wear such an ugly uniform.

I take a quick look at what the kids have drawn on their place mats. The girl has made a giant purple blotch. Jackson Pollock, pre-K period. It's hard to know if what is on the boy's place mat is a house or an elephant. “Cool drawings!” I tell them.

The family's good for a five-dollar tip. More if the kids like the ice cream and the girl doesn't figure out her brother nicked her crayon.

Scoops has a long, narrow entrance, so I usually notice when someone walks in. But I must've been distracted by the kids' drawings, because somehow, as if by magic, Mick Horton is sitting at the counter in the middle of the restaurant. I have to look twice to be sure it's him. But I already know it is. I feel his presence, the way I did in Theater Workshop.

Something about him makes me tremble inside. Maybe it's because he's Ms. Cameron's friend and I look up to her so much. Or because he's so well known in the theater world. I googled him after class, and I swear I got five hundred hits. Apparently, he's known as the
enfant
terrible
of the Australian theater scene. How cool is that? And he's won a ton of prizes and traveled to theater festivals around the world.

I feel myself blush when I look at him. Thank God he doesn't know I've been stalking him online. He's stroking his soul patch. I can't believe Katie said it looks like pubes. I think the soul patch makes him look artistic.

“Uh, Mr. Horton, right?” I say when I walk to the other side of the counter and hand him his menu. I hope he doesn't notice my hands are shaking.

I feel his eyes on my fingers. When I look up at him, he's smiling, but just a little. The smile makes him look younger. He's wearing the fedora again and a different pair of skinny jeans, this time with a white T-shirt.

He lays the menu facedown on the counter. “How 'bout calling me Mick? ‘Mr. Horton' makes me think people are talking to my granddad. You're Iris, right?”

I'm so surprised he knows my name that for a second I'm afraid I'm going to trip over my ugly shoes.

“Isobel said you worked here,” he says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world that an internationally acclaimed theater director would care where I worked.

“Iso—?” I start to ask, then realize he means Ms. Cameron. “Do you…uh…know what you want?”

The question makes him grin. I feel my cheeks get hot again.

“What a guy like me wants…now that's a complicated question. Existential even. But right now, what I really want is a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Dish, no cone.”

I don't say what I usually do when people order vanilla, that we have sixty-one other flavors and double mocha fudge is my personal favorite. I'm too nervous to say any of that.

“I have to tell you, Iris, I didn't just come for ice cream,” Mick Horton says. (I can't call him just Mick, not even in my head.) “I came because I want you to know I think you've got a great deal of potential.” He pauses, and I get the feeling he likes the word
potential.
“As an actress. I'm looking forward to helping you develop that potential.”

“Wow,” I say, and my order pad slips out of my hand and falls to the floor. I lean over to pick it up, and I can feel his eyes on me again. He's checking me out. I know he is. But it's more than that. He's looking at me—gazing at me—as if he can see inside me too. I like how that feels. “That…that's amazing,” I manage to say. “It means so much—coming from someone like you. Someone so…” I let the end of my sentence drop. What was I going to say? Someone so famous? Someone so hot?

I'm saved by a customer calling from the front of the restaurant. “Miss, can I get a little more water over here, please?”

“I'll bring you that scoop of vanilla straightaway,” I tell him.

The banana split I've ordered for another table is ready. I can bring the water at the same time. Then the family's order, then the scoop of vanilla. Sometimes, waitressing is like being an air traffic controller.

The customer who wants more water is an older woman who's been reading the Saturday paper. She doesn't look at me when I fill her glass. To her, I am just a waitress. I wish I could tell her I'm not. I push my shoulders back. Mick Horton thinks I have
a great deal of potential
. As an actress.

CHAPTER 3

“The time is out of joint…”
—
HAMLET,
ACT 1, SCENE 5

I
shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing this.

Not letting him take off my T-shirt or run his fingers along the outside of my jeans, pressing harder when he gets near my thighs.

I don't even
want
to be doing this. Not really. But it's not just him moaning—it's me too. Now that I'm here doing this, I can't just make it stop.

“I love you, Iris,” Tommy says as he pulls his T-shirt over his head. His chest is narrow and his nipples are hard brown acorns.

Tommy's parents have gone to New York for the weekend and taken his little sister with them. He has the house to himself. When I said I'd come over tonight, I knew what I was agreeing to.

Tommy and I have spent whole nights making out, usually at my house, in the basement with the door open (Mom's rule), but not doing
it
. The way we are about to now.

I know Tommy expects me to say I love him back. I feel guilty for not saying it. But I can't. Because I've never been more sure that I
don't
love him.

It's my first time, but not Tommy's. He told me he had sex with a girl last summer when they were both working at a camp in the Laurentians. Even if I don't love Tommy, I can't help feeling a little jealous of that girl.

“Are you sure you want to?” Tommy whispers, even though there's no one around to hear us. We're lying on his bed. The walls in his room are covered with vintage
Star
Wars
posters. He stretches out his arm to reach for something. It takes me a second to realize he's got condoms in the top drawer of his nightstand. He must've known—or at least hoped—this was going to happen.

“I'm sure,” I tell him, though I'm not.

Tommy makes a gasping sound. He's still got his jeans on too, and I can feel how excited he is. How much he wants this to happen.

I'm seventeen. That's two years older than Katie was the first time she had sex. I'm sick of waiting. I'm sick of feeling like some kid. And it's not like Tommy's using me, the way a lot of guys our age use girls for sex. Tommy really cares about me.

“It can hurt the first time.” His voice is shaky. “I don't want to hurt you, Iris.”

“I'll be fine.” Why am I the one reassuring him?

Tommy is standing up now, kicking off his jeans and white boxers. I've never seen a naked guy with an erection before, and the sight of Tommy standing there makes me want to laugh. He looks so…so funny. Almost like some cartoon character.

I don't think a girl is supposed to feel like laughing the first time she has sex.