“Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love,” my Orlando tells Rosalind.
Define love, Lulu had demanded. What would “being stained” look like?
Like this, Lulu.
It would look like this.
And then it’s over. Like a great wave crashing onto a shore, the applause erupts and I’m here, on this stage, surrounded by the shocked and delighted smiles of my castmates. We are grasping hands and bowing and Marina is pulling me out front for our curtain call and then stepping to the side and gesturing for me to walk ahead and I do and the applause grows even louder.
Backstage, it is madness. Max is screaming. And Marina is crying and Linus is smiling, although his eyes keep darting to the side entrance that Petra left from hours ago. People are surrounding me, patting me on the back, offering congratulations and kisses and I’m here but I’m not—I’m still in some strange limbo where the boundaries of time and place and person don’t exist where I can be here and in Paris, where it can be now and then, where I’m me and also Orlando.
I try to stay in this place as I change out of my clothes, scrub the makeup off my face. I look at myself in the mirror and try to digest what I just did. It feels completely unreal, and like the truest thing I have ever done. The truth and its opposite. Up on stage, playing a role, revealing myself.
People gather round me. There is talk, of parties, celebration, a cast party tonight, even though the show doesn’t wrap for two more weeks and to celebrate now is technically bad luck. But it seems like everyone has given up on luck tonight. We make our own.
Petra comes backstage, stone-faced and not saying a word. She walks right past me. Goes straight to Linus.
I leave the backstage and go out the gate that serves as a stage door. Max is at my side, jumping up and down like an exuberant puppy. “So was Marina a decent kisser?” she asks me.
“I’m sure she was glad not to be kissing Jeroen,” Vincent says, and I laugh.
Outside, I scan the area for my friends. I’m not quite sure who will be here. And then I hear her call my name.
“Willem!” she says again.
It’s Kate, charging toward me, a blur of gold and red. My heart seems to expand as she leaps into my arms and we spin around.
“You did it. You did it. You did it!” she murmurs in my ear.
“I did it. I did it. I did it.” I repeat, laughing with joy and relief and awe at the direction this day has taken.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. “You dropped something.”
“Oh, right. Your flowers,” Kate says, leaning over to pick up a bouquet of sunflowers. “For your stunning debut.”
I take the flowers.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
I have no answer, no words. I just feel full. I try to explain it but then Kate interrupts: “Like you just had the best sex in the world?” And I laugh. Yeah, something like that. I take her hand and kiss it. She twines an arm around my waist.
“Ready to meet your adoring public?” she asks.
I’m not. Right now, I just want to savor this. With the person who helped make it happen. Leading her by the hand, I take us over to a quiet bench under a nearby gazebo and attempt in some way to articulate what just happened.
“How did that happen?” is all I can think to ask.
She holds my hands in hers. “Do you really need to ask that?”
“I think I do. It felt like something otherworldly.”
“Oh, no,” she says, laughing. “I believe in the muse and all, but don’t go attributing that performance to one of your accidents. It was all you up there.”
It was. And it wasn’t. Because I wasn’t alone up there.
We sit there for a little while longer. I feel my whole body buzzing, humming. This night is perfect.
“I think your groupies are waiting,” Kate says after a while, gesturing behind me. I turn around and there are Broodje, Henk, W, Lien, and a few other people, watching us curiously. I take Kate by the hand and introduce them to the boys.