Tuesday & Max

38

DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP

IT'S SOMETHING THAT I'VE DONE

IT'S SOMETHING THAT WE ALL GO THROUGH

The audience hums with concern.

Alexis stays down for a second or two. Tuesday sees, even from the opposite side of the stage in the wings, that she's controlling a great amount of pain by her expression. She gets up with some difficulty, but performs the rest of the song without using the props again. Cheers chase her offstage.

Candice appears from her seat in the audience soon after, helping Alexis into a seat in the dressing room down the hall. Tuesday follows, not sure whether she should start prepping the next costumes or try and help Alexis. Will Alexis even want her help? She's been cold throughout all the rehearsals since the moment they met.

"Someone find a first aider!" Candice calls.

"No!" Alexis gasps, turning her ankle from side-to-side. "It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I can move it, look. It's not broken."

"That doesn't mean it's not broken," Harry says, adjusting the collar on Jess' Maria nightdress before sending her off to the stage again. "I broke my finger once and just carried on for like a month before I got it checked out." He holds up the ring finger on his right hand. It's noticeably crooked. "Want your ankle to look like that forever?"

"I didn't know you were deformed," Jon comments, stepping out from behind a mirror in his Captain costume.

"Shouldn't you be up on the scaffolding, sound boy?" Harry snipes.

"Nah, the others have got it," he says, shrugging. "Less risk of ripping the shit out of this costume if I just stay in actor mode from now on." He looks at Alexis' ankle. "I heard you went down hard. I'd rest it. Let someone else step in."

"No," Alexis says, rotating her ankle. "I'm fine."

"Who have we got for understudies?" Candice asks Jon quietly.

"I dunno. We didn't think we'd need em."

"We don't need them!" Alexis says.

"Tuesday can stand in for Liesl," Harry says slyly. Tuesday feels a nudge in the small of her back and splutters as she's pushed forward beside Jon and Candice. "She knows, like, everyone's lines."

"What?" Alexis says.

"Good idea," Jon says.

"Oh my God," Candice says, "you can sing as well! This is perfect! Might be a bit weird for the audience for you to change, but I'm sure they'll catch up, they saw what happened. And if Alexis can make it through tonight, you could always do tomorrow..."

"I don't know..." Tuesday says through the rising fear.

Behind them, Alexis gathers her skirts and stands up. "No. This role is mine. If Cinderella wanted an acting role, she should've auditioned for one. I'm fine." Before anyone can say anything else, she storms through the middle of them and out the door, slightly lopsided as she goes.

"If that ankle is worse tomorrow, she can't go on," Jon says, turning to the mirror to adjust his clothing.

"I know," Candice frets. To Tuesday's dismay, she turns back to her. "Would you feel comfortable stepping in? If we needed you to?"

"I can't, I—I haven't practiced..."

"As if you haven't sang the entirety of The Sound of Music in front of your bedroom mirror at least five hundred times in your life," Harry scoffs.

"I—"

"Say ok," Harry orders, pointing a firm finger at her.

"What?"

"Just say ok! Don't think about it!"

"Ok!" Tuesday agrees, throwing her hands up. It's fine. Alexis' ankle will be fine by tomorrow night.

"Thank you so much," Candice says. "You're the best. I've got to go back out there. Keep up the good work, guys! Love your costume, Mr. Sabbatini!"

Is it Tuesday's eyes, or does Jon blush?

Harry follows Candice out. His voice floats back as he loudly bosses around the other costumers that must've bumped into him in the hallway. Just as Tuesday's about to follow, Jon eyes the doorway for a moment or two before turning to her.

"Listen," Jon says. "I need to ask you something about Candice."

Tuesday's eyebrows almost jump off her face. Is this what it sounds like it is?

"Sure..."

"Since she broke up with Kyle..." It is, it is! "Has she... well... does she—has she ever..." Jon continues to struggle verbally and Tuesday smiles, the warmth of being right spreading through her body. "Is she seeing people yet?"

"You should tell her," Tuesday says. The advice surprises her; she'd been planning to say she thought it was probably too soon. "Just tell her, if you like her. It's as simple as that."

Wasn't it?

Looking back, things are clear. From the moment Max held the door open for her on that first day of college, something had been there. That something, that tiny seed of something, grew tall from the sunshine of a shared smile; the quenching water of their conversation, of Max's calm voice as they studied; the soil of the café, the classroom, the bedroom that held them. Its roots strangled everything in their path. Tuesday's insecurities, her fear, her isolation, they all shrank away. But her relationship with Jack had been a casualty of it, too.

If only she'd ended it earlier. Ended it, and told Max how she felt. Maybe things wouldn't have turned out as badly as they had. Maybe he wouldn't be missing. Maybe he'd be sitting out there in the audience next to Candice, waiting to celebrate afterward with the rest of them.

"But what if she doesn't feel the same way?"

This is the first night in a long time that he's seemed unsure of himself. The frown, the set of his shoulders... he looks like something alien has ahold of him.

Tuesday shrugs. "Then it's whatever. You'll get over it. It doesn't mean either of you is a bad person or anything. Sometimes things just aren't meant to be."

Jon thinks for a second, his dark eyes faraway, then nods shortly. "Alright," he says. "Alright. Thanks."

After he leaves her, Tuesday sits for a moment. The plastic chair is cool beneath her black jeans.

Are Max and her just whatever?

How long will it take her to get over it?

Was it really just not meant to be, after all?