More on high school drama students later. More on my choices later, and my reasons, which I had. One big reason was boys. I was sixteen.
Zach Gowen: wow. He was tall and proportionally big, so you might not notice from a distance, unless he was standing next to, well, anybody. Like some kind of six and a half feet ridiculousness.
He had to grow a beard for the play. I will not say what play. It was summer so he could do what he wanted with his face. I guess it was the first time I was ever attracted to a man with facial hair. Difficult to pull off, but when it’s done well it’s so beautiful. His baby face, instantly matured and made less familiar, like putting on a well-tailored suit. Just that easily, here was a man. I was shocked that this appealed to me. I was used to thinking of boys.
Zach wore a peasant’s clothes and, like me, unlike everyone else, did not change back into jeans right after dress rehearsals. He slouched around in brown trousers and a grimy work shirt, sometimes an aged vest too poor for a pocket watch. A shapeless black hat hung low over his heavy eyebrows and made him look penniless, hungry, and in need of a woman or a time machine. It was wonderful.
After rehearsals, Zach quietly insisted on walking me to my car in the well-lit, not-at-all-dangerous parking lot. I did not fuss.
Theater taught me how to arrange layers of extra importance around moments, phrases, and, when necessary, entire living people. A process as painstaking, meaningful, and ultimately as joyous as dressing a bride. A lot of nothing was happening in my life, so I understand now why I dressed him in a cloud of mystery and romance which still, now, hangs around his name for me.
The bottom line was that we never touched. We may have brushed past each other in the darkness of the wings once or twice, and I’m sure it was electric at the time, or I dreamed it to be electric out of necessity. But there was no intentional contact, I know for sure. It was a time when I was keeping score.
Still, I wonder now, how much of the romantic dream was purely my invention? It’s true that I was flattered by a long dark skirt I dug out of the attic, a skirt rich with historic mystery. I wore a man’s shirt I’d altered to fit me better, but not perfectly, on purpose. I meant it to look as if I had borrowed my father’s work shirt, then hit puberty and begun straining the bounds of the fabric. I’m too poor to afford a proper shirt, dear me I will have to wear this one until I burst out. The effect was good.
So we stood leaning against my car, talking until we wore out our feet. It would have been warm, and just after dark. Fireflies, I imagine, and cricket noise. Am I wrong to think the spell was an illusion? I guess I still don’t know.
