I’ve been waiting for us to move to
“Oh, my gosh—look at that, Bekah.” Marianne tapped my arm with her elbow and nodded towards the opposite corner of the JSB courtyard. She, Trevor, Cole, Derek, and I were breathing in the new spring warmth during the dead hour on Thursday between eleven and noon. Following Marianne’s nod, I saw Christian Miles sitting on the ground beside a concrete planter. Sitting on the edge of the planter under the budding Lavelle Hawthorne, her black-legging-clad legs straddling his shoulders, was Nyx Hastings. Her maroon spikes were gone, replaced by platinum-blonde swirls. In her left hand she brandished a pair of scissors. “What do you think she’s doing?” my best best friend whispered.
As we watched, Nyx grabbed a handful of Chris’s thick hair and sheared it an inch from his head. Marianne and I gasped. The amateur hairdresser threw the lock of sunny hair into the air and laughed as it fluttered to the ground. Riveted, we watched the bright hair continue to fly until Chris’s hair was shaped into a modern almost-fauxhawk.
“Wow, um,” coughed Marianne.
“He looks like Jude Law,” I sighed.
Marianne jumped, “What was that?!”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Trevor muttered with exaggerated bitterness. “We’ve been sitting here for half an hour, and you haven’t even looked at me, Marianne!”
His girlfriend shook her curls. “Oh, don’t be retarded, Trev.”
Trevor stood and grabbed his overstuffed backpack. “I’m not being retarded!” Tears welled up in his angry hazel eyes, “I’m not stupid. I notice things, Marianne, because I pay attention to the world. Ever since that psycho got here,” he stabbed a finger in Chris’s direction, “you’ve acted like I don’t exist! I’m wondering if you still care about me!” Fists tight and arms stiff, he stalked off towards the stairs that led down Rape Hill.[1]
Marianne rolled her eyes, “I guess that’s my cue.” Asking me to throw away the remains of her lunch, she hurried after her boyfriend.
Cole whistled. I gave him a whadda-ya-do? shrug, and he winked back. Derek patted me on the arm, took everyone’s cans to the recycling bin, and left, brooding.
“So,” Cole began.
“So . . .” I contributed.
“Trev says you don’t have a date for the big night.” Cole took a big swig of his off-campus caffeinated Cherry Coke and grimaced, “Flat.”
“Big night?” I feigned ignorance. Marianne had already suggested to me that she and Trevor double-date at the Mr. and Miss 37th Ward Pageant with Cole and me.
“The beauty contest. Trev and Marianne want me to take you so we can double. Of course, if you already are going with Derek.”
“Nope, I . . .” my cheeks were burning, “maybe I was j-just waiting for the right guy to ask me.”
Cole shifted closer and put his arm over my shoulders, in a friendly way. I breathed in the cool spring air and reminded myself that we were far from a certain filthy den. Chris was too far away for me to be sure, but he could have been staring right at me and Cole while Nyx styled his hair. “How ’bout,” Cole smiled, “I’ll be the right guy if you’ll be the right girl.”
“Sure,” I squeaked, “but I’ve got New Testament now.”
Cole held on to my shoulders. He leaned in and his breath was hot and sour, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Marianne about who you really want to go with.”
“Wh-what? No, I . . .” My hands started to sweat.
My head bobbed as Cole shook my shoulders roughly, “You know,” he intimated, “with Trevor.”
“N-no!” I shook myself free, stood up, and steadied my voice, “Cole, I don’t want to go with him at all, and that is the absolute truth.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Chris and Nyx stand up and skip towards the Benson[2], her hand tucked inside his elbow.
I just wanted to double-date with my friend, but somehow as I watched Cole strut off with a silly grin on his face, I felt like I had sold my soul to the devil.
* * * *
“When we’re dead, people will fly around in balloons, there will be new styles in men’s jackets, and a sixth sense may be discovered and developed, but life itself won’t change, it will still be as difficult and full of mystery and happiness as it is now. Even in a thousand years, men will still be moaning away about life being a burden. What’s more, they’ll be still as scared of death as they are now. And as keen on avoiding it.” Tuzenbakh, played by the rotund Thomas Bowen (junior majoring in acting; from Alpine,
Vershinin/Jared leaned back and furrowed his brow. Masha/I watched him think. Finally, he spoke, “Now how can I put it? I think everything on earth is bound to change bit by bit, in fact already is changing before our very eyes. Two or three hundred years, or a thousand years, if you like—it doesn’t really matter how long—will bring in a new and happy life. We’ll have no part in it of course, but it is what we’re now living for, working for, yes, and suffering for. We’re creating it, and that’s what gives our life its meaning, and its happiness, too, if you want to put it that way.”
I laughed to myself, thinking that Vershinin was what gave my life meaning and happiness.
“What’s the matter?” Tuzenbakh asked me.
Shaking my head, I sighed, “I don’t know. I’ve been laughing all day,”
Vershinin continued, I soaked in every word, “Our business is to work and go on working, and our distant descendants will have any happiness that’s going.”
Tuzenbakh scratched his head and considered Vershinin. “You seem to think we shouldn’t even dream of happiness, but what if I’m happy already?”
“You’re not,” Vershinin answered.
Tuzenbakh threw up his arms and chuckled, “We obviously don’t speak the same language. How can I convince you?”
I laughed again, mesmerized by Vershinin’s glowing dark skin.
“Forget your two or three hundred years,” shrugged Tuzenbakh, “because even in a million years life will still be just the same as ever. It doesn’t change; it always goes on the same and follows its own laws. Think of the birds flying south for the winter. They fly on and on and on, and it doesn’t matter what ideas, big or small, they may have buzzing about in their heads, they’ll still keep on flying without ever knowing why they do it or where they’re going.”
“But what’s the point of it all?” I asked, playing with the cards in my hands.
“The point?” asked Tuzenbakh, caught off guard. “Well, um . . . Look, it’s snowing out there. What’s the point of that?”
My cards in a neat pile on the table, I sat up straight. “I feel that man should have a faith or be trying to find one, otherwise his life just doesn’t make sense. Think of living without knowing why cranes fly, why children are born, or why there are stars in the sky. Either you know what you’re living for,” I looked at Vershinin, “or else the whole thing’s a waste of time and means less than nothing.” I sighed.
Vershinin sighed, “Still, I’m sorry I’m not young anymore.”
“As Gogol said,” I countered, “‘Life on earth is no end of a bore, my friends.’”
“What I say is, arguing with you is no end of a job, my friends.” Tuzenbakh slapped his cards back on the table, “Oh, I give up.”
“Okay, okay,” said Professor Allred, walking onstage. “Let’s take ten. We’re going to be here for a while.”
I wandered to a remote corner of backstage to close my eyes and lean against the cool concrete wall. Masha exhausted me—she was much more intense, more vivacious, than I cared to be.
“Y’know, Bekah, I thought I had you figured out,” I opened my eyes. Chris stood before me; his hard eyes stared past my left shoulder. “But I was very wrong.”
I hiccupped.
“You and Cole—I’m starting to think that I got my leg slashed for nothing. You really do like him, no matter how much he hurts you!”
“No, Chris, I don’t! I’m sorry I yelled at you, after it happened. If you hadn’t been there—”
“Well, you’re going out with him this weekend, aren’t you?”
“Well, Marianne will be there, so . . .”
“You’re not as safe as you think you are! Don’t you know I can’t just follow you around, ready to rescue you from someone you’re throwing yourself at?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t get any other offers? This is my chance to be normal and have a date to the ward date activity. Even Graça’s got someone to go with.”
“Bekah, you know that is the dumbest reason . . .”
“Actually—how did you find out about my date, anyway?”
Chris chuckled twice, “Contrary to popular belief, Annie and I do speak sometimes.”
“About me?”
“You’ve come up. Y’know you are one of the only things we have in common, though Marianne and I feel very differently about you.” With this puzzling insight hanging in the dusty air, we were called back to the stage.
* * * *
“Um, Rebekah?”
“Hmm?”
Jared Washington and Janice Wilburn were standing behind me, their shoulders almost touching. Jared spoke this time, “A bunch of us are going to Bombay House tonight, and then we’re going to watch Veer-Zaara at International Cinema.”
Janice jumped in, “Do you want to come?”
Bombay House, in the bottom floor of an old office building on the corner of University and 500 North, is arguably the highest-class restaurant Provo had to offer. We entered the warm, spicy atmosphere, and I almost forgot that
Daniel Shanthakumar (from Chennai,
“C’mon,” cute little Rachael Smith came up to the counter and batted her eyes at the man old enough to be her father. “We’re going to watch an Indian movie at nine-fifteen, so we have to be finished by then.”
Mr. Shanthakumar smiled again, “You shouldn’t watch an Indian movie; you should watch Anxiously Engaged.” He pointed to the display—$16.99 for the DVD.
“Um,” said Rachael.
“I produced that, you know.” Mr. Shanthakumar was actually the executive producer of two of the better Latter-day Saint–culture films: Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-day Comedy and Anxiously Engaged: A Piccadilly Romance (also known as Piccadilly Cowboy). When I first came to Bombay House, I had recognized Mr. Shanthakumar and his restaurant from their cameo in the first movie.
“Really?” Rachael patted her strawberry blonde hair. “I’m—I mean, we’re all actors, well, studying acting, at BYU.”
“How nice,” replied Mr. Shanthakumar. Another group of potential customers had come to crowd the waiting room, so he turned his attention to them.
“So if you’re ever making another movie . . .” Rachael continued.
“Your agent can get in touch with me.”
When we finally got a table, I ordered a mango lassi and a vegetable curry—medium spice—from the waiter, who marked my choices on his PalmPilot. I alternated between bites of hot curry and sips of the wonderfully cool yogurt drink. The conversation flowed around me.
“Have some naan, Rebekah!” Jared offered me a plate of said flatbread. I ripped off a third of one of the giant herb-encrusted triangles and dipped it in my curry. “Have some more,” Jared again offered the plate.
“I’m fine, Jared. Thank you.”
“Rebekah’s on a diet,” Jeff Danielson—in a remarkable impression of his character, Solony—announced to the table. “Can’t you see she needs to?”
My cheeks burned the more because I desperately wished them not to flush. I put my fork down, suddenly very not hungry.
“Aw, Rebekah looks perfect,” Jared answered, jovially putting his warm, heavy arm around my shoulders and pulling me into a side-hug. “If she got any skinnier, she’d waste all away!” He smelled manly. The tension around the table dispersed.
“Thanks,” I whispered to Jared. I was more embarrassed than ever.
I cried at the end of Veer-Zaara.
* * * *
Act 4—the end. Vershinin/Jared chatted with Olga/Janice in the garden.
“Here she is!” Olga told Vershinin. I wandered onto the stage, eyes wide and wild.
“I came to say goodbye,” Vershinin stood awkwardly on center stage. Olga moved away and rearranged something on the side table.
I ran to my one true love, grabbed the front of his military jacket, and stared up into his warm, dark eyes. “Goodbye, dear,” I whispered. Vershinin leaned down, and we shared a long kiss.
The spinster Olga looked up, “Don’t, don’t please.”
Loud sobs erupted from my core. My heart was breaking.
Vershinin patted my back. “Um, write to me, darling. Don’t . . . forget me.” I sobbed even louder into his jacket. “Now, let me go,” he soothed, “I must go—” With his superior strength, Vershinin detached me from his lapels and dumped me in my older sister’s arms, “You take her, Olga, I really—have to go. I’m late.” Moved by my emotional display, he kissed Olga’s hand, gave my back a final rub, and left the stage.
Olga hugged me close. “Don’t cry, Masha. Do stop, dear.” She looked up and bit her lip.
From the opposite side of the stage, my husband Kulygin/Chris walked into the garden. “Never mind,” he told his worried sister-in-law, “let her cry, let her.” He approached the intertwined sisters and stroked my hair. “Dear Masha, good, kind Masha, you’re my wife, and I’m still happy in spite of everything.” He sighed and hummed under his breath as he stroked my head. Choking back a few sobs, I looked up at Kulygin/Chris from Olga’s shoulder. He smiled tentatively, “I’m not complaining or blaming you at all, as Olga here can witness. Let’s go back to living as we used to, and I won’t breathe so much as a word or a hint—”
My sobs subsided into sniffling. Olga lowered me into an iron garden chair. I hiccupped and rocked in my seat ever-so-slightly: “‘A green oak by a curving shore,’” I recited through the tears, “‘And on that oak a chain of gold—and on that oak a chain of gold.’ I’m going crazy,” I announced. “A green oak—by a curving shore . . .”
“There, there, Masha. Calm yourself. Get her some water,” she ordered Kulygin. He poured a glass of water from the crystal pitcher on the table.
I wiped me face with my fingers. “I’ve stopped crying now.”
Chris patted my back, “She’s stopped crying. She’s a good girl.”
I shook my head, “‘A green oak by a curving shore, and on that oak a chain of gold.’ A green cat. A green oak. I’ve got it all mixed up.” Chris knelt beside me with a glass of water, which he held for me to drink as one helps an invalid. “I’ve made a mess of my life,” I apologized to my husband, my hands on his around the cup. “I don’t want anything now. I’ll be all right in a moment—. It doesn’t matter. What does it mean, ‘by a curving shore’? Why can’t I get those words out of my head?” I held a shaky hand to my aching forehead, “Oh, my thoughts are in such a whirl.”
Kulygin stood up before me and took something light brown and furry from his pocket. “Look, Masha! Yesterday I confiscated this false beard and mustache from a boy in the third form.” He stuck the beard and mustache to his face, “I look like our German master.” He laughed, “I do, don’t I? Guten Tag, meine Frau! Those boys really are priceless.”
I looked up at my husband goose-stepping around my chair, saying nonsense German phrases, and hiccup-laughed. “You really do look like the German master.”
Olga laughed too, “Yes, he does.”
I burst into a fresh set of tears.
Professor Allred jumped onto the stage, “Okay, much better! This scene is part of all of you now, and you will never be able to purge it. Can you feel it changing you? Good. Well, let’s go over curtain-call protocol again.”
I drank the rest of the water from the cup that Chris had held to my lips. Those tears had been real, and I felt light from dehydration.
[1] Once called Heart Attack Hill because of the cardiovascular stress caused by climbing it, Rape Hill is the steep, wooded hill that separates the main BYU campus from the south-of-campus apartments. It is crisscrossed with dark, overgrown brick paths and stairways, and it is decorated with many signs that read, “for your safety, do not walk alone in this area after dark . . .” (Yes, they really do trail off with an ellipsis.) No one knows what its official name is.
[2] BNSN—