The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Page 23

“How do I look?” he asks, affecting a model’s pout, and even though he’s joking, the girl flashes him an earnest smile and says, “Perfect.”

A shiver rolls through him at the word, and he is somewhere else, a hand holding his in the dark, a thumb brushing his cheek. But he shakes it off.

Bea lets the girl paint a shining stripe down her nose, a dot of gold on her chin, manages to get in a solid thirty seconds of flirting before bells chime through the lobby, and the artistic sprite vanishes back into the crowd as they continue toward the theater doors.

Henry threads his arm through Bea’s. “You don’t think I’m perfect, do you?”

She snorts. “God, no.”

And he smiles, despite himself, as another actor, a dark-skinned man with rose-gold on his cheeks, hands them each a branch, the leaves too green to be real. His gaze lingers on Henry, kind, and sad, and shining.

They show their tickets to an usher—an old woman, white-haired and barely five feet tall—and she holds on to Henry’s arm for balance as she shows them to their row, pats his elbow when she leaves them, murmuring, “Such a good boy” as she toddles up the aisle.

Henry looks at the number on his ticket, and they sidestep over to their seats, a group of three near the middle of the row. Henry sits, Bea on one side, the empty seat on the other. The seat reserved for Tabitha, because of course they’d bought their tickets months ago, when they were still together, when everything was a plural instead of a singular.

A dull ache fills Henry’s chest, and he wishes he’d paid the ten dollars for a drink.

The lights go down, and the curtain goes up on a kingdom of neon and spray-painted steel, and there is Robbie in the middle of it all, lounging on a throne in a pose that is pure goblin king.

His hair curls up in a high wave, streaks of purple and gold carving the lines of his face into something stunning and strange. And when he smiles, it is easy to remember how Henry fell in love, back when they were nineteen, a tangle of lust, and loneliness, and far-off dreams. And when Robbie speaks, his voice is crystal, reflecting across the theater.

“This,” he says, “is a story of gods.”

The stage fills with players, the music begins, and for a while, it is easy.

For a while, the world falls away, and everything quiets around them, and Henry disappears.

 

* * *

 

Toward the end of the play there is a scene that will press itself into the dark of Henry’s mind, exposed like light on film.

Robbie, the Bowery king, rises from his throne as rain falls in a single sheet across the stage, and even though, moments earlier, it was crowded with people, now, somehow, there is only Robbie. He reaches out, hand skimming the curtain of rain, and it parts around his fingers, his wrist, his arm as he moves forward inch by inch until his whole body is beneath the wave.

He tips his head back, the rain rinsing gold and glitter from his skin, flattening the perfect wave of curls against his skull, erasing all traces of magic, turning him from a languid, arrogant prince into a boy; mortal, vulnerable, alone.

The lights go out, and for a long moment, the only sound in the theater is the rain, fading from a solid wall to the steady rhythm of a downpour, and after, to the soft patter of drops on the stage.

And then, at last, nothing.

The lights come up, and the cast takes the stage, and everyone applauds. Bea cheers, and looks at Henry, the joy bleeding from her face.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

He swallows, shakes his head.

His hand is throbbing, and when he looks down, he’s dug his nails into the scar along his palm, drawing a fresh line of blood.

“Henry?”

“I’m fine,” he says, wiping his hand on the velvet seat. “It was just. It was good.”

He stands, and follows Bea out.

The crowd thins until it’s mostly friends and family waiting for the actors to reappear. But Henry feels the eyes, attention drifting like a current. Everywhere he looks, he finds a friendly face, a warm smile, and sometimes, more.

Finally Robbie comes bounding into the lobby, and throws his arms around both of them.

“My adoring fans!” he says, in a thespian’s ringing alto.

Henry snorts, and Bea holds out a chocolate rose, a long inside joke since Robbie once bemoaned that you had to choose between chocolates and flowers, and Bea pointed out that that was Valentine’s Day, and that for performances, flowers were typical, and Robbie said he wasn’t typical, and besides, what if he was hungry?

“You were great,” says Henry, and it’s true. Robbie is great—he’s always been great. That trifecta of dance, music, and theater required to get work in New York. He’s still a few streets off Broadway, but Henry has no doubt he’ll get there.

He runs his hand through Robbie’s hair.

Dry, it is the color of burnt sugar, a tawny shade somewhere between brown and red, depending on the light. But right now it’s still wet from the final scene, and for a second, Robbie leans into the touch, resting the weight of his head in Henry’s hand. His chest tightens, and he has to remind his heart it is not real, not anymore.

Henry pats his friend’s back, and Robbie straightens, as if revived, renewed. He holds his rose aloft like a baton and announces, “To the party!”

 

* * *

 

Henry used to think that after-parties were only for last shows, a way for the cast to say good-bye, but he’s since learned that, for theater kids, every performance is an excuse to celebrate. To come down from the high, or in the case of Robbie’s crowd, to keep it going.

It’s almost midnight, and they’re packed into a third-floor walk-up in SoHo, the lights low and someone’s playlist pumping through a pair of wireless speakers. The cast moves through the center like a vein, their faces still painted but their costumes shed, caught between their onstage characters and their offstage selves.

Henry drinks a lukewarm beer and rubs his thumb along the scar on his palm, in what’s quickly becoming a habit.

For a while, he had Bea to keep him company.

Bea, who much prefers dinner parties to theater ones, place settings and dialogues to plastic cups and lines shouted over stereos. A groaning compatriot, huddled with Henry in the corner, studying the tapestry of actors as if they were in one of her art history books. But then another Bowery sprite whisked her away, and Henry shouted traitor in their wake, even though he was glad to see Bea happy again.

Meanwhile, Robbie is dancing in the middle of the room, always the center of the party.

He gestures for Henry to join him, but Henry shakes his head, ignoring the pull, the easy draw of gravity, the open arms waiting at the end of the fall. At his worst, they were a perfect match, the differences between them purely gravitational. Robbie, who always managed to stay alight, while Henry came crashing down.

“Hey, handsome.”

Henry turns, looking up from his beer, and sees one of the leads from the show, a stunning girl with rust-red lips and a white lily crown, the gold glitter on her cheeks stenciled to look like graffiti. She is looking at him with such open want he should feel wanted, should feel something besides sad, lonely, lost.

“Drink with me.”

Her blue eyes shine as she holds out a little tray, a pair of shots with something small and white dissolving on the bottom. Henry thinks of all the stories about accepting food and drink from the fae, even as he reaches for the glass. He drinks, and at first all he tastes is sweetness, the faint burn of tequila, but then the world begins to fuzz a little at the edges.