Melina

September 2024

After dinner with Jasper, returned to her apartment at midnight ready to end her argument with Andre, but he was still gone. The next morning, she padded to Andre's bedroom door to find the Post-it she'd left there undisturbed. The thought of having to mend their friendship at the theater, in front of others, made her queasy.

It was the first day that Andre and had not arrived at rehearsal in tandem. Instead, arrived alone, feeling imbalanced. The sound designer was in the theater, as was Raffe's assistant. The deputy stage manager gave the fifteen-minute call, and actors began to dribble down from the greenroom, or in from their commutes. Raffe arrived. There was still no sign of Andre.

When Jasper entered the theater, he made a beeline for the row where sat. " Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, " he announced, sliding into the seat beside her. "Explain to me how the same person who wrote that book also wrote some of the most beautiful soliloquys in the English language."

"Good morning to you, too," said, but she could feel her lips twitching, as if he were pulling the smile from her. "I'm guessing you couldn't sleep last night, if you were up reading Emilia's poetry?"

"Well, I couldn't very well go to sleep with half of it unread, could I?" Jasper scoffed. "If I had been reviewing it, I'd call it stylistically flat. So patently different from the language used in the Shakespearean plays that it almost blows Mel's entire hypothesis in the play."

closed her laptop. "There are scholars who've run Salve Deus and the Shakespeare plays through a computer to see if there are any parallels," she said. "There are phrases in the book of poetry that don't exist anywhere else—except in the plays. The words hoary frost, for example—they're in Emilia's Cooke-ham poem, but also A Midsummer Night's Dream . Or the mention of Dictima the Moon Goddess in the patronage letter in the front of Salve Deus— the only other mention of her in all of English literature is in Love's Labour's Lost. "

"Authorship studies are notoriously suspect," Jasper said.

"Yeah," agreed. "Particularly because they never include women's writing in their database, right?"

"Look, there's just no getting around the fact that Emilia's poetry is at best pedestrian. It's nowhere near as elegant as even the worst Shakespeare play." Jasper shrugged. "If Emilia truly was the author of the plays, why would her writing deteriorate? Why stamp her name on a collection that's run-of-the-mill?"

turned in her seat. "First, let's put a pin in run-of-the-mill. Emilia was a woman in Elizabethan England, so she gets major brownie points for having her name printed on anything. And maybe the writing style wasn't untrained…but completely intentional."

"You're saying she dumbed down her own poetry?"

"Hear me out," said. "Let's say you decided to write a mystery novel all of a sudden, but you didn't want anyone to know you were the critic who wrote scathing reviews for The New York Times— would you use the same voice you use when you're critiquing a show?"

"I'd make sure it didn't sound the same."

"Exactly," said. "And before you say the poems are pedestrian, remember the risk Emilia took in writing about Jesus's crucifixion, since she was a hidden Jew. If that's not dangerous enough, she says that Christ's bros failed him, and the women in his life had his back. That's not just scandalous…it's heretical. So is her take on the Fall from Eden—that it wasn't Eve's fault."

From the corner of her eye, she saw Andre enter the theater and take a seat as far away as possible. She waved, trying to capture his attention. Andre turned as if he hadn't seen her.

Jasper, of course, saw the whole thing. "Uh-oh. Did you get Mel's coffee order wrong?"

"No," said. "It's nothing."

It was everything.

"Writers," Jasper said, making the word sound like a swear. "You were saying?"

She dragged her attention back to Jasper. "In Salve Deus, Emilia literally uses the patriarchy's own bullshit to underscore how ridiculous men's expectations of women are. Which she did before, in a play…"

" Shrew! " Jasper guessed.

She nodded. " Shrew. When Petruchio is taming Katherine, he isn't violent—although he could have been. Men were legally allowed to beat their wives as long as the stick they used wasn't wider than their thumb. He starves her, he slights her."

's phone began to buzz with a call, but she silenced it.

"Again," she said, "the language in Salve Deus may be less inspired, but her choice of content is still radical—whether it's finding mercy for a Jew, or letting a woman lawyer save the day, or tearing down the patriarchy."

Her eyes darted to the rear of the auditorium, where Raffe and Andre were in conversation. Then Raffe jogged down the aisle, calling the actors together to give some notes. Andre followed him, and as they passed by Jasper and , she reached out to tug at his sleeve. "Do you have a moment, Mel ?" she asked.

Andre stared at her, impassive. "I do not."

's phone began to buzz again. She glanced down and saw DAD flash on the screen.

"Excuse me," she murmured, taking the call.

"Is this ?" a woman said.

She turned away from Jasper and Andre, trying to create a cocoon of privacy. "Yes…?"

"I'm Beth. I'm your father's…um, friend. He's had a heart attack."

's fingers froze on the phone. She heard the woman say something about texting her the hospital address. ran the last conversation she'd had with her father through her mind: He had been at the hospital for a procedure. He'd said it was nothing.

"Andrea? Are you all right?" Jasper held one hand on her shoulder.

"My father…he's in the hospital," managed.

"You should go."

She swallowed. "Mel…can you spare me?"

Andre met her gaze. Say it, he telegraphed silently. Tell the truth.

But now wasn't the time.

His face was unreadable. "It's not like you're the playwright," he said, permission disguised as an insult, and then he turned away.

If Jasper was surprised that her boss was behaving like a dick, he kept his opinion to himself. "What hospital?" he asked .

She glanced down at the text on her phone. "St. Mary's. It's in Litchfield, Connecticut."

Jasper stood. "I'll drive you," he said.

—

When she thought of her childhood, didn't remember a time when her mother wasn't dying. In her first memories, her mother was weak from chemo, with a bright scarf wrapped around her bald head. She remembered the day her father had shaved his head in solidarity, leading her mother to laugh at the misshapen potato of his skull. Her father had said, Well we can't all be as beautiful as you are. She'd pulled him down for a kiss and they had completely forgotten that their young daughter was in the room, too.

After her mother died, there had been an awkward year of high school during which she and her father found themselves adjusting to being a family of two. They'd had to forge their relationship from the ground up, feeling more like strangers in each other's company than soldiers who'd come through a war together.

He'd tried to fill in the blanks for her while also making sure she knew her mother's history.

She learned that he'd lived in Alaska for a year after college, before he met her.

She learned that they'd met while her mother was dating his roommate.

She learned that her mother's breast cancer diagnosis had happened when she'd gone to the ob-gyn because she'd just found out she was pregnant with her second child. But she couldn't have chemo and keep the baby, so she had terminated the pregnancy, and they'd told themselves there would be time to have another child once she recovered.

Except, there never had been time.

had wondered how different life would have been with a sibling, if she hadn't turned inward for companionship, but outward. If, when her father and mother had sealed themselves off from her, she'd had someone, too.

It was fitting, thought, that her father was an optometrist, since what she knew of him came with twenty-twenty hindsight.

There was still a hint of distance between them. Her father had patched it with silly texts and fun facts from history or genealogy, and had dutifully told him curated stories about living in Manhattan. But there was a hell of a lot didn't tell her father—mostly about her career, or lack thereof. She didn't want him to think she was a failure. She didn't want to be one more person he had to take care of.

Now, she realized there was likely a great deal that her father hadn't told her, either.

"Are you and your dad close?" Jasper asked, from the driver's seat.

jumped. They had been traveling for an hour in silence, and she'd been relieved he didn't need to fill the quiet with small talk.

"That," she sighed, "is a complicated question. When I was a kid, my mom was really sick." turned to look out the window at the traffic zooming past. "I love my dad. He laid down his life for my mom when she was losing hers. But I think parents have, like, a shelf for their emotions, and only so much fits on it. There were times my dad just didn't have the room for me."

Jasper glanced at her, then back at the road. "You don't have to make excuses for him."

"I'm not," said. "It's just the way it was."

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "My dad wanted a son who would go fishing with him and who didn't get freaked out when his hands touched a worm, or when fish guts got on his sneakers. He also liked being the expert on, well, everything. When he lectured on manly things like hockey or driving or grilling meat, I'd go read up on it and come back with even more information, which just pissed him off. I used to think that I was the problem."

"What about your mom?"

"She wanted a daughter," Jasper replied, shrugging.

did not like knowing these things about Jasper Tolle. It made him so…human. "Right now I'm just worried that I should have spent more time with my father."

He didn't tell her she would have plenty more moments with her dad in the future. Jasper had said, from the start, that he didn't like lying.

"I bet he's sorry he didn't spend more time with you, too," Jasper offered, and he reached across the console to squeeze her hand.

stared at the spot where their palms touched. It felt like they were holding a small sun between them.

Then he pulled his hand away and set it tight on the steering wheel, as if he realized, too, that this was skating the edge of propriety or that he didn't know her well enough to offer physical comfort,

But for a long time, could still feel the heat of his skin.

—

When they reached the hospital, had exploded into the lobby in a cyclone of guilt. The information desk directed her to a surgical waiting room on the third floor. While she approached the receptionist, Jasper hung back, giving her privacy. She was told that her father had been in open-heart surgery for two hours and was expected to be there for several more.

At that, had stilled. A heart was such a small organ; how much could be wrong that would require such a long procedure?

She turned to find a hummingbird of a woman with a bleached pixie haircut and nervous hands. "I…overheard you asking about Matty."

Matty? blinked. Her mother had only called him Matthew.

"I'm Beth," the woman continued. "I brought your father in."

gave a jerky nod. She wanted details, but she didn't want to admit this stranger might know more than she did about her father's condition, so she kept her lips pressed tight.

Suddenly, Jasper was beside her again. "I'm Jasper," he said, holding out his hand.

turned. She had forgotten he was there. "You should go," she said. "You heard them—it's going to be a while."

"I have my computer. I can write a column anywhere." He crossed to an empty row of chairs in the back of the room, as if he knew that needed space.

Beth was saying things about blockages and stents. "Were you with him?" asked, swallowing. "When it happened?"

Beth nodded. "This…isn't how I thought we'd meet."

It burned, the confirmation that her father had kept secrets, too. wondered where Beth and her father had met. If Beth had kids, an ex, a story. "Well, I'm here," said. "You can go home now."

Beth looked at her for a long minute. "If it's all the same to you," she said, "I'll stay."

—

An hour later, had read every old magazine in the waiting room and was bouncing her knee beside Jasper as he typed. "You're annoying me," he said, without looking up.

"Then distract me. What are you working on?"

"A review."

"Of?" asked.

"I could tell you," Jasper deadpanned, "but I'd have to kill you." He rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck. "Just kidding. It's the new Shakespeare in the Park."

frowned. " Hamlet? "

"Yup." He closed his laptop and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am winging it."

"Why? Did you not go?"

Jasper shook his head. "I went. But instead of paying attention to the performance, I found myself noticing for the first time how Hamlet spends a lot of literary real estate explaining how to play the recorder, like the Bassanos did. And how Hamlet lies about the subject of the play-within-the-play by saying it's about someone named Baptista…"

"…which was the name of Emilia's father," finished.

"I used to like Shakespeare, you know?" Jasper mulled. "Now I'm second-guessing everything. I know the authorship question has been around for centuries, but somehow it didn't matter until By Any Other Name made it not about whether Shakespeare deserved the accolades, but about whether someone like Emilia deserved to be deprived of them. Mel Green is a wizard."

"Yeah," said, her voice thready. "He is."

Suddenly Jasper sobered, as if remembering why they were there. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking about myself. How are you holding up?"

looked down at her hands in her lap. She was jittery and leaden all at once, and she could still feel Beth sneaking glances at her from across the room. "Walk with me?" she asked.

Jasper stood, slipping his laptop into his messenger bag. "Coffee," he pronounced. "Coffee makes everything better."

They wandered through hallways past the stages of life: women being wheeled out cradling their newborns, a teenager on crutches, elderly men shuffling into a urology clinic. In the cafeteria, Jasper bought them both coffee and pudding because, he insisted, if the coffee didn't improve her state of mind, pudding certainly would.

, who had insisted she wasn't hungry, ate her entire cup of pudding. Jasper asked, "Are you worried he'll die?"

She blinked at his directness—rudeness, really—and realized that Jasper just wanted to know. So she nodded. "I keep thinking about it. If I'd have to pick out a casket. Why I never asked him where he keeps his important papers or his passwords. What I'd say in a eulogy."

"Well," Jasper said practically. "You've thought about it. Now stuff it away, like a box of T-shirts in the winter, and don't take it out again until you know you need it."

suddenly thought about a time when her mother had been feeling well enough to spend a day at the beach. There were tide pools everywhere, and her mother sat with her scarf around her bare head. had played at her feet, watching hermit crabs that had outgrown their homes scurry like tiny extraterrestrials to the next best thing.

She'd wondered if they felt naked without those shells.

She wondered if, before the crabs lost their shells, they'd even realized they were wearing shells.

"Do you think it's worse to have decades to say goodbye to someone," asked, "or to not get the chance to say goodbye?"

Jasper opened his mouth to respond, but her phone buzzed between them on the table. She looked down at the text. "He's out of surgery," she said.

—

When the doctor came out, both and Beth stood. found herself listening for key words: blockage, two arteries, full recovery . She did not realize that Jasper was standing behind her until the doctor was finished. All the adrenaline leached out of her and she stumbled, only to find his hand at her elbow.

A nurse took her to the ICU to see her father. She had been cautioned that he would be unconscious, with a breathing tube still down his throat and wires attaching him to various machines; but the warning in no way prepared her to find him so still and pale. hesitated at the doorway before going inside and pulling a chair closer to the bed.

Since arriving at the hospital, she'd been thinking about how her mother had always been front and center in 's recollections—possibly because memories of her were all she had left. Now, however, was imagining the same moments, but from another camera angle. Her father had been present for most of those memories, too.

The winter that she was ten, they had gone to Mohawk Mountain, a ski hill in Connecticut. remembered how the sun sparkled on the snow like a spray of diamonds, and how her mother had sat by a window in the lodge where could wave to her from the bunny slope. What hadn't remembered, until she was sitting at her father's hospital bedside, was how he taught her to ski. Her father had been the one who coaxed her down the little slope. "The only rule," he had said, over and over, "is that you are not allowed to get hurt."

She'd been knock-kneed and shaky and terrified of falling. The only rule! As if safety was something she could control.

Sitting at his bedside, took her father's hand in her own. "The only rule," she said aloud, "is that you are not allowed to get hurt."

—

At some point, Beth asked if she could see Matty for a bit, and left the room and went searching for Jasper. He was buried in his computer again, and she stood over him for a moment, watching his long fingers dance across the keyboard.

When he looked up at her, he said, "Oh, it's you." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "How is he?"

"Still asleep," said. "Jasper, you should really go back to the city. I'll stay at my dad's house tonight, and Uber to the hospital tomorrow. I'll take the train back in after he's discharged."

"Did you tell Mel?"

"I, um, will," replied. "Later."

Jasper closed his laptop. "Right. Obviously not a priority." His gaze slid away from hers. "I know you have a good excuse, but I hope that you can make it back before the first preview with an audience. There's…so much of you in it."

She knew that he was referring to the research he believed she had done, and the fact that Emilia was an ancestor. Little did he know.

realized she wanted to be honest with Jasper. His behavior in the last twelve hours alone had been so different from the critic who had flayed her alive when she was in college. Back then she had been angry that Jasper had misjudged her so completely; now, she had the objectivity to admit she had done the same to him. It's kind of a funny story, she would begin, except it would not be funny, and she didn't have the emotional bandwidth right now for that conversation.

When I get back, promised herself. I'll tell him the truth. "It was really, really kind of you to bring me here."

He flushed and looked down at his lap, jerking a tight nod. "Okay," he said, gathering up his things and standing.

"Drive safely."

Jasper scoffed. "What's the alternative?" he said, and he turned and walked out of the surgical waiting room.

laughed softly. To a stranger, that exchange made Jasper seem like an asshole.

But she was no longer a stranger.

—

Several hours later, 's father was awake. His voice was still scratchy and weak after the respiratory team had extubated him. She sat down on the side of his bed, and he said, "I know what you're thinking."

"That if you hadn't nearly just died, I'd want to kill you for keeping this from me?"

"No," her father sighed. "That there are easier ways to get you to come visit."

She reached for his hand. "I thought I was going to lose you, too."

"You know the problem with bodies," he said. "They're a constant betrayal."

knew that he was thinking of her mother. She swallowed. "Dad, I should have been here."

"You absolutely should not have been here. If you were, it would mean I'd have failed as a parent. You have a life now, and you're supposed to be living it."

"Then I at least should have—"

"Nothing you did or didn't do would make a difference, . Believe me. I've been there. If only I'd gotten the radon in the house tested earlier, if only I'd fought her when she said she didn't want to do chemo a second time…would that have changed the outcome? Even if you still lived at home, you wouldn't have known there was a time bomb ticking in my chest. Hell, I didn't know." He struggled to push himself up higher on his pillows. "What I do know is that my mouth feels like something died in it."

poured some water from a plastic pitcher into a glass with a straw and watched her father drink. She vowed to not be so focused on what came next that she neglected what was happening right now. It was the collateral damage of ambition, but she'd force herself to reset the stopwatch, starting now.

Her father had the most blissful expression on his face. "There's nothing like that first sip when you're really thirsty," he said. "I would have missed this."

curled up at his side on the bed. "I would have missed you," she said.

—

When Beth came to drive back to her father's house, he'd said, "This is Beth," and that was that. Once she was home, had eaten a bowl of cereal and taken a shower. The only clothes in her dresser were from high school, so she pulled on a Fall Out Boy T-shirt and a pair of sweats with her high school mascot, a dragon, on the butt.

She wondered if Jasper had gotten home yet. It was good that he had left while her dad was still in the ICU, because if he'd met her father, she'd have had to explain why Jasper called her Andrea. And what if her father recognized the name of the critic who had derailed her in college?

scrolled through her texts until she found Andre's name. Dad's okay. Out of surgery, she typed.

Immediately three scrolling dots appeared.

waited. And waited.

The three dots vanished, and a thumbs-up emoji pinged beside her text.

She curled on her side and fell asleep waiting for a longer text from Andre that never came.

—

spent the next six days shuttling back and forth to the hospital, cataloging her father's slow improvement. After those six days, he was discharged, and Beth drove them both home. When she left to go to the grocery store, sat down beside her father on the couch. "Can we talk about the elephant in the room?"

Her father raised his brows. "Beth? She wouldn't like being called that."

"Where did you meet?"

"On a dating app," he said.

's jaw dropped. "You're on a dating app?"

"Aren't you ?"

"No!" she said.

"Oh. Huh. Well, she's widowed, too. Her husband died in 2020 during the first wave of Covid. I think that's why we clicked." He glanced at . "Theoretically you know that loving someone means you'll lose them, or they'll lose you. But until it happens and you're the one left behind, you don't really get what that means."

felt her throat tighten. "I'm glad you found her…."

"But she isn't your mother."

She nodded, relief gusting out of her lungs.

"That's why I didn't tell you. I didn't know how." Her father rubbed his hand over his jaw. "God, I loved your mother. But she was very, very sick. And even so, I wouldn't have traded a single moment of the time I had with her. Not even when she was throwing up or when she cried herself to sleep. Love isn't Hallmark movies, . It's Jeopardy! but with categories so narrow only two people in the whole world know the answers. Have you seen my reading glasses? and Do I have a tick on my back? and Will you be there for me when it's time for me to go? " He shook his head, laughing ruefully. "Mind you, when people say this is what your mom would have wanted for me, I don't believe a word of it. Your mother would have come at me with a hatchet at the thought of me with some other woman. But…I also think she'd forgive me." A small smile ghosted over his face. "Because that's what best friends do."

That's what best friends do. Suddenly needed to talk to Andre.

Her father was recovering brilliantly and would be in good hands with Beth. had some bridges to rebuild, and some confessions to make.

"Dad," she said, "I'm going to go back to the city."

"It's about time," he agreed. "You shouldn't be here when Beth gives me a sponge bath."

shuddered. "Never utter those words again."

She hugged her father. "One of my plays is going to be produced," whispered, the first time she'd said it out loud. "You have to get better so you can come." She pulled back, meeting his eyes. "Bring Beth."

—

The night before the first official audience preview of By Any Other Name, 's train arrived at Penn Station at 8:00 p.m., so she went straight to the dress rehearsal. She slipped into the back of the theater and sat in the last row. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could pick out Andre and Raffe sitting behind a makeshift table—a piece of plywood balanced over a row of chairs, with a small reading light shining down on its surface. The costumer and set designer were in the front row taking notes. Jasper was not in the theater.

The actors were onstage, costumed and miked, and for a moment, could barely breathe. It was like watching a dream take shape in three dimensions.

She knew, from the dialogue being performed, that they were near the end of the play.

Emilia walked with Marlowe, both dressed entirely in white versions of their costumes. Behind them, in a line, were all the people who had sanded the edges of Emilia Bassano's life: Countess Bertie, Mary Sidney, Bess, Hunsdon, Southampton, Henry, even Alphonso. Everyone of note, except Shakespeare.

had intentionally omitted him. When Emilia gave her final monologue, explaining that her writing would long outlive the writer, had not wanted Shakespeare present. It was the smallest gift she could give her ancestor: letting the audience leave with Emilia's face in their minds for once, instead of his.

She leaned forward, her lips soundlessly mouthing Emilia's final lines.

Except the actress was saying the wrong thing.

Instead of what had written, Emilia was stating the opposite: that words didn't matter more than the wordsmith. "Why must it be one or the other?" Daya recited. "Why not both?"

Then the line of actors in the back of the stage split to reveal Shakespeare, the only actor dressed in a costume with vibrant color. The lights narrowed to a pin spot on him as Emilia—in darkness—said, "There once was a girl who became invisible so that her words might not be."

The stage went black. felt herself rising out of her seat, powered by outrage.

How dare he.

How fucking dare he.

House lights came up as Raffe clapped. "Nicely done, all! Get out of costume, and let's reconvene here in fifteen. Josephina, why is stage left still too dark for me to see the actors' faces?" As he jogged toward the lighting booth, he passed . "You're back! Mel told me about your dad. I hope he's doing all right."

She didn't trust herself to speak, so she nodded and plowed past the director until she reached Andre. "Can I have a word? she said tightly.

He looked at her. "Sure. But it better be thanks. "

She cocked her head toward the doorway. When they reached a fire exit that led to an alley behind the theater, she pushed through it, plunging them into the heat of the night. "That is not the ending I wrote," accused.

"You weren't here," Andre said.

"My father was in the hospital !"

"I know ! And I am sorry about that. But you disappeared for a week. You were the one who wanted me to be Mel Green, so don't get pissed at me for doing what you asked."

They were toe to toe now, and her voice was rising in pitch and volume. "I never asked you to change my play. In fact, I trusted you not to change it."

Andre folded his arms. "It wasn't working."

"So you changed it without asking?"

"You. Weren't. Here," Andre spat out. "Emilia Bassano is buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. You really think she'd be cool with the fact that nobody knows who the hell she is? Because I don't. Raffe doesn't. Daya doesn't. The character you wrote wouldn't."

"Wow. Thank you for mansplaining my play to me," said.

"You do not get to play the marginalized card," Andre said, his voice quiet and lethal. "Not unless I get to play one, too. Spoiler alert: It does matter that you get credit for your work, Mel. You want to know why I'm so sure? Because I've been sitting here for three weeks, pretending to be you, when I can't get a play produced as me. "

swallowed, her eyes glittering. "Change it back."

" You change it back," Andre said, "because I quit."

"You can't quit," breathed, her heart hammering in her chest. "You're supposed to be my friend."

"You were supposed to be mine, too." There was a hint of something in his voice—regret or disappointment—like a flavor in a dish you couldn't quite place.

He shoved past , walking out of the alley. Her brain was working in slow motion. "Andre," she said, spinning around. "Andre!"

She ran after him but was waylaid by a group of women staggering around with a bride-to-be, barhopping for a bachelorette party. looked left and right, but Andre had disappeared.

She was going to have to go back inside and explain to Raffe that Andre was gone but that he wasn't Mel Green— she was—and the show opened in a matter of days.

The house of cards she had built began to collapse around her. Her scheme had started as a need to justify her talent; it had morphed into ambition.

How fucking Shakespearean.

She had tried to be someone else to teach Jasper Tolle a lesson, and instead she'd learned that the real Green was not someone she was particularly proud of anymore.

"Andrea?"

As if she had conjured him, Jasper was standing a foot away.

He took one look at her face and frowned. "Is your father o—"

Before Jasper could finish, burst into tears.

—

Jasper had been thinking about Andrea that day, after a week of absence, and then she'd appeared like a figment of his imagination. He'd wanted to call her to see how her father was, but he analyzed and overanalyzed whether that was appropriate in a business relationship and eventually talked himself out of it. Besides, she was busy. She didn't need to be distracted from taking care of a sick parent.

He missed her. It really was that simple. He liked the way she argued with him and he liked the way, when she smiled, the left half of her mouth quirked up before the right. But right now she wasn't smiling at all. She was a sobbing, shaking mess, and he had no idea what to do.

He'd offered to take her to her apartment, but she shook her head violently. At the mention of sitting down for a moment in the theater to calm down, she started shaking so uncontrollably that Jasper grabbed her hand and pulled her into the nearest subway station.

And that's how he wound up with Andrea sitting on the couch in his apartment. He had given her a box of Kleenex and now handed her a shot of whiskey.

"I don't like whiskey," she said.

"I don't, either," Jasper admitted, "but in the movies it's what you give someone who won't stop crying."

She wiped at her eyes again. "You must be thinking I'm insane."

He shook his head. "I'm thinking that my apartment is really…gray." He glanced at the gray couch, the paler gray walls, the monochromatic kitchen. Andrea, with her primary-colored Fall Out Boy T-shirt and red face, stood out like a hothouse flower.

"I," she announced, "am a fucking mess."

Jasper disagreed. Tears only made her eyes even lighter, a pale and gleaming silver. He sat down on the coffee table (also gray) in front of the couch so that he was facing her. "I mean, the Fall Out Boy shirt is questionable—go Coldplay or go home—but…"

"I am a fucking mess," Andrea repeated, "on the inside, too."

"Do you…want to talk about it?" Jasper knew this was the right thing to say, because he had been in plenty of situations before where he hadn't said this and realized too late he should have. Please don't want to talk about it, he silently begged.

"I don't want to but I have to," Andrea said, a hitch in her voice. "I'm not who you think."

He blinked, his mind racing to the extraordinary: She's in the witness protection program. She's CIA. And: I should have poured myself whiskey, too.

"I'm Mel Green," Andrea continued.

He frowned, wondering if she was off her meds, or high as fuck, or if she'd hit her head before he ran into her.

", actually," she corrected. "My name is Green. And I wrote the play you liked so much that you wanted to help it transfer."

Jasper tried to spool backward to their first meeting. The name of the playwright had been given to him by the artistic director of the Village Fringe. Given how competitive it was to succeed in this business, why would she not have claimed ownership of the play?

"It was an accident," Andrea—?— fuck— began. She explained how she'd tried to get a play produced for ten years, and how her best friend had drunkenly submitted it to a festival with a notoriously sexist artistic director. How they'd planned to reveal as the true playwright in a public setting, so that Dubonnet would have no choice but to keep her as one of the winners. But then Jasper had been introduced.

"Why would that make a difference?"

"Because," replied, "you and I had met before."

Jasper blinked. Given the visceral tug in his gut every time she was in proximity to him, he found it impossible to believe he had crossed paths with her before and didn't know it. "I think you're mistaken."

She laughed softly. "Oh, no. I am most definitely not. Do you remember where you were in May 2013?"

He had been working at the Times, still wet behind the ears. She was too young to have been part of the theater business back then. Had she been a waitress, and had he forgotten to tip? A journalism student who'd written him a letter to which he'd never replied?

"You judged my play at Bard College," said, "and—to put it mildly—you found it lacking."

He vaguely remembered the competition he'd adjudicated. He'd had two martinis beforehand to take the edge off his stage fright. But he'd also never questioned that everyone wanted to hear his unedited thoughts. He could not remember what her play was about, or what she had looked like back then. If he'd even taken the time to look closely at her.

"You said my play was small," continued. "And that I was too emotional to handle criticism. You called me difficult."

With each comment, he flinched. "That sounds…like something I'd say," Jasper managed.

"Well, I definitely took it to heart. I spent the next ten years thinking I wasn't good enough to be a writer and getting rejected enough to back that up. Then came the Village Fringe. When Dubonnet announced that you'd be reviewing the readings, I thought I could get vindication. I knew my play was good. I wanted you to rave about it, and then I was going to have a big dramatic reveal where you learned that the person you said would amount to nothing a decade ago was actually talented." 's gaze slid to the floor, her eyelashes damp and spiked. "When we finally met face-to-face, you didn't even bat an eye. I had spent ten years hating you, blaming you, and you…you didn't even recognize me."

Jasper found himself doing the very thing that had gotten him into this mess: he acted without thinking first. He bridged the distance between them, lifting 's chin. Those eyes, like mercury, met his. "I cannot imagine not recognizing you," he said quietly. "Because you are unforgettable."

And then he kissed her.

—

had felt the truth rip out of her, an aching tooth being pulled, and had closed her eyes against what she was sure would be an onslaught of pain. Jasper Tolle did not like lying. He wielded language the way other people used knives, and she had put him in a position where he would have to publicly admit that he had been duped.

Not to mention the fact that they had spent countless hours in each other's company, hours when could have confessed.

This was where he told her grown women who wanted to be playwrights didn't play games.

This was where he called Raffe and Tyce D'Onofrio and told them they had a problem.

This was where, instead of calling By Any Other Name brilliant and incisive, he called it emotional and saccharine.

This was where the playwright's flaws overshadowed the play's merit.

But none of that happened. Instead, his fingers curved around her chin, and then his mouth was on hers. She felt the pressure of his lips and the sweep of his tongue and the taste of him: wintergreen, lemon, want. His kiss was a series of questions: Can we…? Let me…? Will you…?

It was who slid from the couch practically onto his lap. Her hands pushed into the cornsilk of his hair as she fought to get closer.

But just as suddenly as it had started, Jasper pulled back. His eyes snapped to hers, enormous behind his glasses. "Is this okay?" he said.

Okay? It was exactly what she needed. After tonight's fight with Andre she'd been completely lost, and Jasper was like a north star. If he wanted her, she had to be worth something. Her hands were still tangled around his nape, her pulse raced under his thumbs. She shifted, and he groaned.

"Isn't it obvious?" she joked, pressing closer.

But Jasper did not laugh. "No," he said, completely solemn. "Not to me."

's hands slipped from his neck, over his shoulders, off him. "Oh," she said. And then, as it became clearer: " Oh. "

It made sense: his indifference when his reviews were seen as cruel, his blunt manner, verging on rudeness. It wasn't detachment or disinterest; it was a disconnect.

"Sometimes," he said, haltingly, "it's like there's a blurry window between me and the rest of the world. I can't see them clearly, and they can't see me. Neurodivergent. That's the label, anyway."

Jasper, ironically, understood exactly what it felt like to be misunderstood by everyone. threaded her fingers with his. "I'm really sorry you've felt that way," she said.

He brought her hand to his lips, and marveled at the fact that someone who was so skilled with prose could be so eloquent in silence, too.

"Who are you?" she murmured.

"You know who I am," Jasper said.

"I don't mean your name." rubbed her temples. "For ten years I thought you were just some asshole. And it turns out you're…well, not that. But that doesn't mean I know who you actually are."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything," said. "Everything."

"My favorite ice cream is mint chip, but the white kind, not the green. I know every word of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I've broken my collarbone three times in the same spot—once playing soccer, once in a car accident, and once during a bar fight."

"You were in a bar fight ?"

"I don't have any siblings," Jasper continued, "but I used to have an imaginary friend named Todd. I say I'm allergic to hamsters, but I'm really not, they just creep me out. I didn't learn how to swim until I was in college. I'm terrified of heights." He took her hand again, and this time, he placed it over his heart. "So please, ," he said softly, "don't make me fall alone."

wasn't sure who moved first—Jasper or herself—but she was in his arms, plastered to him, her hands pulling his dress shirt away from his trousers and sliding up his smooth back. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, tugging her closer, and skated his hand beneath her T-shirt. "Fall Out Boy," he scoffed against her mouth, and his lips curved against her own in the shape of a smile.

When he fumbled with the clasp of her bra, she thought she would incinerate, and a second later she was stretched out on the living room floor beneath him, one of his hands pinning hers overhead while his breath feathered over her stomach. His teeth caught at the tie of her sweatpants. "Bedroom," he muttered, as if he was trying to convince himself, but she shook her head, crossing her legs behind his back to cage him. She yanked his shirt over his head, thinking it was a crime this body was hidden beneath the trappings of a desk job, as he skimmed her sweats down her legs.

"It isn't Wednesday," he said, looking down at the loopy script on her panties.

"It was the only clean underwear I had in Connecticut," she managed, as he closed his mouth over the fabric, breathing her in.

"It's confusing," he murmured.

"I'll remember that for next time," gasped, as the last barrier between them was peeled away, and that mouth, that abrasive, keen tongue of his, moved on her.

" Next time, " Jasper repeated with wonder, as if they were words that had just been born into the world, and he was the first to hear them.

—

There was a next time , during which Jasper cracked his head against the coffee table, which was why for the next next time, they relocated to his bedroom. After, slipped out to use the bathroom and raided his kitchen cabinets, finding disappointingly healthy food and one glorious sleeve of Thin Mints buried behind the granola and kale chips. She brought it back to bed and watched Jasper fight with himself to not comment when she crawled under the covers to eat them there. "You look," she said, "like you're about to have a limb amputated without anesthesia."

He had taken off his glasses, and it made him look unfinished. "Crumbs."

"What if I'm careful?"

"What if you're a barbarian?"

"Ooh." lit up. "That means I can plunder."

"Pirates plunder," Jasper said. "Barbarians…"

She rolled on top of him, dropping the cookies in the sheets. "Barbarians conquer," said.

—

woke to find the dawn seeping into the sky and Jasper propped up on one elbow, glasses perched on his nose, watching her. "Hi," she said, shyly.

"Hi."

She could not remember the last time she'd had sex three times in a single night. Actually, she could not remember the last time she'd had sex. The string of condoms that Jasper had retrieved from his bathroom snaked over his nightstand, behind his shoulder. She found herself reaching out to trace the line of hair that arrowed from his chest to the parts of him still covered by a blanket, but he loosely grasped her wrist before she could get very far. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"About this?" asked, gesturing between them. "Or about the show?"

"Both?" He tangled his fingers in her hair. "You could have told me who you were. It wouldn't have made a difference."

She raised a brow. "Wouldn't it? Would you have been as impressed by the play if you thought a woman had written it, instead of a man?"

"Good work is good work—"

"But even a name carries bias," argued. "Be honest. If you had seen Emilia's story and knew it was written by a female playwright, would you have dismissed it as another feminist rant? Would you have wanted it to transfer? Or was it the novelty of a man writing about this stuff that made you think it was so insightful?"

"When I review a play, I look at the writing, not the gender of the playwright."

"But you don't not look, either," said gently. "You're already influenced by what society thinks."

"You aren't making sense," Jasper said.

"When I created Emilia, I made her opinionated and manipulative and sexual even though I've been told by men that women like that aren't relatable. But what it really means is that women like that make men uncomfortable, and above all else, we can't let that happen. So stories about complicated, wholly realized men get put onstage and stories about complicated, wholly realized women don't …which reinforces the belief that men, and their experiences, matter more. It becomes a cycle." glanced at Jasper. "See?"

"See what?"

"You're all…blotchy. You're angry being called out for behavior you'd never bother to question."

"I'm not blotchy," he insisted. "I just think that you're painting with a very broad brush when it comes to what gets produced and what doesn't. The answer shouldn't be an identity politics quota…but who can tell the best story."

"That is exactly the kind of thing a straight white man would say."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Someone is always willing to listen to you," explained. "When the only stories told are by straight white men, it becomes the norm. People assume that the only stories that will turn a profit are stories about that particular experience—when in fact there are whole untapped audiences who would love to see their lives replicated on a stage. Do you know how gratifying it would be for more women or Black or Latinx or Indigenous or trans or disabled people to see themselves represented in theater? The answer is no, you don't— because you've always seen yourself reflected there."

She waited for him to tell her that she was wrong—which, of course, would be proof of everything she was alleging. But instead, a small crease formed between Jasper's brows. She could see him mentally creating a profit-and-loss sheet of how he had benefited from being born in the body he was in.

Then, suddenly, he grabbed her by the shoulders and branded her with a kiss. "You're brilliant."

"That," said, "was not what I expected you to say."

His eyes glowed. "Two birds, one stone. You reveal that you're the actual playwright of this piece, and we get positive media attention for it." Jasper leaned against the headboard, drawing the sheets with him as sat up, too. "All you have to do is let me help you."

She narrowed her eyes. "How?"

"In the Times. I promise I can write a nuanced piece about gender and theater. It will talk about Emilia and how nothing's changed in over four hundred years—as proven by the fact that a talented, magnificent, gorgeous female playwright—that's you —had to hide her gender to get a play produced about this very topic. People read me," Jasper said. It was a statement rather than a boast. "This could start a conversation the business needs to have." He kissed her again. "And yes, I do realize the irony of a male theater critic getting the rest of the world to pay attention to something female writers have been saying for years."

chewed on her lower lip. It was possible that Jasper was offering this from a place of justice. It was equally possible that Jasper did not want his reputation to implode if By Any Other Name was canceled by a producer who did not like being a pawn in a revenge scheme. Even if she gave Jasper the benefit of the doubt, there was something about hiding behind his name and influence that felt defeatist.

"Trust me," Jasper said softly. "The only people who can really criticize theater are theater insiders. After George Floyd's murder, the theater world got called out on their lack of diversity, so they made room for an extra seat. One measly seat…when what they really needed to do was build a bigger fucking table."

What if, wondered, this was how change began—one mind at a time? What if the linguistic sword Jasper brandished in his columns was used not to vanquish but to protect? What if, this once, instead of assuming she was in this fight alone, she accepted help?

"Okay," she said. "I trust you."

—

Jasper left sleeping, her black hair wild on his pillow and her hands fisted in his sheets. He knew that when she woke, she would be stressed about next steps—not just this new relationship, but the play itself, and her argument with Andre. She'd told him, in a quiet interlude last night when they were just holding each other, that her apartment lease was in Andre's name, and she wasn't sure she was ready to confront him to get her clothes or books or even a toothbrush.

She could read Jasper's whole library from cover to cover, and he'd buy her a toothbrush. As for clothes, he wouldn't mind if she never got anything to wear and stayed naked in his bed.

He crept out of the bedroom, snagging a robe (also gray, for God's sake) and wrapping himself in it. He was afraid to wake by grinding coffee beans, so he made himself tea from a tea bag of dubious age, and he hated tea. It was a clear indicator of how quickly he had been overwhelmed by this woman.

Then he sat on a stool at the kitchen counter, opened up his laptop, and started to type.

Since 2020, Broadway has faced a reckoning about inclusivity and diversity. Although there have been slight gains for some marginalized groups, with more BIPOC and queer playwrights being produced, women have been left behind. In the presence of gains for these other deserving writers, female creators are understandably reluctant to say they've been leapfrogged—once again—because doing so reinforces the stereotype that they are whining.

But I can say it.

Jasper hunched over the keyboard, writing furiously. He talked about the review he'd written body-shaming the actress, and how he'd been banished to reviewing a fringe festival. He talked about seeing, and loving, By Any Other Name. He talked about Mel Green, or who he thought was Mel Green at the time, and his young female assistant. Then he flashed back to Bard College ten years earlier, and their first interaction.

He wrote about the real Emilia Bassano, and how it was possible that for over four hundred years her plays had been credited to someone else. He talked about how society had made it impossible for Emilia to write publicly unless she hid behind the name of a man.

He wrote about Green, who had been advised the subjects she wrote about were too small in scope, too mawkish, too limited in commercial appeal—told this, in fact, by Jasper himself—the same critic who loved her play when he didn't know it was written by a woman.

He admitted to his own unconscious bias and, in doing so, invited the rest of the theater community and its audience to admit to their own.

Finally, Jasper uploaded his column to his editor. He added a note: Not my usual, but fucking timely. Can we run ASAP?

As if on cue, appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, deliciously rumpled, his sheet wrapped around her body like the peplos of a Greek goddess.

Everyone knew that the birthplace of theater was Ancient Greece. Drama came from the classical Greek word δρ?μα — deed or act —which had in turn evolved from δρ?ω : I do.

I do.

Jasper could not stop the lightness in him, a second sun rising. It drew him off the stool, floating closer to her. "There you are," he said, as if he had been waiting for ages.