Melina

September 2024

Jasper made a latte, because of course he had an espresso machine. He cooked her scrambled eggs with toast, and cut her some fresh strawberries. He read the paper on his phone while she ate, darting furtive glances at him and wondering how he could be so calm right now. Then again, he hadn't just destroyed his career, nearly lost his father, and broken up with his best friend all in one day.

When she thought about it like that, last night—whatever it had been—felt elusive and distant. was grateful for the shoulder to cry on, the apartment to crash in, and the mindless (and mind-blowing) sex. But now it was tomorrow and her life was still the tangled snarl it had been yesterday.

She wondered if Jasper, too, could not stop replaying moments from last night—not just the ones where his hands set off little fires everywhere they touched her skin but the quieter confessions that had come in the dark. had told him about Beth and how weird it was to see her father with a woman who was not her mother, and how selfish she felt to say that out loud. Jasper told her about getting labeled a wiseass in elementary school when he followed literal directions. ( The teacher said, "Take a seat," so obviously I picked it up. ) confessed that a producer once told her the problem with female playwrights is that they write about emotions, while men write about ideas. Jasper admitted that the first girl he dated in college had told him she was dying to know more about him, and he went into a spiral of depression thinking that she had only weeks or months left to live.

They shared memory after memory of how they did not fit into their work worlds or their relationships with others; and in doing so, each made space for the other.

Jasper stared at her, a little crease between his brows. wiped her mouth, wondering if she had egg on it. "What?"

"You're a mess," he said.

"I know. I still don't know how I'm going to fix everything."

He frowned. "I meant that you're physically a mess. Did you want to shower?"

There was something even more intimate about being in Jasper's bathroom than about sharing his bed. To know that he used Aim and not Crest, to smell the lemon of his shampoo and realize where that scent on his hair came from, to see a bottle of Xanax sitting beside the Advil and worry about what worried him. felt like she had been given a key to unlock a cave of wonders. When the little black-and-white-tiled room steamed up—either because of the hot water or because was wishing Jasper was in the shower with her—she cracked the door to vent it. But then he caught her touching the handle of his razor through the opening. Their eyes met in the bathroom mirror. "Busted," he said, a grin pulling at his lips.

twirled the razor between her fingertips. The handle was made of polished silver and was heavy. "I used to watch my father shave. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to do it, too."

"I cannot tell you how thrilled I am you didn't have to." He took the razor from her and set it on the edge of the sink. "Are you still worried about him?"

"Yeah," admitted. "It meant a lot to me…that you drove me to the hospital."

Jasper slipped his hands into the pockets of his robe. "It was the right thing to do."

"Do you always do the right thing?"

"I try to," he admitted. "But clearly I'm not perfect, if the Bard College fiasco is any indication."

A shadow passed over . "So," she said. "What happens next?"

"We wait for the column I wrote about By Any Other Name to be published. As soon as my editor reviews it, it will go live. And then we talk to Raffe and Tyce."

We, noted.

"And in the meantime?"

"I have a surprise for you," Jasper said.

—

While Jasper got dressed, called her father. "Hi, cupcake," he said.

Just then, Jasper emerged from his bedroom, dressed for work in trousers and a crisp linen button-down. His hair was wet, darker than usual, and fell over his eyes. "Ready?" he asked and then saw she was on the phone.

"Is that Andre?" her father asked.

"No," said. "I'm at someone else's apartment."

"At eight-thirty in the morning?"

She shook her head. "Just wanted to check in. I love you. Don't try to do too much too soon."

"I love you," her father said. "Use protection."

"Dad!" cried, but her father had hung up.

Jasper stood in front of her, his laptop bag slung over his shoulder. "You all set?"

"I probably shouldn't be seen in public like this," she said, looking down at yesterday's sweats and T-shirt.

"You were seen in public in that very outfit yesterday," Jasper pointed out. "And besides, we aren't going to be in public, except for the subway."

That was about as public as it got, but couldn't dampen Jasper's enthusiasm. She let him swipe her into the subway, emerging near Fifth Avenue. He stopped at the steps of the New York Public Library, in front of the marble lions named Patience and Fortitude—neither of whose virtues had at the moment. "It's not open yet," she said.

"It is for us."

Jasper took her hand and tugged her past small clumps of tourists taking photos on the stairs, and a clot of teens vaping. At the top, he knocked on the heavy wooden door, and a security guard opened it. "How you doin', Mr. Tolle," he said, waving them in.

did not think she had ever been in the library when it was this quiet. "Is this my surprise?" she asked. "I get the library to myself?"

"Not quite." Jasper led her to the Manuscripts and Archives room, where a man with an overenthusiastic mustache waited. "Ulrich!" Jasper said, shaking the man's hand. "I owe you one."

"Get me tickets for the new Audra McDonald play," Ulrich suggested.

"I'll see what I can do," Jasper promised. He put his hand on the small of 's back. "This is Green. She's a playwright."

She could not deny the thrill of those words.

Ulrich unlocked the door to the familiar reading room, which was completely empty. It smelled of cleaning supplies, and there was a book waiting, open, on one of the tables. Ulrich passed Jasper two sets of white cotton gloves. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he said, and he left them alone.

's gaze fell on the yellowed paper, the fragile binding, the familiar etching by Martin Droeshout of the man from Stratford, with his absurdly high forehead and swooping fall of hair. On the left page was a poem written by Ben Jonson. On the opposite page was the title: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, she shuffled to the other end of the car. Two teenagers who should have been in school blew in like autumn leaves, dancing around each other in excitement. The doors hissed shut.

He stared at the three hovering dots, his editor's next comments caught somewhere in the ether between them.

No changes?

Seizing the little window of cell service, Jasper immediately texted a thumbs-up emoji. He waited for the resulting whoosh that told him it had been sent and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

It wasn't until Jasper reached his destination and emerged aboveground that all the unsent messages from Don and to Don scrolled into his app, fleshing out the abortive conversation.

Need to discuss column.

OK. ???

This is not an exposé.

Women have always been onstage.

Sure, in shows by and about men.

But there's an important story here…

One you totally missed:

White woman takes center stage away from Black man.

I sent an email with my suggested edits, do you approve?

Yes. Publish it ASAP.

No changes?

Jasper, however, did not check his phone until he reached the offices of The New York Times and made a pit stop at the staff room to get coffee before heading to his cubicle. Clarence Field was there, a Black editor for the opinions page. "Jasper," he said, wary. "That column was…unexpected."

Ah, Jasper thought. It's out. "How so?" he asked mildly.

"I've just never really seen you address institutional oppression in your pieces."

Jasper made a noise of agreement as he poured his coffee.

"It's about time someone white called out racism in theater." The editor clapped him on the back. "Well done."

As Clarence left, his words sank in. Hurrying to his desk, Jasper pulled up the column online. He started to read, words he had never written. Panicking, he scrolled through his messages app, reading the entirety of the conversation he had not known he'd been having with his editor.

For God's sake, the miscommunication was Shakespearean in scope—like Friar John quarantined with the plague so Romeo doesn't get the missive saying Juliet's only playing dead. Like Antony, given false news that Cleopatra has died, then trying to kill himself. "Fuck," Jasper breathed, opening his work email and scanning all the unwarranted changes that had been made to his piece, completely altering the focus and the message.

Heart pounding, Jasper stormed into his editor's office without knocking. "What the hell, Don? That is not what I wrote."

"Yeah, it's better," his editor said, leaning back in his chair.

"I didn't mean to give permission for your changes—I was on the subway and…Look, forget it. Just take it down."

Don shook his head. "It's only been fifteen minutes and it's already getting more comments than your last three reviews. Positive comments, I might add. Theater's having a racial reckoning; it's good for the Times to double down on that."

"Yes but—"

"You're welcome, Tolle. I realize it's an adjustment for your readers to not think you're a jerk, but you'll survive."

He looked down at a stack of papers on his desk, dismissing Jasper wordlessly. Jasper went back to his cubicle, rubbing his temples, sweating to figure out a way to fix this. Don was dead wrong. Jasper didn't care about his readers, there was only one whose opinion he valued. would read this and think he was the biggest asshole who ever lived.

Because Jasper had publicly destroyed her…again.

—

The notification from The New York Times popped up as was exiting the subway. Her heart was pounding before Jasper's column even loaded. She started reading as she was propelled by other passengers up the staircase and into the sunlight.

She stood still as the world whirled around her.

Green submitted her work to the festival pretending to be a male playwright…

…convinced Andre Washington, a Black playwright with no produced work of his own, to front the play without giving him any credit.

…evidence of the egregious disparity in theater that still exists for those who are marginalized…

"Hey!" A kid with Beats headphones on slammed into her. "Move, lady."

So she did. On numb legs, with fingers in a rictus grip around the story that cast her as a liar, a racist, a fraud.

At 181st Street, she drifted to the brick wall outside a bodega, leaning against it as she shook with rage, with shock.

She had trusted Jasper.

She'd believed him when he said he understood.

She'd slept with him, and in return, he'd fucked her over.

Her mind snagged on the penultimate words he'd said that morning, as they stood in the bowels of a subway station: You shouldn't be thanking me.

Her phone began to buzz, and Jasper's name flashed on the screen. declined the call. Almost immediately, it started ringing again, so she turned her phone off.

He'd said before he didn't lie, but that had to have been false, given what he'd told her he was writing. Was he so slavishly devoted to keeping his reputation intact that he couldn't risk going down with a sinking ship? Was an exposé the way he'd hoped to save his own hide as the production he'd catalyzed fell like a house of cards?

Or—worse—had Jasper known all along that was the same playwright he'd excoriated at Bard? Had he assumed something was not quite right when she gave a fake name? Had he gone along with her ruse, feigning memory loss, so that he could strike the killing blow before she had struck hers?

Had he been playing her the whole time?

felt young and stupid and betrayed. No matter how many conversations she and Jasper had had about gender and theater, they had been only empty, hot air.

wandered toward the Hudson. She passed joggers sweating to silent music, nannies pushing strollers, dog walkers holding earthbound balloon sprays of yappy, leashed dogs. No one looked at her twice.

She sat down on a grassy bank, the metal dragon of the George Washington Bridge stretched behind her, huffing clouds. She knew that she needed to speak to Tyce and to Raffe, and, well, everyone at rehearsal. But she also knew that if she turned on her phone, Jasper would relentlessly call or text until she responded.

She threw herself a little pity party, crying a bit before she used the hem of her T-shirt to wipe her eyes. Then she turned on her phone.

There were seventeen voicemails from Jasper.

, please, pick up, the first one said.

? Are you there? Let me explain.

She deleted the rest without listening.

There was a text from Raffe saying that the actor playing Alphonso had Covid and did she know why Mel wasn't answering his calls?

There was an email from Tyce asking her, tersely, to call his cell to discuss recent developments.

She could almost hear Andre's voice in her head: Well, shit, Mel. What did you think was gonna happen?

Taking a deep breath, pulled Jasper's column up on her phone again, reading about the clueless, privileged white woman who had tried to pull one over on the theater industry at the expense of someone with even less agency than she had.

Access as a playwright should never have devolved into levels of marginalization. If you were a woman of color, you were at the bottom of the totem pole, and winced a little as she conceded that for all her complaining, it would have been exponentially harder to get a toehold in this business if she wasn't Caucasian.

read Jasper's beautifully crafted takedown of her character—beneath his pen, she became a white woman so single-mindedly focused on obtaining recognition that she erased the accomplishments of the Black gay man she'd roped into the scam.

For the first time, she saw herself from that perspective, too. Not as the wronged female playwright but as a person so blind she didn't realize the impossible position into which she'd put Andre. Either he refused to help his best friend, or he had to feign excitement over this accomplishment while knowing that his own plays—about being BIPOC and queer in America—were equally (if not more) unlikely to be produced.

She thought of how she and Andre had once spent five hours learning all the choreography from the WAP video. How they could make and receive references to the Real Housewives that bordered on ESP. How they had once rated everyone they knew by the order in which they'd die in a zombie apocalypse.

She also thought of how Andre sometimes brought her black-and-white cookies when she was writing like there was a demon on her back, because he knew they were the only food she could not turn down. How, when Andre's last boyfriend cheated on him, she had paid the barista at the dickhead's local Starbucks to put half a box of salt in his Americano. How she'd thought that their relationship had transcended race and gender because none of that mattered when you found your best friend.

She wasn't the racist, egocentric monster Jasper had made her out to be.

But, realized, she wasn't not one, either.

—

The first time had written a play, she was seven years old. The play was about a duck and a fish that met on a pond and became best friends. She wrote lines for both characters, carefully cutting up her script and gluing them into prompt books—one for her mother and one for her father.

"You're the duck," she told her father. "You're the fish," she said to her mom. She sat on the floor and waited for them to read their parts.

Hello, read her father.

Hello, said her mother.

I see you're a fish.

And you, her mother replied, are a duck.

Let's swim.

read the stage directions. "So they swam for hours, and then the duck said…"

Hey, Fish, why don't you come to dinner?

I'd love to, her mother answered. I will see you later. But as the duck swam off to get ready, the fish wondered, What if I am dinner?

's mother and father had looked at each other. "Well," her mother said, smiling, "that's some big dramatic tension right there."

"That's not one of your lines," complained.

Hello, Duck, her mother read. I'm here for dinner but I'm afraid you might eat me.

Okay, her father replied. I will become a vegetarian.

beamed. "And that's how," she finished, "they stayed best friends, forever."

—

Even though she still had keys to the apartment, she knocked. saw a shadow cross the peephole and a moment later Andre opened the door. He was wearing her silk bathrobe over his tank top and shorts.

She knew, from his face, that he'd read Jasper's column. Who hadn't? On the walk to their building, she had scrolled through seventeen hundred comments. About a third of them insisted there was no racism in America post-Obama. The majority said Jasper's column was proof that people in power could change and that it was about damn time.

There was a flicker, a faltering, over Andre's features that gave the courage to speak. "I'm sorry," she burst out, just as Andre said the exact same words.

He shook his head. "I was pissed at you, Mel, but I didn't mean for this to happen." She realized he was holding his phone. "Jasper's called me four times."

"What did he say?"

"He wanted to find you. I said I had no clue where you were," Andre replied.

walked into their apartment and sank onto the ratty couch. The television was on— RuPaul's Drag Race . "You watched without me?" she said.

Andre sat down beside her. "For all I knew you were never speaking to me again. I wasn't going to waste a whole season because you were being a bitch."

"I know," sighed. "I'm sorry about that. Really, really, sorry, Andre. I didn't realize how much I was asking of you, to go along with this whole stupid plan. I was so wrapped up in how hostile this business is to me that I didn't think about how hostile it is to you. And asking you to pretend that my play was your play was just plain…" She trailed off, unable to find the right words.

"Soul crushing?" Andre suggested. "Demeaning?"

"Either works," agreed. "You're a writer, too, and yesterday I acted like you didn't deserve to even edit my play." She glanced up at him again. "For the record, I still want you to write my eulogy when I die."

"Do I get credit, or do I have to pretend I'm just reading what you wrote?"

flinched. "I deserve that."

Andre reached for the remote and paused a queen doing a death drop as she sang for her life. "Well, at least we have something in common. I submitted your play because I wanted to help you. You convinced me to lie…because you wanted to help you."

winced. "You have every right to hate me. My big break should never have been at your expense. I know I've got access and privileges you don't have because I'm white. But somehow this stupid theater business pitted us against each other." She drew in a breath. "I want you to be famous as hell," said. "I want your stories out there, about people I'm not, and lives I'll never live. But I want my work out there, too. Yes to Black theater and brown theater and playwrights with disabilities and queer musicals. Yes to all of it. But…I'm still here. I feel like I keep getting told: Step aside, it's not your time yet. " twisted her hands in her lap. "I was thinking so much about me, I forgot to think about you …or anyone else who's still trying to make a place for themselves in this industry. I don't know how to be ambitious and be an ally, Andre," she said. "I don't know how to advocate for myself as a woman without sounding petty or entitled. I just know that theater is about as postfeminist as it is postracial."

Andre met her gaze. "Envy is part of being human, Mel. You can be jealous of someone without taking that win away from them. It doesn't have to be an or. It can be an and. Besides," he said, with a rueful smile, "I'm the one who submitted the play, not you."

"You were drunk."

"Fine, then, let's just blame the prosecco." He shrugged. "I know you weren't trying to make me feel like shit. You were only trying to get even with Jasper Tolle."

He missed 's blush because he started scrolling through his phone. "I guess I can change your contact info back."

"You deleted me?"

"No," Andre replied. "I changed your name from Mel to Karen. " He tossed the phone into the cushions between them. "I really am sorry that you're being dragged like this, Mel."

"Well, I'm the one who dragged you into this," admitted. "And I'm sorrier."

Andre rolled his eyes. "Always so competitive…"

She threw herself at him, hugging him tight. "I hated you being mad at me."

"I hated being mad at you more," Andre admitted.

"I have to tell you something," blurted out. "I slept with Jasper."

"What!" He drew back, genuinely shocked. "I do not know how or why you wound up in Jasper Tolle's bed, but I do want to know if his apartment is wallpapered with Playbill s of the shows he trashed."

"No," said. "But he moisturizes nightly with the tears of ingenues whose careers he ruined."

Andre sobered. "Did you know he was going to—"

"No," interrupted, before he could ask the question.

"What about your show?" he asked. "What happens now?"

"I don't know," she said.

He squeezed her hand. "For what it's worth, I know how much you wanted this."

"I needed this," corrected.

She needed people to know who Emilia was, and what she'd crafted.

She needed to write plays that would be judged on their own merit, which was doubly impossible after today's column.

She wanted to be back in Jasper's apartment, feeling precious, not rotten.

She wanted to go back in time and withdraw from the fringe festival.

There was a world of difference between the two.

looked at Andre. "There's a lot I want that I can't have. But what I want right now is my robe back."

He reached for the remote and clicked. The drag queen hit the floor in a split. "We'll discuss," Andre demurred, starting the show over from its beginning.

—

During Jasper's first week at the Times, the senior theater critic had swung into his cubicle. "Can I pick your brain?" he'd asked.

"Absolutely not," Jasper had said, picturing a primitive lobotomy. "Get the fuck out of here."

Needless to say, his relationship with his superior had been a rocky one. He'd worked remotely long before the pandemic, because he sometimes felt it was easier being alone than trying to communicate.

He had gradually found friends in the city who understood his quirks. He became proficient at his job, enough that he gained respect instead of scorn. But on an island with 1.6 million people, Jasper often felt isolated.

And then he'd run into Green, a.k.a. Andrea Washington, at the New York Public Library. He could only remember a few times in his life when conversation had been so effortless. He loved how she (like Jasper) got passionate about a subject—in her case, Emilia Bassano; in his, theater in general. They were two oddballs, but somehow, they fit.

He had fought his physical attraction to her because it seemed inappropriate. But it had been like holding a torch to kindling and telling it not to catch fire.

In Shakespearean plays, comedies ended with a marriage; tragedies ended with nearly everyone dead. Jasper had been sure he'd been living the former, but he'd been thrust into the latter.

And why? Because the subway didn't have Wi-Fi? It seemed like a truly mercurial reason for his life to come crashing down.

His editor, Don, had been right. Jasper was being canonized for talking about the lack of diversity among Broadway creatives, when in his opinion, it was ridiculous to applaud a white man for belatedly recognizing his privilege.

had been right, too: no one was talking about gender discrimination in theater.

He wanted to explain to her. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to kiss her again.

He had reviewed what he would say, if he could, a hundred times in his mind: as he walked miles on city streets, as he showered, as he waited for sleep to claim him. He had the words; he just didn't have the opportunity. Every time he tried to contact , her phone was off. His texts went unread. As days passed, she had not returned to the theater—but then again, neither had anyone else, as half the cast was quarantined with Covid now. Tyce had also gone MIA after the news about the true author dropped. Jasper had never been to the apartment she shared with Andre, so he didn't know where it was. Andre had taken his first call but now let them roll to voicemail.

He couldn't find her, a silver needle in the vast haystack of Manhattan. So Jasper decided to draw her out instead.

He met Tyce D'Onofrio at Bar Centrale, the unmarked quiet space above Joe Allen, a popular restaurant. Tyce was already waiting in a booth when Jasper arrived. He called over a waiter so that Jasper could order a martini.

"Where have you been hiding?" Jasper asked.

"Oklahoma," Tyce said. "Moving my mom into a memory care unit. But I've been telling people I went to Positano. Sounds way more mysterious, right?"

"I guess."

"Or it did, anyway, until your little column hit the internet." Tyce scowled. "Now it looks like I was running from something. What the actual fuck happened?"

Jasper rubbed his hand over his face. "That was not my column," he said.

"Could have fooled me."

"You can't blame for this," Jasper insisted. "She had good reason to lie to you." The reason, of course, was Jasper himself, but he didn't share that.

"It's weird," Tyce said. "Why didn't she just say who she was? Women write plays all the time."

"Name five," Jasper challenged.

"Five what?"

"Five female playwrights."

Tyce rolled his eyes. "Suzan-Lori Parks, Theresa Rebeck. Lynn Nottage." He hesitated. "That other one, the one who did Topdog/Underdog ."

"That's Suzan-Lori Parks, too."

"Paula Vogel!" Tyce crowed, triumphant.

Jasper waited for a fifth name. And waited.

"Okay, whatever," Tyce said. "What's your point?"

"Do you think Green is a good playwright?"

"Sure."

"Wrong," Jasper barked. "She is a great playwright, but no one is willing to take a chance on producing her work."

"Well, it's not going to be me," Tyce said. "Come on, Jasper. You know if I don't pull this show, I'm going to look like an idiot. She's a punch line right now. Did you see Colbert last night?"

"She is not a punch line," Jasper gritted out. "Rewrite the narrative, Tyce. Grow a pair and produce the damn play."

They stopped talking as the waiter brought Jasper his drink. He took a long, strong sip.

"I can't. The optics are bad. If I did, I'd have the Black Theatre Coalition breathing down my neck." Tyce flattened his hands on the table. "However, I am not averse to making lemonade out of lemons. What if I produce one of Andre's plays? I checked out some of his work from when he was a student at Bard—it's unpolished, but he was younger then—and the dude can write, man. Frankly, I don't know why he's wasting his talent at a casting agency."

Because, Jasper thought , if not for this clusterfuck, you might never have bothered to read one of his plays.

Tyce shrugged. "Plus, it's great PR. The guy who was slighted gets recognition and acclaim. Who doesn't like a Cinderella story?"

Jasper ran a finger around the lip of his martini glass. He was desperate. Maybe if he found a way to elevate Andre and his writing, would see it as a peace offering?

Jasper nodded. "Keep talking," he said.

—

Summer dried up like a corn husk, blowing away with chilly winds and the onset of autumn. In Central Park, the trees were alight, a bonfire of nature against a crystalline blue sky. The Broadway Briefing ran a notice about the cancellation of Tyce D'Onofrio's Off-Broadway play. The contract Andre had signed with Tyce's production company was void—it was so blatantly obvious that entertainment lawyers hadn't even gotten involved.

got a job babysitting twins in Brooklyn. Jasper stopped trying to contact her with any frequency.

She read his columns like she was starving and they were a feast. She tried to hear the sentences in the cadence of his voice, admired his clear-eyed observations, made without artifice. She still didn't understand how a man who couldn't lie had deceived her.

Andre was her shadow, glued to her side—determined to dispel any notion that they'd fallen out over what she'd done. She was headed to Connecticut for the long weekend and Andre had agreed to join her, but only in return for a favor. had expected him to want to borrow her Swarovski hoops again to wear out clubbing, but he'd demanded something far more costly.

He wanted her to get back into the saddle after being thrown from the horse.

Today, she had set up two meetings with producers. The first had been with a woman who hadn't had a lead production yet but had invested in several Broadway shows. She was in her seventies and had invited to her exclusive club on Central Park West for brunch. Everyone addressed her as Mrs. Westenham, and as took a seat across from her at the table, she noted that one of the giant South Sea pearls on the woman's necklace would pay the rent on her apartment for two months.

"It means so much that you were willing to meet with me," said, offering her brightest smile. "I have several finished plays ready to go!"

"Oh," Mrs. Westenham said, "I'm not actively producing right now. I was just anxious to meet you, after that column!" She leaned closer, conspiratorial. "One of the girls in my book group sat next to Martha Stewart on a plane, but that was pre-felony, so it hardly counts."

The second producer—Davey Gunn—was, to 's surprise, her own age. "Wow," she said, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. "You're not what I expected."

The young man—debonair, with dark hair and dark skin and dark jeans—looked at her, assessing. "Same," he said. He jotted notes in a small Moleskine book, and then picked up his phone. "Is it okay if I take a pic for Davey?"

"You're not Davey?"

"As if," the man said. "I'm just his PA. He's on set."

"On set," repeated. "So, he's a film producer?"

"Yeah. I'm kinda surprised that the admin assistant didn't tell you this when she booked the meeting,'?" he said. "We're doing a series on reverse racism, and how you can't even bring it up without being canceled, which is kind of proof that it exists, right? We've got Rachel Dolezal confirmed, and an Asian-American girl who's suing Harvard—"

"No," said, holding up her hand. "Not interested." She scraped back her chair and walked away so fast that she left her umbrella behind.

She'd known it would be a shitty day, but she hadn't expected the universe to overdeliver.

By Any Other Name would have opened tonight, in approximately three hours. On another time line she'd be getting dressed in an outfit Andre chose for her. She'd be photographed with Jasper holding her hand in front of a step-and-repeat. She'd be watching her show with tears in her eyes and would shoot to her feet for a standing ovation at the end. She would have stayed out past the after-party, and she'd be eating late-night diner burgers with Jasper and Andre, waiting for one of Jasper's colleagues to drop their review.

A rave, he would have said proudly. I told you so.

He would have kissed her. Now, everyone will know your name.

Get a room, Andre would have joked.

Instead, was meeting Andre at Grand Central and taking the train to her father's house. If that dream scenario was not to be, at least she'd be with people she loved. Andre stood beneath the constellation of Taurus on the domed ceiling of the station, their usual meeting spot. He'd brought her overnight bag so she didn't have to take it to the meetings with the producers. "How did it go?" he asked, pushing a venti Starbucks cup into her hand.

"Don't want to talk about it." took a sip and her eyes widened. "Andre, this is a chai latte."

"I know."

"They're like six bucks!" she exclaimed. They were both cheap when it came to Starbucks and usually ordered drip coffee if they went there at all. She narrowed her eyes. "Why are you buttering me up?"

"I'm not," Andre said, but he already looked guilty. "Okay, I am."

She raised her brows.

"I had a meeting with Tyce D'Onofrio. He wants to read my play." Andre covered his face with one hand and peeked out through split fingers. "Would you hate me?"

"No," said immediately. "Not if it makes you finally finish it." She slipped her arm through his. "At least one of us will get produced. For what it's worth, Andre, I could never hate you."

"You may want to reserve judgment," Andre murmured, and he nodded at something over 's shoulder.

She turned to find Jasper standing there.

"Jasper was at the meeting, too," Andre explained. "He begged me to tell him where to find you, Mel, because you won't take his calls—"

"For a reason!" hissed.

Her face was hot, her hands shaking. Chai spilled over her wrist, and Andre took the cup from her. "Five minutes," he said quietly. "Five minutes, and then never again."

She jerked her chin once.

Andre took a step toward Jasper. "If you make things worse," he said, "I will cut out your liver and bedazzle it into a change purse."

"Noted," Jasper murmured, but his eyes never left 's face.

He looked exactly the way she had fixed him in her memory: those owlish glasses, that pale sheaf of hair falling over his forehead; the long legs and nervous fingers, always in motion. "I miss you," he said simply.

She had expected How are you? or I'm sorry.

didn't speak. She didn't trust herself to speak. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, all the pain and frustration would pour forth like a swarm of bees.

"This isn't how I wanted things to go," Jasper began. "It was a comedy—"

"Real funny," she interjected, two fired bullets.

"—of errors." He dipped his head like a penitent.

chewed on her response. "You hurt me," she said finally.

His gaze flew to hers. "I know," Jasper said. "But it wasn't my fault."

"Really? Your name was in the byline," said. "No matter why you wrote it, you could have printed a retraction."

"I could have," he admitted. "I wanted to. But it wouldn't have changed anything. Once the piece goes viral the way that one did, it's out there. Forever."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she snapped.

"Give me a chance to explain—"

She closed her eyes. "Not a good idea."

"Please, look at me," he begged. "When you don't, it's hard for me to read your expressions."

stared right into his eyes. "I don't want to talk to you," she articulated. "Is that clear enough?"

She turned away to search out Andre, but Jasper caught her. The pressure of his fingers on her skin was a live wire. "You said you wanted a producer to give you the benefit of the doubt. To see potential and take the risk. Why aren't you willing to do the same with me?"

"I did. Ten years ago, I had stars in my eyes because the great Jasper Tolle was actually going to give me—a complete novice—feedback on my work. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt after they have publicly shamed you is one thing, Jasper. Doing it twice is pathetic."

"I didn't know you the first time."

"You didn't know me the second time, either," said. "You just thought you did."

"I want to make this better," Jasper said. His eyes were overly bright, the lines of his face haggard. "I want to fix this."

Suddenly, was so tired she didn't think she could stand. "You can't fix the problem, Jasper, when you are the problem."

"Mel," Jasper said, the first time he'd called her that—the name of the writer who had swept him away, the wordsmith he'd loved before he knew it was her. "I only want to help."

She realized that her cheeks were wet. "If you really want to help," said, "leave me alone."

This time when she turned, he reached for her again.

This time, she found enough strength to wrench herself free.

She sobbed blindly, until Andre closed his arms around her, letting her cry against his chest. He stroked her back and her hair and let her wring herself out.

When the boarding announcement was made, followed Andre silently down to the track and onto the train, letting him settle her next to the window. She used the hem of her shirt to wipe her runny nose while Andre plucked her phone from her purse, entered her passcode, and found Jasper's name. He blocked the number, and then deleted the entire contact. "There," he said gently. "All done."