Chapter 17

 Friday afternoon is a whirlwind for Piper—which is why they don’t see Julian and Charles on their way to the grad lounge, and why a little while after that they miss Charles’ texts asking them to contact the detective ASAP. After finding the email Elena posted on the forum, they hurry to Jordan’s office, where he and Isabel are now holed up. They confer in low voices about what might have happened. Neither of the professors wants to believe one of their students could have sent it, but as Isabel points out, a pained look on her face, it is possible.

“Keep an eye out, Piper. Even if they meant well—for fuck’s sake, this is—” She shakes her head.

“It’s one of Pace’s students who sent it,” Jordan says. “It must be.”

“Could they have known how hard we were angling for Elena?”

Jordan shrugs. “She’s obviously the best candidate. Was the best candidate.”

Isabel winces at the past tense.

The talk switches to damage control. Jordan says he’ll email Elena, try to see if he can change her mind—“but more importantly, I’ll see if I can get the forum to take down the post.”

“It’s bad,” Isabel says. “Bad for everyone, frankly. And there are several people at this university—if they got wind of it—”

“I know,” Jordan says. “I know.”

“Let’s get Sarah and Fatima on board as soon as possible.”

“It’s grad students who can do the most,” Piper puts in. “What if…” They hesitate. “Look, if there’s some sort of—joint statement—”

Isabel raises her eyebrows.

“If there could be…” Piper says, flushing. “If we could convince one of Pace's crowd to cosign a statement from the grad students—not anonymous, you know? We could say that we disavow the email, that there’s no proof it was even sent from a current grad student, and that it’s likely because of—of bitterness, maybe? Someone who was rejected from the program? Or someone who left?”

Slowly, Isabel nods. “Maybe. Cast doubt on the original email. There’s no way the author will come forward, not a chance—so they hide behind their anonymity, and we don’t.”

“I don’t know,” Jordan says. “A statement like that would be all over academic Twitter in a heartbeat. More than likely, it would spread this far beyond its current limited reach.”

Isabel sighs. “Yes. Better to keep it under wraps if possible. God, it’s lucky that Christopher Maynard isn’t technology-savvy. If he saw this, he’d absolutely delight in the lot of us being publicly humiliated.”

Jordan barks out a laugh. “He’d see it as his chance to stage a takeover. We’d all be Shakespearean New Critics within the year.”

Piper shifts uncomfortably. “It’s true that Maynard’s not on social media. But Todd—Todd Burns, his grad student, he might get wind of it—”

“Oh, god, I always forget he has a devotee.” Isabel rolls her eyes.

“Todd’s his eyes and ears,” Piper says. “If this goes viral, Todd will know.”

Isabel sighs again and Jordan rubs his temples. “Honestly,” Isabel says, “Maynard is the least of our problems. We really need to get this offline before Francis sees it.”

“Unless he already has,” Jordan says.

They fall silent for a moment.

“Okay,” Isabel says. “Damage control. No public response yet, but Piper, tell the others, will you? And see how they react? If it seems as though maybe one of them…” She trails off meaningfully.

Piper feels a twist of guilt in their stomach but nods. Feeling rather as if they are headed into a covert spy mission, they turn to go.

“Hey,” Isabel says, voice softening. “I’m sorry to ask you that.” She reaches out and squeezes Piper’s arm briefly. “It’s such a shitty situation, Piper, and I know it can’t be easy. But thank you. You’re really—honestly, I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Piper smiles a little, warmth spreading through their chest. Isabel smiles back, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Hang in there.”      

Piper nods. “Thanks.”

It’s not until Piper finally leaves the department that evening, on the way to the opening night of the production of Romeo and Juliet that Tyler has been rehearsing for, that it occurs to them: it couldn’t—it couldn’t be Lu who wrote that email, could it?

Tyler dies a beautiful death as Mercutio. Piper watches from the second row of Schenley’s mainstage theatre. They are glad that the show elected to forgo fake blood. Mercutio’s death scene is dramatic and over-the-top, even a little bit funny, but Piper has to look away when Tyler pretends to get stabbed. They squeeze their eyes shut tight and breathe slowly until he is carried offstage.

Afterwards, they really just want to go home, but they promised Tyler they’d accompany him to the cast party, so they wait in the lobby till the actors appear. Tyler spots Piper right away, standing against the wall, and grins, waving. But on his way over he’s waylaid by various friends and theatre professors; it takes him ten minutes and sixteen hugs to make it to Piper’s side.

Piper gives him another hug and Tyler squeezes hard. He’s always brimming with energy after performances.

“Well?”

“You were wonderful.”

“Yeah?”

Piper nods.

“Not too melodramatic?”

Piper shakes his head. “Just the right amount.”

“Oh good.” Tyler looks at Piper, still smiling. “Hey, so—I just wanted to say, thank you for coming. I—it means a lot.”

“Oh. Of course. Um. Always.”

“You look a little tired,” Tyler says, cocking his head. “Are you still up for the cast party?”

Piper must hesitate for a second, because they see a flicker of disappointment cross Tyler’s face.

“It’s okay if—”

“No, no,” Piper says. They smile. “Sorry. I don’t know how long I’ll last, but I’ll definitely come for a bit.”

“Fair enough. Give me just a couple minutes and we’ll walk over.”

Piper nods. They could text Charles back about whatever he wanted to talk about, but they’re so tired; surely it can wait till tomorrow. The walk to the cast party is chilly and Tyler sticks close to them as they make their way through South Oakland amidst a group of loudly chattering drama students. Piper stays quiet and listens to Tyler laugh, throwing back his head, eyes sparkling. Piper feels strange and a little distant; they always feel a bit strange, in fact, when they’re with Tyler’s friends, who are both so much like and so different from their own graduate student cohort. They are louder and more impulsive and more open; but there’s still an undercurrent of something beneath their friendly interactions that Piper recognizes from the English department. Competition, maybe. A sort of sizing up. The same fragile egos as everyone else in academia. But unlike their more bookish counterparts, Tyler’s classmates tend to air their feelings openly. Piper has seen three of them cry in public. Piper doesn’t talk much around Tyler’s friends, but they like being with them. Somehow, it always feels like a relief.

The party is being held at a shitty house rented by Juliet’s nurse and Lady Capulet and the show’s lighting designer. Blue and purple gels cover stray clip lights and music pulses through the poorly insulated windows. Piper tries to sink into the noise and the crowd, letting it drown out their own thoughts as much as they can, and follows Tyler to the drinks table.

Tyler is three drinks in and Piper is finishing their first when talk turns inevitably to the production. There’s only so long theatre students can be in the same room before conversation becomes critique. Piper is squished up against Tyler, the arm of a sagging mustard-yellow velvet couch pressed against their other side. The group is currently split between pro- and anti-leather jackets as costume design for Shakespeare adaptations.

“It’s a tired aesthetic. We get it, you’re edgy, you’re contemporary. It’s just boring at this point.”

“Pittsburgh Public put Hamlet in a black leather jacket. Proof it’s officially a very safe choice.”

“It’s a classic choice! And sure, Hamlet in leather is cliche by now, but honestly if you’re doing a contemporary R&J what else are you going to dress Mercutio in?”

Tyler raises his glass. “Agreed. Mercutio is all about leather.”

There’s some laughter at that. “Listen, Tyler,” says a blonde guy Piper vaguely recognizes as an MFA actor, one who wasn’t in the show tonight. “So. Your Mercutio.”

“Yes?”

“Was, like…very gay.”

“Yes.” Tyler waits, smiling a little. “And?”

The blonde guy, who Piper does not sense is being an asshole, but is definitely more than a little tipsy, leans in like he’s about to ask a very serious question. “Where did that choice come from? Like, was it a director thing, or did you come into the rehearsal room with it?”

Tyler raises his eyebrows. He manages to do this theatrically, which impresses Piper. They’ve never known anyone else who could raise their eyebrows theatrically. “What do you mean where did it come from? Gay Mercutio is just an extremely on-text character choice. I mean, it’s like…canonically, Mercutio is, honestly, the gayest—and also for that matter the hottest—character in all of Shakespeare.”

Piper grins. Tyler’s a little drunk, too.

“What?” the blonde actor asks, mouth falling open. “Where are you getting that?”

“Come on,” Tyler says, appealing to the room. “It’s true.”

“I can see that,” says the man who played Benvolio. “That sounds right.”

“But—”

“Wait, wait,” says the woman who played Juliet. “Horatio.”

“Oh, shit.”

“That’s such a good point.”

“No, no, no.” Tyler shakes his head vigorously. “I mean, does Horatio want to fuck Hamlet? Yes. Obviously. Well. He wants Hamlet to fuck him. But he cannot be the hottest Shakespeare queer. He’s just too sad.”

About half the group snorts. “Please,” says Juliet. “That’s exactly why he’s hot. He’s got that…melancholy angsty thing going.”

“God. Yes.”

“Antonio and Sebastian!” someone else suddenly calls out.

“Tempest or Twelfth Night?”

“Either. Both! Depends on if you’re into the a little bit evil thing or the…one sort of sad, the other sort of stupid thing.”

“Mercutio,” Tyler insists. “He’s campy, he’s dramatic, he’s heroic—come on, Piper, you’re a—a scholar of literature. Back me up.”

Taken aback for a moment to be in the spotlight, Piper fumbles. “Well,” they say slowly. “I…I can’t back you up, actually. Sorry.”

“Why not?” Tyler demands.

Piper shrugs. “Viola.”

The room goes quiet for a second. “Oh, fuck, that’s a good point,” says Tyler.

“So gay. So hot.”

“Ugh, her sexual chemistry with Olivia. What’s that line? Make a me a cabin…”

“‘Make me a willow cabin by your gate,’” Piper says. “‘And call upon my soul within the house.’”

A couple of the actors join in as Piper continues, self-conscious but loving the words,

“‘Write loyal cantons of contemned love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night;

Halloo your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out ‘Olivia!’ O, You should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth,

But you should pity me!’”

There’s a little bit of laughter, but Tyler, who is watching Piper intently, a smile crooking up the corner of his mouth, says slyly, “‘You might do much. What is your parentage?’”

Piper’s eyes catch his and they are tongue-tied, suddenly, by the intensity of Tyler’s gaze. Flustered, they say, “I don’t—I’m sorry, I don’t know the—”

Juliet saves them, grinning. “‘Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman.’”

Tyler swings his gaze over to her, declaiming, “‘I’ll be sworn thou art; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast: soft, soft! Unless the master were the man. How now! Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’”

Tyler’s eyes are on the actress who played Juliet, but Piper is unusually cognizant of his warm leg and shoulder pressed against their own. They can’t shake the sense that Tyler is performing—well, for them.

“Viola’s got the hot sad thing going on, too, though,” someone says. “With Orsino. ‘She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,

And with a green and yellow melancholy

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.’”

Piper knows the next line, but doesn’t say it aloud. Was this not love indeed?

“Oh my god, though,” someone else says, “Audra McDonald as Oliva and Anne Hathaway as Viola. Shakespeare in the Park, 2009. Literally nothing could be more arousing.”

The chatter continues. Piper stares at their hands, feeling the events of the past few days creeping back up on them. They feel as though they’ve been through a battle. “Listen,” they say quietly, Tyler turning to look at them, “I think I’m going to go.”

“Okay,” Tyler says, quiet too, the loud laughter and chatter continuing around the two of them. “Are you going to be okay at home alone?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Wait, I—I’m gonna smoke a cigarette. You wanna join me first?”

Piper nods. Together, they extract themselves from the sofa and make their way to the porch. A few people are out there, but the music is muted and Tyler finds a corner of the sagging railing to lean on as he lights up.

Piper puts their hands in their pockets, looking out at the empty street, hunching down for warmth. Tyler inhales and blows out smoke.

“Look,” he says abruptly. “You know you don’t—you know you don’t have to be…melancholy all the time.”

Piper blinks. They scuff the toe of their shoe against a patch of peeling paint. “I don’t think it’s entirely a choice,” they say.

Tyler is quiet. “Okay,” he says. “Well, then, you don’t have to—to sit like patience on a monument.”

Piper feels a peculiar clenching in their stomach. They want to protest; that’s their first instinct. Then they think of Lu’s empty bedroom. They push the thought away. Tyler doesn’t say anything else, and Piper isn’t really sure they understand what he’s talking about.

They look up. Tyler stubs out his cigarette on the porch railing and steps in, close to Piper, and kisses them gently on the mouth. Piper can taste alcohol and cigarettes on Tyler’s breath, a good taste, a heady taste. Tyler’s hands are steady on Piper’s waist. Piper kisses back, standing still.

After a moment, Tyler steps back. “Text that you’re home safe, okay?”

Piper nods. “I will. Tyler…”

“Yeah?”

“You really were wonderful tonight.”

Tyler smiles, a little sadly. “Thanks, Piper.”

Piper hunches deeper into their coat. They walk down onto the empty sidewalk, feeling strange and melancholy and not really trying to feel anything else.