Tamsin Read online

  “How did you feel when I said that?” Professor Washington asks. “Did you react to the word? What happened inside you, viscerally?”

  There’s some stirring among the students. We’re sort of scattered around, and now the professor grins at us.

  “Let’s bring it in a little. Come on down, okay? First and second rows, please.”

  We all get to our feet and shuffle down to the two front rows. In the scrum, I end up sitting between Izzy and Daniel.

  He’s on my right. He smells like soap and mint—toothpaste or shampoo, I don’t know which—and when his thigh brushes mine every muscle in my belly tightens.

  I can feel the warmth of his body—unless that’s actually a rush of heat I’ve generated all on my own. I send a quick glance his way and he’s looking down at his notebook, frowning. Then he looks up, but not at me. He’s looking at our professor, who’s come forward to sit on the apron of the stage.

  No distractions, I remind myself, and turn my attention the same way.

  I’ve seen Joan Washington around, of course. She’s a popular professor in the drama department. But this is the first time I’ve been in a class of hers.

  She looks like Mrs. Claus.

  No, really. She’s this edgy, avant-garde teacher and director, and she looks like the jolly wife of Santa Claus.

  She’s in her fifties or sixties, short and plump and rosy-cheeked. She has curly gray hair and a big smile.

  Her clothes aren’t Christmas-y, of course. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a red panda on it.

  I love red pandas.

  “Okay, let’s try a different word.” She pauses. “Love.”

  She looks at us, and we look back at her.

  “Think about your reactions to those two different words. Mentally, emotionally, physically. Store that information for our first exercise. Now find a partner.”

  I’m caught by surprise. By the time I turn to my left, Izzy and Charlie have already paired up.

  That leaves the person on my right.

  I turn to Daniel. “Do you want to work together?”

  “Sure.”

  He doesn’t sound super enthusiastic. In fact, he sounds downright hesitant. But I’m going to assume that’s because he’s an engineering major in a drama class and not because he has some kind of problem with me.

  “All right,” Professor Washington says. “Now find some space, either out there in the audience or up here on stage.”

  Daniel nods toward the back of the house. “Do you want to go up there?”

  “Okay.”

  We leave our backpacks but Daniel takes his notebook and pen. He steps out into the aisle and then waits for me to precede him up the stairs, which is a kind of politeness I’m not used to.

  I go up to the back row and take a seat, and Daniel sits down next to me.

  As we turn toward each other our knees touch, and both of us scoot back from the contact.

  I clear my throat.

  “I’m Tamsin.”

  “I know. You’re friends with Andre, right? We’re teammates.”

  I nod.

  “I’m Daniel,” he says.

  “I know. You were in my boyfriend’s dorm freshman year.”

  It’s too dark up here to tell for sure, but I think his face turns a little red. Then again, maybe that’s just my imagination.

  “All right, everyone, here’s the exercise. You’re going to ask each other questions about those two words. Love and sex. You can ask anything you want, and there’s only one rule for your answers. You can’t lie. You can say you won’t answer, but if you do answer it has to be the truth. Okay, go.”

  Jeepers.

  Normally I jump right into acting exercises, but this time I think I’ll wait for my partner to go first.

  But after a long silence, I figure it’s up to the actual theater major to get things started.

  “Have you ever been in love?” I ask.

  He hesitates a moment before answering. “No.”

  I stare at him. “You’ve never been in love?”

  “No.”

  I know he’s dated a few girls at Hart, but at the moment I can only think of one name.

  “So…Bree Simms? You weren’t in love with her?”

  He shakes his head. “I cared about her. I really liked her. But I wasn’t in love with her.” He pauses. “Okay, my turn.”

  “Sure.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  “God, yes. Falling in love is my fatal weakness.”

  He raises one eyebrow, which is a really sexy look on him.

  “Love is a weakness?”

  “Only when they don’t love you back.”

  Now both eyebrows go up. “Come on, Tamsin.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t expect me to believe the guys you’ve been in love with haven’t loved you back.”

  “I can’t? Why not?”

  He gestures toward me. “Look at you.”

  Warmth spirals up inside me, and I hope Daniel can’t see how much I like his compliment.

  I figure the safest refuge is humor.

  “You don’t have to tell me I’m good-looking. I’ve got a mirror. But it takes more than a pretty face for someone to fall in love with you.”

  “Yeah, but you—” He stops.

  “I what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, finish the thought. Were you going to say I have many loveable qualities? Based on not knowing me at all?”

  He smiles at that, and it turns out his smile is as sexy as his eyebrow-raising.

  “Call it an instinct.”

  “Your instincts tell you I’m loveable?”

  “Yeah.” He pauses. “Are you in love with someone right now?”

  “No. I’ve gone cold-turkey on my big weakness.”

  “You’ve gone cold-turkey on love?”

  “Love, relationships, dating, all of it. I’m coming up on a year of celibacy.”

  I’m not sure exactly why I revealed that. Am I letting him know I’m not on the market, or am I reminding myself?

  “My turn,” I say now.

  “Okay.”

  I cast around for something good to ask. We’ve already covered love, so maybe it’s time for sex.

  “What’s your favorite thing to do in bed with someone?”

  He blinks. “Uh…”

  “You can choose not to answer,” I remind him. “Of course if you do, I’ll tease you unmercifully for being a coward.”

  “You will, huh? A fate worse than death.” He pauses a moment. “Oral.”

  Having dated a few guys in my time, this comes as no surprise.

  “You like it when a girl goes down on you?”

  “No. I like going down on girls.”

  Now it’s my eyebrows shooting up.

  “You’re not allowed to lie, Daniel.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Going down on a girl is your favorite thing to do in bed?”

  “Yeah.”

  This deserves a lot more conversation. But at that moment Professor Washington says,

  “Okay, everyone, come back to where you were.”

  In a couple of minutes I’m sitting between Izzy and Daniel again. Only this time, the whole right side of my body is warm.

  Professor Washington waits until we’ve all settled into our seats.

  “All right. Now that we’ve warmed up with a couple of provocative but relatively easy words, let’s try something tougher.” She pauses. “Abortion.”

  Wow. Talk about provocative.

  “So?” she asks after a moment. “What’s your reaction when you hear that word?”

  After a moment, Charlie speaks up.

  “It makes me uncomfortable.”

  A few students nod.

  “Okay. Why? What’s the source of the discomfort?”

  Someone else answers that—a student I don’t know.

  “It’s a political issue. A ten
se one.”

  A blonde girl sitting in front of me chimes in. “Hearing that word makes me feel angry, because reproductive rights are under assault in this country. And I feel helpless, because we’ve been fighting for so long.”

  A lot of nods to that.

  Now another girl I don’t know. “We all know the issue isn’t abortion. It’s about men controlling a woman’s body. It’s about women being seen as baby machines, without any value or agency as human beings outside of that.”

  As people talk, I start to feel my own anger, too.

  “It’s like we can’t ever relax,” I put in. “My grandmother has been going to pro-choice marches for forty-five years, and she wears one of those shirts that says, I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.”

  That gets a rueful laugh. And then, on my right, Daniel says,

  “Wait a minute.”

  Professor Washington looks at him expectantly. “Yes?”

  “Is everyone here pro-choice?”

  The blonde girl in front of us twists around to stare at him. “Of course. Aren’t you?”

  He pauses a second. Then:

  “No.”

  Chapter Four

  Daniel

  I’ve never gotten stink eye like I’m getting it right now.

  Everyone is staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. Even the professor looks a little surprised. But after a few seconds she says,

  “Okay, good. The political viewpoints in my classes can tend to be a little, uh, homogenous. Having diverse opinions is a good thing.” She looks at everyone else. “What about the rest of you? How many of you would describe yourselves as pro-choice?”

  Every single hand goes up, including the hand of the girl next to me.

  Tamsin Shay.

  I was a freshman when I saw Tamsin for the first time. She was dating a guy in my dorm, and she visited a lot.

  Oscar was just a few rooms away from me. I used to leave my door open on the nights Tamsin came over, on the off chance I might catch a glimpse of her walking down the hall.

  There’s a difference between beautiful and sexy. Tamsin Shay is both.

  I used to get so pissed at the way Oscar took her for granted that I wished I could fight him over her, like a medieval knight dueling for a lady’s honor. But he was a scrawny guy, and even if he’d been the Rock I didn’t really have an excuse to take him on.

  Except that I had a crush on his girlfriend.

  She and Oscar broke up at some point, which meant she stopped coming to the dorm. I still saw her around, though, since she was friends with Will McKenna and Andre Arceneaux. Will was my teammate for two years and Andre still is. Even though I don’t hang with those guys outside of football, I see Tamsin sometimes when she meets up with Andre after practice or a game.

  And my blood still goes south whenever I do.

  Just like it did tonight when I walked into this theater. And just like it did when we were sitting together in the back row, talking about love and sex.

  Now she’s sitting next to me with her hand in the air, along with every other student in here, looking at me like I’m an alien.

  I’m starting to think it might have been Trace, and not Beeker, who was right about this class.

  I look at the professor. “Can I ask something?”

  “Of course.”

  I never make a decision without doing at least a little research, and the same was true for Experiments in Drama. I looked up student comments about last year’s class to see what I’d be getting into.

  “Last year you focused on Greek drama. Euripides and Aristophanes.”

  The professor nods. “Yes, that’s right. What’s your question?”

  I thought it was obvious, but I guess not.

  “What does abortion have to do with theater and acting? Why are we even talking about this?”

  Professor Washington is sitting on the edge of the stage, and now she pulls up her legs to sit cross-legged. I’ve never seen a woman who looks so much like a grandmother sit like that.

  “Well,” she says, “every class is different. Two years ago, we did musical theater and I made everyone learn how to tap dance. This year we’ll be exploring the role of politics in drama. More than that, though. We’re going to explore what makes politics personal, how the personal can become political, and how that makes people uncomfortable.” She grins at me. “Like you are right now.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable,” I say quickly.

  But that’s just a reflex. A guy who doesn’t drink or do drugs gets into plenty of situations where he feels uncomfortable, and my policy is to say I’m not uncomfortable whether or not it’s true. Not for myself so much as everyone around me. So they don’t feel uncomfortable.

  This time, though, it’s as much for me as anyone else. You’re not supposed to talk about politics in public. The only place I ever bring up my political views is with Trace and Beeker, or other friends who agree with me.

  Trace likes to rant, but even he only does that in our house or after church…literally preaching to the choir. Although he does sometimes get into fights on social media.

  I’ve seen how ugly politics can get on Twitter. How much uglier would it be in person?

  “If you’re not uncomfortable, I’m not doing my job,” the professor says now. “If you don’t get out of your comfort zone you’ll never do your best work.”

  I assume she’s talking about drama, not engineering. Because engineering has never made me uncomfortable.

  Who tries to feel uncomfortable on purpose? Other than, I guess, theater kids?

  “That’s why I’m glad you’re in this class, uh—”

  “Daniel.”

  “Daniel. I’m glad you’re here, because you’ll be able to challenge some of our ideas…and more importantly, some of our feelings.”

  Great. Just what I’ve always wanted.

  “I’ve got a list of films and TV shows that have dealt with abortion in some way. Your assignment for next time will be to watch at least one and write a journal entry response. Keep it open-ended—your feelings, your thoughts, whatever strikes you.”

  Well, damn. Not only am I surrounded by pro-choice feminists—just like Trace said I’d be—but there is going to be work in this class.

  For a couple minutes, while Professor Washington takes a stack of handouts from her briefcase and starts to pass them around, I think seriously about dropping Experiments in Drama.

  But then Tamsin reaches over, grabs the pen and notebook out of my hands, and starts writing something.

  I’m frozen in place after that. Because our hands brushed, and as she leaned toward me her dark wavy hair floated past my face.

  I got a whiff of her shampoo. It’s sweet and spicy at the same time.

  It doesn’t take her long to finish writing, and then she shoves the notebook back at me.

  R U seriously pro-life? Seriously?

  I sigh, take the pen from her, and write.

  Yeah. A lot of people are. Why are you so shocked? Have you never met a pro-life person before?

  I hold the notebook so she can see it. She reads what I wrote, frowning, her lips pressed together. She’s wearing dark red lipstick, and even though I don’t usually like heavy makeup on girls, on Tamsin it’s sexy as hell.

  And it’s way too easy to imagine blood-red lip marks on my face, my neck, my chest.

  She takes the notebook back, still frowning, and this time when she writes I can see she’s settling in for a paragraph at least.

  The handouts come my way and I take two, one for me and one for Tamsin. I look down at the list of movies and TV shows but I’m not really reading it.

  Finally Tamsin hands the notebook back.

  I overheard you talking with some asshole freshman year. You seemed really sex-positive in that conversation. I don’t understand how someone with that kind of attitude toward women could be opposed to them making their own healthcare decisions.

  I suppose I sho
uld be coming up with a pro-life argument. But instead, I’m looking back on freshman year, trying to think of what conversation Tamsin could be talking about.

  Maybe the direct approach is best.

  What conversation are you talking about?

  But before Tamsin can write an answer, Professor Washington comes to sit at the edge of the stage again.

  “Now it’s time to experiment with some drama. That’s the name of this class, right? Who’s up for improv?”

  Everyone’s hand goes up except for mine. So naturally, she calls on me.

  “Daniel, let’s start with you. Who’s going to be his scene partner?”

  Everyone raises their hand again, and the professor calls on Tamsin. I’m still just sitting, not sure what to do, when Tamsin elbows me in the ribs.

  “Go up there,” she hisses at me.

  And then, before I know what the hell is happening, Tamsin and I are climbing the steps that lead to the stage while Professor Washington is hopping down and taking a seat in the front row.

  This is a whole lot different from playing Joseph in a church play. For one thing, there’s no script.

  My gut tightens. Sweat prickles under my arms.

  Tamsin, on the other hand, is totally calm. She’s looking down at Professor Washington, waiting for instructions.

  “All right, here’s the setup. Tamsin, you’re a mother taking your daughter to a clinic for an abortion. Daniel, you’re an anti-abortion protestor outside the clinic. Questions?”

  Yes! I have questions! How the hell does this work? What am I supposed to do or say? I’ve never improvised on a stage in front of people before. How do I—

  “No questions,” Tamsin says.

  Shit.

  Chapter Five

  Tamsin

  I’m as fired up with adrenaline as I’ve ever been on a stage. Maybe it’s stupid to feel betrayed, but I do. For two years I’ve had this idea of Daniel as some kind of defender of women’s sexual self-determination, and now it turns out he doesn’t even think women should have power over their own bodies.

  It just goes to show: you can’t ever trust a guy who’s that good-looking. There’s always some kind of catch.

  But while it’s okay to let emotion fuel your acting—in fact it’s the first rule of good acting—I can’t let this get personal. I want theater to be my profession, and that means behaving professionally.