Guest review response: AHHHH PAIGE! YOU BEAUTIFUL HUMAN! How could I ever forget you? I have missed you so much! And thank you for making me tear up with your words. If you read this note (or find your password), I want to say thank you for being such a wonderful friend through the years and helping me create this monster of a universe. I could not have done half of what I have without you. Congratulations on graduating! I hope that year 21 treats you to only the best :)
The Thing About Playing the Part
The thing about playing the part was, pretending to be someone else came too easily to Gabbi.
It was a familiar, slipping into the skin of Gabrielle Ledger and leaving the princess at the garden gates. Sometimes, after a particularly good afternoon when she had managed to forget she was sick for a whole two hours, she wished she really was Gabrielle Ledger. Gabrielle Ledger didn't have to dodge guards or avoid maids. She could go wherever she pleased. Gabrielle Ledger didn't have to take cups of meds, be poked or prodded, be told what to do and how to do it and to stay away from the rest of the world. Gabrielle Ledger wasn't sick at all, could do endless cartwheels and skin both her knees and laugh at the grime that coated her face and no one would care. The world was Gabrielle Ledger's oyster.
Too bad Gabrielle Ledger wasn't real.
"What's on the agenda for today, Teach?"
Ezra flopped down on the grass and sat cross-legged across from Gabbi. There must have been some kind of semi-formal event earlier; Ezra was dressed up in a suit and tie, much different than his usual jeans and tees. As soon as he settled, he reached for the tie and pulled it loose.
"Pre-Illéan history. Some pretty dry stuff, should be a refresher from high school." Gabbi may or may not have stolen the binder Elodie left Hayden in her room while Hayden was preoccupied with garden date takes. There was a nice timeline of lessons laid out for the next month. Gabbi may or may not have taken a picture and immediately started her own curriculum.
"Sounds like a blast."
"I have more flashcards."
"Of course you do."
Gabbi couldn't tell by his tone if he was joking. She had to rely solely on that quirky little grin. "They worked so well the first time. Why mess with a good thing?"
Ezra cast a look around the garden they'd made their permanent meeting place. "I was thinking...maybe we could study somewhere different? A little change of scenery?"
"You have something against the gardens?"
"No. But I think you'll like where I have in mind."
There were a million reasons to say no. All it would take was one guard looking a bit too closely and the whole charade would come tumbling down. Not to mention she would never be let out of her room again. But Ezra's smile was so bright, so eager, like a golden retriever mixed with a hundred watt bulb. He really did have a wonderfully annoying smile. It was hard to say no to that smile.
With a heavy sigh, Gabbi pushed herself up from the grass and brushed off her skirts, ready to follow Ezra into the unknown.
Surprisingly, he was just as worried about not getting caught. That should have sounded alarm bells in Gabbi's brain, that, you know, maybe what they were about to do was not exactly kosher. But she was caught in the cat and mouse game, hiding behind pillars and sneaking behind guard's backs, creeping up stairs as quickly and quietly as she was able, stifling laughs every time one squeaked.
When they reached part of the palace that lacked patrol, Ezra loosened significantly. Still, they did not speak a word until they were safely at their familiar destination and the door was shut firmly behind them.
"Ezra...what are we doing here?"
She had only been on set of The Report twice in her short life, but it was not hard to put the pieces together: the stage, the cameras, the chairs lined up in perfect rows. It was strange to be here now, lights off and no one in the crowd. The room felt hollow, too big. Every step echoed off the black walls.
"Keeping up my end of the bargain," Ezra explained with a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat's. He fumbled around for a light switch, trying and failing three times before getting the hot, white lights to illuminate the stage. "I believe this is bullet point number four on Gabbi Leger's Bucket List: become a TV star."
"We are going to get in so much trouble if we're caught."
"So let's not get caught." Ezra fiddled with one of the curtains, pushing it out of the way, his grin spreading impossibly wider. "I can study quietly."
This was...this was a lot. This was too much. Gabbi didn't know what she was feeling didn't know how to name the turbulent mess of emotions knotting its way through her stomach. On one hand, no one had ever been so thoughtful. On the other, Ezra was acting way too casually about this, laughing through his smile like he was sharing some kind of private joke.
"I didn't tell you about the list so you could prove something...or make fun of me."
Ezra's head snapped up, hair flopping in front of his wide, wounded eyes. Just when she thought he couldn't look any more like a puppy...
"Listen, I...I can't make you go live or put you in front of a crowd. But this is a stage, and I can turn one of these bad boys on." Ezra patted the camera next to him. It rocked precariously to the side, but remained upright. "I know it's not much, and I know it's not the same as real TV, but it's all I got. If I could broadcast your face into every home in the country, I swear I would."
"That's laying it on a little thick."
"Not really. It's a good face."
"Okay, okay, fine. Thank you." Gabbi was never good at taking compliments, and she never liked her face. It was too moon-shaped, perpetually holding onto baby fat from years of prednisone use. Moving past that, she took her notecards and flopped down on the stage next to Ezra, organizing her mess into something useable. "Now, history."
"History," Ezra repeated with a solemn nod, though a little laugh slipped through the cracks.
"Rumor has it that there's gonna be a test, and the winner gets to go on a date with Princess Cordelia."
It wasn't a rumor. Gabbi read the plans straight from Elodie's hand as if she had already predicted how the class and resulting date would go. Ezra's chances were not so hot based off of Elodie's analyses. Gabbi was determined to change that.
"No kidding?" Ezra seemed interested in that, perking up. "What kind of test?"
"Not sure," Gabbi said with a shrug. "Don't shoot the messenger; I just pass on what I hear."
They spent the next hour running through the color-coordinated flash cards until Ezra got every single one right. It was hard to get him to sit still for longer than five minutes, his eyes wandering to different gadgets and machinery on stage, but he put forth enough effort that Gabbi looked the other way when he decided looking wasn't enough and touching was necessary. By the end, Ezra was half-way up the ladder to the fly, dangling upside down by his knees as he recited the first amendment. The way things were going, Gabbi had high hopes that he would win this mystery test.
As the last flashcard found its way into the discard pile, Ezra flipped himself down to the stage with ease. It was mesmerizing how easy he made it look to flip his body in half and land on both feet.
"Now that all that boring stuff is out of the way, how about we get to the good part?"
Out of nowhere, Ezra draped a feather boa around Gabbi's neck.
"Where did you find this?"
It smelled like moth balls and had a layer dust around the edges, but it was still a blue feather boa all the same.
"There's a whole closet full of junk back there: some costumes, a couple poster boards, even a framed copy of Gavril Fadaye's retirement issue of the Illéan Times," Ezra said with a shrug. Then, he jumped off the stage and took a seat in the second row, converse-clad feet propped up on the backs of the seats in the front. "Now, Gabrielle Ledger, A-list debut actress, put on a show."
"You've lost your mind."
"I'm serious! I want to be wowed. Blow me away."
Ezra had lost his mind, but Gabbi must have lost hers as well. The curtains were closed, everything dark save for a single spotlight center stage. From the security of darkness, Gabbi thought long and hard about what she wanted to perform, her mind frustratingly blank. Why was she thinking so hard about this anyway? This stupid, silly game of Ezra's that would definitely get her grounded until the day she died.
But then, the curtains opened. The spotlight burned on her skin, heating Gabbi from head to toe, and blinding her from her crowd of one. She was alone there on the stage, filled with nothing but anxiety and longing. And then, clarity as her mind supplied the words buried deep in her subconscious, pulled from worn, yellowed pages and placed on the tip her deceptive, silver tongue.
"I left no ring with her. What means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her." Gabbi closed her eyes and let Viola's conflict become her own. The rest of the world faded away as she gave her speech and bared her soul. "Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper false, in women's waxen hearts to set their forms!"
Perhaps it was a bit much to shout. It wasn't like there was anyone to project for, but oh did it feel good to raise her voice, to feel heard, even if it was all for show.
"What will become of this? As I am man, my state is desperate for my master's love. As I am woman (now alas the day!), What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe? O Time, thou must untangle this, not I; it is too hard a knot for me t' untie."
The final syllable rang out through the auditorium. A beat of silence, and then applause - surprisingly loud given the audience of one. But there Ezra stood on his feet, applauding Gabbi with gusto.
"You could have told me you were actually good at acting," Ezra accused, though there was no heat to his words, only admiration. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"Twelfth Night. Shakespeare," Gabbi said, still trying to catch her breath and steady her racing heart. Had she forgotten to take her meds? Or was this just the high of the performance?
A helping hand steadied Gabbi as she not-so-gracefully slid off the stage, foregoing the stairs this time.
"Not too familiar with that one," Ezra said, letting go of Gabbi once they were both sure she wouldn't topple over. "English was hard enough to learn. Olden time English? Pshhh forget it."
"Basically, it's about a young woman, Viola, who gets shipwrecked and then has to pretend to be a boy, Cesario, in order to survive. But then this young noblewoman, Olivia, accidentally falls in love with Cesario without knowing that Cesario is Viola, and that upsets Orsino, the man pursuing Olivia and also Cesario's employer." Gabbi gave the vaguest overview in the history of overviews. Her English tutor would be ashamed. "In the monologue, Viola is talking about her confusion over Olivia's feelings for Cesario, and the problems she has separating herself from her alter ego."
"Hmmm sounds complicated."
"Very. But it's a beautiful tale of love and loss, romance and humor, intentions and deception..."
Ah, yes. No wonder Gabbi's subconscious had supplied that particular monologue. She had deception on the brain. Her whole life had turned into one big lie, at least when it came to Ezra.
Way to go Gabbi! she berated herself, willing herself to calm down. You might as well have broadcast your secret across the teleprompters!
"I recorded that. Hope you don't mind." Ezra pointed to the camera with a blinking red light. He didn't seem fazed by her internal panic as he walked over and turned it off, checking the footage. "Think of it as the first title to your filmography. Besides, you never know when you might want to submit an application to Juilliard or something."
"Thanks," Gabbi said with a roll of her eyes. She would never make it to Juilliard, but the thought was nice. Then, a sudden impulse struck her, impossible to shake off. "Hey, do you mind keeping that on? There's something I want to do."
"Sure." Ezra pushed a few buttons and the red light flickered to life once more. "What's the project?"
"This one's...personal."
"Yeah, okay," Ezra said, backing off. "I'll just go look at the sound booth or something. Let me know when you're done."
With that, he bounced down the aisle and left Gabbi to her own devices. As soon as he was out of view, she took the camera off its stand and carried it backstage. It was still dark, but the light from spotlight was enough to find the switch. There was a small area near the left wing where she could place the camera on top of a couple boxes and pull up a chair so that she sat front and center.
No boas this time. Just Gabbi with her hands fidgeting in her lap and the camera waiting for what she had to say.
As promised, when Gabbi had said her peace, she picked the camera up and took it back out front. Ezra was still in the booth, and Gabbi waved her hands to get his attention. At her cue, he left the tiny booth and bound back down the aisle. He took the camera, no questions asked, and put it back in its place, the little red dot flickering out for good this time.
"You gonna show me what you were recording?"
"Nope!" Gabbi popped the 'p' and picked up her stuff. It was time to go. "That's for me to know and for you never to find out."
"So mysterious," Ezra said with a shake of his head, smiling that goofy smile of his. He opened the door for Gabbi like a gentleman, making sure the lights were out before they left for good. He skipped to keep up with her, hands in his pockets. "Fine, fine, but how will the world know about your acting chops if half the movies you've ever made are hidden away?"
"I'll put it in a time capsule. Then, when they dig it up in a hundred years, I'll be the world's most mysterious one-hit-wonder."
"You've got this all planned out, don't you?"
"As much as I can." Gabbi stopped at the foot of the stairs, catching herself just in time. A few more steps and she would have been headed down the royal wing, and her cover would have been blown. The worlds of Gabrielle Ledger and Gabrielle Schreave were orbiting each other, seconds away from colliding, pushing at Gabbi's lowering defenses. Gotta be more careful, she berated herself, then gave Ezra a much tamer, sincere smile. "Thank you, Ezra. This was fun."
"Thank you for all the tips." Ezra bounced on his toes. Even if Ezra acted cool and collected, Gabbi could tell the nerves were starting to set in. "You really think she's gonna pick me?"
"No guarantees. She is a wild card. But yeah, this will definitely give you a fighting chance."
"Mama called the other day and said the first check cleared with the bank. She has enough to pay the credit card for once. It felt so good to be able to give her that," Ezra said in a flash of self-consciousness. "Some of the other guys have already made it so far...I just...I'm afraid I won't be able to do what it takes to keep up."
It was pretty clear what "doing what it takes" meant. Gabbi couldn't help but frown. Was this what the guys thought of her sister?
"Hey, no one is saying you have to pimp yourself out to stay in this thing. And Delia - I, er, mean Princess Cordelia - wouldn't want you to, either. She's pretty sex positive and that means everyone has a choice."
"That's good, that's...yeah." Ezra looked around, helpless, his cheeks flushing like he'd rather not talk about this. "I know that thing with Andre Thompson happened, and I get what you're saying, but you don't think she'd mind waiting, do you?"
"I mean, I don't know much about my si- I mean Princess Cordelia's relationships, but from what I've heard around the palace (and through the walls - Gabbi didn't add) she does enjoy being...intimate." Kill me now, Gabbi thought, her own cheeks flushing with mortification. Talking about her sister's sex life was a form of child abuse, and yet she kept finding herself here. "Is that a problem?"
Ezra stopped walking altogether. He froze on the spot and looked Gabbi straight in the eye.
"I'm asexual."
"Oh."
Gabbi was not expecting that.
"I mean, I'm biromantic asexual if you want to get specific with it, but usually the biromantic part confuses people so I leave it out, but leaving it out makes me feel weird because it's not exactly true, but explaining the whole spectrum can be really annoying and takes so much time and half the people just smile and nod when I know they think I'm crazy and - "
Ezra ran out of breath, his cheeks red, but he didn't pick up where he left off. He just kinda held his breath in his cheeks and stared at Gabbi, waiting for her response. To be honest, she hadn't really processed that bout of verbal vomit, but she didn't have to. She got the gist.
"Well, like I said, she's big on the whole consent thing. And it's not like you're trying to win her hand in marriage, so I wouldn't sweat it."
Ezra was looking at her funny: head cocked, brows furrowed...like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
"What?" Gabbi asked, pulling her sweater closer to her chest, feeling the need to protect herself from such intense attention.
"You have a surprising lack of commentary about my choices."
"Well it's not a choice, is it? It's who you are, and there's no shame in that."
"You're absolutely right." Ezra's million-watt smiled returned with full force. "Thank you, Gabrielle Ledger. What would I do without your unfailing wisdom?"
"Have a completely normal Selection experience, and very possibly be forever traumatized in the process."
"There's still plenty of time for that."
"Don't tempt fate," Gabbi warned, laughing. "People used to get shot at these things."
"I'd jump on you to protect you from the rebels."
"I'm honored, truly, to have such a big, strong man protect my feeble, womanly self."
"Excuse me, I am very woke. I have two gay moms, hashtag feminism!"
"Use that line with Delia, she'll love it."
"I sense this is a trap."
"Good night, Ezra."
It was impossible for someone to smile so much without their cheeks hurting, but Ezra's just got wider. He tipped his head in Gabbi's direction. "Good night, Miss Ledger."
With that, he bound down the hall towards his room. Gabbi stayed on the stairs for a few minutes, processing what had happened. There was a lingering amount of guilt that always came with hanging out under false pretenses, but stronger than that was the bubbling sensation of joy.
This was the best day Gabbi had in a long time. Too long, really.
Gabbi skipped back to her room and shut the door behind her softly as not to draw attention. Technically, she was supposed to be in her room this whole time. Since she was such a good, rule-following daughter, no one bothered to do frequent check-ins to make sure she was keeping her quarantine. They expected her to do what was right and call if there was a medical emergency.
So the absolute heart attack Aspen Ledger gave Gabbi when she turned around should have sent the nurses running.
"Have a good night, Miss Ledger?"
"General!"
Gabbi's heart beat a mile a minute - an impressive feat for an organ with a limited battery life. She held a hand to her chest and tried not to sway with dizziness as the adrenaline left her. Truly, the old man's presence was a shock, no matter how welcome. He didn't seem to feel bad about scaring the bejeezus out of her either, merely standing upright near the window with both hands folded sagely over his cane.
And he'd called her Miss Ledger. Just how loud had she and Ezra been talking?
"I do hope you're not spreading my good name through the mud."
Something about the General's pleasant tone was accusatory, the same kind of tone he took during those old tapes of interrogations. Gabbi used to beg him to let her watch, finding his performance as riveting as an actor's on the silver screen. She would sit for hours and watch him carefully cross-examine spies, traitors, bankers, politicians, and a Russian ballerina.
So yes, this was an interrogation. It wasn't quite as magical to be on the receiving end. Safe it was to assume the General had heard her conversation in the hallway - and if he could hear, who else could? The only thing left to figure out was what else he knew.
"Yes, you worked very hard to keep it only slightly dirty."
Gabbi walked over to her desk and dumped the piles of flash cards next to her cup of pens and markers. She would need new ones soon; if she kept this pace up, her stock would run dry by the end of the month.
"You missed chess." General Ledger gestured to the board with his cane, hitting the wooden table with a firm whack. "When I didn't find you in the garden, I started to worry."
"I was in the garden...at first." General Ledger arched a bushy, silver brow, a silent demand for more information. "But then we - Ezra and I - decided that we needed a change of scenery. So we left."
"To the sound stage, so I hear."
Gabbi's head swiveled to face him, shocked. "How did you - ?"
"The guards talk, if you know whose ear to pick."
"That's not fair. You can't always pull rank on them, you know."
"Then what good is having it?"
"Ughhhhhh," Gabbi flopped down on her bed and covered her face with her hands. "And I thought we had been so careful."
The General busied himself setting up the chess board, unbothered by Gabbi's display of angst. He lined the pieces up like tiny soldier, each straight and center in their spots, ready for battle. White was his color, and black was Gabbi's. With a pensive look, he moved a pawn forward one spot, then folded his hands atop his cane and waited for Gabbi to join him
Begrudgingly, Gabbi pulled herself up off the bed and sat in the chair opposite the General. She studied the board, even though it was an open battlefield, not yet marked by moved and countermoves. A pawn forward was all she was willing to risk at the moment. In a few more moves, she would come to regret leaving her knight exposed.
No matter how long or how much she played, Gabbi would always be terrible at chess.
"What was a young woman like you doing in a place like the sound stage with a boy like Ezra Sigurdsson-Esser?"
"Studying, I swear."
"Hmmmm..."
Another move, another pawn in the hands of the General. He was already hacking away at her front line, making a run for her stronger players. She would need to think of a defensive maneuver - maybe some castling - both for her game and herself.
"You know me, General," Gabbi said, wobbling her rook on its edge, waiting for his next move.
"Indeed, I do."
Well, there went the rook.
The General looked up, an arch to his silver brows, watching, waiting. But not for Gabbi's next move. No, he could win this game in his sleep. Years of military training transformed him in to a tactical machine. The General was waiting for Gabbi to break, staring her down with that cool, steady gaze, as if he knew she would eventually bend if he were just patient enough.
And he was right. Gabbi never could withstand that look for long.
"Ezra won't get in trouble, will he?" Gabbi asked, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "It's all my fault. Never should have shown him that list."
Those silver brow furrowed in confusion. "List?"
Gabbi got up and walked across the room to her desk where, buried underneath piles of papers full of stories that would never be finished and poor stick drawings in the very bottom drawer, her bucket list lived. She smoothed the corners of the wrinkled paper down carefully, ignoring the tremble in her hands that she was sure was a side effect of whatever meds the cardiologist had her taking, and definitely not nerves. The General was not a man who would ever judge her, not for something like this, but as soon as she handed the list over and saw the way his face crumpled, chess board forgotten at his side, she regretted bringing it up.
"Why have you never shown me this before?" General Ledger asked, genuinely hurt. "We could do some of these things together. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of tattoos, but maybe just a small one somewhere no one would see..."
"I'm not going to make you get a tattoo," Gabbi said with a laugh, taking the list back and worrying the freshly-smoothed edge between her fingers. "It's not like I can show Mom and Dad. They'd freak out, tell me I'm overreacting or put me on some new restrictions or drugs or...I don't know. It was safer to tell Ezra, that way it didn't mean as much. We were on the sound stage to check off one of the boxes, that's it. He was just being nice."
Ezra was too nice for his own good. Someone was going to take advantage of that good heart of his, and he would have no defenses.
The General mulled this over, weighing all his options before settling. "Mister Esser will not get into any trouble. So far as anyone outside the two of us knows, tonight never happened. I will make sure of it."
"Thank you General! Thank you so - "
"But you will have to be careful, my dear. You are playing a very dangerous game, not only with your sister's heart, but with this poor boy's."
The General could not have interpreted things more wong. As if Delia's heart was even on the line!
"It's not like that - "
"Whatever it's like, there is a fine line between friendship and treason." The word treason sent chills down Gabbi's spine, chills that had nothing to do with the open window or her lack of protective layer. "Nothing could ever happen to you. You are a princess. You are protected by the laws of this great nation. But so many things could happen to a Selected caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I won't always be around to help."
Gabbi opened her mouth to protest, to say something to defend herself or her decisions, but she came up short. The truth was, the General was right. He came from a time when kings ruled with an iron fist. He watched one of her grandfather's Selected get caned in a public square for the very same thing Gabbi was having Ezra do now. Granted, she didn't want anything from Ezra - not anything like that - and he didn't want anything from her, no one else would see it that way. All the people would see was a princess being taken advantage of by a man who promised himself to another royal.
And yet...
Gabbi didn't think she had it in her to say goodbye to the closest thing she's ever had to a friend. Maybe it was selfish, or stupid, or wrong, but that irrational, emotional part of her brain clung to the happiness of the past few weeks, of the memories of studying in the garden and how Ezra could make even the driest of topics interesting. Gabbi liked the way Ezra looked at her: like she wasn't damaged, like she wasn't delicate, like she wasn't a ghost. If she had to pretend to be someone else and risk everything to keep that, it was a risk she was willing to take.
The General reached out and pulled Gabbi into a hug, her head tucked against his chest. At least this one thing was blissfully uncomplicated.
"I love you, Gabbi girl. I just don't want to see you hurt."
"I always hurt," Gabbi mumbled as she buried her face into the General's sweater. "But I'll be more careful in the future, I promise. No more excursions."
"Good."
The General placed a kiss to the top of her head, then pulled away to retrieve his cane. Upon leaning over the chess board, he let a thin smile sneak up his lips and he moved his queen forward. White toppled black with one fell swoop.
"Checkmate," he said with a smug grin, pocketing her queen with the promise of giving it back (only to steal it again) next time. "Now, get some rest. You'll need it if you want to beat me tomorrow."
Gabbi rolled her eyes. As if she would ever beat him. As if he would ever let her win. "Whatever you say, Grandfather mine."
Her bed was comfy and warm, piled high with blankets and quilts. On top of all the drawings and stories, there was a brief period in Gabbi's life when she wanted to learn how to crochet. A terrible idea, really. Everything came out knotted and lumpy, nothing like the ones that covered her now. Maybe, if she had finished the eight-weed intro course, she would have made something half-way decent.
Yet another lesson left unlearned.
The General shut the lights off, flooding the room in darkness save for the slice of light that washed over his frame in the doorway.
"Goodnight, granddaughter mine."