The Actress and the Writer. Part IV

Their affair was perpetually short-lived, a recurring clash of tossed plates and bodies redeemed. It was love at the fringes, full of doubt, persisting through the logic of escape and return. Reasons to leave however, swelled and multiplied like disease, whereas reasons to return remained few and fragile.

“I got fired today,” Joseph said.
“I beg your pardon?” Nila had just finished an Austen play; her language refined, her accent British.
“Not really fired, moved. Both, I guess. Apparently, the philosophical turn in my writing has been lost on my readers. They want me writing for the arts now. Theatre reviews.”

Nila’s expression clouded over. Her eyes searched in Joseph something she wasn’t quite sure was there.

“You’re not serious. That’s hilarious. That’s tragic. You, writing the arts?”
“Bob in theatre had a stroke. I’m the new Bob.”
“Hold on a second. What exactly do you know about theatre, my love?”
“Only what I catch when you complain.”
“I don’t complain,” she maintained. “I release.”
“You give me insight into your craft. You’re quite an actress. … Even when you think you’re not acting,” he added, though he knew better.
“And you are what you write, Joseph,” she quipped back. “Baffling and meaningless.”

There was a slight pause as Nila turned inward. She had fallen in love with a failed athlete turned sports writer. There was something romantic in the metamorphosis. Was she now being asked to love a failed sports writer turned theatre critic? This left a decidedly unromantic taste in her mouth.

“So I’m dating a theatre critic. I never liked theatre critics. I always dreamed of an athlete. Or at least a man who wrote about athletes. This changes everything,” she smiled wryly.
He smiled back. “Guess my first assignment: The Distressed, a musical starring Nila Jones. You do open in a few weeks, don’t you?”
He whipped out a cigarette and placed it smugly between his lips. Joseph didn’t smoke, but carried a pack regardless.
“I requested it,” he continued.
Nila laughed. “You madman.”
“It’s not that ridiculous, is it? Just think of the article I could write.”
Nila broke out in another fit of laughter, uncontrollable, compulsive, her eyes swelling with tears.
“It’s completely absurd. Why would you go and do a thing like that?”
“My editor loves the idea. I’ve got intimate access to the star of the show.”
Another pause, Nila frowned. “Baby, access denied.” She looked genuinely grave. Her acting’s improving, Joseph thought.
“I don’t like the idea of you writing me. In fact I positively hate it.”

She stormed out of the apartment and left Joseph clouded in cigarette smoke. It was exactly the type of existential moment for which he bought his Camel Reds. He took a deep, satisfying drag, glad not to be alone. And if he died of lung cancer, surely Nila would be to blame.