Page 34 of Date and Switch

“No,” he downed the shot, “fun like normal stuff like walking around and doing nothing. Not when we’re having sex.”

I nearly spit out my expensive tequila shooter.

“That was precisely what I meant.”

“You don’t like having sex with me?”

Other than the piano player we were the only two in the bar. That didn’t mean I wanted the judgmental bartender and Mr. Tinkle Keys over at the piano to know about my sex life.

“Oh little angel—everyone has sex. I promise you neither of those two care what we’re talking about. They’re probably hoping we wrap up early so they can close it down and go find someone to have sex with themselves.”

“I wonder how you have sex on a cruise ship, given their quarters sleep sometimes four to a room.”

“Good question.” He opened his mouth as if he were about to ask one of them, when instead he turned his focus to me. “How come you aren’t saying anything for your catharsis?”

“That is a very large word Earl Ellis. And I don’t have anything to cathart? Catarize? What is the action word for catharsis? Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“Surely you have something you can get off your chest. This is boring just by myself.”

He pushed his shot glass back and pulled his wallet out as if about to close out the tab.

“We’ve been here literally thirty minutes and all you did was complain about birthday cakes.”

“Maybe because I don’t want to hurt again.” He turned to me; the sentence delivered with such fire but the softness in his eyes was the total opposite.

“When I was a senior at Berklee,” I began, turning the amber liquid around in my shot glass, “I took an internship at Boston Lyric. I’ve wanted to be in the The Magic Flute since the first time I saw it at the Chicago Lyric when I was nine. Specifically, the Queen of the Night. She had the best costume of everyone in that show. Deep navy blue, sequins, nude sleeves and decolletage dotted with rhinestones. I fell in love with the opera right then. Never mind her arias are some of the hardest in the industry. I worked on that stupid aria for years. Like since my freshman year in high school.

“During summer internships, they rotate the interns into the performances so we can also get experience performing and being in a production all that stuff that goes with on-the-job training. I had the best Queen of the Night. And I say that with zero arrogance. It’s just fact. But the director only had one Queen of the Night costume and it was a size eight, so they gave it to Cambra King.”

“Fuck Cambra King—whomever she is.”

“She went to Berklee with me. Full scholarship. They dragged her out and threw a spotlight on her whenever they could. You know, for the donors.”

“Berklee will never get another dime from the Ellis family,” he promised, toasting my shot glass with such force I thought he was going to crack it.

“Be serious, Bryce. This is a huge wound, okay?”

I took a deep breath and continued, “The director, his name was Gabe Trainor, told me that for a summer internship Cambra would do just fine, and that I should make a change now while I was still in school, because I didn’t have enough talent that would warrant any opera house refitting their costumes to fit me.”

“Those bastards.” He huffed. “They’ll be in a world of hurt when the Ellis Foundation pulls their funding. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. It’s over. I’m going to email Esther in the morning.”

There was no way he’d remember by morning.

“It’s so ironic too. How we’re not even welcome in opera anymore. When, you know clearly the whole fat lady sings thing came from a caricature of the opera. Yet even in the one piece of theater where non-stick figures could feel accepted it’s been overrun by fat shaming and idolizing thin petite waifs.”

“Sera—fuck Grant, Gabe, Gerry whatever his name was. He tossed away a pearl in an ocean of sea glass. If he didn’t realize what was right in front of him? That’s his loss. Not yours. You’re gorgeous. And talented. And too damn sweet for your own good.”

He stopped mid-sentence and tilted his head. His lush lips hung open, a half-formed word frozen on his mouth.

“How come when I compliment you, you just nod. Like I’m making a grocery list and you’re making sure to get it all down?”

The observation caught me off guard.

“Come to think of it,” he continued, “I honestly can’t remember a time when you’ve complimented me—on my looks. Am I not sexy enough for you?”

In his drunken state, whatever face he attempted to make that was supposed to exemplify sexy didn’t quite make it all the way down that path. It stopped somewhere near goofy and ridiculous.

“Tell me, Sera. Don’t I turn you on?”

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