coffee on lexington avenue | phillipa soo

thirteen

There's a knock at Delphi and I's dressing room door as I'm in the middle of doing my Guenevere makeup for Camelot.

I dab at my face a little quicker with blush on my brush, knowing knocking like this was usually followed by rushed announcements through the door: ten minutes until the show ladies! But this time, nothing follows except silence.

I'm a little dumbfounded- Nobody else knocked to enter each other's dressing room anymore. I look to Delphi, confused, but she doesn't seem as dumbfounded as I am. "Ignore that," Delphi says quickly. But then, there's more impatient knocking. "Oh, for fucks sake. Keep doing your makeup, Pip. I'll get it."

I nod, unaffected, and finish with my blush, studying my reflection then in the mirror, eyes zoning in on my cheek, and my left eye, healed enough now that they were no longer extremely swollen, the purple hue that still tinged the bruise now hidden just enough under piles of color corrector, concealer and foundation.

I had no intention of coming back to do the show so early, of course, but I finally decided I needed the distraction. My mind would kill me otherwise. Just sitting at home with Steve, though kinder and gentler now he was, it was still torture. I was still tense, awaiting the next time he yelled, the next time he raised his hand with the intention of hurting me.

Most especially though, because everything still hurt, the pain still almost paralyzing to this day- I couldn't stop thinking about Evie.

Delphi's eyes had filled with worry at the sight of the bruise the second I came in, the first time she'd seen me in over a week, and she engulfed me in a hug so tight I was convinced she had no intention of letting go until the year was over. Eventually, though, she did let go.

"Oh, Pip, is this what you meant, when you said you were too sick to do the show?" She'd asked, her voice small, the tremble in her lower lip as she gazed at my bruise so reminiscent of Evie that I had to look away. Every little thing reminded me of Evie- it was killing me.

When Delphi asked me about Steve, if he did this, I waved her off, and refused to talk about it for the rest of the evening as we got ready.

Multiple times Delphi brought up Evie and Andrew, asking me if I wanted to talk about that instead, but I didn't have the energy to make her shut up about it. So I only met her with complete silence, fighting tears every time I ever so much as heard her say Evangeline's name out loud.

After all, I didn't have to talk about it for her to just understand, from my eyes alone, that I was still wrecked, that Evie had not left my mind for even a second since I found about her and Andrew.

"You again." I hear Delphi hiss at the door, her back to me.

Still unaffected, I start to put on some mascara. And then, I hear her, her voice small, choked. "Delphi. Is... is Pippa... is she in there tonight?" I know her voice immediately. I freeze. My heart begins to race, my stomach turning. Evie. It's the first time I've heard her voice since the last time I saw her at the Sub Rosa, the last time I was ever at Lexington Avenue.

"She's still not here. You need stop coming back here to check every night- it's getting on my nerves, Evangeline." Delphi goes to shut the door then, but Evie forces the door back open.

"But Andrew and I talked and he said she was finally here for sure tonight, so I thought-"

Hearing her say his name makes my knees go so weak that I have to sit down, my head spinning, the ever familiar nausea returning. "You and Andrew talked about that, did you?" Delphi hisses in a hushed voice, like she's trying not to let me hear. I have to strain to hear her next words. "Go back to his dressing room and talk to him some more then. Because you're not welcome in this one anymore."