BACKSTAGE PASS

Elissa & The Potential Prince

He polishes harder, and I have a real fear he might rub right through the granite.

The muscles in his jaw are working overtime. "I just figured that cleaning is a good form of stress relief, that's all."

"And why would you be stressed? Today was the first day of classes at the drama school of your dreams. The same school you've auditioned for three times. I would have thought you'd be in drama-induced bliss. Over the moon, even. Not stressed."

"I am over the moon." He gets down on all fours and slams open the oven door before attacking the inside like it insulted our mother. "This is me being over the moon. Can't you tell?" He scrubs so hard the whole stove shakes.

Oh, for the love of ...

"Ethan, we've only been in this apartment for a month. We haven't even used that oven."

"Well whoever lived here before us didn't clean it, because it's fucking gross. Pass me the spray." I shove the spray bottle into his hand, and he proceeds to cover the oven in lemon-scented foam.

"Look," I say, "I really don't want to interrupt you, because, well ... our apartment smells like a summer's day, and I love that. But sometimes talking about stuff helps. Is it your teachers? You told me the acting professor is a hardass."

"Erika?" He shrugs. "She loves me."

"Really? She made you audition three times to get in."

"Yeah, but she did it out of love."

"You didn't think that the first two times. I believe you called her 'a fucking unreasonable, ball-breaking bitch.'"

"That's a term of affection. I call you the same thing. Doesn't mean I don't love you."

I sigh. "Okay, fine. Don't tell me what's up. But as long as you're in this mood, can you please scrub my bathroom? Soap scum is freaking hard to remove, and you might as well put those manly muscles to good use."

I chalk his actions up to the pressure of all his new classes. He's dreamed about this course for years. It must be daunting to finally be here.

I head into my bedroom to find he's dusted, vacuumed, and arranged my bookcase in alphabetical order. My hackles rise for a second, because I had them arranged according to genre and favorites, but whatever. It's a small price to pay for his so-called "stress relief."

***

For the rest of the week, our apartment is spotless. I've given up asking Ethan what's wrong because a) he never opens up unless he truly wants to, and b) I'm loving how spotless he's keeping the place. 

Does it make me a bad person that I hope at least a little of his anxiety continues? When he puts his mind to it, he's a cleaning genius. The only issue is that he gets his genius urges at ungodly hours.

This morning, he vacuumed the whole apartment at 5.30am, despite our downstairs neighbors banging on the ceiling for him to stop. Then he went jogging, so when the neighbors came up to later to complain, I bore the brunt of their anger.

Whatever. I was too tired to care.

Thank God it's Friday. Our first week of classes at The Grove has been exhausting but great. Even though I've already had professional gigs as a stage manager, I'm still learning a lot. The people in my class are very cool, and I've made friends with a sassy redhead named Ruby.

Since my best friend, Josh, decided to abandon me and do his theater tech course on the other side of the damn country at UCLA, I've been at a loose end.