My Life as an Understudy
Blame the jet lag. Another last minute transatlantic flight because Cate needs a break.
The Veuve Clicquot doesn’t help, but Cate insists. When I remind her that drinking alcohol in flight dehydrates, she laughs. “Don’t be such a goody two shoes.” Always playing the cool girl putting up with her dull shadow.
“What are we celebrating?”
She fills two glasses to the brim. “Darling, we don’t need an excuse. We’ve escaped them again.”
Last week the paparazzi caught her slipping out of a married MP’s Kensington flat. Later, at rehearsal for our new production of A Doll’s House, Cate told me she was just having fun.
“You wouldn’t understand, sweetheart. Still shagging what’s his name? Roger? Walter? Most women would be bored after three years, but not you.” Her laugh echoed through the theatre. “If you had seen the Member’s member, even you would have forgotten your safe and steady accountant.”
I started to reply but stopped as soon as I took in her flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Why defend my monogamous relationship when she was enthralled by her latest scandal?
Every time Cate dodges the London tabloids, she flies incognito, dragging me with her for moral support.
Hair pulled back in a ponytail, face free of make up, Cate could be an Ivy League grad student returning from a conference in Barcelona or Prague. Baggy sweater and horn-rimmed glasses complete her disguise. I, on the other hand, have just come from the salon. Hair trimmed, eyebrows waxed. It’s uncanny how much we look alike, even when we dress in completely different styles. Unless you see us together you might not tell us apart.
So it’s not surprising that when Cate pops into the Ladies to freshen up after we land, a man approaches as I wait with our luggage in the terminal.
“Cate McGrew? OMG! I loved you in The Life We Made - your best role yet. Can I take a selfie?” Somewhere over New England the buzz of the champagne became a background headache. Damn Cate with her dramas and tantrums. Half those performances of The Life We Made I played Cate’s part while she was in rehab. And this is the woman everyone calls “England’s Sweetheart”?
Cate will be a while. The man waits, phone in hand.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m happy to oblige.” After years of working with Cate, I know the exact cadence and pitch of her voice.
By the time Cate has flushed, her/my image is circling the globe. As word travels that Cate McGrew can be found at Concourse E of the Atlanta airport, people gather around me. I pose for other selfies, picturing Cate playing the humble star, only to mimic her fans later in private.
A young woman with a cute pixie cut rolls up her sleeve, handing me a pen to autograph her arm. Dropping the pen, I pull the young woman to me and kiss her on the mouth. My tongue presses her lips open as phones flash around us.
“You’re beautiful,” I gush in Cate’s breathy posh voice. “Have a wonderful life.” I push her away from me with a knowing smile. Shocked and delighted, the crowd murmurs.
Waving, I wheel our bags into the restroom. Cate is rubbing her hands together under the hot air dryer.
“Ready to go, darling?” She smiles at me. “I’m ravenous.”
I return her smile and nod at the bathroom door.
“After you.”
Phebe Jewell's recent flash appears or is forthcoming in XRAY, Literary Heist, Ellipsis, Crack the Spine, and The Citron Review. A teacher at Seattle Central College, she also volunteers for the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit providing college courses for women in prison. Read more of her work at http://phebejewellwrites.com.
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