The fluorescent lights in the drama classroom hummed like they were trying to tell Jason something he couldn't quite understand. Outside, the southern Oregon rain hammered against the windows in sheets, turning the parking lot into a mirror that reflected nothing back but gray. It was October 1987, and Jason Hartley was sixteen years old, sitting in the back row of folding chairs, wondering what the hell he was doing there.
"You'll love it," Kendra had told him a few weeks earlier, leaning against his locker with that casual confidence only seniors seemed to possess. She had dyed-platinum hair and wore too much eyeliner. Jason had been half in love with her since she'd asked him for a cigarette behind the gym. She only liked girls though. "Drama's easy. Mr. Carlson is cool. Plus, you've got that thing."
"What thing?"
"I don't know. You're watchable. You've got a face."
Jason did have a face-a long, angular one that made him look perpetually worried, which wasn't far from the truth. At home, his mother was probably already in her pajamas even though it was only three o'clock, settling into her bedroom with an overflowing ashtray, a Doris Lessing novel and the first of six Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve. His father was likely in his own room, door closed, listening to NPR with the volume turned low like he was afraid someone might hear him existing.
Things were better now than they used to be. Jason remembered the years before his mother got her nursing degree-the screaming matches, the food stamp frozen dinners, his father's arms crossed as he gave up fighting and retreated to his small bedroom. Now there was money for groceries without checking the bank balance first. Now his parents just avoided each other instead of destroying each other. Progress, Jason supposed, though the house still felt like a museum where everyone tiptoed around dog piss-covered exhibits they were afraid to touch.
"Let's start with some warm-ups," Mr. Carlson said, clapping his hands once. He was young, early thirties, with a neat beard and wire-rimmed glasses. Everyone knew he lived with his "roommate" Derek in a house on the edge of town. Nobody said anything about it, but everyone knew. "Jason, you're new. Come up here."
Jason's stomach dropped. Around him, the other students-mostly girls and six guys who wore vintage clothes from the Goodwill-watched with the kind of neutral curiosity you'd give a new species at the zoo.
"I want you to walk across the stage like you're late for something important."
Jason stood and walked across the makeshift stage area, feeling his limbs move like broken puppets.
"Again. But this time, believe it. What are you late for?"
"I don't know. Class?"
"Make it matter. Make it life or death."
Jason tried again, and something shifted. He imagined he was late getting home, late before his mother finished her third beer and was still capable of conversation, late before his father disappeared completely into his separate life. His stride changed.
"There," Mr. Carlson said. "That's it. You felt that, right?"
Jason nodded, breathless, embarrassed by how much he had felt it.
The auditions for The Odd Couple were held on a Wednesday afternoon that smelled like floor wax and teenage desperation. Jason read for several parts, stumbling over Neil Simon's rapid-fire dialogue but finding something in Oscar Madison's slouching defeat that felt like home.
He got cast as Vinnie, one of the poker players-a nothing part, barely any lines. But it was something. Kendra hugged him when the cast list went up, and he could smell cigarettes and Aqua Net spray in her hair.
Rehearsals became the center of his universe. The drama room was warmer than home, fuller. People laughed at jokes Jason made without meaning to be funny. Mr. Carlson called him "a natural" once, and Jason held onto those words like a talisman.
The character Cecily was played by a junior named Beth who had braces and a laugh like wind chimes. During a break between scenes, she sat next to him in the back row and shared her Red Vines.
"You're good," she said.
"I have like five lines."
"Yeah, but you make them count. You're not just saying them. You know?"
He didn't know, but he nodded anyway. After the dress rehearsal, she kissed him behind the stage curtains, and Jason felt like he'd finally done something right. They hooked up twice more after that-once in her car, once in his. Both times were fumbling and brief, but they counted for something. They meant he was the kind of person things happened to.
The show ran for six nights. Jason's parents didn't come to any of them. His mother said she had a shift, which was probably true. His father said he didn't "really get that kind of thing," which was definitely true. Jason told himself he didn't care, and almost believed it.
A year went by.
David Brennan was a legend in their small town's theater scene-a director who'd supposedly almost made it in Los Angeles before crawling back to southern Oregon to torture high school students and community theater actors. He had a graying ponytail and wore scarves even in summer. When he announced auditions for Mother Hicks, half the drama class signed up just to say they'd worked with him.
Jason auditioned on a whim, expecting nothing. He got cast in the ensemble-a nameless member of the Depression-era chorus, few lines, mostly reactions and movement. It should have been disappointing, but David made it sound important.
"The chorus is the soul of this piece," he announced at the first rehearsal, pacing the stage like a caged animal. "You are the voice of poverty, of desperation, of America's forgotten. I need you to dig deep. I need you to bleed."
Jason wanted to bleed for David. He wanted to be seen.
Rehearsals were brutal. David stopped them constantly, screaming about motivation and intention and truth. When Jason stood in the wrong spot during a crowd scene, David spent five long minutes berating him in front of everyone.
"Do you think this is a joke? Do you think art is something you just show up for? I can see you thinking out there, calculating your next move like you're playing checkers. Stop thinking and START FEELING."
Jason's face burned. His hands shook. That night he sat in his car in the parking lot for half an hour, smoking cigarettes, blasting Big Black, unable to drive home, unable to cry, just sitting there with the rain drumming on the roof.
But he came back. He came back and worked harder. He stayed after rehearsal to practice his movements, to memorize everyone else's blocking so he'd never be in the wrong place again. He watched David work with the leads and absorbed everything-the way he coaxed performances out of them, the way he made them strip away their defenses until something raw and real emerged.
Jason started applying that to himself. When David yelled at him-and he did, repeatedly-Jason tried to channel it, to use the shame and anger as fuel. He moved through the crowd scenes like he was carrying the weight of his father's silence, his mother's hollow eyes. He became nameless and essential at the same time.
At dress rehearsal, David watched the final scene in silence. After the house lights came up, he nodded once.
"Better," he said to the cast. Then, looking directly at Jason: "You're almost there."
It wasn't praise, but Jason held onto it like it was.
Megan Summers had perfect hair-that's what Jason thought every time he saw her. Raven dark with just a hint of blood-red and feathered like she'd stepped out of a Seventeen magazine. She was a junior, one year younger than him, popular without being mean about it, and so far out of Jason's orbit that he'd never even considered talking to her.
She came to opening night of Mother Hicks. Jason spotted her in the third row during curtain call and nearly forgot to bow.
After the show, she found him by the audience check-in table.
"You were amazing," she said, and her smile was so bright it hurt to look at.
"I didn't really have any lines."
"I know. But I watched you the whole time. You were so... present."
Present. Jason turned the word over in his mind. At home, he was invisible. At school, he was forgettable. But on stage, even without words, he was present.
Megan started showing up everywhere. At his locker between classes. At the 7-Eleven where he bought his mother's cigarettes. At the drama room even though she wasn't in drama. She laughed at things he said that weren't funny. She touched his arm when she talked to him.
At first, Jason felt like he'd won something. Megan Summers was choosing him. The theater kid with the beat-up Datsun and the silent house was being chosen by a girl who belonged in the sun.
They started dating officially in January. She wore his jacket even though it was too big. She held his hand in the hallways. She took him to parties and made sure everyone knew that he was her possession.
But when they were alone, Jason felt a creeping disappointment he couldn't name. Megan talked about sterling silver jewelry and her favorite brand of patchouli. She didn't ask about his college applications, the ones he was filling out for schools three thousand miles away. When he tried to talk about plays or books, she'd smile and nod and change the subject to something about her friends.
By March, their conversations had worn thin. They still held hands, but it felt like obligation. She was nice. She was pretty. Her mouth tasted sweet and her softness felt good against him. She was everything he'd thought he wanted. And it wasn't enough.
The acceptance letter from Marlboro College in Vermont arrived on a Tuesday. Jason read it three times in his car before going inside.
At dinner-a rare event where all three Hartleys occupied the same room-he told them.
"Vermont?" his mother said, cigarette smoke curling from her nostrils. "That's across the whole damn country."
"It's a good school. They have a good program."
"What program?" his father asked, and Jason realized he couldn't remember the last time his father had asked him a direct question.
"Theater. Writing. Liberal arts."
His mother stubbed out her cigarette. "There are schools here. Perfectly good schools."
"I want to go."
They stared at each other across the table, and Jason saw something flicker in her eyes-not quite hurt, but close. His father just nodded slowly and went back to his spaghetti.
"You'll need money," his mother said finally.
"I have some saved. I got a scholarship. I can take out loans. I'll work. I'll figure it out."
She lit another cigarette. "I guess you will."
Jason broke up with Megan a week later. She cried, which made him feel terrible and cruel in equal measure. Kendra quit her coffee shop job and moved to Eugene. Mr. Carlson announced he was leaving to teach in Portland. Everything was ending, which meant everything was beginning.
Late August, and the Oregon heat sat thick and heavy over everything. Jason loaded the last box into his Datsun-a rust yellow-colored 1978 B210 wagon that had 180,000 miles and a prayer. The backseat was crammed with clothes, books, a CD player he'd bought at Goodwill. Everything he owned fit in one car.
His mother stood on the porch in her scrubs, about to leave for her shift. She'd been crying earlier-Jason had heard her in her room-but her face was dry now, composed.
"Drive safe," she said. "Call when you get there."
"I will."
"It's a long way."
"I know."
She nodded, lit a cigarette, and went inside without hugging him. Jason told himself it was fine. This was how they did things.
His father appeared in the doorway like a ghost.
"You got enough money?"
"Yeah, Dad. I'm good."
His father reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled envelope. "Take it anyway."
Inside was a couple hundred bucks in tens and twenties, as if this could erase almost two decades of neglect. Jason felt something catch in his throat.
"Thanks."
His father nodded and retreated back into the house, back into his room, back into his silence.
Jason sat in his car for a moment, engine running, looking at the house where he'd grown up. The peeling paint, the overgrown lawn, the closed curtains. It looked like a place where people went to hide from their lives.
He put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
The highway stretched east, and Jason turned up the radio-Pixies on the college station, Black Francis singing about losing his mind. Jason sang along, his voice cracking on the high notes, not caring who heard.
He thought about David screaming at him to feel instead of think. He thought about Megan's perfect hair and empty conversations. He thought about his mother's cigarette smokescreen and his father's closed door. He thought about becoming present, about being watchable, about having a face.
Vermont was three thousand miles away. He'd never been there. Didn't know anyone there. Had no idea what he'd find.
The Datsun's engine made a concerning noise somewhere in Idaho, but Jason kept driving. The sun set behind him, painting the rearview mirror gold and crimson, and he didn't look back. Not once. There was nothing behind him worth seeing, and everything ahead worth finding out.
In the passenger seat, his acceptance letter sat folded in thirds, and in the space between one state line and the next, Jason Hartley disappeared from his southern Oregon home and began the long work of becoming someone else. Someone who didn't need his parents' approval or David's validation or Megan's attention. Someone who could stand on a stage-or anywhere else-and be present not for others, but for himself.
The road hummed beneath him, and for the first time in eighteen years, Jason felt like he was going somewhere instead of just leaving. But like a wet leaf stuck to the bottom of his shoe, his past would travel with him whether he knew it or not.
He turned up the radio and drove into the dark.