All the World's a Stage

"Definitely. We've got space. And it looks like a chore to haul around." He picked up the one garment bag with the latex catsuit in it and carried that to the door of the library, and then just a few more steps to the front door of the Chapman townhome. Lauren got her jacket from the front hallway closet. He opened the front door for her, walked with her to the waiting rideshare, helped her in, and handed her the garment bag. She slid it to the far side of her, then turned back to him.

"See you tomorrow, Toby."

The way she said his name had a surprising effect on him, one he wasn't prepared for, or had even anticipated enough to know that he should prepare for it.

She read something on his face. "You OK? What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Mind messing with me."

"What?"

"I think I got too into hearing you call me that other thing and didn't even realize it. It sounded off when you first said it, now it sounds off when you don't, after just a few hours. Seriously, I mean it, it's nothing, mind just messing with me. It does that. You can totally call me by my name. I mean, duh. Of course you can. Ugh, my mouth seems to have suffered brake failure." He sighed. "Good night, Lauren." He closed the door.

She rolled down the window, and she was smiling. If she was judging his rambling, she hid it with consummate skill. "Good night, Sir," she said, and rolled the window back up. The car drove off.

Liz was in the library when he returned, standing, reading the Shakespeare book, which Lauren had left bookmarked with a small ribbon attached to the cover. "Close, but not quite," she mused as Toby entered. "This is about someone who can't find words because he's too madly in love, not someone whose main reason for being unable to find words is probably because he misplaced his dictionary."

"Love you, too, sis, but you are seriously acting weird tonight." He passed by her and settled into his armchair.

Her eyes were wide when he turned back to her. "I'm acting weird?" she asked.

"Little bit."

"Says the person who is alone in his library when he could be upstairs and very much not alone. Mom and Dad wouldn't even mind in the slightest."

"I'm not alone, you're here. And what do you even mean about Mom and Dad? I could be upstairs with them? They're asleep by now. And at least we got dinner with them tonight."

Liz closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. "She's going to be a junior in college. Getting to the point where if you don't lock that down, someone else will."

Toby's throat constricted and his voice rose again. "Wait. What? Lauren? Oh, no, no no no, I don't think so," he stammered.

"Seriously?"

"I mean, she's just, you know, Lauren. She's never been like that."

"Not when she was underage and you weren't. But that was a long time ago now."

"Still!" he half-squeaked. "If she ever thought like that, she'd have told me. And she's never even dropped a hint like she thinks like that."

If sharp looks could cut, Liz' gaze would have opened his carotid artery. "Never dropped ... oh, dear God in Heaven." She turned and left the library.

Epilogue

Toby looked at the door for a while after it closed behind her, and then shrugged. He settled in and finished another chapter of his book, then bookmarked it and set it aside. He picked up Lauren's garment bag and duffel bag and headed upstairs. Once in his room, he hung her garment bag in his closet and set the duffel bag under it, then changed into his pajamas, and climbed into bed. Before he turned off the light, he found the video he had made of Lauren playing the piano between her wardrobe changes as she was airing her skin out. He watched it again. He was tempted to watch it again after that, but even watching it once had made his pajamas uncomfortable. Instead, he found in his texts where she had messaged it to herself, and followed up with another text to her.

Just watching this again before bed. Great way to spend your time between wardrobe changes.

Lauren responded in less than a minute. You said you'd fill your whole phone with memories like that if you could. You meant that?

I mean, I just liked it a lot. Though now I might also choose a mix of memories like that one and the ones that were still in the future at that point this evening.

A few minutes later, his phone lit up with another text notification, this one accompanied by a video. It was Lauren at the keyboard in her own bedroom. Lauren's parents actually had a medium grand piano, larger than the baby grand in the Chapmans' library, but it was in their parlor, and it occurred to Toby that Lauren probably wasn't about to risk being seen like this by her own parents. She was wearing white concert gloves. And nothing else. She turned to smile at the camera, then turned her serious face at the keyboard. A moment later, she began to play a gentle, familiar melody. He paused the video and connected his phone to his bedside Bluetooth speaker. A moment later, he unpaused, and the soft strains of Debussy's "Clair de Lune" filled the room. He basked in the beauty of it even on a keyboard. Maybe with a little encouragement from the evening's cocktails, his wandering mind began to imagine her playing it for him, just him, and dressed just like that, on a full concert grand at Symphony Hall. Or just in the library downstairs the following night.

Five minutes later, she wrapped up the piece and turned to the camera. The Bluetooth was just loud enough that anyone listening at the door might have heard her voice. "Good night, Sir. See you tomorrow."

Toby himself never heard it until he watched the video again in the morning. He was fast asleep, smiling at nothing in the darkness.