Act I: The Break

1. What do you want?

Coover Bach wanted to rescue a girl’s stolen smartphone on Ugly Sweater Day. He saw Luke Markson steal Peri Hempel’s smartphone out of her locker. It was a white iPhone with a pink PopSocket, and Luke slipped it into the waistband at the small of his back. Luke wore navy Nike sweatpants, and the PopSocket hung on the elastic waistband as Luke tugged his sweater over it.

Peri searched her locker. “Where’s my phone?”

Luke shrugged. “How should I know?” He was a terrible actor.

“Very funny,” said Peri, who was petite, blonde, and fierce like a gymnast. She cocked her hip. “Show me your hands.”

“Seriously, bro,” Luke said, palms up and empty. 

“Luke!” Peri slapped him on the shoulder. “Where the hell’s my phone?”

“Chill,” said Luke. He took a book out of her locker to distract her. “Here. You’ll need this one.” He took out another book. “And this one.”

“Stop it,” Peri said, snatching her books from him and shoving them back in her locker. “You’re such a ruin.”

“You’re killing it today,” said Luke.

“Shut up.”

“You gotta do a post,” said Luke, “at your locker, morning outfit, right? So hot. Ooh, I forgot,” teased Luke. “You can’t because you lost your phone.”

“Oh my god!” shrieked Peri. “I hate you!”

And that was when Coover thought: What would The Dark do? The Dark would pickpocket the phone from Luke and, without being seen, return it to Peri. The Dark would remain anonymous. No one would know who had righted the wrong. That was how The Dark had operated throughout all five seasons of the Netflix show. If Coover were to do it that way—if the phone were to disappear from Luke’s sweatpants and reappear, as if by magic, in Peri’s locker—then Peri would squeal in gratitude . . . Coover would vanish down their high-school hallway as the mysterious hero pulsing within a dark aura . . . and Luke, sticking his hands down his pants, would be an idiot.

“Bach!”

Octavia Cates sliced into view.

“Bach! I need you!” Octavia’s moon face was bracketed by thick black hair.

“Okay,” said Coover, avoiding Octavia’s eyes. She was as tall as he was. Her eyes were dark and deep. Coover didn’t like being seen by her. He felt unprepared. She was smart. She spoke well. She wrote plays. She wore black boots, a belt with a big buckle, and an overcoat that flared like a cape. She knew what she wanted and was loud about getting it. 

“You’re my Brothello.”

Coover mumbled a response.

“My Brothello. I need you.”

“Kill me,” said Coover, glancing past her down the row of red lockers toward Luke and Peri.

“Don’t go emo on me,” said Octavia. “You need me in your life.”

Luke was still hiding the phone from Peri. That was good. Coover wanted to be The Dark, but he also wanted to act in Octavia’s play. Pickpocket a smartphone or talk to his director? 

“You’re right,” said Coover, meeting Octavia’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I know.” 

“I hope you know,” she said. She tugged the lapels of her blue overcoat. It was eye-achingly blue. Octavia always wore saturated colors. If she liked a color, she committed to it, one hundred percent.

Neither of them ever dressed in the spirit of the season or the school. Coover dressed in a self-conscious attempt to be artfully indifferent: hence the gray Members Only jacket and gray jeans and mismatched shoes, a Converse and a Vans, each tagged at the toe with a splotch of yellow spray paint. Octavia was her eccentric self, like a Heathers Winona Ryder with the driven ego of a young Orson Welles (Octavia, of course, had taught him about old famous directors). Coover suspected he should be kneeling before her, in humility, ready to submit to her vision and put in the hours, but he couldn’t help peeking around her to catch a glimpse of a different future, urgent and fleeting and unscripted and alive.

“You should know,” said Octavia. “But I don’t think you do know.”

“I do. I know.”

“Brothello’s the hero. I don’t have anyone else in the cast yet. Be Brothello. Save my show. Promise me. I know you want to.”

“Class starts in a minute,” mumbled Coover.

Coover switched his backpack to his other shoulder to prepare for the bump, the way he’d seen it done on the show. Coover wasn’t the star of the movie in his mind. He felt too much pressure. So he pretended to be someone else, like Eco Yu or The Dark, the two roles played by Julian Charvet. To be the star of his own movie, Coover had to be someone else, someone better, someone worth seeing. The better person was the one people looked at the most, like the gorgeous Julian Charvet, a slim, young god of white teeth and bronze abs.

“Bach!” shouted Octavia.

Coover bumped Luke on the left shoulder while he reached under Luke’s sweater for the PopSocket and hooked it with a finger. Coover stumbled toward Peri and slipped the smartphone up and out from Luke’s elastic waistband and, while doing so, suddenly imagined the small of Luke’s back. Luke was a jock. He moved in a cloud of Axe body spray, and his back was grooved with muscle. Coover superimposed Julian Charvet onto Luke and lost himself. 

It was a flash in Coover’s associative mind, linking one sensual encounter with another, but that disorienting surge of lust was all it took for Coover to let the back of his hand fall over the crest of Luke’s buttock. He was still holding the phone, so his knuckles grazed the hemisphere of taut polyester. Coover staggered into a rush of sexual feelings at a really awkward moment, a slow-motion moment that included stumbling, reaching out, and pressing his left hand onto Peri’s right breast, albeit a breast buried beneath an ugly holiday sweater.

One hand on Luke’s butt and one on Peri’s boob: Coover was so shocked he couldn’t move. He gawked in terror at his own predicament. He was having a heart attack. He would die here, locked in this moment forever.

Peri recoiled and slapped his hand away. Luke jerked Coover upright and threw him against the lockers. Coover hid the phone behind his back. They were cursing him—“What’s your fucking illness, dickhead?”—but Coover didn’t hear them.

He was stuck in slow motion. Luke and Peri were glaring at him: Peri in her Gingerbread Person sweater and Luke in his Santa Stormtrooper sweater. Coover could break away and run to class, but he’d be stealing the smartphone. A shiver of pre-guilt shot through this body. Coover could sneak the phone into Peri’s locker later, but that would risk an honor-code violation. 

All he had wanted was one decent heart-squeezing moment of heroism, a moment he could relive over break. But he felt that alternative life die an unsung death. He would have to let it go.

“Is that your phone?” Coover asked. The smartphone was still concealed in Coover’s hand, but he pretended to retrieve it from the floor. He stood and returned the phone to Peri.

“Holy shit!” Peri snatched the phone and jolted the scene back into fast motion. 

“You’re wel—” Coover started to say, but he was interrupted.

Peri shook her phone in Luke’s face. “Ha! Got you!” 

Luke admitted he was a phone-snatcher, but that creep (i.e., Coover) was a boob-snatcher. Peri shut her locker and slipped her phone into her yoga pants. Luke reached for it. Peri swatted him. They merged into the crowd of seniors moving down the hallway. Coover followed at a distance and watched as Luke grabbed Peri’s waist. Peri squealed. Luke whispered in her ear, and Peri leaned into him. Coover felt sick. As they returned to teasing and flirting, Coover receded into his life and trudged along, like nothing had happened or ever would, to Mr. River Davenport’s AP English class.