Become

The only theater-related class I took would be the same one I would take every term until I graduated. Basically it was like earning college credit for doing what I would be doing anyway: acting, writing, costuming and creating sets.

Raine, my roommate, was surprisingly tolerable. I didn't think such a reasonable person existed, especially one who had nothing in common with me. Stupid wasn't the word I looked for, but she wasn't bright. She earned a full-ride scholarship to B.U. for soccer, and I could see the struggle, panic and complaint in her face when she returned to the dorm after our first day. All of us needed to take mathematics, science, advanced writing and foreign language in our first two years before studying what truly mattered. Raine wanted to play soccer, but her parents insisted she earn a degree as a backup, and she settled for Forensics.

"It means I don't have to deal with living people," she explained, concentrating very hard on a rather simple math problem. "I can deal with evidence and lab equipment. Why aren't you doing your homework? Didn't you get loads of it like I did?"

"The answer is one and one third. I finished all of mine," I answered, mentally patting myself on the back for giving myself a three-hour break between my second class and my third one. My fourth class started at six and it was theater. Raine looked up at me from her desk with a combination of distaste and wonder. "I can't stand unfinished problems."

"Well, good for you," she retorted, her fingers prying her pack of cigarettes open and prizing two of them out. "You know, I think the only reason I get away with smoking inside of a non-smoking building on a non-smoking campus is because you're my roomie." I bought her a nicer lighter; a square, silver one with a gothic "R" lacquered on one side and an imprint of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man on the other as a gift, and she immediately tossed her ugly green lighter into the trash.

"Most likely," I agreed, taking the second lit cigarette from her. "Oh, God. Do you want help with that or not?"

* * *

I ended up buying my own menthol cigarettes from a convenience store three blocks away. With society's new fad of being healthy, the college wouldn't allow them to be sold nearby. On my walk to the theater classroom, I puffed at one slowly and blew the smoke from the side of my mouth. No one said anything, but I received dirty looks. I tugged my collar tighter against the chilly wind and took another drag in front of a cluster of my oldest sister's friends. Penny sat on a concrete bench in the center of them and glared at me with all of her blonde-haired, blue-eyed fury. I ignored her. Surprisingly she didn't notice the red-bottomed heels I wore, unless that was the source of her irritation.

Unlike my three older sisters, my hair was dark and my eyes a darker shade of blue. My face was plainer, my nose was bigger, my mouth and eyes were smaller and I opted out of the pounds of makeup they put on each day. As far as the Boston University school body was concerned, I was hardly a Cross at all.

I finished my cigarette before entering the building my classroom would be in and hugged my coat to my body as I strode down the hallway. The heels on my feet clicked ominously on the tiled floor and echoed in the empty corridor. The classroom was empty as well and I tried the doorknob. Unlocked. I selected the seat front and center, kicked off my shoes and waited.

My mother's clothing choices weren't as terrible as I expected. The red, stretch-silk, knee-length, three-quarter sleeve dress I picked out this morning could have been something I purchased myself. She did, however, favor the color red on me and it dominated my closet. Barely a minute after I sat down, a man in his early thirties entered the room with a briefcase. I recognized him as John Arthur, head of the theater department, successful British theater actor turned American teacher. He wore pinstripe black pants and a button-up white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and unbuttoned low enough to see the hollow between his collarbones. No pets, no wife, few friends and the beginning of a drinking problem all showed clearly in my eyes. No pet hair, no wedding ring, no cell phone and a long sigh upon seeing me watch him carefully.

"Students really take it out of you, don't they?" I asked conversationally, sitting up straighter and slipping my shoes back on.

"And I see they finally wrapped their claws around the last of the Cross children," he said, his voice surprisingly smooth and still clinging on to his native British accent. "I'm confident I'm looking at my first gray hair. You're early."

"I'm always early," I replied, hugging my coat tighter.

"I would tell you to go have another cigarette, but this is a non-smoking campus."

"I know."

He eyed me for a moment, and proceeded to prepare for class. Other students trickled in until all of the seats were filled, and then Mr. Arthur began his lecture.

"If you're here to be famous, get out." He took a wide stance, his polished black shoes over two feet apart, and rubbed his scruffy chin, laying his eyes on every last student. "Well, if you insist on being a lying bunch, or if you're afraid, go to admissions and change your major. Don't you bloody dare come back."

When Mr. Arthur's penetrating gaze reached my cold stare, I felt my mouth twitch up into a half-smirk. His face mimicked mine, as if we shared some kind of inside joke, and held onto my stare for a moment longer than appropriate before moving on. Something switched on in my chest, and oh God, if I had known where it would take me I would have walked right out of that classroom.

"Everyone stand up and get in a circle, you all know the drill," he clapped, and the sound of chairs scraping against the floor filled the room for a moment before the class stood in an awkward oval. "You're never above a good improv. Professionals can turn improv into a TV show. It's called Saturday Night Live.

"Lesson one: remember this, because I am not in the habit of repeating myself. Don't act. Acting is faking. Become." He fell to his knees and cried at the drop of a hat. "Don't pretend. Feel." He stood and reached for the nearest young woman, gripping the collar of her coat and stared so lovingly into her eyes you would have thought she was his wife or daughter. He turned and beamed at a young man, and brought him into an embrace. He didn't have to say a word and we knew that was his best friend he hadn't seen in years. Next, he turned to me with all the fury and grace of a king and put his hand, his palm warm but his fingers cold, on my neck. "Become. Now, sit back down."

To be entirely honest, for the first time in my life I drank in every single word someone had to say, and that person was Mr. Arthur. The feeling of admiration dominated me when I looked at him, and it wasn't a feeling that made me comfortable. Until a classmate tapped my shoulder, I didn't realize our professor stopped talking and I stared blankly at the blackboard on the wall.

"Do you stay late as well as arrive early?" Mr. Arthur asked, vigorously erasing the chalk marks. When I didn't answer, he paused his erasing and looked at me. He set the eraser down, folded his arms and his look became calculating; measuring and weighing me, deducing my thoughts and determining my worth. "You know, you are the first student to look back at me with defiance when I reached for your throat. The rest shied away. What did you see me as?" This time I swallowed and stood so he didn't tower over me. He still stood nearly six inches taller than me in my heels.

"A very, very angry king, betrayed by his queen. He wanted to kill her," I answered truthfully, remembering every nanosecond of that incredibly short act. Mr. Arthur--no, Mr. Arthur tasted strange on my tongue, John--broke into a wide smile and laughed before gripping me in a half-hug. My inner hormonal teenager could see why theater buffs around the world described him as one of the most attractive men alive. My mind, however, saw it only as a distraction.

"It's quite unprofessional, but I play favorites, Miss Cross," he informed me, walking me out of the classroom, down the hallway and out of the double doors into the cold night. John reached into my coat pocket, procured my pack of cigarettes and plucked two of them out. Just like Raine, he put them both between his lips and lit them with my lighter before handing one to me. "I hope you enjoy being teacher's pet."

"Do I have much of a choice in the matter, Mr. Arthur?" I buttoned up my jacket and took a long drag and blew out the smoke slowly. "You can call me Viviana. Or Viv. Or Vivi, Raine favors that one."

"Alright then, Vivi," he teased. "You can call me John. Not in class, you understand, but we are hardly in a classroom."

"Alright, John."