Lucius Bucero dared not to blink lest he'd miss a beat.
His eyes were glued to the proscenium. Before the elaborate three stories marble skene, Aida took a bow at the audience and began to sing. Trussed up in a gown trimmed with pearls, she had transformed into Lady Butterfly. Her hair was backcombed to a gleaming bouffant bedewed with sequins. It took him a while to recognize her, but he recognized her at last, the girl whose freckles clustered and fluttered like a butterfly's wings when she smiled under all the glitters. She was singing at the interludes in what was allegedly the play of the year about some moonlight tryst, which Bucero cared little about. He came for the interludes with Dracus and a clay pot of orchids. Her dulcet voice prickled his spine. His brows quivered.
Friends cheering,
Laughter brimming,
Silvers clanging
In chorus in which I smiled on key
From a nook where I snuck a peep
At you like a slice of an onion
From the bottom of a dish
If only you would slice my heart like an onion
You'd find my secret and shed a tear
You'd find that you're my secret
If only your eyes could fall on me for a heartbeat.
A round of applause undulated the air across the amphitheater.
"Alright," said Bucero to Dracus without taking his eyes off the proscenium. "I'm going to see her backstage now. Meet you after the play?"
The boy snorted with a chuckle and waggled his wrist.
Bucero sprung to his feet, his arm clasping around the pot of orchids. Laden with lilac blossoms, the long stems arched over his head and jiggled in the sun-besotted zephyr. He squinted at the sun pouring into the cloister. A broad grin tugged at his cheeks. Fearing he might have looked like a twerp, he shut his mouth, his lips pursing it to a slit.
Backstage where thespians in tawdry outfits shifted past like gales of wind, he found Aida gazing out at the audience on the front row seats from behind those heavy red drapes. He looked to where her eyes fell: a dashing young man whose glossy blond curls framed a lozenge face. He dropped his head backward and laughed, baring his white teeth. His eyes were the color of honey stirred in hot tea, his arm drooping the shoulders of the woman sitting beside him.
Bucero turned his eyes to her.
Sporting a laurel wreath of gold, she had her chestnut-colored hair plaited under a thin palla of dyed silk. Her satiny stola was sewn with ornamental stripes of turquoise. Short, petal-like sleeves clasped to the stola revealed her plump arms, ringed with a jeweled bracelet.
Of highborn, she knew her power over the young man sniffing up her scent like a dog.
Bucero reflected. Withdrawing his eyes, he nudged toward Aida. "Hey." He tickled her cheek with a branch of the orchids.
Jumping to her feet, she jolted around. "Bucero?" wide-eyed and startled, she fluted. "What are you doing here?"
He stuttered while all the ingenious words he had rehearsed on the way over went out in a puff of smoke. "This?" he held out the pot of orchids. The proud lilac florets bobbed with defiant reluctance.
She chuckled, "You came all the way just to give me flowers?"
"Not just flowers. Orchids. Dracus said that—"
"Who?" Cutting him short, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him to a trestle vanity set against a fresco wall. "And how were you allowed in the city? Or how did you get in here?"
"Now, that's a real long story," Bucero shrugged, laughing with an awkward cackle as was his wont.
"Then make it short!"
"Well, remember the lad we met at the tavern the last time?"
A flash of recollection came to her eyes. Aida shook her head. "You aren't making it short, Bucero," she scolded. "Whatever it is with him, I don't care."
Puffing his cheeks for a sigh, Bucero rubbed his forehead. It felt greasier with all the sweat. "Take this first, alright?" He shoved the pot at her. "Just know this, I've passed the law exam, and I'm here to stay. Maybe we can catch up after you finish?"
Dumbfounded, she cocked her head as she took the pot from him in both arms. "I can't." She bit her underlip.
"Why not?"
"Because—" her voice trailed off. "Look, Bucero, I'm glad to see you again," she resumed, straining her face to a smile. "And congratulations on passing the exam! I'd love to catch up and all, but I have a job to do now." She glanced over her shoulder through the gap between the red drapes. The young man she was looking at had left his seat, leaving only his pneumatic lady friend, fanning herself with her pudgy hand.
"There she is!" A brisk voice sounded from behind.
Aida put the orchids on the vanity table and flounced around. "Drouet!"
The dashing young man she was looking at strode up to them and lifted her in the air. "You're truly a star!"
"You liked it? I wasn't sure how I did when you didn't come sooner. I thought you were pissed at me."
"How can I ever be pissed at you?" He put her down, cocking an eye at Bucero. "Have we met?"
"This is Lucius Bucero. He's a friend from home."
"A friend?"
"Hello," Bucero held out a hand.
The young man squinted as he clasped Bucero's hand. However slender, his fingers squeezed, and Bucero felt his grip. "Drouet Decimus Titus," he introduced himself, "I'm the playwright. I hope the play hasn't been so great a disappointment you have to sneak out already?" His voice, albeit lighthearted, was taut with an ego so fragile it might break at a raise of decibel.
"Not at all!" Bucero shook his head with force. "Everything has been beautiful! I love the song and the analogy. I mean, onion, who would have thought, eh? Not to mention Aida's singing. Her voice and the lyrics worked like mortise and tenon! Well, that's not a very good analogy. But anyway, I just want to say how perfect everything is!" He cackled more, scratching the back of his head. He stole a glance at the two.
Aida shied away, lowering her head to hide her smile that brought a smile on him, like the old times. But the playwright seemed disgruntled by the compliment. Wiggling a forearm as if to dismiss what he had to hear, he smirked. "Yes, yes, the song, everybody loves the song." He draped an arm around Bucero's shoulders while seeing him out. "Now, Act IV is about to start, Lucius, my friend. And, if I may, I'd like to propose that you return to your seat."
"But—" Bucero looked around at Aida, who only urged him on with a few quick nods. The door creaked open, and the sun poured in. Bucero took one last glance at her and followed her eyes that never fell too far from the bloody playwright. His heart plummeted.
On the way back along the same cloister, in the same air, under the same sun, he felt worlds apart. Where the autumn air had been crisp and sweet, it was now asphyxiating, and the light that awaited at the end of the corridor guttered out like a candle stub, whose smoke swirled to a dark pit. He curled his fingers, nails scraping his palms. Stricken with self-loathing, he turned negligent and nearly collided with the two men heading toward him.
"Oi, watch it!" cried the one in the back. "And walk on your side!"
Bucero put up both hands as he flicked his eyes at the voice: a young lad who couldn't be much older than Dracus was glaring at him. He gestured an apology at them both with a quick bow, then turned on his heel.
"Stop there!" not yet to let go, unfortunately, the lad squawked. "Aren't you gonna apologize?"
Bucero sighed, rolling his eyes. People seemed to find him an eyesore everywhere he went today. He swiveled back to the lad with his hands on hips. But the other man raised a forearm, his cleft chin tucking at the shoulder as he glanced over.
"Enough," he croaked.
"But I was just—"
"I said leave it!" He turned sideways, his profile cast in sunlight.
Bucero widened his eyes. It was him! The man who followed him and Moon Xeator on the first day of their arrival! A string of questions, old and new, regarding the man and his relationship with Moon Xeator, resounded like cracks of a whip by his feet. He looked to the cambered floor, upon which the shadows of the two men elongated as they proceeded away. Not knowing what to think, he slowly resumed, but each step he took felt as though wading in a marsh, where he saw the dry land he couldn't reach.
When he returned to the front row, Dracus was greeting a man.
"This is Lord Remus Scipio," the boy introduced.
Bucero made obeisance, his eyes on the floor, and only plopped in his seat after the lord took his leave.
"All good?" asked Dracus. "I thought we were meeting after this."
He only shrugged and leaned on an armrest. Hooding a palm over his lips, he stayed quiet for the rest of the play.