Chapter 138: famous for three minutes

Chapter 138 — Famous for Three Minutes

Roxanne woke to the sound of Isla wheezing with laughter into her pillow.

"What?" she mumbled.

"Nothing. Everything. Look." Isla held up her phone. On the screen, a slightly grainy Roxanne stood under warm lights with a microphone, saying that the most dangerous thing at Moonstone Academy was an audience with free time. Beneath it, a tide of comments was scrolling past.

"The organisers posted clips," Isla said. "Yours is the most watched. People are quoting you in the academy group chat. Someone’s made it into a motto."

Roxanne sat up very slowly. "I was on that stage for three minutes."

"Three unforgettable minutes."

"I’m deleting the academy."

"You’ll need to submit a formal request."

Roxanne seized a pillow and hurled it. It struck Isla squarely in the face, which only made the wheezing worse.

The hallway treatment began before the first bell. Two second-years passed her near the staircase, and one of them murmured the line about the microphone in a deep, dramatic voice while the other nodded solemnly, as though quoting scripture. A boy she had never spoken to greeted her as Miss Three Minutes and asked whether she planned to perform again.

"My next performance will be an interpretive dance," Roxanne said, "about the dangers of public attention."

They roared, and moved on. She walked a few steps before she realised nobody was mocking her. They were amused, that was all, in the way people are amused by a good line at breakfast. The attention was not the cold, weighing kind she had learned to dread. It was lighter, and passed through her like a breeze.

She still disliked it when a girl on the landing stopped her and said, "Are you always this funny?" as though three minutes on a stage had given her a window into Roxanne’s soul.

"Absolutely not," Roxanne said. "Sometimes I’m asleep."

The girl laughed. Roxanne continued to class.

Liam found her at lunch. He had clearly been saving it. He swept up to the table, dropped to one knee beside her chair, and clasped his hands under his chin.

"Miss Silver. I have heard that you are now accepting invitations to private events."

"I charge double for appearances involving you."

"That is discrimination."

"It’s a special fee for difficult clients."

"I deserve a place in your next performance."

"The academy already has enough public nuisances."

He pressed a hand to his heart and swayed, but when the laughter had died down, he lowered his voice. "Would you actually consider doing it again?"

She thought about it honestly. "I might. If I wanted to. Not because people expected it."

He nodded once. He did not dare her, or wager, or demand that she prove anything. "Fair," he said, and stole a roll from her tray.

After her last lesson of the day, a younger student stopped her in the corridor, a small girl with ink on her fingers and her bag clutched to her chest like a shield.

"I wanted to say something," she said in a rush. "I was nervous about joining the drama club. I hate speaking in front of people. But I saw you go up there, and you weren’t even doing an act, and you were just standing there being a person, and I thought, maybe I could try."

Roxanne was caught completely off guard. It had not occurred to her that anyone would carry something away from those three minutes besides a joke.

"I was nervous too," she said. "Helping the host was easier than standing there trying to be impressive. I just did the next small thing."

"Is that all it takes?"

"Maybe start with something small. You don’t have to become fearless before you try."

The girl nodded fiercely, thanked her twice, and hurried off. Roxanne stood in the emptying corridor and understood something new. Being seen was not always the same as being judged. Sometimes a person looked at you and found a little courage for themselves.

That afternoon she took refuge in the library, in the long back room where the radiators ticked and the light fell in slanted bars across the tables. She had settled with a book when a familiar shadow fell across the page.

"The joke was good," Roshan said.

She narrowed her eyes. "That’s all?"

"Were you expecting a speech?"

"From Liam, yes. From you, perhaps a detailed analysis."

"I can provide one if you insist."

She laughed, and he smiled, and she held up a hand. "Don’t ruin the compliment."

He sat down opposite her without being asked, and set his own book on the table. "Has the attention bothered you?"

"It’s strange. But manageable." She turned a page she had not read. "What I dislike is people deciding that one funny moment is my whole personality."

"A person is rarely what they are in their best three minutes," Roshan said. "Or their worst." He considered her for a moment. "You don’t owe anyone a repeat performance because they enjoyed the first."

"That’s very sensible."

"I did warn you about the analysis."

He did not turn it into more than it was. He opened his book and read, and she read, and the radiators ticked, and it was the most restful half hour of her week.

That evening, her phone buzzed with a message from the drama club. It mentioned her open-mic appearance warmly, and invited her to an informal workshop. No performance was required, it said, twice.

"Go," Isla said, from her bed.

"Try something harder," Tessa said, from the floor, upside down against the wall. "A monologue. A duel."

"It says no performance."

"That’s what they say before the duel."

Roxanne held the phone in both hands. A few weeks ago she might have refused simply because she didn’t want anyone expecting anything of her. She saw now that refusing out of fear would be as limiting as agreeing out of pressure. They were the same cage with different bars.

She typed a reply. I’ll attend the workshop, but I’m not promising to perform.

The answer came almost at once. Wonderful! No pressure at all.

She was about to put the phone away when a second message appeared from the drama club coordinator.

Great! We’re doing improvisation exercises. You’ll be paired with one of the Moonstone brothers who also signed up.

Roxanne stared at the screen.

She had agreed to attend a workshop. She had not agreed to be thrown into an improvisation exercise with a prince.