Mint and apricots

49. Dear Sam

This chapter is the fuse for the dynamite that we will have in the next one. I wanted to give you the bomb with number 49, but as usual my prolixity fooled me. We are just a stone's throw away, though, and things take a real turn in this chapter.

I hope you like this.

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Sam reached his seat next to Luc just in time. A few seconds later, the lights of the theater went out and darkness fell along with an expectant silence.

Sam was almost out of breath because of the run he had taken and the way he had left Gabriel there, after kissing him once again, knowing he didn't agree with his position, but Luc didn't even seem to notice, busy as he was ignoring the voice reminding the audience to turn off their phones. It was a matter of less than a minute, then a female voice started to sing, the show began and Sam's attention was drawn to the illuminated stage.

At least for the first twenty minutes there was no sign of Gabriel, but that did not stop Sam from getting passionate about the portrayed story. As a matter of fact, he immediately immersed himself in it, like in one of the books in which he used to drown in the heat of summer afternoons as a child, when it was so easy to get lost in alternative worlds. Unlike Luc, who loved almost only detective movies with a high percentage of shootings and violent political talk shows, Sam did not mind the rampant joy of comedies and musicals. But the Scrumptious Blue Bottles Company's show was more than just a mere occasion to laugh.

Sam immediately fell in love with the character of Jenna, the waitress and protagonist of the story, who was played by a girl with long ash blonde hair – one of the friends with whom Gabriel was laughing in the dressing room, just a moment earlier. Both because she resembled Gabe for the passion with which she baked the most ingenious cakes and because she reminded Sam of himself.

Or rather, the abusive relationship that trapped her under the yoke of her husband Earl reminded him in a disturbing way of the dynamics that he himself lived in the company of Luc. Soon, as a result, Sam began to harbor for Earl's character the same hatred that seemed to emanate from the rest of the audience, with the only tremendous difference that Sam was able to recognize that degree of possessiveness, those falsely gentle acts alternating with violence. He knew what it felt like to have the hands of such a man on himself, what it felt like when they beat one's face or body and then got closer and closer with that sick craving that now made a dreadful nausea rise up in Sam's throat.

When Gabriel finally appeared on the scene, he was like a breath of fresh air. Gabriel hadn't lied – he had been assigned the role of Jenna's gynecologist – and Sam found out he had been right: that man had a natural talent, both for acting and singing. Sam couldn't stop smiling even for a moment as he watched him play perfectly the clumsy and nervous character of Dr. Jim Pomatter, who gradually evolved into an attentive, passionate and adorable lover for Jenna – much to the satisfaction of whoever was rooting for Earl's defeat.

Sam didn't know if he thought it just because it was the first time he could see him act and he wasn't therefore used to his ability to study and adapt to a character, but Gabriel looked like he was born to play that role. His chameleon-like nature made him skillfully move from moments of seriousness to those in which he made the whole audience laugh, from those in which Dr. Pomatter seemed an awkward kid to those in which he turned into Jenna's forbidden dream.

And when he started singing. Oh, when he started singing.

Gabriel's character only had three songs, but they were more than enough to make Sam feel like that play could have become his all-time favorite. The first song was the character's journey into his past as a cake-loving child. The second, an unfortunate attempt by Jenna and the doctor to avoid escalating their extra-marital relationship, an attempt that culminated in hot rendezvous in the gynecologist's office and that forced Sam to bite his lips several times – he had just discovered that he was not indifferent to the representations of Gabe intent on seducing someone, it did not matter that it was fiction and that the body pressed against his was not Sam's.