Act VI: Lucy Does Improv
Lucy woke with her head pounding, too drained to think of correcting the report. She called in sick, surrender in her voice as she phoned Park.
“Park, I messed up. Could you… help me? I really don’t feel well today.”
“The report, right? Don’t worry,” Park said, his voice softer than she expected. “Rest. I’ll fix it.”
For the first time, Lucy felt he wasn’t an enemy. Not quite a friend either—not the shallow kind she’d known in school—but something more complicated, belonging to the adult world.
A laugh escaped her, brittle but real. Her world was ruined already. So why not break the last rule, the one she had always tiptoed around?
She turned her face into the pillow and whispered, almost daring herself: I want to find Bella.
Bella’s Profile
She reopened Bella’s Instagram, the account she had once muted. The girl she had once wanted to become.
But the Bella she remembered had been wiped away.
No gym selfies. No cocktail dresses. The white-shirt photo—gone without a trace. In their place stretched a suffocating feed of family moments: children smeared with cake, Bella in sweatpants with hollow eyes, a man’s arm draped around her shoulder in photo after photo.
Lucy scrolled faster, frantic, as though somewhere the old Bella might still be hiding. But every swipe only deepened the horror. It was as if someone had reached into her past and scrubbed it clean, leaving nothing but this weary mother, this stranger.
She stopped at the wedding portrait. Bella stood beside a man whose face was so plain it felt unreal, like a placeholder left unfinished. And Bella’s smile—gentle, tired, compliant—was almost unrecognisable. The silver fire was gone.
Lucy’s breath grew shallow. For an instant she wondered if she had dreamed it all: the earrings, the rebellion, the wild girl who made her heart race. What if Bella had never been there? What if Lucy had conjured her out of need, out of madness?
“Who the hell are you?” she whispered—but the words trembled, as if spoken not to Bella, but to herself.
Her reflection in the black glass of her phone startled her: older, worn, haunted. She slammed the app shut, heart hammering, terrified not only that Bella was gone— but that she might never have existed.
Joseph’s Profile
With unease still in her chest, Lucy searched for Joseph.
His page burst alive with videos. He was now a content creator—pitching loans, insurance, investment schemes—his voice fast and bright, his grin wide as a salesman’s mask. Between pitches, he flexed shirtless, laughter ringing hollow yet perfectly timed. Every word, every pause, every smirk landed with the precision of someone who had long ago turned improv into business.
The likes and comments towered in the thousands. Joseph gleamed, younger than ever, sharper, polished until he seemed less a man than a brand.
Lucy scrolled deeper, her pulse quickening. Unlike Bella, Joseph hadn’t erased the past. The old photos were still there: the stray cat, the city streets, the “Bachelor of Finance” suit and tie, the group shot of the Improv Club. They sat beside his new reels without apology, as if they had always been part of the same story.
Her breath caught. She remembered the circle, the laughter, the boyish warmth she once thought she saw in him. But looking now, the warmth felt staged, his grin already edged with calculation. Had Joseph ever been that boy? Or had she simply projected it, desperate to believe she wasn’t alone?
In the group photo, Bella still shone, hair streaked with rebellion, silver earrings glinting like tiny sparks. But Joseph’s arm around her shoulder looked different now—firm, possessive, already certain of the man he would become.
Lucy’s stomach turned. Bella had vanished into domesticity, but Joseph remained—intact, whole, unashamed. Perhaps he had never changed at all. Perhaps she had simply failed to see him for what he was.
Her thumb hovered, trembling, over the screen. She could not message him. She could not even look at him. What she longed for was something else, something she had buried for years: Catherine's class.
Catherine’s Class
She searched desperately online. No Instagram, but a faint address surfaced—a small studio. Heart pounding, Lucy dressed in her old workout clothes, as if her body remembered before her mind could decide, and took a taxi there.
The studio was real. And inside—Catherine.
Her hair was white now, but her posture straight, her eyes sharp. She was teaching children, little ones in animal costumes, their voices bright and eager.
“Catherine!” Lucy blurted.
Catherine froze, then broke into recognition. “Lucy, isn’t it?”
Lucy was stunned—her teacher remembered.
At the break, she approached. “Do you still teach improv? It seems this class is for children now.”
“Not many adults come anymore,” Catherine said gently. “The economy is harsh, companies demand more. Grown-ups don’t have time. But for immigrant children, drama helps them learn English. This is what I teach nowadays.”
A shadow crossed Lucy’s face.
“But you can join us,” Catherine added, eyes twinkling. “We’re short one helper. Would you play Boots?”
Lucy’s lips trembled. “…Dora the Explorer?”
Catherine smiled. “Exactly.”
Dora the Explorer
The room filled with children, tiny animals skipping, giggling. Lucy slipped into the monkey costume, ridiculous yet strangely comforting.
“Today,” Catherine announced, “we play Dora Plays the Doctor!”
The girl playing Dora skipped forward, twin braids bouncing, a toy stethoscope swinging from her neck. She pressed it against Lucy’s leg. “Is Boots’s heart here?” she asked the class.
“Nooo!” the little animals chorused.
She pressed it to Lucy’s arm. “Is Boots’s heart here?”
The touch jolted Lucy—sudden, electric. She remembered Bella’s hand years ago, guiding her into motion.
Her eyes blurred.
Then Dora pressed it to her chest. “Is Boots’s heart here?”
Lucy’s breath broke. Tears welled. She seized the child’s hand, dragging the stethoscope to her heart. “It’s here! My heart is here! Do you hear it? Can you feel it?! ”
The girl blinked, startled but kind. “Yes. I can hear it.”
“Is Boots’s heart here?” the girl asked the others in her shaking voice.
“Yes!” the little animals shouted. “That’s Boots’s heart!”
Lucy saw Catherine at the edge of her vision, rising, as if to stop the scene—but then she paused, and let it unfold.
A boy in a fox costume, meant to play Swiper, piped up. But instead of slyness he said earnestly, “Don’t worry, Boots. Dora is a doctor. She’ll heal you.”
Lucy could no longer hold back. She pulled Dora and Swiper into her arms, sobbing, laughing.
Children crowd around her, arms wrapping her like a tide. Lucy, tears streaking her face, clutches the stethoscope against her chest. She looks down at the girl playing Dora, then—slowly—she raises her head, her voice trembling but gathering strength.
Lucy (as Boots, but also as herself): "My heart… it’s here. You can hear it, can’t you? It beats. It beats because it's real. It's sincere and curious, like fire."
At the edge, Catherine watches, her eyes wet, her smile proud.
The lights dim. Lucy stands in the middle of the circle, chest heaving, tears shining, as if the stage itself had opened to her heart—hers to inhabit, even in silence, even without applause.