by Dani Jansen
Becca let out a noise then. It sounded like someone choking. I looked up at her to make sure she was okay. Her shoulders were shaking, her curls bouncing. She was laughing! Becca’s half-silent laughter seemed to unfreeze Annie, who laughed so hard she held her stomach, tears streaming down her face. The more one of them tried to hold back the laughter, the harder the other laughed. Soon they were both leaning on the desk, panting and wheezing.
“Oh, god.” Becca finally gasped. “That explains so much.”
Annie was digging around in her bag for a tissue to clean up her smudged eye makeup. She looked like a gleeful raccoon.
“I’m glad you think someone coming out is so funny,” I said.
“Al, you know that’s not what’s funny. It’s just…Ben! The boob inspector! The boy obsessed with lesbians!” She was laughing again, which set Annie off.
I rested my head on the desk. This was why I didn’t want to make a big coming out announcement. What if someone I barely knew thought my being gay was hysterical?
When their second bout of laughter died down, Becca poked me in the back with a finger. “Come on, Al. This is Ben we’re talking about.”
“Yeah. I know.” How could I explain it to her? I raised my head from the desk but remained slouched. I whispered, “But what if people laughed when they saw me holding Charlotte’s hand?”
“No one laughed.” When I didn’t respond, Becca repeated herself, drawing out each word. “No. One. Laughed. You two were too cute together. It was adorably disgusting.” I plopped my head on the table again and groaned. I could hear Becca shifting behind me. Then I felt someone pat my back twice. The taps were so fast (and intense) that I wondered if Becca thought I was choking. But no. This was as close to providing physical comfort as my best friend got. Her feeble attempt was weirdly touching. I looked up in time to catch Becca motioning at Annie to do something.
Annie stuffed a blackened tissue in her front pocket. There was just enough of her runny eyeliner and mascara left to make her blue eyes more piercing than usual. “Al, did you two break up? I mean, you seem miserable and I haven’t seen you together lately. Did she dump you?”
Of course, my sister would assume Charlotte broke up with me. She was too cool for me in the first place. I gritted my teeth. “No. She did not dump me. But yes, we broke up, okay?”
“That’s stupid.” Nothing like a little sister to give it to you straight. Becca was shaking her head at Annie, but Annie ignored her.
“It wasn’t stupid. It was the smart thing to do. I was too distracted when I was with her.” I stood up, signaling to Annie that the conversation was over. She did not take the hint.
Annie looked from me to Becca and back again. Her mouth gaped open. “Wait. Are you saying you’ve been a sad sack for days because you thought the smart thing to do was to break up with Charlotte?”
I looked to Becca for help, but instead she said, “You couldn’t have found a way to be with Charlotte and get your work done?”
They were ganging up on me. I was tired of having to explain myself to other people. I slammed my open palm on the desk. Annie stepped back, and even Becca flinched. “Not if I wanted to be valedictorian!”
Annie recovered herself and took two steps toward me. “Why does being valedictorian matter so much to you anyway?”
I was still angry, so I hissed at her, “Because being valedictorian means that hard work pays off! Maybe high school isn’t so easy for all of us. Maybe some of us need to believe there’s something better waiting after high school is finished.” I felt myself deflating, the tension in my shoulders easing as I told the truth to both my sister and myself.
“You know no one likes high school, right?” Annie asked.
For once, I was the one to roll my eyes.
“Seriously. Some of us have a bit more fun than you. Probably all of us.” She grinned, and I tried to smile at the joke, but my face felt frozen. “That doesn’t mean high school is easy. Try being the younger sister of a school legend. There’s no living up to that.”
“Try sitting through years of science classes learning things you already know,” Becca chimed in.
I wanted to believe them, but wasn’t Charlotte proof that high school was easy for some people? That some people already had it all figured out? But high school had been torture for cocky Ben, so who knew what was going on with just about anyone?
“It’s too late,” I told them.
“You’re giving up?” Annie was incredulous. “You’re the most stubborn person I know. You won’t even give up on this stupid play!”
I let Annie have the front seat on the drive home. I had a lot to think about.
CHAPTER 40
We somehow limped our way toward opening night.
The tech rehearsal was hamstrung when the vice principal informed us, ten minutes before starting, that we wouldn’t be able to erect the full set because the caf was being used for a school assembly the next day. Our promises to strike any large set pieces at the end of the rehearsal did us no good. Mr. Patel, used to dealing with argumentative and recalcitrant students, firmly told us, “I can’t stay to make sure that happens, so you’ll just have to make do.” Becca mumbled a few choice words at his retreating back, but I was too busy trying to decide how to run a tech rehearsal without major set pieces to give the petty bureaucrat a second thought.
As it turned out, we needed every minute of the tech rehearsal just to run through lighting and sound cues. With Mr. Evans now part of the cast, I was left to take notes, call the cues, and puzzle over the lighting board with our novice lighting tech, Sam. I remembered Mr. Evans’s original lighting plan and felt grateful for our slashed budget. Sam couldn’t seem to keep track of what fader controlled which set of lights, even though he was working with a grand total of six faders. I’d originally asked Becca to help him out, but when I caught her miming strangling him behind his back, I thought it was best if I called the rest of the show from the lighting booth (i.e., a corner of the caf blocked off to students). We eventually decided to label each fader with a bit of masking tape. At first I wrote upstage and downstage, but this system confused Sam, who might have been stoned given the pungent smell emanating from his long, greasy, surfer hair. So we settled on “close” and “far” for the labels. Things went marginally better after that. The actors got used to waiting a beat for the lights to come on before starting a scene.
As a director, Mr. Evans was unrealistic, dramatic, and relentlessly positive. As an actor, he was all those things, but also hyper-focused on his performance. He didn’t seem to notice any of the technical problems, even when essential props didn’t make it onstage on time. When I asked Annie why the props were showing up late or on the wrong side of the stage, she grumbled, “Because actors are stupid.” I couldn’t argue, given that many of them were still confused by the concept of a cue-to-cue rehearsal. They kept saying all their lines, even after I shouted repeatedly that we were moving on to the next cue. I asked Annie to throw the props at the actors if need be. She smiled in a way that made me worry for the actors.
By the time the tech rehearsal was over, I felt like a kindergarten teacher at the end of a long day. I craved silence and a stiff drink, but the crew and most of the cast members crowded around me, all demanding attention like grubby little kids who didn’t know how to tie their own shoes. I sent the cast off for their last costume fittings as I tried my best to answer the crew’s questions. I was able to help most of them, but a few stomped off, cranky that the best I could say was, “We’ll figure it out at the dress rehearsal tomorrow.” Jenny was the brattiest, unable or unwilling to understand that many of her painted pieces hadn’t made it on today because of the VP’s last-minute decree. To keep from snapping at her, I held my breath and counted to ten in my head. She pouted, but eventually left me alone.
The only good thing to come out of the tech run was watching
Ben and Zach make tentative eye contact as they discussed Ben’s costume. They still stood an awkward distance apart, but eye contact was progress. Charlotte wouldn’t even look my way. Or maybe she snuck looks at me. I couldn’t be sure since I couldn’t chance looking at her for more than a few seconds at a time. In case she was sneaking peeks, I checked my ponytail a few times to make sure that my hair didn’t reflect my harassed-kindergarten-teacher vibe.
One by one, the actors and most of the crew headed out. I bundled the last of my unruly kindergartners out the door when the cleaning crew started grumbling about overtime. I figured the VP wouldn’t appreciate us costing the school any extra money. Plus, Annie and Becca had been waiting for me for almost half an hour at that point.
At the dress rehearsal the next day, Ben’s hair wasn’t at full-gel capacity, but it was obvious he’d put some kind of product in, so it looked artfully mussed rather than limp. Another sign of improvement, I supposed. I took comfort in Ben’s hair progress as I prepared for the onslaught of questions and glitches. The highlights:
It turned out that many of the platforms were too heavy for our delicate little fairies to carry on- and offstage as originally planned. Mr. McArthur had made them a little too sturdy for our purposes, a problem I probably should have seen coming. Solution? The heavier platforms had to remain onstage for the duration of the show, even though this meant that the actors had to improvise new blocking. For the mid-sized platforms, Annie and Becca became running crew. I was a bit nervous about this, given that they liked to stage impromptu mime and dance performances while repositioning the boxes, but what choice did I have?
Budget cuts had forced Annie to cobble together some ramshackle props. Midway through the dress rehearsal, many of the smaller props, constructed from cardboard, Elmer’s glue, and wishful thinking, were falling apart. Solution? Duct tape, leftover paint, begging actors to be gentle with their props, and yet more wishful thinking. At least the electric blue ukulele looked great, especially under the stage lights.
Some of the actors complained about shoes that didn’t fit. Solution? Zach and I raided the washrooms for brown paper towel. When stuffed into the toes of too-big shoes, they kept the shoes from flopping off. For the too-small shoes, Zach told the actors to “suck it up.” There was something so charming, and just a little intimidating, about him that the actors accepted his decree. It was too late now, but I wished I’d let Zach deal with the theater mafia.
At the top of Act 4, a custodian wandered onstage with a mop. Mr. Evans, old pro that he was, pretended the man was just another of the fairies: “Good monsieur, our bower needs no cleaning. Go forth and pick us some flowers!” The custodian stared at him blankly and said, “Huh?” Solution? After a few more attempts at staying in character, even Mr. Evans could see the custodian wasn’t going to take the hint. Finally, driven to frustration, Mr. Evans shouted, “The cafetorium is booked for our dress rehearsal until seven o’clock! You can mop up after we’re finished.” The custodian left in a snit while the cast tried to hide their laughs behind their hands and Mr. Evans straightened his ass head.
We had planned to run the show without stopping at least twice. We didn’t manage to run it even once without stopping. At seven o’clock, the custodian returned with backup, our friendly neighborhood VP. We were kicked out.
Mr. Evans shouted that we’d go over notes at call the next night. No time for a pep talk tonight. Even the usually giddy bit-part actors seemed to droop as they left school. I watched as slump-shouldered teens piled into waiting cars, greeted by the worried faces of parents. Everyone moved sluggishly, even Becca, who seemed to be having trouble unlocking Harvey. As I waited for her to get the door-pushing-key-turning combination just right, I spotted our lighting tech, Sam, sneaking around a corner of the school. If he was going to get stoned, I couldn’t blame him. I heard the driver’s-side door click open, and just as Becca leaned over to unlock my door, I looked up to see a miracle in the making: Zach and Ben were kissing—in public!
If you’d told me a few months earlier that I’d soon be grinning because I’d seen Ben Weber kissing someone, I would have called you a liar and laughed in your face. Yet all the way home, I could not stop smiling. Maybe some of it was selfish. If Zach and Ben could reconcile, maybe Charlotte and I could work things out. But some of it was just pleasure at seeing other human beings so happy. More than the kiss, I kept remembering how their fingers had been intertwined. The image was enough to carry me through a night of triaging problems from “most likely to stop show in its tracks” to “will probably only lead to mild hysteria in the audience.”
CHAPTER 41
Theater people say that a terrible dress rehearsal means a good opening night. The cast kept telling each other (and me) this as they passed each other in the hall during the school day. It became their mantra. I couldn’t begrudge them whatever small comfort they could find.
I was calculating how many problems we might be able to fix before the curtains rose when Becca plopped her tray of food across from me in the caf and announced, “The Otters made it to the semifinals.”
I stopped picking at my food. It’s not like I was hungry anyway. “That’s nice?” I had no idea why Becca was telling me this.
“It’s a goddamn miracle is what it is,” Becca said, folding back the spout on her chocolate milk carton. Becca only bought chocolate milk when she was studying for a big test, when Harvey needed major repairs, or when she was celebrating.
I put down my fork. “Wait. Did they win any games this season?”
“They tied two and won one last week through a technicality.” Becca took a gulp of milk, licking the chocolate residue from her top lip.
“And that was enough for them to make it to the semifinals?” Even to someone who didn’t care about sports, this didn’t make any sense.
“One of the top teams got disqualified over some cheating scandal. I heard they got hold of a math exam ahead of time and made copies.” Becca took another swig. “And then yesterday, another school had to drop out because half the team came down with mono. So now the Otters are in the semifinals.”
“Oh. That’s cool.” I didn’t care, but I knew Annie and most of the rest of the school would be psyched to see the Otters take their own violent brand of basketball to a big game.
“The semifinal game is tonight.” Becca waited a beat. “The same night the show is opening.”
The Otters were about to play a semifinal game for the first time in the school’s history. Nearly every student, teacher, and parent would want to be there to cheer on and/or mock our team. That meant most of our potential audience had just disappeared.
I beamed. “That’s great news!” Becca nodded, proud that I’d caught on. “The only people in the audience tonight will be cast parents and a few super supportive friends! Fewer people to witness the disaster.”
“Exactly.” She raised her milk carton in a mock toast and then finished it off.
We laughed, and I even initiated a high five. Becca was excited enough to humor me, slapping my hand so hard I rubbed it afterward.
That celebratory mood stayed with me through my afternoon classes. It got me through telling Annie that she couldn’t skip opening night, even if it meant missing out on a historic day for our school. She glared and pursed her lips at me, but she must have known all along that she couldn’t miss opening night, because she didn’t put up much of a fight.
At call, everyone was buzzing about the big news. Most of the cast seemed disappointed that their opening night would be quiet, but I noticed that Jack, Charlotte, and the crew remained silent during the general complaining. I suspected they also saw the advantage of a supportive audience for our opening night. Mr. Evans reassured the group. “The size of the audience isn’t what matters. Even if we were playing to just one person, it would be our duty to entertain and dazzle that person. The show must go on!”
&
nbsp; And on the show went.
The audience trickled in. I insisted that our ushers, a pair of slackers who were being forced to “volunteer” with us in lieu of serving detention, seat everyone in the front. Our audience filled only three rows. It was a beautiful sight.
I checked in with my crew. Sam was reading over his lighting cues, Zach was pinning together a tutu that had fallen apart during the dress rehearsal, and Jenny was fussing over the backdrop, three different paintbrushes in hand. They all looked busy, so I didn’t interrupt them. Annie was taping together a wreath with green duct tape while Becca was adjusting a few of the platforms. Annie and Becca were both dressed in black. I hoped this would mean their convulsive dance breaks would be less noticeable to the audience.
I snuck into the green room, gluing my back to the wall so I wouldn’t be pulled into any weird prayer circle. The room buzzed with chatter and energy. The stage makeup gave the actors a cartoonish look. They were all feverish eyes and rosy cheeks. It was a bit like seeing people from your real life show up in a demented dream.
Mr. Evans called the group into a circle and asked everyone to hold hands. “We need to get centered. I want you all to close your eyes and take deep breaths with me.” Despite the noise of just a minute before, the room went quiet eerily fast. I watched their faces be transformed by seriousness and concentration. I felt a wave of affection for these clueless weirdos who were about to make fools of themselves in a very public way. Sure, the show would reflect on me, but I didn’t have to face the audience directly. These people were about to take the stage. I wanted to shield them from what was to come. That protective feeling extended especially to Charlotte, whose face looked both paler and more beautiful than ever. My heart ached to think that the audience might not appreciate how regal she was. I snuck out before any of the actors could see me and went to take my place in the lighting booth.