Summer Unscripted

by Jen Klein

  “I hope I don’t get the yolk one,” I whisper back, and immediately wish I hadn’t because Ella’s expression darkens.

  “How do you know about that?”

  I shake my head because Nikki—who apparently has bionic hearing—is shooting us a disapproving look.

  Six or seven more people—including Ella—are called before Nikki gets to me. When I step forward, it feels like Del stares at me for a very, very long time. Or maybe it’s just that I’m out of whack from stress and doing everything wrong and not understanding what anyone’s saying.

  After the delightful stepping-and-standing-and-staring portion of the day is over, we start “blocking scenes.” This means we all wait around, withering in the heat, while Del and Nikki confer endlessly before telling us where to stand and when to move.

  In the first scene of the play, my job is to mill about with all the other chorus members as we sing a song to set the stage (as it were) for our audience. When Nikki points me to a spot in front of one of the boulders, I’m surprised to find Milo beside me. “I thought you had a real part.”

  “Achilles doesn’t show up until the end,” Milo explains. “In theory, it’s a promotion. In practice, I’m a glorified actor-tech.”

  I’m oddly comforted by the thought that Milo will be around in the crowd scenes. “So you still might say your yolk thing?”

  “God, I hope not. I’m happy to stand in the back and sway in a line.”

  From what I can tell, we’ll all be doing a lot of that. I take a small step toward Milo. “Where are all the main characters?”

  Truthfully, I’m asking about Tuck, but Milo doesn’t need to know that. “Paris and Helen don’t show up for a little while, but Zeus is in the first scene. Kind of.”

  “What do you mean, ‘kind of’?” I know I’m new to theater, but common sense dictates that you’re either in or you’re out.

  “Little secret about Zeus.” Milo edges closer and brings his mouth near my ear. “He’s not really the star of the show.”

  I jerk back so I can stare at Milo. “But it’s called Zeus!”

  “You know the title, well done.” Milo grins at me. “And Zeus was the star when the show first started, when it was all about the mighty Olympian gods, but not anymore. He’s too old. The play has been rewritten a dozen times since the beginning.”

  “That makes no sense. Why don’t they just fire him and bring in someone new? Why bother rewriting the play?”

  “Because Hugh’s history with the theater is part of the draw. People love that he’s been doing the same role for a billion years, that they can say they saw the original….”

  He falls silent, and I follow his gaze to Del and Nikki. They’re looking toward the back of the stage. Waiting. Finally, Nikki opens her mouth. “Mr. Hadley?” she calls. “We’re ready for you.”

  A moment later, Hugh Hadley appears on the floating walkway that runs the length of the stage. “You ready for me?” he calls back to Nikki.

  “We’re ready for you,” she says again, and watches as Hugh Hadley (I’m having a difficult time calling him just “Hugh,” even to myself) slowly walks out. He stops in the middle of the walkway to look at the actress who is coming across the stage. She’s one of the college kids, and I think her name is Katrina.

  Milo bends slightly at the waist, speaking to me in the barest of whispers. “That character is Leda. During the show, she’ll do ballet. Watch, Zeus is about to fall in love with her.”

  Sure enough, Hugh Hadley sets his hand over his heart in a way that is just as dramatic as Milo’s delivery of the yolk line for me last night. Hugh—as Zeus—says one word: “Leda!” And then he shuffles off across the walkway.

  “Boom,” Milo whispers. “In love.”

  If only it were that easy.

  The day drags on and on, and I never find out my line because apparently I don’t speak during the first half of the show. However, Ella receives hers, which—just to double down on her annoyance with Milo, me, and life in general—is Milo’s yolk line from last year. “Are you kidding me?” she says under her breath when Nikki assigns it to her.

  “What was that?” Nikki calls across the stage.

  “Nothing!” Ella calls back.

  Nikki is a little bit scary.

  Ella’s line is in the second scene, after two giant, human-sized eggs crack open so that Helen and Pollux can be born. I nudge Milo. “Wait, are they chickens?” It’s a legitimate question—we’re not in costume yet, so anyone could be dressed as anything in the actual performance—but Milo bursts out laughing and has to stifle his amusement when Nikki’s head swings in his direction.

  “You really need to read the script,” he tells me. I flip through my pages but don’t see anything in the lines to explain why two of the main characters are being hatched. Milo points over my shoulder to a page of music. “Here. The chorus sings what’s happening.”

  I skim the lyrics—which I guess I’ll eventually have to memorize—and discover that Helen and Pollux are half mortals, half gods. Their mother is Leda—the ballet dancer from the first scene—and their father is, of course, Zeus himself. So Tuck’s girlfriend is not only his romantic lead but also a half goddess. In even worse news, the last line in the song—which I’ll be singing with everyone else—is about her beauty.

  Perfect.

  Specifically, the line is “She is the most beautiful woman on earth.”

  Then the actor-tech Paul steps forward and jerks a thumb toward Pollux. “He…is not.”

  Pollux—played by Logan, the Gators fan—slumps in fake dismay as the chorus proclaims that Helen will be given in matrimony to King Menelaus of Sparta. “Wait, what about me?” he says, ending the question with a squawk.

  I lean toward Milo so I can whisper: “He sounds like a chicken.”

  Milo grins but doesn’t answer. He points to Ella, who steps forward to deliver her—previously Milo’s—line. “The yolk’s on you, Pollux!”

  Her delivery is halfhearted at best, which earns her a beckoning from Del. As Ella sags and heads over to talk to him, Nikki calls for a twenty-minute break. People scatter, and I zero in on Tuck, who is sitting in the front row of the amphitheater, poking around on his phone. Gretchen is nowhere in sight, so I sit down next to him. “Must be nice, nothing until Scene Four.”

  “Maybe a little boring.” Tuck slides his phone away and turns to look at me. Out here in the direct sunlight, his sky-blue eyes are even bluer. “But it’s better now that you’re here. Do you like it?”

  I like you. Does that count?

  “It’s cool.”

  “You know what’s cool?” He gazes at me the same way he did during our high school’s assembly: like he’s looking into my soul. “You. Coming here was very cool of you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And brave.”

  So if there’s one thing Tuck and I have done, it’s perfect the art of the monosyllabic conversation. If only I understood what it meant…

  •••

  That night, Ella and I are in our apartment, alone. She’s standing by the living room wall, flipping through Annette’s restaurant calendar while I peruse the contents of the kitchen cabinets that have been designated as ours. We have to be back at the theater at eight tomorrow morning—an hour before the principals and supporting cast, by the way—which isn’t very far off. I’m not sure I want to use up any of that time making dinner. “Do you want to order pizza?” I ask Ella. She might be the fren-iest frenemy I’ve ever had, but I’m stuck living with her and I’m starving. I can put our differences aside for dinner.

  She doesn’t answer. She’s gazing at one of the photos—October, featuring a dude in overalls attaching spaghetti to the top of a jack-o’-lantern, like its hair. “Would you sleep with any of these guys?” she asks. “Look at this douchebag.” She flips to December, which has a photo of a young man poking his head out of a giant gift box. He’s wearing a red Christmas hat and holding a plate of what looks like f
ettuccine. “Who could take that seriously? Who could have sex with that?”

  Not me, that’s for sure. Of course, I’ve never had sex with anyone, so trying to picture doing it with a stranger from a weird pasta calendar is not within the capabilities of my imagination. Although I’d sort of like to do it before graduation, I’ve never been tempted. The closest I came was last year with a guy from the baseball team, but even that wasn’t that close.

  I wonder if Ella’s ever done it. I don’t remember noticing any serious boyfriends of hers over the past few years, but—to be fair—I don’t remember noticing much about her at all. Now, as I look at that weird calendar, an unbidden thought floats to my mind: Did she have sex with Milo?

  I shake it away. Although I want to know what happened between the two of them, I don’t want to ask about it now. Not when we’ve just been talking about sex.

  “Is Annette dating one of them?” I ask.

  “That’s what I’m wondering.” Ella flips back through the calendar. “She didn’t come home last night, and when I texted her this morning, she said she’d stayed at a friend’s house.”

  “Really?” I had been so concerned about getting to the theater early to maybe run into Tuck before rehearsal (which didn’t happen) that I didn’t even pay attention to Annette’s whereabouts. “You think it’s someone from work?”

  “She spends an awful lot of time partying with the restaurant people.”

  I look back at the calendar. “I hope it’s not the one in the box.”

  “Me too.” Abruptly, Ella drops the pages so that the calendar flips back to the present month. “How about macaroni and cheese? I’ll make it.”

  “Deal,” I tell her.

  •••

  The reason actor-technicians have to arrive at Olympus an hour earlier than everyone else is not a glamorous one. It’s our job to rake the stage. Actual rakes, which we use to rake the actual dirt—like we’re farmers—so when people come onstage barefoot, they won’t stub their toes on rocks or anything. The worst part is that while I’m lugging my rake around with Ella and Paul and everyone else, Tuck and Gretchen show up early to practice their lines. They’re sitting halfway up in the amphitheater seats as I’m working. I can’t hear what they say, but they’re starting their day with a clear view of my menial labor. When they’re not gazing into each other’s eyes, that is.

  Bleh.

  The rest of the cast and crew (aka everyone who’s not an actor-tech) arrive as Ella and I are returning our rakes to their place: a rustic wooden closet by the women’s dressing room. Milo—who is wearing a plain black T-shirt that makes his eyes look even darker than usual—waves as he walks by on the wooden deck.

  I would wave back, but Ella is with me, and it feels weird to be friendly with Milo in front of her. Except then she waves back at him, so maybe he was never waving at me in the first place.

  Before we start rehearsal, Nikki calls a girls-only meeting for performers (which, technically speaking, is what I am). We gather in a huddle beside the possibly fake boulders by the side of the stage, where Nikki informs us that tomorrow the makeup and costume departments want to do a test run of the act break. “It’ll be first thing in the morning,” she tells us. “As you know—”

  Uh…not me.

  “—that means being seen in all the glory God gave you.”

  Wait, what?!

  “So if you need any maintenance work”—Nikki raises her hand in a “stop” motion—“don’t tell me about it. Just do it. Or don’t. I don’t care. But do not think that we will waste time tomorrow morning while you pluck or shave or wax. Be here on time, wear your crummiest underwear, and be ready to get naked.”

  “Onstage?” The word comes out of my mouth before I think about stopping it. There’s a round of muffled giggles, and Ella throws an elbow into my ribs.

  “No.” Even Nikki smiles. “Not onstage. In the dressing room, you’ll all put on body paint together and shower it off. It needs to be fast, which is why costumes and makeup want to do a dry run. So, tomorrow: don’t be late. Everyone got it?”

  There’s a chorus of yeses and one panicked stare (mine). Once again, this is not what I signed up for. I didn’t know I’d be forced into group bath time. I’m not an animal.

  Later, as Del has the principal actors run through the golden-apple-of-discord scene (Zeus, a handful of goddesses, and a tug-of-war over a piece of chipped plaster fruit), the costume designer—a pale woman in a white smock—takes our measurements. She scribbles them on a clipboard before assigning us costumes for the scene. We’re all going to be woodland creatures. The designer says the costumes are largely responsible for letting the audience know where we are supposed to be—a forest glen—since we don’t have movable set pieces. She looks very proud when she says it, and more so when she assigns my part. “Rainie…rabbit.”

  I blink at her. “You want me to be a rabbit.”

  “You’re tall—think of it as a hare.” She points to her assistant, who is standing nearby with a pile of costumes and props. “Ears over there. Next!”

  I receive my ears—which are long and brown and attached to a wide headband—and an additional item: a giant, ratty stuffed carrot. I tuck the carrot between my knees while I wiggle the headband into place, and suddenly realize Milo is right there, watching me. And smiling.

  “Don’t say anything,” I tell him, which only makes his smile widen. “I’m serious. Zero words about my ears or my carrot or—”

  “Your hopping ability?”

  “Especially about my hopping ability.” I get my headband situated and reach down to grab the carrot. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “It’s a prop. You act with it.”

  “I’ve been to London,” I inform him. “I’ve been to New York. I’ve witnessed many critically acclaimed theatrical performances. No one has ever needed an oversized root vegetable in order to do their job.” I look him over. All I see are two wide straps over his shoulders, like he’s wearing a backpack. “Hey, what are you supposed to be?” In answer, Milo pulls a cord attached to one of the straps and plastic black wings fan out behind him. “A bat?” I ask.

  He feigns a hurt look. “Obviously, I’m a crow.”

  “Crows have beaks. You have no beak.”

  “Use your imagination,” he tells me. “Caw. Caw-caw.”

  Since he’s basically asked for it, I feel justified in giving him a once-over, running my eyes down his angular, T-shirted body to his jeans and Chucks. I have to conclude that the costume designer isn’t far off. With that shiny black hair and dark gaze, a crow probably is the best choice for Milo. I raise my eyes, and when they meet his, my face goes warm and my heart speeds up…just a little. But all I say is “Sure, you make a decent bird.”

  Before he can answer, Ella stomps over with a scowl. She’s holding something behind her back. “Last year I was a squirrel,” she tells us. “The tail was itchy and the belt slipped, so I asked if I could be a different animal this summer. Guess what, my wish was granted.”

  I run through offensive woodland creatures in my mind. Porcupine? Snake? Beaver?

  Ella pulls the thing from behind her back and jams it onto her head. It’s a wig, probably the worst wig I’ve ever seen. It’s frizzy and spiky and huge. It’s black, except for the white stripe running down the middle—

  “A skunk!” I burst out.

  “Yes, a skunk.” Ella glares at me. “All summer long, I’m going to be a freaking skunk.”

  “Only for Scene Three.” Milo says it helpfully, except Ella clearly doesn’t think it’s helpful at all. Her glare whips to him and intensifies.

  “Shut up, birdbrain.”

  Milo and I watch her storm away before we turn to each other. My smile feels the way his looks: wide and this close to turning into laughter. “My carrot doesn’t seem that bad anymore,” I tell him.

  He flaps his wings. “Caw-caw.”

  After everyone’s gotten their assignments, the woodland
creatures are each given two places on the stage: a starting point and an ending point. While the scene is happening—a waltz and an argument over the golden apple—we creatures are supposed to slowly meander from the first point to the second, stopping to sniff around or to make fake conversation with other animal friends on our way. Ella and I start in separate corners of stage right, but Milo is on the opposite side and—as I realize during the scene—he and I are on trajectories to meet in the middle. As the three goddesses dance and bicker, as Eris-the-goddess-of-discord throws fruit around, as other scruffily dressed woodland creatures mill about, Milo and I find each other at the center of the stage.

  He glances above my head. “Nice ears.”

  “Nice wings.”

  We stand there for a moment, grinning at each other, but then Nikki claps her hands loudly and we both jump. “Creatures! Keep moving!”

  So we do.

  •••

  From a Greek-chorus standpoint, the rest of the apple scene is easy. The goddesses squabble about who’s the prettiest, until Zeus arrives to break it up. In one of his few lines of the show, he asks, “Who can judge among these three?”

  The chorus—from our scattered places around the set—answers dutifully. “How about you, Zeus?”

  Zeus is clearly a wuss, because he can’t bring himself to choose one of them, so instead he finds an appropriate judge. It’s a mortal man who is so handsome and spectacular that Zeus bestows on him the great honor of picking the winner.

  End scene, and enter Tuck Brady.

  As we woodland creatures duck out to deposit our costumes and props in wooden crates just offstage, Tuck strolls on, all tall and blond and perfect. He’s gazing at himself in a handheld mirror and self-talking about his good looks. The chorus—now back to being proper citizens of Greece—returns to the stage as the three goddesses arrive, still squabbling. They ask the question via song: Which one is the prettiest?