Perchance to Dream

by Lyssa Chiavari

  “That sounds awesome!” Ben exclaimed. He turned to Patricia. “What do you have planned, Director?”

  Patricia folded her arms across her chest. “I haven’t fully decided yet. I’m thinking of doing a bunch of cool stuff with the lights and costumes, to give it a haunted feel. And I really want the set to look authentic, with fallen furniture and stuff.”

  Ben nodded, looking intrigued. “That is going to be so cool. Kurt should be able to help you with the set and props if you need stuff built. He’s pretty good with carpentry.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Mr. Gardner said,” Patricia replied, though she was relieved to hear Ben confirm it.

  “Speaking of which,” Grizz said, “where is that brother of yours?”

  Ben looked at his watch and frowned. “I have no idea. He was supposed to meet you right after class, right? His last class isn’t far from here. He should’ve been here by now.”

  Patricia heaved a sigh and dug out her phone. “Okay, I’ll text him to light a fire under it.”

  Several more minutes passed, producing no reply, and no Kurt.

  “I’ll run over to his locker and see if he’s still there. He probably got distracted by some girl. You try calling him,” Ben told Patricia before breaking into a jog and heading out the door.

  Grizz rolled her eyes and sank into a nearby chair. “Ugh, what a pain in the ass he’s already being. It’s twelve after three, where is he?”

  Patricia pursed her lips and began to dial Kurt. She bounced on her heels in annoyance as it rang several times. “Come on, Kurt, we don’t have all day,” she muttered.

  Finally she heard a click and realized it was going to voicemail. “Hi, you’ve reached Lucy,” a recorded voice that was most definitely not Kurt’s said. “I can’t get to my phone right now, leave a message after the beep!”

  Patricia pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it incredulously. “Why that stupid, good for nothing…”

  “What? What happened?” Grizz asked, glancing first at the phone, then Patricia, expectantly.

  “That moron gave me the wrong number! It was some girl named Lucy! Luckily I just got her voice mail.”

  Grizz threw her head back in frustration, looking toward the ceiling as if asking for strength. “Argh! Now what do we do?”

  Before Patricia could answer, Ben returned. “He’s not by his locker or his last class,” he reported, panting a little from running.

  “Oh, you missed the best part,” Grizz called sarcastically from her chair. She pointed at Patricia. “He gave her the wrong phone number!”

  “What?” Ben asked in exasperation. Patricia handed him her phone. “That sneaky bastard,” he muttered under his breath as he stared at the screen. He shook his head and handed the phone back to Patricia. “That’s not his number. That’s not even close to his number.”

  “He deliberately gave me a fake number?”

  Grizz began to mutter undecipherable curses under her breath from where she sat.

  Patricia set her jaw and said to Ben, “Here, give me his real number so I can call him.”

  “No,” Ben replied, shaking his head as he pulled his phone from his pocket. “I am going to call him.” He held the cell to his ear, and the girls soon heard the phone pick up and noise on the other end of the line. “Hey, man, how ya doing?” Ben said. “Um, so I just have a quick question for you… WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

  Patricia jumped, startled. She’d never heard Ben yell like that—he was usually so calm. She raised her eyebrows and looked over at Grizz, who mouthed, “Rock on, Ben.”

  Ben stood still for a moment, frowning as he listened to Kurt. “Wha—you’re on a date? At the Boardwalk? Dude, no, you’re supposed to be here in the auditorium with Patricia and Grizz!” He fell silent again, letting Kurt speak. Then he rolled his eyes and said, “No, how could you forget? …Yeah, uh-huh. Just like you forgot your own number, and gave Patricia a totally fake one? Yeah, smooth move there, moron.”

  Ben looked over at Patricia with an apologetic smile before gritting his teeth and hissing into the phone, “You’d better wrap it up real quick or I’m telling Mom. And don’t play the ‘bro’ card on me, Kurt. You’re the one flunking, and when the teach is nice enough to offer this to you—yeah, well Grizz and Patricia have been waiting for you for half an hour!”

  It was obvious that Ben wasn’t getting through to his twin, so Patricia marched over to him and snatched the phone out of his hand with lightning-fast agility. “Kurt Minola!” she snapped into the phone, hand on hip. “Get your butt back to school this minute or you can kiss your extra credit goodbye!”

  “Oh—uh… okay, sure thing, Patty,” she heard Kurt say on the other end of the line.

  “And for the last time, it’s P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A!” Patricia shouted, pressing the ‘end’ button before he could reply. She took a deep breath to calm herself and handed the phone back to Ben. “Sorry about that.”

  Ben took the phone back, a slow grin forming on his face. “No, that was awesome. Is he coming?”

  Patricia smiled in spite of the frustrating situation. “I think so.”

  Grizz rose to her feet and flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder. “He’d better, if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “Thanks for calling him,” Patricia told Ben.

  Ben shrugged, hands in his pockets. “No problem. Sorry he’s such a pain.”

  “It’s not your fault the cosmos cursed you with him for a twin,” Grizz laughed.

  Ben sighed. “He has gotten so lazy these past few months—worse than usual! He was actually not too bad with doing homework and stuff ‘til this year. His grades were decent enough to get into college. Now that he’s in, he thinks high school doesn’t matter anymore. His grades were worse last semester than they’d ever been, but I think my parents chocked it up to the stress of applications, so they let it slide.”

  “Stress, my eye,” Patricia commented, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Yup. But when they saw his quarter report card?” Ben lifted his hands, making an explosive sound. “There was a lot of yelling.”

  Grizz lifted an eyebrow. “Ouch. I would say I feel bad for the guy, except, hah, I don’t.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, you aren’t the only one saddled with helping Kurt. Guess who got roped into tutoring him in math and physics?” Ben lifted two thumbs and pointed them toward himself. “This guy.”

  “That’s rough,” Grizz muttered, tugging at the hem of her short-sleeved plaid shirt.

  “Yeah, well, what can you do?” Ben remarked, shrugging. “Oh, here, let me give you his real number,” he said to Patricia, pulling out his phone once more.

  “Score. Thank you Ben,” said Patricia, swiftly texting the contact information to Grizz as well.

  “Great, like I really want that idiot’s number contaminating my phone,” Grizz grumbled, rolling her eyes. Then she cocked her head to the side. “Hang on, I hear something…”

  Patricia craned her neck toward the door. She heard it, too. It sounded like… wheels?

  Sure enough, Kurt soon rode into the auditorium, hopping off of his skateboard and hoisting it over his shoulder. Really? He rode his skateboard in the hallway?

  “Hey, bro,” Kurt said when he walked up to Ben. Glancing at Patricia and Grizz, he added, “‘Sup, girls.”

  Grizz threw her hands up in annoyance, turning her back on Kurt without a word.

  Ben merely shook his head and lifted his backpack from the floor. “I’ll go over your homework with you after dinner,” he told his brother in a flat tone, before turning toward Patricia. “See you, Patricia, Grizz.” Looking into Patricia’s eyes steadily, he raised his eyebrows and mouthed, “Good luck.”

  Patricia smiled in reply, lifting her hand in a wave. “Later, Ben.” As she watched him leave the room, shaking his head and muttering something, she thought to herself, Thank goodness he was here. At least now they could get some work done.


  “Okay, Kurt,” Patricia said, pulling her drama binder from her bag, “how about Grizz tells you a little about the script. Then I can show you my sketches outlining what the visuals are going to look like.”

  Kurt had sunk to the floor, hunching over his phone and smirking as he texted. Patricia sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Kurt!” she shouted.

  Kurt’s head jerked up. “Uh, what?”

  Patricia put her hands on her hips. “Put away your phone. We have work to do.”

  “Oh,” Kurt replied lazily, sliding the phone back into the pocket of his hoodie and following Patricia up the steps to the stage, where a table and chairs had been set up.

  Grizz slid into her seat and opened her notebook. “All right, so my play is about Mrs. Winchester and—”

  “Who?” Kurt interrupted, leaning back in his chair, stretching his long legs under the table. Patricia scrunched her nose and scooted away when his foot brushed hers.

  Grizz stared at him. “Um, Sarah Winchester. As in the Winchester Mystery House?”

  “The what house?”

  Patricia shared a look with Grizz. “You know, that big, weird house in San Jose that has windows in the floor and doors leading to nowhere? There’s billboards all along Highway 17 advertising it?”

  Kurt shook his head. “Nope, no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Good grief! Ben knew about the house… “Well, anyway,” Patricia said, “it’s pretty cool. I’d always heard about it, but I didn’t go myself ‘til a couple years ago. You should tour it sometime.”

  Grizz flipped through her notebook. “Moving on. Sarah Winchester was a lady whose husband was a gun manufacturer. Her misfortunes in life led her to believe she was cursed, so she visited a medium who told her she was being haunted, and that she must never cease construction on her house…or else.” Grizz hissed as she leaned forward in her seat, widening her eyes dramatically.

  Kurt didn’t react. He looked utterly bored. “So, what is your play about?”

  “Well,” Grizz went on, looking quite pleased with herself, “there was a huge earthquake in 1906, and it caused a ton of damage to her house. She actually was trapped in one of the bedrooms for several hours afterward. When her servants finally found her and freed her, she was in a frenzy. Boom!” Grizz slammed down her hands on the table, startling Patricia. “She stopped fixing up the front of her house. It was in shambles due to the damage from the quake, but she just left it and started gung-ho working on other parts of the house. So, I thought it would be cool if the cause of the quake was the vengeful ghosts, trying to exact their revenge on Mrs. Winchester because of how she got all this money from a company that ruined their lives. I wrote about three different ghosts who come to her, gave them each a little backstory, y’know.”

  Kurt snorted. “Dude, ghosts aren’t real.”

  Patricia grimaced. He really shouldn’t have said that to Grizz, who was a firm believer in the supernatural.

  Sure enough, Grizz’s eyes widened in fury, face reddening as her nostrils flared. “Listen, you—”

  Patricia held up her hands, knowing that Grizz’s tirades could take hours. “Kurt, it is fiction. Your opinion on ghosts does not matter. So, this is what we are thinking for the production…”

  As she explained their ideas for the props and set, she watched carefully while Kurt blankly stared at his fingers, tracing them across the tabletop. It was obvious he wasn’t listening. Sighing, she finished, “Tryouts are Friday at five-thirty here in the auditorium. We’ll have short sections for both of the male roles for you to read.”

  Kurt nodded, finally looking up. “Okay.”

  “Even if you don’t end up wanting to try out, I’d like you to come anyway,” Patricia told him, clasping her hands on the table in front of her. “It’ll be good for you to see how the process works, since you’ve never auditioned for a play before. You can write about it in your paper.”

  “Sure thing, babe,” Kurt said with an easy smile, reaching for his skateboard. “So, are we done here?”

  Patricia looked at Grizz in annoyance. Grizz rolled her eyes and shrugged.

  “Yeah, sure,” Patricia said. There wasn’t much left to do right then, but she hated letting Kurt off the hook that easily. “We’ll do more this weekend. Remember, Friday, five-thirty—sharp.”

  Untangling his tall legs from underneath the table, he stood and shouldered his skateboard. “Got it. Catch ya later.”

  Patricia sighed as he disappeared, keys jangling from his belt loop. Then she turned to Grizz. “I say we go get smoothies.”

  Grizz nodded emphatically, hoisting her messenger bag off of the floor.

  ❦

  Friday night in the auditorium, Patricia checked the time on her cell phone yet again. Six o’clock, and Kurt was nowhere to be seen. No calls or texts from him, either. She didn’t really want him to be a cast member, but if he was going to be this unreliable so early into the process, how was she supposed to trust him with anything?

  “Patricia?” Mr. Gardner called from his seat in the chair against the wall. “It’s your turn.”

  Patricia took in a deep breath and planted a smile on her face. She needed to stop worrying about that screw-off. It was time to cast her play!

  Hurrying to the center of the stage, she faced the sea of students waiting to audition and cleared her throat. “Good evening. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Patricia Verona. I’m a senior, and I’m directing a one-act written by fellow senior Grizz Sheridan. It’s kind of a ghost story that takes place in the Winchester Mystery House. There are four parts we’re holding auditions for, two guys, two girls. One will be Mrs. Winchester herself, and then the other female role will be a young woman whose beloved was killed—and who was then murdered herself—seeking revenge for their deaths. Then there will be two male ghosts: the sweetheart who’d been shot, and a soldier who had tried to stop the war.” Glancing at her clipboard to make sure she hadn’t left anything out, she said, “Okay, so, everyone interested, please form a line right there by the stage steps!”

  Hopping off of the steps and joining Grizz, Patricia clicked her pen nervously a few times as she slid into the theater seat. She watched each performance carefully and took quick notes. Whenever Grizz made a comment about a certain actor, she made sure to write it down alongside her own thoughts.

  The process was over all too soon. As the last person auditioning for their one-act thanked them and left the stage, Patricia glanced at her phone once more and sighed. Still no messages from Kurt. “Of course he wasn’t going to show,” she muttered in annoyance.

  She locked her phone and slid it back in her backpack. She could deal with it later—the other drama students were holding their own auditions next, and she and Grizz were supposed to stay for the entire session.

  Twenty minutes later, she felt a large hand tap her shoulder. She glanced up in shock to see Kurt standing there, pulling one earbud out as he said, “Hey, made it.”

  “What—” Patricia began to screech, before remembering the auditions were still going on. “What took you so long?” she hissed, barely above a whisper.

  “I had stuff to do,” he replied casually at regular volume, causing Grizz to frown and shush him with a finger to her lips.

  Patricia made a noise of disgust and reached up to drag him down into the seat next to her—which was no small feat, considering how tall he was.

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed as he landed half-in, half-out of the theater seat.

  “Shh!” Patricia commanded, nervously looking around to see if anyone had noticed all the ruckus. “And what do you mean you had ‘stuff’ to do?!” she demanded quietly. “You were supposed to be here over an hour ago!”

  Kurt shrugged. “Sorry, but I’m ready to audition now.”

  Patricia’s nostrils flared in anger. “Excuse me? It’s too late! The auditions for my play are over!”

  “But I’m here!” Kurt exclaimed, confused.


  Patricia held a finger to her mouth and whispered harshly, “For the last time, please be quiet! It’s rude enough for you to come so late, but someone else is picking out people for their play now! You’re being very disrespectful.”

  To Patricia’s surprise, Kurt actually looked chagrined. “Oops,” he replied in a much quieter voice, “my bad.” Then he glanced around. “Well, if it’s too late, I guess I’ll take off.” He started to stand up.

  Patricia held out her arm to stop him. Oh, no. You are so not getting off the hook that easy. You made us wait, so you can wait. “You know what, Kurt? When everyone else is done, you can try out. I’ll stay late just for you,” she whispered sweetly, looking over to Grizz and winking.

  “Aw, thanks, babe,” Kurt smiled, leaning back in his seat and putting his earbuds back in.

  Patricia quickly reached over and ripped them from his ears. “No music. And no sleeping, either. You are gonna sit right there and pay close attention.”

  Kurt stared at her vacantly for a second, as if not sure how to reply. Finally, he turned toward the stage and watched in bewilderment as each student took their turn and auditioned.

  Patricia glanced at Grizz and grinned. Grizz held out her hand in reply to quickly high-five her.

  Finally, when the last audition was through, Mr. Gardner ran out to the center of the stage. “Wonderful, everyone, just wonderful,” he said. “This room is filled with so much talent and excitement, it brings joy to my heart. Now, casting will be posted Monday morning on the bulletin board right outside the auditorium, so make sure and check it first thing. Good luck to you all, and have a great weekend!”

  As everyone in the auditorium rose to their feet and started milling around, Patricia stood and motioned for Grizz to follow her to talk to Mr. Gardner. They had to shove past Kurt, who was still seated, legs sprawled in front of him, blocking their path. “C’mon, Kurt.” She nudged him with her foot. “Time for you to show us your stuff.”