An audible snort. Marla again.
“That being said, this musical is primarily about two people: Bobby and Prudie. Noah and Jolie, would you please stand up?”
“My boy!” Toby lets out a whoop as Noah stands up.
I didn’t know I was going to be put on display this early. I stand up, thanking the musical-theater gods that I decided to dress in a very cute ensemble today: a black flared mini, black tights, and a black sweater with little cat faces on it. Sure, it’s a lot of black (the better to blend in), but the cat faces are light pink! I’m branching out!
Either way, I’m sure the stage lights make me appear translucent as I stand up, shaking in my very cute yet nondescript flats. Every head swivels to look at Noah and me, and I can feel my face getting red under the glare of the lights and eyeballs. I imagine what each person is thinking: What’s wrong with her face? Every part of my body yearns to sit back down, but that would only draw more attention, so I focus on Mrs. Mulaney and pretend that she’s speaking to only me.
“When you look at Noah and Jolie, I don’t want you to see Noah and Jolie. Instead, see Bobby and Prudie. This is the story we’re telling—two people who love each other through obstacles most of us will never have to deal with, like political campaigns and space travel. Just remember that that’s what this musical is about: love. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying ‘There are no small parts, only small actors.’ Every action each of you takes on this stage is in service to our greater story. Whether you’re in the chorus or one of our leads, you have an important role.”
I can’t help but feel like Mrs. Mulaney has a lot riding on a musical that features a chorus of pigs. I wonder what’s going on in her personal life.
“That being said,” she continues, “most of the heavy lifting will be done by Noah and Jolie. You two are onstage in almost every scene, and you have the most lines to memorize. Most of the time, the audience’s eyes and ears will be on you.”
I gulp.
“I know that you’re both talented enough to do this, but I want to make sure that you’re committed. I have full confidence in your abilities, but I want to make sure you do, too. This is going to be your life over the next month. Daily rehearsals, learning songs, learning lines, even some choreography. If you’re not in, let me know right away.”
She stares at us expectantly.
“I’m in,” Noah says. Toby fist-pumps.
She turns to me. I swallow, my throat constricting all of a sudden.
“I … uh…,” I stammer.
I look around the stage in a panic. Peter looks like he’s afraid I might pass out. Marla couldn’t look any more bored. And Noah …
Subtly, so that only I notice it, he gives me a tiny thumbs-up.
“Me too,” I squeak, nodding.
“Good,” says Mrs. Mulaney. “Peter, can you pass out the scripts so we can go over some things?”
The next hour passes in a blur. I can barely concentrate on anything Mrs. Mulaney is saying, and Peter has to elbow me to respond two times. All I can think about is what she said earlier: The audience’s eyes and ears will be on you. As in, everyone will be staring at me. As in, everyone will be thinking, What’s wrong with that girl? Why did she trip over a hay bale and forget all her lines? Why didn’t Mrs. Mulaney cast that shiny-haired girl in the pig costume instead?
I can’t do this. That’s all there is to it. As soon as practice is over, I’ll wait for everyone else to leave and I’ll talk to Mrs. Mulaney. I’ll tell her I’m sorry, that this was all a big misunderstanding, that I would much rather be hiding inside a pig costume, that I don’t actually care if I never kiss anyone before a surgeon breaks my jaw while I’m under anesthesia …
I glance at Noah and think about that little thumbs-up, how silly and cute it was. Now we have a joke, me and Noah. Our thing. Someday I can be like, “Remember that time you gave me the thumbs-up?” and he’ll be like, “Yeah, that was the moment I knew you were the one for me and—”
“Jolie.”
I sit up straight. Mrs. Mulaney is staring at me. “It’s your line.”
I press my lips together. “Right, right. Sorry.”
As soon as we move on to a monologue from Toby, who’s playing the narrator, I mentally chastise myself. Not for not paying attention … after all, I’m not even going to be in this musical, so who cares? No, I berate myself for pretending I even have a chance at kissing Noah. Breaking him down with my sparkling wit and wonderful personality was the whole point of this thing. Now that it won’t be my name on those playbills, I’ll be back to my original plan of waiting around for a natural disaster. That’s pretty much my only shot, because it’s not like Noah is going to be charmed by my flawless looks.
I’m startled out of my thoughts when Peter nudges me again. “Are you okay? You’re really sweaty and you look disoriented.”
“I’m not disoriented. I promise,” I say, standing up when I notice that everyone is heading off the stage and practice is over.
“Did you have a hot dog lately?” Peter grabs my arm.
I pause. “I’m not sure that’s an appropriate question to ask a girl, Peter.”
“I only ask because Molly Weber got food poisoning from eating the cafeteria hot dogs. If you got sick, it would really screw up the musical.”
“Thank you for the concern.” I push past him. “But I have to talk to Mrs. Mulaney now.”
“Just promise me you won’t eat a hot dog!” Peter shouts at me as Noah and Toby walk by.
“Heh,” Toby chuckles to himself. When he notices me looking at him, he says, “See, it’s funny because it sounds like he’s talking to you about penises. You know, because hot dogs are—”
“Yeah, I get the joke, Toby,” I mutter, brushing past him.
“You should really take your act on the college circuit,” I mutter, brushing past them.
“Hey,” Noah says as Toby starts talking to Peter about God knows what. Probably more metaphors for penises.
I spin around.
“Sorry,” Noah says quietly, gesturing toward Toby. “For him. He’s, well … we’ve…”
After struggling for a bit, he finishes with “We’ve been friends since kindergarten. You know how it is.”
I smile, being sure to keep my lips closed, just in case he hasn’t noticed my jaw. “Like, you learned to burp the alphabet together and now you’re bonded for life.”
Noah looks puzzled, but he smiles, and I notice that his teeth are perfectly straight and definitely not covered in braces. “Yeah. Pretty much. Switch ‘learned to burp the alphabet’ to ‘chased me around on the playground threatening to wipe his boogers on me’ and you’ve basically got our friendship.”
We both glance toward Toby, who is laughing maniacally while trying to physically pick Peter up. Peter, for his part, looks resigned to his fate.
“It’s nice that some people never change,” I say. “Gives you something to depend on.”
“BRO!” Toby shouts to Noah as Peter scampers toward Mrs. Mulaney’s table. “You ready to roll?”
Noah gives me an apologetic glance. “I have to go.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“But I’m glad it’s me and you. In the musical, I mean.”
I push my lips together to keep myself from grinning. “Yeah. Me too.”
With another smile, Noah turns to follow Toby, who jumped off the stage, out of the auditorium.
I allow myself five seconds of elation, five seconds of feeling satisfied, five seconds of imagining a hot and heavy make-out sesh with Noah in the supply closet. Anything more than five seconds and I might start to question what I’m about to do, which is drop out of the musical.
“Mrs. Mulaney?” I walk up to her as she shoves a script into her messenger bag. “Could I talk to you?”
“Prudie!” Mrs. Mulaney says with a smile.
For a second, I think Mrs. Mulaney has forgotten my name before I remember that it’s the name of my character. I th
ink about telling her that I’m not doing some sort of method-acting thing like Jared Leto or whatever, but then I remember that I’m not even going to be in the musical anyway, so the explanation is kind of useless.
“Hi,” I say. “Could we talk for a minute?”
Mrs. Mulaney stops packing her bag and raises her eyebrows. “Let’s sit down.”
We sit beside each other in the front row, and before I can open my mouth to speak, Mrs. Mulaney says, “You want to quit.”
I blink a few times. “How did you know…?”
Mrs. Mulaney smiles gently. “You have that ‘What have I done?’ look in your eyes. I know it well.”
I can’t help myself—I smile, too. Mrs. Mulaney is good at making me feel comfortable. It’s too bad I won’t be able to hang out with her more.
“Well, yeah,” I say. “You see, this was all an accident.”
“You mean you accidentally walked onto the stage and performed a scene?” Mrs. Mulaney folds her hands in her lap.
“Well, no. Not exactly. But I thought I was just trying out for a background part, not the lead. I’ve never acted before—I can’t even sing! I don’t even like being in front of people. In fact, I hate it.”
Now that everyone’s left the auditorium, it’s strangely quiet in here, and I feel like Mrs. Mulaney can hear my nervous breathing.
“This wasn’t an accident, Jolie,” Mrs. Mulaney says.
“No,” I say uncertainly. “I’m pretty sure it was.”
“You and Prudie? You’re meant to be. This was the part you’re supposed to play, and it’s not an accident that it found you. It’s not an accident that you walked onto that stage unprepared to sing. It’s not an accident that I picked you to be the lead.”
I swallow hard. “It’s not?”
Mrs. Mulaney shakes her head. “Sometimes we get chances—opportunities—that we’re meant to take. And if you take the leap, things will open up and change. And if you take a step back instead? Okay. That’s your decision. But you’ll never know what you were supposed to find out. And I think Prudie will help you find out a lot.”
I press my lips together. Mrs. Mulaney’s making this all sound like it’s about a whole lot more than just kissing some cute guy (even though he is really cute … like, put-a-picture-in-your-locker-and-kiss-it-every-morning cute). She’s making this sound like it’s about my whole life, like this could actually change something.
And, well, if I really do die when I’m on the operating table? Maybe this is an experience I need. Maybe it’s one I’m supposed to have.
“I can’t make you do this,” Mrs. Mulaney continues. “And if you don’t want to, I’ll cast someone else. But I won’t be happy about it. And I really hope you’ll decide—”
“Okay.”
Mrs. Mulaney smiles, then looks serious. “Okay? Really?”
I nod quickly. “I’m in.”
She smiles wider and reaches out to shake my hand. “All right, Prudie. This is going to be a very big month for you.”
I don’t know what I just agreed to, and I’m mostly (like ninety-five percent) sure I’m going to faint or puke or spontaneously combust when I’m onstage and everyone’s looking at me. But that other five percent is just as excited as Mrs. Mulaney, wondering what this month is going to bring.
Chapter Eleven
Mom and Dad have been infuriatingly respectful about Abbi’s wishes not to talk about the father of her baby. Just once, when we were watching TV, my mom paused a commercial to say, “I know you said you don’t want to talk about it. But the baby’s father … is he going to be involved? Financially, I mean? It’s important to have those things sorted out.”
Abbi just pursed her lips and stared at the paused Swiffer commercial. “No. No, he is not.”
Mom nodded and pressed play. But that’s just how she is—all “Abbi can talk about things in her own time,” and “We need to create a loving and supportive environment,” and “Jolie, don’t pressure your sister to talk about her experience before she’s ready.”
Frankly, I don’t understand how you could not be curious about something like that. It’s just weird to let Abbi walk around with a growing belly and not know where it came from. I mean, if she was wearing a new shirt, I would ask her where she got it and she would be like, “I ordered it from J.Crew” and then we would all go on with our lives. But I’m not allowed to ask her where the HUMAN GROWING INSIDE HER BODY came from?
It’s all seriously screwed up.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to weasel some information out of her. I’ve tried subtle questions and little hints, but Abbi is impervious to all my detective attempts. It doesn’t help that our sister bond means she usually knows what I’m thinking before I do.
But I’ve seen a lot of British detective shows on Netflix, and I’ve learned that people often give themselves away with small details. Abbi may not be a murder suspect, but I know that eventually she’ll let something slip.
On Saturday Mom, Abbi, and I go out shopping for a crib to put in the nursery, which is just our old guest room. This isn’t really an outing that demanded my presence, but any trip with Abbi typically involves at least two stops at fast-food drive-throughs, and I could really use a Frosty.
First we hit up Buy Buy Baby, where Mom mutters something about capitalism before she totally fawns over the baby-animal mobiles. That’s basically my mom in a nutshell: Yes, she has a Le Tigre T-shirt, but damn if she isn’t excited about a Bath & Body Works candle sale.
I stick close to Mom as she checks out a bunch of cribs that all look pretty much the same to me. Abbi is off somewhere doing who knows what—maybe falling asleep in a rocking chair. Every time a salesclerk approaches us, I suck in my stomach, afraid they’ll think I’m the pregnant one.
“I’m just not sure which of these will look better with our dresser,” Mom says, looking back and forth between two cribs that seem to be exactly the same other than a $100 price difference.
“This one,” I say, pointing to the cheaper one. “Understated, yet classic. Sophisticated, yet playful. Elegant, yet—”
“Okay, okay.” Mom waves her hands. “I get that you don’t care about this. But this is your sister’s baby, and it needs somewhere to sleep.”
“You mean we can’t just pull out a dresser drawer?” I ask.
Abbi appears from behind a rack of diaper bags and dumps an armful of onesies into the cart.
“How is it so expensive to dress such a tiny person?” she asks.
“These prices are highway robbery,” Mom says, “and … oh! This giraffe print is adorable!”
“Oh geez,” Abbi says. “I have to pee.”
“Again?” I ask.
“In case you didn’t notice, there’s a baby pressing into my bladder.” She thrusts her purse at me. “Hold this. I’ll be right back.”
I pull her purse over my shoulder and wander away from Mom so she can’t ask me any more questions about cribs. But as it turns out, there isn’t a whole lot to interest me in Buy Buy Baby since they don’t exactly have a juniors’ section.
I’m walking aimlessly through a labyrinth of crib mobiles when Abbi’s phone buzzes. I ignore it. It’s probably one of the endless notifications she gets from whatever baby app she uses. Alert! Your baby is the size of a grapefruit. Alert! Your baby is the size of a butternut squash. Alert! Why do we compare babies to food? That’s, like, super weird, right?
I’m fending off an offer of help from yet another Buy Buy Baby employee who surely wonders what a nonpregnant teenage girl is doing in the store when Abbi’s phone buzzes again. And again. And again.
I dig through her purse. It must be Mom trying to find out where I am, since she knows I have Abbi’s bag.
But when I look at the screen, I don’t see texts from Mom. I see several texts from someone named John.
Please just answer me.
I want to know you and the baby are okay.
I’m sorry.
I toss the
phone back into Abbi’s purse like I’m playing a particularly revealing and not-fun game of Hot Potato.
I’ve never met John. I’ve never even heard her mention anyone named John. But clearly he knows Abbi pretty well—enough to know about her and the baby. And, if he’s asking about the baby, I can probably assume he had a hand in creating the baby, as well.
I didn’t even have to go full detective and I already found out something pretty big about the father of Abbi’s baby. But I don’t feel triumphant—I just feel freaked out.
“Hey.”
I spin around. “I didn’t see anything!”
I come face-to-face with yet another Buy Buy Baby employee. (Seriously, how many people work here? How is our country in a perpetual employment crisis when this one location of Buy Buy Baby is employing upwards of six hundred people?) She widens her eyes.
“You didn’t see … what? Are you looking for anything specific?” she asks, gesturing toward the mobiles.
I let out a breath. “I’m just browsing. I know I look really sketchy right now but I promise I’m not stealing anything.”
She looks even more confused as her eyes dart back and forth between my face and Abbi’s purse, which thankfully is too small to hold even a single mobile. “That’s … good?”
“Okay, bye!” I shout, and power walk back to find my mom. Abbi’s back from the restroom and inspecting a crib like it contains the secrets of the universe. I hand her the purse without saying anything, and she doesn’t even look at me when she says, “Thanks.”
I’m glad, because one look at me and I know she’d see every question in my mind written across my face. Questions like: Who the hell is John?
* * *
“Explain why you want to do this again?”
I look up at Derek from my perch on our front porch stairs, where I’m tying the pair of sneakers I only bust out for gym class. “Because I want to prove that I can.”
“Okay,” Derek says slowly. “But you have a pretty serious history of inactivity. Legendary, in fact. Remember that time we tried to go hiking and you just sat down in that cave and said you were making a new life there?”
Things Jolie Needs to Do Before She Bites It Page 9