Mrs. Buchanan sits at the teacher’s desk in first period theater arts class, reading a knitting magazine. She must not have gotten the memo that Ms. Barlow is returning to teach. I take my spot at the desk in the back row next to Greg and notice that the walls are still empty. Dust collects on the sticky residue left over from the tape that used to hold Ms. Barlow’s acting posters.
We make it through the entire period with no sign of my aunt returning to work. Everyone in class shoves back the desks and rehearses the play in front of the classroom as usual. I fill in for Gwen and Mary, but it’s obvious I can’t do both roles on stage because the two characters talk to each other.
Even though it shouldn’t be my job anymore once my aunt finally returns, I dig through the old paperwork she left behind and find a list of people who auditioned for the play. I’m hoping someone who didn’t make the cut will still be available to take over Mary’s role. There’s only four days until opening day, but that’s enough time to memorize the lines.
One girl on the rejected list catches my eye. Maggie from my AP English.
I grab an extra script and highlight Mary’s lines. After class, I dash into the hallways and scan the crowds of students hoping to find her before next period starts. The longer she has to read over her lines, the better. I’m about to give up on my search when a flock of bright red hair catches my eye. Ms. Barlow stands in the English hallway, just outside of a classroom door, smiling at students as they walk by.
I march up to her with a quizzical look. “Hey…”
Her eyes widen as if she hasn’t seen me in ages. “Wren, darling, how are you?”
I am so not in the mood to play her games. “Why weren’t you in class this morning?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. I most definitely was in class this morning. I taught about Shakespeare.”
I glance into the classroom she’s standing next to, and sure enough, her director’s chair sits in the front near the whiteboard. “You’re teaching English now? What about theater?”
She laughs. “Why would I teach those ungrateful brats when I can teach English students instead? I don’t understand why you’re making that face at me, Wren. You’re the one who thinks English is much more important than theater.” The two minute warning bell rings and she swoops into her classroom door, waving a hand at me as if she were a beauty queen on a parade float. “Better get to class, dear. Who knows, maybe someone will ask me to write them a recommendation letter now that I’m a ‘real’ teacher.”
Fury and hatred swell up in my chest as I walk to second period. What kind of teacher quits in the middle of the school year and then comes back to teach something else? How did the principal even allow this? And why do I have such terrible freaking luck?
By lunchtime, I still haven’t found Maggie to ask her to be in the play, but we all have the same lunch period so I’m determined to find her even if it means walking around every single lunch table. Luckily, I don’t have to take an inventory of the whole room because I see her sitting with some guys from AP Calculus near the front of the cafeteria.
“Maggie,” I say, slapping the script down on the table. It’s a long shot, but I ask anyway. “Do you still want to be in the play?”
“Isn’t it this Friday?”
I hold up the script. “It’s only three pages of lines. We’re rehearsing right after school every day with a dress rehearsal on Thursday. I know it’s a lot to ask but I’m desperate.”
She smiles and grabs the script. “I’ll be there.”
Margot cuts in front of me in the pizza line. “Hey,” she says with a small smile. We haven’t exactly spoken much since that night at Fisherman’s Warf. The regret on her face says she missed me as much as I missed her. Lying and sneaking around behind each other’s backs aside, she’s still my oldest friend.
“Hey.” I grab a lunch tray and hand it to her as a peace offering instead of pointing out that she’s cut in front of me in the line.
“What have you been up to?” she asks as we step forward, getting one step closer to the cafeteria food.
I shake my head and rub the back of my neck. “Just dealing with this play. It’s a total fucking nightmare.”
“Sorry it’s been so difficult. I know I’ve been a total bitch about it too.”
I shake my head. “You haven’t been a bitch.”
“Yeah, I have. You can call it what it is.” She places her hand on my shoulder. “Forgive me?”
I nod. “You’ll be happy to know that I’m not dating Derek.”
“Oh, I know,” she says all matter-of-factly. “I keep up with what goes on in this school. Apparently you yelled at him in front of the entire cast.” She winks. “That’s my girl.”
We get our pizza and sit at our usual table. Margot rambles on about boys and other things, just like always. After a decade of friendship, Margot has hated me about twice a year but in the end, we always make up. She always apologizes and I always accept it. My brain keeps almost spilling things about Derek, like wondering what his stupid secret crime is, and I have to keep shutting myself up to avoid saying anything in front of Margot.
Derek’s words come back to me now as I lean my head on my hand and pretend to listen to her stories about Jordan and college dorm life. If she cared about you she would trust your judgment.
“How much do you love me?” I ask, interrupting whatever she was talking about.
She peels a pepperoni off her pizza and sets it to the side. “That answer depends on what you’re about to ask me to do.”
“I’m not asking anything,” I say with a sigh. “Look, we’re best friends. You’re supposed to trust me.”
“I do trust you.” She leans to the right and bumps me with her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
I choose my words carefully. “I know you’re going to disagree with me because you hate Derek…”
“I don’t hate him,” she interjects, although she doesn’t sound very convincing. “He’s just a criminal and you can do way better than that.”
“But what if he’s not a criminal? What if there’s an explanation for why he got in trouble…one that doesn’t make him a bad person?”
“Go on…what is it? What’s this magical explanation?”
My shoulders fall and I stare at the half-eaten pizza in front of me. “I don’t know. But he told me that he could explain it all to me one day and that I’d understand. He told me if I cared about him then I’d trust him.” Margot’s eyes pierce into me, begging me to continue. “But I didn’t want to be the butt of some stupid joke, so I told him I wouldn’t date him without the truth.”
“And did he tell you?”
I shake my head.
Margot thinks for a moment. All of the noise in the cafeteria fades into the static of my own mind, where my thoughts rest painfully on Derek. Her freezing cold fingers touch my arm. “If you really like him, girl you need to go talk to him.”
“How do I know if I really like him?”
She smiles. “Trust me, you do.”
My life consists of nothing but rehearsal for the next three days. It’s funny how when I tried to avoid Derek when I was with Margot, I seemed to run into him everywhere. Now that I want to run into him, he’s gone. It’s almost like he never existed. And the stupid thing is now I don’t have to hide him from Margot. She’s actually encouraging me to find him and get to the bottom of his secret. Sometimes life is just extra ironic.
“Why isn’t prop boy here?” Greg whines from backstage as he shuffles through a pile of props for act two. “I can’t do this by myself.”
“Good question,” I say, hiding the pain in my gut that tells me Derek is skipping rehearsal on purpose. Or for all I know, he could have been arrested again. “Will you call him?”
Greg scoffs at my request and motions to the boxes of crap he’s busy unloading and moving around. “I don’t have time for that, boss. You call him.”
“I don’t have tim
e for it either,” I snap. “Dress rehearsal starts in thirty seconds.”
Ricky stumbles onstage, still wearing the sweaty clothes he wore to play basketball in gym last period. God. I have to kiss this.
I throw up my arms in frustration. “Why aren’t you dressed? This is the freaking dress rehearsal.”
He shrugs. “Jeremy’s clothes are just regular clothes, so I thought I was dressed.”
I sigh as loudly as possible. Technically he’s right, but Jeremy is not supposed to be wearing Lawson High School gym clothes.
He gives me a big cheesy grin. “Don’t be mad at me, Wren, geez.”
I roll my eyes and take my place off stage because I am the second character to make an entrance once the curtain opens. “I won’t be mad at you but only because the lights are working, the props are perfect and everyone else is dressed and ready to perform.”
Our freshman stagehand rushes to the side stage and grabs the rope that pulls open the curtains. “Ready?” he whispers. “In five…four…”
“Are you passing math now?” I whisper to Ricky as the curtain guy continues the countdown.
He scratches the back of his neck and nods. “Math? Yeah.”
The curtain opens and the music plays a track of a thunderstorm. I roll my eyes and try to stay focused. We have a play to rehearse and letting myself get annoyed over Ricky’s inability to form a full sentence isn’t going to help anything.
All three acts of the play go smoother than I could have hoped, especially since Ricky agreed to skip the kissing scenes until he’s not covered in sweat. For the first time in, well, ever—everyone said their lines in an actual acting manner without giggling or making jokes or screwing around. I think the pressure of the play being only twenty-four hours away has finally gotten to everyone. Maggie had her lines perfectly memorized from day one and her acting isn’t too bad either. Asking her to be in the play is probably the only decision I’ve made as director that didn’t totally blow up in my face.
My stagehands handle scene changes well, if not a little slower than usual when Derek is around. I pitch in when I can and help them change out sets during the few seconds the curtain is closed. Overall, I’m pretty excited with our dress rehearsal. My mind reels with ideas for how I want to thank everyone with their awesome performance. We could go to pizza after this on the school’s credit card, or I could save myself from getting in trouble from wasting money and just bake everyone cookies or a cake for tomorrow.
I’m still high on the satisfaction of having a great rehearsal when the auditorium doors swing open and someone walks inside. Anxiety pierces through my chest, even before I know who has entered; usually it’s never good news.
Principal Walsh bounds toward the stage, a few papers gripped tightly in his chubby hand. My anxiety lessens. I had invited him to the dress rehearsal and had expected to see him earlier than now. He missed the whole thing.
He stops at the first row of seating, right at the front of the stage. “Where is Ricky Silvas?”
Ricky shuffles out from behind a box of props and steps off the stage, his calm expression not at all how I would look if the principal just asked for me by name. They huddle together and discuss something that’s on the paperwork Principal Walsh brought with him, but I can’t overhear the conversation over the commotion of everyone on stage, packing up and getting ready to leave.
I make my way around the stage and down the stairs at the right. “Is everything okay?” I ask as I encroach on what now seems like a serious conversation. “I’m sorry you missed rehearsal, Principal Walsh.”
“Everything is not okay,” he says, handing me the top paper. I don’t have time to read it before he spits out the next words. “Lawson’s star basketball player just cost himself the playoffs, and the play.”
“I don’t—what do you mean?” I say as that all-encompassing anxiety starts to roll over me again. My mouth is so dry I’m not even sure how I still breathe.
Ricky opens his mouth as if he wants to speak, but doesn’t say anything. Principal Walsh says it for him, and seems a bit happy to do it. “Ricky has failed history and biology. He will not be participating in any extracurricular activities for the remainder of the year.” He turns on his heel and then adds over his shoulder, “That includes prom.”
I rush after the principal. “You can’t do this,” I say as I grab his arm to stop him. He looks a little pissed off that I touched him but I can’t seem to function normally right now. Worry and anger consume me. “He’s the lead actor for this play. What am I supposed to do without him?”
Principal Walsh shrugs. His moustache looks like an ugly caterpillar dancing above his lip. “Might I suggest using his understudy?”
I should have known. I probably did, in some small and dark recess of my mind. The two main characters always have an understudy. If I was the understudy for Gwen, then it only made sense as to who would be Ricky’s understudy. But I swallow myself in denial as I march down the darkened hallways of an empty school, straight to the theater arts classroom.
Straight to the box of crap Aunt Barlow left behind. I hold my breath as I shift through the extra scripts, loose papers and a roll of zebra print duct tape. I find rumpled up sheets of paper that were once taped to the wall back when I actually cared about this play. The last time I looked at this, I only sought out my own name. Now, my finger slides down the registrar, looking, hoping and waiting.
Jeremy’s Understudy … Derek Hayes
I rock back on my heels, clenching the paper in my fist. When Aunt Barlow was the theater arts teacher, she had many posters on her walls that talked about theater. I’ve read them all dozens of times and now I’m thinking the one poster she desperately needed, she didn’t have…
Murphy’s Law of Directing a Play: Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
I sit cross-legged on the floor of the empty classroom for a good ten minutes. No one stops by looking for me, but I don’t really expect any visitors. Rehearsal is over so everyone has gone home. All the other cast members need to worry about is remembering their lines and showing up on time. They don’t have to stress out about how we’re missing our lead actor. They don’t have a college acceptance letter being held hostage until the end of the play. They don’t have to go talk to the one guy they’ve been avoiding all week. I do.
I almost expect another car to be in Derek’s driveway when I arrive half an hour later. My imagination might even go a little crazy and picture an elaborate scenario where I show up unexpectedly and run straight into Derek and Lexie, making out on the hood of her car. But the only cars there belong to his parents. Which means Derek isn’t even home. Ugh.
I stare at my phone in the cup holder of Mom’s Corolla, knowing that all I need to do is call him and ask him to be in the play tomorrow. It would be an easy task if only things between us weren’t so complicated. For some reason, I feel like I need to see him in person to talk about the play. I need to be near him, with him—need to get closure or whatever it is my heart needs to be able to move on from this.
However…I can’t deny the extreme feeling of relief that falls over me now that I know he isn’t home. Now I can go home without having to see Derek and still be able to pat myself on the back for trying—I mean, I drove to his house and everything! That’s what I’ll tell Principal Walsh tomorrow. That will be my excuse for when I make Ricky perform in the play even though he’s not supposed to. Excitement ripples through me as I sit in the middle of the road near Derek’s driveway, my foot resting on the brake. Everything will work out just fine. Ricky can still be in the play even though he’s technically not supposed to participate in school activities. I just won’t tell Principal Walsh—I’ll just have Ricky walk out onstage during the performance. What’s Principal Walsh going to do? March onto the stage in the middle of the play and demand that Ricky leave? In front of hundreds of people who paid money for a ticket? Yeah right.
I don’t need Derek and I’m so glad I didn’t emb
arrass myself by running into him tonight.
Finally snapping back to reality, I put the car in reverse so I can get the hell out of here. Unfortunately, another car is behind me now, probably wondering why I’m reversing in the middle of a neighborhood street. With a sigh, I pull into Derek’s driveway to wait for the car to pass.
It doesn’t pass. It pulls right next to me.
“Of-freaking-course,” I mutter under my breath as Derek steps out of his car and rests his hands on the roof of my car on the passenger side. I roll down the window and try to wipe the sheepish grin off my face, but to no avail.
“…What’s up?” he asks. I swear to god he’s got the most cocky smile I’ve ever seen right now. He’s caught me trying to sneak past his house without him knowing. He has my entire self-esteem in his hands right now. And he knows it.
“Um…” I say, cocking my head to the left and gnawing on my bottom lip as I await for my genius brain to come up with a brilliant excuse. A few seconds go by and my brain fails me. My fingers tap nervously on the steering wheel.
Derek pulls off his beanie and adjusts it to get the hair out of his face. He leans down and rests his arms on the windowsill. “Did you come to apologize for being a big old jerk the other day?”
“Excuse you? I wasn’t a jerk.”
He lifts one eyebrow and squishes his lips to the side. “That’s arguable.”
I sigh. “I came here because I need your help.”
His face softens even though I can barely look at it. He’s so freaking gorgeous, my stomach does flip flops every time I glance in his direction. He sighs too, but it’s not a sigh of resentment like mine was, it’s a sigh of defeat. “I’m here for you, Wren. Whatever you need.”
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