The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

by Robin Talley

  “He . . . doesn’t?” Dom goes even paler.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Odile again. She’s leaning down obligingly while Shannon peers at the roots of her hair. Probably already planning out ways to talk Ms. Marcus into getting her a wig. Sometimes I think Shannon forgets that there are actual human beings attached to the hair she’s so obsessed with.

  “Only because he’s, like, an infant when the show starts. Because it jumps ahead twenty years and—never mind. Here, look.” I find the video from the 1987 Tonys, hand Dom my phone, and hit play. “You can’t miss him. Just wait for the drumroll and look for the vest.”

  “Congratulations to everyone in the cast and crew,” Ms. Marcus calls from the other end of the hall, and everyone abruptly goes silent to listen. “The first rehearsal is a week from today, so please go to the performing arts department website tonight to download the script. I’d like you to read the whole thing before the rehearsal, and spend some time familiarizing yourself with the cast recordings, too. You can find all the songs online. Please resist the urge to watch the movie—I hope all I need to say is ‘Russell Crowe’ to convince you on that one.”

  Everyone laughs. Dom comes up and passes me back my phone, nodding slightly—to show, I hope, that he now understands why Enjolras is awesome. Then he winds his way back through the crowd.

  “If you’re interested in joining tech crew, please speak to Melody,” Ms. Marcus adds. “I understand that the costume team particularly needs volunteers. Making all the costumes this show requires by opening night may be even more of a challenge than mastering all the high notes.”

  There’s another laugh, and the crowd starts to dissipate. I linger to pass out more contact forms and answer questions. A few actors in the ensemble stop to ask about tech roles, so I chat with them about what departments they might be a fit for. Three girls volunteer to help with costumes right away, which should make Rachel happy.

  “There you are, Mel.” Odile’s voice is bright in my ear as the last of the freshmen ensemble guys steps away. She’s holding out her contact form. “You’re way too popular. Every time I try to find you, you’re talking to someone. Here, I hope I filled it out right.”

  “I, um. I’m sure you did.” I flush. Ugh, why is it impossible for me to act normal around this girl?

  “Er, Mel?” It’s Alejandra, holding out her own completed form. Her eyes dart back and forth from Odile to me. “I wanted to ask—do you know when we need to have our parts memorized by?”

  “Don’t worry.” I take her form. “Ms. Marcus will tell you when you need to be off-book, but it won’t be for a long time. You’ll probably already know all the lyrics by then anyway just from going through rehearsals.”

  “And congrats!” Odile smiles at her. “I’m playing your mom! I’m so excited to do this show with you.”

  Alejandra smiles back, but tentatively, as if she’s not sure Odile’s being sincere. “Thanks.”

  “Let me know if you’d like to practice together on one of our free afternoons. Sometimes I think it’s easier to practice solos with an audience, even if it’s just an audience of one.”

  Alejandra audibly gulps. “Er . . . all right.”

  David comes by and starts talking to Odile again, and more people stop by to ask me questions. A lot more. They ask the same things over and over, about rehearsal schedules and production meetings and whether power tools are scary.

  I don’t mind. It’s a lot easier than it will be once we get deep into rehearsals. During our last two weeks on R&J I couldn’t set foot in the performing arts wing without being besieged with frantic questions and desperate pleas for help.

  And I don’t mind that either. It’s always nice to be needed. Besides, this is what I love about theater. We’re going to make something amazing together. We’re a team, and we trust each other to do whatever it takes. We’re making something bigger than any of us could ever have done alone.

  Just as long as none of us does anything to screw it up.

  The Scottish Play: What Went Wrong

  Stored on BHS performing arts department shared drive

  Created by: Billy Yang, stage manager, class of 2007

  Viewable to: All cast, crew, and directors

  Editable by: Current SM ONLY

  Attention, future Beaconville High School SMs: This list must be preserved for posterity. Our mistakes are being recorded so you don’t have to repeat them.

  During the spring 2007 production of the Scottish Play, the following unexplainable events occurred:

  On opening night, an actor, in character as Lady [Scottish Play], while performing the sleepwalking scene with her eyes closed, walked off the stage and into the orchestra pit. We’re told we were lucky she only broke one bone. She’s still in a cast and doesn’t feel particularly lucky.

  During tech, a plastic dagger that was branded as “retractable” did not, in fact, retract. Fortunately, that actor only needed a few hours at urgent care, but the actor on the other end of the dagger will probably need therapy for life.

  During the second night of the show, an actor developed a never-previously-present allergy to her witch makeup and had to perform with her face broken out in hives. (We all agreed it actually added to her performance, but nevertheless she was very itchy.)

  On closing night, the hazer set off a smoke alarm and we had to evacuate the theater twenty minutes before intermission. Never mind that the hazer had worked fine during tech, three dress rehearsals, and three performances before that.

  During the matinee, a cable detached from one of the many scraggly trees in the set just as it was being flown in for the second act. The audience thought it was part of the show and cheered. It was not part of the show. That tree was heavy. Witches could’ve died.

  On closing night, the scrim came down early during a fight scene and the cast had to break character to run out from under it. The audience didn’t notice, which depending on your point of view may or may not be a bad thing.

  During strike, a member of the run crew fell backward into the trap, which apparently wasn’t fully secured, even though I had personally checked the lock right before the show started. Fortunately, she was okay aside from a bruised butt.

  To conclude: be careful in this theater. Be very, very careful. Something is deeply wrong here.

  And to the curse overlords, if you’re reading this over my shoulder: we’re really sorry we bothered you. Please take it easier on future SMs than you did on me.

  Scene 4—Beaconville High School Cafeteria

  DAYS UNTIL SPRING MUSICAL OPENS: 77

  “Three dollars for a cupcake?” Dom frowns down at the price card I’m writing out. We’re at a wide table at the back of the cafeteria, getting ready for our bake sale shift. “Exactly how spectacular are these cupcakes?”

  “Pretty darn spectacular.” I fold the price card and set it in front of the tray. “Dad and I spent hours on them. We even made the frosting.”

  “I’d pay three dollars for a cupcake with homemade frosting.” As if to prove the point, Odile fishes around in her purse, pulls out three singles, and drops them into our cash box, then takes a strawberry cupcake and sets it next to her Ziploc full of baby carrots. “I’m selling my snickerdoodles for two dollars a bag. They’re my aunt’s recipe, and seriously, they’re life-changing.”

  I don’t argue with her, but I strongly suspect Odile’s never eaten a cookie in her life, and I’ll be astonished if she actually takes a bite of that strawberry cupcake. Last I heard, ingenue diets didn’t include baked goods.

  “Is the credit card thingy on your phone working?” Dom asks as he straightens the trays. Half the table is covered in brownies, since those are always the biggest sellers. Dom, who’s worked almost as many bake sales as I have, brought in what looks like twenty batches of Duncan Hines.

  “Yep.” I pull out the jar of complimentary jelly beans. Will brought in huge bags of them. He’s a big believer in generating future ticket sale
s with memories of sugar. “Flip the sign.”

  Dom stands up—he’s the tallest of our group, so he’s in charge of dealing with the BAKE SALE OPEN / BAKE SALE CLOSED sign on the wall—and as soon as he flips it to OPEN, a whoop goes up from the nearest table of jocks and the line starts forming.

  “Give me the biggest brownie you’ve got, drama club dude,” the first basketball player says, holding out a five-dollar bill to Dom.

  The line moves fast, like bake sale lines always do, and we fall into a natural rhythm. Dom does food service, using his long, gangly arms to reach across the table and swipe up the cookies, cupcakes, and brownies. I handle the money, making change and swiping credit cards on my phone.

  I hadn’t expected Odile to be much help, but she turns out to be good at sales. She speaks in a sweet voice I’ve never heard her use before, and she smiles exactly the way she did when she played Elle Woods. Between her Us Weekly–approved bone structure and the way she somehow manages to make every athlete at the school feel like she’s their best friend, she guilts half our customers into leaving their extra change in our donations cup.

  Before we’re ten minutes into the lunch period, the cash box is stuffed, and Dom’s already reaching under the table to restock our inventory. The line has gone down, but I know from bake sales past that it’ll pick up again when we get closer to the end of the period.

  “How are we doing?” Odile nods toward the cash box and stretches her arms over her head.

  “Pretty, um . . . we’re doing pretty well.”

  I can’t help staring at her. She’s as resplendent as ever in her bright orange leather jacket, artfully ripped skintight jeans, and ankle boots. I feel like a slob next to her in my black sweatpants and hoodie. I spend so much time in show blacks that I forget I have other clothes.

  “If the other shifts earn this much, we’ll have enough to cover the costumes and the turntable and even a little extra,” I add, sitting up straight and tearing my eyes off Odile’s arched back. “Maybe we can afford some wicked cool new lighting stuff.”

  Dom smiles, but I can tell from the vacant look in his eyes that I’ve already lost him. Sound geeks always think lighting is boring and vice versa. At least, I hope it’s just a sound-versus-lighting situation, and not a new case of Actor Brain.

  (Actor Brain isn’t a character flaw or anything, since it’s not as if they can help it. When you start to talk about tech stuff, actors’ frontal lobes suddenly acquire a soft layer of fuzz that blocks all interest and understanding.)

  “Do you have any specific wicked cool lighting stuff in mind?” Odile asks me.

  “Um, yeah. I had this one idea, but it won’t be cheap so I need to make sure we have enough in the budget.” Why am I talking about this? Odile probably just asked to be polite. But suddenly I can’t shut up. “I’ve always thought it would be amazing if, when Javert sings ‘Stars,’ we had a star drop—you know, one of those drapes with a million tiny lights that look like actual stars.”

  “That would be amazing.” Odile pulls the bottom part off her cupcake and smooshes it down onto the frosting. Pops does that too. He calls it his cupcake sandwich. “And it would be really inspiring for David, singing up into those lights.”

  “You think?” Hmm. I always thought actors got their inspiration from having people look at them. “Will says it won’t be easy, though.”

  “Will?” Odile wrinkles her forehead. “Do you mean Mr. Green?”

  “Oh, yeah—sorry, I always forget to call him that. He’s friends with my dads, so I’ve known him a long time.”

  “Wait, dads, plural?” Her eyes widen. “Oh, wait—did your dads help at the Joseph strike?”

  “Indeed.” Dom nods gravely. “Once you’ve spent some time around Sean and Charlie, Mel suddenly makes a lot more sense.”

  “Hey.” I stick out my tongue at him. “No making fun of me. At least I know how to pronounce your character’s name.”

  “I think I’ve got it down now. I watched some tutorials.”

  “Now I remember.” Odile lays two fingertips on my elbow. “Your dads are the ones who run the parent committee, right?”

  For a moment, I seem to have lost the ability to speak. Or use any other part of my body not directly connected to my elbow, where her fingers are still resting.

  “That’s them,” Dom says after an uncomfortable pause. I make a mental note to thank him for not trying to tease me that time.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, but it comes out more like a squeak. “Dad’s the president. Um. Sorry if you’ve seen them do anything embarrassing.”

  Odile takes a big bite of her cupcake sandwich. Okay, I guess she does eat baked goods.

  “I have no room to talk about embarrassing parents,” she says, wiping crumbs off her mouth. “My dad wears this Santa suit every Christmas—not that he dresses up like Santa, mind you, it’s a literal suit, a jacket and pants, that’s bright green and covered in Santa heads. He found it in a bargain bin and he wears it every year because he enjoys humiliating my sister and me.”

  Dom laughs. I’m kind of jealous of how relaxed he is around Odile. He’s talking to her as though she’s anyone else at school.

  “So, Mel, how much do you need to raise for the star drop?” she asks as I reach under the table for the bag of jelly beans.

  “It’s a couple thousand to rent one. More than we’d make in a bake sale—we’ll need to sell a lot of program ads too. But I haven’t proposed it to Ms. Marcus yet, so we’ll see if she even wants to do it. She might not trust me with lighting after the way I screwed up on R&J.”

  “You did?” Odile frowns.

  “Big-time.” I sigh. “Long story.”

  “Stop beating yourself up, Mel.” Dom pats my arm. “It was Rachel’s fault. Besides, it’ll be funny a few years from now.”

  “Oh, you mean the balcony scene?” Odile furrows her eyebrows. Her voice is astonishingly warm. “My sister was at the show that night. From what she said, it was a three-second blip and everyone forgot about it by the time they got to Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

  “She clearly remembered it enough to tell you all about it,” I point out.

  “Come on, stuff like that probably happens all the time when you’re shooting fancy TV shows, right?” Dom grins at Odile.

  “It happens everywhere.” Odile’s smile is warm, too. I can’t help smiling back. “On opening night of Legally Blonde, all the stage lights went out in the middle of the second act right when there were thirty of us onstage ready to go into ‘Bend and Snap.’”

  “Oh, God.” I groan. “That’s an SM’s worst nightmare. Did anyone get hurt?”

  “Not at all. The crew brought up the work lights so we could see, and they got us back to the right cue really quickly. Up until then we had to dance in the dark with only the backup lights, and the audience could barely see us. They must’ve thought it was a moody lighting effect, and we all had to act like it was supposed to be that way. My cheeks were aching from having to hold that exact smile without laughing.”

  “You know, I always wondered about that.” I tilt my head. “You had to smile through that whole show, practically. Did it make your face hurt?”

  “A little.” She laughs again.

  “You saw Legally Blonde?” Dom asks me. “Weren’t we still in middle school?”

  “Yeah, but my dads always used to bring me here to see the shows, even when I was a kid.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Odile sounds as though she really does think it’s wonderful. “I don’t think my parents have ever seen a musical except the ones my sister and I have been in.”

  “Wow. Seriously?” I’d assumed she had stage parents who’d pushed her into the business.

  But Dom jumps in before I can ask more about her family. “Did you like doing Legally Blonde? I’ve seen clips from when it was on Broadway, and it looked kind of cheesy.”

  “It was, but that’s all right.” Odile shrugs. “As long as you embrace the cheese. P
lus, it was the most dancing I’ve ever gotten to do in any show.”

  “It has that one really funny song in the trial scene, right?” Dom asks. “What’s it called? Something about is he gay or is he European?”

  “That song!” I thump my hand down on the table, harder than I mean to. I haven’t thought about that song in years, but now it’s all rushing back. “I hate it so much!”

  “Whoa, okay.” Dom holds up his hands. “Sorry. Didn’t know it was a touchy subject.”

  Odile doesn’t say anything, but she’s staring at me, clearly waiting for me to say more.

  Legally Blonde ends with a big trial scene, where the main character decides the male star witness must be lying about having an affair with her female client, because he’s gay. The whole cast then sings this ridiculous song about how the guy might not actually be gay because he could just have, like, affected manners or whatever, since he’s from some unspecified European country.

  “I know it’s just supposed to be goofy.” I pause, struggling to think of how to explain it. “But when I came to see that show, I was still trying to figure out if I identified as gay or bi or something else, and that song actually made me kind of worried. It made it sound as if figuring out how you identify is supposed to be really easy, so I thought I was neurotic for even thinking about it in the first place. Now, obviously, I know that’s not how it works at all. I know I’m bisexual, and I don’t sit around worrying about it anymore like I did when I was a kid. And I know exactly how uncool it is to have a song that’s so completely wrong about everything in a show, and to perform it in a school, of all places. And, I mean, besides, what kind of legal defense is that? They’re trying to say the guy can’t possibly have had an affair with that lady just because he has a boyfriend. As if no one on the jury’s ever heard of sexual fluidity.”