The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

by Robin Talley

  A sharp knock on the door interrupts us. I roll over and groan. “Who is it?”

  “The French Revolution!” a voice calls back.

  “And that would be Dom.” I sigh. That joke started during Les Mis strike and, it seems, will never go away.

  Odile laughs. “Are you going to let him in?”

  “I think I have to. He’s probably still in costume.”

  He is, of course—Gabby made the trim for his tux herself—but he’s grinning so hard I can’t get mad at him.

  “You were amazing.” Odile climbs up from the beanbag and hugs him. “Christine’s totally going to pick you. The Phantom’s just a whiner.”

  “Wish you were up there with us.” He smiles at her.

  “I’m still sad I didn’t get to be in your army last year.”

  “We got to be dead together at the end. It was all good.”

  “You really have been awesome tonight,” I tell him, because it’s the truth. After Les Mis, Dom decided to go all in on the acting side and signed up for voice classes, and it paid off. On top of the shows here, he got a great part in the community theater’s summer production of Guys and Dolls. They’re starting rehearsals right after we close. He keeps saying it’s no big deal, but every time I mention it, he grins from ear to ear.

  “Uh-oh.” He glances at my timer. “I’ve got, what, thirty seconds before I need to be backstage?”

  “More like twenty. You have to change for the masquerade.”

  “Well, I wanted to come see Odile in case I don’t get another chance. Are you heading back to New York tonight?”

  “Unfortunately.” She scrunches up her face. “Finals start tomorrow, so this was the only time during the run that I could leave town. But I can’t wait to see you dodge those fireballs in the next act.”

  “Ugh, the fireballs.” I roll my eyes. “We had to do the whole thing with a couple of light cues. It’s the most anticlimactic fight scene ever.”

  “Would you rather we used actual pyrotechnics?” Dom raises his eyebrows. “In this theater?”

  “Well, no. But I’m just saying, we could’ve painted some tennis balls orange at least.”

  “Sorry I’m late.” Jasmin charges back into the booth, then halts when she sees Dom. “Whoa—shouldn’t you be in a dressing room chugging honey water or something?”

  I reach for my headset. “Yeah, he should. Break a leg, again.”

  “And now, back to France.” He holds the door open for Odile. She gives me a quick kiss, right in front of the others, and I’m already giggling before she’s even let go. “Okay, if you two don’t stop, I’m going to have the cuteness police fire some orange tennis balls your way.”

  I catch Odile’s hand as Dom leaves and squeeze it tight. Voices are chattering away in the headset around my neck, but I don’t move to put it on. She’s holding my gaze, and there’s so much in that look—warmth and trust and an openness that I love almost as much as I love her. It’s that amazing actor trick, where she can say so much without actually saying anything at all. My heart’s thudding so loud it might as well be a sound effect.

  I still can’t believe she’s really mine.

  “Mel . . .” There’s a warning in Jasmin’s voice. “I can’t flash the warning light in the house until you call five minutes to places, remember?”

  “On it.” I lift Odile’s hand to my lips, kiss her fingers, and slip back into my seat. I hear her laughing as she closes the door behind her, and my face is bright red as I switch my mic on.

  I still can’t believe, after everything that happened, that we got to start over. Another try, with no curses or secrets to get in the way.

  I lean into my mic. “Imani, how many of the actors are back?”

  “Almost everyone, but we’re still fixing a couple of costumes. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

  “Okay. Where are we on the staircase?”

  “Run crew’s testing the casters one last time. Nick got them unstuck, finally. He’s good with a screwdriver.”

  “Tell him well done. Nena, are you ready on sound?”

  “Ready.”

  “Okay. Five minutes to places, everyone. Stand by, lights—lights, go. Stand by, curtain.”

  I grin into my mic. Act two is about to start. A new beginning, for all of us.

  “And . . . curtain, go!”

  Curtain Call

  CAST

  (in order of appearance)

  Jean Valjean

  Nicholas Underwood

  Javert

  David Patel

  Fantine

  Odile Rose

  Young Cosette

  Josefina Penoi

  Madame Thénardier

  Elizabeth Meyers

  Thénardier

  Julio Ramirez

  Gavroche

  Lauren Breen

  Cosette

  Alejandra Huston

  Éponine

  Leah Zou

  Enjolras

  Dominic Connor

  Marius Pontmercy

  Malik Sexton

  People of France (Convicts, Constables, Laborers, Factory Workers, Sailors, Inn Guests, Urchins, Beggars, Thénardier’s Gang, Students, Sentries, Sex Workers, Turning Women, Wedding Guests, etc.)

  Christina Leasure

  Aaron Crane

  Andrew Hernandez

  Uri Lee

  Imani Miller

  Kyle Marckini

  Connor Kukovec

  Katelyn Landwehr

  Noah Mette

  Travis Hedstrom

  Peyton Tiu

  Trent Fairwood

  George Vermaat

  Madison Rogers

  Chad Syring

  Adam Nakumara

  Kadie Akins

  Selah Levi

  Jillian Waldrep

  Bruce Dickerson

  Tasha Barnett

  Briony Olson

  (continues on page 12)

  STUDENT CREW

  Stage Manager

  Melody McIntyre

  Assistant Stage Manager

  Gabrielle Piacine

  Set Designer

  Fatima Pataras

  Lighting Designer

  Jasmin Bennett

  Sound Designer

  Kevin Lo

  Costume Designer

  Rachel Scott

  Hair & Makeup Designer

  Shannon Kardas

  Props Designer

  Estaban Goodwin

  Publicity Manager

  Tyler Zumbrun

  Assistant Crew Heads, Production & Run Crew Members

  Michael Coken

  Jacob Matushek

  Devin Schmidtke

  Nena Curley

  Aya Aljoulani

  Benjamin Levy

  Daniel Horton

  Ellie Nagy

  Han Thai

  Joey Pytel

  Erin Edmonds

  Juan Molina

  Matthew O’Hara

  Morgan Springborn

  Amrita Ramanan

  Paul Villalovoz

  Riya Florence

  Zack Nguyen

  Cameron Babb

  Ellyn Miller

  Miranda Craig

  Lexi Grenzner

  Lilyan Dilay

  Kekoa Lauzon

  Mick Coughlan

  Holly Pounds

  Preston Tekmenzhi

  Grant Moore

  Kelly Brasseau

  Lon Bailey

  Ian Mitchell

  Victoria Jahn

  Reaiah Gerstein

  Bach Polakowski

  Caroline Graham

  Lindsey Thaniel

  (continues on page 22)

  Author’s Note

  I didn’t intend to set The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre in an alternate universe, but as it turned out, that’s what happened.

  When I was writing it back in 2018 and 2019, it never crossed my mind that by the time the actual dates of the musical production at its center rolled around, the
world would be so dramatically altered by a global pandemic that in fact, in most of the United States, no school theater productions—and, for that matter, no school—would be occurring in the spring of 2020.

  The world is still in the process of turning upside down as we’re sending this book off to print, so I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I hope with all my heart that soon we’ll all be heading back to school, back to the theater, and, most important, back to each other.

  Acknowledgments

  Aside from a few Christmas pageants in my youth, I’ve never been part of a theater production in any form. In high school, though, I did have an odd tendency to date actors, and when I reached adulthood I had the good sense to marry an actor/singer/stage manager/managing director who cheerfully served as both the inspiration and the technical adviser for the book you hold in your hands (or on your screen). She’s the one to whom I sent a random text one afternoon asking if it would serve as a realistic story premise if I wrote about an extremely talented high school stage manager who was adamantly anti-actor, who then fell for an actor in spite of herself, and she’s the one who texted back, “Oooooooh, SURE.” And thus, after lots and lots of collaborative brainstorming and trips to watch local productions and an embarrassing number of hours spent watching performances on YouTube, The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre came into being. But, as is appropriate for a book about theater, there were a lot of people who I depended on throughout the writing process.

  First I have to thank my editor, Kristen Pettit—this book was a serious challenge to structure and shape, and it wouldn’t be the story it is if it weren’t for Kristen’s insights. Thank you to my agent, Jim McCarthy, for championing this book (and all my books) and never tiring of discussing technical theater with me. And to the rest of the team at Harper, including Clare Vaughn, Alexandra Rakaczki, Jessie Gang, Alison Klapthor, Josephine Rais, Allison Brown, Jessica White, and Christine Corcoran Cox, thank you so much for helping to bring this book out into the world and make it a real thing.

  Thank you to my early readers: Jessica Spotswood, who read an early and very broken draft and somehow proceeded to tell me exactly how to fix it, and Jacob Gerstein, who served as my very first beta reader on the first draft of Act 1, gave me lots of highly useful feedback, and was nice enough to make sure he didn’t mark it up with a red pen. Many thanks to Nicole Overton and Lindsay Smith, who gave me excellent suggestions on the manuscript, and to my chapter 1 beta readers, who kindly offered up their last-minute services via Twitter: Mary N.S. Richardson, Ibrahim Chaudry, and Joanna Kanellopoulos.

  Thank you to my many theater-inclined friends who offered thoughts, suggestions, and technical expertise, particularly Jarrett Perlow (who also accompanied me to several productions and critiqued them for me, which was extra useful when my reaction to a song might be “Oh that was . . . nice” only to learn that the actor should have been using head voice the whole time and that’s why it sounded all wonky) and Cheryl Williams (who let me borrow her stage manager binder for Bat Boy: The Musical, which has an utterly terrifying script, but the associated paperwork was indescribably helpful), as well as Emily Hayes-Rowan, Maggie Walker, Josh Adrian, Sarah Chapin, Ben Levine, Maddie McQuade, Michael Dove, and honestly probably at least twenty other people who I begged to answer questions for me at some point. (I’m really sorry if you’re one of those people and I forgot to write down the fact that we had that conversation. My memory is awful, but I very much appreciated your help all the same!)

  Huge thanks are also due to the casts and production teams behind the many amazing high school and youth theater productions I treated myself to while I was researching Love Curse, including Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, DC (Legally Blonde); Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat); Albert Einstein High School in Kensington, Maryland (Once Upon a Mattress); St. John’s College High School in Washington, DC (Emma! A Pop Musical); Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland (Mary Poppins); St. Albans School/National Cathedral School in Washington, DC (Leader of the Pack); Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, Virginia (Bye Bye Birdie); Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC (Floyd Collins); and Ovations Theatre in Rockville, Maryland (Les Mis). Special thanks go to DC’s Sitar Arts Center, which was kind enough to let me sit in on their sitzprobe for Seussical and entertained me with more than a decade’s worth of summer musical productions, all directed by the incomparable A. Lorraine Robinson.

  Fortunately for me, the internet is full of generous people who’ve staged Les Mis in high schools and community theaters all over the country, who then took the time to share exactly how they did it with their fellow artists. I read detailed descriptions of the window gobos required to make “On My Own” look appropriately despondent and found countless video tutorials on how to build turntables, apply peasant makeup, and construct revolutionary student vests, and I’m hereby sending out massive gratitude to the technical theater community for being so willing to share your knowledge and experiences. Plus, another enormous thank-you to the hundreds of high school drama students and teachers who posted Les Mis performance videos, memes, and inspired works online. Particularly to the original creators of the “Prom Would Be Misérable Without You” promposal concept (genius) and the incredible “One Day More” pep rally flash mob at a California high school a few years back.

  Finally, and most of all, thank you to Julia, my partner in all things, musical and otherwise. From detailing the philosophical principles behind the Thénardiers’ existence to patiently explaining how light boards work, you were my alpha reader and in-house expert on everything. You both wrangled our toddler while I furiously drafted, and sang Phantom solos for me as a reward when I met my deadlines. I really would be misérable without you.

  About the Author

  Photo by Courtney Rae Rawls

  ROBIN TALLEY is a queer author who grew up in southwest Virginia and now lives in Washington, DC, with her wife and their kids. She is the New York Times bestselling author of six other novels for teen readers: Music from Another World, Pulp, Our Own Private Universe, As I Descended, What We Left Behind, and Lies We Tell Ourselves. You can find her on the web at www.robintalley.com.

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  Books by Robin Talley

  Music from Another World

  Pulp

  As I Descended

  Our Own Private Universe

  What We Left Behind

  Lies We Tell Ourselves

  The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

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  Copyright

  HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  THE LOVE CURSE OF MELODY MCINTYRE. Copyright © 2020 by Robin Talley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  Cover art © 2020 by JOSEPHINE RAIS

  Cover design by JESSIE GANG

  * * *

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936260

  Digital Edition DECEMBER 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-240928-7

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-240926-3

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  2021222324PC/LSCH1098
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  FIRST EDITION

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