The Year of Living Awkwardly

by Emma Chastain

  Friday, May 5

  Dad asked how I’m doing, and for a second I thought he’d found this diary and was asking about Grady, but then he said, “You haven’t heard from your mother again, have you?” and I said no, I haven’t, which is true. I guess that’s the upside of my fixation on Grady: I worry about Mom and Mexico all the time, but I’m simultaneously thinking about Grady, and that makes the Mom stuff less awful. I know I’m boy crazy, but I can’t blame myself. Even when it’s painful, thinking about guys is a way to stop thinking about my parents.

  Saturday, May 6

  I asked Dad if Miss Murphy was coming over for dinner, and when he said no, she was getting ready for Hell Week, I was a little disappointed. It’s too quiet with just the two of us.

  Sunday, May 7

  Something’s going on with Hannah. I saw her crying backstage, and when Miss Murphy gave notes, she said, “A few of the ensigns looked listless during ‘Wash That Man.’ That song will fail unless you bring actual happiness to it, OK?” which I think was a reference to Hannah, who was slumping around onstage all day with her eyes unfocused, like her dog died. Or maybe she was exhausted from the double run-through. It is soul-crushing to do two shows back to back.

  Monday, May 8

  Last year I didn’t know how deeply boring the cue-to-cue rehearsal is. This year I was prepared. Not that it saved me from the boredom; I still had to stand around trying to meditate and breathe deeply while Oscar changed the gels or Leo ran out to fuss with Elliott’s coconut bra. But at least I knew what was coming. Also, it was fun to see the freshmen arrive all excited for a new kind of rehearsal only to realize they were going to be trapped onstage for approximately nine hours while Leo screamed “Hold. I said HOLD!” from the wings.

  Tuesday, May 9

  Tris and I were sitting in front of the mirrors downstairs when Hannah walked past, looking sick, and disappeared into the dressing room. At the beginning of the year, I would have gone after her, but today it felt like following her would be intrusive. Then, two minutes later, Reese came down and ran into the dressing room, closing the door behind her.

  “Something’s up with Hannah and Zach,” Tris whispered.

  “No way,” I whispered back.

  He nodded. “I saw them fighting yesterday in the junior parking lot.”

  “Could you tell what about?”

  “I heard him say ‘What do you want from me?’ But then they lowered their voices and I couldn’t hear the rest. I had to keep walking. I didn’t want to, like, stop and stare at them.”

  Ugh, poor Hannah. I hope she’s OK. Would it be inappropriate to text her and say that?

  I want to tell Noelle all about what happened today, but it feels like it would be disloyal to Hannah, which makes no sense, since Hannah and I are barely friends anymore.

  Wednesday, May 10

  Dress rehearsal. It went horribly, but Miss Murphy said, “Bad dress, good opening,” and it sounded like she meant it.

  Reese looks like a pinup girl in her red polka-dotted crop top. She and Hannah spent all the breaks together, talking with intense looks on their faces.

  Grady walked past me at one point and looked at me like he was considering stopping to talk, and it took all my strength to pretend to be engrossed in my science textbook, especially because he was wearing a white sailor hat and a fake anchor tattoo and I wanted to jump him.

  Thursday, May 11

  Day off before opening night. Last year at this time, I was getting ready to sing onstage, alone, in front of a thousand people, and I was too nervous to eat or concentrate on anything. This year I feel relaxed and a little bored. I’d give anything to feel sick with fear again.

  Friday, May 12

  Opening night is in the books! We had a good show. The guys got tons of laughs during “There Is Nothing Like a Dame,” no one slipped on the shampoo during “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” and Tris slayed with “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”—I heard at least one person in the audience crying. Izzy was great, dammit. I guarantee not one person was thinking, Chloe Snow would have done a better job. But that’s OK. I got to run around in my little high-waisted shorts and look cute, and I got to sing about being in love, and I had fun, actually.

  Reese did not have fun. She sounded strangled trying to get her lines out, and you could see on her face that she was panicking. Downstairs after the show, I heard Hannah say, “Maybe you had stage fright? I’m sure you’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  Reese was yanking off her fake eyelashes. She snapped, “How would you know? You’ve never had a speaking part in your life.”

  It was the first time I’d ever seen her drop her mask of sweetness, and I was shocked. So was Hannah. She reared back like Reese had slapped her. I don’t know if they made up; I had to run to meet Dad and Miss Murphy, who were taking me and Noelle out to dinner with Tris and his family. POOR HANNAH again!

  Saturday, May 13

  During one of the many long stretches when I didn’t have to be onstage, I was sitting downstairs eating Skittles, wearing my hoodie (it’s freezing in the basement), and playing Would You Rather with Nadine. Hannah was sitting a few seats down, but we were pretending not to notice each other. I heard someone storming down the wooden stairs under the trapdoor and glanced up to see who was cruising for a bruising—Miss Murphy is always telling us to tiptoe on those stairs—and saw Reese. She raced right up to me and got in my face.

  “What are you looking at?”

  I wish I could say I came up with a snappy retort, but I just stammered and turned red. I guess in theory it’s good, this new version of Reese who’s not pretending to be nice, but in reality it’s terrifying.

  “What’d you do?” Nadine asked me after Reese had disappeared into the dressing room.

  “I have no idea!”

  “Reese hates you, huh?”

  “Thanks, Nadine. I already put that together.”

  “Just saying.”

  We tried to keep going with Would You Rather, but I couldn’t concentrate.

  We were heading back upstairs after intermission when Hannah stopped me and said, “Don’t be mad at her. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You make her sound like a hurricane who destroyed my house. She’s not a force of nature. She should be able to control herself.”

  “She messed up her lines again, that’s all. I know she’s still paranoid that you think you’re better than her.”

  “What, like a better person?”

  “No, at acting, singing . . .”

  “That’s not paranoia. I am better.”

  Hannah’s face changed. “Chloe, you can be so conceited, you know that?”

  “First of all, Reese is the one who came at me. How has this turned into a lecture on how awful I am? Second of all, why are you defending her? I saw her yelling at you yesterday. Open your eyes, Hannah! You’re on the wrong team!”

  She refused to talk to me again, and we stomped upstairs in silence. My “Honey Bun” performance was abysmal, not that it matters, since I’m a random face in the crowd.

  I know Hannah’s mad at me, and I’m mad at her, too, but it still felt good to talk to her. I wish I could tell her what’s in my heart: It’s not that I’m conceited, although maybe I am. It’s that I’ve known her for so long and I’m so comfortable with her that I can tell her the truth about what I think, even if the truth doesn’t flatter me.

  Sunday, May 14

  I stood in the wings watching Tristan’s performance today, and it gave me chills. He makes Lieutenant Cable this swaggering bro who becomes sensitive and thoughtful after he falls in love with Liat. And then, after he realizes that he’s racist, and also that he’s not strong enough to overcome his own racism, he hates himself. When he sings “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” his voice shakes from anger. Tris is a different person when he’s playing Cable. The way he walks, the way he moves his hands, his expressions—it’s like watching someone wh
o looks a lot like Tris but has nothing else in common with him.

  He came offstage after his last scene and saw me. “Are you crying??” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “I made you cry?” He jumped up and down with happiness.

  He’s probably going to get into Juilliard, and after he graduates, he’ll star in Broadway shows while I wait tables. And I can take it. He deserves all of his imaginary future success.

  Monday, May 15

  This is the best part of the run. First weekend of shows behind you, only one rehearsal to worry about during the week, and a whole second weekend of shows to look forward to. Tris and I celebrated our day off by riding our bikes to Pop’s for fries—and Elliott came!! He was extremely nervous and talked a lot, very fast. Tris kept interrupting him to explain to me what he meant, or to correct him. I pretended I had to go to the bathroom so I could sneak away and text Tris.

  You’re terrifying Elliott

  cut it out!

  He’s embarrassing me!

  No he’s not calm down

  I like him

  Really?

  Yes! Let him talk!

  It was better when I went back to the table, but from the way Tris was staring back and forth between me and Elliott, I could tell he was dying to jump in. Right after I got home, Tris called me and said, “What do you think?”

  “I told you, I like him!”

  “But do you REALLY?”

  “Tris, yes. Do you like him?”

  “I still can’t tell. Whenever we’re together, I spend the entire time trying to figure it out. It’s exhausting.”

  “Maybe he’s not the guy for you, then.”

  “But when you say that, it makes me die inside a little.”

  We were quiet. I looked at Snickers, who was lying with his head on my pillow, mumbling in his sleep. “It’s easier to be the Elliott in relationships,” I said. “If you’re in love with the other person, all you have to focus on is whether he loves you back.”

  “None of it’s easy. It’s all terrible,” Tris said, and that’s true too.

  Tuesday, May 16

  Today was the panel discussion. All the cast members who weren’t on the panel themselves were required to go, and probably 60 parents and other people showed up for it. I was nervous. Our town is so painfully white it’s like a snowman with marshmallows for buttons standing in front of a white house. And it’s supposedly a pretty liberal place, but you never know these days. I was worried someone would ask an offensive question, or accuse us of being special snowflakes for holding the event in the first place. But after the panel discussion, when Miss Murphy opened the floor for questions, people asked stuff like, “How did you deal with the question of accents?” and “Did you consider cutting some of the more troubling lines?” One person asked Olivia what her experience has been like, being a person of color in a majority-white town, and she said, “It’s been pretty hard, honestly.” She talked about being treated as other, being marginalized, having to listen to jokes about her eyes from people who think they’re making fun of racism by saying something racist, being put on the spot with questions like the one she was answering. It was hard to hear, because it made me realize I’m basically a human version of the show: the main cast of characters in my life is white, and I’m sure I’m racist in ways I don’t even know about, and that’s a sickening thought. Olivia is brave to say what she said, and brave to get up every day and come to school knowing she’s going to be surrounded by a bunch of ignoramuses like me.

  Wednesday, May 17

  MAJOR DRAMZ. Zach dumped Hannah!!!!!!!!!!!! (Those are exclamation marks of shock, not excitement.) When I walked down the ramp to the basement, I saw Hannah clinging to Reese and sobbing and Reese patting her on the back with a sympathetic expression—but somehow, under the sympathy, you could see she was psyched to be co-starring in an interesting meltdown everyone would be talking about for days.

  Tris was already at the mirrors, putting on foundation. I looked at his reflection and raised my eyebrows like, What’s up? and he mouthed Zach back to me, and from that alone I guessed what had happened, because how could it be anything else? Then, in the girls’ dressing room, Nadine asked me if Hannah’s OK. I didn’t want to admit she and I basically don’t talk anymore, so I said, “She seems pretty upset,” which sounded knowledgeable but was actually just a statement of fact based on what I’d observed two seconds earlier.

  “I can’t believe Zach broke up with her in a text. They went out for so long!”

  In a text! That douche!! “I never liked him,” I said.

  “He’s a fox, though,” Nadine said thoughtfully. Girls are ruthless. They’ll try to steal your ex-boyfriend when he’s only been your ex for two seconds!

  I was upset on Hannah’s behalf, and worried about her all night. We did a run-through, but added gags and jokes, which is the tradition between show weekends. Tris and Olivia switched parts for the duration of the rehearsal, and her rendition of “Younger Than Springtime” was actually pretty great. The sailors performed an original song called “Our Costumes Are Pretty Lame” to the tune of “There Is Nothing Like a Dame,” which is an inside joke that is only funny to the cast, because we all know about the sailors’ hatred of their bell-bottom pants. And the chorus girls dumped water on Izzy during “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” which I had argued against doing, since I was in Izzy’s position last year and that would have made me furious, but she, unlike me, is a good sport and just laughed.

  Poor Hannah looked shocked onstage and in the wings. I wonder what happened. I know Zach is a sexy musician, but he’s also a boring mansplainer, and Hannah is so beautiful and nice—what’s his problem?

  Thursday, May 18

  Tris got the scoop from Elliott, who got it from Grady, who got it from Reese. Apparently Zach thinks Hannah is great, but he “wasn’t feeling it” anymore. God, I can’t imagine anything worse! She didn’t do anything wrong and nothing changed—except he suddenly stopped being attracted to her.

  Friday, May 19

  I do Tris’s makeup before every show. Nothing dramatic, since Lieutenant Cable is a butch sailor, just a little definition of the features. It’s truly a friendship rite of passage to sit four inches from someone’s face, breathing onto his nose, feeling him breathe onto your chin, while putting light-brown eyeliner on his lids. Tris can’t keep from twitching, because he isn’t used to constantly poking himself in the eye with pencils. Today I finished doing his waterline, which is the part he hates the most, and then told him to close his eyes so I could do the top. He looked so innocent and trusting, sitting there with his eyes shut, smiling a little, presenting his face to me. I’m already dreading graduation. I don’t ever want to grow apart from him.

  Saturday, May 20

  Being in the chorus is still humiliating, and I still hate it, and I still envy Izzy with every fiber of my being. But it is fun to have more time backstage with the other kids. Today we played Celebrity, and now my stomach muscles ache from laughing so hard. And our pre-show rituals are more fun now that I’m not a lead. When we stand in a circle holding hands and squeezing energy from palm to palm, I watch people more carefully, because I know them now, and I actually care about how their performances go. And when we all scream “BREAK A LEG, TIME TO FLY, MAKE ’EM LAUGH, MAKE ’EM CRY” before we go onstage, which has been an MH theater-kid tradition since the 1982 production of Peter Pan, they make eye contact with me and smile as they’re screaming, which didn’t happen last year.

  Grady and I wound up next to each other for the hand-squeezing tonight, so I got to hold his hand guilt-free. It’s big and solid and his fingers feel strong. I tried to send a message from my palm to his palm: I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings last summer, and although I wish I could say I hope you’ll love me again someday, I can’t, because I want the best for you, and I see how happy you are with Reese.

  Reese still has terrible stage fright and sounds like a parch
ed mouse when she’s delivering her lines. Too bad, so sad. Noelle texted me, Was she garbage again tonight? and I texted back, She sure was, and she texted back the smiley poop. We would be mean girls if we weren’t utterly powerless.

  Sunday, May 21

  Today was our last show—how is it over already?? After the curtain came down, everyone cheered and then hugged each other. Half the kids started sobbing immediately, and the other half joined in after we got down to the basement and started taking off our costumes for the last time. Someone opened nonalcoholic cider, and we stood around drinking it out of Dixie cups and sporadically bursting into tears. Of course it’s ridiculous and melodramatic to be so upset about a show ending, but it’s also not. We only get four shows like this in our whole lives, because let’s be honest: aside from maybe Tristan, there are going to be way more HR reps than Broadway stars among us. We’re only teenagers once, and we’re right to be sad that it goes so fast and that soon we’ll have to grow up and work in offices and accidentally marry the wrong people and then go through grueling, expensive divorces. This is one of the only times in our lives we’ll feel like stars, and it’s hard to let go of it.

  Monday, May 22

  I’m 16. It feels anticlimactic. 16 is one of those birthdays people care about, like 18 or 21 or 30 (grown-ups care about turning 30, right?). I’m not sure why 16 is special. Maybe it’s that 15 sounds like a kid, and 16 sounds like a for-real teenager. Maybe it’s that Hollywood and MTV have brainwashed us into believing that 16 is a milestone. Maybe it’s that I would feel a little weird if I lost my virginity at age 15, but I wouldn’t feel as weird if I lost it at 16 (am I slut-shaming myself?). Maybe I’m overthinking it, and it’s that people—normal people, not me—get excited about it because it means they can finally drive.