All the Way

by Megan Stine

  It doubly sucked that she was friends with Molly, who wasn’t really my rival or enemy or anything, but she acted like she was. I mean, Molly clearly wanted to kill me for having sex with her guy. Which I didn’t even do.

  I took a deep breath and marched up to Natalie.

  “Hi,” I said. “Are you renting that?” I nodded at the video in her hand.

  “Duh.” She glared at me.

  “Well, could you please return it as soon as you’ve watched it?” I asked nicely. “Because Ariel and I want to try out for the musical, too.”

  Natalie just stared at me wide-eyed and laughed. “Sorry, I promised all my friends they could borrow it when I’m done,” she said without an ounce of regret.

  “Are you kidding?” Ariel looked shocked. “You’re not returning it before the auditions?”

  Natalie shrugged. “That’s life after late fees,” she said. “Get used to it.”

  Oh-kay, I thought. Be as bitchy as you want. No way was I letting her stop me from getting a part.

  Ariel and I spun around and walked out of the store without speaking.

  “Now what?” I asked on the way home. “How are we going to learn any of the songs in this thing?”

  “I know ‘Luck Be a Lady,’ ” Ariel said and instantly launched into a big Broadway-style rendition of it. I hate to say this, but her voice was really loud in the small car. Too loud.

  “That was good.” I pretty much lied. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t like the way she belted it out at the top of her lungs.

  “Thanks,” Ariel beamed. “Too bad I can’t audition with that. It’s not a girl’s part.”

  “Oh. Right.” Secretly I was thinking it was a good thing she couldn’t do that song for her audition, because she’d never get cast if she did. “So what are you going to sing?”

  “No clue,” Ariel admitted. “I’m going home to see if my mom has the CD or something.”

  Good plan. Aunt Sharon had a lot of musicals.

  “Call me if you find it,” I said, hopping out of the car. “And good luck!”

  “You, too,” she called after me, like we were in this together.

  Yeah, I guess we were. Sort of. I was just hoping I had a better shot at getting a part than she did.

  I ran into the house, dropped my stuff, and then hurried out to the studio over the garage for some privacy while I called Rachel for advice. I told her all about Natalie and what had happened at Blockbuster.

  “She sounds just like Nicki Richmond, doesn’t she?” Rachel commiserated.

  “God, you’re right!” I said. Nicki Richmond was this smug, conceited girl who owned about thirty pairs of Lucky jeans and thought she’d stolen Sam from me because he rebounded right into her wide-open arms when I broke up with him. “You’ve nailed it: she has Nicki’s same snotty in-your-face attitude and the looks to back it up.”

  “Okay, here’s what you do,” Rachel said. “Forget her. Download all the songs from iTunes and start learning the ones for the female leads. I’ll go to the Blockbuster here and see if they have the movie. I’ll call you if I find it.”

  Now that’s what I call a best friend.

  I glanced out the window toward Molly’s house, wondering whether she was home and, if she was, what she was doing. Homework? Plotting ways to get Joey back? Spying on me?

  But her bedroom was dark.

  That’s a relief, I thought. After all the stares and comments at school today, I didn’t want to look out my own window and see Molly glaring back at me. Not that I didn’t deserve it. I mean, I’d been peeping into her windows for months now.

  I went back to my room in the main house, downloaded the songs from Guys and Dolls, and Googled the play to find out what it was all about.

  From what I could quickly tell, the story was set in the 1940s or ’50s. The leading man was a character named Nathan Detroit who ran the “oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York.” Nathan was engaged to Miss Adelaide, and in the end they got married.

  Perfect! That’s all I needed to know.

  I figured Tyler would be going out for the part of Nathan, so I wanted to play Miss Adelaide. We’d probably have to kiss onstage, and we’d get married in the end!

  I could just see it now: Tyler’s wavy, sandy-blond hair falling forward as he bent down to kiss me. (I’m short, he’s tall.) I’d tilt my head up, showing the audience my best profile, as his muscular arms encircled me . . .

  We’d have to rehearse it a lot, of course, to get it right. And who knew what might happen after that? The prom was only three weeks away, and everyone knows leading men always fall in love with their leading ladies.

  Why wouldn’t he want to take me to the prom, once we’d spent all that quality time together?

  Bottom line: I just had to get the part of Miss Adelaide. Getting a good part in the musical was the key to everything that could turn my life around.

  Chapter 6

  “You look awesome!” Ariel gasped, staring at me in the restroom after school on Thursday. We were both getting ready for the auditions. And by getting ready, I mean changing our clothes and trying not to throw up from nerves.

  “Thanks,” I said, sticking another hairpin into my crazy, retro hairdo.

  “I’m serious, where did you get that dress? It’s, like, perfect!”

  I had just changed out of my Guess jeans and tan cashmere cowl-neck sweater into a slinky burgundy red vintage satin cocktail dress I’d bought at a thrift store. The dress was a little dingy, especially around the neckline, so I’d sewn on some dark burgundy lace and sequins along the seam lines to jazz it up. I added a sequin gardenia to the front left side of the skirt, too. The dress was slit up one side, exposing lots of leg, and I was wearing fishnets with a pair of vintage spiky black patent leather heels that my mom got from her mom, who was a shoe fanatic and bought lots of shoes she only wore once or twice, so they were still in great shape.

  “Yeah,” I said, beaming. “I really worked on this. The dress was at St. Teresa’s Charity Shop, but I changed it.”

  “You are so going to be a fashion designer,” Ariel said. Ariel was sort of my own private little cheerleading section. It was so nice—she was totally supportive of everything I did.

  “Let’s hope so,” I said. “That’s the plan, anyway.”

  I leaned into the mirror to fix a piece of hair that kept falling into my eyes. I had worked hard to come up with a retro hairstyle that looked ’40s but wasn’t hideous—not an easy assignment, if you ask me. I also had the extreme makeup thing going on, too, with deep red lipstick and eyebrows arched halfway up my forehead.

  “We’d better go,” Ariel said, checking her watch. “Mr. Richards said to be there and sign up by three thirty.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath and stuck my head high in the air, which is what I’d been doing every time I stepped into a hallway or classroom at Norton. The past few days hadn’t been quite as bad as Monday—most people weren’t staring at me anymore or making snide comments. But Molly’s friends still treated me like scum, and I still felt like I had something to prove.

  We walked into the auditorium, which was buzzing with about forty or fifty people all hanging around, waiting for the auditions to start.

  Tyler happened to be standing by the back door as we walked in.

  “Hey,” he said, looking me up and down approvingly. “Nice costume.”

  “Thanks.” I beamed.

  He spoke to me! Tyler North actually spoke to me. He hadn’t done that all year.

  “So you’re trying out for Miss Adelaide?” he asked, nodding at my dress.

  “Yeah.” I smiled up at him, sort of flirting.

  “Well, good luck,” he said. “You probably won’t get up there for a while—he’s doing the guys first. But if you want, I’ll run lines with you.”

  “Great!” I said, feeling like I might throw up again.

  I’m usually not nervous or timid about stuff. My dad al
ways says I’ve got nerves of steel. Ever since I was little, I’ve been pretty gutsy. Like, in sixth grade, I went to a City Council meeting and told the mayor they should build a community center so kids would have a cool place to hang out.

  But this was different. Way more scary. I could feel my stomach jumping around inside.

  “You’d better go sign up,” Tyler said, nodding toward Mr. Richards, who was standing on the floor at the front of the stage.

  Ariel had already gone ahead, so I hurried to catch up with her. On the way, I checked out the competition. Natalie Anschell was strutting around, singing some song I hadn’t learned, and small groups of other girls were huddled together, vocalizing or going over scripts. Most of the guys were lounging in the back row seats, acting like they weren’t really too interested in the whole process, but I knew that was just a pose. Otherwise, why were they there? Anyway, the place was full of a crazy kind of energy, which made me even more nervous.

  Mr. Richards had a clipboard in his hands and was taking down names and giving out scripts and audition numbers.

  “Hi,” he said. “You’re Carmen, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Love the dress,” he said. “It’s perfect. You’re going for Miss Adelaide, I assume?”

  “Yes.” I smiled winningly.

  “So where’d you get the outfit, and how’d you come up with the genius idea to dress the part?” He looked really impressed with me.

  This is excellent! I thought. He likes me already!

  “I’m a thrift store hound,” I confessed. Then I gestured toward the sequined gardenia. “But I added my own touches.”

  “She’s going into fashion design in college,” Ariel chimed in from the sidelines.

  “Excellent!” Mr. Richards said, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead. “Okay, here’s a script. Pages 28 and 29 are marked for Miss Adelaide, as are pages 40 and 41. And . . .” He glanced at his clipboard. “You’re number seven of the girl singers.”

  Seven? Yikes.

  I guess this is why I never tried out for the school play before now. It’s terrifying.

  “Let’s run lines,” Ariel said, heading toward a spot off to the side where we could study the script.

  We sat down, and I started reading. There were a lot more characters than I’d realized, since I hadn’t seen the movie.

  I was about ten pages into it when I realized something. The part of Miss Adelaide was . . . well . . . weird. I mean, she kept sneezing all the time. What was up with that?

  “You want me to read with you?” a voice right behind my ear said.

  I swiveled in my seat and saw Tyler perched on the arm of the seat behind me.

  “Um, that would be great,” I said, shooting an apologetic look at Ariel.

  “No problem,” Ariel said, getting up. “I’m going to go talk to Becca Christianson. I still can’t decide what part to try out for.”

  “Break a leg,” I called as she threaded her way through the seats.

  Tyler climbed over the seat and sat down right next to me. I could feel the heat from his body. He opened his script and started flipping through it. “What page?” he asked.

  But before I could answer, Mr. Richards clapped his hands and quieted everyone down. “Okay, I need the boy singers onstage for the vocal auditions,” he said, motioning with his arms.

  Tanya Martinson was up there already, seated at an upright piano, ready to play along while each person sang. She was a junior who was such a math whiz, she was in Ariel’s calculus class.

  “Sorry—gotta go. Good luck!” Tyler said, leaving.

  “Okay, guys, everyone who’s trying out for Sky Masterson, I want you up onstage now,” Mr. Richards called out.

  I started to look away, back to studying my script, but out of the corner of my eye I saw six guys—including Tyler—climbing the steps to the stage.

  Hold on. Tyler? He wasn’t going out for Nathan Detroit?

  I blinked, confused. What’s up with that? I wondered. Why didn’t he want the romantic lead?

  As fast as I could, I started reading through the script, trying to find out who this Sky Masterson character was and why Tyler wanted it.

  Suddenly I saw Ariel hurrying toward me, a worried expression on her face. “Oh my God,” she said, plopping down in the seat next to mine. “We should have rented the movie. Guess what?”

  “What?” I said, although I was already beginning to guess.

  “Miss Adelaide isn’t the leading role,” Ariel told me. “I was just talking to Becca Christianson. She’s going out for Miss Adelaide, because she said she knows she doesn’t stand a chance of getting the lead against Natalie and the two other really good singers who are up for it. Sergeant Sarah Brown is the lead.”

  “Yeah.” I had begun to figure that out. “I learned the wrong songs!”

  “Me, too,” Ariel said. “I learned Sarah Brown’s songs!”

  Oh, wow.

  “What am I going to do?” I whispered desperately. “Now that I’ve read the script, it looks like the part of Miss Adelaide is a joke. She sneezes all the time and sings like she has a cold. Plus she’s been engaged to Nathan Detroit for, like, fourteen years, and he won’t marry her.”

  “I know, I know,” Ariel said. “Becca told me. But look at it this way. The competition for the lead is pretty stiff, so maybe it’s better this way. At least maybe you’ll get a part, even if it is a goofy one. And you’ll get to hang around Tyler during rehearsals and everything, even if you don’t get to kiss him.”

  She had a point. A depressing point, but a point.

  I skimmed through the rest of the script, hoping that maybe Miss Adelaide got to kiss Sky Masterson at some point—maybe behind Nathan Detroit’s back?—but no such luck. The story was basically about a bet between Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson. Nathan bets Sky that he can’t make the next girl he sees fall in love with him, and Sky agrees. The next girl Sky sees is the superuptight, straitlaced Sergeant Sarah Brown, this totally prudish leader of the Salvation Army Mission Band. Sky has to lure her to an overnight trip to Havana, Cuba, or something, and they wind up falling in love.

  Meanwhile, guess what Miss Adelaide does? Nothing. She just sneezes and acts like a loser, begging Nathan to marry her.

  Great.

  Onstage, Mr. Richards was asking each guy to sing “Luck Be a Lady.” A few of the guys were pretty good, but none of them had the voice or charisma Tyler had. As soon as he started to sing, the whole auditorium got quiet. You could feel the chill, like you knew you were in the presence of a star.

  After that, the guys trying out for Nathan Detroit had to sing. Two of them were really funny. I guess it was a comic role, too.

  When the guys were done, Mr. Richards called the girls up one by one, by our numbers. Emily Pendleton went first—this really shy girl who sat in the back of my economics class first semester and never said a word. She was the kind of girl who was pretty if you looked closely, but she didn’t know how to dress, and her hair was sort of dry and shaggy. She stepped to the center of the stage in her baggy gray sweatshirt and screamingly outdated jeans—they totally had the wrong wash—looking like she was afraid she’d fall off the edge or something. She was so totally awkward and uncomfortable, I couldn’t believe she was even auditioning.

  But then Tanya started playing “If I Were a Bell,” and Emily started singing in the most amazingly perfect soprano voice I’d ever heard. Everyone in the auditorium went quiet. We were all dumbstruck. Her voice was just unbelievable—clear, joyous, and pitch perfect.

  When the song was over, though, she turned and practically ran off the stage.

  “Uh, thank you,” Mr. Richards called to her retreating back. “That was . . . uh . . . lovely.”

  Natalie was next, and she was, as advertised, perfection. Her voice was not quite as good as Emily’s, but she really knew how to sell the song. She paraded up and down the stage like she owned it, and when I sneaked a look at Tyler, he was staring
at her like he was already falling in love.

  Shit.

  I started getting so nervous, I had to run to the restroom to gulp down some water so I wouldn’t puke. So I missed the next few people, but from the applause I could hear, I knew they must have been pretty good, too.

  By the time I got back, Ariel had already sung. Mr. Richards had passed my number, and someone else was up there singing away.

  “Where were you?” Ariel whispered, like she couldn’t believe I’d done such a stupid thing as leave.

  “I had to go to the restroom,” I hissed at her. “God!”

  What was this—some kind of major losing streak? Were my astrological stars out of alignment? Was my Karma in need of a tune-up?

  I mean, seriously. How much bad luck can a girl have in one week?

  “Well, don’t worry, he’ll probably give you a chance later,” Ariel whispered, like she wasn’t sure I deserved it.

  Thanks. So much for my own private cheerleader.

  The next ten minutes were torture. I had to stand there and watch while half the girls in the senior class sang their hearts out, and all were really good.

  When the last girl had sung, Mr. Richards said, “Okay, time to read. Is Carmen still here?”

  “Yes!” I blurted out from the back of the auditorium.

  “Would you come up? You can be the first to read, please, and then you can sing, if Tanya isn’t too tired.” He glanced at the piano, and Tanya nodded.

  I hurried to the stage, and Mr. Richards pointed to the script that I had clutched in my hand. “Page 40,” he said. “Jordan will read with you.”

  Jordan was the kind of confident guy who always looked comfortable no matter where he was—on the basketball court, on a donkey, or on the stage. He leaped out of his seat, jumped onto the stage, and slouched into a folding chair.

  “Ready?” he said to me.

  I nodded, and we started the scene.

  I don’t remember all the lines, but it was a scene where Miss Adelaide was talking to Nathan Detroit about her job as a chorus girl at the Hot Box Club. I mean, seriously—the Hot Box Club? God, how come I hadn’t noticed this in the script before? (Answer: I was too busy trying to cram the story, since I hadn’t been able to rent the movie, since someone with the initials NA was basically too freaking selfish to share. In other words, this was all Natalie Anschell’s fault.)