The Taming of the Drew

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

  “Will all the perfumes of Macy’s sweeten this little hand?” Amy wailed dramatically.

  It felt good to laugh—and to be en route to messing with Drew. Crayon love note aside, Taylor hadn’t shown up after rehearsal today, either. I waited for ten minutes, then ran home to cause mayhem with Heidi and Amy. To be perfectly honest, I was a little relieved Taylor hadn’t shown up. I’d finished the script he’d given me, and, well … to put it nicely … it wasn’t good. I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever—nor did I want to—but I just needed a little time to think about how to put my most diplomatic foot forward. Which wasn’t exactly my strong suit.

  “Should we do this?” Amy asked as we arrived at the laundry room. Laundry room was perhaps too generous a term—an Eisenhower-era washer and dryer were crammed into a kitchen closet. So, technically, it was a laundry closet.

  “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,” Heidi proclaimed solemnly.

  “Go for it.” I nodded. Drew had gotten the house’s only laundry basket back from Rhys a couple minutes ago, which meant our window of opportunity would be closing soon. Amy darted into the laundry closet while Heidi and I stood guard. Moments later she reappeared.

  “Done?”

  “It’s jammed so far back there he’ll never see it,” Amy said confidently. “Good thing the laundry room is dark.”

  “Then let’s go!” I hustled us all back up the stairs. The plan depended on Drew never knowing we were anywhere near the laundry room. We tumbled up the stairs and I shut the bedroom door behind us. “One wash cycle from now, Drew will be the proud owner of an all-pink wardrobe.”

  “You’re kind of an evil genius,” Amy marveled.

  “Me? Hardly,” I scoffed. “All credit goes to Shakespeare. He’s the real evil genius here. I’m just the vessel.”

  Thanks to the thin walls in just a couple minutes we heard the washing machine thumping away. Drew must have started his laundry. Heidi crept downstairs to turn it to its hottest possible setting—because a tiny pink wardrobe was even better than just a pink wardrobe.

  Exactly thirty-two minutes later, a roar of outrage shook the walls of the boathouse. Honestly, it felt like we were in the first fifteen minutes of The Wizard of Oz or something.

  “It’s go time.” I rubbed my hands together as I scampered down the stairs, Heidi and Amy behind me.

  Drew’s roaring seemed to have brought everyone into the laundry closet. Not that I was particularly surprised—he’d reached the approximate decibel of an air raid siren. Plus, it’s not like there were a lot of places to go in our rehearsal-free time.

  I pushed past a still sweaty post-run Noah and a bathrobe-clad Rhys to get a good look at Drew, who was staring into the belly of the laundry machine like it was an empty pit of despair.

  “Pink,” Drew spat. “It’s pink. It’s … all … pink.”

  “And tiny.” Rhys reached around Drew to pull a minuscule, splotchy pink T-shirt out of the laundry machine. He held it far away from his body between two fingers, like he was afraid it would contaminate him.

  “I’m sure you’ve got other stuff to wear.” Noah clapped a comforting hand on Drew’s shoulder.

  “Nope,” Drew said tensely. “That was it. All of it. I put off doing my laundry too long, and now all my clothes are pink. Or splotchy. Or pink and splotchy.”

  “This looks okay.” Rhys pulled out a black T-shirt and held it against Drew’s chest. It was now so small I doubted he could even fit an arm into it. “Or not.” Rhys dropped the shirt to the floor.

  “I just don’t understand how this happened,” Drew muttered as he started pulling his ruined clothes out of the laundry machine, flinging them behind him distractedly. Rhys narrowly dodged a pair of newly pink boxers. “I don’t own anything that’s pink. What the hell could have done this?”

  And then, finally, he reached the back of the machine and found what he didn’t even know he was looking for. Drew stood and turned to face us, holding the blotchy reddish remains of Amy’s formerly crimson thong. As I watched his face grow pale and his lips compress into a thin line, for the first time I understood the expression “white-hot rage.” I felt a totally inappropriate, horrifying urge to giggle hysterically. I couldn’t even tell if they were funny giggles or fear giggles, but either way, I tamped them down like my life depended on it. Now was not the time to poke the bear.

  “Don’t even point that cheap underwear in my direction.” Rhys backed away out of the laundry closet and into the kitchen.

  “Whose is this?” Drew growled, doing a fairly passable impression of an angry bear. Amy darted a quick, frightened look at me, like a rabbit backed into a corner. I knew immediately what that look meant: if Drew thought Amy had ruined his clothes, even accidentally, he was going to be super pissed. Which would put a serious stumbling block into their romance. Guess it wasn’t time for that Act Five reconciliation Amy had been hoping for after all. “WHOSE IS THIS?” Drew repeated, even louder.

  “Mine,” I answered quickly. “It’s mine.” So what if Drew hated me a little bit more? I certainly wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it. And the thong couldn’t have come from nowhere. Better I take the fall than try to deflect attention onto some implausible mystery thong bandit. Amy exhaled loudly in relief. Luckily, Drew didn’t seem to notice.

  “This is yours?” Drew asked skeptically.

  “Yes. Yes it is. I am a super sexy lady who is careless with my super sexy lingerie,” I babbled, reaching for the thong. “Sorry ’bout that.”

  “This is certainly a change of pace from what you were wearing at the lake the other night.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be looking!” I snatched the thong away, cheeks flaming. “What about the sacred bond of skinny-dipping trust?”

  “I’m a guy.” He shrugged. I looked over at Amy. She rolled her eyes and grinned at me, but there was something brittle about it. I shifted uncomfortably. “This is really your underwear?”

  Why was he being so suspicious?

  “Yes, it’s mine!” Sheesh. What was with the third degree? “I clearly didn’t know it was in there, and now my favorite underwear is ruined, too. You’re not the only victim here!”

  “Oh, for the love of …” Drew groused. “You know what? Forget it. Just forget it. You’re insane, and you can’t reason with an insane person. You’re out one pair of underwear, and I’ll be stuck wearing sweatpants and a Rye Country Day School T-shirt all summer. Seems very fair.”

  “I’m sure the Bait ’n’ Bite has a lovely selection of Lake Dunmore souvenir tees,” I suggested sweetly.

  “Don’t worry, man, we’ll hook you up,” Noah promised. “Right, Rhys?”

  “We’ll see.” Rhys narrowed his eyes. He seemed about as enthused about sharing his wardrobe with Drew as I would have been.

  “Why does all this … this … this shit keep happening to me?” Drew bellowed, like he hadn’t heard anything Noah said. “I’m allergic to this house, a mouse eats all my food, and now I have no clothes! What the hell is going on?” By the end of his tirade, Drew sounded more confused than angry. He looked at each of us, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand why this is happening to me.”

  “The wheel spins for us all in time,” Heidi said consolingly. “Fortunes rise and fall. That’s how the universe works. I brought my tarot if you’d like some further clarification.”

  I was shocked that the look Drew shot her didn’t incinerate her on the spot.

  The next morning, the fruits of our prank proved sweeter than I ever could have imagined. Drew had never looked so ridiculous. He was wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey that must have been Noah’s and a pair of batik-printed lounge pants that were undoubtedly Heidi’s. Jock on top, yogi on the bottom.

  “Is Drew wearing your pants?” I whispered to Heidi, unable to believe my eyes.

  “The other boys are too skinny, and they only had fitted pants. Jeans and stuff. And Drew refused to
wear Noah’s running shorts. Luckily those pants have a lot of room to breathe and flow.”

  “Very lucky,” I agreed. Those pants were the highlight of my summer.

  “We only have half a rehearsal today, so let’s move it!” Nevin shouted. I’d been so distracted by the yoga pants I hadn’t even noticed his arrival. He was sitting in his usual spot behind the folding table with Langley. “Top of Act One! Move it! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  “Why do we only have half a rehearsal today?” I asked Amy as we hustled backstage, narrowly avoiding a collision with Rhys.

  “Costume fittings. There was a schedule in the handbook, you know.”

  “Of course there is. I knew that.”

  Nevin rushed us into rehearsal so quickly that he either didn’t notice Drew’s ensemble or didn’t feel like it was worth commenting on. And, to give him some credit, Drew didn’t let his clothing situation detract from his performance. The run of the show that morning went extremely smoothly. After lunch, Nevin handed us off to Langley for our costume fittings.

  “So, where are the dressing rooms?” Amy asked.

  Oh yeah. I hadn’t thought of that. I’d never done a show outside before. I really hoped we weren’t going to have to change in a field or something.

  “Thataway.” Langley pointed to the big red barn. I’d seen it every day during rehearsal, but I’d never really given much thought to what it was. Most likely it wasn’t a ginormous super luxurious dressing room—although that would have been nice. Bypassing the huge barn doors at the front of the building, Langley walked around to the side and confidently pushed open a small door.

  “What is this place?” I asked, curious, as we trooped in behind her.

  “The town uses it for storage,” Langley answered. That much was obvious. But I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were storing. Inside the cavernous warehouse space, I saw an enormous fake Christmas tree, lots of American flag bunting, two full-sized parade floats, enough animals to outfit a taxidermy zoo, and a life-size cardboard cutout of Elvis.

  “Look!” Rhys called from somewhere behind me. “This Coke bottle is as big as me!”

  “Guys, don’t touch the stuff,” Langley reprimanded. That would be a challenge. The whole place was chockablock full of the most random assortment of crap I’d ever seen. Feathers and shiny things competed for my attention. But on the far side of the barn, I saw two racks of Elizabethan garb with a makeshift curtain strung up between them. That must have been for us.

  “One mirror?” Amy tsked softly, warily eying the wobbly full-length mirror leaning against an easel. “That’ll be a challenge.”

  Langley pointed the three of us towards the girls’ rack. There were three dresses labeled clearly with our character’s names. Mine was, of course, bright red. Redheads do not look good in red! Why was this theater so insistent on proving otherwise? Sighing, I took my fiery ensemble off the rack. Once I’d flung off my clothes, the dress slipped easily over my head. It had a little corset-type bodice that laced up the front, which I pulled tight to make it fit right. It had long sleeves with little poofs at the shoulders, slashed with red and cream.

  “I’m in love!” Amy had dressed at the speed of light and was now twirling around in front of the mirror. “Cass, couldn’t you just die?”

  I came to stand next to her. Her dress was almost identical to mine, except hers was a lovely rosy shade of light pink.

  “It’s silly, I know—but I just love wearing costumes,” she sighed happily.

  “It’s not silly. It’s fun. And it finally makes everything feel real. This is the moment the play comes to life. For me, anyway.”

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Amy leaned her head against my shoulder. “To lose yourself in someone else’s life. Even for only a couple hours. It makes you feel so …”

  “Invincible.” My eyes met hers in the mirror.

  “Exactly.” She nodded. “It feels like nothing bad could ever happen to you. Or, you know, if bad things happen, it’s because they were supposed to—so even if everything goes wrong, you always know what to do. All the steps are laid out in front of you. It’s right there in the script. You’re safe, because you’re not you anymore.”

  It was hard to imagine Amy not wanting to be Amy. From the outside, at least, it seemed like her life would be so easy. Whenever I’d seen all the beautiful people sitting at the popular table back in the cafeteria, it seemed like they were always having the time of their lives. But maybe there was a kind of pressure in that, too. Maybe it was hard, to have people only consider what you looked like on the outside.

  A golden glow appeared in the mirror behind us, breaking the moment—it turned out to be Heidi. She was just taller than the mirror, so I couldn’t see her face.

  “Heidi, those sleeves are not messing around.” I eyed them askance. They were seriously long—they reached all the way down to the floor.

  “No one messes with these sleeves,” she agreed, starting to flap her huge fabric wings. “I think I could take flight.”

  “What a precious little family,” Langley said behind us. Was she making fun of us? I could never tell. “Okay, everything fits fine. Wear your ballet flats tomorrow. Change and get out of my hair.”

  Once we’d changed, we came around in front of the curtain. The boys were all lounging in various states of Elizabethan dress. Drew wore deep burgundy breeches and a white, open-necked blousy shirt. Burgundy. Why couldn’t I wear burgundy? That would have been much better than bright red. I watched him as he shrugged on a leather vest-type thing that I knew from previous shows was called a jerkin. Rhys was busy trying out different angles for his crushed velvet cap with a feather on the side.

  “Listen up,” Langley announced. “Girls, you’ll be doing your own hair and makeup tomorrow.” Amy looked thrilled. I could only hope they weren’t expecting something particularly complex. “Guys, stay behind for haircuts and beard trimming.”

  “Who’s cutting our hair?” Drew asked suspiciously.

  “You’re looking at her,” Langley answered calmly.

  “You?” Drew’s eyebrows rose up to his hairline. “Can I see your qualifications?”

  “Nope.” She pulled a pair of scissors and an electric razor from somewhere deep within the cargo pockets of her shorts. “And just for that, you’re first.”

  Drew blanched. A giggle escaped before I could stop it.

  “No audience!” Langley barked. “Out, girls, out!”

  To avoid further incurring the wrath of Langley, we quickly made our way through the storage barn and back out into the sunlight.

  “Hey, Cass!” I looked up. Taylor Griffith was running toward me. I walked slowly toward him, ready to meet him a third of the way, but no more than that. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Amy dragging Heidi in the direction of the boathouse. “Where were you yesterday?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, didn’t you get my note?”

  “I got it.” I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, trying to project nothing but cool nonchalance. Extremely cool nonchalance. With all the nonchalance I’d been practicing around Drew post-pranks, I was practically a nonchalant expert at this point.

  “Then why didn’t you come?”

  “I came. You weren’t there. I waited for ten minutes, then left.”

  “Ten minutes? That’s all I’m worth to you? Ten minutes?” Taylor placed his hands on his heart and started staggering around. A smile involuntarily tugged at the corners of my lips. “Dag, that’s cold.”

  “I’m a busy girl, Taylor. I can’t spend all day waiting around for you.”

  “Lady, you have cut me to the quick,” he declaimed. “Boom! Shakespeared!”

  “I don’t think that was Shakespeare—”

  “Come on, forget yesterday. Let’s just get out of here, aight?”

  “Aight,” I agreed. The jumble of vowels felt weird in my mouth, like talking through a wad of jelly beans.

  He started
walking assuredly away from the stage, and I followed.

  CHAPTER 16

  Where are we going?” I asked. We definitely weren’t heading back to the clearing. This was the totally opposite direction.

  “Shangri-La,” Taylor answered.

  “Is that, um, far?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Much closer than you might think.”

  Taylor led me across the street and through the gates of Camp Dunmore. Instead of going deeper into the woods, to where I knew the skaters’ cabin was, he led me around the periphery of the camp, past some tennis courts, a basketball hoop, and a bunch of archery targets, until we finally reached what I knew was our final destination.

  “So, this is a skate park.” It looked like an empty swimming pool with a bunch of different levels. There were railings and benches and wooden ramps dotted randomly about the cement structure. The other skaters were down there, flying around the track. Or whatever you called it.

  “Welcome to Shangri-La, Red.” Taylor grinned happily. I watched, mesmerized, as the skaters whizzed back and forth. “Cop a squat, Betty.” I turned. Taylor was sitting on top of a picnic table behind me. He patted the space next to him. I hopped up to join him and took a deep breath. I knew what I had to do next.

  “So … the script.” I pulled it out of my tote bag. For once, my laziness about cleaning out my bag had proved useful. A more organized person would have put that script away days ago.

  “Oh yeah!” Taylor’s eyes lit up with surprise. “Shit, I totally forgot about that.”

  He forgot? If someone offered me the lead role in a major motion picture, I sure as hell wouldn’t forget.

  “Well, here’s the thing,” I began.

  “It’s crap, isn’t it?” he asked flatly, interrupting me.

  “Well—I, um, I—well,” I hemmed and hawed, unsure of how to begin. It didn’t matter anyway, because what I thought was clearly written plain across my face.

  “I knew it!” he snapped his fingers. “I knew it! I so totally knew it, man. And that’s why I asked you to read it. Because I knew you wouldn’t bullshit me. Thank you.” He grabbed my face and deposited a big, smacking kiss on my forehead. “The only honest person left in America, ladies and gentlemen!” He held a pretend glass aloft and toasted an imaginary crowd. “I knew I could trust you.”