The College Obsession Complete Series (Includes BONUS Sequel Novella)

by Daryl Banner

  After a quick lie-down in my dorm room and a hurried meal in the Quad cafeteria, I head for the theater to face my destiny. Considering how many footsteps I’ve likely taken in my life, it’s bizarre to me that the relatively short trip from my dorm room to the theater would prove to be such a chore. I’m so nervous that my feet keep wanting to kick into one another. I stumble twice as I pass by the University Center, then nearly walk into the wall as I go through the tunnel under the Art building. I might need new feet before the show tonight.

  The sky slowly turns over, the deep dusky blue of evening covering it with the fiery sunset nowhere to be found—its view likely blocked by the scorpion tail of the Theatre building itself—as I make my way in through the side door at the back. The lobby is off-limits to us actors, or so I was told before leaving Thursday night’s dress rehearsal.

  The stench of stage makeup fills the dressing room. My castmates banter loudly across the room at each other, and there seems to be a hilarious joke every five seconds, for as frequently (and obnoxiously) as they laugh. I take my seat in front of my assigned mirror and, with shaky hands, I pull open my bag and begin laying out all the sponges, foundations, and brushes that I’ll need. Then, after quickly changing into a makeup shirt, I begin the process of slowly becoming Emily Webb by smearing designer mud all over my face.

  “You ready for this?”

  The question comes from the actress who plays Mrs. Myrtle Webb, my mother in the play. “You want me to lie, or say something happy and encouraging?” I mumble back to her.

  She chuckles, rubbing highlight on her eyelids. “Truth. I always go for truth.”

  “I’m scared shitless,” I say, hesitating before I apply the tiniest bit of shadow beneath my cheekbones, which I hollow by sucking them in.

  “Me too! I always get nervous opening night. Then, once I get the first night out of the way, the rest of the run is a breeze.”

  Just when I’m about to respond, I hear the squeaking of wheels. Turning to the noise, I see a costumes rack being wheeled in by two costume crew members, Victoria and some blonde I don’t know.

  Of course one of them would be Victoria.

  The blonde girl tends to a torn gown, taking it to the corner of the room to stitch it up. While she sews, Victoria hangs by the rack, aloof, pulling self-consciously at her turquoise costumes apron, her fingers playing anxiously with a tiny tomato-shaped pincushion that hangs by her waist.

  I return my attention to my makeup. I may never fall in love with the musty smell of it. “After opening night, it’s a breeze, huh?” I smile at that. “Then once tonight passes, everything’s going to be lovely.”

  “It’s really like there’s two rehearsal processes,” she goes on. “The one you do without an audience, and the one you do with one.”

  “Audiences make everything so weird,” I moan, blending highlight on my cheekbones.

  “Laughing when you don’t expect them to. Not laughing when you do. Applauding too long. Some guy with a horrible cough in the front row. That fucking baby in the third.”

  I laugh a bit too hard at her joke, catching sight of Victoria through the mirror. She’s watching me, still picking at that squishy pin-filled tomato and waiting for someone to need something from her.

  “Is your family coming this weekend or next?” she asks.

  The question makes my hand slip, getting a speck of highlight in my hair. “No,” I answer.

  “Too busy to come down all the way from New York, huh?”

  I have to remind myself that people here know where I’m from, even if they don’t know exactly who my family is. Well, assuming Victoria hasn’t secretly told everyone behind my back.

  Then, from the door, two words ring clear through the room.

  “DESDEMONA LEBEAU.”

  I jerk, looking up. Ariel stands at the doorway looking gorgeous in a blue satin gown, her waves of blonde hair cascading down her front. Her lips are a perfect, plush, red rose petal. I’m so distracted with how elegant she looks that I forget she just shouted my name.

  A hush has swept through the dressing room.

  “Ariel?” I return.

  Ariel pushes past Victoria standing by the door, taking three steps into the room, each of her steps in those heels of hers clacking loudly against the floor.

  “Desdemona Lebeau,” she announces again. “Of course. Every bit of it makes sense now. A person like you getting the part that I deserved.”

  I blanch. Now Ariel is the one who wanted the lead role? I guess I’d be naïve to think otherwise; every woman in the department wanted the part of Emily Webb.

  “What do you mean by that?” I shoot back at her, twisting around in my chair.

  I couldn’t hear my own thoughts a second ago. Now, the dressing room is so silent, I hear the jingle of a hairpin touching the counter at the other end of the room.

  “You haven’t heard the commotion?” she says, making the question sound like an accusation. “They had to bring in campus security to secure the doors of the lobby.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Make way,” says Ariel demonstratively, waving her hands around the room like a magician, “for the one and only Desdemona Lebeau. Do you all even realize who you’ve been acting with? This princess here who robbed me of my senior year lead because her famous mommy and daddy bought it for her?”

  Oh, fuck.

  Fuck this. Fuck that. Fuck mermaids. Fuck everything.

  “Ariel,” I plead fruitlessly.

  “So was this your plan all along?” she blurts, spreading her hands. “Bring in your parents from New York on your opening night and cause a scene and make this huge deal over your big Texas debut?”

  Wait a minute.

  Wait one fucking minute.

  “They’re here?” I breathe, horrified.

  “And call in the press, of course. Channel 11 News. 13. Whoever the hell’s in the area. Weather? Traffic? Who cares. The Lebeaus are in town. You are a real piece of work, you know that?”

  I can’t even produce words. My heart is lodged somewhere up in my brain, and all I can hear is my pulse and my own erratic breathing. The room spins while I try to imagine the horrific sight of my mom and dad in the lobby right now, slowly being escorted like precious pieces of gold into the auditorium to claim whatever seats they must have secured for themselves ahead of time. Did Doctor Thwaite invite them? Did they come on their own, my mom desperate for more attention and my dad curious to see what his darling Kellen has designed? Is my sister with them?

  “I’m sorry.” My voice is so small and pathetic. I don’t know if I’m apologizing to her, or to the whole room. I look around and all I see are confused eyes, contemptuous eyes, blank eyes. I don’t have a friend in this whole building suddenly. Even the actress next to me who I was just talking to, she looks at me like I’m a total stranger. “I’m sorry. I was … I just wanted … Ariel, I’m sorry. I was—”

  “Sorry? Sorry for lying to everyone in this room?” she prompts me, her voice turning all sugary again, the same tone she used to warn me about Clayton. “Sorry for … what?”

  I lick my dry lips. I can’t seem to swallow. “I’m sorry for—”

  “She’s sorry,” says Victoria from the costumes rack, “that you’re being such a royal bitch, Ariel.”

  Gasps and whispers wash over the room like a sudden breeze.

  Victoria, her arms crossed, saunters away from the rack, facing Ariel in the center of the room. She gives her a pointed once-over.

  “Dessie here’s sorry that she even had to keep her identity a secret,” Victoria goes on, “because bitches like you can’t handle it.”

  Girls snicker in the back. The blonde one from costumes gawps at her partner, her stitching work forgotten in her lap.

  “You think you’re the only one who got robbed of that Emily role? I wanted it, too,” says Victoria with a careless sweep of her hand. “Hell, I dreamed about that role all summer. Now, I get to
sit backstage and watch Dessie perform it.”

  Ariel folds her arms, her eyes seething with derision.

  “And does that ruffle my pretty feathers? Sure,” says Victoria with a shrug. “You know what else does? The sheer lack of roles in the Theatre world for people of color. Am I barging into the dressing rooms of every all-white cast to tell them about all their precious privilege? Fuck no. I’m a big girl. I’ll keep auditioning for whatever the hell I want. I will play Emily someday in some other production. But Desdemona Lebeau, she can have this production.”

  “Yeah,” agrees Ariel, her tone quickly converted from sugar to acid, “and she can invite her famous parents to have a big showy opening night, and that’s somehow fair, because—”

  “Oh, trust me, I know all about embarrassing parents,” Victoria cuts her off, waving her hand in Ariel’s indignant face. “You don’t want to be moving into the dorms with your dad yelling Cantonese down the halls at twenty words a second, trust me. I can only imagine what kind of hell Dessie has to contend with, and why she had to run all the way down here to Texas to get the fuck away from it.” She whips her head around to face me. “Am I right?”

  I suck on my own lips.

  “And what do I say to that?” Victoria presses on, her eyes on me. “Kudos to Dessie. And what a shame that her damn paparazzi-drawing family had to follow her. I mean, look at her poor face. Does she look thrilled with your news that her parents are here, Ariel?” She turns back to Ariel, needles in her eyes. “Truth, you wanted. Go ahead. Look in her eyes. The truth’s been there all along. The only one who’s lying to themselves is you.”

  Ariel looks at me now. I wonder if she’s looking for any truth in my face, or if she’s just imagining ninety-nine ways to murder me. Her eyes are a completely unreadable mix of confusion and resentment, which is about the farthest from how she’d treated me so far in acting class. For a second, I catch myself wondering if she, in fact, was the one dumped by Clayton. I never saw this side of her until now.

  Less the mermaid. More the sea hag.

  Ariel finally parts her lips, though it takes her a handful of seconds to make any words. “I don’t trust liars. I don’t like liars. Clayton. You. You’re made for each other, a pair of liars.”

  “We’re all liars,” says Victoria with a roll of her eyes, “or did you not hear Dessie’s song? I’m a liar. You’re a liar. Yay, let’s throw a big ol’ liar party and get the fuck over it.” She takes two steps toward Ariel. “This is the dressing room. Where the cast belongs. Seeing as you’re not part of the cast, I suggest you go throw yourself a not-in-the-cast party, and get … over … it.”

  To that, Ariel lifts her chin, too proud to show how deep Victoria’s words cut her, and strolls out of the dressing room. The others start to break into murmurs and scandalized whispers, even chuckling.

  And I’d risen from my chair and didn’t even realize it. My back pressed against the makeup counter, I feel dozens of eyes on me. I have no idea how to feel about what just went down.

  Then Marcy, who plays Rebecca Gibbs, tilts her head. In a light and curious voice, she asks, “Who are your parents?”

  I swallow, facing her. The others in the room seem to await my answer. Well, out with it. “My mother is Winona Lebeau.”

  I don’t even get my father’s name out before three of the girls gasp with their surprise. “You mean the Winona Lebeau who opened Telltale off-Broadway?” asks someone across the room.

  “Oh my god. She did Hair on Broadway. And Hairspray, too.”

  “Chicago,” throws in another voice.

  “She won a Tony two years in a row,” hisses someone else.

  “Wait, wait. That Lebeau??”

  “Holy crap. You’re Theatre royalty!”

  “She’s Theatre royalty.”

  “Can I meet her? Oh, please let me get her autograph!”

  The murmurs of scandal quickly somersault into a wave of joyous laughter and excitement as my castmates start to share stories amongst themselves, bolstered somehow by the news.

  And above all that noise and gaiety, my eyes lift to find Victoria’s.

  I step away from the makeup counter, drawing myself up to her. She smirks knowingly at me while I stand there wondering where the hell her sudden reversal came from.

  Well, I do have a mouth I can use. “Why’d you stick up for me?” I ask.

  Every lick of bitterness that lived in Victoria’s eyes drains away, and suddenly she’s the fun person I met in our dorm hallway over a month ago. “I wasn’t being fair to you,” she murmurs quietly, but I still hear her through the noise. “You wanted to have a life down here that you could call your own. I get it. I totally do. And I’m just awful for holding that against you.” She sighs. “We make better friends than enemies. Reading scripts until 3 AM with Chloe just isn’t as much fun.”

  I feel my heart swell. I think I needed this, after the fast-spinning carousel my emotions have been on lately. I put on a teasing smile, then say, “You just want my mom’s autograph, don’t you.”

  She glances to the left, to the right, then leans in and whispers, “I totally fucking do.”

  Chapter 24

  Clayton

  I’m squinting through the glass of the lighting booth, curious what the hell’s happening in the front few rows. I can’t quite make anything out, so I pass it off as a bunch of rowdy freshmen, rolling my eyes and kicking my feet up, waiting for the show to start. Really, I don’t give a shit about anything until the part when Dessie comes onstage and lights up my fucking world.

  I don’t care that I can’t have her. I don’t care that everything’s gone to shit, just as long as she’s focused, she’s happy, and she’s living the dream she wants to live.

  Regardless of whether that dream includes me or not.

  A tap on my shoulder nearly scares the shit out of me. I spin in my chair to find Dick standing there, an excited look on his face. He says some words to me that I miss. I lift my chin and furrow my brow.

  “Wi-no-na Le-beau,” he mouths, punching each syllable. “She’s … here. The … lobby … is … a … fucking … madhouse.”

  I blink. Dessie’s parents?

  Dick slaps me on the back suddenly, then types something out on his phone and shows me the screen:

  You do realize

  who Dessie’s father is,

  don’t you?

  I bite the inside of my cheek. Of course I do.

  I return his enthusiasm with a slow, cool-tempered nod. Dick says something else to me, then slaps my back once more before excitedly hopping out of the door and down the stairs to the lobby. I lean forward, staring through the glass and focusing on the front rows again. Is all the craziness over Dessie’s parents, the celebs who’ve apparently decided to come and show their support for their daughter?

  A sting of resentment touches me. Dessie’s no longer mine. Doesn’t matter whose daughter she is. Once her father gets word of what a dark and unstable guy I am, he won’t want his daughter anywhere near me.

  And haven’t I said it since day one? She deserves better. I’m no good for her.

  I clench my teeth and watch listlessly through the window, waiting for my opportunity to darken one world and light up another.

  Twenty minutes later, I get the cue on my phone, texted to me from the stage manager backstage—that is, the actual stage manager. I wait for the cue light to glow. The moment it does, I slowly fade out the houselights, casting the audience into darkness, before bringing up the lights for act one.

  The actor Stage Manager, who acts basically as the narrator of the show, comes out onto the stage, greets the audience, and then presents the scene to them, telling them where the Gibbs house is, where the Webb house is, and so on. Sullenly, I read along with my marked-up script in front of me, guesstimating the lines judging from who’s on stage and what’s happening.

  This whole experience would be so much better if I hadn’t lost my fucking temper and punched those glasses
off Kellen’s face. Sure, it felt good and I gained peace, but I lost something else. And I’m pretty sure knowing that I’d be going home with Dessie tonight would feel a hell of a lot better than that punch did.

  This is my own fault. I’m married to my anger. I always will be.

  Then the scene finally arrives. Desdemona Lebeau makes her stage debut entering as a young Emily Webb, dressed in a cute sort of early-1900s dress, her hair loose and flowing.

  I’m so fucking proud to give her light.

  I push a hand against my mouth, sighing into it as I watch Dessie.

  It hurts, just to see her.

  I saw her every day this week at rehearsal, and every day was a knife to my gut that drew no blood. The wound’s always too deep to see, and I went home every night with the pain of it. No amount of squeezing any fucking pillow could quiet the ache.

  Against any scream in the world, emotional pain screams louder.

  The first intermission almost catches me by surprise, so entranced and pained by watching Dessie onstage that I lose track of time. After a sigh, I suck in my lips and mash fingers into my phone.

  ME

  Is Brant still being weird?

  Not ten seconds later, I get my reply.

  DMITRI

  It isn’t too bad.

  You know him.

  I think he’s bowling.

  Hey, you do realize

  I’m in the audience tonight,

  right?

  I snort. I was so wrapped up in worries and frustrations of Dessie that I completely forgot about him being here to support Eric who, I might add, plays a very convincing drunk choir director Simon.

  ME

  Yeah, of course.

  Hope you liked act one.

  There’s two more.