Book Read Free

Stranger Things

Page 7

by A. R. Capetta


  “Are you okay?” Tam asks as I get up, wobbly.

  All I can think is: this is why I have to leave, this is why I have to leave, this is why I have to—

  “Robin!” Mr. Hauser calls. “Why don’t you come up and get us started?”

  I can hear my voice, but I can’t feel it leaving my throat. “I haven’t had any time to go over—”

  “I’ll go first, Mr. Hauser!” Tam says, popping out of her chair so fast that it folds back up behind her.

  It’s nice of her, I think, to volunteer like that. To save me from whatever humiliation was waiting. But the bang of her chair was a little too loud and her hair looks so red and I’m really, really overwhelmed right now.

  “Thanks, Tammy,” Mr. Hauser says in a voice so flatly chipper that I can tell he’s full of shit.

  He didn’t want Tam to read. He wanted me to read. I can’t begin to understand why he cares so much. It can’t be because he thinks I’m the next great high school leading lady. I’m clearly not cut out for acting. Even just getting to the part where I actually audition is proving difficult.

  I shove myself back into my seat and stay put, because now I know that if I do leave, Mr. Hauser will see it happen and he’ll want to talk about it next week. And besides. Tam is standing onstage, taking a deep breath. Diving into that monologue headfirst. It wouldn’t be fair to interrupt her by slamming the doors.

  And I want to see what she does.

  Tam nearly shouts the first few lines, which are all about being dead. People in the audience snicker, probably because they don’t know how this play ends. Most of it takes place in a pitifully normal small town named Grover’s Corners, but toward the end, the main character, Emily, dies and becomes a ghost and—well, she stays in Grover’s Corners.

  Forever.

  (I only know this much about Our Town because I read it during my existentialist phase. I made Kate binge Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and Richard Wright with me. Most people think that Thornton Wilder is a product of pure apple-pie Americana, but he was part of a desperate global search for meaning, and his work can be as searing as Camus’s if you’re really paying attention. Most people aren’t.)

  “Can you start again, Miss Thompson?” Mr. Hauser asks. “A little less volume this time. Really let us know what Emily is feeling. What she wants to say to her mother. What it feels like in that moment when she realizes no one who’s alive will ever hear her again.”

  Tam nods and nods, like she’s really taking in what Mr. Hauser is saying.

  Then she starts over. And does the same thing.

  Toward the end, after Emily asks to go back to her grave, Tam opens her mouth wide and starts to sing. I don’t recognize the song—something churchy. It takes everyone a second to figure out what’s going on, because none of us are expecting it.

  Mr. Hauser paces in front of the stage, two fingers pinched on the bride of his nose. “Miss Thompson, if you could just pause there—”

  She must know that he’s about to tell her that he’s seen enough, because she launches into a breathlessly fast explanation. “I just think Emily could be a singer. You know, maybe she sings with her church choir? That would fit into the script, the way it’s already written.”

  “There’s no singing in Our Town,” Mr. Hauser says. “It’s not a musical.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a musical to have music in it.” Tam looks proud of this statement. Like maybe she thought it out beforehand. She stands with her hands clenched tight on her script pages, waiting to be asked to continue.

  “That’s an interesting theory.” Mr. Hauser claps, which is a signal to the rest of us to applaud her audition. “All right, thank you. Please stick around in case I need you to read with scene partners later.”

  Tam leaves the stage, looking distinctly upset. Part of me wants to follow her, to tell her that I think she was brave.

  “Robin,” Mr. Hauser says. “Are you ready?”

  No. Not close. Not even remotely.

  “Sure,” I say.

  As I make it to the front of the auditorium, I catch a bit of a quiet argument that Jimmy Blythe is making to Mr. Hauser. I know Jimmy from Anything Goes last year. He was the set designer, nominally, but he spent most of his time backstage hitting on the chorus girls who were waiting for their cues.

  “Seriously? Two ladders and a dining room table set? That’s the entire set? This is my senior year and you want me to do…nothing?”

  “It’s not nothing,” I say. I know that I’m trying to fly under the radar, but sometimes I can’t help myself. Mr. Hauser is watching me now, waiting for what I’ll say next. “Thornton Wilder was adapting Asian theater practices where there’s minimalist set design, and one physical item could stand in symbolically for all kinds of things. He’s trying to stretch your limited little imagination.”

  Mr. Hauser gives a single chortle. As soon as his back is turned, Jimmy mutters, “I’ll punch your limited face.”

  Yep. This is definitely the haven for the most cultured kids in school.

  There are no stairs to the stage, so I have to slide up on my butt and then get to my feet. “Go ahead, Robin,” Mr. Hauser says.

  I look out at the audience.

  Nobody really seems to be watching me. Most people are doing homework, or buffing their nails, or passing notes.

  It should be a comfort, knowing that nobody cares. But for some reason it just makes Emily’s words ring true. She says that none of us really notice every minute and detail as they pass us by.

  She says that we’re all missing our own lives.

  And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

  “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you,” I say, quoting from the script, but also meaning it.

  This is why I want to travel. To see this world. To fill my life with things that matter. (Art, music, food so good it makes you cry, conversation so interesting it keeps you up all night.) And I want to do all of it with someone who understands, someone who appreciates it as much as I do. I honestly think that I’m a misanthrope by accident of geography, not by nature. If I weren’t surrounded by dinguses, I’d probably have plenty of friends.

  Standing here and saying Emily’s words—about growing up in a small town and never leaving and then dying and never leaving—is making me so claustrophobic that I’m walking around just to escape the sound of my own voice.

  And then there’s the infamous staging that Jimmy was complaining about. Emily’s grave? It’s a metal folding chair in a row of metal folding chairs, where she has to sit with other people in her town who’ve died. She has to stay there, with them. She can’t even switch spots and try out a new cemetery view. She’s stuck. Literally. Eternally. When I think about it, I can’t breathe right, and my voice comes out raw and winded.

  “Nice, Robin. Keep going.” Mr. Hauser thinks I’m making acting choices, when I’m just plain old freaking out.

  Part of me wants to power through this moment. To spend the next three months in rehearsals, telling off a-holes like Jimmy, making Mr. Hauser not-frown, seeing Tam every afternoon. Spending enough time together going on a trip as best friends is just the natural next step. Tam wants to be a singer, right? You can’t be a singer if you stay in Hawkins your whole life. We can break out of here together. Stage a two-person rebellion against everything that makes our lives small and bleak.

  Only a few lines left. Almost there.

  But I run out of breath, and then I can’t get it back.

  And everything goes blacker than black.

  SEPTEMBER 23, 1983

  When I open my eyes again, things feel weird.

  At first, I’m sort of hoping that sophomore year has slipped away into nothingness and we’re far, far into the future. The day before graduation would be nice. (It would also explain why
I’m in the auditorium.) But as my brain settles, I realize that only a few moments have passed. And I’m staring up at the auditorium from the floor. But the weirdest part is Milton hovering over me, waving his fingers slowly in front of my eyes.

  “Milton?” I ask. My voice sounds creaky.

  I didn’t even realize he was at the auditions. And now he’s right here, in my face.

  I hear Mr. Hauser’s voice somewhere in the distance. “Are you all right, Robin?”

  “Blink twice if you’re all right,” Milton nearly shouts. “No, wait. Blink once if you’re all right, twice if you’re not all—”

  I swat his fingers away. “I’m fine.” I shove myself up to sitting.

  Now that it’s clear I’m not dead or gravely injured, everyone in the audience feels free to laugh at me—which is exactly what they do. “Exit, pursued by assholes,” I mutter, getting up and rushing off behind the curtains so I won’t have to backtrack through the auditorium.

  The truth is that nobody actually pursues me, except for Milton. He stays on my heels as I shoulder through the back exit. I’ll have to circle all the way around the squat, sprawled-out, one-story brick school to get my bike out of the rack. I’m not even sure I can ride it right now. My breath is still a little scratchy and shallow, and I don’t know how hard I hit my head when I went down.

  But I’m absolutely not sticking around for the rest of this audition.

  “Robin, are you sure you’re okay?” he asks. “You could have a concussion. When you fell, your head made this sound—”

  “Thanks for filling me in, Milton, but I really don’t need you to describe what happened in excruciating detail.”

  Milton keeps up with me, even in his squeaky leather shoes. This side of the school is lined with bushes and a fence that separates it from the playing fields. I edge along, practically walking through the bushes. What if Milton rumples his khakis? What if his button-down doesn’t make it out of this unscathed?

  “Did you eat enough today?” he asks. “Did you drink any water before you went onstage? Have you been sick?”

  “What are you, a doctor?” I ask as we round the corner of the building together. I speed up. Milton’s worries are getting so big that I don’t think I can spend any more time with them.

  My parents don’t believe in worrying. When I was a little kid and they caught me worrying, they’d make me chant affirmations. Mom would put a crystal on my forehead. Sometimes those things made me feel better. But mostly? They made me worry a lot less, not because there was less to worry about, but because I got the message that it wasn’t really a welcome emotion.

  “I just know about fainting spells,” Milton says. “I used to have them when I was a kid. If you answer those questions, I’ll get a better sense of—”

  “Yes, yes, no.” We reach the bike rack, and I grab mine, standing it up. The cool metal frame grounds me.

  I’m going to be fine.

  Even if I did just panic-fall in front of the entire drama crowd. Even if I did just ruin another potential way to find the travel partner I need for Operation Croissant.

  “I’m worried about you,” Milton said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to audition?” I ask. “We were both standing there in front of the sign-up sheet, chatting about Kurt Russell. You could have brought it up at any point.”

  Or he could have found me while everyone was hanging out in the auditorium. But he didn’t bother. This only confirms what I already knew—the Odd Squad and I might be friends because of band, but that doesn’t mean we’re close. We’re friends of convenience. And marching band formations. Milton and I aren’t bosom buddies: he’s more like my assigned dance partner.

  “It was a last-minute decision,” he says, shrugging. “And I thought your audition was really good. You know. Up until the part when you…”

  I touch my head. It really does feel awful.

  “Robin, I think I need to check your pupils,” Milton says. His voice is so grave that it takes me a minute to understand what he wants to do.

  “I guess it’s only fair,” I say begrudgingly. “I did inspect your corneas yesterday.”

  It’s hard to stand still and not blink while he gets close, then closer. He examines my eyes, and I examine his pores.

  They’re nice. He has perfectly nice pores.

  I try not to think about how this is the second (third?) time our faces have been this close to each other in the last two days. At least he doesn’t get any kind of gooey or dreamy or otherwise romantically fogged look in his eyes while he’s there.

  “I don’t think you have a concussion,” he says, stepping back. “But I do think you need pie.”

  “Is that a medical diagnosis?”

  “Kind of,” he says. “When I was little, my parents always took me out for pie after I passed out. It turns out I dehydrate really easily. I think doing the whole thing over and over made a groove in my brain. Passing out equals pie? Besides, this is a good way to keep you from riding your bike when you really shouldn’t. I don’t want you throwing up over the handlebars.”

  “Is that…?”

  “A thing that can happen when you hit your head really hard,” he confirms.

  He nods me toward the other side of the school where the student parking lot is waiting. Milton has a car. It’s only his mom’s old station wagon with the wood paneling down the side, nothing that the popular kids would get excited about, but it’s trustworthy. I’ve been in it a few times after marching band games when Kate and Dash wanted to go out and celebrate with fries and shakes instead of going straight home.

  And I don’t want to go home. Not yet. I don’t want to sit alone in my room all night and face the fact that my plan is falling apart almost as quickly as it came together.

  “They have cherry, right?” I ask.

  “With a lattice top,” Milton assures me.

  He pulls the keys out of his khaki pocket and opens the back of the car. Because it’s a station wagon, there’s no trunk, just a wayback seat. He folds it down so we can fit the bike inside. I marvel slightly; it’s perfectly clean in there. It even looks like the rug has been vacuumed. How did he get the vacuum all the way out to his car? And what teenager keeps the wayback of their station wagon perfectly clean?

  Milton Bledsoe, that’s who.

  I lift my bike and toss it into the trunk. I don’t mind being the messy one.

  “All right,” I say. “Falling down pie it is.”

  SEPTEMBER 23, 1983

  By the time Milton and I leave the diner, it’s dark outside and I’ve devoured three slices of pie (two cherry, one apple).

  He’s not wrong. I feel much better.

  At least, physically speaking.

  “Should I drop you off at home?” he asks. “Do you have a curfew?”

  I sigh upward at the moon. “I…have the opposite of a curfew.” My parents are always disappointed that I’m not wilder. Whenever I go to my room at eight p.m. to read, they start up a long, long description of all the things they used to do at night when they were teenagers. (For example: sneak out, go skinny-dipping, beg cheap beer off friends’ older siblings, howl at the moon. You think I’m exaggerating on that last one, but I’m not. My mom actually still howls at the moon sometimes, but now she’s wearing pink fuzzy slippers and taking the garbage out. It makes for an interesting contrast.)

  I wonder what they’ll think about me running off to Europe.

  Will they be proud? With a sprinkle of jealousy on top? Will they remember why they loved the big, wide world, and want to pack up and move our family out of Hawkins forever? Will we, as Dash so poetically put it, “go full expat”?

  Sure, that last one is highly unlikely, but a girl can dream.

  “Do you want to go back to my house?” Milton asks. At first I’m w
orried that he thinks something date-like is happening. But then he adds, “My mom and dad always have game night on Fridays, and they rope me in if I don’t have any other plans.”

  “Are they going to rope me in?” I ask

  “That depends. How good are you at Scrabble?”

  I shrug. “One time I won with the word xenophobe, and the X was on a triple-word score.”

  “Yeah, they won’t want you to play. They get really competitive.”

  “Milton, how do you feel about Hawkins?” I find myself spontaneously asking.

  “This town?” He looks around contemplatively. “I hate it.”

  “How do you feel about croissants?”

  “I just brought you all the way across town for pie,” he says, nodding at the diner’s big neon sign. “I’m a fan of flaky butter pastry.” When he smiles, there are deep dents around it, like full brackets around a parenthetical thought.

  I wonder what he’d look like in anything other than khakis. (Not that it would change how I feel about him. Not that I’m suddenly susceptible to the kind of fluttery loss of function that happens to other girls when they’re around guys in acid-wash jeans. I just feel like Milton deserves to wear pants that don’t have a crease down the front so sharp it could probably cut glass.)

  “Do you speak any languages?” I ask. “Other than English?”

  “I know a little Japanese. Mostly from my grandparents. I want my mom to teach me more, but she’s always busy with work and my brother and sister and…” He pauses, like he’s not sure if he should add the next part. “I do speak Elvish.”

 

‹ Prev