Bit Players, Has-Been Actors and Other Posers: A Must-Read for Fans of Glee, High School Musical and Twilight (18 page)

“Let’s figure out why she wants to keep it a secret,” Kristina suggested.

“It must be someone embarrassing, or forbidden…someone like Mr. Lord,” Jocelyn whispered, surprising me with her power of deduction.

Adrienne flicked her hand under the stall wall again as if to say, “Are you getting this?” which of course I was.

“Hmm. It’s possible, isn’t it. They flirt all the time,” Kristina said.

“Flirt? They were practically groping in the music room one day. Did you know she calls him Tony to his face?”

The bell rang in the hallway, deadened by the cinder block walls of the restroom. “Anyway, we better go.”

“Okay, but we have to talk more about this later.”

The restroom door thumped shut and I exhaled. Adrienne and I exited our stalls, stared at each other with wide eyes, and burst into nervous laughter at the same time.

“Poor Lucey,” Adrienne attempted sympathy.

“Please, Adrienne. She’s got no one to blame but herself.” My mind raced. “What does this mean for the show? Can she still do it if she’s pregnant?”

“I don’t know. And what if the father’s really Mr. Lord? Won’t he get fired or something? Then we won’t have a music director.”

Adrienne’s question wasn’t to be answered that day, but my question was answered three periods later. By then, everyone knew Lucey was pregnant, and Lucey had sent word through her messengers, Kristina and Jocelyn, that she intended to stay in
Twilight: The Musical
. Her parents weren’t very happy about it – they wanted to yank her from school altogether – but apparently the teenager was in charge and she threw a fit worthy of the diva she was, or at least intended to be.

The rumor mill cranked up again. Lucey was leaving school right after the show, she was going to stay in school until the birth, she was keeping the baby, she was having an abortion, she was putting it up for adoption, she was marrying Nigel, there was something wrong with the baby, there was something wrong with Lucey (besides being pregnant at seventeen).

Absent confirmation of the father, the Mr. Lord rumors exploded, especially because Nigel was as mum as Lucey on the subject. Getting pregnant with the foreign exchange student was juicy, but the actor/music teacher was even juicier.

After the
Twilight
rehearsal that afternoon, Adrienne reported in that Mr. Lord, if he’d heard the rumors, wasn’t bothered at all. In fact, she said he seemed cockier than usual. Meanwhile, the cast made bad jokes like: Why was Lucey trying to sleep her way to the top when she already had the lead role? And didn’t she realize that Bella doesn’t get pregnant until the final book of the series,
Breaking Dawn
?

*

D
AYDREAMING ABOUT LUCEY dropping out of the play and me filling in for Bella, I wasn’t paying attention as I rounded the corner near my locker, heading for the exit after school. I walked right into a moving tank, colliding with someone rushing around the corner from the other direction. My head hit a hard, sweaty chest and the hoodie in my hand fell to the floor.

“Ow!” I yelled.

Alex, obviously less jolted than me, muttered, “Watch it.”

(SADIE AND ALEX BOTH REACH FOR HER SWEATSHIRT. ALEX REACHES IT FIRST AND HANDS IT TO SADIE. THEY STARE AT EACH OTHER UNCOMFORTABLY.)

(ALEX’S BLONDE HAIR IS MATTED BROWN AGAINST HIS FOREHEAD. HIS CHEST HEAVES FROM RECENT EXERCISE. HE TOWERS OVER SADIE.)

SADIE

(TAKES A DEEP BREATH AS IF MAKING A DECISION.)

OH, HEY, ALEX, HOW ARE YOU?

(ALEX STARES AT HER.)

I’M REALLY SORRY YOUR TEAM LOST YESTERDAY.

(ALEX SMIRKS AND NODS.)

THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR, RIGHT?

ALEX

LIKE YOU CARE.

(ALEX BRUSHES PAST HER. SADIE TURNS TO WATCH HIM GO, HER MOUTH HANGING OPEN IN ASTONISHMENT. ALEX TURNS BACK AROUND. SADIE SLOWLY SHUTS HER GAPING MOUTH.)

REMEMBER HOW WE USED TO DREAM UP DIFFERENT WAYS TO TALK TO EACH OTHER? WE STARTED WITH THE STUPID CANS CONNECTED BY A LONG STRING, AND HUNG IT BETWEEN OUR WINDOWS? THEN, WHEN WE BOTH GOT COMPUTERS, WE STARTED EMAILING. WHAT WAS THAT, SIXTH GRADE? IN JUNIOR HIGH, FACEBOOK WAS OUR FAVORITE WAY TO TALK. THEN TEXTING THE PAST FEW YEARS. REMEMBER? REMEMBER, SADIE?

(SADIE NODS, LOOKING CONFUSED.)

BUT THE OTHER DAY WHEN YOU HEARD “RIOT” PLAYING AT MY HOUSE, YOU COULDN’T THINK UP A SINGLE WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. YOU COULD HAVE CALLED, OR TEXTED, OR STOPPED BY, OR EVEN YELLED OUT THE STUPID WINDOW. INSTEAD, YOU MADE ADRIENNE DO IT FOR YOU.

(HE PAUSES BUT SADIE IS MUTE, TEARS FORMING IN HER EYES.)

IT’S RIDICULOUS.

(ALEX’S FACE TWISTS UP. HE PUNCHES HIS FIST INTO HIS PALM, SHAKES HIS HEAD VIOLENTLY, AND RUNS OFF TOWARD THE BACK DOOR OF THE SCHOOL. SADIE STARES AFTER HIM, SO STUNNED SHE BARELY NOTICES HIM STOP TO TALK TO LUCEY, EVEN WHEN HE PUTS HIS HANDS ON LUCEY’S SHOULDERS AS IF TRYING TO CALM HER.)

(SADIE EXITS BY THE SCHOOL’S FRONT DOOR.)

I
LOST IT THAT NIGHT. I know I’ve been saying I was already lost and dazed and all that. But this was different. I…lost…it. “It” meaning my mind. And I think I lost my heart and maybe my soul. And definitely my common sense. Wait, I guess I lost that months before, when I turned away from Alex.

Our indirect texting conversation about “Riot” gave me hope that we would be friends again someday. Apparently it had the opposite effect on him.

His angry face refused to budge from my memory. What a jerk I’d been. And why? There was no good reason. He quit CDC. I felt betrayed by that, but my mother was right. It wasn’t a reason to end the friendship. I should have been there all fall, cheering him on at soccer, reveling in his successes with him. He would have done the same for me with CDC, I know it.

I admitted to myself this wasn’t just about CDC. Like pulling a knife out of my chest and analyzing why I’d had that pain there for so long, I took a long look at my feelings for Alex. The truth was, I felt like he’d betrayed me simply by changing. He became hot while I was still normal-looking. He became a sports star while I was still uncoordinated. He became popular while I still struggled to maintain friendships with a few. And so many girls liked him, while I only had a brief flirtation with the exchange student who just wanted into my pants -- anyone’s pants for that matter.

Now that I’d let the truth seep out of the wound, I debated shoving the knife back in. The pain couldn’t be any worse, and I’d stop bleeding. But instead, I turned the imaginary bloody knife over and over in my hands to see what else I could learn. I didn’t like what I saw.

I had quit on Alex. I hadn’t even given him a chance to show he could still be my friend, even after he became Mr. Popular. I treated him like he was an arrogant jerk, when really it was me being a stubborn fool. It was like Stephanie in first grade all over again. I was so worried the new, improved Alex would desert me for other, more interesting friends, that I ran away from him before he could hurt me.

All I was left with was a massive pile of pain. I didn’t see any way back to the old Sadie and Alex. He was so pissed off at me, I knew he would ignore any calls or texts. Something desperate would have to happen to make him consider being my friend again.

I turned on the electric piano and pulled out my saddest songs. The first few, I couldn’t even sing because my sobs got in the way. As my breathing slowed, I funneled all my heartbreak into the lyrics.

Vanessa Carlton was one of my favorites to play because the piano parts were usually good. I opened up “Twilight”, which was always a challenge to sing because of the eerie, slightly-behind-the-beat melody. Her song had nothing to do with the book or movie, but its haunting melody and chords matched my mindset. A verse into the song, I stopped.

I looked at the opening lines again: “I was stained, with a role, in a day not my own / But as you walked into my life you showed what needed to be shown”. Underneath those lines on the sheet music I scribbled: “I was chained, in a role, in a body not my own”. I sang the words once, twice. Vanessa’s words hit home, summing up the disconnectedness I’d been feeling, but they described someone else as well: Bella.

I went back through the whole song, jotting down new words in places. Amazingly, many of the lyrics worked as Carlton wrote them. After writing each new section, I stuck the pencil behind my ear and sang the new words, accompanied by the piano. It worked. It worked fantastically.

It was Bella’s answer to “At Seventeen”, a chance for the female lead to show her anguish over the forbidden relationship. But where to put it? She was anguished pretty much throughout the entire four-book saga, so there were plenty of options, even in our ninety-minute show. I thought back through my script and decided the song would be most powerful toward the end, as Bella walks to the dance studio, believing she is sacrificing herself to save her mother, and that she’ll never see Edward again.

When I lay down in bed later, I struggled to keep my thoughts on the song and how perfect it was for the show, even if Lucey got to sing it. Bedtime thoughts of Lucey were far better than my earlier, dismal realizations about Alex.

17: Back Down the Rabbit Hole

W
HEN MY MOTHER had found out I’d quit
Twilight: The Musical
-- news delivered by my father before I got around to mentioning it, she had been surprisingly upset. When I explained why I quit, Dad supported my decision. In the end, Mom said she did too, but she wavered a lot getting there, questioning if I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. Not exactly the moral high ground I was looking for.

Despite her ambivalence, I wasn’t prepared for the outrageous suggestion she made on the subject a few weeks later.

 “I was thinking,” she said at my bedside, “maybe you should ask for the part of Alice back. Do you think Mr. Ellison would let you back into the show?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I said, lingering on each word for emphasis.

She ignored the swear but looked pained at my reaction.

“I’m saying, you could try to get your role back.”

“Why? Mom, I did what was right. Don’t you think I did what was right?” I turned my pillow over in search of a cool spot of cotton so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

“But at the end of the day, Sadie, who is paying the price? You must miss it, after all.”

I couldn’t deny that, but there were practical considerations. “There’s no way Mr. Ellison could give me the part back. It’s Aimee’s now.”

“Well, maybe you could ask Aimee if she would relinquish the part, since you won it first, fair and square.” She stood to leave. “Think about it.”

I shook my head at her retreating figure, which looked frail in her sweats compared with the corporate clothes she wore all day. I couldn’t believe she had suggested groveling to get the role back. Even worse, I couldn’t believe I was considering it.

That weekend, I did the unthinkable. I called Aimee.

My mother’s stupid idea had stuck in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I imagined how great it would feel to be back on stage creating the character of Alice, and the less I focused on how humiliating it would be to get there.

SPLITSCREEN - INT. SADIE’S BEDROOM/AIMEE’S KITCHEN - DAY

SADIE BITES HER LIP AND DIALS ON HER CELL PHONE.

AIMEE ANSWERS HER CELL PHONE.

SADIE

(INTO PHONE)

HEY, AIMEE, IT’S SADIE.

AIMEE

(INTO PHONE, SURPRISED)

HI, SADIE, WHAT’S UP?

SADIE

UM, SO I HAVE KIND OF A WEIRD QUESTION FOR YOU.

AIMEE

OKAY, GO AHEAD.

SADIE

WELL, IT’S JUST...I WAS WONDERING. IS THERE ANY CHANCE YOU’D BE WILLING TO GIVE THE PART OF ALICE BACK TO ME?

AIMEE

(SILENCE. THEN, SHE LAUGHS.)

SADIE

(VOICE QUAVERING)

OF COURSE, I UNDERSTAND IF YOU DON’T WANT TO. I JUST THOUGHT I’D ASK.

AIMEE

SADIE, I’M REALLY SORRY, BUT I CAN’T GIVE UP THE ROLE. THIS IS A BIG BREAK FOR ME, HAVING A BIG PART, BEING A SOPHOMORE AND ALL.