The Truth About Fragile Things (13 page)

“Zirman?” Phil laughed. “She would eat him for an appetizer. She seriously has a thing for Zirman? He’s boring.”

“Stop saying his name like that. He’s nice,” I corrected.

“Nice is boring,” Phil countered.

“Well, let’s all go fall in love with homicidal maniacs, then. That’s interesting.”

“Who’s talking about love?” Alicia interrupted. “I just want to know which one of you is going to help me get a part.” She lowered her voice and turned away as Taylor passed.

“You two go,” Phil said, his eyes following Taylor’s chest with open curiosity.

“Who will you be with?” Alicia moaned. “If you say Taylor I will scream.”

“I’ll take Freaky Freshman,” he said and gave me a wink Alicia couldn’t see.

“No. No way. How did she even get in here? You are not getting stuck with her, Phillip.” Alicia stomped her foot for good measure.

“It’s fine,” Phillip said, his face clouding. He strained his eyes down the hallway looking for her. “She’s actually good. Where is she, Megan?”

Alicia gave us a critical scan. “Why would Megan know?”

“We are sort of helping her.” I choked on the words and gave a small cough.

“Helping her? I thought she was crazy. How did you meet her? Why was she stalking you?”

“I finally got her to talk to me. She thought I was someone she used to know. Phil and I helped her audition.”

“She’s the girl you were with at tryouts?” Alicia asked.

“Yeah.” I spotted Charlotte at the end of the hall, her mouth set in a tight line.

“She’s pretty,” Alicia murmured, but Phil had already walked away to talk to her.

“She’s something,” I sighed, taking the script. “Let’s get to work.”

I ignored the suspicious look Alicia gave me and got down to business, avoiding Phil and Charlotte in the hope Alicia would, too. After a few minutes it worked. I forced myself to concentrate on blocking, forced my head not to turn and see how Charlotte was doing, made myself ignore the sound of Phil’s laughter.

“Let’s go first,” I told Alicia. I clamped my teeth together and tugged her to the front of the line. If we got it over with fast, Alicia would go home and I could stay and watch Charlotte.

“No. Not first. I’m not ready,” Alicia protested.

“You are ready. Make the first impression. Come on.” All I had to do was smile apologetically at the first two people auditioning and they stepped aside graciously. Being popular, for all its downsides, has certain perks.

“Don’t sound canned,” I warned Alicia. “Don’t think of the script. Don’t picture the lines. Just say them like you are the first person who ever thought them.”

“I know, I know.” She did a few hops like a boxer about to go into the ring.

Someone on the tech crew called us in and I stopped just shy of center stage, positioned my body toward the empty chairs, smiled at Schatz and her production assistant sitting with their clipboards.

“You can begin,” Schatz told us.

I took one breath, felt the stage air pulse through my lungs like power, soaked up the lights like a plant reaching up for the sun and jumped into the scene. I didn’t have a single thought in my head until Alicia finished the last line and awareness ran back up my spine like a current that had been cut and restored.

“Nice job, girls. Way to get things rolling. Good luck,” Schatz’s voice echoed.

After we returned to the harsh hallway lights Alicia wanted to hash over every detail but I put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Don’t jinx it. We did amazing and I never talk about a tryout once it’s over.” It was a complete lie, but it sounded both mature and eccentric. I decided to adopt it for future use.

I pointed her shoulders toward the parking lot and gave her a gentle nudge. “See you on the cast list tomorrow.” She nodded obediently and left, looking back three times. Each time I just gave her a calm thumbs-up and willed her to keep walking. It worked. I waited until she was gone before I slipped back in to watch Phil and Charlotte. I crept up to the sound booth where Braden was doing his homework until it was time to shut down the spotlight. It was completely against the rules to watch other people audition, but I am discreet and I knew he wouldn’t tell.

“You did really well,” he said, while he worked his way through a math problem.

“Thank you,” I replied from my corner. I stayed in the shadows in case Schatz turned around to ask him something. “I promise I’m just watching Phillip and then I’ll go.”

He shrugged and kept working. It didn’t take long before Charlotte and Phillip appeared. I took a step closer to the glass wall, studying the way she looked on stage. Her skin was so golden that even under the white lights she kept her color. Phillip’s Puerto Rican skin washed out more than hers. When Schatz told them to begin, Phil squeezed Charlotte’s hand and it looked like he murmured something before he took his spot, all business.

He came out strong, commanding the stage from his first word. I’d grown used to that. What surprised me was the way Charlotte managed to keep up with him.

Braden raised his eyebrows in a silent question as he watched her and I just smiled and shrugged. Everyone wondered where the freshman came from. “I’ve seen you two together. Has she been in anything?” he asked.

“Never. Never on a stage.” We stopped talking to watch. When she did a fabulous slip the cracking sound of her body hitting the stage floor shot through the room. I flinched and then gave an almost giddy clasp of my hands when she sprang up with a smile.

“She’s a natural,” Braden said as she dusted off her jeans. “I thought she broke something.”

“Schatz is going to love that. Do you think she has a chance?”

Braden turned a dial on the soundboard. “A freshman? I dunno. Helps that she’s with Phil. How’d she get him to agree to that?”

“He thinks she has potential,” I said.

“Or he thinks she’s hot,” Braden offered.

“Really?” I asked. “She’s fourteen. She looks like a little kid to me.” Every time I saw Charlotte my brain grabbed at gentle words—pretty, lovely, attractive. Never something as sharp and ragged as ‘hot.’

“I don’t know.” He tilted his head and I followed his stare to Charlotte’s soft curves, small waist, her hair that fell to the arch of her spine.

I watched Phil take Charlotte’s hand again and lead her off stage. “Thanks for letting me watch.”

“No problem.” His mouth cracked open like there was another sentence about to squeeze out, but nothing came. When I opened the door he spoke again in fast, agitated words. “Megan, I didn’t mean to say that she is…anyway, she is just a little pretty. Not compared to somebody…really pretty.” His face went pink all the way to his spiky hair.

I could feel the shape of my smile, the curve of surprise, the warmth that seeped into my voice. “Duly noted. Thanks again.” I grinned as I circled down the spiral steps, happy in the thought that Taylor would never get close enough to hurt him. She didn’t know a nice boy like Braden would run as fast as possible from obvious. And she was lip-biting, wet t-shirt obvious.

I met Charlotte and Phillip at the end of the hallway, well away from rest of the group. “You
performed
Charlotte,” I told her. I couldn’t think of a better compliment than that.

Phillip took her arm and lifted her elbow, inspecting it. “Did you bruise yourself? I almost broke character to see if you were okay.”

Charlotte rubbed her arm. “It actually did hurt more than I thought it would.” She gave us a bright smile. “So that’s probably it, right? You said freshman never get a part.”

“They also don’t make callbacks. You never know,” Phillip grinned. “You liked it, didn’t you? Megan, I think the bug bit her.”

Charlotte’s smile widened, broke apart, showing her white teeth. This was a new kind of pretty for her, the kind that lived inside happy.

“We may have created a monster,” I agreed.

“She’s so cute when she’s ecstatic.” Phillip squeezed her shoulders before he planted a kiss on top of her head.

Charlotte whipped her hands up, flapped him away. “Stop it. When will she post the cast?”

“Sometime tomorrow,” I answered. “But…”

“I know; freshmen don’t get parts. I just want to see what you both get.”

“Don’t jinx it,” I told her. “There’s ample opportunity for jinxing in the theater world.”

“What jinxes it?” she asked.

“Let’s see…” I started. “Saying good luck, putting a script under your pillow, turning off all the lights in the theater.” Those were the only ones I could think of fast enough to recite.

“Wanting it,” Phillip said dryly.

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed. “Wanting it. That’s the worst one of all.”

B
y Friday morning,
Schatz’s door was still bare. She almost never made us wait more than a day for a cast list and now it had been three. The tension spreading through the theater department was like a loaded and lit cannon that hadn’t exploded yet. I approached her door with caution at lunchtime, my brown lunch sack crumpled in my grip. She’d been nothing but brisk since callbacks.

“Did you finish your report for Mr. Morris?” she asked without looking up.

“Barely. My final count was one thousand and fourteen words.”

“What did you do? Say Stalin was really, really, really bad fourteen times?”

“Something like that.” I chuckled and tore off the corner of my sandwich. “I wove in Tolstoy and
Anna Karenina
. It was a stretch.”

“Stopping you there. I am not going to know what you are talking about if we continue this line of conversation.” She stood up to join me at a table.

“You didn’t have to read
Anna Karenina
?”

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure I did.” She raised her heavy eyelids imperiously. “That just doesn’t help most of us. What I’d give for your brain.” She gripped my head in one of her large hands before sitting down.

“You didn’t like it because there were no stage directions. Screenplays are your thing.”

“You better believe it,” she agreed. “Speaking of, you should see the script I am looking at for spring. Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary. Dungeons, full costumes. Can you imagine the costume rental?” she asked.

“Dr. Lackey will hate you.” Our principal happens to feel much stronger about the math team and the football team than he does about the drama department. What money he gives he gives grudgingly. Schatz gave a huge nod and finished swallowing. While she couldn’t speak I took my chance. “When are you planning on posting the cast?” I dropped the words almost casually, but she met my innocent expression with a shrewd one.

Her fingers drummed the table, her hooded eyes almost closed in thought. “After school. I have criers this year and I figured they could recover over the weekend before they do anything rash.”

“Like toilet paper your desk?”

“You say it like it’s a joke. You have no idea. Did I ever tell you about the girl who put gum in every backstage outlet the day before opening night?”

I leaned forward, hardly adding a word as she listed off all the revenge plots against her, including a student who alluded to having his dreams crushed by the drama teacher in his graduation speech. “There were five thousand people in that room. I left out the back door before they threw their hats.” She sighed and her eyes traveled up to the clock. “Lunch is almost over, but before you go I want you to tell me about Charlotte Exby. Do you know her?”

It is strange how I’d grown immune to seeing Charlotte’s face, yet the mention of her name still turned my stomach. “Yes,” I answered.

“How many plays has she been in?”

“None.” I twisted the stem of my pear, refused to look into her eyes.

“None, ever? Ever?” Frustration etched lines around her mouth. “This is a tough one, Megan. She’s young, she’s never taken one of my classes, completely inexperienced…”

“But good?” I prodded.

“Hard to tell. No, that’s not fair. Yes, she seems pretty good,” Schatz admitted with a scowl.

“Too much of a risk?” I sympathized. Charlotte had a way of being an inherently risky person.

“Maybe. Maybe,” she raked a hand through graying hair.

“You are actually considering her, aren’t you?” The words were tinted with excitement.