Authors: S. Stevens
Tags: #General, #Fiction
At least, that’s what it’s supposed to signify. In our case, Tech Week signified disaster. Lucey quit. Her morning sickness had morphed into all-day-long sickness. She was so dehydrated, the doctor ordered IV fluids and bed rest. She was furious at her parents for making her pull out of the show. Most of the cast and crew were relieved and panicked at the same time. The past few weeks, her performances had weakened instead of getting stronger. You could see her struggling because she didn’t feel well. Despite our differences, her perseverance impressed me. But, it had become doubtful she could make it through an entire performance without getting sick, and vomiting didn’t really work with the character of Bella or the plot of the show.
So there we were, four days to go until opening and no female lead. Mr. Lord gave an inspirational speech about how he’d saved CDC once, and he’d save it again. He would find us a Bella, one even better than Lucey, if it was the last thing he did. Rehearsal then proceeded without a Bella. The focus was on weaving the technical elements of the show -- curtains, set changes, props, sound and lights -- together with the dialogue, song and dance, so Lucey wasn’t really missed, but her absence still left a pallor over the cast.
I, of course, spent rehearsal wondering if the directors would ask me to be Bella, since I’d been a runner-up of sorts for the role. It made sense. I knew all Lucey’s lines and songs, and could learn the dance steps in a few days. And I could slide right into the role since I didn’t have a part already.
Rehearsal ended without an invitation to join the cast. I mulled over my options for ten minutes or so, and made a decision. I strode up to Mr. Lord’s room, only to stop short outside his doorway. He and Mr. Ellison were inside, arguing in low voices.
“You know she can do it. And she deserves the role. She’s deserved it all along,” Mr. Ellison spoke in a low but seething voice.
“She’s not a professional. We can’t expect her to jump in at the last minute and pull this off. We need someone special to carry that role in such an important production.” Why was Mr. Lord acting like this was more than a school play? “Give me one day, Donald. If I can’t find us a Bella, then Sadie can have the role. If she’s as good as you think, one less day won’t hurt.”
“What are you going to do? Don’t tell me you have a ringer waiting in the wings. If you do anything sneaky, Lord--” Mr. Ellison sneered the name, “I’ll go to the principal, or the school committee. And don’t think I won’t.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt you. But it won’t be necessary.”
Mr. Ellison’s voice came closer to the door. “Honestly, I’m too old for this. I should have quit CDC when you showed up.”
“That would have been easier for both of us, wouldn’t it?”
Lord’s voice was coming my way, too. I ducked into the Girls’ bathroom before being discovered. Their muffled voices got louder and then faded away.
Our little school play had become a soap opera, with me one of the main characters.
*
M
R. ELLISON MUST HAVE BEEN SERIOUS when he said he should have quit CDC, because he wasn’t at rehearsal Tuesday – our first dress rehearsal complete with costumes and make-up.
We were milling around the stage and warming up when Mr. Lord broke the news: Mr. Ellison had, in fact, quit. He decided he wasn’t needed and Mr. Lord could carry on capably without him. In fact, he was burned out and apparently taking a few days off.
“As you may have picked up on, he was never a fan of our
Twilight
show anyway. Too modern for him, I think,” Mr. Lord said, unfairly I thought.
I watched the faces around me absorb the bad news. Mine must have looked the same. Foster started keening like an old woman in mourning.
“Foster, is there something you’d like to say? Use your words,” Mr. Lord said condescendingly from the pit in front of the stage.
“We’re dead. We’re dead,” Foster moaned. “Let’s face it. We can’t do this. We’re not East High – no Troy, Sharpay or Ryan here. We’re not New Directions at McKinley High. We’re not any famous fictional high.”
“Famous fictional high -- what a great name for a band,” Nigel muttered while Foster continued his lament.
“Who did we think we were, trying to turn
Twilight
into a musical? We’ve got a million rough spots still. We’ve got no director. We’ve got no Bella. We’ve got no show!” he wailed, close to tears. Ben patted him on the back.
“Cordeiro, you’re getting hysterical. Go get a drink of water or something,” Lord said through a sneer. “And we do have a director, thank you very much. Now let’s get going, we’ve got a show to rehearse.
“Sadie, you can fill in for today if you want. But don’t worry about getting the lines perfect. It’s just for today.” I was crushed. What happened to the teacher who wanted to be my mentor? And when did he get so mean? I didn’t know what to make of this man.
The entire cast was unfocused, and dress rehearsal was a shambles. People kept missing their entrances because of backstage chatter about the fate of the show. At least half the cast including Foster and Kristina thought we should cut our losses and cancel the show. Maybe we could pick it up again when Lucey and Mr. Ellison were back, they argued.
Others, like Lindsay and me, refused to throw in the towel. In between scenes, we lobbied our cast mates to go on with the show. We broke the challenges down into specific problems, which seemed to help morale because the issues seemed more manageable that way.
First, we needed a director. Mr. Lord was, admittedly, a huge addition to our theatre program. But, for all his theatre experience, he wasn’t as organized as Mr. Ellison. He just couldn’t – well, direct – as well as Mr. Ellison. Opening night was approximately seventy-two hours away, and we needed a lot of direction before then. The songs sounded great but we needed a good eye advising us how to tighten up the sloppy parts. The last few days of improvements could make the difference between a so-so show and a great one. I couldn’t take notes on improvements since I was playing Bella today.
Adrienne promised to dig into the Mr. Ellison situation and see if she could locate him. If he didn’t show by tomorrow, I would fill his shoes – if the new, cranky Mr. Lord would let me -- since my stint as Bella was a one-day gig. Problem sort of solved.
Second, we needed a female lead. Foster and Ben lobbied among the students for me to be Bella while Kristina and Jocelyn shot them dirty looks, but none of that mattered. They were powerless to insert me into the cast. We’d have to put our faith in Mr. Lord to fix that problem.
Third, the show itself needed to be about two-hundred percent tighter than in today’s rehearsal. On the bright side, the first dress rehearsal was always a disaster, yet somehow every cast I’d been in managed to pull off the show in the end. Solving the director problem would help solve this problem, Lindsay and I insisted.
I was surprised to have Lindsay in my camp until I had the disheartening realization that he wanted the show to go on because he didn’t care as much as the rest of us. A sub-optimal show would be cause for laughs for a long while to come, whereas postponing the show until spring would interfere with baseball – his favorite sport.
But I took what support I could to fight the tide of those wanting to cancel
Twilight: The Musical
. And Lindsay did have some sway. We didn’t win unanimous support for staying the course, but at least Foster and the others agreed to show up at rehearsal Wednesday.
I couldn’t help practicing Bella’s lines and songs in my bedroom that night after dinner, just in case something happened to Mr. Lord’s ringer. If the role opened up, I would be ready. I barely heard my phone buzzing with a text as I belted out my rendition of “Mystery Man”.
“Ginny, all is fine,” the message read. “Needed a break. Back in a few days.”
Must be a wrong number. I tossed the phone onto my bed.
Five minutes later, it buzzed again.
“If life were anna k, je would be a and tl v after italy. Have retreated to my secrt place to think with ab snopes. Pleas forgive me for mising show. Tell cast to break leg. PS Pleas don’t forget your friends (A).
It was from the same number, one I didn’t know. Whoever was sending these was a pretty horrible texter. The sender seemed to know about
Twilight
, but the rest didn’t make any sense. I stared at it for a minute, shrugged and went back to rehearsing.
21: What Russian Novels Teach Us
A
S SOON AS I SAW the beautiful girl standing next to Mr. Lord at rehearsal Wednesday, I knew my efforts the night before were in vain. She had a gorgeous figure and long, brown hair like Bella. Although about the same age of the rest of us, she had an edge we didn’t. Her eyes were bolder, not questioning like the average high schooler’s. She stood apart, scanning the stage and theatre like a home she was considering buying. Nigel beamed at her, introducing himself and gushing about helping her practice after rehearsal if needed.
Mr. Lord presented her to us like a gift. “As we don’t have time for auditions to fill the Bella role, I have worked a little magic, for the good of the show. As luck would have it, a friend of a friend of a friend has a daughter who is an experienced teen actor, who was hoping to transfer to Crudup soon.”
Adrienne and I traded disbelieving looks. Nobody wanted to transfer to Crudup.
“I’ve talked to the principal,” he continued, “and she has approved for Bonnie to be in the show and to transfer immediately, even though her family won’t actually move to town for a few weeks.”
Numerous jaws dropped, including my own. Lord kept going.
“She only got the script last night, so I know you’ll all be patient and helpful today. But she’s a fast learner – so I’m told – and a wonderful performer – so I hear – and she’ll be a wonderful addition to our cast.”
He clapped his hands loudly. “Everyone to places.”
*
M
R. ELLISON WASN’T at Thursday’s dress rehearsal either, or at school, and Adrienne hadn’t had any luck getting intelligence from the other teachers. Apparently all he’d said when he left school Monday afternoon was that he was going fishing. The teacher who told Adrienne this acted like it was a normal excuse for an unscheduled absence and she could totally relate.
Meanwhile, Bonnie was wowing the cast. She was every bit as good as Lord suggested, dashing any hope I had of filling the lead.
Impressing even myself with my resolve, I put aside my Bella dream and worked with a surprisingly willing Mr. Lord to identify final adjustments to the show. We found a way to eliminate one more curtain closing and opening between scenes, improving the momentum, and tweaked the blocking in a few places. We were almost ready.
At home that night, since I didn’t need to practice Bella anymore, I fiddled with my phone, deleting old photos and messages. I stopped when I got to the mysterious text message from last night. I studied it again.
“If life were anna k, je would be a and tl v after italy. Have retreated to my secrt place to think with ab snopes. Pleas forgive me for mising show. Tell cast to break leg. PS Pleas don’t forget your friends (A).”
Without Bella distracting me, some pieces made sense. “Pleas forgive me for missing show.” Could the message be from Mr. Ellison? Who else would apologize for missing the show? Certainly not Lucey, and certainly not to me.
I had no idea what the second sentence meant, so I focused on the first. Did I know an Anna whose last name started with K? Anna Karenina popped into my head immediately but I pushed her aside, trying to think of a real Anna K. I didn’t know any, and the literary Anna refused to go away. If Mr. Ellison was the texter, I supposed he might say something about
Anna Karenina,
given our shared love of the novel. But why?
“je would be a and tl v after Italy”…a could be Anna and v could be Vronsky, her lover. They were the main characters. Who was he comparing to this doomed couple? I wrote down the initials JE and TL on my notebook. Mr. Lord signed our few homework assignments “TL”. It could be him. Who was JE? Did Mr. Lord have a lover with the initials JE? Why would Mr. Ellison care about that? Maybe the e was for Ellison. But Mr. Ellison’s first name was Donald. I didn’t get it. And what did Italy have to do with anything?
My brain was in no shape to solve riddles after a trying day. I turned on some Paramore and lay down on my bed to chill.
I must have dozed, because the overhead light hurt my eyes when they shot open sometime later. Grabbing my phone, I dashed down the hallway.
“Sadie, what are you doing?” Dad yelled from his bedroom.
I should have been quieter. “Sorry, just going to the kitchen for a snack.” I walked leisurely down the stairs, glanced at the kitchen clock and snuck out the back door. Jacket-less, my arms immediately broke out in goose bumps. Thankfully, I had been wearing sneakers when I fell asleep, so my toes were protected from the frosty grass.
Breaking through the low shrubs separating my yard from Alex’s, I kicked at the dirt with my toe to nudge loose several small stones, which I promptly threw as hard as I could at Alex’s dark bedroom window. It was eleven thirty. He had to be home. I threw a second bunch of stones and was scouting for a third when his window opened. A shirtless Alex leaned out.