Exit Stage Left (2 page)

As we walk down the hallway after the most confusing acting class ever, I tell Amanda that I am—in no way shape or form—getting back together with Trevor. Ever, ever, ever again. Which sounds like a Taylor Swift song, but it’s true. “And if I do, please smack me.”

“Are you sure?” she asks. “I mean, remember how you said that last year when you dropped him before auditions, and then the second you were over mono, you fell into his arms faster than . . . I don’t know what. Something really fast?”

“Positive. This year is different.”

Amanda pushes her long blond hair behind one ear and gives me a side-eyed look. “You know, I’m proud of you.”

I check out my shoes. They’re these cute studded ballet flats I found online while I was reciting lines a couple of weeks ago. I admire them for a second before answering. “Thanks. So, um . . . do you think there’s anything between him and Gabby?”

Amanda pauses. “It’s obvious she wants him, but really. If you
snapped your fingers, he’d be here in three seconds flat.”

That makes me feel better. It shouldn’t, I know. I shouldn’t care at all. But Amanda is probably the most rational, even-tempered person I know. And she’s usually right about stuff like this, especially when it involves Trevor.

Amanda leans into me and gives me a side hug. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Great, actually. Now listen to this and tell me if it’s any good.” I stop in the middle of the hall, people streaming past me, and quote a chunk of monologue I memorized in July.

“You know I love you, Case, but you need to stop reciting Act One, Scene Six or whatever for at least ten minutes. I’ve heard that one five times since homeroom.” Amanda crosses her arms and leans against the wall.

“It’s part of Act Two,” I inform her. “And it is too different. Listen again.” I close my eyes and recite the same lines with every ounce of my energy. My voice carries through the hallway, drowning out the shoe squeaks and shouts and slamming lockers.

It’s actually quiet for a second. Even the Bohemian Brigade, perched on the radiators next to us, breaks out into applause. It takes a lot to get their attention, since half of them are usually in a whole other world. And then the hall roars back to life and someone bumps my backpack off my shoulder.

“Nice projection,” Amanda says. “But we need to get to English, okay?”

“I have to be perfect. My entire life depends on this role.”

“Don’t worry so much.” Amanda flicks her hair over her shoulder.
She grabs my arm and pulls me toward the classroom. “You’ll get the lead. There’s no competition. Listen.” She gestures toward a group of freshmen singing a slightly off-key version of “My Favorite Things” near the French room door. At any normal high school, they’d be laughed into the corner with the gamer geeks and the goth kids. But these kinds of moments are pretty much expected here. It’s like the movie
Fame
, plopped down in a cornfield in the middle of Indiana. So not really like
Fame
, but as close as we’re going to get around here.

I recite another line in Amanda’s ear as we reach our English classroom. “That was a good one, right?”

Our friend Kelly is waiting just inside the door. “I don’t know. I think it could’ve been louder. I could barely hear you from in here.”

“
Don’t
encourage her,” Amanda says as she drops her stuff on one of the front desks.

“Hey, my methods work. I’m not about to change anything now,” I say.

“That’s good,” Kelly says as she twists a curl around her finger. “Because I saw Trevor and Gabby in the Alcove of Sin right after lunch.”

“Oh?” Why did I say that? “I don’t care. What were they doing?”

Amanda glares at Kelly for even bringing the subject up.

“Talking,” Kelly says.

I snort. I can’t help it. Amanda’s right. There’s nothing going on there.

“You’re not interested, remember?” Amanda pokes me in the side with her pen. “Trevor is so yesterday, you’re over him, and you are
999 percent focused on landing Maria in the show. So really, you don’t care if Trevor and Gabby were all over each other against the Gatorade machine. Right?”

“Right.” I probably could’ve said that with a little more conviction.

Amanda smiles at me. “You know, that last line you did sounded perfect.”

My heart swells about twelve sizes. Amanda totally gets it.

Harrison walks in at the very last minute, fries and ketchup in hand. Which Ms. Monroe will freak out over if she sees them.

“Where did you get fries?” I whisper as I sneak one from where he’s hiding them under his desk.

“Chris,” he answers. As if I even had to ask. Chris is like a walking restaurant. He probably bought six plates of them at lunch—two hours ago.

“What song are you doing for the audition? Did you decide yet?” I snag another mostly cold fry while Ms. Monroe has some deep discussion with Alexa James, who is practically the captain of the Bohemian Brigade (if they believed in captains), about why she can’t do a term paper on the compiled literary works of Winnie-the-Pooh. (“But he’s so zen!” she argues.) I’m so busy watching Ms. Monroe’s reaction that I end up knocking ketchup onto Harrison’s button-down.

“Dammit, Casey, pay attention,” Harrison mutters as he swipes at his shirt.

“Sorry, Gunther Engelbert,” I whisper before making the fry disappear into my mouth.

“Don’t call me that.” He digs one of those stain-remover pens
from his bag and dabs at the spot.

“You deserve it for being so mean to me,” I tell him. He renamed himself in middle school after seeing Harrison Ford in
Star Wars
. No one calls him Gunther except his parents. And me, when he’s especially annoying. Like now. He gets way too overprotective of his clothes—and this is coming from a girl who’s really into her closet.

“Are those fries?” Kelly whispers from across the aisle.

Harrison sighs and passes the entire thing to her.

“You never answered my question,” I say to Harrison.

He gives up on the stain, which is now this damp blob. “I don’t know. I can’t go wrong with
Les Mis
, right?”

“Hmm.” I study him for a moment. He’s one of my oldest friends, and there’s no way I want to do this show without him. Which means he needs to nail his audition. “What about
Sweeney Todd
?”

“Really? Me?” Harrison gives me this look, like
What about me says murderous barber?

“You should totally do
Sweeney Todd
,” Kelly says, her red curls bouncing as she nibbles a fry. Holland Community Theater did a production of
Annie
when we were in sixth grade. No one dared try out for the title role once we found out Kelly had signed up. She’s like a real-life Annie, minus the rich adoptive dad. And orphanage.

“I just don’t want to be stuck in the chorus again. I’d like an actual role,” Amanda says from behind Harrison.

“The chorus is where actors go to die,” I say as I glance up front. Ms. Monroe has finally finished talking to Alexa (who put up one effing huge protest in defense of her Winnie-the-Pooh idea) and is now
trying to pull everything together to actually start class. “No offense.”

“I didn’t exactly die last year,” Amanda says.

“I would have.”

“You’d live through it. Not that it’s anything you even have to worry about.”

Even as she says that, I feel hot and my clothes seem too tight and I just want to go outside and breathe. Nervousness, I guess. And that’s insane, because I know I’m meant to be an actor. Ever since I was cast as the apple in my kindergarten production of
The Food Pyramid
, I’ve known acting was my passion. My whole entire reason for living. Lead roles don’t just fall into my lap. I work hard for them, and they mean everything to me.

“So, Case, what are you going to do when Trevor gets the male lead?” Kelly’s pretty good at asking the world’s most uncomfortable questions.

“Thanks for assuming that the rest of us don’t stand a chance,” Harrison says.

Kelly shrugs and sneaks him the fries back under his desk. Or fry, because there’s only one left. Harrison gives it a sad look before grumpily eating it.

“You have a chance,” Amanda says in her best encouraging voice.

“Yeah, I guess,” Kelly says. “You’re a better actor, at least.”

Harrison looks at her, as if he’s trying to figure out whether she’s giving him a compliment or insulting his voice.

The thing is that Trevor has a lot going for him that Harrison doesn’t. He’s a senior, he has the right look (which I am not
thinking about, at all). He’s somewhere over six feet tall and creates this presence on the stage that you can’t look away from. And—most important—he has a to-die-for voice. To. Die. For. As in, he could sing “Jingle Bells” and it would sound ten times better than anyone else singing . . . well, anything.

I silently congratulate myself on admitting all this without feeling one ounce of nostalgia for our relationship. Or relationship-like thing. Mostly. I’ll get through the show, starring opposite him, without falling for him again. I am a professional, after all.

“Casey?”

I snap my head up from my desk later the next morning. Ms. Thomasetti is standing right in front of me, a dry-erase marker in her hand. I blink.

“Are you awake now?”

“Um, yes. Sorry.” I can’t help it. Music theory is the most boring class ever. And I mean,
ever
. I love music. I just don’t like the theory of it so much.

“Good,” Ms. Thomasetti says. “Then perhaps you can tell the class which chord we just heard.” She pauses. “Are you feeling well?”

Thank you, Ms. Thomasetti.

“No. I think I ate a bad veggie omelet for breakfast. My stomach hurts.” I clutch my hands to my abdomen and put on a pained—but not overdone—expression. I am
way
too sick to name any chords today.

Across the room, Amanda starts to laugh but turns it into a cough.

“I think you should go to the office and lie down.” Ms. Thomasetti scribbles a note and hands it to me.

“All right,” I say weakly. I head toward the door with my books and the note, and carefully let my hair fall into my face. I don’t push it away because—obviously—I’m too weak to do anything but trudge out of the room and down the hallway.

Once out the door, I mentally celebrate my success. I can even sneak a quick nap before Pre-calc. I turn the corner and collide with someone tall and male.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t see you,” I say to the Foo Fighters T-shirt I’m practically breathing on. I back up. The shirt belongs to a guy with a nice face and dark hair that sort of sticks up on purpose. I don’t recognize him at all. His books are all over the floor, and he kneels and begins to put them into his backpack.

“Sorry,” I say again. I pick up a script that looks like it came from the library.
The Sound of Music
. “Hey, are you trying out for the show?”

He nods.

“I am too! It’s one of my favorites. I’m auditioning for Maria, of course. I’m Casey, by the way. Are you new here?”

The guy nods again. He doesn’t say anything. He just tugs on his shirt and looks at me.

“Um, well, okay. I guess I’ll see you at the auditions tomorrow.”

He takes his script and lopes down the hallway.

How weird was that? I’ve never met an actor who didn’t talk.

After I convince the school nurse I’m cured, I sit at my desk in Pre-calc. Right next to Amanda.

“Feeling better?” she asks with a grin.

“Like a million bucks.”

“Nice performance, although a little overdramatic. Practicing for tomorrow?”

“Of course. And don’t think I didn’t see your
Oh, I’m so faint I think I might pass out
thing last week. The hand to the forehead was a little too much,” I joke back.

You see, there’s a fine line between playing sick well enough to get out of class, and playing sick to the point that you get sent home. Amanda and I perfected the just-sick-enough routine in ninth grade, when we were subjected to a PE class that involved a lot of ball sports. Volleyball. Basketball. Softball. Whateverball. God-get-me-the-hell-outta-here-ball. By the end of the year, I’m pretty sure the school nurse wanted to send us both for CT scans because of our constant
“migraines” and “cramps.”

“I needed time to study for that physics quiz. At least I didn’t clutch my stomach like my intestines were going to fall out,” Amanda replies.

When Mr. Williams starts calling roll, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I pull it out and put it in my lap to read Amanda’s text. Technically we can have phones in class—we just can’t use them. Technically.

Except the text isn’t from Amanda. It’s Trevor.
Gonna hit up El Burrito aft school. U in?

He knows exactly what he’s doing. El Burrito is our place. It’s where we had our first date—or date-type thing—and (so very romantically) had our first kiss in the parking lot.

Is it T?
Amanda.
Tell him to go take a long walk off a short catwalk.

I smile. It’s not like I have any trouble telling him to get lost when I call things off, but now? Staying apart from him is really hard work. But then again, so is being
with
him.

“Casey Fitzgerald,” Mr. Williams says.

“Here,” I say automatically.

Get yr ass to El B & put T outta his misery
.
I’ll even buy u the damn burrito.
And that would be Steve-o Grimaldi texting on Trevor’s phone. That seals it. Not like I was going anyway, but I’m definitely not going if the Grimaldi twins—Trevor’s BFFs for reasons unknown—are going.

Sry, busy. Practicing aud song with A & H
, I write back to Trevor/Steve-o. Total lie, but worth it.

If anyone asks, we’re practicing aud songs aft school 2day
, I type out to Amanda.

Got it
, comes the answer.

Will regale u with my fab rendition of “The Impossible Dream.”

“Amanda Reynolds.”

“Here.” Amanda peers at her phone. And laughs out loud.

Mr. Williams looks up from his roll sheet, frowns, and asks us all to remain quiet while he finishes. When he picks up where he left off, my entire body melts with relief. A confiscated phone is not in my plans today.

What is in my plans today: reciting a few more tricky lines, running my song again, and getting through yet another awkward call with my dad.

Focus. I’m all focus.

My pre-calc homework lies abandoned on the coffee table while I recite lines from
The Sound of Music
out loud to my brother. I have him reading Liesl, the oldest daughter. Which I find kind of hilarious. Eric is a senior, all of fifteen months older than me, and he plays that big-brother card just a little too often. So of course I have to bring him down a peg or two on occasion.

“Jesus, Casey, I’m not saying this line out loud.”

“Eric! You interrupted the flow of the scene again. Now we have to start from the beginning.”

He tosses the script on top of my homework. “Hell, no. I’m done. Get Mom to run lines with you.” Before I know it, all I see of him is
the back of his black bomber jacket as he stomps off toward the basement and his guitar, leaving me alone. Brothers are more trouble than they’re worth.

I grab the script and read one line over and over, putting the emphasis on different words to see which works best.

“Sounds good.” Mom stands in the doorway to the kitchen. “Are you ready?”

“Definitely.” I think.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Mom grins. “Now maybe you should focus on that.” She nods toward the textbook on the table.

“I’m too nervous about auditions. I’ll do it in the morning.”

Mom raises her eyebrows. She’s not so much a fan of my theater-first, school-second priorities. “I expect to see nothing lower than a C at the end of this semester.”

Some parents let their sixteen-year-old daughters organize their own lives. Those parents would not be my mother. Unfortunately.

“You need to call your dad tonight, too.” She glances at the clock on the wall. “You should be able to catch him in about twenty minutes.” Mom disappears back into the kitchen.

I briefly consider hiding out in my room but decide I’m too lazy to make it up the stairs. Phone calls with the father who chose to take a job far, far away from his family—and then won’t even write a college recommendation for his daughter despite the fact that he’s a Big Deal lighting designer—aren’t exactly high on my priority list. So I pick up the pre-calc book and stare at a problem. The numbers swim in front of my eyes. I fill in all the o’s and d’s and b’s on the page of
my textbook instead. I’m in the middle of sketching a series of hearts in the margin when my phone rings. I leap off the couch and snatch it from the end table.

“Casey, hey.” It’s Amanda. “I’m bored.” She has to be if she’s calling instead of texting. That’s a whole new level of bored for Amanda.

“Me too,” I say. “You’ve saved me from pre-calc misery.”

“I finished that,” Amanda says. “It isn’t too hard.”

“Some of us aren’t mathematical geniuses, you know.”

“Please. It’s only because I paid attention in class instead of reciting lines in my head,” she teases. “I’ll go over the problems with you in the morning if you want.”

“Thanks. I’ll bring you a muffin.” Amanda’s been helping me with homework since fifth grade. And I’ve been paying her in my mom’s chocolate chip muffins ever since. The fact that I actually passed geometry freshman year? All thanks to Amanda. The least I can do is give her amazing muffins in return.

Amanda’s quiet for a second. “So, did you hear Gabby’s definitely trying out for the play now? The car lot moved their filming back.”

“No,” I say with a groan. Gabby is real competition.

“I thought you should know, but Case? Don’t stress about it.” Amanda pauses. “It’s almost eight. I gotta go.”

“Right. What are you working on?” I ask. Amanda religiously practices piano for an hour each night, and for two on the weekends. She’s as obsessive about her piano as I am about theater. Sometimes she props the phone beside her on the bench, and I listen as she plays. It always sounds perfect to me, but she usually has a long list of mistakes
to break down afterward.

“This great new Chopin piece.” Amanda goes on and on about it, diverging into Serious Piano Talk. I pay attention, but I can pick up only about half of it. “And here comes my alarm clock. . . .”

Mrs. Reynolds’s voice echoes through the phone. “A-
man
-da! Are you going to practice?”

“See you tomorrow,” I say.

Gabby. I can’t believe it. Why does the local Commercial Queen have to show up and ruin everything?

Maybe she’ll have a cold and will sniffle her way through the audition. I hope.