The Fall Musical (6 page)

Oh, the tension
, Charles thought.
Mr. Control and Ms. Over-the-Top
. Being near those two had the same effect as dunking your head in a bowl of Starbucks espresso. But he was distracted by quiet laughter filtering out from backstage. With the Charlettes these days, that was not a good sign. “Excuuuuse me again,” Charles said, rolling his eyes. Tucking his clipboard under this arm, he ran onto the stage and slipped behind the curtain.

Near the far wall, around a card table, sat Casey, Vijay, Ruby, and the other Charlettes. The table was stacked neatly with gloves, paper fans, fake phones, and electronic equipment. The floor had been swept clean and the wing space was festooned with costumes and props, everything neatly in place.

Charles's clipboard dropped to the floor. “I'm dreaming,” he said.

Casey looked tentative. “Sorry . . . ?”

“Sorry about what? How did you
do
this?”

“It wasn't that hard,” Casey said.

“
Wasn't that hard?
” He lifted her and spun her around, screaming with glee like something out of a cheesy movie, but he didn't care. “Will you marry me?”

“Um . . . ” Casey giggled, embarrassed. “I guess . . . if you design the dress.”

Vijay bolted out of his chair, looking thoroughly disgusted. “Oy. My stomach.”

Ms. Gunderson began playing again. The audition. Charles had almost forgotten about the audition. He forced himself to listen. It was a familiar intro.

When a male voice began to sing, all conversation stopped. Time stopped.

The sound was so clear and sexy and strong and human, it was like the
thing
itself with a shape and a life. It soared and floated. It filled the stage. Charles had heard “On the Street Where You Live” sung a million times, but never like this.

He tiptoed to the curtain. One by one the Charlettes joined him.

“He's a god,” said Dan Winston.

“He's a natural,” whispered Charles.

Casey put the pieces of the puzzle together. “He's a religious experience.”

As the song ended, Kyle smiled into the audience and then began to stroll off the stage. No one moved or made a sound until he got to the stairs.

“Uh, do you have an up-tempo?” Ms. Gunderson squeaked.

Kyle stopped. “An up-what?”

“Never mind.” Harrison's voice popped up from the dark auditorium. “Kyle, would you come back tomorrow for callbacks?”

“Tomorrow?” Kyle said. “Aw, damn, I have to go to practice. I can't play because of the ankle, but I'm part of the team and—”

“Cancel it,” Brianna told him. “This is mandatory.”

 

As Kyle started toward the auditorium doors, limping but whistling, Brianna could barely stay in her seat. She was right. She had called it. Nailed it when no one else even guessed.

She knew his type.

Some people had it and forced it on people, like Reese. Other people had it but chose to hold back.

Underpromise, overdeliver
. That was his MO. Don't let on. Don't let them see you sweat. Nurse your talent in secret. Then, when the others least expect it, blow them all out of the water. Brianna admired that. Kyle was her opposite. For Brianna, all the effort showed. She screamed Type A no matter how hard she tried to hide it. So people expected the 97 average, the SAT score of 2300, the drama-queen performances, and fashionista clothes. Anything less, and they talked. But Kyle—nothing about him was expected. Just when you thought you had him pegged, he proved you wrong. He was a force of nature. A major talent. She'd known it the moment she'd heard him singing at Scott's party that night. That was sexy enough. But the fact that he didn't need to show off, that he kept it inside until he was good and ready . . .

She couldn't think about this. Because when she did, she couldn't think about anything else. Brianna didn't know many people like Kyle. She wanted to know him. She had to.

She watched him heading for the door, shooting her a thumbs-up, grinning like a three-year-old. Like a kid who just gotten away with something, just played with the coolest toy in the room while no one was watching. And that was when the thought hit her—maybe he just
didn't know
.

Could he not know how talented he was? Was it possible he couldn't tell what an impact he created? God, the air in the room had changed. From now on in the Drama Club, it would be BK and AK: Before Kyle and After Kyle. Brianna knew that in her gut.

As the auditorium door shut, Charles emerged from behind the curtain. “Did I just die and go to heaven?”

Brianna ran down from the mezzanine. Her head was buzzing. Her pores felt wide open, as if she had just taken a long shower. “You're welcome, everybody! Now you know why I was late. He wanted to play catch with his teammates. I had to yank him away.”

“He's beautiful.” Reese sighed.

“Who knew?” Ms. Gunderson said.

Mr. Levin looked skeptical. “If he were in the show, could he make a commitment? This is football season, and he's the star of the team.”

“Not this year,” Brianna said. “Over the summer he hurt his ankle in a cribbage—”

“Scrimmage,” Harrison corrected her.

“So he's out for the season,” she went on. “He was in a cast until last week, in case you didn't notice. Which is why trying to play catch with his buddies was insane, and why I was able to get him to come here.”

Dashiell nodded solemnly. “You have an awesome ability to spot talent, Brianna. It's a unique gift. I have always admired that in you—”

“He's perfect for the lead role,” Reese interrupted, throwing Harrison a provocative look. “For Jesus.”

Harrison gave her his best I-don't-give-a-crap look. Brianna recognized it. Nonchalance was one of his specialties as an actor, even when he was mad jealous, which he had to be right then. If there was one thing Brianna had expertise in, it was Harrison's ego. “I agree. The guy is a natural,” he said through slightly gritted teeth.

“Well, let's not cast him yet,” Brianna said diplomatically. “He still has to get through callbacks.”

“Yes, that's what I meant,” Harrison snapped. “I meant callbacks.”

“Don't be upset,” Brianna said. “I was just trying to recruit good people.”

“You did great,” Harrison told her with a tight little smile. “One star. One dud. A five hundred average. That's good. Now let's move on.”

Charles took in a sudden sharp breath. “You did
not
say that,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder.

“What?” Harrison asked.

A door slammed backstage, loudly.

“Damn . . . ” Charles said, running onto the stage. Brianna followed close behind him, along with the other DC members.

He pulled aside the curtains. The backstage area was beautiful. Immaculate. The Charlettes were standing around a card table, looking shell-shocked.

Charles ran to the door, opened it, and looked out into the hallway. “She's gone.”

“Who?” asked Reese.

“Casey.” Charles sank into a chair.

Harrison winced. “No. Did she hear?”

Charles rolled his eyes. “With a voice like yours, Mr. Project-to-the-Back-Row? Of course she heard.”

“Yeah, that really sucked,” said Vijay softly.

Brianna glanced at the tidy boxes, the neat rows of costumes. “This is beautiful. Who did this?”

“Our beloved dud,” Charles said.

6

CASEY SLAMMED THE DOOR BEHIND HER. THE living room windows shook, but it didn't matter. No one was home. Her mom was working, and Casey herself didn't count anyway. She was a nobody, a no-talent.

What did she expect—just because she had moved away, just because she had changed her name, things would be different? Somehow she'd magically know how to do things right for a change? She would somehow become another person? She was still the same klutz. A bad-luck magnet by any name.

She stomped upstairs, hoping her heavy footfalls would break through the stairs and she'd go tumbling, tumbling, down into a dark and bottomless rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland and find a world where everything was turned upside down and inside out. Where the unexpected was expected. The fantasy world she deserved, not the fantasy world of Casey Chang, Normal Girl, which she would never,
ever
see.

The headache had started on the way home, in the back of her head. Running upstairs made her temples throb. She flopped onto her mattress and closed her eyes. The bed frame thumped hollowly against the wood paneling, which had been painted white but still made her new room look like a set from
The Brady Bunch
.

No matter how hard she tried to block it out, the audition ran like a loop in her head. How could everything have gone so wrong? How could her voice have acted like that, like a wounded bird never quite finding its flight path? And then backstage, where she let herself be
used
like that! Cleaning up like Cinderella while they laughed behind her back.

Casey the dud.

They didn't know her. They didn't know what she could do—what she
used
to be able to do back when she was Kara the class officer, the yearbook editor . . . Kara the Unafraid.

She groaned. The train of thoughts made her head hurt even more. And now her cell phone was beeping.

She reached over and pulled it out of her shoulder bag.

 

 

It was from Brianna.

The possible replies ran through Casey's mind:
Leave me alone. I'm pissed at you
(true but harsh).
Thanks
(strong and silent but too cold and mysterious).
No problem, it wasn't your fault, I'm okay
(why not just walk all over me?).

She turned the phone off.

Dropping it back into her bag, she noticed her laptop glowing dully on her desk. She sat up and reached for the mouse, jiggling it so the screen would come to life. Not one IM. Which shouldn't have been surprising, considering that she had deleted her old friends from her buddy list the day she arrived here. At the time it had made sense, a part of her master plan to erase the past, but now the deletion seemed like a colossally dumb idea. It would be nice to talk to someone old and familiar. There was only one thing from her past she hadn't let go of.

Tentatively she opened a desk drawer. Reaching under a pile of papers, she pulled out a frayed envelope. Her hands shook as she removed a photograph from inside. It was thin and yellowing, cut from a newspaper, and it showed a young, handsome dad and two adorable, smiling kids—a blond, floppy-haired, gap-toothed boy of about seven and a shy-looking girl maybe two years younger. Beneath the photo was a caption that began “Kirk Hammond and Family.”

As tears filled Casey's eyes, the photo went blurry. She wondered what would happen if she just disappeared, just wandered into the ocean with rocks in her pocket, or flung herself from the Empire State Building. Would anyone care?

Her mom would. Really, that was the only reason Casey kept herself from doing anything stupid. Mom cared.

She tucked the photo into the envelope and shoved it back in the drawer. Falling onto her bed, she began to sob quietly, closing her eyes. No matter how hard you tried, some things never went away. The thought led her into a dream, a dream that was a scattered collage of the day . . . the collision with Dashiell, the awful audition, the tidying up backstage, the insult . . . dud . . .

She was hearing music now, a rhythm. It filtered into her brain and became words, lyrics to a familiar song. “Day by Day,” from
Godspell
.

Casey's eyes blinked open.

The song wafted in through her window, from outside. The voices were too clear, too raw-sounding to be a recording—soft voices without instruments, a cappella. Real voices. Coming nearer. Breaking into harmony. Clapping rhythmically. A gospel solo broke out over the chorus.

“What the—?” She sat up and wiped her face with a tissue. Trudging to the window, she flung it open.

The view was so incongruous, she thought she was in one of those strange states in which you were half awake but still smack in the middle of some whacked-out dream. Below her, dancing on her lawn, were Brianna, Harrison, Dashiell, Charles, and Reese. Dashiell was singing the solo. She knew why he was a tech guy. They all smiled up at her, raising their arms. They looked like a rescue squad, a curiously happy and welcoming rescue squad beckoning her to jump.