The Fall Musical (9 page)

Casey didn't answer for a long time. “It's a lot of responsibility,” she finally said. “So much that can go wrong.”

“It's a
show
, Casey. It's not football or lacrosse or hockey, where you can get your kishkes knocked out.”

“Kishkes? What does that mean?”

“I'm not sure. It's something Vijay says. It's Yiddish.”

“Isn't he Indian?”

“Yes. You see what a bunch of eccentric and interesting people we have?”

Casey sighed. “People can get injured onstage. Props can break and cut people. Turntables can trap shoelaces and mangle people's feet. I read about someone whose jaw had to be wired after she ran into another actor in the dark. I would be responsible for the safety of everyone. I don't know if I can trust myself.”

Trust myself?
Brianna had to look at her to make sure this wasn't a joke. It wasn't. This was too lame. Maybe Casey was afraid of something. Somehow the football incident with Kyle came to mind. “Can I ask you a personal question? Is this about Kyle?”

“
Kyle
? Not at all.”

“Is it the time commitment? Because I totally understand that. There are ways to get your homework done. All of us do really well in school, especially Harrison. Well, me, too. My parents will disown me if I don't go to Yale. Which is fine with me, because afterward I can go to Yale Drama School. I'll have six APs, and if I can keep my average above a ninety-six and crack a twenty-three hundred, maybe twenty-three fifty on the SATs, plus community service, school radio station, and orchestra—”

“Wow,” Casey said. “Do you ever sleep?”

Brianna hated that question. It sounded like her mother speaking. “I sleep enough. Some people don't need much sleep.”

Through her left window, Brianna saw a massive Hummer heading into her lane. She leaned on the horn and swerved to the right.

“Watch it!” Casey yelled.

WHAAAAAA!
The driver of the car to the right of them leaned on his horn.

The Hummer lurched back into its lane. A scornful face appeared in the passenger's-side window, accompanied by a flipped middle finger.

“
He
does the wrong thing and then abuses
me
?” Brianna leaned on her horn again. “
Hey, you're two for two—you destroy the environment AND you're ugly!
”

The Hummer braked and started to slow down. Its passenger's-side window slid open.

“
Brianna, don't!
” Casey shrieked.

“Yeeps, road rage, time to book,” Brianna said. The exit for Taft Field was just ahead. She got into the right lane, signaled, took the ramp off the highway, and slowed to a smooth stop at a red light. “Well. That was exciting.”

Casey was staring straight ahead. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale. Beads of sweat clung to her forehead.

“Hey, are you all right?” Brianna asked.

“Fine,” Casey said, mopping her forehead with the back of her hand. “Let's just park and get out of the car.”

Brianna nodded. The light turned green. Another car blared its horn. Brianna glanced in the rearview mirror but did not respond.

Turning left, she drove to the mall. Casey was still clutching the armrest, at twenty-six miles per hour. Brianna wanted to scream.

In the parking lot, a bus was unloading white-haired ladies in pantsuits at the mall entrance. Brianna bit her lip, pulled into a spot, and managed not to ask Casey if she wanted to join them for the ride home.

9

 

“Crap!” said Corbin, throwing his script to the main stage floor. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry!”

“Language, plee-ee-eease!” Ms. Gunderson sang out sweetly from her seat at the piano.

“I'm not feeling it,” Corbin fumed. “I'm supposed to be funny, but I'm not funny. Can I use an accent?”

Sitting in the fifth row next to Casey, Brianna massaged her forehead.

“Should you give him direction?” Casey asked.

“I will,” Brianna said. “After Mr. Levin gets through with him.”

She missed acting. When you were onstage, you could ignore other people's neuroses. When you were a director, they were rubbed in your face.

From the row behind them, Dashiell leaned forward. He had been hanging around Brianna all day, promising to give her something but never doing it or even saying what it was. Then again, Dashiell was the last of the absentminded geniuses. “Interesting,” he remarked. “I guess you can't always predict which of the cast members will emerge as the diva.”

“They usually emerge
after
the first rehearsal,” Brianna said, “not during.”

The other actors were gathered in a circle at center stage, standing around Reese, who was wearing a bright blue French-cut leotard and trying to demonstrate a dance move. She strutted across the stage, took Corbin by his shirt collar, and dragged him into the circle. “Corbin, we just
had
a read-through. We're not running lines right now. We are dancing. Exploring our psychedelic inner seventies flower children! Now, loosen up. Hippify yourself!”

Brianna watched in disbelief as the actors began jumping around the stage with huge smiles, arms flailing, eyes wide.

“ ‘Hippify'?” Casey said.

“Reese's concept for the show is ‘Hippie Potfest meets Medieval Morality Play,' ” Brianna said. “She picked up that last phrase on Google. She's trying to impress Harrison.”

“I see,” Casey said. “Well, they look . . . energetic.”

“They look like they just escaped from the loony bin,” Brianna added.

“Have you seen the movie? They looked the same way.” Dashiell shrugged. “It's quite fun to watch. All the Afros flying around.”

“So maybe our cast, their hair looks . . . I don't know . . . too twenty-first century?” Casey said. “Maybe we could work on that, I think.”

“What are you suggesting?” Brianna said. “Hair doesn't grow that much in two months.”

“Right. You're right,” Casey said. “But there are wigs? You know, seventies-style wigs? We had a theatrical-wig store where I used to live. I'm sure we could find one here . . . ”

Brianna laughed, picturing Harrison with an Afro. “Might work. I like it. And yeah, there is a shop in Ridgeport on Sunrise Highway. It's called Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow. I don't know the phone number.”

“Brianna, that's an excellent idea!” Dashiell exclaimed. “You're a certified genius.”

“It was Casey's idea,” Brianna said.

“I'll call.” Casey scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “Oh—Dashiell! The school has Wi-Fi, right? What if you rigged the new lighting computer to it? If I keep a laptop backstage, we could network them and both work the cues.”

Dashiell nodded. “Depends on the software. I'll check.”

“Great.” Casey stood up, pulled a cell phone out of her pocket, and made her way across the seats toward the aisle. “Ridgeport, please. The number for Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow . . .”

“She is the bomb,” Dashiell said, but his approving grin quickly vanished. “I mean, after you. You have, um, the greater bombness.” He edged toward the aisle. “I'll . . . go check the software now . . . ”

Brianna watched him go. Lately, Dashiell had been acting like this a lot. Maybe he was crushing on Casey. . . .

Casey was impressing everyone. She was sharp. She had spine behind that timid exterior. Mr. Levin was beaming. Charles was in raptures. She even forced Dashiell into grammar hell.

Could this possibly be the same person?
Casey obviously had had some leadership experience somewhere. But Brianna didn't ever remember her talking about it. Which was weird. Wouldn't it be one of the
first
topics of conversation?

“Peace and love!” came Kyle's voice from the stage. “Make love, not war!”

“
Kyle, put me down!
”

Brianna looked up. Kyle had lifted Lori high over his head and was trying to get her to sit on his shoulders. Brianna fought back the pit-of-the-stomach feeling that said,
That could have been me.

Lori, however, looked scared.

“Cut!” Reese called out. “Stop!”

“Let her down, Kyle,” Mr. Levin called out, standing at the lip of the stage. “Look, guys, this play is not just goofy movement, dumb jokes, and nice songs. It's not
That '70s Show
. It
means
something.”

“Godspell means Gospel,” Lori volunteered. “Good news.”

“We're supposed to be like a band of brothers and sisters,” Becky spoke up. “Sharing stuff.”

“Stuff?” Mr. Levin said. “What stuff?”

“Love . . . ” Jamil mumbled. “Faith?”

“Yes!” Mr. Levin replied, leaping onstage. “Also truth and fun and uncorrupted youth—all those things in the middle of a loveless world. The first part of the play is triumphant. Innocent. Trusting. Joyous.”

“Woo-hoooo!” Kyle shouted, kicking his good leg into the air. “Dudes. God save the people . . . et cetera!”

“As Jesus, you enter in the middle of the first number, Kyle,” Mr. Levin said. “And you enter as a child. A representation of purity and goodness. Until your baptism, you are shirtless and shoeless.”

“Shirtless?” Kyle said, dropping to the floor and doing push-ups. “Gotta work on my pecs. One . . . two . . . three . . . ”

Reese began fanning herself. “I think I'm going to have a stroke.”

“Kyle, please . . . ” Mr. Levin said. “Pay attention.”

 

Charles noticed he wasn't sneezing anymore. That was a good sign. It meant the paint in the costume/prop room was finally dry. Not that you could even
see
the paint job. The shelves were crammed full, and the remaining wall space was covered by file cabinets, stacked boxes, and racks. Even the revered poster of the Ridgeport High production of
Into the Woods
autographed by Stephen Sondheim (comment: “One of the best productions I have seen. Period.”) was temporarily put into storage. It had all happened so fast—Mr. Ippolito had had the room replastered and painted over the weekend, and Casey and the Charlettes had stacked everything before homeroom and during lunch and study halls today, Monday.

Charles went back to his task, typing labels into the database on his laptop. Casey had bought adhesive labels, and as soon as he printed them out, every single item would be labeled, categorized, inventoried. Charles was sure that Ridgeport's props had never come close to being this organized.

Casey was awesome, and he worshipped her.

Vijay stuck his head in from the hallway. “The goddess has arrived.”

As Casey walked in, Charles grabbed a rubber chicken from the shelf and fell to his knees. “O Savior of the Stage, we give this offering in gratitude and awe.”

“Stop,” Casey said, turning deep red. “Um, I just wanted to ask, can we make some extra space? We're getting wigs. Like Victor Garber's Afro in the movie? Very seventies. The wig shop is giving us two of them, three sets of pigtails, and a ponytail. They wanted to charge, but I offered them a full-page ad in the program instead. I hope that's okay?”

“Casey,
you
are the boss—of course it's okay! You go, girl!” Charles said. “How's the rehearsal going?”