Understudy (12 page)

My history teacher finds a way to incorporate talking about the used Corvette he just bought into his lecture on the Civil War for the third day in a row. I rest my chin in my hand to stop from yawning. He bought a Corvette to celebrate his divorce. We get it. No need to bring it up every freaking day.

When he goes from talking about actual horses to the horsepower in his car, I raise my hand and ask to go to the restroom. A boring walk down the hallway is still more stimulating than listening to him brag about a used midlife crisis accessory.

After a ten minute stroll, I actually do go to the bathroom. Nydia Baker stands at one of the sinks, applying powder to her forehead.

“Did you see the drama?” she asks when I come out of the stall.

“What drama?” I wash my hands as she applies lip-gloss in the mirror.

“Some kid got arrested.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Where?”

“Here,” she says excitedly. “Like, two cops showed up and handcuffed him in class. It was in the class across the hall from mine so I saw it after it happened.” She closes her compact and shoves it back in her purse. “I bet it’s terrifying to be sitting in class and have a cop walk in and take you away.”

“Wow.” Our rinky-dink security guard doesn’t even carry handcuffs, let alone a gun. I’ve never seen an actual police officer in school before. “He must have done something bad.”

She shrugs. “Apparently he wasn’t doing anything in class, so no one knows why he got arrested. Still, it’s pretty big news for our tiny ass town.”

I nod as a twinge of uneasiness falls over me. “Do you know who it was?”

“No, but he looked like someone who’d get arrested. Long hair. His jeans had rips in them even though that’s against dress code. That sorta thing.”

The uneasiness morphs into a nausea in the pit of my stomach. She can’t possibly mean Derek. As I head back to class, I run through all the guys in school who have long hair. I can think of three other guys besides Derek, but only one is also a senior and could have a class in the same senior hallway as Nydia.

I take that tiny bit of hope and cling to it like a life vest. It’s not Derek. It’s totally not Derek. Although, I was the person who ignored four texts from him last night so I guess I shouldn’t care if he got arrested.

After the bell rings, Margot catches me walking to my next class. Her arm hooks around my elbow, her long perfect waves of hair falling over my shoulder.

“Did you hear the news?” She says as we perform the hallway shuffle through dozens of other students heading to their next class.

I don’t say anything. I just look at her, hoping to god that she’s talking about some new sale a Sephora or a crazy celebrity gossip story. Her lips hold back a smile as she projects a faked frown of sympathy for me.

“I’m so sorry, Wren. I hate saying I told you so, But…” She releases my arm as she reaches her fifth period art class. “I told you so!”

I’m falling asleep to the sound of Jason Brigg’s garage band practicing across the street. I don’t know why they play so late, on a school night, and no one calls the cops. Maybe, like me, all the other neighbors find Jason’s voice soothing as he sings that sappy song he wrote for his girlfriend for the sixteenth time tonight in hopes that the drummer will finally play it correctly.

A gentle knock startles me out of my half-asleep stupor. The knock comes again, definitely from the other side of my window and I freeze. It’s Derek. Please don’t be Derek.

But what if it is? I breathe slowly, letting my chest rise and fall as if I were asleep. He probably can’t see through my paper blinds. That’s why I bought them. Also because they were on sale and totally fit with my décor.

Derek probably doesn’t remember where I live, so it can’t be him. It could be Greg, especially since he’s across the street at Jason’s and all. The knocking continues. I slide out of bed and tiptoe to the window. Jason’s band screeches to a stop and then starts the song over again. I peer through the crack in the side of the windows, and let out the breath I’d been holding.

It isn’t Derek. Or Greg.

“Margot?” I pull open my window. She gives me a sheepish shrug and I roll my eyes. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you just call?”

“I was already out here, leaving Jason’s.” Margot used to date Jason, and I’d bet a million dollars that her new boyfriend doesn’t know this little fact.

“Do you want to come in?”

“No, I can’t. I just have to tell you in person because I don’t want to be shitty and text you.”

Coming from anyone else, I might get nervous. But Margot’s
things she needs to tell me
are never earthshattering. And her thick black eyeliner is perfectly in place around her eyes with no signs of tears, so she’s not having a crisis. “What is it?”

“I’m dropping out of the play.”

“So?” I say, about two seconds before I realize exactly how devastating this news is for me. “Wait—you can’t drop out!”

“Sorry. Just find someone to fill in for me. It can’t be that hard.”

“You better be dying of some horrible disease.”

“I am.” Margot clutches her phone to her chest. “It’s lovesickness. Jordan lives an hour away and he can’t go so long without seeing me. Having rehearsal every day is killing our relationship, Wren.”

“You’re seriously doing this to me?”

“Yes.”

“On my front lawn?”

“Would it have been better if I texted?”

“If this screen wasn’t here, I’d punch you.”

“Shut up. You love me.”

Jason’s band mate hammers out a guitar solo and Margot and I go quiet for a moment to listen to it. With only my very tiny knowledge of rock music to go on, the guy is pretty good.

“If you want me to audition someone to take over my role, I can.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, grabbing the sides of the window and sliding it down until it clicks into place on the windowsill. I press my face to the glass so she can hear me. “Goodnight, jerk.”

When I wake up the next morning, I almost try to convince myself it had all been a dream and that Margot didn’t actually make my life a thousand times harder by quitting the play.

But the four apologizing texts from her on my phone confirm that I wasn’t dreaming. I’m glad she at least feels like shit for betraying me.

I eat a bowl of cereal while perched on a barstool in the kitchen, my worn copy of LOVE & SUICIDE pressed open with my elbow and the side of my cereal bowl. I’ve memorized every set and prop description and I know the exact time the lights need to switch. I’ve never bothered reading the character’s lines because until now they never pertained to me.

With Margot gone, and the play only three weeks away from opening night, her role of Mary needs to be filled immediately. As much as I hate the idea of actually filling my second responsibility as understudy… it’s looking like that’s my only option.

I find Mary’s lines in act two and am relieved to see that she only has three pages’ worth of stuff to say. I can memorize her lines and have enough time to direct the play from backstage in between Mary’s small time on stage.

I flip back three pages and begin reading the lines, imagining how I’ll act them out on stage. So far, Mary sounds stuck up and a bit neurotic—no wonder Aunt Barlow wrote the role specifically for Margot.

Mom walks in the kitchen as I begin reading the second page of act two. “Good morning,” she says with a yawn. She reaches for the coffee maker. I choke on my Cheerios.

“Jesus, what’s wrong, Wren?” Mom says as she watches me cough and gasp for breath.

I point to the lines on the page, the one that specifically has me on the verge of hyperventilating. Mom reads over my shoulder. “Mary grabs Jeremy by the collar of his shirt and furiously kisses him.” She shrugs and flips on the coffee maker. “Who’s Mary?”

I swallow. “Me. This sucks. Ricky plays Jeremy and he’s a total man whore creep.” I slap my hand to my forehead. “I can’t kiss him, Mom.”

Mom does a terrible job of suppressing a laugh. “Never thought I’d have to worry about my girl
not
wanting to make out with someone.”

I groan. “You’re not funny.”

Mom runs her fingers through my hair. “I thought you didn’t have a role?”

I tell her about how Margot ditched on me last night, and then I accidentally launch into a sob story about how I’d rather stick a dagger in my own eye than continue to direct this play. “And then the only stagehand that helps me got arrested so I’ll probably never see him again.”

Tears pool in my eyes and I try blinking them away. Mom gives me a hug, her hot coffee mug pressing lightly into my back. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart.” Under her breath she adds, “I told Sophie he would probably work out fine, even with his record. Sorry that didn’t happen.”

I sit up straight. “You knew about that?”

“She talked it over with me before she agreed to it. Apparently the principal gets state money for providing community service hours to minors. But his record wasn’t so terrible, so I told her to go for it.”

My jaw drops to the floor at the discovery that Mom has known about Derek’s past all along—even when she met him—and she never said anything.

“What crime did he commit?” I try to keep my voice casual so she doesn’t think I care. But I care. I care so much.

Mom sips her coffee and focuses on the ceiling for a moment. “I can’t remember, hun.” With an apathetic sigh, tops off her coffee and walks out of the room, leaving me ten shades of confused and curious.

That’s it. I’m tired of not being in the loop. With renewed determination, I march through the kitchen, in to the garage and up the stairs to Aunt Barlow’s apartment. I beat on the door. “Aunt Barlow, I need to talk to you.”

“Is the house on fire?” is her bored reply.

“No.”

“Then I can’t think of a reason why you’d need to talk to me.”

I knock louder hoping it annoys her enough to open the door. It doesn’t. “I need help with the play,” I yell through the door. “I need your help.”

“My help?” I don’t need to see her to picture the condescending look on her face. “Why don’t you ask someone more qualified to help you. Like your math teacher? Or your English teacher. Or, you know, anyone who is qualified to write a recommendation letter for you.”

“Aunt Barlow, don’t do this,” I plead with her. A minute goes by with no reply.

I lean against the wall, desperate and broken. “Would you please just tell me what to do when an actor quits?”

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that answer,” she growls, yanking open the door to face me for the first time since she quit work that day.

I shrink back from her unforgiving glare. “What do you mean?” I ask.

She talks slowly, painfully childish. “If a cast member quits, you must replace them. Do you know what replace means? It means find someone new.”

She gives me the world’s most condescending eye roll and slams the door in my face.

My stomach twists into knots as I dry my palms against my back pockets. The stage has never felt so small. Ricky stands across from me, perfectly reciting his lines for act two.