What You Always Wanted (14 page)

Auditions are on the main stage, even though Mrs. Morales says the show itself will be in the smaller black box theatre where we have class. She said school plays like these don't draw that big a crowd, which is a shame. I really wanted to stand up there in front of a full house, surrounded by all the fancy technical sparklies this place is equipped with.

I find Brian and we sign ourselves in with Sarah, who was elected to be the student director for
Barefoot in the Park
, then take a seat among the other hopefuls to wait until our number is called. Brian and I have a high number, but I'm determined not to get nervous watching so many others go before us. If any of them blows me away, I'll have to do that much better. Motivation.

My surprise sneeze echoes all around us, amplified. It's quickly followed by two more.

Brian turns to me, eyes wide. “Do I need to be worried about this?”

“No, it's fine. My medicine is just wearing off.”

Rica drops into the row in front of us. “Aww. Feeling sick? That's too bad.”

I can tell it bothers her
so much
. “Maybe I'm just allergic to you,” I say jokingly. Sort of.

I search through the front pouch of my backpack, locating my meds and pulling out my bottled water.

“You're supposed to leave that stuff with the nurse,” Rica says like a know-it-all.

“Well, I didn't.” Truthfully, I hadn't thought about it. I'm unfamiliar with this allergy medicine dependency. “Are you going to tell on me or something?”

She straightens, lifting her chin. “Like I care what you do.”

“Might as well read through my lines while we wait,” Brian says as he stands. “I'm gonna grab our script out of my locker before they start. Be right back.”

He leaves and I nod, swallowing the medicine and hoping it kicks in sooner rather than later. My eyes are already itching and my sinuses are beginning to close up. Next will be the pressure between the eyes. The last thing I need in the middle of an audition.

“My mom takes those for her allergies,” Rica says casually, flipping through her index cards. “If you take two, it works twice as fast.”

I stare at the plastic-and-foil sheet with individually enclosed pills. The box is at home so I can't read the directions, but what she says sounds plausible.

Another sneeze sparks the pressure. I just became desperate.

I rip open a second one and swallow it as Brian takes his seat.

He snatches the pill pack from me and stares at it. “How many of these did you take?”

The panic in his voice raises my eyebrows in alarm. “Two?” It comes out as a question. I feel like I'm getting in trouble.

Brian closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Didn't you notice they come in ones, not twos? You're not supposed to take two . . .” Now I really am being scolded.

“But Rica said . . .” My voice trails off as I lock eyes with her. She's grinning like a villain who just came up with a foul plot.

Brian looks at her. “What did you tell her?”

She only shrugs and moves to sit closer to the casting directors.

“She said it would work twice as fast,” I explain after another sneeze.

“That's just stupid.” He crosses his arms. “Rule number one of theatre at Fernwood High: Never assume Rica's telling you the truth. About anything.”

“Look,” I defend myself, “I feel like trash. Something has to happen before we get up there. I can hardly breathe!”

“Whatever. Just don't be surprised if you start to feel . . . funny.”

My heart races. “What do you mean, ‘funny'? What's wrong with taking two?”

He holds up a hand for me to calm down, but how can I when he's acting like I just overdosed?

“Maybe nothing,” he says, lowering his voice. “But you weigh what? Like, just over a hundred pounds?” He pauses and I smile at his very wrong, complimentary guess. “Just warn me if you start to feel different.”

Twenty-three minutes. That's how long it takes. At twenty-six minutes, everything is sunshine, rainbows, and glitter. And hilarious!

I'm not usually one to audibly judge someone else's performance, but when one of the guys auditioning for Mr. Velasco starts up a wretchedly unidentifiable accent, I lose it. I bend over to hide from onlookers, burying my face in my folded arms across my legs. Brian pats my back hard like I'm choking, and it temporarily snaps me out of it.

This must be taken seriously. Auditioning is serious. It's life or death! I will die if I don't get to play Corie, die!

The giggles. I can't stop them.

“Maddie?” Brian says, a hand still on my shaking body.

I bite the inside of my cheek as I look up at him. “I feel ‘funny' now.”

“Ya think?” He rakes a hand through his hair and tugs on it. “They just called our number. Are you going to be able to handle this?”

“Pssshhhaw.” I stand and straighten the ugly yellow sweater I stole from Ma's closet. “It's in the bag.”

Ignoring the dizzy, head-swimming thing, I link arms with Brian and lean on him as we climb the stairs on the edge of the stage. Brian announces our names and the scene we've chosen. It's one of the more intense moments of the play, when Corie tells Paul she wants a divorce.

And I'm still laughing.

No, this is not funny. I want a divorce. Divorce is not funny. Neither are dead puppies. Or dead baby deer things. Or—aww, baby deer things!

And now I see Jesse. Not the mean Jesse who ignores me, but the sweet version who shows me cute animals and offers me rides and tissues. A dancing Jesse, on this very stage. I take notice of the abundance of scuff marks on the floor.
Did he make any of those?

Why do I feel like I'm floating around the room? I know I'm standing still, but I'm also . . . everywhere.

I snap my head up and find that I'm next to Brian, who looks legit angry. He's staring at me like . . . like it's my line. I'm in the middle of my audition. What's wrong with me? Why am I so tired?

What's my line?

I say the first one that comes to mind, but it's oozing with sarcasm.

Get a hold of yourself, Maddie.

Brian adjusts the tone of his next line to fit, and through sheer determination, I finally get into the swing of my character by midscene. I am
angry
. I want a
divorce
!

I also really want to be done with this so I can go to sleep.

But Brian keeps giving me “the look” that one expects to precede a beating. He's angry too, but at me. The real me, not my character.

We finish to weak applause from those still in the audience, and as Brian helps me down the steps, I catch eyes with Mrs. Morales standing offstage by the curtain, chewing her thumbnail. Concerned. Confused. Disappointed.

It's only then that I fully understand I may have just blown an audition for the first time ever.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“What happened?” Ma asks when Brian passes me off to her just inside the front door of my house.

The funny has long since died, and I'm so tired and upset that it feels like I'm crying. I swipe at my eyes and allow Ma to wrap her arms around me. I've given my parents a bit of the silent treatment since they told me I'd be getting another sibling, but I can't keep that up right now.

“She's having a really weird reaction to the allergy medicine.”

Brian quickly relates the afternoon's events before he excuses himself. Ma brings me to my room and helps me change without a word. By the time I slip under the quilt, I burst into sobs.

“Oh, hon,” Ma says, climbing onto the bed next to me.

I fall against her and bury my face in her shoulder. She hugs me close and gently massages my head with her fingertips, like
when she used to tuck me in at night. I don't even remember when she stopped doing it regularly, but now I realize how much I miss it. How much I miss this, just being held. Comforted.

“I ruined it, Ma. I totally blew the audition.” My body's shaking, but I'm able to speak without gasping for air between every word. “I can't believe she tricked me into taking two of those pills.”

“If I'd known you'd react so strongly to them, I never would have let you take them with you to school.” She adjusts to lay her head on a pillow, and I curl up alongside her.

“Trust me, if I'd known it would turn me into a crazy person, I wouldn't have. The side effects were worse than my sinus junk. I was laughing at someone else's audition.
Laughing
. I never do that. It's rude and unprofessional.” I suck in a deep, calming breath and release it slowly. “And rude.”

“Yes, you said that.” She sounds tired. Exhausted tired, not drug-induced tired like I am. “Can you audition again tomorrow? Do you want me to talk to someone about it?”

My selfishness smacks me between the eyes, which is worse than the residual sinus pressure. Here I've been
rude
to her basically since we moved to Texas, and she's still asking what she can do to help me. Maybe it's my exaggerated emotions, but I don't think I deserve a second chance even if it were possible.

I cling to her tighter, hoping she senses my apology. There's no way I could verbalize one right now.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It's done. I'm ready to accept my fate.”

She laughs. “Always so dramatic.”

Reaching between the rods of my headboard, she grabs the cord to my paper-lantern craft experiment and switches it on. A soft glow leaks through tissue paper images of Gene, Frank, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson, Grace Kelly, Judy Garland, and Katharine Hepburn—a collection of my favorite classic stars. The plan is to make a few more to cluster above my bed, but I just haven't gotten to it yet.

“Your room's really coming along,” Ma says, glancing around at my newly painted blue-gray walls.

It's been a while since she's seen my room. I haven't allowed her in here lately because of the paint fumes and all, but now it smells like fresh laundry. I've pinned up a couple movie posters already—
Summer Stock
and
An Affair to Remember
—and I plan on ordering more. And when the boxes of white string Christmas lights get a price reduction after the holidays, I'm buying them up to border all my posters, and I might swag a few strands from the ceiling. Haven't decided yet.

“I'm proud of you, you know,” she says.

I swallow the lump that forms in my throat, unable to think of any reason for her to be proud.

“You've settled in here,” she continues. “You've made friends, gotten involved. Invested in what's happening at school. It's nice to see. I know it's been hard for you, breaking ties with your old friends and leaving behind everything you worked so hard for these last two years of high school, only to start over.”

“I know it hasn't been easy for you either,” I manage, bottom lip threatening to quiver. “With this disaster of a house and . . . everything.”

She laughs. “I think our lifestyle was too easy before. So what if our house is smaller and demands attention? We needed to get our hands dirty, change our perspective. It might be harder and we're doing without some of the things we're used to, but what's important to me is that we're here together, you know?”

“Minus Rider,” I point out. He's been nearly impossible to keep tabs on with his thrilling college life. Heaven forbid he check in on his little sister. I still don't even know how he feels about the baby, and it seems weird that I don't know this.

“Speaking of,” Ma says, clicking the lantern off again. “He's coming home in a couple of weeks.”

All of us together. Just the four of us, while we still can. That's what's important.

A smile spreads across my face. “It's about time.”

Sarah staples the cast list to the message board of the common area during lunch on Wednesday. All the hopefuls crowd around her to learn their role or assignment in the production. I expected my name to be missing, but none of us could have foreseen this pairing: