Authors: S. Stevens
Tags: #General, #Fiction
I turned away from her stare to pet Kato, who lay at my feet as always at meal times. He rotated his pointed ears and lifted his black muzzle, his deep brown eyes and wiggling black nose searching for food attached to my hand. Unrewarded, he plopped his head back down on his paws and sighed.
“Are you listening?” Her penetrating blue eyes locked on me. “Don’t give up on him just because his interests are changing.”
Her choice of words drew me into the conversation against my better judgment. “What do you mean, ‘give up on him’?”
“I mean, don’t assume he doesn’t want to be friends anymore because he’s not in CDC. I mean, don’t drop him like a hot potato, like you’ve done with other friends over the years.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But I knew she was going to enlighten me.
“There was that nice girl Adrienne, who just disappeared from your life one day. And before that, in first grade, the same thing happened. You and that girl Stephanie were inseparable. Then suddenly you refused to play with her and that was the end of that.”
I remembered. A new girl, Ellie, joined our class and Stephanie wanted the three of us to form a club. I was afraid Stephanie would like Ellie more than me so I refused to join the club or play with either of them. Stephanie and Ellie were friends to this day.
“Come on, Mom, that was in first grade. Besides, Adrienne and I are friends again now.”
“She’s right, Wendy, let it go. Everyone’s friends change over the years.” Unexpected but welcome support from Dad’s corner. He cleared his throat. “However, you have given up on other things like, technically, soccer, and softball.”
“Which you have to admit everyone was glad about, including you and the coach,” I countered. My parents suffered through many dismal games in my elementary years when I let them push me into the local sports leagues. They’d never admit it, but they were as relieved as me when I raised the white flag. Now, I limited my physical activities to dog-walking and dance, which -- for some unknown reason -- I was pretty good at.
My mother read my mind. “Now, you’re a beautiful dancer. Yet you refuse to take formal classes, no matter how many times I’ve suggested it. You could be a great dancer instead of a good one, if you applied yourself.” I sensed the next line coming. “I didn’t get to be partner at the PR firm by standing aside meekly watching everyone else make the effort.”
My head started to hurt and I swallowed hard to force down the bite of chicken stuck in my throat. “Are we done dissecting my life which, by the way, isn’t even much of a life yet?” My rising voice pulled Kato to his feet. He whimpered and nuzzled my hand.
Apparently the answer was no because she kept talking. “Don’t get angry. I’m just trying to help.”
“She does play piano well.” Dad piped up again, reaching for his water glass.
“Which I’ve been
applying
myself to since I was eight, by the way.”
“And she pours herself into that drama club.”
Dad and I watched for Mom’s reaction. She looked at him, then me, then him again, and sighed. “I hate being made the bad guy.” She turned to Dad. “Tell me about your day, John.”
A collective sigh was felt rather than heard as my grilling ended. I really needed Jesse here to spread the fun around. Or Alex, because my mother usually didn’t attack my character flaws when we had company.
“First, tell me about your check-up, Wendy. Was it uneventful?” my father asked.
“Basically, except the doctor practically yelled at me for not scheduling my mammogram yet. God, I hate those. Squishing the flesh.” She shuddered. “They scheduled it for me before I left his office, for next month.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I hate the thought of your breast being flattened like a pancake almost as much as you do.” They half-smiled at each other.
Awkward. I tuned out.
*
I
SEARCHED THROUGH THE ASSORTMENT of hair elastics, braided string bracelets and Livestrong-type rubber wristbands on my forearm. Eventually, my fingers isolated the worn, faded blue-and-green friendship bracelet Alex gave me when we were ten. It wasn’t as profound a gift as it sounds. His mother’s boss’s daughter gave it to Alex, and he begged me to take it so his mother wouldn’t be mad at him for not wearing it.
Still, I had worn it religiously since then. My other bracelets all came off for stage roles, but this one was so faded by now that you could barely see it onstage, and it was so worn I was afraid it would shred to pieces if I tried to untie it.
I picked at the knot now, but it was too secure, like the strands had fused together over the years. I couldn’t create any space between the strings. Frustrated, I took a pair of scissors from my desk drawer and held the sharp edge against the fragile yarn. One slice was all it would take. I inhaled sharply, closed my eyes, exhaled, and put the scissors back in the drawer. Rummaging through my junk drawer, I found a white rubber wristband that said “Peace for all”. I didn’t even remember where it came from, but it was the perfect size to cover up the old friendship band stuck on my wrist.
*
Thursday afternoon, Mr. Ellison held the school year’s first meeting of the Crudup Drama Club. (That’s what CDC stands for -- not to be confused with the Centers for Disease Control although sometimes it feels like we, too, deal with hard-to-solve, life-threatening crises.) The usual suspects were there, plus Mr. Lord and minus Alex. Having Adrienne next to me instead of Alex kept me firmly off kilter.
If CDC were a show, our cast list would go something like this:
CDC CAST LIST
THE TEACHERS
MR. ELLISON,
LONG-TIME ENGLISH TEACHER AND CDC DIRECTOR, THINNING WHITE HAIR, WIRE-FRAMED GLASSES, GENTLE MANNER AND EASY SMILE; JUST A TOUCH CREEPY LOOKING, LIKE HE BELONGED IN A SLASHER FILM
MR. LORD
, THE NEW MUSIC TEACHER, FORMER TEEN STAR AND HAS-BEEN MUSICAL THEATRE ACTOR; CURRENT HOPES AND DREAMS A MYSTERY
STUDENTS -- THE HARD-CORE THESPIANS
SADIE
, MEDIUM HEIGHT, LEGS TOO LONG FOR HER BODY, THICK WAVY LIGHT AUBURN HAIR, BORING BROWN EYES, GREATEST THEATRE LOVER OF THEM ALL
ADRIENNE
, CUTE GIRL WITH BASIC BROWN HAIR, SLIGHTLY STOCKY, CONTENT TO BE BEHIND THE SCENES, RUNS THE STAGE CREW, LOYAL AND RELIABLE
LUCEY
, BLONDE HAIR SWIRLING IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES, BIG BLUE EYES, BIG VOICE, AND BIG ATTITUDE
JOCELYN
, STRAIGHT BLACK HAIR, A FEW FRECKLES, ALWAYS DECKED OUT IN THE LATEST STYLES, CONFIDENCE OUT OF PROPORTION TO HER TALENT
KRISTINA
, THE OVER-ACHIEVER, LONG BROWN HAIR, DOE EYES, ONE OF THE SMARTER KIDS IN SCHOOL BUT PRETENDS TO BE STUPID SO JOCELYN AND LUCEY WILL LIKE HER
BEN
, THE NERD COMPLETE WITH GOOFY GLASSES AND LOW SELF-ESTEEM, COMES ALIVE WHEN HE SINGS, PROBABLY THE BEST SINGER OF US ALL, BUT UNFORTUNATELY A STIFF ACTOR AND NOT LEADING-MAN MATERIAL
FOSTER
, SECOND-BEST GUY SINGER, GOOD LOOKING IN A PRETTY WAY, WANTS TO BE LADY GAGA AND WON’T LET HIS GENDER OR RACE HOLD HIM BACK
THE OTHER STUDENTS
LINDSAY
, THE JOCK/CLASS CLOWN WHO DOESN’T CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS OF HIM; SAYS HE DOES CDC BECAUSE WE GET CREDIT, IT’S AN EASY A, AND HE GETS TO HANG WITH ALL THE HOT GIRLS; A DECENT SINGER, MAKES UP FOR HIS LACK OF TALENT WITH ENTHUSIASM
AIMEE,
DECENT VOICE, SHOCKING RED HAIR
EMILY,
BEAUTIFUL BUT PAINFULLY SHY GIRL, TURNS INTO A DIFFERENT PERSON ON STAGE
JASON,
KEEPS HOPING HE’LL GROW INTO HIS WEIGHT; UNFORTUNATELY, HE’S ALREADY FIVE TEN AND STILL ALMOST AS WIDE
EDDIE,
REALLY WEIRD EMO BOY BUT WE NEED GUYS IN CDC SO WE PRETEND HE’S NORMAL
SAM
, NON-DESCRIPT, AVERAGE GUY; CONTENT TO BE IN THE CHORUS
Once we settled into seats in the front of the auditorium, Mr. Ellison’s genial smile gave way to a sourpuss look as he announced that Mr. Lord would be music director for the fall production. Since CDC began, Mr. Ellison had filled both the general and music director roles.
As the teachers bored us with the rules for the club, which hadn’t changed since I helped write them two years ago, Mr. Lord’s insistence on calling himself co-director and Mr. Ellison’s pointed use of the term music director instead were not lost on the students.
CDC was my second home. I owned the club for a brief time, at the very beginning, since I basically created it. In English class freshman year, Mr. Ellison had us read from
Romeo and Juliet
. He was so impressed by my Juliet and Foster’s Romeo that I convinced him to start a school theatre program.
He and I had bonded over
Anna Karenina
before then. Unlike most people in freshman English, I liked Tolstoy’s saga of family, love and class in nineteenth-century Russia. Just the same, I fell asleep reading the final chapters the night before the test. The next day, we were supposed to hand in our copies of the book.
“Would it be okay if I kept mine a little longer?” I had asked Mr. Ellison, standing at his desk while the rest of the class finished the test.
He turned from his reading to study me. “And why would you want to do that?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, I didn’t actually finish it. But I’d like to.” This was risky territory, admitting to a teacher you hadn’t finished the project on which you’d just been tested. As I hoped, Mr. Ellison seemed happy that I wanted to finish all eight-hundred pages, rather than mad that I hadn’t done it on time. He said I could keep the book a few more days, his face stern but his eyes smiling.
That’s why I liked Mr. Ellison. Despite the classic, cranky old teacher thing he had going, he was a pretty cool guy inside.
So that spring, we put on our first show. I made flyers to recruit kids, and helped Mr. Ellison research the process of obtaining scripts and production rights.
Mr. Ellison had wanted our inaugural play to be a contemporary drama like Pinter or Mamet. While the lure of cussing like dockworkers in a Mamet play was tempting (not that the principal would have allowed it, at the end of the day), the students convinced Mr. Ellison we needed a kid-friendly blockbuster for our first production. Enter
High School Musical
, the official catalyst for the national teen/tween musical theatre-loving craze.
I liked the idea, because I pictured myself as the perfect Gabriella. And I had earned the lead, after all, since CDC was my idea. Unfortunately, the popularity of
High School Musical
drew every somewhat talented girl out of the woodwork. The auditions were fierce for a school as small as Crudup.
Lindsay won the role of Troy, and Jocelyn got the part of Gabriella. She may have looked the part with her long dark hair, but I could sing circles around her. Or at least match her. Anyway, Foster got Ryan, which was perfect for his over-the-top style, and Lucey was perfect for Sharpay, like she’s perfect for just about everything. Alex stole the show as Jack Scott, a role that required acting more than singing or dancing.
As for me, I got Kelsi. Mr. Ellison tried to make me feel better by saying I was one of the few kids who actually played the piano, and Kelsi was a key role, a catalyst for the greatness that is Troy and Gabriella. I wasn’t buying it. But, I put my chin up, buckled down, and gave it my all. I’d rather have a bit part than no part at all.
Sophomore year, we went with the classic
Fiddler on the Roof
. Lindsay was a hysterical, touching Tevye. Alex was Fyedka, the Russian soldier – his first big part. Lucey was supposed to be Tevye’s wife Golde, but she gave up the part to be one of the three sisters, alongside Jocelyn and Kristina. Insane, I know. Personally, I think she didn’t want to look old and haggard like Golde. The role ended up going to Emily. I didn’t get it. When I went to Mr. Ellison in tears, he said I was the best character actor and Yente was a key foil by which the play commented on early twentieth-century Russian society. Then he told me my voice wasn’t quite strong enough for Golde and Emily had done better in the audition.