Bit Players, Has-Been Actors and Other Posers: A Must-Read for Fans of Glee, High School Musical and Twilight (6 page)

“So you think Gabriella needs to have darker hair than Lucey’s, or at least be an extremely accomplished actor?” Mr. Lord joined the conversation. His eyes were laughing, making me think he’d seen right through me.

 “It would help the audience believe the characters, is all I’m saying.” My face started to burn, which was stupid because in CDC, the gloves always came off when it came to casting. Friendships didn’t matter when roles were at stake. And it wasn’t like Lucey was my friend.

Mr. Lord rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. Something tells me you guys are beyond
High School Musical 2
. Don’t you want to do something more mature? Something that makes a statement? Something you can really call your own?” Before he could continue with the challenge he started to pose at last week’s meeting, Mr. Ellison jumped in.

“I think the next chapter in the Troy and Gabriella saga is exactly what we need.” A few jaws dropped at the English teacher’s sudden interest in commercial teen drivel. “The students are always reminding us, rightly so, that we need to stage shows that draw people in. And who can deny that the songs are catchy and memorable, and the characters – if somewhat stereotypical – are such that teenagers everywhere seem able to relate to them.” He turned to the students, wiggling his glasses to adjust them. “So, are we agreed?” He took our stunned stares as agreement. “Excellent. I’ll look into obtaining the rights immediately.”

“Mr. Ellison, when do you think we can audition?” asked Ben.

“I don’t think we should waste any time if we’re going to put on this show before the holidays. Let’s hold auditions next Thursday. Even without the scripts, you can all learn a song off the Internet, if you don’t already have an HSM2 song memorized.” He smiled at Lucey as he used the acronym HSM2, as if they were partners in some student-teacher pact. Gross. I preferred it when Mr. Ellison was cranky and predictable and didn’t try to talk our language. This happy, HSM-loving version scared me.

“And, Mr. Ellison, it doesn’t matter who had what roles in the first
High School Musical,
right? All roles are up for grabs?” Lucey asked, ignoring Jocelyn’s stare.

“That would only be fair,” he answered, scanning the room and letting his eyes settle on me, igniting a spark of hope that maybe I would actually get a better role this time.

“All right then, that settles that,” Mr. Ellison said with finality, looking at Mr. Lord from the corner of his eye. Lord slumped against the stage, silenced. “Auditions next week. Same format as last year. Please be ready.”

5: Losing All Sense

A
DMITTING YOU DIDN’T LIKE SOCCER in Smalltown was like announcing you were a communist or suffered from leprosy. No one in their right mind even considered it. Smalltown, for some unknown reason, churned out championship teams year after year. Maybe it was because we were too small for a football team, so all our best athletes played soccer. One of our players even made it onto the
Parade
magazine All-American team once. Whatever the reason for our success, support of the boys’ and girls’ teams was mandatory.

A secret anti-soccer pact was one of the many ties that bound Alex and me together. Or used to. His mother couldn’t afford for him to play in the youth soccer league the second he walked, like all the other kids in town did, so he always felt inferior, like he could never catch up. And to be honest, for a long time he was pretty uncoordinated so, silently, I agreed with him. To his face, though, I always encouraged him to keep trying. When he didn’t make the middle-school team in seventh grade, he stopped trying, and caring. Or so I thought.

That was when we created our pact to despise all things soccer. Because the pact was a secret one, and so we wouldn’t risk expulsion from the town, Alex and I went to the Friday night varsity soccer games anyway, along with everyone else in town. A bunch of rich donors paid for field lights years ago, and I had to admit I liked the atmosphere of night games, if not the sport itself. The air was always crisp, sometimes hinting of rain recently gone or soon to come. Warm apple cider, hot chocolate and coffee smells hovered in the air over the pungent, newly mown field. And the sight of our team, and even the cheerleaders, in their red and tan uniforms projected an air of big-time professionalism rarely experienced in Smalltown. For that sense of being bigger than we really were, I liked the games.

Still, I quickly bored of the game itself, so I usually showed up around halftime, or left early. This week, though, Adrienne insisted I attend the entire game, since it was the first home match. We bundled up and squeezed into the stands. Adrienne’s amazing disinterest in anything people thought about her was contagious, and soon she had me jumping up and down in the stands with her, yelling for Lindsay and his teammates, not caring if we looked or sounded stupid. Sometimes our jumping turned into awkward bumping and once she almost knocked me off my feet. A few times too many, we started cheering at a call by the referee only to have the fans surrounding us start groaning. Then we’d crack up at our own ignorance as fans.

Throughout the second half, word of a post-game party at Nick Jones’s house filtered through the stands, working its way down the rows of students and detouring around parents as needed. Nick was a senior whose parents traveled a lot. His parties were infamous. I’d never gone to one because I wasn’t into the drinking scene. I’d rather hang with Alex or small groups of friends.

Adrienne and I had pretty much decided not to go when I spotted Nigel walking with Nick in front of the stands. Nigel scanned the crowd as he walked, smiling and waving at people he recognized. When he saw me, he yelled out my name, earning me a sharp elbow from Adrienne. He yelled something else I couldn’t hear over the crowd’s roar for a missed goal. I shrugged and made a confused face. He yelled again. “Party?” He pointed to Nick. “Are you going?”

So much for keeping the party quiet. Nigel must be drumming up interest for Nick. I only hesitated a second before nodding with all my might. Adrienne stiffened beside me.

“Guess I’m asking my sister to drive us to Nick’s, huh?” she said. Luckily she sounded excited as well as annoyed. I nodded, eyes glued to Nigel as he worked his way down the bleachers, shouting to other people as he had to me.

Crudup won the game, 2-1. Lindsay scored the winning goal and Alex left the field to back-slaps from his teammates for all the saves he made, even though he let one goal in. A little part of me glowed with satisfaction for him, but that part was quickly smothered by the hard shell of discontent that surrounded any thought of Alex these days.

*

N
OT WANTING TO BE THE FIRST ones at the party, Adrienne and I convinced her older sister to let us stop for a slice of pizza on the way. When we got to Nick’s, the party was in full swing. I was surprised by how many people were there, from some of the CDC gang to the soccer team and cheerleaders – maybe I’d been missing out by not coming to these parties.

“I’m going to the bathroom. Meet me in the kitchen,” Adrienne yelled over the music, combing her fingers through her straight brown hair.

Obediently, I moved slowly through the living room toward the kitchen, shouting hi to people along the way. Three girls said they liked my new red top with the lace, making me glad I’d gone girlier than usual tonight.

I finally reached the kitchen, where Nick offered me a beer. I took the can and popped the top as Adrienne came into the room. She took a soda instead of the beer Nick held out, and watched as I guzzled from the can and wiped my lip.

“I didn’t know you drank beer, Sadie,” she said innocently.

“I usually don’t. But once in a while, why not live a little dangerously?” I didn’t explain that I hoped the alcohol would calm my nerves. My father sometimes drank a cocktail for that reason, or so he said – sometimes I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. I didn’t know why I was nervous, although I got a sneaking suspicion when I saw Alex through the doorway, not ten feet away.

He looked so cute in his torn jeans and faded green T-shirt with the tiny frog on the pocket that my pulse picked up. He cracked up at someone’s joke and the sound of his familiar laugh gave me a pang in my side. Regardless of how his quitting CDC bothered me, I shouldn’t pretend the past years of friendship meant nothing. I would try to make amends after my generally bad behavior of the past week.

I moved toward him, prepared to tell him “good game”, when a firm hand grasped my shoulder and stopped me. I turned to see Nigel Leightly, standing too closely again, like he had in the school hallway.

“Not mooning over your next-door neighbor like all the other girls, are you?” he said in his delicious British accent, leaning in to make sure he was heard over the music. I was dumbfounded for a second. Nigel Leightly, going out of his way to talk to me. Other than our brief conversation after physics class and the exchange at the soccer game, we hadn’t talked at all. He did smile or wink whenever our eyes locked, but he did that with everyone. Becoming Mr. Popular seemed to be his goal. Between his good looks, intriguing accent and general good nature, he was well on his way.

“How did you know he’s my neighbor?” I asked in surprise. “And no, I’m not mooning,” I tacked on, recovering slightly.

“I make it my business to know.” He squinted evilly, and gave a belated greeting to Adrienne, who smiled back and tactfully turned to talk to Nick and some other people.

“So, what did you think of your first soccer game?” I asked lamely.

He laughed, at my conversational ineptitude no doubt. “Hardly my first match, you know. Although I’ll admit I was surprised to see that Crudup is as serious about its soccer--” he emphasized the American word -- “as we Brits are about our football.”

“Oh, well I guess when you grow up in Europe, you’re used to seeing amazing soccer—I mean, football games.” He nodded and took a long drink from his beer, making a face after. “How come you’re not on the Crudup team?”

He leaned in even closer, as if sharing a deep, dark secret, and said next to my ear, “To be honest, I’m not considered that good a footballer at home, although I would probably fare quite well against you Yanks.”

“Really? Too bad. Doesn’t that make you some kind of outcast?” Thank God my wit was returning.

He smiled the sexy smile I first saw in physics class. One side of his mouth curled up quickly and the other slowly curved to meet it. It made you wonder what he was thinking in the time it took for the left side to catch up to the right.

“You forget. The U.K. has other loves besides football, such as music. And it just so happens that I’m quite endowed in that area, if I say so myself.”

“Are you now?” Oh God, was I mimicking his accent? I flattened my voice back into an American twang. “And how exactly are you endowed, Nigel? Musically, I mean.”

“I sing and play guitar in a band at home – kind of a twenty-first century Jam.”

“I know the Jam!” I said, glad I had spent time with my parents’ record collection last weekend in preparation for a moment like this. “I love ‘A Town Called Malice’ and I love Peter Weller’s songwriting,” I gushed.

“Good to hear. I think we’re going to get along fine, Sadie.” His words, or maybe the beer, warmed my insides. “Tell me what other music you like,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder to steer me out of the kitchen and onto the back deck, where it was quieter. I glanced at Adrienne over my shoulder as we walked. She gave me a thumbs-up as I left her behind. “I’ve been wanting to know more since our first talk.”

Nigel and I leaned against the deck railing facing each other, and talked about all the great old British bands: New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, and of course the Clash. Never before had I admitted liking a lot of my parents’ albums, because they were right up there – or down there – with the show tunes I loved, in my friends’ estimation. Make that even lower, since at least Foster liked show tunes as much as me. No one cared about ‘80s British punk rock, but I loved its melodic moodiness.

Talking music with Nigel was pretty satisfying on its own, but got even better when Kristina and Lucey tried to steal him away only to have him practically ignore them. Kristina even tried to insert herself between us, but Nigel just moved back next to me, putting his arm around me for emphasis. I didn’t get it. Guys never liked me first. Or second, or third, for that matter. I figured my lack of dating success was because I wasn’t as anything: not as pretty, not as flirty, not as funny, and not as well-endowed as the other girls. What I was, was lacking.

Not tonight. By the time I finished my beer, everything around me was warm and fuzzy, including the muffled alarm bell in the back of my head warning me there must be a catch. The most exciting guy to hit Crudup in years couldn’t really like me, could he?

Nigel finished his beer and we headed inside for another. He detoured to talk with some guys in the living room, so I went on alone, looking for Adrienne or other friends to hang with while I waited for him to come back. Seeing none, I squeezed through the mass of warm bodies in the kitchen and reached toward the cooler for a beer. A strong hand clasped my wrist, stopping me. My stomach dropped through the fuzzy cloud cradling it.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”.

SADIE

(NOT LOOKING UP)  DON’T YOU THINK IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS?