“My Fair Lady?” I ask.
“Right.”
“That’s not Julia Roberts,” Olivia says.
“Seriously?” Charlie asks. Olivia nudges her, and Charlie shrugs her off.
“Anyway, he wasn’t into her, clearly. We were dating.” She looks at each of us to confirm this information. We nod. “She completely fell apart and almost quit school,” she says, like the point is almost irrelevant now. “I’m just saying.”
“But RoblikesJuliet.” Olivia bites her lip and looks at me. “It’s not the same thing, is it?”
“So? You think Rob has any idea what he’s doing? He’s blinded by her hair or something,” Charlie spits out.
I instinctively pull my ponytail over my shoulder and run my hand through it. I don’t want Juliet to fall apart, but I also don’t want Rob to be with her. I just don’t want any of this.
“You know what I mean,” Charlie says quietly.
“So we just need to get Rob to break up with her?” Olivia’s eyebrows are furrowed, and she’s looking at Charlie with a mixture of confusion and something else. Sadness, maybe, but it’s hard to tell.
Scene Three
By Friday I’m somehow inthe wings of the auditorium with Len, adjusting lightbulbs. On Wednesday, Mrs. Barch hit us with another pop quiz, and this time I didn’t let Len switch our papers. I got a sixty-eight, so I currently need all the extra credit points I can get.
They’re doingMacbeth. And so much for hiding out here with all the theater geeks. Turns out, in addition to being Rob’s new girlfriend, my cousin is also a talented actress. She landed the role of Lady Macbeth. The news spread fast at school that she used to be an actress in LA. Nothing big, just some pilots and commercials, but enough to warrant some serious internet presence.
Charlie is convinced that Juliet is the paper towel girl. “Theone who does the commercials with the dog,” she says. Olivia and I just shake our heads. “God, do you guys never watch TV?”
We look it up. Charlie is right. Not only is Juliet the paper towel girl, but she’s also the Super Soaker girl and the allergy girl.
By some stroke of luck, my thespian cousin and I share no classes together, so at least I only see her between classes and at lunch. And it seems like she and Rob eat off campus most of the time, so even that hasn’t been much of a problem. There’s something about watching her onstage that feels comforting. Like I’m keeping tabs on her. Like at least I know she’s not with Rob.
The Belgian is here too. He’s playing Macbeth, which makes sense, because Mrs. Barch is obsessed with the Belgian. I think it’s because he’s basically the closest thing to British she’s ever going to get. From my place in the wings I can see her fussing over him, asking him if he needs some water and making Lucy Stern, her sophomore assistant, fetch it for him.
Right now Juliet and the Belgian are wandering around the stage, taking directions from Mrs. Barch, who keeps looking at her clipboard and yelling things like “Stage right!” I don’t know much about Mrs. Barch outside science, but I’m pretty sure she has no actual theater background. Which is probably why this entire thing feels more like a parody of a play than an actual play.
“Hey, a little help here?” Len is next to me, rifling through a box of big metal clamps.
“Sorry. What’s up?”
He hands me a clamp and instructs me to keep the light still. “Right there. Good.”
He tightens it in place and then nods for me to let go. It’s dark up in the wings and kind of chilly despite the fact that it’s eighty degrees outside and barely even September. I hug my arms to my chest and watch as Len works, brow furrowed.
“Why are you here, anyway?” I ask.
He answers without looking at me. “Because thanks to that quiz of yours, I’m currently pulling a D in bio. I need the points too.”
“Yeah, but I thought you didn’t care about grades.”
He straightens up. “Why don’t you tell me why I’m here. I’m sure your answer is better.”
I glance down at the stage. “Just show me what to do.”
“I’ve been at this awhile,” he says. “I got it.”
I plunk down in a plastic chair and look at him. “So when you’re not taking bullets in bio or playing piano, you’re stage crew?”
“Playing piano?”
