“What color was his shirt?” Hobbit asked even as Jules said, “That’s great!”
“Good on you for thinking to look around,” Belle told Sadie. “I have no clue who was watching—I was a little too tightly in character.”
“I wanna say... navy and maroon?” Sadie answered Hobbit, then told Belle, “Yeah, well,mycharacter was scanning for Tom.” She gave an exaggerated wink in Tom’s direction.
“You guys aresoweird,” Rod said as Belle snorted with laughter.
“Let’s not take this method-acting shittoofar, please,” she told her friend.
“Youneverhave to worry about that, I promise you.” Sadie hugged Belle, and Shelly joined in.
But, “You are both such total bitches,” she said, and they all started giggling.
“You guys, we’re running out of time.” Hobbit was both their director and stage manager, apparently. He even clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “I need to not be grounded this weekend for staying out too late on a school night.” He looked at Rod. “Did you... do the other thing? With the team.”
Rod glanced over at Sadie, who’d pulled away from Belle and Shelly. She was doing her jazz hands, shoulder-and-neck release exercise as prep for this upcoming rehearsal.
Tomorrow’s big show was Rod and Sadie. In the school lobby. With not so much the candlestick or wrench, but certainly armed with ugly, heavy, very blunt words, meant to be overheard by Rugby-Shirt Jimmy, or someone who would pass the gossip on to Suspect X.
“If you didn’t manage it,” Jules reassured Rod, referring to his bad-mouthing Sadie in front of his soccer idiots, “it’sokay, it really is. You can do it tomorrow, and we can pushthisscene to Thursday. And if you want we can rehearse it again—the trash-talking.”
“It’s not that hard.” Belle was less kind. “Just say the same shit about Sadie that you usually say about me.”
“Yeah, I know, I did, all right? I did,” Rodney said, squeezing his eyes closed in a face that might’ve been anger or distaste or... something else entirely. “I just fucking hated it.” Self-loathing?
Sadie moved closer—she was done with her stretches and was paying attention to their conversation so Rod spoke directly to her. “Saying that... nasty-ass bullshit about you.”
“Well, it’s not like it’strue,” she countered. “It’s just lines of dialog in this play we’re doing to catch a rapist.”
“Yeah, but...” Rod shook his head. “The guys on the team—” he caught himself “—wetalk about girls like that all the time.” He looked at Belle. “You’re right and I’m sorry— because it wasn’t true then, either.”
Belle opened her mouth as if, like Hobbit, she was going to reject his apology and then grind his face into the sawdust on the ground, but Jules reached out and gently squeezed her arm, because right now Rod was talking to Sadie. And more important than that, he wastalking.
“After what happened to Meg,” Rod was saying, “it just feels... well, it made me feel like shit.”
“Well, good,” Sadie said tartly, because yes, as Jules expected, she knew exactly what to say in response. “Youshouldfeel like shit, because when you said things like that and youdidn’tfeel like shit, youwereshit. So congratulations for no longer being shit. Can we please do this scene, because Hobbit needs to get home.”
Rodney just shook his head, but it wasn’t quite clear if he was signalingyesorno.
Hobbit being Hobbit, took it as ayes.
“You have to get to the main lobby about ten minutes before homeroom—right when everyone’s coming into the school.” Hobbit had written a sample script because he knew this kind of improv would be hard for Rod. “Sadie will be waiting for you outside, and when she sees you go through the front doors, she’s gonna start shouting for you. Don’t slow down—but don’t go too fast. And don’t stop until she catches up with you.”
“That’s a fuckload of don’ts,” Rod said.
“It’s okay if you turn to see who’s shouting for you,” Sadie pointed out. “In fact it would be weird if you didn’t. So turn, look, see it’s me and keep going, like you don’t have time for my bullshit. I’m gonna be calling you names, like—” she raised her voice “Rodney! You totalasshole!”
Rod flinched.
“Huh,” Hobbit said, hand against his chin as he stepped back to watch. “It’s actually good that you look scared.”
“I’mnot...” Rodney exhaled, but then focused on Sadie. “Just, like, you’re gonna grab my arm, right?”
She did, with some force, jerking him around to face her. “Don’t you run away from me, yousonof abitch!”
Rod started to laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just?—”
Sadie slapped him. She full-on, flat-palm, hauled back and slapped him across the face, the noise sharp in the dim light from their camp lanterns.
