“You knew he was my friend before you started dating him,” I say. “Why are you being so weird about this?”
“I don’t know!” Jasmine throws her hands up. “This is all somethingsomething.”
“What?”
She takes a breath and seems to deflate a bit. “This was way easier when you hated all my boyfriends.”
“I didn’t hate them all.”
“Yeah you did.”
Well, they were all empirically terrible.
“It just feels like we’re not on the same side anymore,” she says.
“I’m on your side,” I promise her. “Always.”
Always, except when it comes to Liam.
When did I get to be such a good liar?
37
“Line?” Cameron calls.
Today’s our first off-book rehearsal. The show’s five weeks away, four if you don’t count spring break.
Cam’s usually pretty good about being off-book, but today he’s struggling.Maybe I should’ve helped him.
“Sure you have...” I wait to see if he picks it up.
Crickets.
“...some hideous matter to deliver...”
Cam turns back to Liam. “Sure you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.”
Liam doesn’t miss a beat. “It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage.”
Liam’s perfect. Just perfect.
“Line?” Cam calls again.
I don’t even look at my script. I’ve basically got the whole play memorized at this point. Denise always says a stage manager should know a show backward and forward, and while I don’t have the backward down, I think I could recite the whole thing from memory.
“Have you any commission...”
Cam picks up again, stumbling. He’s never had this much trouble with his lines. I don’t know if it’s the Shakespeare or the pressure of senior year or if he’s still torn up about that rejection from NYU.
I give Dr. Lochley a quick glance; she’s tapping her pencil against her pursed lips, nodding along as Liam and Cam do the scene. She catches me looking and taps her pencil against my script, like I’ll lose my spot if I’m not watching them. As if I haven’t done this four shows and counting now.
I shake my head and mouth along with the scene.
***
“Good job, everyone,” Dr. Lochley says. “We’ll pick up with Act III tomorrow.”
She slips her yellow legal pad back into her tote, grabs her director’s notebook, and rewinds her scarf around her neck. Before any of the actors can swoop in, I sit next to her.
