“My understudy hasn’t made it yet,” Scott said, his tone dry. Now that I’d gotten to know him even better, it made me wonder what all the other girls in school who fawned over him thought. He had enough charm to sway people, but he wasn’t the most patient person in the world. And his compliments were more like veiled attempts to criticize.
“We’ll give him a few more minutes,” Mrs. Sanderson said, walking over to me. “How’s it going over here?”
“It’s going,” I said, pausing to make another note on the long list I already had.
Mrs. Sanderson nodded. “This is where I make sure the students have about twenty-five percent of their lines memorized. We only have six weeks left, and we’ll need to up the rehearsal count per week to three or four starting next week. We also need to give more insight to the set design crew. I saw one piece of set sketched out, but it will be good for you to talk to them about your overall vision.”
I breathed out, nodding. That was a lot of time for practices, but once we got out the initial kinks, I hoped we’d be able to smooth out the rest and make it work. As far as the set design, I hadn’t even gotten that far in my thought process.
The door opened, and Colt ran in looking like he’d been sweating and was covered in red dirt again.“Sorry, I’m here. We got out late, so I didn’t get a chance to take a shower.”
“You can stay over in the corner, then, so we don’t have to smell you,” Scott said, pointing to the section farthest away from the stage.
I glared at Scott, not wanting to tick him off enough that the practice didn’t go well but also not wanting him to think it was okay to talk to a fellow cast member like that. It was all about communication, like Mrs. Sanderson had advised.
Colt laughed and ran up on stage. “Haha, good one, Scott. At least I’m here and ready to go. I need to learn from the master, right?” He turned and winked at me before taking a seat on one of the chairs.
It was nice to see him up and around, not hobbling like he had been just a couple of days ago. And with his baseball hat turned backward, the small pieces of light brown hair showing through, he was hot.
Shaking my head, I knew I had a lot to go over, and I didn’t want to keep the cast there all hours of the night. We all needed rest, and maximizing time was something I was all for.
“Okay, let’s start in our pairs. Ellie and Scott, you’re going to be center stage for most of this scene, maybe a little stomping back and forth as it goes on, but here for the most part. Colt and Marcy, you’ll both be back here in the corner, working on dishes at the diner.” I pointed in the direction they needed to be. A few minutes later, I finished blocking the seven other people there and told them to go ahead and rehearse in their groups, and then we’d all come together and finish it out.
I stared at Marcy for a few minutes, as if hoping to see any note that Colt wasn’t into her, but in no time, I was stuck with one of the background girls, Tanna, who had a question about everything and anything all the time.
I’d have to check out the situation later, in the hopes that I wasn’t losing my best friend.
21
Colt
To be honest, I didn’t want to practice with Marcy that evening. She was a cool girl, but I was getting the vibe that she liked me. How was I supposed to tell her that I had a huge crush on someone else?
We stood together, and I wondered if maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t showered. Maybe I’d push her away with the body odor smell, because after the fifteen-minute cardio drill we’d done at the end of practice, and in the hot Texas sun, I did not smell like roses.
“Okay, should we start from the beginning?” I asked, hoping to get this paired-off section done as soon as possible. I glanced around, searching for Hazel, but found her helping out the one girl who usually complained or didn’t understand most things. And there Hazel was, being as patient as ever with her. I needed to get a grip and focus on the play, not ogle my best friend for extended amounts of time.
“Yeah, the beginning works. Okay, so I think we’ll be standing here as the scene opens, and then we’ll be chatting.” Marcy paused, looking at me intensely. “Can I ask you a question?”
I gave a half-hearted smile, not sure what to expect with her. “Sure. I mean, I probably won’t know the answer if it has to do with all this stuff.”
Marcy laughed. “Don’t worry; we don’t have much to rehearse in this scene.”
My brain took off at that phrase, and I wondered where she was going with this.
“Are you and Hazel together, like a couple?”
I definitely wasn’t expecting that. “No. You're her friend. You know how she is about her past,” was all I could think to say.
She rolled her eyes and gave a short laugh. “We’ve barely hung out since Christmas, and you guys are always together. I just thought I'd ask."
I closed my eyes, not wanting to have this conversation now, there, where Hazel could hear everything. I had to mentally prepare for telling her everything, and I wasn’t in that mental space just yet. Having her find out in the middle of the play would only embarrass us both.
We got back to rehearsing, and I couldn't shake the feeling that Marcy had an underlying reason to ask me that. Was she trying to set something up between her and me? Or was she hoping to ask me on a date?
We practiced through the next few scenes, and I was grateful I only had a few lines here and there. I messed up one of them, but the others I didn’t have a hard time reciting. Maybe there was hope for me yet.
Hazel worked to get the rest of the group engaged, but it seemed as if the two leads were planning a sort of mutiny to not listen to her. Once, I stepped forward to react but got a death-glare stare from Mrs. Sanderson.