by Dani Jansen
“Damn,” Becca said after reading the text.
“It’ll be fine. Jenny’s agreed to do the sets, so she’s gotta be open to talking to us.” I firmly believed that one of the keys to being a good leader was faking optimism so others wouldn’t be put off by your panic. That might work with your average worker bee, but not with a best friend. Becca saw right through me.
She rolled her eyes. “Sure, Al. I’m sure she’ll be totally open to talking with us.”
Our short trip to the art room was completely silent. It gave me a chance to appreciate the late afternoon light streaming in the windows, to notice how heavy my bag was now that the Red Binder had taken up almost permanent residency there, and to wonder for the 2064th time if Charlotte really thought I was cute.
I nodded at a busy Ms. James as we entered the art room. Looking around, I was again struck by the atmosphere of concentrated creativity and quiet introversion the art kids had cultivated. It contrasted almost comically with the boisterous, nearly manic vibe of the first play rehearsal I had attended only two days earlier. I wondered what would happen if the drama and art kids switched places for a day. Would any of the people in this room pretend to be a tree, much less a worm? Spotting Jenny in the darkest corner of the otherwise bright room, I was sure there was at least one person who would not in a million years have followed Mr. Evans’s instructions.
“Here we go,” I said to Becca, who grimaced in response but followed me to stand beside Jenny’s easel. We both waited while Jenny aggressively slashed black paint onto a canvas that looked like something Jack the Ripper might have hung on his wall. She made no sign that she even saw us standing there.
When it was obvious that Jenny either didn’t notice us or had no intention of acknowledging that she knew we were there, I broke the silence. “Hey, Jenny.”
Jenny’s black-rimmed eyes stood out against her whiter- than-white skin as she glared at me in utter silence.
“This is Becca.” I pointed at Becca.
“Hi.” Becca didn’t smile, but both her tone of voice and body language spoke of a polite willingness to engage.
Jenny still said nothing. Her body language said she wanted us to bugger off.
“Becca’s the assistant stage manager.”
“Good for her.” At least Jenny was speaking, even if she was being sarcastic. Becca’s eyebrows went up, but she let the comment pass, and I decided to ignore Jenny’s rudeness as well. Challenging her wouldn’t get us anywhere.
“We thought we could talk about the set design.”
“Yeah?” Another slash on the canvas.
“Yeah. We were wondering if you’d thought about the design at all. Maybe we could brainstorm some ideas?”
Jenny turned her back on us, digging through a beat-up canvas messenger bag propped on a table beside her. I looked at Becca, who shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. I was just about to say something when Jenny turned back to us. She held a paint-spattered sketchbook out to me. I took it, waiting for some explanation or instruction. When none came, I opened the sketchbook to the first page.
As I think I’ve mentioned, I’m no artist. So anyone who can draw a hand that doesn’t look like some lumpy claw-thing has my respect. But even someone with as little artistic skill or knowledge as me could appreciate the bizarre beauty of the sketches I was now slowly flipping through. Jenny was obviously most interested in the fairy section of the play, especially the night scene. Her sketches were dark, but fanciful. In one drawing, strange mosses dripped from the twisted branches of shadowy trees. A quarter moon tried bravely to peep out from behind this haunted forest landscape. In another sketch, a green, full moon took up almost the entire page, looming over a handful of spindly trees. Becca inspected the sketches from over my shoulder.
“These are beautiful, Jenny,” I whispered. I felt the images deserved some sort of reverence.
“They really are,” Becca added.
“Whatever.” Jenny had returned to her canvas. She would have seemed completely unaffected by our compliments if it hadn’t been for the slight blush peeking out from behind the layer of almost-white foundation she wore. Becca smiled then. Her sense of humor was too finely developed for her to find Jenny’s angsty artist act anything but funny. I shot her a warning look, and she stifled the smile. I had the distinct feeling that Jenny wasn’t someone who would take kindly to being laughed at.
“Could you recreate these on a large scale?” I asked.
“Obviously.”
I didn’t think that was so obvious, but again I let it go. I needed her on my side, or at least not angry with me, for what I had to say next. “I’m not sure this is exactly the vision Mr. Evans has for the play.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s my vision. If I’m going to be the set painter, that’s what I want to paint.”
“I get that. But is there some flexibility? Maybe in the colors?” I couldn’t see the ghostly blues and sickly greens appealing to Mr. Evans, a man who wore bright purple and fuchsia on a pretty regular basis.
“No.”
I looked at Becca for help. She shrugged.
“Okaaay,” I dragged out the word, hoping that I could think of something else to say, something to change Jenny’s mind. I couldn’t. “I guess we can at least show these to Mr. Evans.”
“Whatever.”
“It was nice talking to you, Jenny.” Becca’s sarcasm nearly matched Jenny’s.
“Whatever.”
Becca took a deep breath. Time to get out of here before things got heated. “I’ll let you know what Mr. Evans says. See you later.” I gave Becca a gentle push. With one last exasperated look at Jenny, Becca headed toward the door. I followed her, sketchbook in hand. How on earth was I going to sell this dark vision of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Mr. Evans, a man who thought “darn” was a swear word?
At least Charlotte thought I was cute.
CHAPTER 11
At lunch the next day, Mr. Evans flipped through Jenny’s sketchbook while I watched him and chewed on a hangnail. Becca, cool-headed as ever, played Candy Crush on her phone. I didn’t like the way Mr. Evans’s caterpillar eyebrows kept crawling closer together as he examined the drawings. I also didn’t like his silence. Mr. Evans was a person who liked to smile big, whose freckled hands were always moving. He was oddly still as he contemplated the final sketch: the hauntingly beautiful green moon that Becca and I had both admired. I looked at Becca. She didn’t even notice, engrossed as she was in her winning streak. I looked back at Mr. Evans, who gently closed the notebook and placed it on the desk between us. He tented his hands in front of his face, his elbows resting on the desk. He looked up at me, and I knew it was going to be bad news.
“Obviously your friend is quite talented,” he started.
“She’s not exactly my friend,” I explained. As true as that was, it still felt a bit like a betrayal.
“I would love it if she could work on the show, whoever she is. But I was hoping for something a little more…peppy. Maybe something with a colorful, ethnic vibe.”
“Ethnic vibe?” I repeated dumbly.
“Maybe something Native?”
“I don’t understand.” I looked at Becca again, hoping she might help, but she was still focused exclusively on her game.
“Or, maybe something inspired by Bollywood,” Mr. Evans added helpfully, his enthusiasm for the idea evident in his massive grin.
“You mean, something Indigenous…or do you mean Indian…?” I was confused.
“I think the politically correct term is Native.” Mr. Evans smiled knowingly.
At this point, Becca lost all interest in her game. She held her phone loosely in her left hand as she stared openly at him. This ridiculous game of teacher-does-not-know-best had finally caught her attention.
“I don’t think so, Mr. Evans. Bollywood movies come from Ind
ia,” I said.
He flapped his hands in my general direction. “Well, wherever Bollywood cinema comes from, I think using some of its elements could make our production pop.”
I made a noncommittal sound. I didn’t know what to say to Mr. Evans that wouldn’t be insulting.
Becca had no such compunctions. “I think that’s called cultural appropriation.”
Mr. Evans seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t want to appropriate anything! I just think our little fairies would look adorable in colorful kimonos.”
“Kimonos come from Japan!” Becca looked at me to confirm both that she was right and that this was actually happening. I nodded at her, but I also tried to tell her with the piercing glare of my eyeballs to lay off and leave this to me. Becca did not suffer fools, and this was one fool I didn’t want to insult. After all, Mr. Evans was ignorant—deeply ignorant, as it turned out—but he was the director of the school play, and I had to work with him one way or another. Given a choice, I would pick friendly over hostile any day of the week.
I tried to be diplomatic. “Mr. Evans, maybe we could add some color and pep without…using things from other cultures.”
“I suppose so.” Mr. Evans looked downcast, his high-voltage grin now only a whisper of a smile.
“What if we talked to Jenny about adding some brighter colors in her next round of sketches?” I opened the sketchbook to the full moon. “Imagine this with some blues, purples, and yellows.”
“You don’t think it’s been done before?” Mr. Evans traced the outline of the moon with his index finger.
“Like stealing ideas from other cultures hasn’t been done before?” Becca mumbled. I kicked the side of her foot, hoping Mr. Evans wouldn’t notice.
I plowed on. “Mr. Evans, don’t you want the focus to be on the performers? You’re working so closely with the actors. You don’t want the set to distract from their performances.” I felt cowardly. Here I was trying to fool Mr. Evans into doing the right thing instead of just taking a stand for the right thing. First, I had to placate Ben’s ego to get him to star in the play, then I had to stroke Jenny’s ego to get her to hand over her sketches, and now I was outright fawning over Mr. Evans to get him to abandon his ridiculous plan.
I may have been disappointed in myself, but my strategy worked. Mr. Evans perked up. “That is true. So long as we have some brighter colors, I think these sketches could work.” He cocked his head to the side as he re-examined the drawing. “Maybe she could also do something about these trees. I think they need some leaves. They look a little dead.”
“I’m sure we can get Jenny to make some changes,” I told him. Becca snorted, but I ignored her. I decided I had better get out now before I dug myself in any deeper. I held out my hand, and Mr. Evans passed me the sketchbook.
“Alison, you’re doing a fabulous job as producer. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I couldn’t help but smile as Mr. Evans patted my hand. His enthusiasm was contagious. Mr. Evans loved “the theater” and he believed in everyone, even me. He was clueless about the world in a way that made me despair for our education system, but he also saw the best in people. I knew I didn’t entirely deserve his praise, but I was going to take it anyway.
“Thanks, Mr. Evans.” I smiled again. “We better get going. Class starts in ten minutes.”
“Of course. See you later, girls.” He waved us away, and we made our exit.
As soon as we closed the door to the classroom behind us, Becca stage whispered, “Did you forget that Jenny told us she wouldn’t change her sketches?”
I groaned. “I remember.” We walked down the busy hall to Becca’s locker. She refused to carry around a backpack full of textbooks and binders like I did, so she always had to stop there between classes.
“So you just promised Mr. Evans something you can’t do,” Becca pointed out, none too gently.
“I know. But what else was I supposed to do?” I could feel my shoulders tensing as I grew defensive.
“I dunno. Maybe tell him his ideas are offensive and ridiculous? Say ‘no’ to someone for once?” Becca’s comment stung, mostly because I knew she was right. She must have seen something in my face because she gently bumped me with her hip and said, “Oh, Al. You really know how to dig yourself into a hole, don’t you?”
We stopped in front of her locker, and she opened her combination lock with one hand, then dug a textbook out of the precarious mountain of books, snacks, and gym clothing crammed inside. I slumped against a nearby locker and stared blankly down the hallway. Having retrieved the book, Becca was now busy trying to rebalance the mountain inside her locker. I didn’t like her chances.
The bell was about to ring, so most people had already headed off to class. If the hall hadn’t been so quiet, I probably wouldn’t have noticed Ben. He was at the other end of the hall, where he seemed to be arguing with Zach, our costume designer. It was weird to see them talking, since they hung out in different crowds. Red-faced, Zach eventually threw up his hands and stormed off in the opposite direction. Ben ran his hands through his gelled blond hair as he watched Zach stomp away. He must have said something stupid or offensive to Zach. Of course. I was happy Zach had called him out on his shit. Ben got away with too much. He played the “free speech” card in class and acted like political correctness was a personal affront.
The bell rang and Becca slammed her locker shut, pressed a shoulder against it to keep it from popping back open, then quickly snapped the lock back in place. She tugged on my sleeve, hurrying down the hall. “Al, we have to get to class.”
“Right.” I shook my head, then hurried to fourth-period calculus. How Ben remained my main rival for valedictorian was a mystery almost as confounding as integrals.
CHAPTER 12
The Red Binder’s advice on dealing with conflict between members of the production team was even less helpful than usual: “People want to be heard. Use a talking stick to allow each person to air his or her grievance. Encourage people to use ‘I’ statements instead of placing blame. When we listen to each other, any problem can be resolved!”
Oh yeah, Red Binder? You think I can just get a talking stick and Mr. Evans and Jenny will come together? More likely, Jenny will hit Mr. Evans with the talking stick.
I slammed the binder shut, but I could still hear it taunting me (it sounded oddly like my conscience, which sounded a lot like Becca right now): There wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t promised them both something you can’t deliver.
If Becca hadn’t sat down across from me just then, I feel almost certain I would have shouted at the binder. This would have been very, very bad given that we were in the crowded caf. I was grateful to Becca, both for saving me from making a public fool of myself and for the mug of green tea she shoved at me.
“It’s not easy getting boiling water for your tea. Even the lunch lady judges you for drinking this stuff. That should tell you something, Al.” Becca wrinkled her nose, maybe remembering the one time I’d convinced her to try some.
“It’s full of antioxidants,” I mumbled, playing with the tea bag’s hanging tag.
“I’m just teasing you, Al. The lunch lady wears a hairnet, so who’s she to judge?” Becca unpacked her lunch, munching on carrots dipped in hummus.
“Yeah.” I blew on the tea as I scanned the room. Maybe I wouldn’t see her. She hardly ever made public appearances, after all. I spotted someone dressed all in black, but when I took a closer look, it was definitely a guy. I was about to take a sip of tea when I spotted her: Jenny was in the caf. She was alone at a table in the far corner, her scowl plain even at this distance. I sighed and set the mug down.
“You’re not going to drink that after all the trouble I went to?” Becca was now dipping cherry tomatoes in her hummus. I envied her the simple pleasure of enjoying her lunch.
“I don’t deserve the tea yet. I have to go d
o something I don’t want to do. I can have the tea when I get back.” I stood up and shoved the mug over to Becca for safekeeping. She shook her head at me but continued to eat her lunch.
“You’re weird.”
“You know it.” I gave Becca the best smile I could muster and then made my way through the crowded room, sidestepping juniors carrying trays of food and squeezing my way past a pack of giggling sophomores. I hoped Jenny might get up and leave before I made it to her table, but no such luck.
“Hey, Jenny.” I sat down across from her, even though I worried that doing so would hamper my ability to make a quick getaway. It would be weird to conduct a conversation while looking down at her, so I perched myself on the edge of a hard plastic chair.
Jenny looked up at me, her mouth full. I could see that she was almost finished her lunch, even though lunch period had only started about ten minutes earlier. I guessed that she felt about as out of place here as she looked. The bright banter, fluorescent lights, and white-bread sandwiches were hardly a fitting setting for such a moody artiste. It’s not as if I loved the cafetorium or anything. Cafeterias are always loud. And auditoriums are designed to carry sound.
Jenny swallowed her food and narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you want?”
So much for the pleasantries. “I need to talk to you about the designs for the set.”
“What about them?”
I wished I’d brought my tea with me so I’d have something to do with my hands. Also, my mouth was feeling dry. I cleared my throat. “Well, Mr. Evans had a few notes he’d like me to pass on.”
Jenny turned the full force of her scowl on me. “Like what?”
I considered just getting up and walking away then, but that nagging Becca-Red-Binder-conscience voice reminded me this mess was of my own making. “He thinks the drawings are beautiful. He has total confidence in your vision. It’s just that he feels the sketches are a little too dark for a comedy. He’d like you to add some brighter colors.”
