This was worse than the class schedule. There were too many words. Too many letters and indecipherable characters. They all blurred together into perfect nonsense.
That is what I’ve had to deal with every day of my entire fucking life.
Wynezra’s words were gyrating inside my skull.
At least, until we started jumping bodies.
“Wait,” I said. “That’s it! We can both read when we’re inside my body! Wynonna, we can still do this! You can still do this. You can read right now. You can get me this part—”
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying, shitwit?” said Wynezra. “Let me spell it out for you: I. Do. Not. Read. EVER. I’m not going to pick up some fucking hobby that’s gonna disappear the moment we get this nightmare fixed. I’m not going to get this part for you. I’m going to get the most under-the-radar non-role that Ziggy can give me, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the same because news flash: YOU CAN’T READ EITHER! Not right now. Those are the conditions of our agreement, okay?”
There was a part of me that was deeply sympathetic to her plight. Really, there was.
There was also another part of me that was sick and tired of her shit. That hated how she was basically a cooler, more badass version of me. That didn’t like her out of pure principle. Had Wynonna ever been nice to me, ever? And now—now that I had the biggest blackmail on her since the Alexander Hamilton sex scandal of the 1790s—had anything changed?
If I were going to go to prom with Imogen—and I would go to prom with Imogen—I needed to cut Wynonna down to size.
I wouldn’t blackmail her. But I had other—more appropriate—ways of making her suffer.
“If you don’t get me that role,” I said, “then I will. As you.”
Wynezra laughed. “You’ll what?”
My face was deadly serious. “I will get you—Wynonna Jones—the role of Duke Orsino.”
She snorted. “Good luck with that. You can’t read, remember?”
My face didn’t budge an inch. I was well aware of what I was capable of.
We stayed like that for a long, intense moment—staring each other down, waiting for the other person to make the next move. Wynezra’s eyes chiseled into my so-called poker face, digging for the hint of a bluff. But my face was a fortress, stone-cold and impenetrable.
The stakes had been set. Neither of us was budging.
Wynonna would not get me a meaningful role in this play. She might even get me cast as a mute peasant. Or maybe I’d get stuck backstage, moving props.
The fires of my revenge had been lit. My mercy was a dry field, waiting to be swallowed aflame.
“Uhhhhhhhh…” said a familiar voice, coming from a sudden figure in our peripheral.
We both turned. There was Holden, mouth slightly ajar, looking at his best friend like a complete stranger. Who could blame him? The mild-mannered, sleepy-eyed, pushover Ezra Slevin of yesterday was gone. In his place was an Ezra Slevin whose cagey eyes were filled with nothing but hate.
He had no idea. He was looking at the wrong Ezra.
“Time’s up!” Ziggy called out, hands cupped around his mouth like a megaphone.
Wynezra and I pried our death glares away like a pair of locked antlers—slowly, jaggedly, dubiously—ready to re-engage at a whiff of treachery. When we finally broke free and separated, I cast a sideways glance at Wynezra, hoping she’d make some effort to maintain appearances with Holden.
Nope. She left Holden in the dust. Marched straight to the front row and sat down. Holden trailed awkwardly behind—indecisively—like a lost hiker without a compass.
Goddamn you, Wynonna.
When I sat back down, reclaiming my seat beside Imogen, my irritation had not gone unnoticed.
“Whoa,” she said. “What’s with the poopy face?”
I took a cavernous breath. Shook my head—mostly as a means of shaking out the fury. Forced the most low-key, Wynonna-like smile I could muster. It was hard to gauge my success without a mirror. I probably looked like Tina Fey telling dad jokes.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m fine. Just about to do something really crazy.”
“Crazy?” said Imogen, thoroughly intrigued. “Do tell.”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Ugh. I hate surprises.”
“You’ll love this one.”
Imogen rolled her eyes and smirked. “If you say so.”
It wasn’t until the theater quieted and Ziggy took to the stage that I realized: I just had a conversation with Imogen. Like, one that didn’t involve me nearly hyperventilating, or having a panic attack, or a sexual meltdown.
“All right,” said Ziggy. “Any volunteers to go first?”
Imogen’s hand shot up in a perfectly straight line from her shoulder, fingers squirming.
“Imogen Klutz,” said Ziggy. “And you’re auditioning for…”
“Viola,” said Imogen.
“Ah, the duality of Viola,” said Ziggy, nodding approvingly. He stepped back, sweeping his arms across the stage. “The floor is yours.”
Imogen stood with uncharacteristic grace—like even that was something she rehearsed. Glided softly up the stairs and took to the center of the stage. Pressed her fingertips together like a prayer.
“I left no ring with her,” said Imogen. Her voice was an intense hush, her eyes suddenly big and wild with confusion. “What means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her!”
Imogen delivered her lines with delicate fluster. Her gaze barely touched the page. This particular scene was when Viola suspected Olivia had a crush on Cesario—her male alter ego. It was also when she realized she was trapped in a love triangle. She liked Duke Orsino who liked Olivia who liked Cesario/Viola. What a fucking pickle. Imogen conveyed the essence of this pickle with a swooning sort of lamentation. It was funny, sad, and kind of perfect.
“O time! thou must untangle this, not I,” Imogen concluded. “It is too hard a knot for me to untie!”
Imogen finished with a skirtless curtsy in her pink jeans and sequined cable-knit sweater. Those of us who had a decent respect for humanity and genuine theatrical talent—meaning pretty much everyone but Jayden Hoxsie—applauded and cheered. Imogen smiled bashfully and retreated to her seat.
She tried to retreat, at least. Unfortunately, her curtsy did not unfold properly. The toe of one tennis shoe caught behind the other, and she biffed it, face-first. Her hair softly fell over her face like a burial shroud.
“Jesus Christ!” said Wynezra. She was already out of her seat, on her knees, helping Imogen up before any of us could swear properly. “Are you okay?”
Unlike me at Imogen’s last biffing, Wynezra was all hands aboard. Her hands found the right, appropriate places on Imogen’s shoulder and abdomen, pulling her up while she steadied herself on her hands and knees. When Imogen knelt upright, Wynezra brushed the hair out of her face. Particularly the matted lumps sticking to the blood between her nose and split upper lip.
I studied the art of Ezra Slevin being a hero to Imogen like a prophetic vision.
“Oh god,” said Wynezra. “We need to get you cleaned up. Here, let’s—”
By then, it seemed to sink into her head who she was and who she was not—aesthetically speaking.
“…let’s…” Wynezra stammered, “let Wynonna clean you up.” She sent me a “Get your ass over here” look, accompanied by a slight but demanding head gesture.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, nodding like a complete idiot.
I hurried over, then hesitated awkwardly, fumbling for the best way to help Imogen up. She made things easy for me—grabbing my shoulder, pulling me down, and draping herself over me like a mink scarf.
“Okay…” I said, hoisting her up. “Here we go. Easy. Watch your step.”
We staggered to the restroom. Halfway there, I heard a choking gasp. I looked at Imogen, her face obscured by curtains of sandy hair.
A series of tears had accumulated
at the bottom of her chin, then dropped to the floor.
When we made it into the restroom—a surprisingly clean, single-toilet deal—she braced herself on the sink. She turned on the faucet, cupping her hands beneath the steady stream. Splashed water in her face repeatedly, erasing the blood. Erasing the pain.
“Are you…okay?” I said.
Imogen gave a helpless shrug. “Are any of us ever really okay?”
“Uh…”
“It’s like Hamlet said: To be alive is to be in a state of dying. That’s just the human condition.”
“Um…” I said.
C’mon, Ezra. Words!
“I’m pretty sure the human condition is more than just dying,” I said. “Like, there’s gotta be at least one whole section about living.”
Imogen laughed—a short, on-the-edge-of-tears sort of laugh. Her lips pulled into a frail smile. “What do you know about the human condition?”
“I know that I’m here for you.”
Imogen bit her lip.
“I know that if you’re carrying something,” I said, “you don’t have to carry it alone.”
Imogen let out a sharp, jagged breath, like a serrated blade. It seemed to take everything in her not to start crying again.
“It’s just…” she said, “I feel bad for Viola.”
“What? Viola? The character?”
I stared at her while she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“She’s trapped,” said Imogen. “She loves someone, but that person loves someone else, and even if he didn’t, she’s trapped in a role that prevents them from ever being together.”
“But they do end up together,” I said. “I mean…don’t they? They do in She’s the Man, so I just assumed they do in Twelfth Night.”
“I guess,” said Imogen. “But Viola doesn’t know that. Not yet.”
What the…Did this have to do with the mystery guy Wynonna said Imogen had a crush on?
Who was I kidding? Of course it did! Man, who the hell was this guy? And why was Wynonna so convinced they’d never get together?
“You know,” I said, “you don’t have to be someone else around me.”
Imogen pulled her gaze away from the mirror. Looked directly at me.
“I want to be best friends with the real Imogen Klutz,” I said. “Whoever that is. Not the fake Cesario version.”
Imogen sniffed. Dabbed her eyes with her sweater sleeve. Offered the first real smile I had seen all day.
“Thanks, Wynonna,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”
• •
When Imogen and I finally rejoined the circle, auditions were nearly finished. It was a fairly brief process because most of these kids didn’t give a shit. There were exceptions, though. Sebastian auditioned for the role of Sebastian—surprise, surprise—and he nailed it. Tucker was shockingly literate and took his audition seriously—despite auditioning for the role of Gandalf. (He read the lines of Sir Toby Belch, the crazy uncle.) And then there was Daisy, who proceeded to recite more words than I had heard her speak in a lifetime.
The Shyamalan-level plot twist of them all, however, was Jayden. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “the best male performance”—honestly, that probably (bafflingly) went to Tucker—but he was good. Really good. And even weirder, he wasn’t a total douche about it.
Holden was next—he volunteered to go before Wynezra—and performed his role with a sort of cultish fervor he usually reserved for worshipping the hacktivist group Anonymous. This was weird especially because he was auditioning for either Curio or Valentine, which were non-roles. However, they were also Duke Orsino’s servants and basically his best bros. Holden was clearly trying to be in a role close to me.
Little did he know, Wynonna was going to fuck things up catastrophically.
“Very good, very good,” said Ziggy, clapping. “All righty, Ezra. You’re next.”
Wynezra stood up, winked at me, and strutted up the stairs to the center of the stage. Then she extended her long, ropy arms like she was pinned to a clothesline. Her face became brazenly emotionless as she stared straight ahead.
And said nothing.
“Uh…” said Ziggy. He glanced precariously at an open folder in his hands, purportedly outlining the cast of characters. “And you’re auditioning as…”
Wynezra leaned slightly toward Ziggy but otherwise remained stiff and lifeless.
“I’m a tree,” she whispered.
The entire theater fell apart with laughter. Literally everyone joined in—even Jayden, who should have hated the bold, new Ezra Slevin at this point.
Everyone except Holden and me—two best friends who were sitting right next to each other, and yet light-years apart.
All because of this clown masquerading in my body.
Wynonna fucking Jones, you are going down.
“A tree?” said Ziggy.
“Or a billboard,” said Wynezra. “Did they have billboards back then? Really, I’m flexible in the inanimate object department.”
“Suit yourself, amigo,” said Ziggy. He clucked his tongue with disappointment and checked something off in his folder. “Wynonna, you’re up.”
I took a deep breath. Stood up. Ascended the stairs and stepped onto the center of the stage.
I did not bring my script with me.
“What role are you auditioning for?” said Ziggy.
“Duke Orsino,” I said flatly.
I noticed Imogen’s mouth fall open. I noticed Wynezra drop her head in her hands. I even noticed Holden, wide-eyed, as he seemed to study the very fabric of reality around him. Surely, there was a tear in the multiverse that had sucked him into this alternate dimension.
Before I could notice another thing, I closed my eyes, cleared my throat, and said:
“But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she…”
I barely had to think the words. They just…came out of me. Like they had always been there. A part of the bedrock of my very being. In the window of my mind, I saw nine-year-old Imogen standing on the balcony of a cardboard castle tower. (Technically, she was standing on a small ladder. The magic of the moment, however, made that cardboard castle real.) Meanwhile, I—nine-year-old Ezra Slevin—stood off to the side, hiding behind cardboard shrubbery, lost in a character who was lost in her eyes.
“She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.”
Imogen had yet to hit her Jack Skellington–level growth spurt. She was still swimming in baby fat, and she was beautiful. Her face was a perfect, da Vincian circle—rounder than the puff sleeves of her princess dress—eyes wandering dreamily across the lights of the stage. She pretended to prop two chubby elbows on the cardboard balcony railing and rested a cherubic cheek in her palm.
“See! how she leans her cheek upon her hand
O! that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!”
That was it.
I was done.
I opened my eyes—only to discover that the world had become a still frame. Wordless, breathless, frozen.
Finally, the dilation in the space-time continuum seemed to catch up with itself. Everyone shot up like the earthy shock wave of a meteor impact, exploding with applause. Even Jayden Hoxsie applauded, which was a conundrum of sorts. The notable exception was Wynezra, whose jaw appeared to be flying south for the winter.
And then there was Imogen. She was clapping, but she was also staring at me with complete perplexity. Like I was an alien.
Like I was someone she didn’t even know.
Ziggy didn’t waste a moment announcing the official roles. He vanished behind the mobile whiteboard and scribbled furiously with his purple dry-erase marker. It was d
uring this brief interval that—flash—Wynonna and I were back in our bodies.
Thank god. I wasn’t too keen on going home to a place that wasn’t my actual home.
“Oh man,” said Ziggy. “Oh man, oh man. Are you guys excited? Because I’m excited.”
The reactions were wide-ranging. Some groaned. Some laughed nervously. Others—like Imogen—took the phrase “edge of your seat” to a literal level. The amount of chair she actually sat on was molecular. Her arms and legs, meanwhile, were wound together like cinnamon twists.
Ziggy grabbed the whiteboard by one side and turned it. At the very top, like the foreshadowing of a Shakespearean tragedy, were two words:
Viola: Wynonna.
long moment to pull my gaze away from those two names, and the colon that separated them. That joined them. I scraped my eyes downward, and the sound they made in my head was a fingernails-on-chalkboard sort of sensation.
Duke Orsino: Holden
Olivia: Imogen
Sebastian: Sebastian
Malvolio: Willow
Maria: Daisy
Sir Toby Belch: Jayden
Sir Andrew Aguecheek: Patrick
Feste: Tucker
Fabian: Thad
There were eighteen roles total, and I had to drag my gaze down all eighteen of them—like I was dragging my face across a grocery aisle strewn with broken glass—until I came across my name at the very bottom.
Servant: Ezra
I was a nameless role.
Considering Wynonna auditioned for the role of a tree, I should have counted myself blessed. Or—agnostically speaking—lucky. Or—scientifically speaking—the axiomatic mathematical outcome of probability theory. Who was I to say? All I knew was that the Flying Spaghetti Monster hadn’t done shit for me lately.
I glanced at Wynonna, expecting her to protest. Surely, now that she was herself, she would drop out of the role. And if Ziggy wouldn’t let her, then she would drop out of theater.
Where I End and You Begin Page 11
