by Disney Books
And that’s when I started realizing that I had feelings for her—that I liked her liked her. It took a while for me to realize she felt the same way. Except now she doesn’t feel that anymore, and it’s totally my fault.
That’s how I ended up spending Thanks-giving night at Ashlyn’s house. I auditioned for the musical so I could be around Nini. And somehow, I actually got the lead.
Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s a good thing. So there I was, playing High School Musical: The Choosical. And me and E.J. doing the Sharpay–Ryan warm-up thing was totally awkward. But at the same time hilarious, right? And if I think about it, if I’m honest with myself, I’m into being in the play. I like being a theater kid. I’m glad Big Red and I found our way here.
You gotta admit it’s a pretty great crew. Carlos, Ashlyn, Seb, and Gina, too. When Gina first arrived in Salt Lake City, she seemed pretty intense. But tonight, before the party, she told me how she has been dealing with having to move from place to place with her mom all the time. She said sometimes you have to do what makes you feel happy, for yourself. I guess I’m saying she really came through for me tonight, which I’m starting to realize is typical for theater kids. This is a loyal bunch!
Ashlyn is seriously one of my favorite people. Her song “Wondering,” the one she wrote for our production of HSM, is probably the best ballad in the show. She’s got major talent. And she’s really easy to talk to, especially about music and goals and stuff. Also, she throws a mean Thanksgiving after-party. At first we were friends just because of E.J., but now Ashlyn and I have our own thing going on.
At the party, we were in the kitchen, talking about songwriting. The thing is a lot of theater people mostly sing and dance to songs other people have written—unless you’re Lin-Manuel Miranda. But that’s a whole different level. In high school it’s mostly about performing other people’s work. But Ashlyn wants to be a professional songwriter someday, so she works at it all the time. What I love is that she has this dream and she’s going for it. I told her how much I admired that, how I’ve never been great at going after my dreams or, you know, thinking I’m good enough to go after them. Although it has definitely gotten better since I went to camp. I came home from camp a lot more confident. Like seriously a lot more.
A big part of it, I think, is I had never studied performing the way I studied math or English, really focusing on it in a serious way as a craft, working on technique, doing characterization homework, running scene studies. At camp, they called us students of performance, which helped me a lot to reframe how I think of theater: like it’s not just a hobby; it’s something I’m really serious about.
Our camp acting teacher, Mrs. Darlene, spent a lot of time on what she called the actor’s presence. Basically, she said, if you wrap yourself in too much of a cocoon when you’re performing onstage, you might as well be singing into a hairbrush in an empty room. You have to be a butterfly and carry your performance out into the theater, flying over every audience member. That’s a lot, I know. But it makes sense, at least to me. When I texted Kourtney about it, she wouldn’t stop calling me a butterfly for like a week. But it’s a pretty good metaphor. It’s way better than imagining the audience naked, which I never really got.
Then there was the camp vocal coach, whose name was Larz. I’m pretty sure that was his theater name, but whatever. He was all about vocal projection. He’d stand way in the back of the theater and try to hear us, while insisting on no shouting. His whole thing was that improving your stage voice wasn’t just about volume and breathing exercises—although we had to do a lot of those, too. We did a lot of tongue twisters and stuff to make sure we enunciated our words. In our cabin in the mornings, we used to compete in doing the Larz tongue twister exercises with a mouthful of toothpaste. Pilar was the queen at it.
“Projection comes from confidence, from believing in your own talent,” Larz said. “It’s almost like a reverse spotlight that starts from within you and shines out onto the audience.”
I know, now I’m supposed to be a spotlight and a butterfly, but I realized these instructors were right. It all starts with you believing in your own talent. And if I was ever going to get past the chorus, I had to start believing I deserved to!
And yeah, it helped that E.J. believed in my talent, too. It gave me that extra boost of confidence. And, um, I guess it wasn’t even just his believing in my talent…it was like he believed in me, as a person. Does that make sense? He wanted to hear what I had to say, and encouraged me to lead more when we were in a group.
Anyway, we were growing really close, me and E.J. We had classes and rehearsals together. Then we’d run our lines and staging on our own. Mrs. Darlene said that feeling comfortable onstage came from not being nervous about your lines or the choreography, that if you practiced to the point where you had no doubt about those details, you were free to just perform, let your talent take over.
So E.J. and I had this whole camp routine. We’d go to classes and then spend our free time rehearsing together. We’d eat dinner together in the mess hall, too, sometimes joined by my cabinmates. And then he’d walk me back to my cabin. One night, when he was walking me back, he grabbed my hand. We stopped by the lake. It looked so much different at night than during our daytime open swims, when it was packed with people playing Marco Polo and lifeguards whistling for buddy checks. At night, it was calm and really beautiful. So yeah, it’s a little cliché, but E.J. leaned in and kissed me. As soon as he did, I got all tingly. It was like a surge of electricity through my whole body. At least, that’s how I described it to Kourtney when I texted her after lights-out.
After that night, E.J. and I were a couple. There wasn’t some awkward status talk or anything. It just happened. We were together. We were having a show-mance.
Dude, there’s no one like Big Red. He’s beyond loyal and always there for me. So no, I wasn’t surprised when he followed me into Ashlyn’s kitchen after Gina left the party. She found out her and her mom are moving again, and she was pretty upset. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she shut me down. Big Red sensed that I was upset, too, so he came to check on me. I get it. Do I wish I could tell him everything was okay? Yes. Is everything okay? No, not really.
Big Red and I had big plans for junior year. We couldn’t wait for our first day as upperclassmen. It was gonna be our year.
I remember us hanging out in his basement the week before school started, talking about how we were finally going to almost rule the school this year. Big Red joked that he was going to grow a mustache—which he didn’t. Mostly because he can’t. But his attitude was going to be all mustache, know what I mean?
I suppose his attitude still is. I mean, he’s killing it on crew. Who knew? And no, he hasn’t exactly told me he’s crushing on Ashlyn, but I know he is. He did volunteer to go over there today and help her set up, and I’ve known Big Red for a long time: he is not the “arrive early to help” kind of guy. He’s more the “stay home and play video games and then bail on the party altogether” type. So Big Red going to Ashlyn’s early, that’s good, right? Maybe he’s about to start an epic junior-year romance. That would be cool!
But me? I thought junior year was going to be me and Nini—together. Hanging out, grabbing pizza, going to the movies, going to Homecoming, you know? Couples stuff. Because I thought we were going to be a couple. I thought we were good. We took a pause while she was at camp, and then I thought we’d pick things up where we left off once she got back.
A few days before Nini was supposed to come home, I saw that Kourtney had posted something about how proud she was of Nini for getting a great part in her camp’s production of The Music Man.
I figured it would be the perfect time for me and Nini to hit un-pause if I went to see her perform. So I texted her to see how rehearsals were going and also to let her know I wanted to come up and see the play.
Well, actually, no, all I texted Nini was “Hi.” But my plan was to tell her everything once she wrote back. I
was going to admit that I’d made a big mistake, that I really missed her, and that I wanted to see her show and support her, because she’s amazing.
But I never got to write all that, because she never texted me back. I told myself that she might not have gotten my text, that the cell reception up at the lake was probably really bad. And even if it wasn’t bad, she was probably really busy with rehearsals and didn’t have time to text back. Or maybe they weren’t even allowed to have phones at rehearsals because the camp took their theater stuff so seriously. Whatever the reason, she didn’t write back, so I didn’t go see her show, which sucked, because I realized I really wanted to see her show. I wanted to see Nini. I wanted to give her flowers and tell her how fantastic she was up there and have her smile at me when she saw me—that smile that made me feel like we were a team.
I should have told her I loved her that night. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’d overheard my folks the week before when my mom was packing for some sales conference in Chicago. My dad asked her not to go. He didn’t say, “Stay here and let’s work on our relationship. I love you, and I know you love me.” That’s not something my parents ever say to each other. Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time expressing my feelings. I should have told Nini why I couldn’t say it and why I froze when she showed me her Instagram post.
When Nini announced she loved me for basically the whole world to see, I panicked. I freaked out. I hit pause. Okay fine, did I break her heart? Possibly. Did I do the wrong thing? Definitely.
But waiting for her to text me back that day, checking my phone every hour to see if I missed a call or something from her, I knew I had to do something to win her back. I was determined to make things right.
And then she came back from camp with a new boyfriend. Look, I know, I messed up. Big-time. And even though I thought being in the musical would help us get back together, we’re still not a thing. But I know I want to be. I want our show to be a hit. I want to deliver a Troy performance that’s worthy of Nini’s Gabriella. And yeah, I want the show-mance.
I was already having an incredible summer before our camp performance of The Music Man. The show was coming together in rehearsals, my cabin was on the winning team for camp-wide color wars, and the best thing was that I could feel myself becoming a better performer. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I felt more confident onstage than ever before—like I had a right to be there, like I deserved to be there. I don’t know if it was all the theater classes or my giddiness about being in a new relationship with a boyfriend who was always telling me I was talented and I just needed to believe in myself. Whatever it was, I felt like I was becoming better at all this. That’s why I went to camp in the first place, right?
One other thing that I think made a difference was that there were all these younger kids at camp. And they looked up to the high school kids a lot. At East High, I was so used to being an underclassman and looking up to juniors and seniors. But at theater camp, the younger campers asked the older campers for help with everything—from sorting laundry to memorizing lines. One day Jade and I were in the dance studio, getting in some extra rehearsal time, and these three middle school girls came in and watched us in awe. Then they asked if we’d work with them on their numbers for their show. And then it became a regular thing: us mentoring them, helping them rehearse. And I guess at some point, I saw myself through their eyes.
Before I knew it, we were in tech week. And I know I’m biased, but our show was looking incredible. E.J. was mesmerizing as Harold Hill. Emily was nailing her role as Marian the librarian. And me, well, I couldn’t wait to get onstage as the mayor’s wife. Mrs. Darlene really helped me with my timing to add some comedic bits into my scenes, and they were getting bigger and bigger laughs with each rehearsal. Hearing people laugh like that, I started feeding off that energy and putting it back into my performance. One night, after our last dress rehearsal, E.J. called me a showstopper. I guess I’d found my stage presence. And me and E.J.? We couldn’t have been better. He was, like, the perfect boyfriend.
Okay, so the day of the show was a blur. We were counting down until curtain, and you could feel the buzz running through camp. After breakfast, E.J. and I took a stroll down to our spot near the lake. The good thing was, while other camp couples were trying to figure out if they should keep dating long-distance once camp ended, E.J. and I didn’t have to worry. We knew we’d be together back at East High. We didn’t have to think about our limited time left at camp together. We could just focus on opening night.
I admitted to E.J. that I thought I’d be more nervous, since it was my first time having a bigger role in a real production. I wasn’t nervous at all. I was excited to go on. I was ready. He smiled and put his arm around me and told me I was a star. Then he grabbed my hand, and we walked to the mess hall together for lunch.
I knew something was up when I was walking back to my cabin after lunch and saw Emily sitting by the lake crying. It was a little hard to understand her through her tears, but she told me she had stomach flu something awful. I helped her up and took her to the infirmary. The camp nurse said Emily was too sick to perform. She couldn’t go on that night.
That meant as her understudy, I had to go on in her place. So, uh, yeah, that happened.
Then came a flurry of “the show must go on” activity. There were last-minute adjustments to all the Marian costumes, since I was shorter than Emily. Larz reviewed all the Marian songs with me, and Mrs. Darlene took E.J. and me through a speed rehearsal of our blocking. There was hair, makeup, and mic checks. Right before the curtain went up, when places had been called and we were waiting backstage, I definitely had butterflies in my stomach.
“You got this,” E.J. said, looking me in the eyes and taking my hands in his.
“I know,” I said, which surprised me a little. But I did know. Something inside me knew that I could do it.
“That’s my leading lady,” E.J. said as he kissed my forehead. “Break a leg.”
And then the orchestra played the first few notes of the overture.
There are basically no words to describe what I felt onstage that night playing Marian the librarian. It was magical and energizing, and…I don’t know…it just felt right, like everything aligned. I knew right then that was where I was meant to be—up on the stage. To use Mrs. Darlene’s lame metaphor, if I was a butterfly, I flew circles around that audience. I reached people in the very last row. I felt connected to them. Does that make sense?
Oh, and it turned out E.J. and I clicked as well onstage as we did off. We’d rehearsed so much together that our scenes felt natural. And we nailed our duets. The crowd actually gave us a standing ovation during curtain call. So yes, standing up on that stage in the spotlight, I’d never felt so confident before in my life.
After the show, E.J. twirled me around in his arms, shouting, “Yes! I knew you could do it.”
“That was amazing!” I said.
Then I ran to find my moms and my grandma. I hadn’t even had a chance to text them about going on as the understudy; they were so proud. Later, when I texted Kourt, she said she’d always known I was leading-lady material and was glad I finally recognized it, too.
The girl who had gone to camp that first day, who’d spent hours crying over Ricky, was a completely different Nini. The new Nini? The post-theater-camp Nini has her head in the game.
When I auditioned for East High’s production of High School Musical, everything felt different. I was nervous. Even E.J. pointed out that I was speaking with a vague British accent, which I guess is something I do when I’m a little freaked out. But I told Miss Jenn that I was auditioning for the lead. And I wasn’t thrown when I had to sing in the dark or even when Ricky showed up out of nowhere. I didn’t let Gina get in my head. And I did it! I got cast as Gabriella.
And, well, here we are. We’re opening the show in a few weeks. Am I nervous? A little. Excited? Definitely. Confident? You bet. Especially when I looked around the Thanksgiving party
tonight. We have the best cast and crew—Ashlyn, Carlos, Seb, Ricky, Gina, E.J., Big Red. Like the song says, we’re all in this together. So, um, yeah, I guess that’s what I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving.
I paced around my house and then I checked my phone. E.J. was late. Where was he? This was my first homecoming dance and I didn’t want to miss anything.
“Gina, one more,” my mom begged, taking a couple of pictures with her phone. “You look fantastic.” She beamed at me. “That dress is just perfect!”
“Mom,” I said, rolling my eyes. I tugged at my new sequined dress. I had gotten new shoes and a bag, too. I flashed my mom a smile.
“And maybe one more by the fireplace?” my mom asked.
“Enough,” I told her. My mom had already taken a dozen photos. “When E.J. gets here, we don’t have time for more photos,” I said. “We’re late.” I checked my phone again. “We really need to get to the dance.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen once we got to homecoming. I just knew Nini would not be happy about seeing me with her ex-boyfriend E. J. Caswell. Sure, it took guts for me, a sophomore transfer student, to ask the senior water polo star and class treasurer to the homecoming dance, but it was all part of my plan. Something had to be done about E.J. and me being understudies. Sure, we could be wonderstudies, but we were better than that. We both wanted to be the leads in East High’s High School Musical.
A car pulled up in front of the house and I saw E.J. He honked the horn. I grabbed my purse. “Bye, Mom!” I shouted as I headed out the door.
“Have fun!” my mom called.
I smiled. Fun wasn’t at the top of my agenda for the night.
