Understudy

by Cheyanne Young

  I decide to bring up the auditions in a passive aggressive way. “Hey Mom, I auditioned for Aunt Barlow’s play yesterday.”

  Mom slices a sandwich in half and slides it into a reusable fabric wrap. “Oh yeah?” she says. “I thought you didn’t want to be an actress.”

  Aunt Barlow glances up at me for half a nano second. I seize my opportunity. “I don’t want to be in movies, no. But I’d hate to miss out on being in a school play. It’s something everyone should do once, you know?”

  Mom nods, although I know she doesn’t agree. She puts Dad’s lunch kit on the counter by the back door. “I’m sure you’ll be great,” she says. “Let’s hope Sophie finds a part for you.”

  “No worries,” my aunt says as she fills in an answer on the newspaper’s crossword puzzle. “Wren has a part.”

  I raise my eyebrows. She continues, “An important part.”

  My whole body relaxes. Mom smiles and nods to herself. I knew I had nothing to worry about. Monday at school will be like that one Christmas morning all over again.

  Aunt Barlow announces to our first period class that the cast list will be posted on the wall outside of her classroom by the end of the school day. I go out of my way after each class in hopes that I’ll find the list up on the wall. But of course, in true dramatic fashion, she makes us wait until after last period.

  My last class is on the total opposite side of the school, across the parking lot in one of those portable buildings because our small school is growing rapidly and the district hasn’t yet received funding to build another wing onto the school.

  The whole school is empty by the time I get to room 314 except for a handful of hopefuls who auditioned last Friday. Margot appears out of nowhere and grabs my elbow with her slender but shockingly strong fingers. “Your aunt is such a jerk,” she whispers into my ear. Her breath smells like the mojito gum she chews on a regular basis. I stop short of the list, not that I can see it right now anyway since so many students are in front of it, and turn to her.

  “What do you mean?” Margot knows that I auditioned, but I didn’t exactly tell her for what part. And I may have also wished her luck for getting the role of Gretchen. So if she’s seen my name on the list instead of hers, she won’t think I tried to sabotage her. She’ll think my aunt did.

  “You’ll see,” she says, nodding toward the list. “I got a minor role.” She says minor like the word is dirty. “I don’t even know if I want to be the damn play with a minor role.” She flattens her hands over her zip up hoodie, which is so tight it might as well be a wetsuit, and darts her eyes down the hallway before looking back at me. With big blue eyes and silky auburn hair, Margot is pretty much beautiful in every way, but that eye-darting thing is her biggest flaw. I call it boy-scoping.

  Anytime we’re in public and there’s an opportune time for Margot to be sexy/cute/witty/basically anything that will draw the attention of a boy, she does it and tries to make it casual. But the one thing that gives her away is the how her eyes will dart left and right, ever-so-quickly hoping to find someone staring at her. Like just now, when she moved her hands over her hoodie, making sure to push out her boobs so they fit perfectly over the half-zipped opening on her chest. I’m sure any guy who saw her do that would get an instant boner. And that’s why she boy-scoped.

  “Well if I actually got a role, then we’ll be minor characters together,” I say, giving her a sympathetic smile. Minor character my ass. I’m totally Gretchen. She scoffs and pushes my back, shoving me toward the list. “See for yourself.”

  Some girls from the marching band move out of our way as I lean in to check the list. It’s three sheets of paper and they all have Ms. Barlow’s signature at the bottom with a note reminding everyone to remember that it’s not how big your part is, but how well you play it.

  My eyes focus on the list and all the noise around me morphs into background static. At the top of the list is the character of Jeremy. He’s played by Ricky Silvas. I have no idea who that is, but I hope he’s hot since I’ll be kissing him on stage. Under that is Gretchen, followed by about a million dots, which my eyes follow to the right of the page for my name.

  Only it’s not my name. It’s Gwen Summers.

  Gwen Summers, the girl who was kicked off the cheerleading squad for smoking pot behind the bleachers her sophomore year. Gwen, who eats whatever she wants and still weighs less than a cell phone, despite being really tall. I groan in disgust. Five-foot-ten, one hundred and five pounds. Of course Ms. Barlow picked Gwen.

  Margot wraps her arm around my shoulder as we stare at the same spot on the list. “I know, right?” she says when I groan. “I worked really hard memorizing my lines and I thought I did great but she said something about me being too short.” She points about halfway down the first page to her where her name is printed for the role of Mary, the shy but super smart friend of Gretchen. “This is so insulting,” she says.

  The hallway is clear now, except for the two of us. I scan the list. I’m not on the first page. I’m not on the second page either. “Did I even get a role?” I ask.

  Margot shrugs and examines her nail polish. “Oh I don’t know, I didn’t look.”

  I try the third page. The “last, but not least” list. The “you suck, but thanks for trying” list. And I find my name. Twice.

  Prop Construction Manager … Wren Barlow

  Gretchen’s Understudy … Wren Barlow

  “Understudy.” I sigh. “That’s a million times worse than not getting a role at all.”

  “You never know,” Margot says. “A gust of wind could knock Gwen down the sewer or something. She’s fragile.”

  I laugh at the image, but it quickly fades when I see my main role again. “Prop construction manager? What the crap is that?” I pound my fist against the concrete wall. Aunt Barlow steps out from her classroom, her arms folded across her chest. Oh, god, she heard me.

  “Prop construction manager is the most important role in the entire play,” she says, her eyes narrowing straight through to my soul. Margot steps back. “You’ll be in charge of creating all the sets and delegating set work to the rest of the stagehands.”

  “Stagehands?” I put my hands on my hips. She might as well have said janitor who specializes in cleaning animal poop.

  Aunt Barlow nods. “You love wood shop, so you’re perfect for the part.” She turns to Margot. “Your audition was great, dear. I think you’ll make a fine Mary. I actually thought of you when I wrote the part.”

  This makes Margot perk up. “Really?” She puts her hand to her chest. “Thank you, Ms. Barlow. When do we get our scripts? I want to start practicing right away.”

  Ms. Barlow steps in her class and reaches inside a box with a Kinkos logo on it, grabbing two newly bound copies of her script. “Here you go, ladies.” Margot beams as she holds her copy close to her chest. “This is so exciting!” she squeals before she tells me bye, kissing me on each cheek like a true actress.

  The air thickens as soon as I’m alone with my aunt in the hallway. Her six foot frame seems a foot taller as she stares at me. “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  She peers at me over the top of her purple cat eye glasses. “I was in the teacher’s lounge earlier.”

  I swallow. She’s going to make me press for information, so I might as well get it over with. “Okay?”

  “You’re one of the ten finalists for the scholarship at the Art Institute.”

  “Why are you saying that like I’m in trouble?” I ask. Ever since two years ago when I got mono over Christmas break and spent the entire three weeks watching HGTV home remodeling shows, I’ve wanted to go to college for interior decorating. And the Art Institute of Lawson is the best college around, but my parents can’t afford it without this scholarship.

  Ms. Barlow gives a melodramatic sigh. She walks around her classroom, dragging her fingers over desktops ask she goes. She stops at a framed photo of her performing on Broadway. “I’m proud of you for following your d
reams, Wren. I had dreams too, when I was your age.” She looks at me. “And I followed them. And I succeeded, to an extent.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just stand here. She runs her fingers through her cropped hair, leaving the bright orange tips all spiky. “You needed recommendations for this scholarship, I assume?”

  I nod. Shit, I think I know where she’s going with this. She purses her lips. “How many?”

  “Four,” I say. “One from the principal and three from… teachers.”

  She takes off her glasses and sets them on her desk. Rubs the skin above her nose like she has a killer migraine. “Imagine how I felt when I was eating my tuna sandwich in the teacher’s lounge and I overheard three teachers talking about your recommendation letter.”

  “They were talking about me?” My ears burn as I picture my math, science and English teacher discussing my performance as a student. “What did they say?”

  “That’s confidential.” With her glasses still off, she sits on the corner of her desk and places her hands in her lap. The fine lines around her mouth form a frown, but I’m not really buying it. She’s an actress, after all.

  “I couldn’t believe that my own niece didn’t ask me for a recommendation letter. I sat for the rest of my lunch, wondering what I could have done, both as an aunt and educator, to deserve such treatment.”

  “Aunt Barlow,” I object. “It’s not like that at all. I didn’t think the college would like me getting a letter from my own relative. It would be like cheating.”

  “Or perhaps, you don’t feel that my class is of the same caliber as English and science. Sure, math is an excellent class to have a recommendation in, but English? Surely, theater is as important as English.” She takes a long breath and mutters to herself, “What would Shakespeare say, I wonder?”

  “Is this why you gave me a crappy role? Because you think I stiffed you?” I slam my script on the desk in front of me. “This is so not fair, and you know it.”

  Someone knocks on the door. “Come in!” Ms. Barlow says, as cheerful as if we had just been in here discussing large sums of free money. She rushes to the door with a warm friendly smile on her face. I grab my script, fold it in half and shove it in my back pocket. My hands are shaking as I mentally replay the conversation we just had. She’s the adult in this situation, and she’s acting like a child.

  I got stuck with a stupid stagehand role, and apparently it’s my fault because, god forbid, I want to get into a good college so I didn’t ask my family member for a letter of recommendation?

  She can take her Prop Construction Manager role and shove it down her drama queen throat, for all I care. I grab my backpack off the floor and turn to leave, but stop short when I see who’s in the doorway.

  “Wren, say hello to one of the stagehands who will be helping you build sets. I hear he’s very talented in shop class, just like you. Principal Walsh recommended that I bring him on board.” She puts her arm on his shoulder. “What was your name again, dear?”

  “Derek,” he says, giving me a nod.

  Okay. So maybe the Prop Construction Manager won’t be so bad after all.

  Margot and I have an unspoken best friend code when it comes to dating hot guys: She who sees him first, gets to date him first. The good news is that Margot hasn’t mentioned any new guys at school lately, so that means I’ve seen him first. The bad news is that she is way prettier than I am. Actually, that’s just the neutral news. The bad news is that Margot is currently single.

  At lunch, Margot picks on her garden salad while I think of an organic way to bring up Derek and stake my claim on him. All the seniors have the same lunch period but it isn’t hard finding him in the crowd. Because he’s sitting alone in one of the corner tables made for two people. His sexy level goes up by a million points when I see that he’s reading a book instead of a magazine with a half-naked babe on the cover.

  “That must be a new guy,” I say causally, poking my fork in Derek’s direction. “He’s cute.” Mission complete. With those two words, I have unofficial dibs on him.

  Margot’s head jerks up when I mention new man flesh, and she scans the room. “Where?”

  “The guy with the long hair.”

  “Oh my god,” she narrows her eyes at me. “You mean that psycho? Derek Hayes?”

  “What do you mean psycho?”

  Her mouth falls open. “Don’t you remember? He was new at the beginning of the school year and then he went to juvi for the last however many months it’s been.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same guy?” My heart sinks. Derek doesn’t seem like a criminal.

  “Yeah, I think he almost killed a teacher,” she says with a shrug. “Or maybe it was drugs or something.”

  I rest my head in my hands. Almost killing someone isn’t exactly my idea of romantic boyfriend material. “That blows. He looks hot from here.”

  Margot makes a gagging sound. “Don’t be gross, Wren. He’s a criminal.”

  The rest of the day goes entirely too fast and before I know it I’m leaving last period and heading to the auditorium for Rehearsal Orientation. Only my aunt would have a rehearsal for a rehearsal.

  I dig my cell phone out of the side pocket in my backpack and flip it from silent to vibrate, since school is officially out so I can’t get in trouble for having it. I have six new text messages, all from Margot:

  2:42 p.m. So Ricky let it slip that he thinks Gwen is hot! WTF DUDE.

  2:42 p.m. I banned him from the auditorium.

  2:43 p.m. She’s not even that hot, you know? Skinny, yes. Skanky? Yes. Hot? No.

  2:45 p.m. WhereTF are u? WRENNNN

  2:46 p.m. WRENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN it’s orientation and ur going to be late

  2:50 p.m. Hurry up, slut. This play won’t prop manage itself.

  I take a left and start typing out a reply asking who the hell is Ricky. I’m aware of the squeaking hinges of a classroom door swinging open, but it doesn’t faze me until I walk straight into it. My face smashes into the hard wood and my cell phone tumbles to the floor.

  “Shit, Wren are you okay?” someone asks. Sharp pain sears through my forehead and tears fill my eyes, but it’s nothing compared to how freaking mortified I am. I just walked into a door. Who does that?

  With my eyes closed, I rub my forehead. My cheeks are warm to the touch and probably scarlet freaking red.

  “I think your phone will be okay.” I recognize the soft spoken voice as Maggie from AP English… and every English class I’ve had since fifth grade. “Thanks,” I say, opening my eyes and taking my phone from her outstretched hand. The pink case popped off when it hit the floor but at least the screen didn’t shatter.

  Maggie’s face is as red as mine must be and she’s wearing those thick red framed glasses that I’ve only seen in her Facebook photos. She posts tons of photos a day, and they’re all of just her face, usually taken from holding the camera up real high. Margot likes to make fun of her behind her back, saying that only fat girls post photos of just their heads. Margot can be a real bitch sometimes. She demanded that I take down this one photo of my own head that I thought was really cute. She said people would see it and assume I’m fat. Like I even care about someone’s instant judgment of me.

  “I’m really sorry,” Maggie says, shifting on her feet. “I hope your case isn’t broken.”

  “Not your fault.” I turn my phone over, checking for scratches but my Hello Kitty protective case has done a fine job. “I’m the idiot who wasn’t paying attention.”

  She laughs nervously. “Are you trying out for mathletes?”

  “What?”

  “Guess not. Try outs are today. I mean why else would you still be here after school?”

  “It’s the first day of play rehearsal,” I say, still wondering why she’d think I would be dorky enough to try out for a club of math-obsessed geeks. I’m not even that good at math.

  “I auditioned for that,” she says. “I wanted to be the main character but
Ms. Barlow said I was too fat.” She gives a disdainful scowl toward her gut and shrugs. “Oh well.”

  “If it helps, she also said I was too fat.”

  She lifts an eyebrow, squishes her lips to the side and appraises me with a smile. “That does help. Cool phone cover, by the way.” She takes out her cell phone and shows me her Hello Kitty case that’s the same as mine. I would have never pegged her for a Hello Kitty girl, since she plays sports and loves math and all.

  I leave her to her mathletes try out and head to the auditorium. Members of the cast and stage crew hang out on stage and in the front row seats. I can’t find Margot or my aunt in the crowd so I chill on the edge of the stage waiting for some kind of direction. I also don’t see Derek, but I don’t look for him.

  I feel so stupid for being all flirty and smiling like an idiot around Derek the two times I had seen him. He’s a criminal. He spent half the school year in juvenile detention, which is basically prison for teens. He’s just a loser with an anger problem who will probably end up in real prison one day. How could I have been so stupid?

  And why does he have to be so hot?

  Margot’s voice filters in from backstage, and you don’t have to be her best friend to know she’s angry. A few students jump at her sudden shriek and one girl says, “Is Margot ever not bitching about something?” Laughter fills the auditorium. I get up and walk across the stage, pushing my hands through layers of thick velvety curtains to find my way backstage. It smells like old wood and an antique store back here.

  Ms. Barlow stands next to a set of ropes and pulleys, clipboard in her hand and classic annoyed look on her face. Margot jumps when she hears my footsteps but then relaxes when she sees it’s just me. “He’s a loser,” she says to my aunt. “You can’t let him be in the play. It has to be against the law or something.”

  “He’s served his detention away from school and how he has to get fifty hours of volunteer work at school.” Ms. Barlow shakes her head. “Take it up with the principal. It’s out of my hands.”