The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

by Robin Talley

  “We just think it’s a possibility.” Fatima holds out her hands palms up. She’s still holding the wrench. “It’s a theory worth testing. Especially with the musical coming up.”

  “It’s a theory that makes no sense at all.” Dom finally comes over to join the rest of us, sitting down on the stage and sighing. At least someone’s speaking up for me. “We already start a new superstition for every show, and we’ve been following them. Ever since she got named SM, Mel’s made everyone who broke a rule do a countercurse within seconds and things still go wrong.”

  “So this should be the new superstition for the musical, then. If it doesn’t work, it’ll prove we were wrong.” Jasmin shrugs. She sounds so reasonable I can barely think of a way to argue. “If Mel stays single until the cast party and the show still has a million problems, we’ll know it doesn’t matter if she’s with someone or not. But if it works . . .”

  “Then what, we force our stage manager to take a vow of chastity until she graduates?” Dom shakes his head. “How would you like to live under that rule?”

  “We’re not the ones whose relationship drama messed up a performance.” Jasmin glances over at Gabby, as if she’s looking for backup. Gabby turns to me, her lips pressed together uncertainly.

  “Okay, but Mel is, like, this school’s patron saint of serial monogamy.” Dom holds out his hands and ignores the other crew members’ chuckles, even though it’s clear from the way he’s smirking that he’s proud of that witticism. Though I’m not sure how I feel about that title. “She likes going out with people. Which, let’s be honest, is true for most of us. This doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Well,” I start in, “it’s not like I have to be dating someone in order to survive.”

  Jasmin gives me a pleading look, the beads in her box braids clicking together as she shakes her head. “I know. Mel, I’m sorry, it’s really nothing personal. It’s just—the musical could be a disaster if we don’t take drastic measures.”

  I nod. I get it. I know Jasmin well enough to know she wouldn’t do this if she didn’t think it was important.

  “We agonized about whether to even bring this up.” Fatima sits forward anxiously, laying her hand on my forearm.

  They’re sincere, that much is evident. They really do think my love life has been screwing us over.

  I don’t know . . . maybe they’re right. My relationships during shows have a definite tendency toward drama. This is the first time I’ve broken up with someone during an actual performance, but it was bound to happen sooner or later.

  Besides, after what happened with Rachel, I’m willing to try anything. And it’s not as if I want to date anyone—I’m brokenhearted. Plus, if our theater really is cursed, maybe this will solve it. Who knows?

  I’d do anything to make the spring musical go perfectly. It’s my junior year, the time when colleges pay the most attention to your extracurricular record, and pulling off a stellar musical would be huge for me. For the rest of the crew, too.

  “Wait a second.” Gabby raises her hand. “I don’t get how this works. Is it just that Mel’s not allowed to date anyone? What if she only hooks up with somebody one time? How particular is this rule, exactly?”

  Estaban laughs, and some of the freshmen and sophomores do, too, but I can’t help smiling at Gabby’s thoroughness. It’s exactly the kind of question a good stage manager should ask.

  “Valid point,” I say. “Are we playing by Disney rules here? Is a kiss enough to activate the curse?”

  “Only if it’s the kiss of true love.” Shannon makes her voice high-pitched and squeaky from center stage, where she’s unscrewing the legs from a prop chair. “Is that from Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?”

  “Shrek, actually, I think.” I smile at her, and the others laugh. “But yeah, it would probably have to be something more intense to get a curse’s attention.”

  “Something like falling in love.” Jasmin nods. “That seems logical. You can flirt with people or whatever, but no getting in deep.”

  “Until the musical closes,” Fatima adds. “So for now, just, you know . . .”

  “Keep it in your pants?” Estaban suggests, and everyone laughs again.

  “No problem.” I smile. If I act like I’m entertained by this whole thing, maybe it’ll start to seem funny. Maybe I’ll forget that I was deeply in love until three days ago. “Once the musical starts, I won’t have time for love anyway.”

  “Give yourself a little more credit, Mel.” Shannon laughs. “You fall in love more easily than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Ha,” I say, because the others are laughing.

  But . . . is that true?

  I shrug it off. It doesn’t matter now. Besides, the others are starting to nod along. Even the junior crew members who’d been quiet until now.

  I guess that means they all believe it, and once the whole crew believes something, it has to be true, or the glue that holds us together as a team will fall apart.

  All right. So be it. If I fall in love, the musical’s doomed.

  “Mel?” Jasmin points to the phone sticking out of my pocket. “Will you put the new superstition on the shared drive?”

  I nod, slowly. “Yeah. As soon as Ms. Marcus announces what the musical is. But, um . . . I’d just as soon not tell the actors, if that’s okay.”

  Everyone nods immediately.

  “Hell, no,” Jasmin says. “The last thing we need is them getting another excuse to think every problem is the crew’s fault. We’ll come up with a decoy superstition for them.”

  Dom raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure about this, Mel? You don’t have to—”

  I nod. A good leader is decisive, and a good leader listens to her team.

  Besides, my heart is currently shattered in a million pieces. There’s no way I could put it back together in time to fall in love before the musical opens.

  Dom sighs, then glances at his watch. “Okay. Should we go clean out the booth while we’re waiting for the cast?”

  And not have all these eyes on me anymore? Heck yeah.

  I stand up. “Let’s go.”

  Beaconville Theater History

  Stored on BHS performing arts department shared drive

  Created by: Billy Yang, stage manager, class of 2007

  Viewable to: All cast, crew, and directors

  Editable by: Current SM ONLY

  New Beaconville High School Performing Arts Wing to Open

  Students at Beaconville High were thrilled on Wednesday when they were given their first opportunity to tour the new performing arts wing on their campus.

  “This is awesome!” senior stage manager Billy Yang told the News reporter who joined their tour. “Look at that fly system! And the booth equipment is a thousand times better than what we’ve been using in the old auditorium. I can’t wait to do our first show here!”

  BHS is renowned for its theater program. Student productions have won statewide awards, and some of the program’s alumni have gone on to careers in the performing arts, both as actors and in behind-the-scenes roles.

  The new performing arts wing was made possible due to a budget enhancement and gifts from a large number of alumni. It includes a state-of-the-art, 1,200-person-capacity theater; a black box theater for more intimate performances, which will also double as classroom space for the performing arts department; a “scene shop” with tools for constructing sets and props; a dance studio; and a choir room.

  Local historians have noted that the new performing arts wing stands directly on the grounds of the former Beaconville Theater, which was destroyed by a tragic fire in 1906 and later was found to have violated building codes. The land had been the property of the city of Beaconville and was vacant before being annexed by the adjacent high school last year.

  “We don’t see the location of the new performing arts wing as disrespectful in the least,” school superintendent Evan Newton told the News. “In fact, we’ve set up a memorial to those injured in the 1
906 fire. There’s a plaque in the lobby of the new building’s auditorium. It’s very tasteful.”

  Students and faculty seem to feel the same way. In memory of the tragic fire, they’ve decided that their inaugural performance in the new auditorium will be the same play the Beaconville Theater company was performing that night—Macbeth.

  —From the Beaconville Neighborhood News, January 3, 2007

  Scene 3—Tech Booth, Beaconville High School Theater

  DAYS UNTIL SPRING MUSICAL OPENS: 164

  Dom and I climb the steps through the theater until we reach the wide, empty tech booth at the back.

  The booth is my favorite place in the entire performing arts wing. Maybe the entire world. I’m effectively trapped in here from tech week through closing on every show we do, but that’s okay. This is a sacred space.

  Right now, though, all I want is to collapse into a sacred beanbag chair and crack open a sacred Diet Coke—but that’s not an option during strike. We have too much to do. Besides, the actors are due soon, and if we’re not on the stage when they get here, we might miss the announcement of what the musical’s going to be. At this point, I honestly think I’d cry.

  “You’re really sure about this?” Dom asks, rooting around in the papers stacked on the desk. “You know, the whole love curse thing?”

  I laugh. It sounds funny when he puts it that way. “I mean, I’m not sure about anything, but it’s obvious they are, and that’s what superstitions are really about—team unity.”

  “Unity’s great and all, but . . .”

  “Besides, being single for a while sounds amazing.” I reach up, fully intending to grab a bottle of spray cleaner from the shelf, but I find myself tipping forward and collapsing into a beanbag instead. “It’s not like anybody’d want to go out with me after what Rachel said anyway.”

  I shut my eyes. I hadn’t meant to say that last part.

  “Mel.” There’s a crush of polystyrene to my left. I open my eyes to see Dom in the beanbag chair next to mine. “No one believes that stuff. I like Rachel, or at least I used to, but what she said that night? It was total crap. No one really thinks you’re like that.”

  “Dom. You just called me the patron saint of serial monogamy.”

  “I was being ironic.” He sighs. “Look, for what it’s worth, I heard Rachel feels really bad about what happened. Estaban said she was crying in the costume closet when he went in to grab gaff tape.”

  “Great.” I scrub my face with my hands. “It’s just—why do all my relationships have to end in giant disasters? Epic scenes, my own crew rising up against me . . . what am I doing wrong?”

  Dom stretches his arms over his head, chuckling. “Well, speaking from personal experience . . .”

  I roll my eyes. “Please don’t.”

  “I’m just saying, they don’t all end that way. When we broke up during Fiddler rehearsals, it was really chill.”

  “I know, but A, that was ninth grade, and B, you were the exception, not the rule. Most of my breakups don’t result in me getting a new best friend, they result in major suffering. Look . . .” I meet his eyes so he’ll see I’m serious. “For real. I think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “Yeah, there is. You got named SM and became an obsessive-yet-beloved dictator, exactly like every other SM before you.”

  “You’re the worst best friend ever.”

  “Hey, I try. Also . . . okay, look, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, and it isn’t exactly going to change your perspective on that front, so . . .”

  I sit up abruptly, which is hard to do in a beanbag. “Is it about this love curse thing?”

  “Uh . . .” He shakes his head. “From your point of view, it’s probably worse.”

  I look over my shoulder. “Is someone else coming in here to dump me?”

  “There’s just something I’ve been thinking lately.” He scratches the back of his neck.

  I honestly have no idea where Dom’s going with this, but he’s making me super nervous. “Spit it out.”

  “Well . . . when it comes time for the spring musical . . .” He turns to stare down at the patches on his jeans. His next words come in a rush. “IthinkIwannaaudition.”

  It takes me several seconds to decipher that. When I finally piece it together, I can only pray I heard it wrong. “What?”

  He glances up, smiling sheepishly.

  “Dom.” I glare. He looks off to one side with a distinct combination of guilt and excitement on his face. The last time I saw him make that expression was right after he told me he was going to homecoming with my ex-girlfriend. “You want to be an actor?”

  “I . . .”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Um . . . I’m sorry, Mel. I—”

  “We’re crew! We don’t act!”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “I can’t believe this!” Show after show, Dom and I have worked together, plotting the sound effects and analyzing the set designs. His presence in the booth next to me was the only thing holding me together during tech on R&J when everything kept breaking. Now all of a sudden he wants to go onstage? “Dominic Connor! That’s a line we don’t cross!”

  “I think I . . . kind of want to cross it, though?” He shrugs, still with that wide, faux-apologetic grin. “If I can get a halfway decent part, it’ll beef up my extracurriculars for college applications now that I’m not playing volleyball.”

  “Being a crew head looks great on applications!” I keep waiting for him to hear how ridiculous he sounds, but his goofy grin refuses to fade. “Besides, don’t you want to do sound for the musical? There’ll be so many voices to mix, plus the orchestra, and there will be effects too—it’s going to be really hard, and you get to be in charge of all of it. Colleges will be super impressed.”

  “I don’t know. . . .” He shrugs again. “Mr. Green said I might want to think about auditioning this time, and I thought I’d just . . . give it a try.”

  “Will told you to audition?” I cover my face with my hands and groan. What’s happening to the world? “He’s the ultimate crew guy! He wouldn’t want you to join the dark side any more than I do!”

  Dom laughs. “This is real life, not Jedi training.”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “Come on, we know plenty of actors who are cool.” Dom starts ticking them off on his hand. “Malik, and Alejandra, and Sebastian, and—”

  “I’m not saying all actors suck, just the vast majority.”

  “Way to be dramatic.” He laughs again.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You aren’t one of them. You’re a geek, like me. You know everything there is to know about sound technology.”

  “Plenty of actors are geeks. And I only learned to do sound so I could edit videos for the Badgers.”

  Dom started a band in middle school with Malik and two other guys called the Honey Badger Liberation League. Malik was the lead vocalist, and Dom played drums and did all the organizational stuff. I guess officially they’re still together, but it’s been months since they’ve practiced. They mostly did classic rock covers—Prince and R.E.M. and U2 and even older songs. Sometimes they played on teen band nights at the community center, but mostly they posted stuff on YouTube. They still have a small but very dedicated following of girls who post comments on all their videos with a lot of exclamation points and emojis.

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” I tell him. From the determined set of Dom’s lips, I’m starting to suspect I won’t win this argument, but I’m not giving up that easily. “If you wanted, you could try a different department, like lights or sets.”

  “I already tried all the departments. You and Mr. Green made me, remember?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Dom had been a starter on the volleyball team when he broke his ankle halfway through the season freshman year. He was my lab partner in bio and I knew he was depressed about not being able to play anymore, so I recruited him to h
elp paint sets for Midsummer. Not too long after that we started going out, and soon he was hanging around backstage often enough that Will asked him to help with lights, then sound. He helped some with costumes, too, and he wound up being the only guy on the hair and makeup crew for Fiddler that spring. He got really good at pinning on everyone’s hats so they wouldn’t fall during the bottle dance scene.

  “Come on, being a crew head on a musical is what we’ve always wanted!” I lean forward earnestly. “You can’t change sides on me like this!”

  “Look, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. I might not even get cast.”

  “You’ll get cast.” I probably shouldn’t say that, since I’m supposed to be objective about auditions, but it’s the truth. Dom’s been singing backup to Malik in their band for years, plus he did church choir as a kid. He’s no Jonathan Groff, but he can carry a tune. Ms. Marcus will probably put him in the featured ensemble and give him a funny part with a few solo lines.

  He must sense that I’m on the verge of giving up, because Dom climbs to his feet, cheerfully humming “Those Canaan Days.”

  I smile a little in spite of myself. “Joseph was last year’s show.” “They won’t really make us learn all-new songs, though, will they?”

  “Oh my God. Tell me you’re not—”

  “Relax. I’m kidding.”

  “Oh Romeo, Romeo!” The shout carries up all the way to the booth. It’s Julio, doing an exaggerated trill on every word. “Wherefore art thou Ro—”

  “Right here, baby!” someone else yells—it sounds like Andrew Hernandez—and then there’s the unmistakable thump of bodies falling onto the stage. Without bothering to get up, I surmise that Andrew just jumped on Julio, pretended to kiss him, and knocked them both flat.

  The actors have arrived.

  “If someone gets a concussion during strike, do you still have to write an incident report?” Dom asks.

  “I always have to write an incident report.” I sigh and climb up after him, leaning down to peer through the window. Julio and Andrew are still lying in a pile at center stage, right in the middle of the circle of power tools the crew was using a few minutes earlier. Looks like no one’s injured. Yet.