The Stand-In: my life as an understudy

by Elizabeth Stevens

  He shook his head, turning his head forward again and closing his eyes. “Not really.”

  “Not really?” I asked coyly.

  He nodded, his eyes still closed. “Nothing set.” One hand came off the keys to twist by his ear before it went back to playing. “Fragments.”

  “What’s it about?”

  A pure smile lit his lips. “Do you like it?”

  I was annoyed he’d avoided the question, but I really did. “It’s okay.”

  He laughed and the tune changed to something more upbeat. “How’s this?”

  I took one of his hands from the keys and he looked at me in question. I looked down at his hand in mine, running my fingers along his softly. Despite a near lifetime of learning piano and being reasonably proficient, it still amazed me that people could make such beautiful sounds just by moving their fingers. And there was something about Eli that had me feeling the surreal nature of the situation even more.

  “Clo?”

  I looked up at him and I felt more than just surreal.

  There was that warm and tingling feeling, that rightness. Him and the music and the closeness was getting to me. Looking at him then, it felt like more than just a crush that would harmlessly pass while our friendship remained intact. Looking at him then, it felt like that feeling wasn’t one-sided. And in that moment that felt like the most wonderful feeling in the world.

  So I leant forwards and kissed him. Soft and short, a mere press of my lips against his before I pulled away again and looked back at his hand. He said nothing for a while as I made a big show of inspecting his hand as though I’d never seen one before.

  “You kissed me again,” he said softly.

  I kept my expression neutral. “I really shouldn’t have.”

  He placed his fingers under my chin and tipped my face back up. “And yet you did.”

  I searched his eyes. “Don’t read anything into it, Eli,” I warned him, despite me reading a lot into it.

  “Okay.” He shrugged lazily. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  I nodded too quickly. “It doesn’t mean anything,” I agreed.

  He wasn’t the only one I was trying to convince, and I was pretty sure we both knew it.

  “And if I kissed you again?” he asked softly.

  My eyes flickered down, but he still had his fingers under my chin. I forced myself to look at him again before I spoke.

  “It still wouldn’t mean anything,” I told him carefully.

  “Does that mean you don’t want me to?”

  His eyes pinned mine and I couldn’t lie to him. “That’s not what I said, Eli.”

  A smile crinkled at the corners of his eyes. “Now who’s the heartbreaker?” he teased.

  I pulled away and got up. “Well I wouldn’t want to risk breaking your heart.”

  He jumped up and caught me around the waist. I giggled as I looked up at him, my hands going to his shoulders to steady myself.

  “Leave and you might…” he said softly.

  And I couldn’t help myself. I kissed him again. I knew I should have walked away. I shouldn’t have let it go this far. I was trying to make him believe I only wanted to be friends and then I turned around and kissed him. It wasn’t fair. And yet…

  It was only a kiss

  An arm appeared in front of me, attached on one side to a hand planted on the wall and a recognisable body on the other.

  “Ella.” I nodded, putting my book down.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” she hissed. “But if you think Elijah Sweet is going to leave me for you then you have another thing coming.”

  Why could she not have done this at home? She really should have, because I was seriously over the whole thing.

  “It’s just Eli. Not Elijah Sweet. Just Eli. And tell me, how can he leave you when you’re not even dating?”

  Ella growled at me. “You think you’re so clever?”

  “I think I have a meeting to get to. If you don’t mind.”

  “I mind very much. You think Elijah Sweet’s going to choose you? When he can have me. You think anyone would choose you?”

  I looked her over and wondered whether it was even worth it to tell her that he already had chosen me. That he pretty much already had her and he’d chosen me anyway. I wondered about telling her that he wasn’t the only one, that I had the friendship of all the Quicksilver boys as well as more and more of the formal committee. Well Milly and Brenda. And they totally counted.

  As I wondered all of this, I realised one fundamental thing about my sister; she knew all this. She knew all this no matter what she said. Behind all that conceit and bluster was nothing but a little girl frightened she wouldn’t live up to our parents’ expectations and that no one would like her. So she took it out on me. She kept me down so she felt better about herself.

  Not that the realisation made me feel any better and it didn’t excuse her behaviour, but it made it easier for me not to throw it all back in her face. It made it easier to just keep living my life until I could be my own person and it was my time to shine the way I wanted to. But biding my time didn’t have to mean being walked all over anymore.

  “You can have him, Ella. I don’t want him,” I told her as I pushed passed her and into the auditorium.

  And I wasn’t lying. I really liked Eli, I did. But I was finally stepping out of my sister’s shadow. There was no way I was swapping hers for his. There was the small matter of the fact I kept kissing him and giving him all the wrong signals, but I was going to work on that. I was going to implement and stick to a ‘just friends’ policy.

  Even if he was totally gorgeous and everything went in slow-motion every time I saw him give someone a sincere smile.

  Which is exactly what happened as I was walking over to our forest.

  Govi was waving his arms around as usual and Eli paused in taking a sip of his drink as he burst out into laughter.

  The moment was ruined as Ella’s shoulder crashed into mine as she hurried over to him. My book made a loud thud on the floor as I dropped it and every person in the room stopped to look at me go bright red and slowly bend down to pick it back up. Except Ella of course, who was draping herself over Eli’s arm.

  Even Lindy stopped, ever trailing after my sister, and looked down at me sadly. “Little Chloe Cowan. Always second.”

  I grinned at her falsely. “At least that puts me ahead of you, Lindy.”

  It took her a moment to work it out, but when she did she huffed and stamped her foot and ran off to no doubt tell Ella I’d dared to step out of line.

  But I didn’t care anymore.

  I was a part of something. I was making more than one friend. I was letting people see the real me – who maybe wasn’t the person I’d thought I was after all, but I was letting them see her anyway. I wasn’t so shy anymore. I wasn’t hiding in the shadows anymore. I wasn’t going to let someone else dictate who I was or what I wanted.

  And Ella had come in and ruined it.

  She wanted me so far in her shadow that no one would ever notice me. She wanted me to feel so small it didn’t matter how badly she failed, I’d always have failed harder.

  Squatting there awkwardly and watching people crowd around her and her soaking it up, I realised something else. But this time it was about me.

  It wasn’t easier to just go along with the madness. All those years thinking I was fine just waiting for my time? That was giving up. And I might have been a pushover, but I wasn’t a quitter. I saw things through to the end, and that included living life.

  So I was going to live my life however I wanted and Ella be damned.

  I picked my book and my ego up off the floor and headed towards the forest with a sense of renewed purpose.

  As I got to the back of the crowd though, all the confidence my inner pep talk had given me ebbed away. I wasn’t left with any less resolve, I just didn’t quite have the wherewithal to put th
e theory into practice. Yet. For now I was quite happy with working on just being less of a doormat. After all, one didn’t go from doormat to the queen of assertiveness just because one’s decided to.

  So I went about my work. I didn’t pay much mind to the people who were trying to get Ella to give them some direction. On one such occasion, I felt confident enough to nod to the lost looking soul.

  “The staple gun works best,” I told him.

  He gave me a second look, as though he hadn’t actually been looking at me properly before. “Sorry?”

  I went over with the staple gun and a bunch of tissue paper. I held the up against the branch and showed him. “The staple gun’s faster and doesn’t need time to dry,” I explained with a smile.

  He looked surprised for a moment, then smiled as well. “Thanks. Uh…” He looked to Ella, who was giggling over something, then back to me like he knew Ella wasn’t going to be any help. “And the tissue paper’s best. Yeah?”

  I shrugged and looked around at our few totally completed trees. “It definitely does the most coverage. On some of them, we’re mixing it with draped crepe paper.” I shrugged again. “But really whatever looks good. We want a good mix of trees so they don’t all look the same.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Sure. Uh... Thanks…?”

  “Chloe,” I reminded him.

  He nodded again. “Chloe,” he repeated. Amazingly, it sounded like he was trying to remember it.

  “Here. You take this,” I said, holding out the staple gun.

  “You don’t need it?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll grab another off the table.”

  He took it. “Thanks… Chloe.”

  I smiled. “No worries.”

  I left him to it and went back to my own stuff, trying not to let Govi or Rica distract me with their constant questions. Rica was particularly into poking me with the end of her paintbrushes. And Govi picked it up off her, when he wasn’t throwing bits of rolled up rubbish at me. But at least they kept me smiling.

  A little later, I heard a quiet “…Ella’s sister…” and turned to see the guy I’d helped earlier pointing to me. When he saw me looking, he smiled.

  “This look okay?” the girl he was with asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah fine.”

  She smiled. “Matt said you use the staple gun?”

  I nodded again. “I found it works best, yeah. But you do what–”

  She shook her head. “No. We’ll do it your way.”

  They turned back to their tree and I felt a slightly less insistent poke.

  “Govi!” I snapped and turned to find Rica grinning at me. “What?”

  She shrugged all fake nonchalance. “Nothing. Just enjoying people realising who the better Cowan is.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “People aren’t realising anything. I’m just helping.”

  Rica nodded, her jaw slack. “Well, duh. As opposed to her royal lowness over there who does nothing but fling body parts on Eli and tell Lindy to…” Her Ella impression wasn’t really on point, but it was snooty and stuck up and made me laugh. “Like, fetch me a Fanta, Lindy.”

  “Yo, Gin?” came Ramsey’s voice and I peered around my current tree to look for him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Love songs.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I am not falling for that.”

  “Switch up!” Ramsey called out and I had no idea what he was talking about.

  But Govi started up a song I’d never heard before. But Rica froze beside me.

  I looked between Govi and Rica, who only had eyes for each other. As he sang to her, I was transfixed. It was beautiful and I wondered if this was one of things I was supposed to remember for my Maid of Honour speech.

  “You know this one?” I hissed to Rica, who waved me away.

  “It’s Trevor,” she said quickly.

  I blinked, wracking my brains for a Trevor. Finally, I gave up and just Googled it to discover it was a song by Trevor Daniels called ‘Falling’.

  Just as Govi seemed to be finishing, Eli decided to take over and went with Alicia Keys. He did the typical musician thing and there was a lot of pointing involved with his heartfelt performance. And I wasn’t sure, but I thought there was some very pointed…pointing going on with the lyrics ‘Oh, oh, I never felt this way’. Then he moved on and I was left wondering if it was a coincidental point or a meaningful point.

  After the day before, I wanted to say it was a meaningful point.

  But the person who knew it was sensible to just be friends wanted to convince me it was coincidental.

  I wasn’t going to pretend I was hesitating about Eli because of Ella anymore. I didn’t care if she wanted him or not, I liked him. I was interested. He was hot and funny and charming. I liked how I felt with him. I liked the person I was with him – when I wasn’t being a blushing idiot. And I really liked kissing him.

  But he was also larger than life. He shone with a light so bright that it blinded you to anything else, and I wasn’t sure anymore that it was even intentional half the time. He wanted a life where thousands of people screamed his name and watched his every move, and he’d have to work hard to keep it that way.

  If he really did like me too and we did the whole dating thing, where would that leave me?

  It would leave me in his shadow. It would leave me playing second to a life I’d wanted to run away from since I’d realised there was more than just music and dancing. And just because I was open to the idea I’d chosen Commerce as a rebellion – as the only way to separate myself from the Ella-clone I’d been moulded into – it didn’t mean I didn’t feel a strong knee-jerk aversion to anything related to what Ella wanted out of life.

  And that aversion came with a heady sense of fear. Fear that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from becoming someone else’s understudy. Fear that I’d fall into the trap of making someone else’s dreams my life under the guise of a crush, or habit, or love.

  “Ella?” Milly called.

  “What?” Ella called back.

  “Can you go and check that the tables and chairs are all ready, please? They might need to be counted.”

  “I really need to get these trees finished. Chloe will go.”

  I looked up quickly.

  Milly looked over at me and I could see she was trying to decide if this was a battle that was worth fighting. Finally she nodded. “Great. Chloe, do you mind?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

  “I can help her?” Eli said, looking at Milly for confirmation.

  Milly nodded as she looked at her clipboard. “Far be it for me to get in the way of this new helpful attitude of yours, Elijah,” she said.

  “Another pair of hands never hurt,” Ella said.

  Milly’s eyes snapped up. “I thought you just had to get the trees finished?”

  Ella gave a minute snarl, then flicked her hair back. “The trees are a very important job. I’d better stay to keep an eye on everything.”

  “Excellent!” Milly said loudly. “If that’s all sorted. Eli and Chloe, if you can go and check the tables and chairs. Here are the numbers.” She brandished a piece of paper and Eli jogged over to get it. “They should all be down in the shed.”

  I nodded as I started heading out. Eli caught up to me easily, falling into step with me by the time we’d reached the doors. He pushed them open for me as he looked over the paper from Milly.

  “Okay. Two hundred chairs. Thirty tables. Twenty round. Ten rectangle. In the usual place.” He looked at me. “Do you know where the usual place is?”

  I nodded. “Storage sheds. Depending on how organised it is, there may be a bunch of sets in the way.”

  “How do you know all this?” he chuckled, but he sounded impressed.

  “I’m ever the understudy. I spend a lot of time with the backstage stuff.”

  “See you say this. But these last few weeks, I’ve seen anything but.”


  As I pulled open the shed doors, I frowned at him. “I’m being literal. I’m given the understudy roles.” I titled my head, amending, “I go for the understudy roles. It lets me have more time with the backstage crew, but makes it look like I just suck at acting.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  I flipped on the lights and looked around. “Because then my mum doesn’t nag me about trying harder. Ella was an understudy in Year Nine. Mum asked her why she didn’t put more effort into learning her lines for auditions. It was one of the only times I’d ever heard Ella say something real.”

  “What did she say?” Eli asked as he followed me into the shed.

  “She screamed at Mum about how sometimes you can give something your all and even then you’re not the best. Right after that, I was an understudy. When I told Mum, she took one look at Ella, said ‘We can’t all be winners,’ and left it at that.”

  “So you’ve been playing your mum all this time and she’s said nothing because Ella yelled at her?”

  I nodded. “That and the understudy is what I was born for.”

  Eli caught my arm and I looked back at him in question. “My parents wanted me to be a doctor–”

  “It’s not quite the same thing, Eli.”

  “I’m just trying to say that it’s up to you to be the star of your own life.”

  I sighed. “Not every story needs a star.”

  “Maybe not. But every story has one.

  “There is nothing…starry about me.”

  “Sometimes it just takes a little longer for them to shine.”

  “Eli–”

  “You shine, Clo.”

  I looked up at him and wished I didn’t want to kiss him so badly. Maybe if he wasn’t looking down at me with a soft smile, no sign of that cocky arrogance, just a guy standing in front of a girl.

  He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear as he looked into my eyes. “I don’t know what it is about you, Chloe,” he said slowly and I fiercely chastised the flutter my heart made. “Every time I’m with you, everything and nothing makes sense.”

  I shook my head. This wasn’t fair on anyone. “Eli…”