by Syms, Carly
I glance down at my clothes, completely forgetting that I'm still wearing my volleyball uniform.
"Mary!" Lana exclaims. "No! It's after five! You said anyone who isn't here by five is going to be replaced by an understudy." She points at me. "She wasn't here by five!"
I start walking toward the stage, ready to defend myself, when Mary glances down at her watch for a second, then shrugs.
"I've got 4:59," she tells Lana. "Maybe next time. Go get ready to play Margaret."
I sneak a glance at my phone and grimace when I see it's nearly five minutes past five. Lana stomps off the stage, and I look at Mary in surprise.
She shrugs at me. "Maybe my watch just runs slowly," she says with a wink, then goes back to dusting the baby grand.
I hurry back toward the dressing room, shocked that Mary hasn't been eager to replace me.
I'm not sure what it means. Maybe I hadn't deserved this part in the play from day one, but does this suggest Mary thinks I've earned it now? I shake my head, pushing the thought out. I don't want to consider it, especially if it means I'll have to admit Russ might've been right.
Russ.
I've barely thought about him in the last few hours after hardly getting any sleep, tossing and turning and having my dreams filled with his face when I did manage a few precious minutes of shut-eye.
And now I'm about to see him for the first time since I ran out on him in the classroom yesterday and pretty much ended whatever it is that we've had. My stomach twists into a knot at the thought.
I burst into the dressing room where most of my castmates are already in full costume and are just putting the finishing touches on their makeup. Wherever Lana had stormed off to, it isn't here.
"Emma!" Amanda cries when she catches sight of me in the reflection of her mirror. "What happened? Are you okay?" She frowns when she looks down at my clothes. "And what are you wearing?"
"Long story," I say dismissively. "I've got to get dressed!"
Amanda looks like she wants to ask more questions, but the girl doing her eyeliner shakes her head ever so slightly and picks up the charcoal pencil. Amanda shoots one last quizzical look at me before shrugging and closing her eyes.
I let out a small sigh of relief, glad I'm not going to have to explain how I thought volleyball was a better choice for me than Opening Night of the play, even if that might be obvious by now, and unzip my bag, pulling out the clothes for Miss Halpern's last few scenes and hanging them up in my locker. Within seconds, I've stripped out of my volleyball uniform and crumple it up to stuff back in the bag, and I pull the rain slicker and boots out.
I smile as I look at this silly, ridiculous outfit, but it's sort of funny now, how things change. For whatever reason, now I can't wait to put it on.
"You look great," Amanda says once I've finished tugging the boots on over my socks. "Ready for Opening Night for sure."
I check myself out in the mirror and nod.
She's right.
I am.
***
The next hour and a half is filled with total chaos as everyone runs around the auditorium getting things set for the performance. Mary's middle school son was supposed to show up to hand out programs at the door to fulfill some community requirement, but he's apparently gone AWOL, so I find myself hurrying through the rows and rows of seating, leaving a program on the back of each chair instead.
"The show must go on," Mary mutters as she whizzes by me, carrying an unexplained stack of white towels toward backstage.
I shrug and finish distributing the programs, looking up every few minutes -- or maybe seconds -- to see if Russ walks in.
He doesn't.
It's just fifteen minutes to showtime now and we're all gathered backstage, so much nervous energy pumping throughout the room, it's almost palpable.
All of us except for Russ.
But no one is making a big deal about his absence so I have to think everyone else knows where he is except for me.
It doesn't bother me, though. Not even a little bit.
I creep toward the big velvet curtains, the only thing separating me from the group of people who are about to witness my acting debut. There's a small sliver between the leftmost point of the stage where you can tilt your head just so and catch sight of the seats.
And I walk over there now, crane my neck and swallow hard, the butterflies quickly starting to rage in my stomach.
I'm not sure what I'd been expecting, but this isn't it.
For a budget school production of a play written by the guy who's sitting behind the grand piano now, a full auditorium hadn't seemed likely.
But that's exactly what I'm looking at right now.
I can't see a single empty seat in the entire theater and it's loud out there beyond the curtain, the excited buzz of the audience conversations mixing with the tension backstage.
I quickly look away.
Mary walks over to the group then, Russ following closely behind her and my stomach does that weird flip thing it always does when I ride a roller coaster when I see him.
"Okay, my lovelies," she says, clapping her hands together once and smiling widely. "It is time! Can you feel it? The buzz of electricity that's just screaming in the air? The excitement of the audience? The energy of your castmates?" She closes her eyes and sucks in a deep breath. "Do as I do. Close your eyes. Close them! You too, John," she says without looking at him. "Breathe it all in. Let it fill you, let it guide you. Ahhhh."
I open one eye and glance around. Everyone does actually have their eyes closed and they all look like they're taking Mary's instructions to heart. Even John, though I notice one of his hands is firmly wrapped around Amanda's fingers.
Everyone, that is, except for Russ.
I nearly scream and jump straight out of my neon rain boots when I catch him staring right at me. I make myself pull it together and refuse to break eye contact first. I'm not the one who's wrong here.
I'm not the one who should be ashamed.
But that doesn't mean I don't feel uneasy about what's happened between us. It doesn't mean I don't wish things hadn't changed. I'd give just about anything to go back to how it used to be just thirty quick hours ago.
But that's the thing I've just realized about life.
Once things change, they hardly ever go back to the way they used to be.
And there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it. We've just got to march on.
I stare at him as Mary rambles on about feeling the buzz, being the air, whatever, whatever, whatever. I'm half-expecting him to say something to me, even just give me a sign, about what he's thinking, but he does nothing.
"Wonderful," Mary says, opening her eyes, and I force myself to stop looking at him and pretend like everything is normal.
Like it's all okay.
She holds up her arm with the watch on it. "The time is now. Peter-Brian will begin the piano any moment. Places, everyone!" Mary bellows. "Places!"
It's like she's said a magic word and everyone scurries from their spot in the circle and rushes around the backstage area. Amanda grabs onto my arm and drags me back away from the curtains.
"Come on, dreamy," she whispers. "You and Russ will have time to make more googly eyes at each other later."
Well if that doesn't snap me out of my spell....
"What? You thought that's what that was?"
Amanda just grins. "I know looks of love when I see them, Emma. No use pretending."
I stare at her, shocked at how wrong one person can be, but decide it's not worth correcting her.
A hush falls over the audience and seconds later, the music begins, reverberating throughout the entire auditorium. Peter-Brian does a great job with his music, and I watch from the sideline as the curtain begins to rise, revealing Russ dressed as Prince Alex and John as the king, relaxing on his painted throne.
The spotlight shines on Russ as he moves easily around the stage, delivering his lines with the same finesse as a
seasoned actor.
I watch, riveted to the scene in front of me even though I've seen it hundreds of times before. Now it's different.
Next to me, Amanda chuckles softly, stirring me out of my trance. "No looks of love, huh?" She smirks at me, but it isn't unkind. "Admit it, Emma."
"You're crazy," I protest, but I'm still watching the stage.
Amanda just laughs, then disappears as she gets ready for her upcoming scene, leaving me alone to watch Russ.
***
My heart is beating wildly against my chest.
My first few scenes have gone smoothly -- all of the play has so far, really, except for John tripping as he came down from his throne at the end of his fight with the prince -- but now we're at the moment I've been dreading.
The moment that kept me waking up practically every hour last night, and maybe even the moment that made choosing to go to the volleyball game a little bit easier.
It's the moment where Miss Halpern has to kiss the prince to prove she doesn't love him -- and realizes the truth is, of course, the exact opposite of what she claims.
I'm a lot more nervous about kissing Russ now than I ever was before our lips had even met for the first time.
But despite the nausea bubbling up in me, I'm still delivering my lines with all the sass I've come to realize is absolutely perfect for Miss Halpern.
"Stop pretending like there's nothing between us, Jane!" Russ pleads.
I whip around and glare at him. "You may want to be known as Alex," I tell him, injecting as much scathing bite into my voice as possible, and I know Mary will be proud of how real it sounds. "But I am Miss Halpern to you, and we are never going to be on that kind of a casual basis. We're nothing."
Okay, so maybe the last sentence is a little bit of an ad-lib on my part, but it feels right. It feels like what Miss Halpern would say to Prince Alex. And a little like what Emma would say to Russ, too.
His eyes widen slightly as he recognizes the words aren't part of the play. "That's only because you won't try," he says, making up his own lines to go with mine, and it's all I can do not to start shouting at him in a repeat of our screaming match the other day. He shakes his head. "You're lying to yourself. Prove it."
I blink up at him and stick to the script. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Prove that there's nothing between us."
"And just how do you suppose I do that?" I ask, the fierceness seeping out of my voice because I'm so nervous about what's coming next.
"Kiss me."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" I scoff. "Trick me into kissing you just so you can say you've gotten me. Very clever, of course."
Russ isn't flustered now, like he's expecting me to make up my own lines and he's just rolling with the punches. "You're confident there's no spark, and like I said, I think you're lying to yourself. But I assure you of this. Kiss me once and tell me you feel nothing, and you'll never have to speak to me again. One time, Jane. One kiss."
I struggle just as I image Miss Halpern would as my heart starts to thump even more rapidly, my breathing labored, and I hope Russ knows this is all just for show. He's not the one having this effect on me.
"Is that a promise?"
He stares into my eyes, and I know the truth now: He's not just talking as Prince Alex. He means this. If I kiss him now and can tell him it's truly over between us, he'll walk away, giving me a clean break. Exactly what I need, and exactly what I want.
"It is," he says, his voice strong, steady and sure.
I take a step forward. In the script, Miss Halpern is supposed to be confident with her motions, but in reality, Emma Thompson is a shaking, sweaty disaster. I place a hand on his shoulder and hate feeling the strong, defined muscles under his costume.
And then I do it.
I kiss him.
I pray and beg that I'll feel nothing, but the hundreds of tiny little electric shocks still spark through me, my stomach tightening, toes curling. Damn him.
I pull back, as Miss Halpern is supposed to do, and in true Prince Alex fashion, Russ brings me back in, planting a real kiss on my lips, and it feels exactly as it did the first time he kissed me in this spot on this stage.
Nothing has changed that at all.
Of course, that only makes walking away from him that much harder, even if I know it's still what I have to do.
I count to three, then end the kiss and pat down the imaginary wrinkles in my dress.
"Emma, I adore you," he whispers before I'm too far away to hear him.
I freeze, mid-step, and nearly stumble as I move away. I stare at him, jaw hanging open, wondering how he could possibly think trying to talk to me in the middle of a scene this important is a good idea.
"I -- uh -- um -- that was...exactly as I thought it'd be," I stutter, glaring at him. Miss Halpern is supposed to be strong even when she delivers these lines, and he's turned me into a bumbling mess. "I trust you'll uphold your end of our bargain."
The fire in his eyes goes out as he watches me turn to leave.
"Wait!" he calls out.
I stop at the edge of the stage, just before I'm enveloped by the curtains.
"You never told me if you felt anything," he says weakly. "I can't stop fighting for you."
"Your promise," I tell him. "Keep it."
And then I turn and rush off to the safety of backstage. I take a deep breath and try to gather my thoughts but I have no idea what to think. I don't even know what I'm supposed to think, really.
I turn around and nearly slam into the broad chest of a prince.
"What the hell was that, Emma?" Russ hisses at me. I've forgotten, of course, that neither of us is due on stage for the next few scenes.
Great.
"We're not doing this here, Russ," I say, trying to push my way past him, but he doesn't let me get far.
"I don't even know what we're doing, period. Are you trying to tell me something by changing up the lines or what?"
"Me?" My eyes practically bug out of my head. "Me changing up the lines? You're the one who talked to me on stage."
"You won't listen to me anywhere else."
"That wasn't the time."
"That wasn't the time, this isn't the time, is there ever gonna be a time, Emma?"
"Nope. We said all that we needed to yesterday."
He shakes his head. "I didn't."
I fold my arms across my chest. "Fine. Get it out of your system so we can get back on stage and do our jobs. Go."
"You didn't answer me."
I roll my eyes. "What are you even talking about?"
"Out there," he says. "On stage. I wanted you to tell me if you felt anything."
"I think Jane made her feelings known," I say defiantly.
"But see, Emma, that's the funny thing here. If you're paying attention, you know that Miss Halpern doesn't actually give the Prince a real answer. She just wants him to assume she felt nothing." He smirks like he knows he's got me trapped now. "And we all know later that turns out not to be the case and they get their happily ever after. So, are you saying your answer is the same as hers?"
I grit my teeth and suddenly wish that whole looks-could-kill thing is actually true so I could get out of this painful conversation.
"Russ, listen to me. You deceived me. You went behind my back and didn't tell me about it. No matter what I feel when I kiss you, that's a betrayal I don't know how to forgive."
"I get that," he says, surprising me. "But the only way to forgive someone is to try. Can you do that?"
"I can," I say quickly.
He narrows his eyes. "Will you?"
I smile despite myself, knowing I probably shouldn't be surprised he picked up on that. "Try? Yeah. I will try. But Russ, I can't make any promises."
But it's like he doesn't hear the last sentence and he's smiling again. "Can't ask for more than that. I hope you can understand why I did this someday."
"I'll do my best," I tell him, and I mean it.
He leans in and gives me a hug, and for a second, his embrace feels so warm and comforting, I want to tell him to forget it all, I'm ready to forgive, but I know I can't do that.
It's not the right time.
But I hope it will be one day.
***
The applause is ear-splitting. The curtains have already fallen once, but the audience is on its feet, demanding we come back out so they can give us our due praise.
I have to admit, it's kind of exciting to be part of a curtain call. Backstage, everyone is squealing with happiness and relief, grateful to have the first performance behind us, and maybe kind of shocked that it's gone as well as it has.
"Ready?" Amanda asks, squeezing my hand. We're all lined up across the stage, hands linked. I'm in between Amanda and Russ, because everyone else has insisted that Miss Halpern and Prince Alex have to be next to each other for the curtain call, and I'm in no mood to argue. Plus, they're probably right.
The curtain rises and sure enough, the audience is on its feet, clapping and cheering. We raise our joined hands in the air and collectively take a bow.
Soon, the applause dies down and the curtain falls, and that's the end. The play is over, at least until we get back to perform again tomorrow night.
"You did so great," Amanda says as the rest of the cast begins to disperse and head home to rest up. "And it was your first play and everything!"
"Could you tell? I was so nervous."
She shakes her head. "No, not really. Only in that one scene you had with Russ."
I narrow my eyes ever so slightly. "Which one?"
"The one where you kissed him for the first time," she says. "You were stuttering and changing lines all over the place." She gives me a sly smile. "I wasn't surprised by it, though."
"It's not what you think, Amanda. We wouldn't work out together."
"That's BS and you know it."
"He lied to me."
"What, about getting you the part in the play? Big deal. He didn't do it to be mean."
"It's complicated."
