by Tim Federle
“Which was totally Libby’s concept!” I add.
“That’s right, folks,” Libby says, jumping off the coffee table and landing in the arms of a senior. “She isn’t just a producer, she’s also a visionary.”
“So I don’t need my flute?” Paige says, and Libby says, “No, Miss Havisham, your hair is enough of a statement,” and reaches out to grab Paige’s hand.
Libby finishes her casting announcements, right as the last donut is being wolfed down by a junior who doesn’t seem too thrilled to have been cast as an understudy.
“Oh! And the part of Arthur Havisham,” Libby says, “the bad-boy younger brother, is still being cast.”
And that’s when Ben sees me seeing him.
I guess I should mention in here that I didn’t get the role of Pip—Libby says she wants me fully “focused on directing,” not “hogging the spotlight” too. Not that the gym even has a spotlight. Anyway, it’s no biggie, and I don’t want to focus too hard on that, okay? Okay??
“Let’s take a five!” I yell, kicking my Keds off, and running barefoot to pee before any actors can corner me with questions or concerns or concerned questions. Or questionable concerns, ha.
A Totally Unbelievable Scene at a Window
Have you ever seen one of those fully unbelievable scenes in a movie in which a boy knocks on the window of a girl?
Knock-knock.
Well, believe it.
It’s Ben. Mendoza. Hat wearer, homeroom sharer, rehearsal crasher.
I’m in bed, scrolling through Instagram, deeeeeep into Jordan’s profile and feeling queasy, like something’s off about all his recent photos, when I hear it—the tapping. The Tapping from Beyond.
Now, true: All of this would be more impressive if we lived in one of those two-floor homes over in Libby’s ’hood, but we don’t. We have a ranch house. Single-level. But still. It’s my window. It’s after 10 p.m. Mom thinks I went to bed twenty minutes ago (technically I did!), and let’s just say that Ben’s profile in the moonlight is something out of a scary movie. One that stars a strangely compelling local boy, the type you’d cast as a background extra, except he keeps showing up in scenes he doesn’t belong in.
“Mendoza, what are you doing here?” I whisper-shout after I crack open my window, which takes more effort than it should because I have the upper-body strength of a sleeping fourth-grade girl.
“Did you know we’re neighbors?”
I tug my T-shirt down over my boxers.
“What are you talking about?”
“My family moved over here a couple months ago. Or, my mom and me did, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, I know.” He’s fidgety, and if he raises his voice enough to wake up my dad, a rifle could become accidentally involved (my dad hunts deer, whee).
“I’m not inviting you in, because that would be odd.”
“Cool, yeah, no—I just wanted to say I’m sorry for coming to your rehearsal uninvited.”
I cross my arms. “How was the donut you stole when you thought nobody was looking, Mendoza?”
“The donu—oh, you saw me take it?”
“A director notices everything,” I say, basically channeling Libby, who would d-i-e die to have a cute boy show up at her window.
I have decided Ben is cute.
“Yeah, so, I obviously missed your auditions—I was mowing lawns for cash—but I was sort of curious about maybe, like, if all the parts were cast?”
Now I want a donut, by the way. You say the word donut and it’s like a promise.
I hear the quietest footfalls ever, from behind me in the hallway. My mom is so skinny she’s like half sparrow, these days, a lady who never quite finishes any dish.
“What’s wron—” Ben starts.
I make the shh sign, and then mouth, “My mom.”
“Okay,” he murmurs back. An okay that could mean literally anything.
I pull my T-shirt down again and whisper, “Seriously, though, let’s talk about this in homeroom tomorrow,” and start to shut the window.
He jams his hand into the frame to stop me. People on the subways back in New York used to do this, and hold everybody up, stopping the train from leaving the station on time.
But oddly, I don’t feel held up here.
“If there’s any parts at all,” Ben goes, “I’m always on the hunt for extra credit in English class. I, um, don’t read so good. Ta-da: Dyslexia is fun! Or write so good either. So well, I should say. Ha-ha.”
“I thought you were Mr. English’s star student.”
“Nah, that dude grades on the meanest curve! I still only have a B-plus, and I work my butt off in his class!”
What I’d give for a B-anything to be considered not good enough.
I squat down and talk through the window crack. “Have you ever acted in anything before?”
“I mean, just now I told my mom I was running out to get her a liter of Diet Coke. So, yeah, I’d say I’m pretty good at drama.”
He is funny, this Ben. Funny in a not-funny way that creeps back around and is funny.
“So, wait, you lied to come over here?”
“I mean, whatever,” he says, and there’s a weird flash that happens in his eyes. I can see he’s a kid who gets in trouble for getting angry. And in that moment I see myself in him, because I’m a kid who gets in trouble for never fighting back. For hiding.
“Hold up,” I say, opening the window again. “The 7-Eleven is like a mile away. Your mom makes you go out after ten at night for Diet Coke?”
“No worries, I have my bike,” he says, lifting handlebars away from the side of my house. He has his bike, like that’s an excuse for going out after ten for Diet Coke, when you’re fourteen. For your mom. On a Tuesday.
Maybe I have a good mom after all.
“And it’s only point-seven miles,” Ben says, holding up his phone to show me the distance logged. “It’s on the way to school. I ride there most days. And my mom’s kinda laid up with a thing. It’s no big deal. Diet Coke makes her happy, and believe me, it’s better when she’s happy.”
His face makes me believe him.
He takes his baseball hat off and runs his hands through his hair, which has a single streak of faded purple dye, I notice for the first time. And he goes, “So, Foster, whaddya say?”
I’m stirred up and shaky suddenly, like I was on opening night of E.T.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, because I hear my mom’s sparrow steps out in the hall, again, up to turn on the TV, late, to catch the end of the news and doze off and probably avoid my dad till he’s asleep himself.
Ben does his version of a smile, which is basically just a twitch, and he turns away, and I am surprised to watch him strap on a helmet, click. I can think of seven adjectives about this kid before I’d say “safety-conscious,” but Ben is a surprise.
“Well, no matter what, I’m coming to rehearsal next Saturday.”
Bold. Which I’d usually like. My whole life I’m trying to be as bold as the nearest bold person. But tonight I’m annoyed. Annoyed or maybe just ratcheted up a notch. I mean, it’s an unbelievable scene to have a boy knock on your window.
“Well, what if I don’t cast you?”
“Then I’ll be in the crew, or whatever—I’ll run out and get you Diet Coke liters.” He tightens his helmet’s strap. “I just want to get out of the house, Nate. Give me somewhere to go.”
My mom knocks on my door and when I look back to wave at Ben, all I see are little flashes of safety tape, glinting in the bicycle moonlight.
“One sec,” I say to my mom. I’m opening Instagram to follow Ben before I forget, but Jordan’s profile is up, from ten minutes ago. “One more sec, Ma.”
And bam, I realize what seemed off about Jordan’s pictures. Why I was feeling so queasy, earlier, going deeeeeep into Jordan’s profile.
He’s erased all the photos of us.
Here Comes the Bride
I can s
ee her coming for me, down the hall, carrying her flute case like a weapon. She’s like a lion on the savannah, and I, her acne-prone prey.
It’s Paige, and she’s cornering me directly after I exit physical chemistry class.
“Are you in director mode or student mode?” she says, her neon braces hypnotizing me. Really, I’m in physical chemistry mode, a.k.a. a sex ed daze.
In that class, they spend a lot of time instructing us how to not get people pregnant—but not a lot of time telling us what to do if you are a boy who used to have a thing with another boy, and formerly texted him thirty times a day, and now second-guess yourself if you even want to send him something innocent, like the lightning-bolt emoji. Or, something less innocent, like: “why in the name of musical theater would you erase all the amazing photos of us on instagram??”
“I’m . . . in Nate mode,” I finally say to Paige. “I’m a director, I’m a peer, I’m whatever you need.”
She nods a bunch, and says, “I just had a question about Miss Havisham? The character I’m playing?”
“Yep, I’m aware.”
Paige balances against a locker, unzips her way-too-big bookbag, and pulls out photos from a wedding that looks to have occurred sometime between the years 1910 and 1980. Hard to say.
“That is my beautiful mom,” Paige says, pointing to a shot of a woman who looks stunned to be at her own wedding, her hair crimped and primped for days, her makeup applied by a team of clowns.
“What a look!” I say.
“I know!”
Paige then “walks her fingers” over the photo to point to a beefy guy, two people down from her mom, standing under a mighty oak tree and fake-grinning. “And that, if you can believe it, is the gym coach. My mom’s brother.”
My eyes cartoon–bug out and practically make a Boing! sound, because it’s challenging to believe the coach was ever anywhere in the vicinity of—dare I say—attractive. But pictures don’t lie.
“What a look!” I say again.
“Anyway, my question!” Paige says, handing me the photo, and giving off the faintest whiff of Funyons and yellow Starbursts.
“I’m all ears,” I say. And nose.
“Since Miss Havisham is nuts,” Paige says, talking double-time, “and goes around wearing the wedding dress from the time she was stood up at the altar—and since I happen to fit into my mom’s wedding dress—well, Mr. Director, do you see where this is going?”
I . . . don’t. “Of course,” I say, because, as a director, you can never let your cast lose confidence in you.
“Okay, cool beans. So that settles it: I’m going to force my mom to let me wear her wedding dress for the day of the show.” Paige takes the photo back and hops exactly once. “You’re the Natest, Nate!”
“Thanks.”
And then Paige makes the Star Trek symbol with her hand—the nerdiest stage manager from E.T. used to do this too, as both a hello and a goodbye; the dork’s version of “Aloha.” And so I make the symbol to Paige too.
And that’s it. She skips away, releasing her prey back into the wild.
“Yo, Paige,” I say, and she flips back around like she’s in trouble, or has toilet paper stuck to her shoe, or some nonsense. “Thanks for caring about the show so much.”
She grins. From a distance, you actually can’t see her braces at all. “Of course. The show is the best.”
I Guess This Is a Thing Now
For years my parents have been royally terrible at the art of sleeping.
My mom is up all hours of the night, pacing, like she’s haunted, a ghost with an unnamed grudge. And maybe the grudge is that my dad likes to fall asleep in bed watching Fox News, late, willing himself awake with caffeine. And all my mom wants is some good sleep.
But they’re not me.
Like, my one special skill is I can conk out anywhere—a bus, a futon, a bad movie. The only place I’ve ever not nodded off is at a musical, because duh.
I sleep both really well and really late and I hope that never changes.
“Natey, you’re up so early.”
But it’s another Saturday morning, before our second-ever rehearsal for my project, and I’ve been awake for hours.
“Mom, it’s ten.”
“You usually sleep till ten-thirty.”
“Yeah, I guess I have a lot on my mind.”
I’m sitting in front of a bowl of generic alphabet cereal, moving the letters around to spell something, or see a message. I haven’t heard from Jordan in a couple days and I’m pushing my spoon into the mush and asking it questions. Like it’s a soggy Ouija board.
Does Jordan still like me? I’m think-asking it. But all I’m getting back is vowels. An o, and an e. Three a’s. Nothing conclusive.
Mom puts down a glass of Sunny D, and before I say, “I don’t drink my calories anymore!” she says, “I don’t want this to go to waste and you’re the only reason I bought it.”
So I gulp it down and man, it’s good.
“Got something on your mind?” she says, and I say, “Nah,” but then right away, “I guess I’m just worried I bit off more than I can chew with the Great Expectations project.”
She goes to do that parent-thing where they kind of ruffle your hair like you’re a dog, but at the last minute she swerves, and bends down, and gives Feather a pat instead.
“If anyone can put on a show, it’s you, Natey,” she says, and it’s really sweet.
My dad shuffles out from their bedroom, mumbles, “Oh,” like he genuinely forgot he had a family, and turns back around.
“You know how to put on a show, Natey,” Mom says, ignoring him. “So go put on a show.”
Out of the corner of the window I see Ben in my front yard, on his bike, and my face twitch-smiles. I guess he’s taking me to rehearsal. I guess this is a thing now.
Acting Is About Channeling Crappy Stuff from Your Past
“Remember, the character is only seven years old in the first scene, so you may want to pitch your voice into a higher place.”
I’m offering this wisdom to the boy playing Pip, who is objectively terrible and doesn’t have the range and Libby cast him over me, but whatever. I have to focus on directing.
“Seven is literally half my age!” he says.
“Literally, yes,” I say, and turn to a girl I’ve empowered as a stage manager. “Can you hit the lights? We’re in a graveyard here, folks!”
So she cuts out all the lights in Libby’s basement, but it only gets half-dark. Maybe I’m scrunching up my face like I’m not happy, because the boy who plays Pip says, “Do you want me to run home and get these, like, heavy blankets my dad keeps in the trunk for hunting? I can tape them up to the windows and it’ll get super dark in here. If it’ll help.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and say, “Nah.”
Paige is in the corner murmuring her lines, all from the highlighted dialogue in her torn and worn Great Expectations from school, and I like this. A lot. Gimme an actor who practices without being prodded! Point: Paige.
Is she a natural for Miss Havisham? That’s a big nope, a blinking nope, neon like her braces. But I’m stuck with her, and I’m trying to focus on the positive. Like, how she always brings me a Rice Krispies treat before rehearsal.
“Okay,” I say to the room. “Let’s go to the top of the scene. Does everyone have their copy of the novel?” I don’t wait for them to answer. “Great. So, you’re in a graveyard, Pip. You’re visiting your parents and sibling, whose headstones we will someday have when the props department pulls it together. And you meet an escaped convict.”
A sophomore girl, named Lisa but referred to (behind her back) as Mona Lisa because nobody’s ever seen her smile, steps in. She’s tough as heck and a perfect convict, and I loved casting a girl as a burglar, even though statistically guys always get into worse stuff and are basically idiots. In my experience.
“Can I ask a question?” Pip dares to say.
“Sure,” I say, and I catch
myself getting the tiniest bit short with him.
“I guess I’m just, like, super lucky that I’ve never lost anyone, in real life? So, here I am at a graveyard, and I’m wondering how to pretend to be sad?”
Whoa! There I go, somehow up on my feet, kind of springing around. “Okay, I love this!”
Libby appears at the top of the steps to check on rehearsals. Let’s be honest, to check in on me.
“Teachable moment!” I say, trying to ignore her. She’s my toughest, truest critic.
A few of the cast drop their phones for a sec and I decide to give ’em the tiniest master class.
“Acting is about channeling crappy stuff from your past.”
A girl who is sad to not have a leading part nods too hard.
“Otherwise, it’s just crappy stuff, it’s just gunk. It doesn’t have a bigger purpose.”
I can literally feel Libby frowning at me, as if I’m eating up valuable rehearsal time. I look to get a visual. Def a frown.
“So, what you do is”—I look right at Pip—“you name something super bad that happened to you once.”
I pause. He gives me like, right now? eyebrows, and I give him duh eyebrows back.
“I mean, I asked for a new gaming console for Christmas, and didn’t get it?” Scattered laughter. His face lights up—everyone loves to land a laugh. But he wasn’t kidding, folks.
“Perf! Seriously, perf. But go deeper. Like give me a loss.”
Pip goes blank-faced like a big white dressing-room wall that needs decorations.
“Oh!” (This, from my female convict.) “I have an uncle who accidentally broke his neck at Mount Rushmore.”
This is what I’m working with.
“Thanks for that, Lisa. Pip, does that inspire anything in you?”
Mount Rushmore seems to stir Pip. “Okay, I got something—my cousin got a weird disease and they could never find a diagnosis.”
“And?”
“And?”
“What’s the end of the story?”
I hear Libby’s stairs creak, and she turns and exits. I’m telling myself it’s an “Okay, Nate’s got rehearsals under control” exit, and not a “Nate is a disaster of a director and I cannot watch this train wreck” exit.
