“Ooo, a prince …” Amy’s mouth formed a perfectly round O.
“He said ‘like’ the prince,” I whispered.
Her ooo rapidly transformed into a more wistful ohh. “But maybe that means like an earl or something,” she whispered back.
“Or something,” I agreed. They were all definitely something.
“What’s your name, Red?” Taylor turned to me, and smiled. He was so tan his teeth were blindingly white. Actually, all of him was kind of blinding. He shook his shaggy blondish hair out of his eyes, highlights glinting in the sun like he’d just stepped off the beach. Taylor was probably the hottest guy I’d ever seen in the flesh. Emphasis on flesh—he had amazingly well-defined arms under his graphic tee. And I was willing to bet everything else was pretty well-defined, too.
“Cadet Cass,” I saluted.
“Wait, are you guys really military?” Ferret furrowed his brow. “Is this like some Charlie’s Angels shit?”
“Oh no, you’ve blown our cover,” I said sarcastically. “Now the mission’s been compromised.”
“Jigga-whaaaaa.” Ferret’s jaw dropped.
“She’s messing with you, bra.” Taylor laughed. “Who’s been schralped by the Betty now?”
“I hope you end up on the wrong end of an ass-knife, Griffith!” Ferret grumped as the ferret snuggled consolingly against his cheek.
“Ass-knifes only happen to BGLs like you, knuckle-dragger.” Taylor smirked. “Who’s been nutted at the last two X-Games?”
“Your mom, Griffith,” Ferret sulked. “Your mom got nutted.” He retreated around the corner of the Bait ’n’ Bite while the rest of them laughed.
So maybe I only understood about half of what was being said. But I understood that Taylor—Griffith—whatever—was undeniably hot.
“If you’re no angel, Cass”—Taylor turned to me—“what are you doing way up here in the middle of the woods?”
“We work at Shakespeare at Dunmore.”
“What, you an actress, Red?” He straightened.
“We both are,” Amy said.
“Dag, that’s ill, Betty!” He leapt off the steps to join me in the dirt at the bottom. “This shit is mad timely!”
“Speaking of mad timely.” I looked up as a new voice interrupted. Langley was standing at the top of the stairs, chewing contemplatively on half a sandwich. “You guys had better order your sandwiches or you won’t have a lunch break.”
“But we’re—”
“Now, Cass,” she warned, making her way down the stairs, ducking neatly under Skittles’s arm as he tried to block her path. “We’ve still gotta walk back.”
“Fine, fine,” I acquiesced, as Noah, Rhys, Drew, and Heidi made their way down the stairs, Drew glowering darkly as Heidi shot us disapproving, mom-type looks. Or the kind of looks I imagine other people’s moms would shoot. Mine would probably have been trying to do a flip trick on one of their skateboards by this point. Or she would have, before she went crazy and did nothing but lock herself in her room, listening to Norah Jones for hours on end. When, you know, she wasn’t destroying public property.
“That your warden?” Taylor asked.
“Hot warden,” Skittles commented. Clearly, as evidenced by his hoodie, the man was attracted to bright colors. Langley must have been his perfect woman.
“Kind of our warden, I guess.” I shrugged, as Amy and I moved up the stairs to get our sandwiches. Langley waited at the bottom, tapping her watch while masticating her sandwich.
“Wait, Cass.” Taylor grabbed my wrist, bringing me face to face with surprisingly clear blue eyes and warm, tanned skin. “I’ve got some ill shit to talk to you about. Ill important shit.” He nodded, like that explained anything.
“Sandwich!” Langley yelled.
“Cass, let’s go.” Amy tugged on my arm nervously. “I really, really don’t want to be late.”
“Do you enjoy getting me in trouble?” I asked Taylor, placing my free hand on my hip.
“Redheads are nothing but trouble,” he said softly, pulling on one of my springy red curls and watching it bounce. He pulled a Sharpie out of his baggy shorts and before I could stop him, on the underside of my forearm, he wrote TAYLOR GRIFFITH. SEGUNKI CABIN.
“SANDWICH!” Langley yelled again.
“Find me, Red,” he whispered as Amy pulled me into the store. “Or I’ll find you.”
“Bowser!” one of the guys outside howled. Then they all did this weird bow-ow-ow dog howl, like a pack of wolves. Sexy wolves, but still. Strange.
“Ohhhhh emmmmmm geeeee.” Amy exhaled as the doors to the Bait ’n’ Bite swung shut behind us. “H. O. T. T.”
“Has their hotness robbed you of the ability to speak in anything but letters?”
“Pretty much.” She nodded as we approached the deli counter.
“Understandable,” I agreed as we surveyed our options.
“Taylor certainly seems to like you,” she remarked after we’d ordered, a twinkle in her eyes.
“Doubt it.” I shrugged as I walked over to claim my turkey sandwich. “He didn’t even ask for my number.”
“Obvi,” Amy said smugly as she picked up her sandwich. “This place is a total cell phone dead zone, remember? There’s no point in getting your number; he can’t call you. Instead he did something much more … indelible.” She poked my arm.
“He probably was just looking for something to tattoo.” I blushed as we pushed open the door. All the skaters had cleared out in the time we’d been getting our sandwiches. As soon as we hit the ground, Langley started speed-walking back to rehearsal, the rest of us trailing behind.
“Nah-uh.” Amy shook her head. “Don’t you see? It’s so romantic! Like old-fashioned times!” She clasped her turkey sandwich to her heart. “Deprived of cell phones, he has to make bold statements to declare his love! To fight for you! To say what he feels instead of typing, bravely exposed without the cover of text messages!”
“You’re kind of a nut, you know that?” I arched my eyebrow.
“You’re kind of a skeptic.” She slung her arm around my shoulder as we walked. “But I’ll convert you. Love is fun, Cass.”
“Fun!” I snorted. “I know you’ve read enough Shakespeare to know that is just not true.”
“Oh, come on. Romeo and Juliet had, like, four whole acts of super fun times before the really serious shit went down,” she teased. “Live a little.”
By this time Heidi had wound her way to the back of the group, demanding a full update. Unlike Amy and me, however, she wasn’t so convinced that meeting the skaters had been a good thing.
“I still think they’re trouble.” Heidi shook her head as we approached the rehearsal space.
“Why? Because Nevin said so?” I asked. “Who cares what he thinks?”
“No, it’s just a … feeling.” She shook her head. “And I’m usually very intuitive about people.”
“Thanks for the warning.” I started tearing into my sandwich. “But I’m pretty sure I can fend for myself.”
Heidi looked dubious, but Amy and I were too busy devouring our sandwiches to be too concerned.
We had more than enough time to eat and make it back to rehearsal. When we returned, Nevin stood in the middle of the stage holding a slim stack of sheets of paper, a few heavy books at his feet. Once we hit the stage, he instructed us to sit and handed the papers to Langley, who passed them around the circle. I looked down at mine.
Ugghhhhh.
It was my least favorite part of the entire play. Really, the only part of the play I didn’t like. Kate’s last monologue. After she’s been “tamed,” she gives this whole terrible speech about subservience and obeying your husband and placing your hand below his foot and how women are weak and all this other horrible bullshit. I hate, hate, hate it.
“You undoubtedly recognize what you see before you,” Nevin said. “Each of you has one of your monologues from the play. Langley will pass out pencils. Mark out everything in iambic
pentameter. Scan it for rhythm and meter. Look up any words you don’t know in these dictionaries.” He gestured to the books at his feet. “You will know these monologues better than you know yourselves!”
A bit dramatic. But it was what I was coming to expect from Nevin. Dutifully, I grabbed a pencil from Langley and began dissecting the hated text. When you scan something, you mark it into syllables, making notes of which syllables are stressed. Like in Shakespeare, all lines go ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM. And if it doesn’t work out like that, it means he’s trying to tell you something—like maybe your character is really emotionally choked up or something. It’s important to find the very few places where things don’t scan out, because they almost always have a special meaning.
We all worked diligently, almost in complete silence, except when I inadvertently muttered particularly offensive lines under my breath. “I am ashamed that women are so simple,” I grumbled. “Place your hands below your husband’s foot … ridiculous.”
After what felt like hours had passed, Nevin stopped us and had us clear the stage. We were now going to perform our monologues for each other. Rhys went first. After he finished, Nevin asked him questions about it, encouraging all of us to share our opinions. Everybody else went through the same thing. Heidi. Noah. Amy. Drew, thankfully, had not been given the monologue in which he calls Kate “my ass,” but instead the one where he describes how he’s going to tame the shrew. As he finished the monologue with “He that knows better how to tame a shrew, now let him speak,” I had to grudgingly admit—again—that he was really good. He had that unnamable magnetic quality that drew you to him onstage; you had to watch. And weirdest of all, he was even funny. Onstage Drew couldn’t have been more different than offstage Drew.
Then it was my turn. I hopped on stage and recited the monologue, my tongue trying to rebel as it formed the stupid words.
“Now, why are you saying this?” Nevin asked after I’d finished.
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t understand?” he asked.
“Oh, I understand what the monologue’s saying,” I clarified. “I just don’t understand why I—she—Kate—me—whatever—is saying it. The Kate we’ve known for the past five acts would never say this. Never. It feels like a betrayal of her character.” I folded my arms. “I hate it.”
“Thoughts, everyone?” Nevin opened the field to questions.
“A concession to a patriarchal time whose gender norms our modern minds can’t condone or process,” Heidi began eagerly. Someone was ready to discuss gender in performance.
“I think it’s about a foot fetish,” Rhys piped in. “You know, all that ‘place your hand below your husband’s foot’ business.”
“I agree with Heidi. I think it was just a different time,” Noah nodded.
“What if she’s speaking out of love?” Drew asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Love?” I spat. “That’s your idea of love? Total submission?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Right before, Petruchio bet these other guys that his wife would be the only one who comes when called. And it turns out, she is the only one who comes. Why? Because she’s got his back. That’s what you do when you love someone. You back them up, even if you don’t always agree with them. You’re there when it matters. And despite the hell they put each other through, by the end of the play, Kate and Petruchio love each other. So even if she might not believe what she says, she says it, because she knows it’s important to him. She would put her hand under his foot if he asked, but at the same time, she’s also trusting him not to.”
Total silence fell over the rehearsal space. That was remarkably introspective and almost sentimental, especially considering the source.
“Upon further consideration,” I swallowed throatily, “I think she’s just being sarcastic.”
“All valid theories many scholars have posited. Except for the foot fetish.” Nevin stroked his goatee thoughtfully.
“Kate’s realized what their game is,” I continued, picking up steam. “What all these men want. And the only way to win their game is to give them what they want, but in a way so over the top that she knows that she’s mocking them. After all”—I looked straight at Drew—“Kate gets the last word, doesn’t she?”
Silence. Ha! For once, Drew had nothing to say.
The shrew was right. There was no better victory than getting the last word.
CHAPTER 7
Oh my god,” Amy whispered.
All six of us were standing stock-still, staring at the detritus in front of us. We’d reported bright and early for rehearsal, but there was nothing bright about what greeted us that morning.
“Apocalypse theater,” Rhys lamented. “This is disgusting.”
The grassy area in front of the stage where the audience would sit, once we had one, was covered in trash. Mangled pizza boxes. Half-eaten peppers and onions. Plastic bags coated in some oily brown substance I couldn’t name—and didn’t want to. It was absolutely foul.
“How did all this trash get here?” Heidi asked.
“It doesn’t just smell like trash.” Amy wrinkled her nose. “It kinda smells like …”
“POOP!” Rhys screamed. “There’s a big giant poop! Right in front of the stage! Oh God, what if this is my entrance? And there’s poop!”
“Who did this?” Amy asked, ashen.
“It was the skaters!” Drew claimed. “Just like Nevin warned us. They threw trash everywhere, and then they—they—”
“They ate half of it, vommed the rest up, and pooped in front of the stage?” I finished skeptically. “That seems highly unlikely.”
“Yep, that kind of fecal matter only comes from a critter,” Noah said evenly, squatting down to examine it. “Bear, by the looks of it. Explains the trash, too. Must’ve gotten into the dumpster behind that big ol’ barn and come over here to enjoy himself.”
“How nice for him that we provided this bathroom,” I grumbled.
“Bears must hate Shakespeare.” Rhys shook his head sadly.
“You think this was some kind of bear-thespian hate crime?” I asked archly.
“Or just some kind of thespian hate crime,” Drew muttered.
“You’re not still clinging to your insane skater theory, are you?” I pointed to the poop. “Noah’s right. No human made this. This thing is the size of a cow pattie. Or a Boston cream pie.”
“Oh, gross.” Amy blanched. “I’m never eating a Boston cream pie again.”
“I’m not sure I’m ever eating again.” Rhys had turned a rather unbecoming shade of green. I just hoped he’d keep it together. I could not deal with human barf on top of bear barf. There are limits to what even the not-particularly squeamish among us can endure.
“Producing waste is part of the cycle of life,” Heidi said consolingly. “It’s natural. What comes out of the earth goes back into the earth. All this litter, however …”
Langley walked through the archway, holding a trash bag, a shovel, and several pairs of latex gloves.
“That better not mean what I think it means,” I murmured.
“What does it mean?” Amy asked.
“It means they expect us to clean up all this shit,” Drew answered. “No way. Absolutely not.”
“Captain Negative is right.” Langley started handing out the gloves. “We have to clean all of this up.”
“Where’s Nevin?” I asked.
“Nevin’s not coming out to start rehearsal until all the trash and, uh, poop, is gone.”
“This is ridiculous,” Drew muttered. I hated to admit it, but I kind of agreed with him. I couldn’t believe they were making us clean up bear poop! Maybe there was no one else to do it, but this was so not in the apprenticeship description.
“I’m allergic to latex,” Drew said as Langley held out a pair of gloves.
“No you’re not!” I challenged. “You are so unbelievably full of shit—”
“Guess who’s not full
of shit—that bear! Well, not anymore.” Rhys giggled, clearly becoming hysterical at the prospect of having to come in contact with the horrors before us.
“You’re just too lazy to pitch in and help!” I continued.
“Latex allergy is a real thing,” Drew countered.
“Oh, I know it’s a real thing.” I held out the glove. “I just don’t believe you have it.”
“I’m not putting that on.” He stared down the glove.
“Fine.” I took it back. “Have fun scooping up poop with your bare hands.”
“Your bear hands!” Rhys made claws. “Get it? Bear hands?”
“Too soon.” I shook my head.
Langley, Rhys, Amy, and I started gingerly picking up trash with our latex-gloved hands and pitching it into the garbage bags. Heidi and Noah, as the only two people not completely repulsed by it, took up the shovel and started scooping the poop away. Drew, arms folded, watched the events take place. With each piece of decomposing pepper I picked up, I got madder and madder. How dare he just sit back and watch? What, did he think he was better than the rest of us? Who was he, to stand there and not help?
By the time we finished, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled off my gloves and marched straight up to him.
“You are an unbelievable asshole, you know that?”
“Why? Because I wouldn’t clean up shit?” He snorted in disbelief. “What’s the problem? Sheriff Woody and Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl took care of it.”
“Don’t call them that,” I spat at him, looking over at Noah and Heidi rinsing off the shovel in the lake. Luckily they were far enough away that they couldn’t have overheard. “What on earth could have possibly given you such an enormous sense of entitlement that you didn’t think you should have to help?”
“None of us should have had to do it.” He shook his head. “It’s not our job. They’re not paying—well, intern stipending—us to clean up trash. We all should have refused. Together. Then no one could have made us.”
“What was that you said?” I cupped a hand to my ear. “We’re interns. That’s right. We’re not in the Actors’ Union. We’re not Tony nominees. We’re not Meryl Streep. We are at the very bottom of a very big pile in this industry. And to work your way up, sometimes you have to deal with shit. Literally.” I dropped the gloves at his feet. “If you can’t handle it maybe you’re on the wrong career path.”
The Taming of the Drew Page 6
