Drew’s eyes were a mess. A red, puffy, disgusting mess. He had giant dark circles under his eyes, his lids were puffy as marshmallows, and his eyes were so red I could see all the little bloody veins crisscrossing the whites of his eyes, which had turned from white to an unhealthy pink. I knew this had been the plan all along, but looking at him, I couldn’t help but feel bad. It just looked so … painful.
“What happened to you?” Rhys asked, staring at Drew in shock.
“Jesus, man, are you okay?” Noah asked as he leaped over the bench and walked toward Drew.
Amy was studying her ballet flats with an unusual amount of focus, seemingly trying to look anywhere but at Drew. Heidi’s brow was wrinkled with concern, her guilty eyes boring into mine. She was biting her lip, worrying it back and forth between her teeth.
“I don’t know what the hell happened. Let’s just get on with rehearsal, okay?” Drew barked.
Just when I was pretty sure Heidi was about to say something incriminating, Drew blew his nose again and tossed his tissue offstage into the grass. Heidi narrowed her eyes as she pursed her lips disapprovingly. Saved by littering! Knowing Heidi, she probably considered itchy eyes a just punishment for despoiling the earth.
“What’s going on up there?” Nevin asked as he charged toward the stage.
“Drew has pink eye,” Rhys volunteered.
“It’s not pink eye!” Drew protested. “It’s, I don’t know, allergies or something. But it’s not pink eye.”
“Sure.” Rhys looked skeptical. “Don’t touch my stuff.”
“I’m not a leper, and I don’t have pink eye!”
“In light of your … issue,” Nevin interrupted, “you may wear your sunglasses. Only for the duration of this medical emergency.”
“How benevolent of you,” Drew muttered darkly as he unfolded his sunglasses and slammed them onto his face.
I was officially a horrible person. Why didn’t Shakespeare write any scenes where Petruchio soliloquized about how guilty he felt for messing with Kate? I had a lump in my stomach just like the time I’d eaten a whole funnel cake and gone on Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure.
The next few hours of rehearsal were not my finest. Because I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t absorb any of the blocking, which meant that Drew had to steer me around the stage, which only made me feel guiltier. Every exasperated sigh he let out as he grabbed my elbow and pulled me around the stage was like a painful reminder of what I’d done to his eyes.
When we broke for lunch, I had never felt less like eating.
“My stomach is killing me,” I moaned dramatically as I collapsed in the shade next to Heidi and Amy.
“I know, these corsets are the worst,” Amy clucked sympathetically as she dug around in her giant purse. “Have a Wheat Thin.”
I clutched half-heartedly at the box she proffered.
“I have a feeling it’s not just the corsets,” Heidi said knowingly. “It’s your conscience. We have to stop, Cass. We’re hurting him. He may be a litterer, but this is wrong. And you know it is. You know it in here.” She poked me in the chest, finger tapping against my corset.
“We—we’re gonna stop?” Amy asked. “We can’t! Let’s be real. He’s so not boyfriend-ready yet.”
“We can’t stop now,” I whispered as I started nervously munching on Wheat Thins. “Because, otherwise, what was the point? We just tortured him for no reason. We at least have to keep going until we get results.”
“Torture? Never a good way to get results,” Heidi admonished me. “That’s not a path sane people follow.”
“It’s not torture; it’s simply playing pranks. Just like silly, stupid, fun summer camp pranks,” Amy said. “Or at least it’s supposed to be. Right, Cass?”
“Right.” I nodded vigorously. “We just went a little too far this time. And it’s not like we disfigured him on purpose. We’ll keep going; we’ll just scale it back a little. No more pranks that could possible cause bodily harm.”
“Promise?” Heidi asked skeptically.
I held up my pinky for her to pinky swear. She looped her finger in mine, fixing me with a serious gaze.
“We can’t stop now,” Amy said as she tossed her hair. “I need him to be my perfect boyfriend. He looks extra yummy with those sunglasses.”
“And that mountain man beard,” I added helpfully.
“Oh, stop it.” She swatted my arm. “It’s only temporary. And it’s for his art. Very Daniel Day Lewis.”
“Very Bridget Jones’s Diary,” I agreed.
As Amy and Heidi laughed, I could feel the knot of guilt in my stomach start to unravel. Everything would be fine. We just had to reevaluate our methods—that was all.
After lunch, Nevin decided to work on a scene Kate and Petruchio weren’t in, sending me and Drew backstage to wait until he was ready for us.
“Seriously? Wait backstage? Again?” Drew groused as he sank down to sit with his back against the flat wall, legs stretched out into the muddy grass that comprised our very glamorous backstage area. “It’s like they’re not even trying to manage our time effectively. Why call everyone in if they’re not going to use us? Why make us sit backstage and do nothing?”
“I’m sorry, do you have somewhere else to be? A pressing appointment in the green mountains of Vermont?”
“No, I just have … stuff … to do. Stuff I’d rather do than just sit back here.” He mumbled something that sounded like “itching” and lifted up his sunglasses to rub at his eyes, like a grumpy, sleepy bear. “I don’t even understand how this happened.”
“How what happened?” Boy, if I was planning to carry on with my life of crime, I’d really have to work on my nonchalance.
“This, genius.” He gestured toward his face. “I’m so careful about buying hypoallergenic everything. I haven’t had a reaction like this in a while. I don’t understand what it could possibly be.”
“Well, um, isn’t it obvious?” I knew this line of questioning was in no way accusatory, but my heart started beating a little bit faster anyway. “It’s an old house. And it’s not particularly clean. There’s dust everywhere. Who knows what kind of crap is floating around in the air?”
“That’s probably it. Shitty old house. I’m surprised that leaning tower of crap hasn’t been condemned yet.” He shrugged, then folded his arms like he was trying to keep from scratching at his eyes. I could see his hands balled into tight fists. “God, this is such a waste of time.”
“Do you even like acting?” I asked skeptically, eager to distract him from his itchy eyes. “Because it kind of seems like all you do at rehearsal is complain.”
“Of course, I like acting,” he said, looking surprised. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Me, too,” I grudgingly acknowledged that we had something in common. Gross. “When did you know?”
“What, that I wanted to be an actor? I was six,” he said as he scratched his beard. “My dad and I were going to play with the Nerf football in the park. My dad’s kind of a football nut—he was sort of a big deal in college. We were both wearing matching Scarlet Knights T-shirts, if you can believe it,” Drew scoffed. “I can’t believe I let myself get coerced into a matching outfit. Even if I was only six. That’s no excuse.”
Scarlet Knights? Drew’s dad had gone to Rutgers? That was crazy. Hopefully Drew wouldn’t be stopping by campus to pick up any more T-shirts in the next four years.
“But when we got there,” Drew continued, “the park was full of guys running around in funny-looking outfits, carrying swords. There was one really tall guy standing in the middle of the group, talking. ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers: for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.’”
“Henry V. The Saint Crispin’s Day speech, right?”
“Yup.” He nodded. “It was some summer Shakespeare group rehearsing in the park. I sat down in the middle of the field and watched the whole thing. My dad kept tryin
g to get me to leave, but I wouldn’t budge. I’d never seen anything like it. It was like a movie, but real. The swords, the language … everything. It was incredible. Even if I didn’t know what half of it meant. I thought it was about Rice Krispie Treats, not Saint Crispin.”
“An honest mistake.”
“But I knew I loved it. I spent the rest of the summer running around with a plastic sword, stabbing things, shouting, ‘These wounds I had on Rice Krispies Day!’”
I laughed. I mean, that was funny.
“That’s when I knew I wanted to be an actor. And much to my dad’s chagrin, that meant that my glorious football career was over.”
“Oh.” I swallowed uncomfortably. I could tell he had meant it as a joke, but the tightening in his voice was unmistakable. There was definitely something complicated there. Or maybe I was just extra sensitive to complicated dad situations at the moment. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a big deal. My dad doesn’t want me to be an actor—not exactly a tragedy of Hamlet proportions. What about you?” he asked brusquely, changing the subject. I could tell he wished he hadn’t said anything. “When did you know?”
“It’s kind of a similar story.” I shrugged. “The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey came to my school and did Midsummer. And Titania had really, really red hair, just like me.” I smiled, remembering how cool I’d thought Titania was. “I’d always been teased for being a redhead. Probably all redheads are. But here was this redhead, who wasn’t just a fairy, but a queen. A super powerful queen. Watching her onstage, she seemed like she could do anything. And then after, when I tried out for my first school play, when I was onstage, I felt like I could do anything, too. Just like Titania. Even though I was wearing a homemade cow costume, it didn’t matter. I was one invincible cow.”
“You were a cow?”
“I was the cow. My first show was a dramatic retelling of ‘Old McDonald’s Farm.’ I’ve tried to destroy all the evidence, but there might be an incriminating video lurking somewhere in our basement.”
“I bet you made a fine cow.” He smirked.
“I was a very method cow. I got sent to the principal’s office for only communicating by mooing in class.”
“What a rebel.”
“They were trying to stifle my creativity! I couldn’t let the man mess with my process.”
“KATE!” Nevin bellowed, and I dutifully made my way to the stage. That was almost a pleasant conversation. How bizarre.
Drew didn’t end up doing much for the rest of rehearsal, and I could practically feel the heat of his anger rolling off him as Nevin called us together to meet before he dismissed us. Although I wasn’t as big a proponent of yoga as my mom, if ever someone needed to do yoga, it was probably Drew. He was headed straight for a rage-induced hernia. At the very least, he could stop criticizing Rhys for taking too much time with his exits and entrances. These all-day-long rehearsals were taxing enough without contending with someone’s pissy mood. This was a far cry from the couple hours of after-school rehearsal I was used to, and it was exhausting. Besides, it wasn’t Drew’s job to police the blocking, anyway. It was so annoying, the way he always acted like he was in charge. Why couldn’t he just listen to Nevin and mind his own business like the rest of us?
“The play,” Nevin announced, “will be blocked by tomorrow. Then we start runs. We open in a week.”
Everyone buzzed a little with nervous energy. We all knew when the show was opening and knew that we’d only signed up for a two-week rehearsal process, but it still felt like everything was moving unbelievably fast. At school, we’d rehearsed shows for months. But in the real world, where time was money, and space was usually money, rehearsal processes were much, much shorter. Wow. One week. And where was Lola St. Clair in all of this, anyway? Did she really have so much faith in Nevin that she wouldn’t even bother to come see how the show was progressing? This was her company after all. You’d think she would have been more concerned with our production than our ability to move to bongo music or to register sexual tension, but evidently not. That first day had been so surreal that sometimes I wondered if Lola St. Clair had been a figment of my imagination. Or a company-wide hallucination.
“We have one week to create a transformative experience for the fine art–loving citizens of Vermont, the summer tourists who flock here from Boston in droves, and, of course, your friends, family, and loved ones.”
Family. Would mine be here? Ordinarily Mom would never miss a show, but I’d been completely ignoring her since I got here. And I hadn’t exactly been talking to her a ton even when we were sharing the same house. I wondered if my dad would come. Probably not. He’d made it to graduation, but he’d missed Anything Goes, so why should this be any different? And even if he did come … I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him.
Amy elbowed me sharply in the ribs, breaking my train of thought. I looked up, past Nevin’s head. Taylor Griffith was sitting on top of the picnic table by himself, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, skateboard resting near his feet. He waved. He waved! At me! Oh, God, now was not the time to freak out.
CHAPTER 12
Somebody’s blushing,” Amy whispered as Nevin droned on about the importance of enunciating consonants and getting enough sleep.
“Shutupshutupshutup,” I hissed as I tried to wish away my telltale blush. Honestly, he’d occupied way too much of my brain space since the moment I was pretty sure we’d almost kissed. Brain space that should have been occupied by consonants. And sleep.
“All alone, without his posse. Verrry interesting,” Amy purred. “I think that makes it a date.”
“Itsnotadate,” I hissed again through clenched teeth. “He clearly just really likes that picnic table.”
“Shh!” Heidi shushed us on my other side. “Major denial, Cass,” she added.
“SLEEP!” Nevin concluded with a flourish. “REST! Be ready to work. Go, and SLEEP! You’re dismissed.”
Finally. I sauntered as casually as I could over to my bag, trying to play it cool as I ripped that stupid corset off. Ah, sweet freedom. My T-shirt was ridiculously wrinkled from the corset, but it would have to do. It’s not like I had any other options. Besides, I wasn’t exactly sure what constituted an impressive date outfit. And anyway, it wasn’t a date.
Taylor jumped off the picnic table, picked up his board, and strode through the grass to meet me.
“There she is,” Taylor announced. I could feel the rest of the cast exchange glances and raised eyebrows—well, except for Amy, who just looked rather smug. “The coldest story every told. How could you play me like that last night?”
“Shh!” I clapped my hand over his mouth, looking around in panic. Thankfully Nevin had left. “What are you doing?”
“Last night. Mystery solved,” Drew sighed. “How uncreative.”
“Relax, Red, I’m just playin’.” Taylor chuckled as he removed my hand from his mouth.
“Really? Because it sounds like you’re trying to get me fired.”
“Not here, I get it, I get it. No sweat, Betty. Let’s bounce.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He smiled, and my stomach did this weird happy flutter. I was in serious, serious trouble. I had a feeling I would have followed him if he’d proposed a trip to the Lake Dunmore Waste Management Facility.
As I started to follow Taylor away from the theater space and toward the woods, I felt someone grab my wrist, roughly. I whirled around, coming face-to-face with Drew’s hazel eyes, flashing angrily.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Actually, I do know what I’m doing.” I yanked my arm back. “Thanks for your concern,” I added sarcastically.
“Cass, I don’t give a shit what you do with your personal life. But don’t be stupid. Are sleepovers with Fall-Out Boy here really worth screwing up the show?”
“I didn’t sleep over—”
“I don’t care what you did or didn’t do,” he i
nterrupted me. “I just know that if you traipse in and out of the house at three a.m., you run a legitimate risk of getting kicked out, ruining the show, and screwing everything up for me. And everyone.”
“I’m sure everyone really appreciates your concern.” Of course he had said “me” first. Lest I forget that the sun orbited around Drew. “But I can handle this.”
“I hope so.”
“You comin’, Red?” Taylor called from across the field.
“Absolutely!” I yelled back, turning on Drew and stomping away toward Taylor.
God, Drew made me so angry! Who did he think he was, trying to control my life? What right did he have to interfere? It was absolutely none of his business. Completely infuriating. What a smug, patronizing …
“Dag, Red, slow your roll,” Taylor exclaimed. “You’re, like, leaving a trail of steam behind you.”
“Sorry,” I sighed. “He’s just … so … frustrating!”
“Who? That guy?”
“Yeah. Drew. He’s an idiot. And definitely the last thing I want to talk about right now.”
“Already forgotten, Red,” he said breezily. “We have some serious, serious business to discuss.”
“Serious, huh?” I had no idea what that could entail. A boarding emergency? A declaration of his everlasting love? I snorted.
Luckily, Taylor didn’t seem to notice and continued to lead me down the path winding around Lake Dunmore, which followed the shoreline. He turned abruptly away from the lake and onto one of the small dirt paths that led deeper into the forest. After a few twists and turns, the wooded area opened into a small clearing.
It was so beautiful it almost didn’t seem like it was real. Wildflowers dotted the tall grass, adding splashes of yellow, white, and blue to the green expanse. A couple of butterflies floated lazily from stem to stem. There were probably mosquitoes and bees, too, but I didn’t see them. I felt like one of those kids who fell out of the closet and into Narnia.
“This is beautiful,” I exhaled quietly.
“Sick, right?” Taylor agreed. “Come here, Cass.”
Taylor lay down in the middle of the field, and I joined him, careful not to get too close, but close enough that he could reach out and touch my hand. If he wanted to.
The Taming of the Drew Page 11
