Mikey and Margalo were having lunch together on Wednesday and talking about who already had a date, who wanted to ask who, who hoped who wouldn’t ask her, and what groups were gathering to go to the dance dateless. Margalo reported, “Louis asked Frannie. Big surprise. But she said she didn’t want to go with a date. So he asked Heather Mac. Then Derrie. Cheryl. Sandy. Annaliese. Then Frannie again—I think he was hoping she’d feel so sorry for him she’d say yes. But that’s everybody he’s asked so far. Do you think he’ll ask us? I almost hope he does,” she laughed. “But probably not. Probably over his dead body.”
For some reason Mikey needed to say to Margalo, “I really want Shawn to ask me.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Don’t be so sarcastic at me. I really do. I mean, really really.”
“You’ve really, really told me that same thing about five hundred times,” unsympathetic Margalo answered.
“I could ask him.”
“And I’ve told you about five hundred times my opinion about that.”
“What makes you think you’re so right? You know,” Mikey admitted, “I never wanted anything so much as him.”
“Why?” Margalo asked, looking right at Mikey. “No, seriously, why do you want him? For a kissing op? Mall op? Dating op?”
“Who says there has to be a reason?” Mikey demanded. “What makes you know so much about it anyway? You’ve never even wanted to have a boyfriend.” She looked closely at Margalo, staring into her brown eyes, unexpectedly unsure. “Have you?”
And what did it mean when Margalo smiled in that way? Not a Lucky-me smile or a wouldn’t-you-like-to-know one, but as if she was sitting on a tack. “There was Ira,” Margalo said.
“That was just in fifth grade,” Mikey said.
“How do you know?”
“And he was never your boyfriend anyway.”
“You didn’t say I never had one. You said I never wanted one.”
“If Ira asked you to the dance, would you go?” But before Margalo could answer that question, Mikey said, “You’d look pretty funny dancing with Ira Pliotes.”
“I didn’t say now,” Margalo said, with that tack-sitting smile.
And suddenly there was Ralph Cameron standing in front of her. Ralph just loomed up behind Margalo’s back, with his floppy brown hair and the rugby shirt boys were wearing that winter. “What do you want?” Mikey demanded.
“Hey, Ralph,” Margalo said, turning her head to look up at him and then looking back at Mikey with her eyebrows raised in a question.
“Hey, Margalo,” Ralph answered. “Listen, Mikey, I want to ask—”
“No,” Mikey said.
Margalo made a wrinkly face at her, a What’s-wrong-with-you? face. But what was so wrong with not wanting someone to ask you to a dance when you already knew you wouldn’t go with him? She’d just said her no early, that was all.
“Give me a chance,” Ralph said. “I only want to ask—”
“But why, when I already said no?” Mikey demanded.
She didn’t think it was particularly smart of Ralph to ask her to the dance, when everybody knew how she felt about Shawn.
“Because we’d win,” Ralph said.
“Win what? Is there some contest at the dance?”
“Not the dance,” Ralph said, as if that was the wildest idea he’d heard all morning, or all year. “Geez, Mikey—you didn’t think . . . ? How could you think . . . ? I’m taking Heather to the dance, everybody knows that. You’re really weird, Mikey.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Well, maybe she was, because it was disappointment she was feeling now, finding out that Ralph didn’t want to ask her to the dance.
“Yeah. You are. But I still think you’d make me a good partner in mixed doubles. For tennis. This spring. I’m talking about tennis, Mikey.”
“Mixed doubles?” At least that made sense. She tried to remember what kind of a game Ralph played. “You’re asking to be my mixed doubles partner for the tennis team?” Ralph wasn’t a bad player, she remembered, trying to recall his service returns, if he approached the net behind them. “I’ll think about it,” she promised him.
“We could win big time,” he told her.
“I said I’d think about it,” she told him. And she would, but now she wanted him to go away, because what if Shawn saw her talking to Ralph, and thought she was fickle and had already gotten interested in somebody else, and wouldn’t even consider liking her back because of that. “So—that’s that,” she said, and dismissed him. “What are you hanging around for?”
And now Margalo had covered her eyes with her hands and was shaking her head, No, no, no, no, no.
“What?” Mikey demanded, but before Margalo could start telling her how dumb she was, Mikey went back to what really interested her. “What days do you have rehearsals?” she asked Margalo, to which the answer was, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, when usually no teams had games, so then Mikey wanted to know, “Are these rehearsals in the auditorium?” to which the answer was, “No, in Ms. Larch’s classroom. Why?”
As if Margalo didn’t already know.
* * *
What Margalo didn’t tell Mikey—because she didn’t want to have any more conversations than they already did about Shawn Macavity, and neither did she want the job of carrying messages from Mikey to Shawn—was that Ms. Larch had her working with Shawn on his lines. That was what the early rehearsals were all about, Ms. Larch told them. “Because I wasn’t born yesterday. It is hard work learning lines, and not all of us—let’s face it—enjoy hard work. Lieblings,” she said to them all when they had gathered for their first rehearsal, “acting is the easy part. For acting, you have an audience.” She waved her scarf in the direction of where an audience would have been seated if this had been a stage, and laughed knowingly. “But first, we must all do the hard work. Onward!” she urged them. “Excelsior!”
It turned out that Shawn stank at memorizing, and he also didn’t seem to be doing any preparation at home. After two rehearsals Margalo knew his Act I lines better than he did—although he didn’t seem to notice that. Shawn’s acting ability was physical, the way he moved his body or the way he stood still. He wasn’t a natural at words, however; and sometimes Margalo had to explain to him what a line meant. “You sure?” he’d say.
Margalo would try to explain the language and the joke. “When he says he travels light, it’s like, a rolling stone gathers no moss.”
“Oh, Rolling Stone. I read that sometimes,” Shawn would say. “Is that why it’s called that? But all this Thomas Mendip guy does is talk. He talks too much. You know? For a soldier. And you really get off on him, don’t you? That’s weird. You know? You’re pretty weird, Margalo. Not as weird as Mikey, but—don’t get me wrong, I like you fine and you’re really helping me with this.”
Margalo wasn’t about to tell Mikey that her wanna-be boyfriend was as thick as two planks. She wished Ms. Larch would have her work with someone else, like Hadrian, who had already made up this great voice for his role, all frothy and floaty and not at all like his usual creaky one. But Margalo was stuck with Shawn Macavity.
As they came out of Ms. Larch’s room at the end of Wednesday’s rehearsal Cassie happened to be there, after Art Club, and so were some of the girls who’d had basketball practice, Mikey among them. Mikey didn’t have a chance at Shawn because Cassie grabbed his attention.
“Yo, Tooth!” she called. “How could you do that?”
“Do what?” Shawn asked. “Hey,” he greeted some of the other girls, “hey, hi. Hey, howareya?”
“All that kissing with Heather,” Cassie said.
That got his full attention.
“I mean, she’s so blonde—and she tricked you into it and—how could you fall for that? And kiss her like she says you did?”
“Back off, Cassie,” Shawn warned. “What makes it any of your business?”
Cassie stood right in front of him. “So how was it?” She meant
him to be embarrassed. “On a scale of one to ten, how do you rate kissing Heather? I should tell you, she only gave you a six.”
“What?” Shawn asked. “What’re—”
“All right, I lie, it was a seven.”
“What did I ever do to you?” Shawn looked around to ask, “What did I ever do to her?”
“Probably it’s best not to say anything. You wouldn’t want to kiss and tell, would you? Although, your kissing partner doesn’t have any problem with that. See you around, Tooth,” Cassie said, and sauntered off.
* * *
Margalo didn’t mention the scene as they rode home on the late bus. Mikey sat silent beside her until finally, two stops before Margalo was going to get off, Mikey turned from the window to ask, “Why would Cassie do that? I didn’t think she disliked him that much. Not like Louis.”
“D’you mean like Louis dislikes him? Which is jealousy, or d’you mean like we dislike Louis, because he’s such a general twit?”
“I mean her, about him,” Mikey said.
“You want to hear what I think?”
“Isn’t that what I just asked you?”
“Sometimes,” Margalo reminded her, “you ask me but you don’t mean it.”
“This time I do,” Mikey said.
“I think she’s got a crush on him,” Margalo said.
Mikey disagreed. “It’s the opposite—everybody knows that.”
“It’s only a theory I have.”
“You think Cassie’s after him too?”
“It’s just a guess,” Margalo said. “You know, the way sometimes someone likes someone and they deny it by acting especially unfriendly,” Margalo explained.
“No,” Mikey said, not at all puzzled, just irritated, “I don’t know.”
“It’s actually a way of getting someone’s attention, if you think about it. A backwards way.”
“But if everybody’s after him, how am I ever going to get him?” Mikey moaned. “No matter what I wear.” That day she had put on a blue blouse, because her mother and the saleslady said (and Margalo agreed) that the color looked good with her skin.
Margalo had her own interesting thoughts to follow. “Which makes quarreling a flirtation op.”
“My mother says a woman should play hard to get,” Mikey told her.
“You could say that Cassie’s making sure he knows she’d be hard to get,” Margalo said.
“But I don’t want to play anything,” Mikey said. “I don’t even think I can.”
“Because if she didn’t act like that, he might not notice her at all,” Margalo said.
“Except sports,” Mikey said. “What do you think about Ralph being my doubles—”
But they were at Margalo’s stop and she rose to go down the aisle and get off the bus.
“I’ll call you,” Mikey yelled after her.
* * *
Margalo had to work with Shawn again the next day, Thursday, and he still didn’t know his lines. That didn’t bother him. Nothing bothered him, not even when she pointed out the obvious. “You didn’t do any work at all on this last night.”
“I was busy.” Shawn’s facial expression, and the way he shifted in the desk, both said, What’s your problem?
She told him, “As an actor, you’re a natural with your body. And your face.”
Praise was old news by now to Shawn.
“But you do have to know your lines.”
“I’m trying,” he said. “You’re just some perfectionist genius. Do you expect me to be able to do everything in one night?”
She could see that half of his attention was on a cluster of girls presently studying in one corner of Ms. Larch’s classroom, where movie posters decorated the bulletin boards and—now that she noticed it—there was a little line of initials at the bottom of the chalkboard, ME joined with a plus sign to the initials SM. (Oh, Mikey, Margalo thought, and started figuring out ways to get those initials erased without anyone noticing.)
Shawn was smiling over at Heather Thomas and Rhonda Ransom, where they were rehearsing their lines in one corner of the room. He raised his eyebrows and jerked his head toward Margalo, for their benefit. They covered up their giggling mouths as if covering up a burp, to let him know they got it. He turned his attention to Aimi.
Margalo really wished Ms. Larch had assigned her to work with Hadrian and Frannie, but they, of course, didn’t need any assistance to use rehearsal time well. She could even hear them, Hadrian’s voice all pompous and confident now, since he was reading the mayor’s lines to cue Frannie. Margalo looked at Shawn smiling at Aimi, and sighed.
Aimi didn’t smile back. “She’s mad at me,” Shawn said to Margalo. “Aimi, I mean. Do you think?”
“Maybe she’s bored with you.”
“Naw,” Shawn said.
At least, Margalo reminded herself, Ms. Larch hadn’t asked her to work with Louis, who had started the rehearsal by going up to Melissa, in front of everybody, to ask, “Why don’t you be my date for the dance?” and when she said no, she already had a date, she couldn’t, he turned to Rhonda. “I guess it’ll have to be you.”
“Let’s try the first scene again,” Margalo said to Shawn patiently. “Give me your first line.”
He wrinkled up his face to show how hard he was thinking. With his eyes on the audience across the room, he knocked at the side of his head with the flat of his hand, as if to jar words loose in there, then rapped with his knuckles on his forehead—Anybody home? Finally he said, “Body?” At Margalo’s expression he tried again, “Soul?”
To test him, Margalo maintained her expression.
“I give up,” he said. “Tell me.” Then he looked over at his audience. He moved his forefinger in a circle at his temple, then pointed at Margalo. To Margalo he said, “Don’t be too weird if you can help it.”
“I can’t help it,” Margalo said. “I don’t want to help it,” she told him. “I don’t want to help you, either,” she said.
“Hey, what’d I do?” Shawn asked.
Margalo couldn’t begin to tell him.
* * *
Mikey was there again at the end of rehearsal, lurking at the door, wearing an off-the-shoulder blouse that actually, Margalo thought, looked good. Margalo hated the style, all ’70s fake peasant, but Mikey’s shoulders were as round as her arms, and for the first time Margalo could see why the style had been popular. Most of the day Mikey had covered her blouse with a jacket, but this was a Shawn op so she wanted to look as good as she could.
The students in Ms. Larch’s room were gathering up their books now because the bell was about to ring and they had buses or mothers to meet. Louis said, “Hey everybody, look who’s here. It’s Cinderella. She’s come for you, Shawn.”
Shawn glanced over to the doorway.
“No,” Louis said, “I’m wrong. It’s not Cinderella, it’s her pumpkin.” He laughed.
Shawn laughed with him. “Not bad, Lou.” He jammed his copy of the script into his jacket pocket. Melissa called over to him, asking him something, and all of the girls except Aimi and Frannie gathered around him for a couple of minutes. Shawn bobbled from one girl to the other, before he turned his back to all of them, raised his free hand over his shoulder in a wave, and exited the room. As he went through the door he took the brown bag Mikey offered, said something without looking at her, and moved off.
Mikey followed him, not trying to catch up. Margalo actually admired the way Mikey was going after Shawn—the same way she went for an overhead smash, whap, as hard as she could. She didn’t sympathize with Mikey’s choice, but she approved of her methods.
As the room emptied, Margalo also gathered together her papers and books. “Margalo,” Ms. Larch said. “Can I have just the tiniest word with you?”
Margalo waited.
“How’s our Shawn doing?” Ms. Larch asked. “Or perhaps I should ask, how badly is he doing? Oh, yes, I did know it. He’s my calculated risk because he looks so right. He’s Thomas Mendip in his b
ones. But how is he doing with the lines?”
“Well, he’s not a quick study—”
Ms. Larch’s laughter cut her off. The teacher had a deep, chesty laugh that bubbled up through her throat, the kind of laugh you want to join in with. Margalo joined in.
“But he’s such a lovely-looking boy, so handsome. However, in the interest of progress it might be that I should take over the job of rehearsing him?”
Margalo said quickly, “I’m not the right person to work with Louis.”
“Oh, liebling, I do know that. There are the others—Aimi, Rhonda and Heather, Ira and Jason. You’ve done better with Shawn than I dared to hope, but I suspect that now he needs to hear that he can lose the role. He needs . . . just a pinch of insecurity, a little. soupçon of fear. I promise you, I know these actors,” she told Margalo. “I will not let him bring down my play.”
Margalo couldn’t think of what she was supposed to say. “Un-hn,” she said.
“And on another topic, Hadrian has offered to share your responsibilities as stage manager. Before we accept, I need to be sure his academic work won’t suffer if he undertakes two positions in the play, and one of them a performance role.”
Margalo could reassure her. “If Hadrian says he can do it, he probably can.”
Ms. Larch studied her, intently, dramatically. Then, “May I tell you something?” she asked. She didn’t wait for an answer, and Margalo didn’t try to interrupt her with one. After all, can a student say to a teacher, No, you can’t tell me something?
Ms. Larch told her, “You know, I wanted you for Jennet—well, to be absolutely truthful, it was between you and Aimi—but Mr. Schramm convinced me that you were a better choice for assistant director. Mr. Schramm thinks very highly of you, Margalo, and not only as a student. He admires you. I want to tell you, I’m glad I took his advice. He was an actor himself, did you know that?”
Margalo nodded, unable to speak.
“I always seek out his input on my productions. So you can thank him for your chance to work with me.”
Margalo nodded again.
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