Inevitable and Only(46)
“Hey—I get off at three, and Micayla’s meeting me to drown our sorrows in milk shakes at the Charmery. Her date with Troy didn’t go so great either. Want to come?”
“Sure. Mind if I invite Raven, too? She wanted to go last night, but I wasn’t feeling up to it.”
“Of course.”
“Great. See you later, then.”
I started up the stairs, then turned around and found a table in the museum café instead. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with extra cheese and cracked open my Much Ado script to page one. I was starving, and I really did have a lot of lines to learn.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At Monday night’s rehearsal, we were supposed to be off book.
Ha.
Actually, I didn’t do too badly. We ran a few of the Beatrice-Benedick scenes, and Zephyr had his lines down perfectly. But I was only one or two cues short.
“Seven weeks!” Robin moaned. “Seven weeks until tech week, people. I know that sounds like a long time, but remember that time is an illusion. And that’s not the Bard, it’s Einstein, so don’t argue. Please, please, please. Do whatever it takes this week to get these lines down. Consider this me begging and groveling.”
The play was the first weekend in December—the weekend before Josh’s competition. Last night at dinner, Mom had told me she’d probably have to come to the Sunday matinee of Much Ado, since Josh had an important rehearsal with his pianist on Friday evening and couldn’t stay out too late on Saturday. Dad said he wouldn’t miss opening night for the world.
“Josh, are you sure you don’t want to change your rehearsal so you and Mom can come to Cadie’s opening night?” he asked. “I’m sure you can move it to a different day.”
“He cannot move it,” Mom snapped. “The pianist had very limited availability; we’re lucky to have squeezed in any rehearsals with her at all.”
Then Dad said, “Let Josh speak for himself, Melissa,” and Mom was about to respond, but Elizabeth interrupted to say, “May I be excused?” That seemed to remind Mom and Dad that there were other people in the room, and they stopped arguing, although the air was still so charged it felt like static was crackling between them. Josh toyed with his food. I put my arm around him.
“Hey,” I said, “how about some after-dinner music?”
But he shook his head no.
“Okay. A game of Spit?”
His eyes lit up. “We haven’t played that in forever!”
So I went up to Josh’s room with him, since Elizabeth had gone into our room and closed the door, and we played a break-neck game of cards, and then another, and another. Just like we used to in the olden days. B.E.—Before Elizabeth.
I was done trying to be friends with her, and I was done trying to forgive Dad for bringing her into our lives, too. It was time for him to figure out how to make things right again—right with Mom, with me, with all of us. Maybe I wasn’t exactly on Mom’s side either, but I was sick of picking sides. I was on my own side.
Zephyr and I sat silently in the back of the theater and watched Rina rehearse one of her Dogberry scenes. We had a Beatrice/Benedick scene scheduled for this time slot, but Rina’s rehearsal was running behind. She was still overacting all her lines, killing the comedy of them, and Robin kept making her start over.
“So, um.” I tried to think of something to say to Zephyr. “Did you have fun at the Fall Ball this weekend? I don’t think I saw you there.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, didn’t go. Long story.”
“Oh.” Why was it so hard to make conversation with Zephyr? When we were on stage, our lines flew back and forth like the ball in a tennis match. Off stage, we were more like a game of golf—I’d hit the ball, watch it roll far away from where it was supposed to go, and then wait while he teed up. Was that what golf was like? I’d never actually played.
“What’re you thinking about?” Zephyr asked.
“Golf,” I said, before I could stop myself. Brilliant.
Zephyr raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Just kidding. Um, I was thinking about the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? production at Center Stage. It opens this weekend; we just got a postcard in the mail. Actually, we have an extra ticket. Want to go see it?”
Wait a minute. What had my brain just told my mouth to say?
Zephyr raised his other eyebrow, so his amber-gold eyes widened. “Okay. Sure. I’d like that.”
“Great! I’ll, um, I’ll get the ticket and bring it tomorrow and—”
“People!” Robin roared, facing the back of the theater and shading his eyes with one hand. “I can’t see who that is back there, so count yourselves lucky. I shall flay anyone who disrupts this rehearsal one more time with that infernal chatter!”
Zephyr and I ducked our heads and tried not to look at each other. I knew I’d break into an uncontrollable giggle fit if we made eye contact, and he must’ve felt the same way, because when I sneaked a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, his jaw was twitching. So was the dimple in his cheek.
Zephyr had a dimple? I’d never noticed before. I wondered if he had one on the other side to match. I’d have to remember to check next time we were facing each other. Sometime when I wasn’t trying to remember lines of Shakespeare, of course.