Look Both Ways(12)

I stare at her. There are joyful groups of actors all over the lawn, singing snippets of songs from their new shows and passing flasks around. Those are her people, not me. “Don’t you want to celebrate?” I ask.

Zoe looks puzzled. “I am celebrating,” she says. “Do you want to come with me?”

I’m in no mood to act cheerful, but that’s not really the point. Zoe is telling me it doesn’t matter to her that I wasn’t cast; she’s offering me her friendship anyway. If I say I don’t want any ice cream and go back to our room to sulk, there’s no guarantee she’ll reach out again.

“Of course I want to come,” I say.

“Perfect,” Zoe says. And before I know it, her arm is linked through mine, and we’re walking away from the horrible, disappointing cast lists and toward the glorious sunset.





I’m headed over to Legrand Auditorium the next morning, clutching the biggest available cup of watery dining hall coffee, when my phone rings. My mom’s picture pops up on the screen, one I took of her wearing three pairs of sunglasses at a flea market, and I’m surprised that she’s up this early. I really don’t want to talk to her right now, but I ignored her texts last night, and I know she’ll keep calling until I answer.

I hit talk. “Hey, Mom.”

“I got you!” She sounds genuinely delighted. “How are you, Brookie? Do you love it there? How did casting go last night? Tell me everything.”

“This place is pretty incredible,” I say. “I’ve only got a minute to talk, though. I’m headed to the theater.”

“Your very first rehearsal!” she squeals. “Which show is it for? I’m so excited for you.”



“This is just a crew call. My rehearsals aren’t starting for a while, so I’m doing lighting and run crew first rotation.”

“Well, everyone has to pay her dues,” my mom says. “Tell me what you’re in, sweetheart! I’m dying from the suspense!”

I steel myself for the sympathy in her voice when I tell her I’m not cast in anything. But when I open my mouth, what comes out is, “I’m in the ensemble of Bye Bye Birdie.”

My mom gasps. “Oh, Brookie, that’s wonderful! Birdie means you’ll get coaching in singing and dancing and acting! The full Allerdale experience. Are you thrilled?”

I can’t believe I just flat-out lied to my mother. What am I going to do when she comes up to see the show and I’m not in it? I guess I could fake an injury or the flu at the last minute. Birdie is the last show of the season, so I have some time to figure it out.

“Yeah, totally,” I say. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

“When is it running?”

“The last two weeks. I’m in a side project, too, but I don’t know anything about that yet.”

“Ugh, I remember those side projects.” I can hear my mom’s eye-roll even over the phone. “They’re so silly. I was in one that was a series of monologues about going to the post office. Don’t spend too much of your energy on that; you have bigger things to worry about.”

I definitely do, but not the way she means. “Hey, Mom?” I say.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

I’m about to ask her if she pulled any strings with Marcus to get me into the festival; maybe it would be easier to know so I can make peace with it and move on. But I can’t make myself ask the question. If I don’t hear her say it, I can keep believing there’s a chance it’s not true.



“I miss you guys,” I say instead. “How’s everything at home?”

“Oh, everything’s fine. We all miss you like crazy, though.”

Talking to her is making me really homesick, so I say, “I’ve gotta go, Mom. I’m at the theater. I’ll call you soon, okay?”

“I love you, sweetie,” she says. “Dad and Uncle Harrison send love, too.”

“Love you back,” I say. I swallow down all my I wish I hadn’t comes and I don’t belong heres and I want to go homes, and I hang up the phone.

When I arrive at Legrand, about ten other people are grouped around the loading dock. Nobody’s really talking to each other, and at first I think it’s because it’s too early in the morning for getting-to-know-you chatter. But then a girl extends her cigarette pack to the guy next to her, and when he takes one without even thanking her, like it’s a routine, it occurs to me that the crew probably arrived at the festival before we did. The silence between them feels like the kind that can exist only between people who already know each other. I take a fortifying sip of my coffee and approach them.

The actor moves into enemy territory, I hear in a nature-documentary voice inside my head. Note the way her eyes dart from side to side. Her fight-or-flight response is working overtime.

There are only two other girls, and I approach the one with the cigarettes, whose stick-straight ponytail is so light blond, it looks almost white. I give her a big, friendly smile and say, “Hi!”



The girl’s almost invisible eyebrows scrunch together as she takes in my lip gloss and white tank top and shorts printed with stars. Everyone else is dressed in jeans, dark T-shirts, and sneakers, and they all have tons of stuff hanging from their belts—wrenches, rolls of black tape, paint pens, heavy-duty gloves, tiny flashlights. Where did they get all that stuff? Am I supposed to have that stuff? The actor and the techie have markedly different plumage, says the nature-documentary voice.