The Big Production #2

“WANT SOME?” SAID KYLE WITH A GRIN, OFFERING Brianna his half-eaten Dove Bar.

“That’s the wrong answer. We asked you a question. You may not answer us with a question. Especially a dumb one.” As Brianna sat next to Kyle in the hallway near his locker, Casey, Charles, Reese, and Dashiell knelt around them. “Now watch my lips and do this . . . yyyes, Brianna, yes, I can play Danny Zuko.”

Kyle burst out laughing. “Right. In my spare time. Sorry, guys, I can’t. I have this commitment. Practices, meets—”

“Think of your future,” Charles piped up. “Acting is useful in so many ways. Throwing sticks is old school. So hunter-gatherer.”

“It’s a javelin,” Kyle said. “And it’s my event. I can’t let the team down.”

“You were born to play this role, Kyle,” Dashiell added. “And as student director, I have techniques that will save you time by accelerating memorization and blocking, including a virtual 3-D scene-by-scene digital schematic.”

Kyle took another bite and rubbed his forehead. “Look, guys. Even if I could do it? It’s Harrison’s part. I would feel funny taking it.”

If I could. That was promising. Brianna leaned in. “You would feel better letting someone else do it? Someone less than the best? Because that’s what will happen. Put yourself in Harrison’s head. Can you imagine him thinking, Hey, cool, someone mediocre is taking over my part? Don’t you think he would want you to do it—his old Godspell partner?”

Casey slid her clipboard toward him. “Here are the remaining rehearsals, right up to the weekend of performances. We have seven weeks left, plenty of time.”

“We are being hypothetical,” Dashiell said. “Now, hypothetically, say we could arrange something—like, you could come late to rehearsals to allow for track. How much of a hypothetical conflict would it be?”

“Uh . . . big?” Kyle glanced at Casey’s schedule. “You’ve got three weekday rehearsals and one or two on the weekend. And track…” He shook his head, started to get up, then paused. “Actually, I’m not doing a team event, so I don’t have to be at track practices the whole time, but—”

“So then you could rehearse!” Dashiell burst out. “Hypothetically.”

“I’m not scared either,” Kyle said, tossing the Dove Bar wrapper and stick clear across the hallway in an arc and directly into the trash. “Two points! Look, I’m twice the size of Emmons. But I can’t do it to him. It would be selfish. Nobody pulls that kind of stunt.”

“Okay, your choice,” Brianna said, turning back with a sigh. “You go ahead and throw the javelin. We’ll get Devon to do Danny.”

“Devon?” Kyle said. “You’re going to let that guy play the lead?”

Brianna turned. “Well, yeah. But we’ll deal. Don’t forget to come see him act with all your old friends. Come on, everybody!”

Brianna grabbed her and Reese by the sleeves. “Come on. You, too, Charles. Dashiell?”

“I’ll work on him,” Reese said with a sly smile. “I have ways with Kyle.”

Brianna moved to a side hallway, which had a window looking out onto the field. “I don’t think you’re going to need to.”

She put her finger to her lips and gestured out the window. It was a warm day for February, maybe fifty degrees, and a gym class was outside in sweats, running laps. Coach Emmons stood by the fence, egging them on.

Brianna rested her hands on the door. They were shaking. Which was annoying. They had been shaking a lot lately. For no reason.

Now Kyle was jogging across the field, in his sweats. He headed straight for the coach.

“Well, now, this situation is pregnant with possibility,” Dashiell said. “Do you suppose he is asking?”

Brianna shrugged. “Kyle has an ego. He loves applause. He loves it when people need him.”

As Kyle began talking, Coach Emmons nodded curiously. Brianna couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the coach’s face quickly changed. And he did not look happy.

A nod, a glance at a clipboard, and Kyle was running, back onto the track.

“Nahhh,” Charles replied. “That was guy talk. Probably discussing the length of their javelins.”

“Well,” Dashiell said, “we made a valiant attempt. Thank you for your persistence, Brianna.”

Brianna exhaled and turned away. Together they walked quietly across the lobby and down the hall to the auditorium.

“Five-one-six . . . ” Brianna stopped herself. Not a smart idea to let everyone know she knew. “I think I have it written down somewhere. From the first audition.”

As she reached for the auditorium door, an arm reached around her and pulled it open. “After you.”

“I move fast,” Kyle replied. “I just wanted to tell you, I talked to Coach. About the show.”

“So he tells me he tried to be an actor, right out of college,” Kyle said. “He was on three soap operas and two TV shows. In all of them, he was a cop. No lines. Said it was the most boring way to make a living. So he left the business.”

“Just our luck, Coach Emmons is a failed actor,” Brianna said. “So he told you to come here and yell at us?”

“He was there at closing night of Godspell,” Kyle went on. “He said he went home totally pissed off. He didn’t think I would ever do anything athletic ever again. So he was amazed and happy when I tried out for track.”

“He said Godspell was the best show he ever saw in eighteen years at Ridgeport. But Grease is his favorite musical of all time. So you know what he says to me?” Kyle grinned. “He says, ‘If you pass this up, you’re crazier than I thought.’”

Brianna raised an eyebrow. Kyle was sneaky. He had a twisted sense of humor for someone so straight and jockish. There might be a punch line here she wouldn’t like.

“He said, and I quote”—Kyle pitched his voice to sound like Coach Emmons and almost nailed it—“ ‘I’ll keep you on the javelin. We’ll work it out. But if you don’t get your butt to the next Drama Club rehearsal, you’re doing the shot put and cross-country.’ ”

Reese let out a shriek and jumped on him. Dashiell let out a cheer and started dancing. Charles, despite having never showed signs of religion, did the sign of the cross. And Casey beamed at Brianna.