Scene 10

No amount of upside down time helped after my call with Jules. Not even laying on my stomach, all the air squeezed out of me. Tomorrow’s the dress rehearsal. I had really hoped that Jules would be coming back to see the performance, but that won’t be happening. So instead of staying here thinking about that, I asked Mom to drive me over to Aislinn’s house.

“What do you think of me doing it like this?” Aislinn asks, pretending her bedroom is a stage. We spent the last hour making our own matching musical theater shirts that look like the vintage playbill for Annie, with a little red-headed girl and small dog on the front of white shirts. Her laptop is quietly playing a musical theater playlist.

I wasn’t expecting her to move into practice mode, so I have to shift into thinking like an assistant director really fast. I wait for her to hit that first note. She places herself in front of me and starts to perform her lines like she’s an opera singer. It’s super high and not what I was expecting at all.

I clutch my stomach, laughing. “That’s not right!”

Her voice wobbles all over and she slides across every note. I’m laughing so hard that there are tears in my eyes. She makes it to the monkey line and then completely falls apart. I would usually correct her at this point, since the monkey line is supposed to be said genuinely. This time, I don’t. The sound fills her entire bedroom, and it makes me feel like I’m in a big hug. I know she’s doing this on purpose to make me laugh.

But after I finally stop laughing, my heart starts aching again thinking about Jules’s phone call. I didn’t realize that Jules was so upset with me this whole time. I thought she was just busy. But I guess my parents were right. Sometimes people change when they move away. And I haven’t been a good or supportive friend to Jules about her swimming.

All the things that Irene Brown and my mom and Aislinn have been saying—I did that to Jules this whole time. We’ve been best friends for so long. I never thought that I’d have to do something so big, like assistant direct an entire camp showcase, without her by my side. But that’s what the problem was all along. That she was by my side and I wasn’t by her side. I just wanted her to be in the ensemble of my play this whole time.

So as much as I want to call and explain and tell her I’m sorry, I’m not going to do that. Because Jules deserves to be the star in her own life. Just like Aislinn deserves to be the star of the showcase.

And that twinge inside me that wanted to be Janet gets a little bit smaller.

Aislinn falls down next to me. The force shakes the bed and I almost bounce right off the edge.

“Well, that helped me feel a little less nervous about tomorrow,” she says.

I try to catch my breath between laughs. A new song starts playing on the laptop. I can tell what it is right away. Aislinn turns to me, her eyes lighting up.

“Maya! This is the perfect song for getting rid of all my worries.”

She springs up off the bed and starts to dance to Dancing Queen. My fingers immediately start wiggling to the song. I try to keep them tight to myself, remembering that I “shouldn’t be distracting others with sudden movements,” but those striking piano chords make me so happy that I can’t contain myself! I start smiling and grooving and then Aislinn holds out a hand to me. I take it and we dance and sing to the song, hitting every single note.

And when the bridge hits in the song, I feel like I’ve been here before. That I’ve been in this feeling before. Back when I’d hang out at Jules’s house and the two of us made secret code words and laughed until we cried. Together with Aislinn in this room, I feel like I’ve found one more place where I can truly be myself.