I pace back and forth backstage, my flats sliding across the floor. “I am Jolie Peterson, I am Jolie Peterson,” I mutter to myself. I stop, throw my shoulders back, and announce to a fake tree that must be left over from musicals past, “I am Jolie Peterson!”
“Did that tree forget your name again?”
I turn around to see Derek.
“Thank God you’re here.” I rush toward him. “I need a pep talk.”
“Go get ’em, tiger,” he says, deadpan.
I give him my most wild-eyed look. “That’s supposed to help?”
“I’m not Evie!” Derek says, holding up his hands. “I’m not ready to give a motivational TED Talk at a moment’s notice.”
“Then how am I supposed to calm down?!” I practically screech, and Derek holds a finger up to his lips.
“People are auditioning out there. Just take a few deep breaths.”
I wring my hands. “I think I’m hyperventilating or something .”
“You’re not.” I look up and realize that Derek’s staring into my eyes with an almost unnerving intensity, which causes me to spend more time looking at him than I normally do. It’s not like Abbi’s wrong; he is good-looking. Much better looking than he was when he used to burp the alphabet. And the way he’s looking me right in the eyes is kind of making me wonder why I haven’t noticed that before.
“What’s that look all about?” he asks, widening his eyes.
I look away quickly, but before I can worry about translating my thoughts into words, Marla Martinez walks backstage.
“You’re up,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Thanks for yelling through my audition. It really added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole thing.”
“Sorry,” I whisper, even though it’s too late to whisper at this point.
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and breezes past me, leaving the scent of fancy shampoo in her wake. Marla is probably the prettiest girl in school, and her dark hair is tied into a ponytail that somehow manages to look effortlessly glamorous instead of how my ponytails always look, which is sort of weird and lumpy and not something I would ever in a million years wear in front of other people. She’s not only beautiful, but also the cocaptain of the Academic Challenge team (along with Derek), and she has an amazing singing voice, which everyone knows because she was the lead in last year’s musical—pretty much unheard of for a sophomore. I’m sure she killed it this time, too, even with me screeching in the background. Basically she’s perfect, but she’s not even mean about it, so I can’t really hate her. She is remarkably aloof, but I guess that’s what happens when you have a single-minded determination to master every high school extracurricular so you can get into a good college.
“Hey,” she says as she gives Derek a quick high five. I bristle with annoyance, part of me wanting to yell at her, “Hey, he’s my best friend! You never watched Blue’s Clues with him when you were five-year-olds!”
But I don’t. Because that would be inappropriate, and anyway, it’s not like I’m the boss of Derek. If anyone should be upset about him talking to Marla, it should be Possibly Fictitious Melody. I wonder if made-up girlfriends get jealous?
I snap out of my daydream when Peter Turturro, Mrs. Mulaney’s student assistant, pokes his head behind the curtain.
“Jolie?” he asks, so impatient he practically snaps his fingers. “Are you coming out? You’re the last audition of the day, and I want to get home to watch Dr. Phil.”
“I’m coming!” My stomach flips a few times and I start to run out onto the stage, but Derek grabs my arm.
“Hey,” he says. “Break a leg out there. Or a jaw, or something.”
I laugh, even though my legs feel like the gross cafeteria Jell-O no one ever eats. I also feel a little bit satisfied because Marla looks confused. “Thanks.”
Peter clears his throat. “Jolie, today Dr. Phil’s having former reality TV contestants on to explain to them what’s wrong with their sad, sad hearts, and if I miss even one of their fake tears—”
“I’m coming, Peter!” I’m so perplexed by Peter’s love of late-afternoon television that I forget where I’m going.
That is, until I step onto the stage and into a spotlight that shines right into my eyes. I now understand the phrase “deer in the headlights,” because that’s how I feel as I come to a stop, unable to move left or right as a potentially very awful situation barrels toward me.
“Hello?” asks a disembodied voice, one that I assume belongs to Mrs. Mulaney.
“Um, hi,” I say, stepping toward the center of the stage. I hear Evie’s voice in my head reminding me to avoid fillers and have a presence. I put my shoulders back and say, “I’m Jolie Peterson.”
“I know,” says Mrs. Mulaney, who comes into focus as my eyes adjust to the light. “You were in my freshman English class, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” So much for presence.
“Okay, so you’ll be reading the part of Prudie,” Mrs. Mulaney continues, and Peter runs up onstage to hand me my lines.
“Make it quick,” he whispers, tapping an imaginary watch on his wrist.
“But I…” I pause. Powerfully. “I’m just auditioning for a background part.”
Mrs. Mulaney waves a hand. “That’s fine. Everyone’s reading this part so I can get a feel for your strengths.”
I’m fairly certain my strengths don’t include being the lead, but whatever. I just nod.
“Noah? Can you take it from the top?” Mrs. Mulaney asks.
What? I look to my right and see him. Noah Reed. Standing there this entire time. He looks up from his paper and even though I know time doesn’t work like this, I swear he moves in slow motion. His eyes meet mine and he smiles, confident and calm.
“Hey, Jolie,” he says.
He knows my name?
HE KNOWS MY NAME.
“Noah!” I say, then have to stop myself from smacking my palm across my face. “I mean … hey. Noah. What’s up?”
He points to the paper in his hand. “Just, you know … auditions.”
“Sometime today, please,” Peter says as Mrs. Mulaney waits patiently.
Noah clears his throat. “Prudie, I know I’m just a simple farm boy, but I have a chance to do something more. To be something more.”
I stare at the paper in my hands, the words blurring together. I try to focus on my line, but the light is so bright, so hot. I feel exposed.
“But what about…?” Noah mutters, prompting me to read the next line.
I’m Jolie Peterson, I remind myself (but silently, not out loud … I don’t need a repeat of the last time I said it). Shoulders back. Chin up.
“But what about our life together? The farm? The pigs?”
My brow furrows before I can stop it. Okay, well, Evelyn did warn me that this wasn’t exactly Tony Award–winning stuff.
“Prudie, you know I’ll miss you, but this may be my only chance to colonize the moon.”
“The moon can wait!” I shout with passion that surprises even me. “What about our wedding?”
“We have our whole lives to spend together,” Noah says, looking into my eyes, and for a moment I just stare at the artfully styled swoop of his hair and the urgency in his face and pretend that he’s really feeling it for me instead of the character. That we’re actually engaged and he’s considering space travel.
“If you go to the moon, we’re over,” I say, my heart breaking just a little as I deliver the line. “When you come back to Earth, you can’t come back here and expect me and the pigs to be waiting for you.”
Wow. A surprising amount of pig talk in here.
“But I love you,” Noah says, and just for one more moment, I let myself believe that someone like Noah could really love someone like me. It takes all I have not to go off script and tell him that the pigs and I will wait for him forever.
“I—I—” I stammer, willing the words on the paper to make sense to me. Beads of sweat pop up on my forehead and my mouth goes dry. The paper shakes in my hands.
Noah coughs quietly, the only sound to punctuate the silence of the auditorium.
“I know you do,” I say with as much force as I can muster, looking right at him. “But you love the moon more.”
“Aaaaand, scene!” shouts Peter. “Are we done here, Mrs. M.?”
“Jolie? Could you wait just a minute?” Mrs. Mulaney asks as I attempt to flee the stage.
Oh God. She’s not going to tell me what a terrible job I did in front of Noah, is she? Am I going to get a verbal smackdown while Peter Turturro misses precious seconds of Dr. Phil?
“Would you mind singing a little bit for me?”
“But I … I’m just trying out for a background part,” I remind her, my hands folding and refolding the piece of paper in my hands. “I didn’t prepare a song.”
Mrs. Mulaney leans forward. “I know. But I’d like to hear you sing.”
I have to stop myself from scowling. What sort of weirdo is Mrs. Mulaney that she gets her kicks by torturing innocent bad actors? This is like that part on televised talent shows where the judges focus on all the awful contestants, and then someone’s terrible rendition of an Adele song gets remixed into a catchy jingle that everyone makes fun of.
“I don’t really know any songs from musicals,” I say, racking my brain. Presumably Mrs. Mulaney doesn’t want to listen to me screech my way through the Ariana Grande song I heard on the drive to school, and right now I’ve forgotten every other song I’ve ever heard.
“It doesn’t matter what you sing,” Mrs. Mulaney says, clearly trying to hide her impatience. “‘Happy Birthday.’ ‘Twinkle, Twinkle.’ Just sing.”
I look at Noah, as if he can help me out. He shrugs (it’s a very cute shrug, but still).
“All right,” I say, fighting the urge to use fillers and instead employing another pause that may or may not be powerful. “Here goes.”
I avoid looking at Mrs. Mulaney or Peter. I definitely don’t look at Noah. Instead, I focus on all the empty seats in the darkened auditorium as I open my mouth and slowly start to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle,” my voice echoing through the room.
When I woke up this morning, I never would have thought that I’d end my school day by singing a popular children’s lullaby in front of the cutest guy in school. But sometimes life’s just unpredictable, I guess.
When the last few notes leave my mouth, the room goes silent. I watch dust particles float through the stage lighting as I wait for someone to say something.
“Thank you, Jolie,” Mrs. Mulaney finally says. “You’re our very last audition, so I’ll be making decisions tonight and posting them outside my classroom tomorrow.”
I wait for her to say something else, but she starts gathering her papers and putting them in her bag. She and Peter aren’t giving me a standing ovation for my heartwarming take on a classic … but they also aren’t clutching their bleeding ears and calling for an ambulance.
“Okay … bye,” I mumble, then practically run offstage. I find my backpack shoved behind the fake tree, but Derek is nowhere to be found, thank God. I’m definitely glad he didn’t hear that nightmare of an audition.
“Hey, Jolie?” I hear as I’m hoisting my backpack onto my shoulder.
“Every second you spend complaining to me is a second you don’t spend watching Dr. Phil’s bald, bulbous head,” I say without turning around as I head toward the backstage door that leads to the hallway.
“Technically that’s true of every conversation, but I’ve never really thought about it that way.”
I whip my head toward the sound of that distinctly non-Peter voice and see Noah Reed smiling at me, one hand on his hip.
“Sorry, I thought you were Peter,” I say, gripping my backpack strap so hard I’m afraid my fingers might break.
Noah nods. “I get that a lot.”
“Really?”
“No.” He laughs.
I feel my chin drifting toward my chest as I wait for him to say whatever it is he chased me back here to say. Was I that awful onstage? But then, like a particularly well-dressed hallucination, I see Evelyn in my head. Presence.
I lift my chin, put my shoulders back, and ask the most casual question I can think of. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to say that you were great out there.”
I involuntarily narrow my eyes. “Wait, what?”
He nods enthusiastically and his hair bobs. “Seriously. I don’t know what part Mrs. Mulaney is looking at for you, but I hope it’s a big one.”
I shake my head. I don’t know why Noah’s being so nice to me, but he doesn’t get it. “I’m only trying out for a background part. She’s probably going to cast me as one of the pigs.”
“The pigs are actually one of the most important parts,” Noah says. “But there’s no way you’re going to be in the background.”
Suddenly, I feel too queasy to even answer him. Mrs. Mulaney won’t give me a bigger part, will she? Can she even do that?
“Anyway, there’s no such thing as a small part. Only small actors. And you,” Noah says as he walks backward away from me, pointing at me with his rolled-up script, “are definitely not a small actor.”
He disappears onto the stage, and I’m left staring at the swaying curtain. I’m pretty sure Noah was speaking figuratively, not literally, because I’m only, like, five foot five on a good day. But even then, I don’t know what that means. I’ve never acted before, unless you count that fourth-grade Disney musical Abbi reminded me of, and even in that one I only mumbled through “Be Our Guest” in the chorus while dressed as a mop.
I walk out into the hallway, then push the door open into the parking lot. The April sunshine is brighter than I expected, and I blink a few times as my eyes adjust. The stress of the afternoon eases a little bit, and as I walk to my car, I can’t help but smile.