The rehearsal hall knocks the breath out of me. I pause inside the door to take in the high brick walls and wooden floors of the old warehouse space. The late-afternoon sun slants through a row of windows, lighting the table where Drew, Renée and Neeta, the stage manager, talk together. A large circle of chairs faces them. Past the chairs, a short stocky guy plays “On Broadway” on a piano while other kids sing and dance along.
“We’re seriously not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” I murmur to myself. “This rocks.” I snap a photo of the scene with my phone. I don’t want to look like some small-town hick, but this will make Cassidy drool.
I’m always excited at first read-throughs, but this one feels extra exciting.
“On Broadway” finishes, the group breaks apart, and I join in their applause. I scan the faces, hoping to see Gregor. There’s his friend Shantel, and…ugh. There’s Marissa. She leans back and laughs at something said by the big-headed blond guy she hung out with at the callback. I’m not surprised she’s in the play. I’d just hoped that by some miracle she wouldn’t be.
Whatever. Why focus on Marissa? There are new people to meet, a director and choreographer to impress. Time to join this theater company. I straighten my shoulders and step away from the door.
“Ellie!” A voice halts me.
I turn to find Gregor pointing happily at me. “I knew you’d get in. Congrats.”
I point back at him. “You too.”
He pulls me into a hug and rocks me back and forth like I’m his long-lost pal. It’s great. Since the kids at my new school continue to be generally boring, Gregor’s the closest thing I have to a friend now.
“Aha. You’re just in time for the drama.” Gregor swings me around to face the group. “The cast list is going up.” He points to Neeta tacking a sheet of paper onto a bulletin board near the piano.
“Doesn’t everybody already know their roles?”
“The ones who are double cast don’t know who they’re sharing a role with. Until now.”
I’d half-forgotten Drew mentioned this when he called. Maybe I’d forgotten on purpose. Because now I feel a jitter of worry in my gut.
“I’m double cast,” I tell Gregor. “I’m Piper.”
Gregor steps back, looking dramatically shocked. “Your first show with YWTC and you’re not in ensemble? You’re a specific character? That’s unheard of.”
“Seriously? So this could be good?”
“Can’t you tell by how jealous I sound? Go see who you’re cast with.” He points to the actors swarming the bulletin board.
But not everyone is swarming. I look sideways at Gregor. “It’s only girls reading the list.”
He looks caught out. “Fewer guys audition, so there are always roles for them. More girls audition, so…” He shrugs. “They have to share.”
As if on cue, the guy Marissa was laughing with comes loping toward us. Gregor mutters, “Here comes surfer dude.”
“Gregor, bro, heard you’re playing Vincent. Major role. Sweet. I’m playing Dean. So stoked.” He holds up his big hand for Gregor to high-five.
Gregor complies. “Cool, Brayden. We’ve got a couple of great numbers together.” Gregor catches me backing away. “Have you met Ellie? This is her first gig with us. She’s landed Piper.”
“Who’s Piper?” Brayden attempts to furrow his pale brows, but his face can’t quite do it.
Gregor rolls his eyes. “A character in the play.”
“I was just going to go check that out, Brayden. Nice to meet you.” I abandon Gregor to his fellow we-get-roles-to-ourselves castmate.
I get to the back of the cluster of girls pointing at the list, all talking or whispering. I stand on tiptoe. Shantel glances over her shoulder and spots me. “Hey, you got Piper. Cool role.”
“Thanks. I know.”
I freeze. Because I wasn’t the one who said that.
But I know the voice.
Right in front of me. Even the back of her head looks uptight somehow. Marissa. She said it. Marissa is Piper. I’m Piper.
Shantel laughs. “Yeah, you too, Marissa.”
Slowly, following Shantel’s eyes, Marissa turns around to face me. Her smile shuts down. “Seriously?” she says.
People buzz around us, focusing on their own news.
“Seriously,” I say back.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Neeta gives an ear-splitting whistle from the rehearsal table.
“Okay, people. You’ve all been given your scripts. Two minutes for any last bathroom breaks or super-important texts to your besties. Then it’s butts in seats, phones off, brains on for our first read-through.”
I’m standing off to the side of the room, still absorbing the shock of sharing Piper with Marissa. Nothing to do but heed Neeta’s command. I sit in one of the chairs in the circle. I take a deep breath, look down at my copy of the script and smooth my hand over the cover. Neeta has penciled Piper/Ellie on the top right corner. I’ve always loved getting a new script. At Rossmere, Cassidy and I would huddle together counting our character’s songs, scanning the pages for big chunks of monologue.
Someone sits beside me. I look up, ready to smile, and see Marissa. Is there no escape from her? I look away. Drew is walking around the room, talking to pairs of girls at a time.
“Actors who share roles are supposed to sit together,” Marissa says in a tone implying I’m clueless. “It’s how we always do the first read-through.” She arranges her bag at her feet and puts her water bottle beside it.
“Fine. Nobody told me.”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
“Great.”
She sits back in her chair.
I open the script and look for the song list. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Marissa roll her shoulders back and forth. “If you’re looking for your solos, Piper has one. It opens the show. Lots of lines, but one solo.”
“That’s not what I was checking,” I lie, swallowing my disappointment. One solo? I’ve never played such a small part. “I like to know what all the songs are before starting.”
“You don’t even know the play?”
“We just got the scripts.”
“The rehearsal scripts.” She gives a dismissive sniff. “Friendly advice? There are other ways to read a play before first rehearsal. Even better, watch a performance. I saw Schooled off-Broadway last summer.”
Of course you did, Queen of the Theater. I lean down to get a pencil from my backpack and murmur under my breath, “I’m just going to throw up on you now.”
“What?”
“Hey, Marissa, Ellie.” It’s Drew.
I bolt back up. “Hey, Drew!” Marissa and I say at the same time.
Drew laughs. “Very nice unison.”
“It’s like we’re meant to play the same part.” Marissa laughs and smiles at me like we’re best buds.
Drew ignores her comment. “Ellie, could you do Piper for this read-through?”
“Sure.” If I could high-five myself, I would.
He gives a distracted thumbs-up and moves on.
Delicious silence from Marissa.
“The order at the read-through doesn’t mean anything, you know,” she finally mumbles.
“Totally. But can we not talk right now? I like to focus before a rehearsal,” I say, mimicking how she cut me off at the audition. I snap open my script to Act 2, Scene 1.
First read-throughs really are one of my favorite things.