As we walk to the car, Jasmine’s got this dreamy smile, and her head’s bobbing like she’s listening to music only she can hear. Sure signs of a crush.
I’ve had crushes too, of course, though most have been straight guys. Last year, the photos for our Thespians troop were right after the photos for the wrestling team, and let’s just say the parade of guys in singlets was something to behold. But that’s all they are: crushes. They never went anywhere. Not since Cam.
Jasmine’s crush-to-date ratio is in the ninetieth percentile. My sister is always falling in love. Or out of it. As if love is something you can toss around like handfuls of glitter. (Dr. Lochley is adamantly opposed to glitter, which, once introduced to a theatre ecosystem, can never truly be eliminated.)
And Jasmine’s crush-to-love pipeline is extremely efficient. By next week, she and Liam will be holding hands. By October, they’ll be making out in the little alcove by the trophy case that separates the Art wing from the Music wing, like all the other senior couples. By November, she’ll be planning the wedding. It’ll all be awkward and insufferable, especially since I’ll have a front row seat to the whole thing.
But then by December they’ll have a fight and break up. Or drift apart and break up. Slowly start annoying each other and break up. Go off to different colleges, try and fail at the long distance thing and break up. Have terrible sex and break up. And I’ll be left making another list.
I toss my bags in the back of Jasmine’s car and buckle up. She says something to me, but I don’t catch it. Between classes and auditions, my brain is more or less done listening for the day.
“Say again?”
She turns to face me fully. “I said, Liam seems nice.”
“I guess. He’s more Bowie’s friend than mine.”
“Ah.” That tiny smile makes another appearance as Jasmine starts the car.
My sister is a lost cause.
My predictions all come true:
Jasmine does have a crush.
Liam does make the callback list.
And the senior actors are pissed mutinous concerned.
“He’s never been in a show before,” Cameron tells Jenny, this sophomore who did tech for one show before falling in with the actors and turning into a monster. “He doesn’t have the chops for a lead.”
I keep quiet. None of them saw Liam’s audition. He does have the chops.
“You never know,” Jenny says. “Sometimes Dr. Lochley does weird stuff. I mean, remember The Bad Seed?”
“I guess.” Cam catches me watching. “What do you think, Jackson?”
“I can’t talk about auditions. You know that.”
“Whatever.” He keeps talking to Jenny but turns away, and I lose the thread of the conversation.
I sigh and turn back to the Theatre Board, this huge corkboard to the right of Dr. Lochley’s office, covered with flyers for shows in town, news about alumni, release forms, and of course, right in the middle, the callback list, with Liam’s name near the top.
I pull down the old audition sign-ups and replace them with a small flyer I designed advertising tech crew: how it’s fun, how it’s cool, how you can earn Thespian points, how it goes toward lettering in Theatre.
Most people just want to act, though. If it weren’t for Dr. Lochley’s Theatre I students who have to volunteer for one show during the year to pass the class, we wouldn’t have crews at all.
Last year I had to beg Bowie to run a followspot for the musical, but they drove a hard bargain: In exchange, I had to design a flyer for the GSA’s annual drag show fundraiser.
It’s not that I don’t like drag shows—they’re great—it’s that Bowie knows I don’t like the GSA. Ever since first year, when they did Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Main Theatre and managed to damage lineset 5. No one’s even sure how they did it, but what used to be a straight steel pipe came out of Rocky Horror with a pronounced bend right in the center.
And since the GSA doesn’t have any budget—all the funds they raise go to charity—the Theatre budget had to eat the costs. Granted, the GSA has been banned from using the theatre ever since, and granted, the charities are all important ones, like the Trevor Project, but still. I just don’t trust them.
It probably doesn’t help that Cam used to be in the GSA, too.
Dr. Lochley and Mr. Cartwright are huddled together at their table once more, heads bowed and muttering. I watch from my usual spot and wait for them to decide who they want to see next. Mr. Cartwright keeps shaking his head, but Dr. L does her karate-chop-for-emphasis every other sentence.
Finally they split apart. Dr. L calls out, “Jackson, could you ask Liam and Cameron to come in?”
Gross.
“Copy that.”
I pop my head out the backstage doors. Liam’s staying well clear this time, sitting on the floor against the opposite wall, but his head snaps up. His hair flops into his eyes for a second before he shakes it off and stares at me, his blue eyes looking guarded but hopeful.
I nod at him and clear my throat. “Liam? Cameron?”
While they settle onstage, I run out to grab their sides from Dr. L.
“For Liam.” She passes me a couple pages with Jesus’s part highlighted. “Cameron.” Cam’s sides are for Judas.
I stare at the sides. Is she really thinking of giving Liam the title role? On his first audition? Without ever being in a show before?
I knew he was good, but wow. I run the sides up and hand them over.
“Thanks.” Liam looks over his script and then back at me, a weirdly endearing mix of panic and excitement in his eyes.
Cam takes his sides without even looking at me. He just nods, like I’m a server at a restaurant refilling his water. But his brows crease before he schools his features.
I take my seat again as Dr. L gives them both a few instructions I can’t hear. They’re doing the scene from Act I where Judas is yelling at Jesus for hanging out with Mary Magdalene, though Dr. L has them saying their lines instead of singing. I’ve never actually read the Bible—Dad being a lapsed Bahá’í, Mom being a lapsed Methodist, and me being a lapsed heterosexual—so I’m not sure how much of the scene is biblically accurate.
At first, it’s just Liam and Cameron reciting lines at each other. But then? I don’t know how to describe it. One moment Liam is just Liam. Yeah, he looks great onstage, the lights kindling his eyes and highlighting his cheekbones, but still: just a hot guy talking.
Then I blink, and I’m looking at a different person entirely: His voice, his body language, everything changes. He transforms.
And Cameron responds by doing the same. He’s no longer Cam, ex-boyfriend senior actor. No longer someone who barely knows Liam. Instead, a whole life of friendship and arguments and history blossoms between them, as if it had always existed.
The hairs on my arm stand up as Judas takes an aggressive step toward Jesus, but Jesus stands his ground. He’s taller than Judas, but that’s not what makes him so impressive: It’s the set in his shoulders, the jut of his jaw, the blue fire in his eyes I can feel from thirty feet away. At auditions I had to lean in, but now I have to lean away or risk getting burned.
They finish their scene staring at each other, breathing hard as if they swam a race. Chests rising and falling. Cheeks flushed. They might even be sweating under the stage lights.
Then they blink. The spell bursts like a bubble. Cam looks toward Dr. L, but Liam’s eyes find mine.
I snap my mouth shut.
“Thank you,” Dr. L says from the table, and Liam looks to her instead. I can breathe again.
That’s all: “Thank you.” But I’m pretty sure, if she wasn’t a professional, Dr. Lochley would be up and dancing in the aisle.
Liam clears his throat. “Um. Thank you.”
He looks back down at his sides. Cam’s staring at Dr. Lochley like he’s not sure what just happened.
It’s quiet in the theatre until Dr. L waves at me. “Jackson?”
Oh. I’m supposed to grab their sides. I run up the aisle, take the steps onto the stage two at a time. “I’ll take those. Here.”
I lead them both out. At the door, Liam pauses and turns to me. “Was that okay?”
“You know I can’t talk about it.” But then I realize maybe he doesn’t actually know that. I try to soften my voice. “I’m not allowed to discuss callbacks with anyone. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. But don’t forget your promise.”
Out in the hall, Cam turns around, looking between me and Liam with a frown on his face.
“What promise?” I ask.
“If I get a part, you’ll put me on the shmoodie list.”
I forgot about that. But he’s certainly earned it now.
“Don’t worry. I’ll add you. If you get a part.”
He smiles so wide you’d think I told him he got the lead. (Which I’m pretty sure he just did.) It’s alarmingly like standing in the hot spot of a Leko, warming my face while also slowly burning a hole in my retina.
Cam comes closer. “What about if I get a part? What do I get?”
He’s got his puppy-dog eyes on again, dark and twinkling. Cam does that sometimes: He’s attractive and charming. He knows how to turn it on. I remember how it used to be, when he’d turn his attention on me, right before we kissed. It used to take my breath away.
And he still likes to use it on me, mostly to mess with me. Remind me of how we used to be together. Of how I wasn’t good enough for him he thinks he’s better than me.
It doesn’t work this time, though: Liam outshines him.
“Attention,” I say. “Like usual.”
For a split second his eyes widen like I’ve actually hurt him. Cracked him open and exposed something he doesn’t want other people to see. But then his eyes narrow. “Don’t you have work to do, Jackthon?”
Liam stiffens next to me. My own shoulders tense.
When I was little I had a bit of a lisp. Well. More than a bit.
And I still do, sometimes, despite the speech therapy. Especially when I’m tired, which I always am by the end of the day.
Cameron used to think it was cute. Now he’s just being a dick cruel.
I close the door behind me and go see what Dr. L needs next.