I had never heard such a complete quiet.
The clubhouse theater was empty now, except for me, seated dead center in the front row, looking at the dark stage. Everyone had gone to the ice cream place with their families to celebrate our success over milk shakes and sundaes.
I suppose the reason this quiet seemed so quiet was because a mere thirty minutes ago, people had leaped to their feet to cheer and applaud and shout, “Bravo!” A few of those people had even had tears in their eyes. My mom, for one. And Mrs. Warde. And me. The show had been that good.
Although that wasn’t to say there weren’t a few bloopers. If someone had asked me yesterday how I would have reacted to mistakes in the performance, I probably would have said I’d be horrified. But when they actually happened, I was surprised to find that I was able to let them go. It was like I could finally see the bigger picture. It didn’t have to be perfect; it just had to be amazing. And besides, the little mistakes had felt almost like inside jokes, because no one in the audience could have possibly noticed them. The crowd hadn’t known that in the Oliver! scene, Sam had been wearing Eddie’s Dodger costume while Eddie had been dressed in Sam’s Oliver clothes, or that Gracie had left out three whole lines of her Veruca Salt monologue from Willy Wonka. Teddy’s mustache had been on upside down, so it’d looked less like an old-time handlebar and more like some wacky overgrown goatee; Mia had forgotten one whole verse of “Maybe”; and in the Fantasticks dance, Travis and Mackenzie had bumped heads not once but twice.
But besides the actors themselves, only Austin and Susan and I had been aware of these minor glitches, and somehow we just knew that in the scheme of things, they didn’t really matter.
After the final bow—and Madeline’s perfect curtsy—the audience had milled around on the clubhouse lawn to wait for the cast to come outside. Austin and I had wound our way through the throng, listening gleefully as parents and grandparents and neighbors and friends had talked about our show. The ones who’d recognized us (like the Quandts, and Mr. and Mrs. Kim for example) had stopped us to gush about how impressed they’d been and to congratulate us on a job well done. But for me, it had been almost more exciting to overhear the theatergoers who didn’t know who Austin and I were (like aunts and uncles from out of town). They’d been blown away by what we’d achieved. Most of them had been flat out shocked that we’d been able to put on such an entertaining show.
“Should we be insulted?” Austin had whispered to me.
“Nah. It’s a compliment. I mean, let’s face it, a bunch of middle schoolers putting on a top-notch revue all by themselves is definitely not something that happens every day.”
“True,” said Austin.
Then the cast had burst out of the clubhouse, and the cheering had started all over again. My actors had accepted hugs and bouquets, and I couldn’t have been prouder.
But for one second, one teeny, tiny sliver of a moment, I couldn’t help feeling the slightest twinge of envy. Sure, I’d had my hand shaken and my back patted, and that had been super gratifying. But this was applause . . . and it was a little bit different.
This, I’d recalled (as Teddy’s dad gave him an enthusiastic high five), was what it felt like to be a performer. A star.
My eyes had gone to Sophia, clutching her long-stemmed roses and beaming at her friends, who’d been gathered around her, gazing in awe.
And for a heartbeat, I’d wondered what it might be like to be her.
The feeling had gone as soon as it had come. I had given the stars their chances to be stars. Sure, there had been bumps in the road, obstacles and moments of fear and doubt. But we hadn’t given up, and we’d made something happen. Something wonderful. Kids who’d never exchanged so much as a hello before joining Random Farms were friends now . . . good friends.
An abandoned barn had been transformed into a beautiful space where people could come to be dazzled and entertained.
I had had an idea, and I’d been lucky enough to find all the right people to make it happen. Austin and Susan, and this amazing and dedicated cast. Everything had come together because of a lot of people’s hard work, but I couldn’t help feeling a little shiver of joy at knowing that I had been the one who’d had the idea. I wasn’t going to let it go to my head though. Because ideas are important, but they’re nothing without people to bring them to life.
“Anya?”
I turned to see Susan standing behind me. She was holding a half-eaten pistachio ice cream cone and a slightly melted butterscotch sundae.
“I hope the sundae’s for me,” I joked.
“Yep.” She handed me the bowl of ice cream, a plastic spoon, and a napkin. “Mom wants to know when you’re coming home.”
“Soon,” I said, spooning the cherry off the swirl of whipped cream and into my mouth.
“Okay. I’ll tell her.” Susan grinned. “But she wants me to remind you not to be too late. Even big-time producer-directors have curfews, ya know.”
I would have laughed, but I had a mouthful of butterscotch.
Susan left, and again I was alone in the silence of the empty theater. I decided I would stay long enough to finish my sundae, and then I’d go home. But for just a few more minutes I wanted to be here all by myself, eating ice cream and picturing Elle and Travis and Jane and all the others, dancing and singing and acting their hearts out.
And as I sat there, letting the images and the ice cream fill me, I knew this would be the most delicious butterscotch sundae I’d ever tasted.
I kept my eyes closed and reached out my hand for Susan to place the bottle of coconut-scented lotion into it. I squirted out a drop and rubbed it carefully onto my nose.
“Now, pass the chips.”
I heard the crinkling of a bag. “Sorry. None left.”
I tilted my sunglasses up onto my head and frowned at my sister.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I don’t even like sour cream and onion. Look at him!” She pointed.
I turned to the lounge chair next to me, where Austin was crunching guiltily. He smiled. It was the afternoon following our performance and everyone was in a great mood. I’d woken up that morning fearing that it might have all been a dream, but when Dad handed me the morning paper, there was a glowing review of our show.
It was the first day in weeks that I had a totally free day, and I wanted to spend it outdoors. So there we were . . . Susan, Austin, and I with Becky, Mackenzie, Deon, and Mia, all hanging out at the town pool on the most beautiful sunny Sunday I could remember.
“Who wants to go off the diving board?” said Deon.
“Me!” cried Mia.
“Come on,” said Susan, sliding off her chair. “I’ll show you my world-famous cannonball.”
Austin, Becky, Mackenzie, and I watched as our friends hurried toward the deep end. I was so involved in watching my sister’s crazy dive it was a moment before I noticed that three kids—two boys and a girl—had appeared beside my chair.
I recognized two of them from Chappaqua Middle School.
“Hey,” said the girl smiling at me. “I’m Julie Roth. We had science together last year, remember?”
“Yes,” I said. “You got an A on the mold-growing project, right?”
Julie nodded. “This is Brady Greenberg. He just moved here from Boston. And this is Joey Garcia.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“We saw your show last night,” Joey said to me. “It totally rocked.”
“Actually,” I said, nodding toward Austin, then Mackenzie. “It wasn’t my show. It was our show. But thanks. I’m glad you liked it.”
“We loved it,” said Julie. “And we were wondering if you were planning to do another one.”
It was at this moment that my cannonball of a sister returned to her chair, dripping wet. “Of course we’re going to do another one,” she said, toweling off.
“We’re starting our second production a week from tomorrow,” I explained. “At the theater. Ten o’clock.”
“Great,” said Brady. “We’ll be there.”
“Don’t forget ten bucks for dues,” said Susan.
Joey offered Austin a fist bump. “Awesome job on the piano, dude. I play drums myself. And I’m taking saxophone lessons in the fall.”
“I’m not too bad on the guitar,” said Brady, with a shy smile.
“That’s great,” said Austin. “We can use more musicians.”
The moment Joey said drums, I was already picturing an orchestra. Percussion, strings, an entire brass section! And how great would they sound with a whole new PA system? After last night’s ticket sales, we were well on our way to being able to afford one.
And Julie from science class . . . I suddenly remembered she’d once done an extra credit oral report on the digestive system of the North American bullfrog. The girl had amazing diction. She’d been really animated in her descriptions and had even made a few jokes about the small intestine.
I bet she could act. Maybe she could sing.
There I went, thinking like a producer again.
As I watched our three new theater members head toward the snack bar, Austin asked, “Just out of curiosity, when exactly did you know for sure that we would be doing our second show?”
“Hmmm,” I said. “I think it was about ten seconds after I decided we were doing our first show. It was the plan all along.” I lifted an eyebrow at him. “You in?”
He pretended to think about it. “Ahh, sure, why not? I mean, I already have the T-shirt, right? And the piano sounds great since we had it tuned.”
I laughed and settled back against my towel, letting the warmth of the sun wash over me and wondering if I would ever tell Austin or Susan (or anyone for that matter) how I managed to earn the money to pay that piano bill on time. I could only imagine what they would say if they knew I’d sold my autographed Wicked Playbill for two hundred dollars in order to settle up with the Soft Peddlers.
I suppose now that we’d earned all that money in ticket sales, I could approach the buyer and purchase it back. But something told me the buyer in question would either charge me a million bucks or flat out say no. I was pretty sure Sophia Ciancio was the sort who would drive a hard bargain.
But the thing was, as much as I loved that Playbill, I loved my theater more.