Leading Ladies #2 (13 page)

A car pulled up outside my house at exactly seven. When I opened the front door, Benny did kind of a double take. I guess because he'd never seen me all dressed up before. I took it as a compliment. He cleaned up very nicely himself. His usual varsity jacket or grass-stained lacrosse uniform was replaced with neatly pressed khaki pants, a deep-blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a paisley tie. Frankly, I thought he looked like a movie star. We smiled at the same time, and I felt like the sun had just come out and a beam was shining right on me.

From everything I'd ever heard about A First Date, there was supposed to be plenty of Awkward, particularly if your mother was driving you to your destination. But this was the exact opposite. Benny chatted easily with my mother. He talked about school and how guys totally read
4 Girls
but they just didn't admit it, why he planned to make his own lacrosse stick from twigs and twine just to see if he could, and how he'd seen a woman at Foodtown pushing a stroller so enormous it blocked the entire aisle and what did we bet that child would grow into an adult who would one day drive a Hummer.

“I mean, if you get used to that much personal space when you're still a toddler,” Benny said, “it can only go downhill from there.”

My mother laughed. “Very astute observation,” she said. “Okay—here we are. I'll be back to pick you up at nine thirty.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, getting out of the car.

Once again, I figured I was due for a hefty dose of Awkward. But Benny walked me into that dance like it was the most normal thing in the world. I was aware of people looking over and checking us out. But Benny made me feel so completely at ease I didn't care who was watching. Actually, I felt really proud to be seen with him.

“Wow, check this place out,” Benny exclaimed.

The gym looked great. I had to hand it to Shelby and the Dance Committee. Each wall was dedicated to a decade. I can't imagine where they got all the stuff, from pictures of all The Beatles and hippie beads on the sixties wall to Madonna album covers and a huge movie poster of
Back to the Future
on the eighties wall. They'd even organized a DJ to switch decades every song. We were currently in the seventies, as evidence by the huge number of people singing and dancing to “YMCA.” When Michael Jackson's “Thriller” signaled we had moved into the eighties, Benny touched my arm.

“We cannot
not
dance to this song!” he yelled over the music.

“I agree!” I yelled back.

We ended up being able to not
NOT
dance through two entire decade cycles. I was starting to worry that my hair was getting stuck to my face and my carefully applied makeup was migrating toward my chin.

“Gonna run to the girls' room!” I shouted, but the music ended just as the words “girls' room” left my mouth and echoed around the large room.

“Gotcha,” Benny said.

He certainly did. Everyone heard and was once again staring.
Oh well,
I thought.

Ivy was standing by the water fountain chatting with an eighth-grade guy I didn't really know. I caught her eye and nodded my head toward the locker room.

The air in the locker room was cool, and the sound of the blaring music became more muffled when the door swung closed. Then it opened again.

“I don't even need to ask you how it's going,” Ivy said. “You guys look like you're having a blast out there. The boy can dance!”

I couldn't help myself—I grinned wildly.

“However, we need to do something about your hair,” Ivy added, pulling a comb out of her purse.

My smile faded. “Is it bad?”

“Yes,” Ivy said matter-of-factly. “Come here.”

“Ow,” I said as she started carefully combing the hair back from my face.

“Stand still,” Ivy instructed. “So I've already gotten some great shots of the dance for us to use in the magazine. We've got everything else, Tally's still okay with us printing the interview, and that means once you write the review of
Annie
, we're almost done!”

“Yep. You're coming to the dress rehearsal with me Thursday, right? I'll go home and write the whole thing that night so we can get the disk to the printer Friday before school. We'll have copies to hand out on Monday morning—right on schedule!”

“Perfect. We're the dynamic duo, you and me. Okay, I'm done,” Ivy said, putting the comb away. “You're as good as new. Now you'd better get back out there and find your boyfriend.”

“Ivy!” I objected, giving her a little shove. I checked my reflection one last time in the mirror. “It's one date. He's not my boyfriend.”

“Not yet,” Ivy corrected. She checked her watch. “But the night is still young!”

I'm the last person who would know how this stuff gets decided—when friends become more than friends, or at what moment it becomes understood that you've gone from having a date to having a boyfriend. I'm totally clueless.

But I had a feeling that when it came down to it, I would just know. And that it would be the same as Benny asking me out—the same as the drive over in the car.

Easy. Fun. And totally natural.

Even though I'd only been an observer to all the work that went into
Annie
, the energy was contagious. It wasn't opening night, but it was the first time the actors would run through the entire showcase with their lines memorized, with lights and costumes and no breaks no matter what went wrong. And there would be other people in the audience. Mr. Barrymore called it an “invited dress rehearsal.” So it was kind of a big deal, and I felt as nervous and excited as if I were going up on the stage myself.

To my surprise, Miko had agreed to join me and Ivy for the performance. Because Kevin had a karate demonstration that night, my mother dropped me off at the school a little early, and I went to the green room, which was really just the French classroom, to hang out with the actors. I really wanted to see Tally. Through the whole long week since Annie had been recast, it was like the light had just gone out of her. And I knew from Buster that she had not spoken a word to Audriana. Buster said both of them were miserable. Buster, however, remained his usual exuberant self, dancing in and out of the doorway when I arrived.

“Another opening, another show,” he sang in a lovely tenor voice. “Da da dada, ta tee ta taaaaaaah, another opening of another show. Hey, Paulie!”

He danced back through the doorway, and I followed him into the classroom. It looked like most of the cast was already there. Tally was standing in front of a mirror—one of many that had been set up in the back of the room. She was applying some powder to her face and checking her reflection.

“Hi, Buster,” I said. “So are you ready?”

“Always,” he declared.

“How about Audriana?”

Buster's expression grew more serious.

“She's not here yet,” he said. “She's really nervous, though, I can tell you that.”

“But it's only the dress rehearsal,” I said. “She's got time.”

“Try telling her that,” Buster said. “We had a stop and start yesterday—that's when we run through the showcase, but we're allowed to break if we need to, and she forgot her lines a bunch of times and missed an entrance on one of her biggest songs. She's really rattled.”

“I'm going to go talk to Tal. Hey, has she made up with Audriana yet?”

“Nope. I think at this point she actually really wants to,” Buster said. “She just wants it all to be behind them. But Tally is really stubborn, and she still feels like Audriana should have told her she put herself on that understudy list, which I have to say I agree with. Tally's sorry, but she doesn't want to say so first. So she goes on refusing to talk to Audriana at all. I think that's part of the problem for Audie. It's hard enough stepping up to be a leading lady like that, but when you know your best friend thinks you basically stole the part from her, well . . . all the worse.”

“Well, at least you're speaking to both of them,” I said. “Poor Audriana. And Tally's not mad at you for not taking sides? How are you managing that?”

“I'm Switzerland,” Buster sang, tossing his hat in the air and ducking under it so it landed right on his head.

“Nice move,” said Mr. Barrymore as he came through the door.

“Oh, you're too kind,” Buster said, bowing. “No applause, please, folks. Just money!”

“Okay, everybody, I'm going to make this brief,” Mr. Barrymore said.

I scooched into a seat nearby.

“First of all, please make sure you've all signed in with Dana, our wonderful stage manager, so that I know you're all here,” he said. “Remember, we do everything tonight as we will on opening night. For all practical purposes, this is a real performance.”

At that moment Audriana came through the door. She looked as white as a ghost. She sat down on top of a bookcase just inside the door and looked at the ground, her arms folded tightly over her stomach.

“Great. Now we're here to relax, to warm up, to check last-minute notes, whatever it is that you need. As you can see, there is hot tea, lemon, and plenty of water available on the table in the back—please help yourselves. We have a half hour until Dana will call places. Everyone who is working on this showcase is a member of this family, and this is our time to relax and to be there for each other. Remember, there are no small parts—only small actors. Each and every one of you is a huge star.”

People started clapping. A number of “orphans” stood up and bowed.

“As you know, the theater is full of superstitions, and one of them is that it is bad luck to wish a person good luck before a performance. So let's all go with the traditional words—break a leg!”

“Break a leg!” came the shouted response.

Mr. Barrymore clapped. Then the actors clapped. Realizing Mr. Barrymore was done talking, I hurried over to Tally and gave her a hug.

“Hey,” I said. “So break a leg!”

Tally brightened when she saw me.

“You're here! Y'all break a leg, too.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, sitting down on the window ledge so I was closer to eye level with her.

“I'm usually a basket case during final dress,” Tally replied. “But being in the orphan chorus, there's really not that many ways I can mess up. It's actually kind of refreshing to not be so stressed out over lines and stuff—I'm really going to get to enjoy myself tonight.”

“That's great, Tal!” I said.

“I wish Buster would stop dancing around like that, though,” Tally began. “He always . . .”

Her voice trailed off midsentence, her eyes on the door. A stout, white-haired man was standing in the doorway. When Mr. Barrymore saw him, he waved and walked quickly over to greet him.

“I wonder if that's him,” she said.

“Him who?”

Tally looked at me as if I'd said I'd never heard of chocolate.

“The secret agent!” she said. “I never did find a picture—I sort of forgot about it after the Kansas thing. Come on, let's go spy a little.”

I wasn't too keen on spying, but Tally had already jumped up and was heading for the door. I followed her.

Mr. Barrymore and the white-haired man were walking down the hall and chatting. Tally pretended to take a drink at the water fountain, then fake-fussed with her shoelace, trying to decide what to do. Just then, Audriana walked into the hall. Tally caught sight of her, then looked away.

Audriana looked like she wanted to say something. Instead, she took a deep breath, then bent over, her hands on her knees. She looked like she was about to faint.

“Audriana? Are you okay?” I asked.

She looked up at me, then at Tally. She shook her head.

“I don't know. I'm not sure I can do this.”

“Of course, you can,” I assured her, sneaking a sidelong glance at Tally, who appeared to be fixing a button on the front of her costume. “You'll be fine. And it's only a dress rehearsal.”

“It's the same as a performance—there's an audience,” Tally reminded me.

Audriana stood up. Her face had gone from white to green.

“I don't think I can pull this off,” she said. “All the lines, the songs . . .”

I shot Tally a pleading look, but she just fussed with the button.

“Audriana, you can. You can do this,” I said firmly.

Audriana shook her head again.

“I can't,” she said weakly. “I'm not like Tally. It's like she said, some of us are leading ladies, and some of us aren't.”

Tally froze. I could see from her face that she remembered saying just that. Now she was seeing the effect one badly thought-out remark had on her best friend.

“That isn't true,” Tally said suddenly. “Audie, that was a ridiculous thing that I said about leading ladies. It was stupid and petty, and I never should have said it, and I certainly didn't mean it. Mr. Barrymore picked you to take over
Annie
for a reason, Aud. Because you are a leading lady. He knows it, Ms. Whelan knows it, and I know it better than anybody else. We're both leading lady material—but this is your show. It's your time. And you're going to be amazing tonight. Now you look me in the eye and tell me you can do this.”

Audriana raised her head and locked eyes with Tally.

“Tal . . . I am so sorry about—”

Tally shushed her.

“Say it,” she commanded.

Audriana took a deep breath.

“I can do this,” she said.

“That's what I'm talking about, y'all!” Tally declared. “Now what are you doing standing out here? Come on. You've got to drink some hot tea and do your warm-ups. Maybe run the lines for the first scene—I'll help you.”

Tally pulled Audriana by the arm, leading her back into the classroom.

I stood by myself for a moment, feeling like I'd just survived a tornado.

Then I followed my friends inside.