Spain or Shine (22 page)

“There isn't anyone else.”

Ms. B walked over to them with her clipboard in hand. “Are you guys all ready to go?” She started to run through the changing of the sets to make sure they had it down when Alex interrupted her and told her about their predicament.

“Well, that is bad news. Do you think she'll calm down enough to go on?”

Elena excused herself and ran over to the bathroom. She stuck her nose into the crack between the door and the frame and called Jenna's name. The only response she heard was a groan. She tried the door, but it was locked.

“Jenna,” she called. “Is everything all right in there? We're starting to get a little worried out here.” She tittered. “Jenna?”

“I can't go out there, Elena.”

“Jenna, you have to....”

“I can't do it.”

Elena scurried back over to Ms. B and Alex. “Um, it might be a few minutes.” She forced a cheerful smile.

“We have to go on in five,” Alex practically screeched.

“Elena, you know I've always believed you would do a great job,” Ms. B said gently, squeezing Elena's shoulder.

“Who says I'm going out there?” Now she was starting to lose her cool. “Jenna will be fine,” Elena repeated for the third time in minutes. She was starting to sound like a delusional robot. Reality was beginning to sink in. She could feel the freak-out coming on like an earthquake.

“Elena,” Ms. B grasped her shoulders gently and forced Elena to meet her eyes. “It would be a terrible shame if this play wasn't performed tonight. It deserves to be seen.”

Something strange began to happen. The freak-out subsided. Elena heard herself say, “Okay, I'll do it. The show must go on, right?” Then she actually shrugged, as if what she was about to do was no big deal. As if standing up in front of a bunch of people and baring her soul was something she did every day. It was as if something had cracked open inside her like an egg hatching. She had worked so hard on this play. It was her baby. She couldn't bear to see it die before it had even been given a chance.

 

The set movers scurried offstage, and Ms. B's voice floated through the theater announcing Alex and Elena's play. They were standing on the stage, just behind a line of shadow on the floor. As soon as they stepped into the light, they would find themselves out there in front of hundreds of people. Elena thought of the flamenco dancer in Madrid, the one who came out at the last minute and moved with such grace and ease. Her lack of rehearsal had made her appear that much more fresh and alive.

“You ready?” Alex whispered, squeezing Elena's hand.

“I'm ready,” she said, and realized that she really meant it.

One of the acting techniques in dealing with stage fright Ms. B had taught the class was to imagine a fourth wall in place of the audience to make it seem as though they were really in an intimate setting. She told them to imagine a wall from a familiar, comforting place.

“Stage fright is really audience fright,” Ms. B had lectured. “Your awareness of the fact that people are watching you is what will make you lock up. Get rid of the audience in your mind, and you'll get rid of the fear.”

As soon as Elena found herself onstage she began to imagine the fourth wall. It wasn't as hard as she had thought because the lights were so intense that they threw the audience into blackness. It was like a blank canvas on which she painted a mental picture of one of the walls in her bedroom back home. She pictured the wall decorated with pages she and Gwen had ripped out of magazines. The wall was covered with black-and-white jewelry ads, photos of Johnny Depp and Josh Hartnett, pictures of models prancing through Parisian streets or rolling on the beaches of Brazil, pictures of horses and stilettos with heels cut like daggers. For a short time Elena was simultaneously in a theater in Spain, in her bedroom at home, and in this strange world she had created with Alex. Ms. B had been right; acting was the ultimate exercise in imagination.

Acts one and two went off so elegantly, Elena couldn't believe they were more than halfway through.

The mother-son reunion scene in the third act was one of the few where Elena didn't have to be onstage. She was able to stand backstage and watch the scene between Alex and Stephanie, who was playing his mother.

Alex and Stephanie sat facing each other on two prop chairs. The stage was set to look like a living room.

“You certainly were determined to find me,” Stephanie said.

“Well, I was curious.”

“About me or about yourself?”

“Both, I think,” Alex said. He looked thoughtful. “I thought that when I met you, it would be like looking in a mirror, that all the things I'd never really understood about myself would be reflected back at me in you.”

“Well, I hate to disappoint you, Jack,” Stephanie said in a gentle voice, “but I'm not a mirror.”

“I know. I realized that just now. Even though this is the first time I've met you in my life, I feel like, in a way, I've always known you. It's something I feel...”

“In your heart,” she said, finishing his thought.

Elena had added the last two lines of that scene on the train ride home from Barcelona. As she watched from behind the curtain offstage, she silently thanked her great-aunt Elena and her distant cousin Enrique for showing her that everything she needed to feel connected to her family, her heritage, was already inside her.

Elena took a deep breath and went back onstage for the final scene. They ended the play with Alex and Elena's characters getting together and kissing as the curtain dropped. Afterward, as she and Alex stood to take a bow in the hot center of the spotlight, she realized she had actually had fun. She liked pretending to be this person other than herself. She felt parts of herself she never knew were there opening up. Plus, the applause was dizzying.

The houselights came up a bit, and Elena could see familiar faces smiling, hands clapping wildly, and hear hoots and whistles rising up into the theater like a dust cloud.

Elena leaned in close to Alex and whispered, “We did it.” Alex smiled, grasped her hand, raised their interlocked arms, and led them into a swinging, dramatic bow.

 

“Your play was wonderful,” Señora Cruz gushed.

Elena was glad the Cruzes were there to congratulate her on her performance. This was one of the times she really wished her family had been able to be with her. She knew her parents would have been so proud to see her up there. And Gwen would have been so happy to see Elena in the spotlight for once. On her way to Spain, Elena had hoped that in coming here she would surprise all of them with her bravery. On this night she would have blown them away.

“And you did a wonderful job with your part,” Elena said to a beaming Alita. Señor Cruz patted Alita's head.

“We brought you these,” Señora Cruz hollered over the din of the crowd buzzing past them. She handed Elena a bundle of white lilies wrapped in paper. As Elena was reaching out to hug the Cruzes, a pair of students interrupted.

“Great play,” Gabe, Dylan's playwriting partner, said, pumping her hand formally as if she were in the receiving line at a wedding. Standing beside him was Dylan.

“We just wanted to tell you how awesome you were,” Dylan said in a voice that managed to be cool and friendly at the same time.

“Thanks. You guys were great last night.”

“Well, congratulations again,” Dylan said as they turned to walk away. Their bodies were swallowed in the mass of people squashed into the cramped backstage area. Elena realized she hadn't even thought about Dylan since the day they'd chosen partners. She didn't have to be just like Dylan, or have her as a partner to be great. The whole idea seemed laughable now. She could be great just being Elena.

“Congratulations.” Ms. B walked over and wrapped her arms around Elena. She gave her a squeeze. “Elena, I'm so proud of you for stepping in and saving the play. You must promise me you'll keep writing, acting, and directing.”

Elena promised and accepted another hug from Ms. B.

“Where is Alex? I wanted to congratulate him, too.”

“I don't know,” Elena answered, scanning the crowd. They walked with the Cruzes through the backstage bustle. The entire playwriting class and all their friends were packed into the narrow corridor behind the stage that served as a mass dressing room. Elena and Ms. B waded through the crowd and found Alex standing along the wall hung with mirrors edged in round yellow bulbs. There were still-open makeup tubes and scattered powder brushes left idle in front of the mirrors. Alex was with Jenna, as well as Marci, Caitlin, and Chris. The only one missing from the group was Miguel. Elena felt her heart crack a little.

“Congratulations, Alex,” Ms. B gushed, smothering him in a hug. Alex smiled and squirmed. He looked as uncomfortable as Elena in the face of all this sudden praise.

Jenna was standing in the center of the group-an impromptu theater-in-the-round-recounting her harrowing bout of stage fright. She was gesticulating wildly and had everyone laughing.

“Looks like you've gotten over your stage fright,” Elena commented as she joined the circle. Jenna laughed and went in to hug Elena.

“You were awesome, Elena. I knew you could do a better job than me.” Then she pulled Elena to the side and lowered her voice. “I'm so, so, so sorry I couldn't do it.”

“You know what? It was fine. I'm happy about the way it worked out.” Elena smiled, and she saw Jenna's shoulders relax.

“Really?”

“This was the way it was supposed to happen.”

“Oh, like fate?” Jenna teased.

“Yeah, why not?”

Jenna gave her another big hug.

“So, you haven't seen Miguel around, have you?” Elena slipped the question in, hoping it sounded offhand.

Jenna shook her head. “I haven't seen him all night.”

“Oh,” she tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. She hadn't told Jenna about her special invitation for Miguel. In fact, she hadn't told anyone about it. It was just something she had wanted to keep to herself, and now she was glad she had because she didn't feel like sharing her disappointment with anyone. It was too raw.

Elena slumped forward, but she continued to scan the moving pack of people, looking for his face among them, in case Jenna was wrong. She even strained to search the corners bathed in shadow and thought she saw a figure standing in the darkness near the door. Alex approached her and broke her gaze.

“I'm taking off; I just wanted to say how awesome you were.” Alex leaned in to give Elena a hug. He didn't give her a second to set down the flowers she was holding, and the paper made a crackling noise between them as Alex gave her a friendly squeeze.

Señor Cruz walked up and tapped Elena on the shoulder.

“Elena, we are going to leave soon. Would you like us to take you home?”

“Um, just a second.” She peered over Señor Cruz's hair, combed slick with pomade, in another sweep for Miguel. She didn't want to think about what it would mean if he didn't show up.

Finally, she packed the little pieces of her heart, said her good-byes, and left without seeing Miguel. She went to bed that night wondering if it had all been a trick of her imagination, if Miguel's flirtations in Madrid and the encouragement from her friends had fooled her into thinking Miguel had feelings that didn't really exist.

Elena rolled up an old blanket she had borrowed from Señora Cruz. As she was stuffing it in her backpack she thought of her first day of Spanish class. It bothered her that she still hadn't become fluent in Spanish. She had yet to dream in Spanish the way Señor Gonzalez had told them they would once the language and the culture had become a part of them. She hated the idea that she might leave Spain tomorrow without taking a piece of it with her.

Tonight she and her friends were meeting at the beach at sunset. They were going to sleep under the stars listening to the waves and laughing together on their last night in Spain. It had been Jenna's idea—a chance to bid farewell to San Sebastián and one another during one night.

Elena made her way toward the front door and spotted Alita on the couch, pondering a book for school. She'd been slumping around all evening and had barely uttered a word to Elena all day.

“Hola,
Alita,” she said, balancing on the arm of the couch and leaning over Alita's shoulder. Alita scooted away irritably. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing,” Alita grumbled, her shoulders raised up toward her ears and her forehead pulled into a frown.

“Okay, well I'm going down to the shops to get some snacks for tonight. Do you want to come?”