Enthusiasm Read online

  The rest went by in an excruciating, slow-motion blur. Parr took the stage, and I sat, drinking in his pleasant, confident voice, with frozen limbs and cheeks that burned on and on through a thousand other speeches and meaningless songs. When the auditions were over, he came to find us. Ashleigh greeted him warmly, but I could hardly hear what she said over the pounding in my ears, nor could I choke out more than a monosyllable. All through the ride home, while Ashleigh and Yolanda eagerly reviewed the afternoon’s events, I sat with my cheek pressed against the cool glass of the window, hardly blinking, hardly breathing. And the torture repeated itself all night long, first in my memory and then in my dreams, until I half hoped my blushes would set my sheets on fire, ending my misery in one magnificent blaze.

  Chapter 11

  Parts ~ scripts ~ rhymes ~ songs ~ an igsome Moth ~ an Artistic Rivalry ~ a direly misleading Scene involving a Sofa.

  After the previous day’s disaster, I walked the long way around to my first-period social studies class to avoid the bulletin board. I had no wish to see the cast list posted without my name. True, I had half hoped to tank at the audition; but half hoping to tank is one thing, actually tanking quite another.

  In the end, my careful detour came to nothing. Ashleigh and Yolanda appeared at my lunch table waving a piece of paper.

  “Good afternoon, Headmistress Lytle,” cried the Enthusiast.

  I frowned impatiently. I was in no mood for Ashleigh’s play-acting. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Look!” said Yolanda. She put the page down in front of me, just missing a pool of spilled mustard. “It’s your part—you got a ‘little’ part—Headmistress Lytle—see? And there’s me, I’m Tanya, president of the student body—I hope I get lots of lines—and Ashleigh’s Hermia, and that’s it from Byz High. We figured it was okay to take the poster down, since nobody else from here tried out. But Erin got a part too—she’s Helen. And Emma Caballero, that freshman from Sacred Heart, she’s Chloe.”

  “Is this not good news?” said Ashleigh. “Grandison Parr plays Owen, captain of the debate team, and your beloved Ned is the musical director, so you will have frequent opportunities to converse with him during rehearsals.”

  “Oh, are you going out with that guy Ned?” said Yolanda. “Crisp! You never told me that. He seems like a really nice guy. I kind of liked that tall guy with the nice voice—he was cute. I wonder if he got a part. He had to, he had the best voice there. Which one do you think he is? Kevin Rodriguez? Ravi Rajan? Ask your boyfriend, okay? Oh, but don’t tell Adam!” Adam White, a junior, was sometimes the man in Yolanda’s life.

  “Ned’s not my boyfriend,” I protested. “I only met him twice.”

  “Yes, but you called him a Darcy, remember? Pay her no mind, Yolanda, she is too modest to admit her true feelings,” said Ashleigh.

  “Whatever,” I said testily. The alternating waves of anticipation and terror, disappointment and relief, which had been sweeping over me for the past few weeks, had taken their toll on my usually even temper.

  But how had I gotten a part, after such a spectacularly bad performance at the audition? Ash and Yolanda insisted that I had sung sweetly and spoken well, though softly at the end. But I knew they were just trying to make me feel better. No, the only possible explanation was lucky (or unlucky) chance. Five girls had auditioned—five had been cast. If a sixth had shown up at the tryouts, she would surely have won the part of Headmistress Lytle.

  Nicole Rossi, Ashleigh’s mother, picked up our scripts for us at Forefield that evening on her way home from work.

  While Midwinter Insomnia may not be the very silliest play I’ve ever read, it’s up there. It takes place in a boarding school rather like Forefield, but coed. The scene opens with romantic mixups among the fifth formers, or juniors: Xander (played by Ravi Rajan) is going out with Hermia (Ashleigh); Daniel (Chris Stevens, apparently typecast) is trying to steal her away; and Helen (Erin) has a hopeless crush on Daniel. Meanwhile, Owen, the captain of the debate team (Parr), and Tanya, the president of the student body (Yolanda), are having a lovers’ quarrel over a third former (that is, a freshman), formerly a member of the debate club, whom Tanya has enticed to serve on the student council, which meets at the same time, therefore forcing him to quit debate. To punish her, Owen convinces his younger brother, Rob (Alcott Fish), a science geek, to sneak into the chem lab and create a love potion that he can give Tanya, causing her to fall for the ridiculous Butthead (Kevin Rodriguez), who plays Romeo in the middle school’s laughable production of Romeo and Juliet. When Rob mischievously taints a drinking fountain with the love potion, Xander, Hermia, Daniel, and Helen begin a game of musical partners that ends only with the grand finale.

  I played the headmistress, Miss Lytle, who puts in occasional appearances calling for order, scolding mischief makers, and presiding over the happy ending. She also sings a duet with the dean of students, a cameo appearance by Forefield’s actual dean, Mr. Hanson. Altogether, she has eleven lines, not counting the duet.

  I was afraid they would be eleven lines too many.

  “I envy Yolanda—oh! how I envy her,” said Ashleigh, squeezing Juniper until he gave a reproachful kitten squeak.

  “She does have more songs, but you have more lines,” I pointed out.

  “Faugh! Little do I care for lines and songs! It’s the kisses that I envy. She gets to kiss Grandison Parr!”

  “Yes, but you get to kiss Ravi Rajan—isn’t that the guy Yolanda thinks is so cute? Maybe you’ll be so swept away, you’ll forget all about Parr.”

  Ashleigh gave me her look of Reproach Tinged with Disgust. “Forget! Forget Grandison Parr! Ask me to forget my own name—my father and mother—my native tongue—the points of the compass—I will forget what it means to be human before I forget Grandison Parr!”

  As for me (I thought with a sigh), I had better forget Grandison Parr before I forgot what it meant to be human. In the weeks that followed, I came much closer to that goal.

  Not that I ever managed true forgetfulness: how could I, when I saw him at least twice a week at rehearsals? But practice made my heart grow tougher, like a blister that breaks and hardens to a callus, until I could smile at him, answer his remarks in sentences longer than a word or two, and even meet his eyes.

  The hardest moment was my first rehearsal, when I felt him watching me. It took all my willpower to obey Benjo and focus on my character’s quarrel with the dean—far too lenient a man, in Miss Lytle’s opinion. When Benjo directed me to stamp my foot, turn my back on the dean, and face the audience, I trained my eyes on the exit sign until I could bear to look at them directly. After a week or two, though, I grew used to having an audience.

  Talking to Parr took even more courage, but I found I couldn’t avoid it. Although Ashleigh and I had relatively few scenes with him, he made a point of seeking out our company.

  “Hey,” he said, coming up behind me as I was helping Ashleigh go over her lines before the second rehearsal, “can either of you think of a better rhyme for Hermia? Barry says germier is revolting, and anyway, I’m not even sure it’s a word.”

  “Wormier?” suggested Ashleigh.

  “Wormier? Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that. It’s . . . a possibility,” said Parr.

  “Oh, Ash, ig! That’s even more revolting,” I said.

  “All right, squirmier? Sp—no—well, you think of something then, Julie, I have the highest confidence in your abilities. Julie writes poetry, you know,” she told Parr.

  He turned to me keenly. “Do you?”

  “Oh, Ash,” I moaned, feeling squirmier myself. “Not much, and it’s not any good.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not good?” cried the loyal Enthusiast. “What about that beautiful poem you wrote in seventh grade about the sunset and—”

  I moved quickly to stop her, before she could recite one of my juvenile efforts; she likes my older, flowerier poems the best. “I know!” I said. “What about hypothermia?”


  “Brilliant! That’s perfect, Julia, thank you!” said Parr, making a motion as if to hug me. Startled, I drew back, and his gesture trailed off into awkwardness; but he continued to grin at me. He had very white teeth. I loved the way he called me by the formal version of my name—it made me feel like a grander version of myself.

  “See, I told you she’d think of something,” said Ashleigh proudly. “You can always count on Julie.”

  Although these moments with Parr were the shaky high points of my days, I naturally spent more time with Ned, who ran the musical rehearsals and stood in as my singing partner, the dean, for Dean Hanson, who rarely made it to rehearsals. The more I saw of Ned, the more I liked him. His tunes were so catchy that I often found myself singing them around the house, and more than once I noticed my mother humming “Who Would Want to Hook Up with Helen?” or “Oh Lord, What Fools!” And I soon came to appreciate Ned’s good nature as well as his music. In a room full of big egos—Benjo, Barry, Chris, Erin in her quiet way, Ravi—Ned’s was a hardworking and self-forgetful presence. He reminded me of another friend, a person of boundless energy and loyal encouragement: Ashleigh. Most musical directors would have lost their patience long ago, I was sure. Ned, though, never stopped encouraging me.

  “That’s great, Julie,” he said. “You got a much bigger sound that time. Remember how quiet you were last week? Okay, now this time focus on the deer head across the room. You want to really make his ears curl. Great! That was great, now this time let’s see if you can really concentrate on keeping from going flat on the high notes. Nice and loud! Yes! Yes! Listen to you! Okay, I think maybe I pushed you too far that time, you went a little sharp. Not ‘ah,’ more like ‘ah.’ Try it again. Good! Ashleigh, did you hear that? Did you hear how great Julie’s sounding? That was really good, Julie, and you were definitely loud enough if Ashleigh heard you all the way over by the door.”

  At first I was so caught up in learning my lines, governing my heart, and training my voice not to slink off with its tail between my tonsils that I had no time to watch my fellow actors. But as I grew more accustomed to the scene around me (except for Parr kissing Yolanda—I never grew accustomed to that), I began to notice several dramas.

  The most obvious, because it touched me personally, involved Chris Stevens. Chris tried to ooze his way into the good graces of every girl in the production, with the sole exception of Emma Caballero, who was too young even for him. He persisted like an elegant insect, gently dodging any slaps and returning to buzz and brush against you. His technique involved floating around nearby and implying that you were interested in him.

  “Sorry I didn’t see you much last time, Julie,” he said soon after we started rehearsals. “I was in the trophy room with Erin and couldn’t get away. But I don’t want you to feel I was neglecting you.”

  “Don’t worry, Chris, I don’t,” I told him. “Actually, I’d prefer it if you did neglect me.”

  As I soon learned, this was the wrong approach to take with Chris, who took resistance as a challenge. Far from keeping him away, it drew him to me as pheromones might draw a monstrous moth. I had learned all about pheromones during Ashleigh’s insect craze. Chris fluttered softly near me, fanning his vast, pale wings and reaching out with his hairy feelers. Ig!

  Yolanda’s approach—treating his advances with friendly, offhand patience—worked far better. “Chris, how’d you get back there? Sorry, I keep stepping on you! Did I hurt your toe? Hey, didn’t you call me last night? Sorry, I meant to call you back—I didn’t forget about you, I swear, it’s just that I had a lot of homework, and then I was talking to Ravi, and then it got late, and anyway, don’t they make you turn off your phones after ten?” Something about her careless solicitude kept him, if not at arm’s length, at least at elbow’s.

  Oblivious Ashleigh didn’t respond to his attentions at all, since she didn’t notice them. But Erin, poor thing, responded all too well. She developed an obvious, violent crush on him. Chris tormented her by ignoring her most of the time, giving her just enough attention to keep her going, and flirting with the rest of us whenever he saw her watching.

  “Where’s Chris?” asked Erin one afternoon after we’d been rehearsing for several weeks. “We’re supposed to go over the scene where I give him the answers to the math test.”

  “I last saw him with Yolanda,” said Ashleigh. “He said something about showing her the trophy room.”

  Erin stiffened. “I’d better go find him,” she said, and she hurried off.

  Kevin Rodriguez and little Alcott Fish giggled.

  “What’s so amusing?” asked Ashleigh.

  Alcott turned pink.

  “You know, the trophy room? With all the sofas and everything?” said Kevin.

  “What about it?”

  Alcott turned pinker, and Kevin rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, grow up, guys,” said Ravi. “It’s supposed to be where people go to—where people go for privacy,” he explained.

  Of the actors, the most talented by far were Ravi, Alcott, and Kevin, who turned out to be a surprise comic genius. As Butthead, the boorish boy playing Romeo in the play within a play, he overacted with such flawless control that he never once overdid overdoing it. When Yolanda’s Tanya drank Rob’s love potion and fell for Butthead, Kevin turned into a parody of Chris Stevens subtle enough that Chris himself never noticed, yet broad enough to keep the rest of us choking back laughter. Yolanda deepened the impression by putting a touch of lovesick Erin into her Tanya, but only a touch. Either she didn’t want to be cruel to her old friend, or she was acting unconsciously, not quite aware of her influences.

  Ravi was a delight to watch and listen to: handsome, lithe, with a voice like honey and butter. I could see why Yolanda had a thing for him. Ash, I thought, was lucky to have her heart already occupied, or after their first kiss in rehearsals she would have been as bad as Erin with Chris. But although Ravi clearly knew the impression he made, there was nothing wolfish or manipulative about him. He accepted admiration as his due and repaid it with friendly attention, as if to suggest that a warm admiration for Ravi was a pleasure that you and he could share.

  Tensions ran high between Benjo, the director, and Barry, the playwright, who attended every rehearsal and held strong opinions about how we should deliver his beloved lines. Young Emma—as Chloe, the middle schooler playing Juliet in the laughable play-within-a-play—had an uncontrollable tendency to giggle. Unable to curb this habit, Benjo used it as a way of showing up the silliness of the middle schoolers’ production. But Barry couldn’t stand it. He snapped, “Stop giggling!” at poor Emma whenever she so much as smiled, which made her giggle even more.

  “I can’t—I can’t—I c—I can’t help—!” gurgled poor Emma.

  “Barry, quit messing up my actors! I mean it! You’re making her choke,” said Benjo.

  “Your so-called actors are messing up my play. Can’t you control them?” said Barry, stepping closer.

  “What needs controlling is you need to control yourself. Leave now, please!”

  “Leave? Leave this mess with you?”

  Both guys, I saw, had clenched their jaws and fists. Any minute they would come to blows. Fortunately, Parr saw it too and stepped in. “Hey, Barry, do you have a sec? I rewrote the chorus to ‘Queen of the Ice,’ and I want to know what you think.”

  Benjo was still glaring at Barry, so I decided to distract him too. “Benjo, can I ask you a quick question? Should I exit while the dean is still singing, or should I wait till he’s done?” Benjo seemed annoyed at the interruption, but Parr repaid me with a grateful look.

  Because my part was so small, I had plenty of time to observe all these offstage dramas. When not rehearsing my scenes, I made myself useful as a page turner, prop fetcher, and prompter. I learned Yolanda’s part before she did herself.

  Was I foolish to watch her scenes with Parr, exposing myself over and over to their kisses? Perhaps, but I couldn’t keep away, and they seemed to find my p
resence useful.

  One day while I was helping Ned go over the drinking-fountain song with Alcott and Kevin, Alcott threw his beaker full of love potion at the fountain with a little too much zest. It shattered.

  He leaped back. “Hey, wasn’t that supposed to be safety glass?”

  “Good thing it broke now, not during a performance,” said Ned. “We need to find something stronger. Plastic or metal.”

  “Like a loving cup, maybe,” I joked. “The trophy room’s full of them.”

  “A loving cup for the love potion—ha! Julie, that’s brilliant. Wait there, I’ll be right back.” Ned ran off.

  Parr, who was nearby helping Benjo choreograph the big fight scene between Daniel and Xander, saw him go. “Oh, no, Ned, don’t do that! Quick, somebody, stop him,” he said.

  “Stop what? Where’s he going?” asked Alcott.

  “The trophy room, obviously. If Wattles catches him taking a trophy, that’s it for his scholarship.”

  “I got it,” I volunteered, feeling responsible.

  I thought I remembered the way to the trophy room, from my bathroom adventures at the Columbus Cotillion. However, it took me longer than I expected to find it. By the time I got there, Ned was perched on tiptoe on the back of a green leather sofa, trying to pry open a trophy-case door with a protractor.

  Something was clearly about to snap. I hoped it would be the protractor, but the door looked more likely.

  “Ned! Stop!”

  “Oh, hi, Julie—give me a hand up here, will you? I’ve almost got it.”

  “Stop it, Ned, you’re going to break the case!”

  “No, I’m not, I’ve almost got it—”