Curtain Up (19 page)

I tried to ignore the icky feeling. It was a creepy crawling sensation just below my skin. Like something bad was about to happen. I whispered this to my sister on our way to the theater, but in typical Susan fashion, she shrugged it off.

“The theatrical world is filled with superstitions,” she reminded me. “You know, like that weird tradition of not
being allowed to talk about fast food.”

I stopped walking and looked at her like she'd lost her mind. “
What?
”

“I've heard that actors believe it's bad luck to even mention a Big Mac inside a theater.” She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “Or maybe it's a Whopper Jr.?”

“Susan,” I said, trying not to crack up. “It's
MacBeth
. And he was not a cheeseburger; he was the title character in one of William Shakespeare's great tragedies.”

“Whatever,” said Susan. “But seriously, isn't it silly?”

“You're probably right. I'm just being superstitious.”

And by the time we'd arrived at the clubhouse theater, I was so wrapped up in thinking about what we had to accomplish in two days, I'd forgotten all about my uneasy feeling.

For most of the morning Maxie had the floor, going over her list of costume changes and reminding the actors about which zippers had a tendency to get stuck and how they should wear their hats so they would be least likely to fall off. There was also a twenty-minute seminar about the importance of wig caps and another about the health implications of sharing a makeup brush.

Then we ran through the show.

“I have an idea,” said Spencer, three lines into his
Peter Pan
scene.

Maxie sighed, consulting her wardrobe notes. “If it's about switching out the green tights for basketball shorts again, you can forget it.”

“No,” said Spencer. “This idea is for Deon.” He turned a hopeful smile to D. “How hard would it be to make me fly?”

“Fly?” said Deon, mildly surprised.

“Fly?” said Austin, in absolute shock.

“Yeah!” said Spencer. “I was reading online about the original production of
Peter Pan
. The actor—well, actress, actually—got to fly around above the stage and over the audience, and I was just thinking it would be way cool if I could do that.”

“And you were thinking this one day before dress rehearsal?” I said. “Seriously?”

“D, what do you think?” Spencer prompted. “You're a whiz at this kind of thing. What would you need? Cables? Wires?”

I felt a grab in my stomach, imagining the cost of said cables and wires.

“Well, let's see,” said Deon, making a show of pacing the stage and scratching his chin thoughtfully. “I guess I'd need a harness, and some really strong rope . . . and of course”—he stopped pacing and turned to glare at Spencer—“a whole lot of pixie dust!”

Everyone laughed except Spencer. “It was only a suggestion,” he muttered.

“Take it from the top,” I said.

There was a moment of panic when Austin couldn't find the sheet music for “Brotherhood of Man.” I was so upset, I was on the verge of accusing Eddie of intentionally destroying it just so he could get out of doing the dance. But luckily, Susan found it before I could say anything.

Then I felt guilty for even thinking a nice kid like Eddie would ever do such a crummy thing. I confessed my fear to Austin in a whisper.

“I thought maybe he'd tried to sabotage the number,” I admitted.

“Sabotage, huh? You must be awfully nervous if you're starting to accuse your actors of espionage.”

“I know.” I grinned. “Although, in this case, I guess you'd have to call it
thespian-age.
”

For a while things went smoothly. Better than smoothly. Perfectly, in fact. No sour notes, no missed cues. Big smiles, clear voices.

I was feeling so good about the show that I decided this was the perfect time to reveal my surprise. I opened the door under the stage and dragged out my plastic bag.

“I've got something for you guys,” I said, pulling out the
first T-shirt. “It's my way of thanking you for all your hard work, and it shows that we're all in this together.”

I was suddenly surrounded by a swarm of actors.

“These are awesome, Anya!” cried Gracie.

“Great color!” said Jane.

“Love the logo,” said Eddie, wriggling into his.

“You should have sprung for the one-hundred-percent-cotton shirts,” said Sophia, snatching one out of the bag. “But at least this shade of blue goes well with my eyes.”

Susan took me by the elbow and pulled me aside to the ticket table, where a curious-looking Austin joined us.

“Anya, how did you pay for those shirts?” my sister asked.

“The usual way,” I said. “With money.”

“Duh. I meant what money.”

I declined to answer.

Austin looked at me closely. “The dues money?”

I sighed. “Yes. Yes, I used the dues money to buy T-shirts and iron-on decal sheets, okay? But it was before I knew about the piano bill!”

“Anya . . .,” said Austin. “That puts us in a major deficit.”

“It did,” I said, “but I took care of it.”

“How?” asked Susan. “Did you borrow money from Mom and Dad?”

“No! I didn't borrow a penny!”

The fact of the matter was that it had never even occurred to me to ask my parents for cash. I'd gotten myself into this mess, so I'd gotten myself out of it.

“We're covered,” I said tersely. “So it doesn't matter how I paid.”

As I walked back to my chair, I heard Sam saying, “Maybe for the next show, we can get hoodies.”

Fat chance
.

And then it was time to try the curtain call.

“Maxie, if it's all the same to you, I'd like the cast to wear these T-shirts for the curtain call on Saturday.”

Maxie nodded. “All right with me!”

“Good,” I said. “Now, let's go through the bows.”

Before the words were even out of my mouth, Austin had leaped up from the piano bench. “Ready for another surprise? The theme song is ready.”

I felt a surge of happiness. I'd been holding out hope that he'd complete the song in time. Austin had come through! It was hard to believe I had ever doubted him.

He was walking from actor to actor, handing out lyric sheets. “Take a minute to go over these,” he said. “Read 'em through. Memorize the lyrics.”

“Wow,” said Teddy. “There sure are a lot of words.”

Gracie eyed the page. “I was right,” she said. “Nothing
does rhyme with
Random Farms
.”

Under Austin's direction, the kids mumbled through the verses and chorus five or six times. After that, he herded them onto the stage, placing them, moving them around, barking out dance steps, and then changing everything and doing it all over again.

“Jeesh, Weatherly,” said Deon from the wings. “Can you slow down a little? I need to figure out how I'm gonna light this.”

Either Austin didn't hear Deon or he simply chose not to respond. Instead he just went right on giving directions.

“Mia, you sing the high part, okay? This line here. Can you hit a high C? Doesn't matter . . . You'll get it. Now, Travis, this part right toward the end . . . I want you to sing it in that cool British accent you were messing around with yesterday.”

Susan looked at me. “British accent?” she whispered. “He's kidding, right?”

I certainly hoped so. But suddenly I wasn't sure.

In the next second, Austin had launched into his plans for the harmonies. I wasn't a trained vocalist, so of course I was lost, but I could tell from the look on Sam's face that even to him they sounded impossible.

“Everybody got it?” Austin asked with a big smile.

Nobody did.

But that didn't stop him from hopping down from the stage and running back to the piano. “Okay, people. Here we go. Ready, Mia? Sophia? Jane, just try to keep up, and, Mackenzie, if you can maybe bang out a pirouette or two during the bridge that would awesome.”

His fingers hit the keys like his fingers were on fire, and music filled the room.

Once again I was struck by how amazing the melody was. Austin sang loudly, leading them, belting out the brilliant lyrics, which of course he knew by heart.

The song was great. Austin was great.

But the activity onstage was a whole other story.

Kids were tripping over one another trying to remember the complicated moves and intricate steps, not to mention the lyrics, which they had seen for the first time only five minutes earlier. Nobody remembered the tune. Nobody understood the harmonies.

They were trying. Really trying.

But it was an unqualified disaster.

When Austin finished playing the song, he turned to me with a glowing smile. “Shall we try it one more time?”

One
more
? I thought.
How about one
million
more?
Because, clearly, that was what it would take for our cast to learn this incredibly intricate song and dance. The problem
was, we didn't have time for a million more tries. This was an ambitious song—a terrific, dynamic song. And slapping it together at the last minute would never do it justice.

This was our theme song. And it deserved better than that.

An ache began deep in my heart because I didn't want to say what I was about to say.

For a moment I just sat there on my folding chair. Then, slowly . . . very slowly . . . I shook my head.

“No, Austin,” I said.

“No?” Austin looked baffled. “You don't want to try it again? But it needs a little more work.”

“It needs a
lot
more work,” I corrected. “And a lot more time.” I lifted one shoulder in a sad shrug. “I'm sorry, Austin. We just can't put your song in the show.”

Onstage, the entire cast went perfectly still. Someone gasped. Fourteen pairs of wide eyes gaped at me, then at Austin.

Austin's face was blank, as though he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. “What did you just say?”

“I said we can't use the theme song. Not this time. It's too much to learn on such short notice.”

Austin's jaw flexed, and his eyes turned cold. “But you were the one who kept bugging me to finish it,” said Austin,
glowering. “You were the one who rushed me to get it done!” He made a face and mimicked me in a high voice, “
Oh, you can do it, Austin. Just hurry up and finish it, Austin. We need it for the curtain call, Austin.
”

“I didn't do that!”

“Yes, you did!” he snapped. “You said you wanted a theme song.”

“I did want it!” I snapped back, then shook my head and corrected myself. “I
do
want it. Because it's fantastic, and I know how hard you worked, and honestly, I'm grateful. But I was wrong to push you. I should have known there wouldn't be enough time to learn it.”

Austin whirled to face the cast, who was standing like a dozen deer caught in a highway's worth of headlights. “Do
you
think it's too hard?” he asked them in a tight voice. “Do you guys think it's too much
trouble
to learn the theme song I spent the last three weeks working on because Anya told me to?”

Teddy looked down at his sneakers. Elle shrugged. Jane, Madeline, and Mia pretended to study their fingernails. Finally Travis piped up.

“The harmonies are a little complicated.”

“And the dance steps are kind of confusing,” said Spencer.

I crossed the floor so that I was face-to-face with Austin.
“I'm sorry. But I'm the director. And the director directs. So I'm making a decision for the good of the show. No theme song.”

“Wow,” said Austin, dragging his hand through his hair. “Just . . . wow! This is unbelievable. You know how hard I worked on that song. It was the one thing in this whole stupid show that was mine.”

“That's not true,” I said quickly. “You wrote the whole revue.”

“I cobbled the whole revue. Big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal.”

“You know what I think?” Austin leaned toward me, and I could see his eyes were filled with anger. Or maybe it was pain. “I think you're just taking my song out of the show because you don't want to share the spotlight with anybody. You keep talking about ‘my show, my show.' Well, you didn't do it all by yourself, ya know, Miss Big Shot Director!”

Somebody snorted at that. My money was on Sophia.

“I know it's not just
my
show,” I said defensively. “It's
our
show.” I planted my hands on my hips. “But it just happened to be
my
idea!”

Austin narrowed his eyes. “You're so full of yourself, Anya!”

“Me!” I had all I could do to keep from stamping my foot.
“
I'm
full of
my
self? I'm not the one who gets invited to A-list pool parties and then thinks he's too cool to tell his friends about it!”

This brought him up short. “You know about that?”

“Yes, I know about that. I know you got invited to Daria's and then lied to me about it!”

“I didn't lie!”

“Well . . . you didn't tell the truth!”

Austin threw his hands up in the air and shot me a scathing look. “Look who's calling who a liar! At least
I
didn't go out and spend all our dues money behind everybody's back!”

I felt as though I'd been slapped. “It wasn't like that! I was just trying to do something nice.”

“And you wound up doing something stupid!”

“Okay, f-fine,” I sputtered, the fury rising in my chest, threatening to turn to tears. “So I splurged! So I bought some T-shirts. So sue me! Sue me!”

He gave me a mocking smile. “Thank you, Nathan Detroit.”

I could have screamed!
Guys and Dolls
humor? Now? Was he serious? I couldn't believe this was the same boy who'd sat on my front porch making plans for our theater. I took a long breath.