Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it's because every muscle in my body is screaming with pain and fatigue. Maybe it's because I'm terrified that I won't be able to do this. It doesn't matter why, but my eyes fill up.
Josh purses his lips together, forming a tight, straight line. "I didn't mean to make you cry."
"I'm not crying."
"Then why are your eyes all wet?"
"I'm not crying. I don't cry."
He tilts his head ever so slightly. Even though I know him, he seems so different to me. He was my first love. My first kiss. My first … everything. And now he's sitting here, and he doesn't even look like the Josh I carried in my heart all these years.
Cue the waterworks.
"Um, Leslie, for someone who doesn't cry, your eyes are really leaking."
"No, they're not." Angrily, I wipe the tears away. "You need to get your eyes examined. There must be something wrong with them." I take a deep breath. "Okay, I'm ready."
Josh starts on the music again. Right before it's my cue to come in, he says, "You know, this is the register Zendaya sang in. You're not taking the easy way out. You're playing your instrument how it should be played." And then he lifts his eyebrows to let me know my cue.
After a while of putting me through the paces, Josh stops playing and says, "I'm going to have to get something to eat before the craziness starts. Why don't you record this on your phone so you can practice this afternoon? I think you need to spend some time on your vocals."
That's his polite way of saying that I suck.
I drop my head, trying to absorb the blow.
"Leslie, you're not doing bad, but we both know that this is your weakest area. You'll be fine—you've definitely got the potential to do this well. You just need to put in the heavy lifting." He stands up from the piano and closes the distance between us. Gingerly, he puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head up. "You can absolutely do this. I know you're not afraid of the work. You're never afraid of the work. You may be afraid of a lot of things, but work isn't one of them."
Immediately, my mind flashes to right after camp, when I blocked Josh from all my social media. Hell, I wasn't even back in Ohio when I blocked him. I had no idea how to split my focus. How to even approach a balance, so I cut him out. I was definitely afraid of that work.
"That's not always true."
He must sense what I'm talking about. His hand falls, leaving a cold, empty space where his touch had been.
He sits down and nods at me to get my phone out. I do, and we record a few takes, including some piano for me to try to match notes with.
"Okay, that should help. Now let's go get some lunch. I hear Linda made lasagna today."
I take a deep breath, telling my inner critic that fuel for my engine is a good thing. "Sounds good," I say tightly.
We walk in silence to the kitchen in the dorms. There's a large dining room with long tables and benches stretching the length. It's pretty full. It seems the entire cast and crew is pre-game fueling. As they should be.
Food is lined up on the kitchen counter. Josh and I grab plates and begin dishing up. I stack my plate with fruits and veggies, but I can't resist a small piece of lasagna. I follow Josh into the dining room, thinking about how we ate all our meals together at STP. Except now, he's wedged himself in between two members of the pit band. I scan the room, feeling just like I did in high school.
Never fitting in.
Amy waves. "Come on over. We can make room." She is seriously the nicest person I've ever met, and not at all like the shrew character she plays inKiss Me, Kate."Leslie, you know everyone, right?"
I've at least seen most of their faces, though I'm still trying to attach names to them. I smile tightly and nod. "I think so, though if you could all wear name tags, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'm just going to call you some random name."
Levi laughs. "Most of the time, we don't know what name to answer to anyway. Our character name—which changes every two weeks—or our real name. Basically, we'll answer to anything or nothing. "
The crowd laughs. Someone—I think his name is Zak—says, "Which names? Our birth names or our stage names?"
"Do a lot of you use stage names?" I ask, taking a bite of my carrot stick.
A few people raise their hands. Zak nods. "My real name is Mike Jones. For real. Like, could you have a more basic name than that?"
"What are you using now?"
