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Wait. Am I insane? What am I even talking about?
Suddenly, I’ve seemed to set loose a whole lepidopterarium of butterflies in my stomach. I have just annihilated the rest of my appetite, anxious now over what I should say or ask or do. Why does Vann excite me as much as he scares me? What if he really is a dangerous person, and I’m playing with fire here …?
The bell catches me before I’m ready for it. “Well, guess this is it,” Vann grunts without looking at me. He takes his tray. “See you later at rehearsal, Toby.” With that—and while I’m fumbling for a reply of any kind—he rises from the table and leaves.
“S-See ya,” I finally manage to say long after he’s gone.
All the questions I could’ve asked or topics I could’ve chatted about die quick deaths on the vacated lunch table. I stare at my half-eaten pasta and breadstick, which I took exactly one bite out of, with tumbling excitement in my heart. Something really big is happening here between me and Vann. Something important. I just have to figure out what the hell that is.
Wait a sec. Did he say rehearsal?
09 | VANN
So Toby wants me to notice the better parts of this town.
Good luck with that.
After a boring seventh period study hall, I make my way to the auditorium. On my way down the long crowded halls to the theater, I notice girls slowing to let their gazes linger on me. One of them clutches her books tighter against her chest. Another one runs a hand through her hair, batting her eyes. Two of them giggle as soon as I pass by them, their faces cherry red. I wonder if these are the finer parts of Spruce I’m supposed to notice. You know, that every girl in this school is apparently incorrigibly horny.
The auditorium is buzzing with energy when I come in. While there are faces scattered among the seats, most of them aren’t in the cast, I come to learn. They’re just here to listen to the first day read-through, for which a table has been erected on the stage. I go up the steps to the stage and take a seat at the table where three other cast members have gathered, as well as Tamika, who greets me chirpily and hands me a script. I drop my backpack at my feet, pull out a pencil, then start drawing on the copyright page of the script, waiting for something to begin. “Here’s a highlighter,” says another cast member whose name I think is Frankie, “if you need one for all your lines.” I give the highlighter one look, grunt, “No thanks,” then carry on with my drawing. I’m not bothered again.
Then the auditorium doors swing open, and in rushes Toby. He finds me at once, smiles, seems to think twice about smiling, then assumes a sort of stoic, all-business face as he ascends the steps of the stage and takes a seat next to me at the table. “Hey,” he greets me, then politely accepts a script from Tamika. “Thanks.”
“Hey,” I greet him back, smirking, then continue sketching.
A minute later, Toby’s friend Kelsey pops up and drops into the seat next to him. “You looked cozy today at lunch,” she murmurs teasingly to him, and I don’t think she meant for me to hear that, but her voice is gruff and carries. “Where were you during yearbook?” Toby asks back, red-faced. “Ms. Reyes sent me on an errand to take photos of band class. Don’t worry, Toby, I kept my distance during lunch. Me and the Theatre peeps totally weren’t talking about you and Domino the whole time.” That comment earns her a glare from Toby, and I’m left wondering what the hell “Domino” is.
When the director Ms. Joy arrives, we are immediately set to the task of reading the script out loud among the table. She insists we only pay attention to the story and not “sweat over acting it out or being too dramatic”, since we have well over six weeks of rehearsal to worry about that. The whole time we read the script, I keep sneaking glances at Toby, taking note of how freaked out he looks, his eyes full of fear throughout every scene we read. Tamika reads the stage directions, and when it comes time that our love-bird characters kiss in scene four—which Tamika reads in a dutiful and serious voice—the table is full of giggles, eyes looking up from the scripts to find me and Toby. All they get in return is my deadpan stare and Toby’s blushing cheeks.
After the table read, which ends an hour and forty minutes of unending tedium later, Ms. Joy dismisses us for a short break, after which we return for a round of character questions, discussions, and a few other things that have me bored out of my mind. This is such a crappy script, I keep telling myself, yet everyone at the table seems to revere it like it’s already won a Pulitzer.
