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Cara
I’ve just finished my last class of the day and the juniors file off the stage in their usual hub of senseless talking at the same time. There’s a part of me that feels bad for rushing through it, but I haven’t been able to get the upcoming meeting off my mind. Of course, Zoey and the others were only too happy to drop the likes of Edward Spencer in my lap…
“Cara?” Elise comes up to me where I’m packing my bag. She’s nervously twisting the sleeve of her hoodie. The very one she’d been chewing for most of our class.
“What’s up, honey?” I lean against the baby grand piano and give her my full attention. I know how rare that is for most of the young teens who take acting and dance classes at the theater with us.
She glances around to make sure there are no other dawdlers on stage with us and steps closer. Her voice is barely above a whisper when next she speaks, her sandy blonde hair hanging like stringy curtains over her face.
“I, um, I just…” Elise does another check over her shoulder before continuing, with, “You know how you said, uh, you said you wanted me to, um…”
She forces the air out of her lungs in a harsh sigh, her frustration with herself showing in her pained expression. My heart goes out to her, the way it always does, and I place my hands on her shoulders, rubbing them gently.
“I want you to audition for Elizabeth because I believe you can bring this house down,” I say with an encouraging smile.
Elise’s eyes are round saucers in her head. “But… I can’t. It’s the lead role.”
“Exactly,” I pat her back and sling my purse over my shoulder. “Now, I have to head out but what do you say we run lines together tomorrow? Just you and me…”
Her face lights up and I’m even lucky enough to see an almost smile before it quickly fades. Elise gives a stiff nod and says, “Thanks, Cara,” before hurrying off the stage to catch up with her friends.
“That’s the story you take to him.” Zoey’s doing a slow clap, her sudden appearance from stage left making me jump.
“Yeah?” I ask, clutching my heart to try and force it back to its natural rhythm. “Keep sneaking around in shadows like that and I won’t be alive to take him anything.”
She sniggers, hoisting herself onto the back of the piano where she crosses her legs. Half her braids are pulled up on top of her head, but she brings the rest over her shoulder and starts fidgeting with them - twisting them into knots and back out again.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Zoey fixes me with an incredulous grin.
I look down at my moth-eaten sweater I’d picked up at Goodwill when I first got to LA, and tug the hem uncertainly.
“Well, it covers the paint stains on my jeans,” I reply, meeting her gaze. She’s biting back her laughter but I can tell that won’t last for very long. “Zoey, please, I wasn’t in the mood when you talked me into this, and I’m even less in the mood for it now. If you’re saying I have to go home and change-”
She holds up both her hands in a sign of surrender. “I’m not saying anything. You do you, and all that.” She pauses for a moment, giving me the once over, then adds, “I think the blonde hair and baby blues will do it for him, though. According to the tabloids, our bad boy can’t resist a hot blonde. Luckily for us, you’re both of those things.”
“None of that matters. Not what I’m wearing, or the color of my hair.” I wave my folder in front of her. It had taken me no less than a week to compile my pitch for donations. “This is what it comes down to. I’ll blow him away with my speech and he’ll have no choice but to throw a fraction of his billions our way.”
Zoey averts her eyes, fingers tapping conspicuously on the weathered surface of the piano.
“What?” I fold my arms across my chest, bracing for what’s about to come. She only ever gets that look when it’s something bad. “Spit it out, Zoey…”
“I wasn’t going to say anything until after your meeting,” she starts, meeting my eyes again.
I don’t know why, but she looks guilty. Something twists in my gut and I suddenly don’t want her to finish what she’s saying. She does it anyway, unaware of how I’m feeling because I don’t tell her. I rarely do.
“My meeting with Brighton bombed,” the words tumble from her mouth like a freight train on speed. She stares at me, studying my expression for any hint of a reaction.
I stare back, the muscles in my face strangely devoid of animation. I’m pretty sure it’s because all the blood in my body has rushed to my gut, where my heart has suddenly dropped.
“What do you mean, it bombed?”
Zoey sighs heavily, shaking her head as she goes back to the braids in her lap. “I don’t know, I guess they weren’t into the pitch, or whatever. But they said they’re not interested in donating toward saving the theater.”
I take a moment to let her words sink in. We’ve been at this for so long, I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t have a ‘Save Community Arts’ flier in at least one of my pockets. There are at least fifty in my purse at all times, and god forbid someone ever finds themself in an elevator with me for more than three seconds. I’ll be chewing their ear off about our community theater and what they can do to help us save it, and I won’t stop until they get off.
And we are still fighting the fight. Nothing has changed. Exhausted doesn’t begin to describe the way I feel. Defeated is a way better start…
