Chapter 27 #3
“You guys, we’re running out of time.” Hobbit was both their director and stage manager, apparently.
He even clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“I need to not be grounded this weekend for staying out too late on a school night.” He looked at Rod.
“Did you... do the other thing? With the team.”
Rod glanced over at Sadie, who’d pulled away from Belle and Shelly. She was doing her jazz hands, shoulder-and-neck release exercise as prep for this upcoming rehearsal.
Tomorrow’s big show was Rod and Sadie. In the school lobby. With not so much the candlestick or wrench, but certainly armed with ugly, heavy, very blunt words, meant to be overheard by Rugby-Shirt Jimmy, or someone who would pass the gossip on to Suspect X.
“If you didn’t manage it,” Jules reassured Rod, referring to his bad-mouthing Sadie in front of his soccer idiots, “it’s okay, it really is. You can do it tomorrow, and we can push this scene to Thursday. And if you want we can rehearse it again—the trash-talking.”
“It’s not that hard.” Belle was less kind. “Just say the same shit about Sadie that you usually say about me.”
“Yeah, I know, I did, all right? I did,” Rodney said, squeezing his eyes closed in a face that might’ve been anger or distaste or... something else entirely. “I just fucking hated it.” Self-loathing?
Sadie moved closer—she was done with her stretches and was paying attention to their conversation so Rod spoke directly to her. “Saying that... nasty-ass bullshit about you.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s true,” she countered. “It’s just lines of dialog in this play we’re doing to catch a rapist.”
“Yeah, but...” Rod shook his head. “The guys on the team—” he caught himself “—we talk about girls like that all the time.” He looked at Belle. “You’re right and I’m sorry— because it wasn’t true then, either.”
Belle opened her mouth as if, like Hobbit, she was going to reject his apology and then grind his face into the sawdust on the ground, but Jules reached out and gently squeezed her arm, because right now Rod was talking to Sadie. And more important than that, he was talking.
“After what happened to Meg,” Rod was saying, “it just feels... well, it made me feel like shit.”
“Well, good,” Sadie said tartly, because yes, as Jules expected, she knew exactly what to say in response.
“You should feel like shit, because when you said things like that and you didn’t feel like shit, you were shit.
So congratulations for no longer being shit.
Can we please do this scene, because Hobbit needs to get home. ”
Rodney just shook his head, but it wasn’t quite clear if he was signaling yes or no.
Hobbit being Hobbit, took it as a yes.
“You have to get to the main lobby about ten minutes before homeroom—right when everyone’s coming into the school.
” Hobbit had written a sample script because he knew this kind of improv would be hard for Rod.
“Sadie will be waiting for you outside, and when she sees you go through the front doors, she’s gonna start shouting for you.
Don’t slow down—but don’t go too fast. And don’t stop until she catches up with you. ”
“That’s a fuckload of don’ts,” Rod said.
“It’s okay if you turn to see who’s shouting for you,” Sadie pointed out. “In fact it would be weird if you didn’t. So turn, look, see it’s me and keep going, like you don’t have time for my bullshit. I’m gonna be calling you names, like—” she raised her voice “Rodney! You total asshole!”
Rod flinched.
“Huh,” Hobbit said, hand against his chin as he stepped back to watch. “It’s actually good that you look scared.”
“I’m not...” Rodney exhaled, but then focused on Sadie. “Just, like, you’re gonna grab my arm, right?”
She did, with some force, jerking him around to face her. “Don’t you run away from me, you son of a bitch!”
Rod started to laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just—”
Sadie slapped him. She full-on, flat-palm, hauled back and slapped him across the face, the noise sharp in the dim light from their camp lanterns.
“What the hell...?” Hand to a cheek that had to be stinging, Rod was shocked.
“Don’t you laugh at me!” Sadie was improvising.
“Stay in character,” Hobbit said from the sidelines. “Rod, if you don’t stay in character, she will slap you silly.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. His lip had barely healed from his father’s so-called punishment and he moved his jaw back and forth and used his tongue to check the inside of his cheek, which had most likely been abraded by his teeth from that slap.
“What did I do now?” Sadie fed him his line in an intentionally bad imitation of Rod, her voice pitched low with a heavy sheen of extra stupid.
She then responded in her own voice. “You are such an asshole! Talking shit about me? You’re just jealous because Tom got what you wanted—like I’d ever so much as even touch you!
Gun to my head, I’d take the bullet! You’re disgusting, you disgust me! ”
Rodney actually looked stricken, which was not great, since he was supposed to snap back at her.
Instead he said, “Shit, I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to... Can I just... I need a minute...”
Sadie was about to just keep riffing about ten-foot-poles and never in a million billion years, but now she stepped back, respecting her fellow actor.
Jules moved closer to Hobbit. “Maybe it’s enough that she just unloads on him.
They can just end with the go-dog-go.” It was what they were calling the standard, constantly repeated “Fuck you!” “Fuck you!” that marked the angry conclusion of most of these scenes.
It was a reference to the repeated lines in that Dr. Seuss children’s book.
Do you like my hat? I do not like your hat. Goodbye again. Goodbye...
“Can you just try the line?” Hobbit called to Rod.
“I don’t even know what it is at this point,” Rod admitted.
“Yeah, like I’d want your fricking chlamydia,” Sadie told him. “Hard pass, thanks.”
“Right. Right. Sorry.”
Belle moved to be included in Jules and Hobbit’s little sidelines pow-wow. “Problem is, he really does want her chlamydia,” she whispered. “Euphemistically speaking, because you know, she doesn’t actually have—”
“We get it,” Jules said.
“Ugh, when this is over, we’re going to have to hang out with Rodney, aren’t we?” Hobbit said.
“If Sadie likes him, there must be something in there to like,” Jules said.
“Still.”
“Yeah.”
Hobbit clapped his hands because Rod just could not get the line out without stumbling awkwardly.
“How about this?” He pointed to Rod. “Fuck you,” to Sadie, “Fuck you! Stay the fuck away from me.” Back to Rod, “You stay the fuck away from me. I don’t want to catch chlamydia, with that last part being optional.
If you remember it, great, if not, no problem.
” He gave one more note to Sadie, “And feel free to slap the hell out of him whenever you want. Let’s run it one more time. ”
And as Sadie and Rod did just that, Hobbit turned to Jules and quietly said, “We don’t need to review our thing, right?”
Oof, yes, that was right. Tomorrow was their little fake break-up scene in the cafeteria, too. Not as big as Sadie and Rod’s scene, but still important since Jules had been targeted by Suspect X, and they needed to let him know Jules wouldn’t be at the weekend party.
But, “No.” Jules shook his head. They didn’t need to rehearse. Hobbit had written a script that was pretty damn brilliant, and Jules had already memorized his lines. “Just... you’re gonna find me, right?”
“I am,” Hobbit said, eyes on the performance. Sadie was literally running rings around Rod. “I’m... also not gonna come to the FU Club after school, which means...”
That’s right, tomorrow was Wednesday. It made sense that, after they argued and yes, “broke up,” Hobbit would stay far away. And if Hobbit wasn’t there...
“I’ll ask Topher and Joey about Mexico,” Jules said. Although really it was Topher, whose parents had money, who was most likely to have vacationed somewhere more exotic than Cape Cod.
“Thanks,” Hobbit said. “I really want to get my future brother-in-law off our suspect list.”
Jules laughed as Hobbit smiled, too, meeting his eyes.
He didn’t need to say it, but Jules knew what his friend was thinking. A world in which Topher’s brother Liam hooked up with Hobbit was completely unrealistic. It was very similar, in fact, to the odds of David ever coming back to Jules.
Except maybe it wasn’t—and oh, there it was. That ever-present maybe David would come back. That whisper of hope that Jules couldn’t shake, regardless of how hard he tried.
Out in the middle of the summer house, Sadie and Rod perfected their go-dog-go finale.
“And scene! Good job,” Hobbit said, stepping forward to give them notes.
Maybe that was what Jules needed. His own go-dog-go. A chance to say what he’d been too shocked, too stunned to say during that chaotic, heart-stopping one-minute break-up before David had left for the west coast.
Have a nice life.
Fuck you, David, indeed.