Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The first drama club meeting of the year and we already had multiple award-worthy performances.
Emma continued to pout about my decision to veer away from musicals. This was her year to shine, she declared, in a whiney voice that tempted me to stick her in the background instead of the lead role. Madison Park had the opposite reaction. A budding fashion designer, Maddy had run the costume department since her freshman year, when she’d displayed an impressive talent for making corsets.
Period pieces were not her passion, however, and she’d nagged me for two years about doing something more modern. To say she’d been ecstatic at my announcement would be the understatement of the year.
Personally, I was struggling to show my usual enthusiasm.
Three members of our nine member club graduated in the spring, taking us down to six. Sadly, one of those chose not to rejoin, but an incoming freshman filled the spot. Of the six we had, two were off stage options only—Maddy in wardrobe, and Hannah as her assistant, who was also in charge of makeup and props.
Regardless of her attitude, Emma would take the female lead of Darcy, a good girl struggling between choosing a future that would please her parents and choosing her own potential happiness. Jackson Cruz, our resident musical genius and an absolute natural on stage, could be the male lead, but he was much better suited for the villain of the story.
That left Nick Lowell as the only other boy in the club, a sophomore with little experience who couldn’t possibly play the lead. Emma would eat him alive in every scene.
How were we going to do this?
Employing my own acting skills, I pretended this wasn’t a problem. We simply needed to recruit, which was the reason for pivoting off musicals in the first place. Kids were more likely to sign up for material to which they could relate. The lack of a singing requirement would also help.
“Listen up,” I said, propping my bottom onto the corner of my desk. “We have two tasks to accomplish today. First, we’ll go through the summary of the play so you know what we’re doing.”
“Copies are here,” said Gina Lee as she entered with a stack of play summaries. Surveying the room, she paused. “Maybe we didn’t need this many.”
Science teacher extraordinaire, Gina could be mistaken for one of the freshman she taught, only with better style.
“We’ll need them once we bring in new members,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “Pass these around.” I counted off five sets and handed them to Emma in the front row, who took one and passed them on.
“Choices?” Madison said once she had her copy. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s a newer production. Does everyone have a summary?”
Gina pulled my desk chair around to sit beside me as a mumbled yes came from the group. “Is this a comedy?” she asked.
“There are light moments, but no. The play is about exactly what the title says. Choices. Immediate ones and the long-term variety. It’s also about the consequences that come from those choices.”
“This says we need eight to ten people,” Hannah said, looking around the room. “We have half that.”
“Like I said a minute ago, we’ll be recruiting new members. Let’s go over the summary so you know how to sell the idea to your friends.”
“With all due respect, Ms. P.,” Jackson cut in, “the drama club isn’t the biggest draw for extracurriculars.”
This was not news. After sports, which would always hold the top spot, we ranked far down the list behind newspaper, yearbook, and the debate team. Though they only took third thanks to cool field trips to big cities for competitions.
“At least we aren’t the chess club,” I offered as a point of encouragement.
“They have nine members,” Gina pointed out. “And matching sport coats.”
She wasn’t helping. “This is the year that the drama club becomes the club everyone wants to join.”
“Are we gonna start paying?” Jackson asked.
Where was the loyalty?
“No, we aren’t paying,” I replied. “We won’t have to. Let’s get back to the summary. Most of the characters are high school students much like yourselves. The two leads are staring down big life decisions, as well as lots of expectations and outside influences. There’s parental pressure, peer pressure, and the typical teen angst that comes with both.”
“We have to create a party,” Emma said. “We’d need at least twenty people for that.”
“Not true. We’ll run audio that sounds like a party to give the impression there are more people on stage.”
Maddy flipped the page. “This is so cool. I can see the costumes already.”
At least someone was on board.
Emma found an element to be happy about, too. “There’s a karaoke scene.” Looking up with wide blue eyes, she said, “I get to sing?”
I nodded. “In that one scene, yes.”
Our newest member, Kaitlyn, raised her hand. “Won’t there be auditions before the parts are given out?”
Emma huffed at the idea she wouldn’t be handed the lead role. Kaitlyn was right though. Especially if we were going to bring others in. The parts needed to be democratically distributed.
“If more than one person is interested in a role, then there will be auditions, yes.”
I could almost hear Emma grinding her teeth from six feet away. Best to learn now that there would always be competition coming up behind her, and I had a feeling Kaitlyn would be competition.
Though only a freshman, she’d submitted an impressive resume when joining the club. Dance lessons from the age of four. Countless talent shows and competitions. No serious acting yet, but the spark was there, as was the ambition, considering she was ready to challenge an experienced senior.
Something told me this child had no fear, which was exactly the attitude we needed.
“Oh, no,” Hannah said. “Does someone die?”
Pages flipped faster. “Where?” asked Emma.
“Look at page twelve, halfway down.”
“No one dies,” I assured them. “But she is seriously injured in a car accident. That’s where the big issues kick in. This play is going to test us, but I have faith that you guys can pull it off.”
“With a bunch of newbies?” Emma scoffed. “Why can’t we do My Fair Lady ? We haven’t done that one yet.”
Maddy groaned. “No more corsets.”
“And Henry Higgins is a chauvinistic pig,” Jackson added.
Harsh, but he wasn’t wrong.
“This is the play we’re doing. No one here is required to participate, but I hope you will, since we’re going to need all the bodies we can get.” I scooted off the desk. “Which brings us to part two of this meeting. Sign time.” Dragging a stack of posterboard off the shelf in the corner, I piled them onto my desk. “We need to advertise.”
“The play?” Jackson asked. “Isn’t it too early for that?”
“Not the play. The club. We’re going to make signs to convince students to join.” To Gina, I said, “Did you bring the markers?”
Blinking, she looked confused. “I was supposed to bring markers?”
“Yes, I asked you to bring them in the email I sent.”
“You sent me an email?”
Clearly, Gina didn’t bring the markers. “Never mind. I’ll see if Mr. Sewell will let us borrow some.”
Lenny Sewell ran the art department and didn’t typically lend out supplies, but he still owed me a favor from last spring when I convinced Donna to give a photography presentation for one of his classes.
Leaving the group in Gina’s hands to brainstorm poster ideas, I headed toward Lenny’s room, which was at the far end of hall A, roughly a half mile away. A slight exaggeration, but very slight.
Bounding up the five stairs to the next level, I hung a right and smacked into Trey Collins’s chest with an oomph. Why did the universe keep putting this jock in my way?
“Are you okay?” he asked, which was becoming our regular greeting.
“I’m fine,” I said, lying through my teeth. My heart was racing, my right ankle hurt from the sudden stop, and my pride was thoroughly bruised. “We seriously have to stop meeting like this.”
His deep chuckle filled the silent hall. “We just need better timing. How’s your year going so far? Outside of us running each other over, of course.”
“Well enough, considering we’re less than three weeks in.” Since he was being polite, I felt obligated to do the same. “How about you? Are you settling in?”
He nodded and slid his hands into his back pockets, which pulled his light pink button-down tight across his chest. Georgie’s comment about six-pack abs popped to mind and I willed myself to keep my eyes on his face.
“It’s going pretty good actually. The team is undefeated, and the kids are great. Plus the other teachers have made me feel really welcome.”
The other teachers. As in other than me.
“Speaking of the team, shouldn’t you be at practice? Don’t let me hold you up.”
“No practice today. I promised the guys if they won this past weekend that I’d give them a day off.” He pressed a shoulder against the wall. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
I went with the obvious. “I don’t know you.”
Eyes narrowed, he said, “Not exactly a denial.”
A fair point. “I’m not a sports fan, that’s all. It’s nothing personal.”
“Feels personal. You don’t have to like football to like me.”
Liking him was not the opposite of not liking him. Which sounded counterintuitive for an English teacher but was very much a true statement.
“Do you need everyone to like you?” I asked.
“Don’t you?” he said, straightening to his full height.
What an absurd question. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” I repeated.
“You don’t want people to like you?” The man looked completely perplexed.
“That’s not what I said. You asked if I need them to like me, which I do not. If you need people to like you, then you have some insecurities to explore.” Stepping around him, I said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my drama club.”
Falling into step beside me, as if the last thirty seconds never happened and I hadn’t just suggested that he had serious self-esteem issues, the coach said, “Isn’t your classroom the other way?”
Not that it was any of his business, but… “I’m getting markers from the art department.”
“What do you need markers for?”
Picking up my pace, I cast him an annoyed glance. “You’re very nosy.”
“I’m curious, not nosy,” he defended.
“What’s the difference?”
“I asked an inquisitive question, which you can choose to answer or not answer. If you refuse to answer and I continue to pry, then I’m being nosy.”
Touché, Mr. Master’s Degree.
My gut told me the fastest way to end this encounter was to answer his question. “I need markers so we can make recruitment posters for the drama club.”
Now, curiosity appeased, he had no reason not to go away.
“You’re looking for new members?”
“Every club can use new members,” I answered, reluctant to confess how dire our situation was.
“I can talk to the players,” he said. “See if any of them want to join.”
Steps from the art room, I spun to face him. “Are you trying to be funny?”
The coach looked genuinely shocked. “How is that funny? You need students and I have a roster of them. Unless you’re as prejudiced against athletes as you are against coaches.”
“I’m not prejudiced against anyone.”
“You’ve been frosty to me since you found out I coach the team.”
“I have no?—”
“I see you in the lounge,” he cut in. “You aren’t as cold to anyone else as you are to me.”
I once again opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut. He wasn’t wrong.
“Coach Collins, there’s a reason I’m not on the school welcoming committee. I’m not the warm and fuzzy type. I’m not a people person. In fact, in general, I don’t like people at all. I also don’t like sports. You are the combination of a person and sports. Therefore, I have two reasons not to be remotely interested in you. It isn’t personal. It isn’t meant as an insult. And it isn’t something for which I should have to apologize.”
“You—”
“As for your roster, I would gladly take willing participants, but in my eight years of running the drama club at this school, not a single football player has ever joined, and I have no doubt that none ever will. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Are you saying if they show up ready to work that you’ll let them in?”
Did the man not hear a single word I just said?
“I welcome any student who wants to join and take the work seriously. However, I will not be holding my breath that any of your players will fall into that category.”
With one of his ear-splitting claps, he gave a curt nod. “We’ll see about that.”
The coach took several steps backward before spinning and strolling off in the direction we’d just come. If I had a heart, I’d almost feel sorry for the guy. Because he was about to be sorely disappointed.
On the plus side, I was looking forward to my impending I told you so .
Two weeks later, we had yet to gain a single new recruit for the club. If Trey pitched the idea to his players, none of them took the bait. Color me not surprised. We would have normally started rehearsals by now, as this was the first week of October and the play was scheduled for the weekend before Thanksgiving, but no new members meant no one to play the parts.
If we didn’t add to the numbers before the middle of the month, changes would have to be made. I refused to not put on a play, but with only two girls and two boys, our options were severely limited.
That said, this was Megan’s wedding weekend, which meant putting the play dilemma aside until Monday.
The final bell sounded ten minutes ago, but I needed to give my notes for the substitute one more read through before heading out. In lieu of an old fashioned bachelorette party, with the requisite debauchery and imbibing, Megan requested a small gathering for food and wine and casual chit-chat.
No strippers. No body shots. Not a single hint of hedonism.
The night before Becca’s wedding in January, we’d attempted a girls’ night out, complete with bar hopping and plenty of alcohol. For the rest of us, anyway. Becca had been quite pregnant at the time.
Unfortunately, one thing after another went wrong, and we found ourselves stranded nearly an hour outside of town in the middle of the night at a motel no respecting cockroach would patronize, let alone a human. Between the remote location, and a reluctance to endure a case of bed bugs, we’d resorted to calling Jacob’s ex-wife for a lift.
To our collective amazement, she’d not only showed up to get us, but been very cool about the whole thing.
Still, after the trauma of that night, we were more than happy to go low-key for this one.
“Ms. Pavolski?” came a deep voice from my doorway. “Do you have a minute?”
I looked up to find Aiden Bishop and Burke Pemberton hovering on my threshold. They’d both been in my creative writing class last year, and I had Burke again this year for World Lit.
He had one of those laidback personalities obtained from either being born into money, or inhaling a lot of organic material. With a former senator for a grandfather, and a family that owned half of the new-to-town professional soccer team, along with a successful trucking company and a slew of high-level storage units, the former was the obvious answer.
Aiden was another story. Quiet and not the best student, he had a tendency to cause trouble. Or more accurately, he often found himself trouble adjacent. He wasn’t the mean type, or outright menacing, but making the right decision when it counted was not his forte.
“What’s up, guys?”
“Coach Collins says you have some openings on the drama club,” Burke said. “We’d like to join.”
I didn’t respond right away, since doing so required lifting my chin up off the floor. After a weighted pause, I said, “You guys want to join the drama club? Both of you?”
Aiden had yet to speak, but Burke did say we , so unless he had a mouse in his pocket, I assumed he meant Aiden too.
Burke stepped into the room, and tugged Aiden in with him. “Yes, ma’am.”
This was going to be interesting. Rising, I stepped around the desk. “Why?” I asked.
Neither looked prepared for the question. “Excuse me?” Burke said.
“Why do you want to join the club?”
The clear leader of the twosome shrugged his shoulders. “My mom was an actress before she had me so I’m thinking I might have some skills. When Coach suggested we think about joining, I figured why not?”
The why not seemed obvious to me. Cool kids played football. The outcasts joined drama. I preferred the outcasts, personally, but I also wasn’t in a position to turn away willing participants. If they were, indeed, willing.
“What about you, Mr. Bishop? Was your mother an actress, too?”
“Not that I know of,” he said, finally finding his voice.
“Then what makes you suddenly want to be a thespian?”
“A what?”
Moving closer, I asked, “Is Coach Collins making you do this?”
“No, ma’am,” Burke replied.
“He isn’t threatening you with more time in the dugout or something?”
“That’s baseball,” Aiden said. “Football doesn’t have a dugout.”
I should have known that fact after years of attending Megan’s softball games.
“So you’re both here under your own free will, wanting to join the play?”
“Yes,” they said in stereo.
Confused, and a bit stunned, I wasn’t sure what to say next. Without knowing how well they could act, I couldn’t be sure if this was a good idea or not. At the same time, did I have a choice? We needed actors, we’d asked for volunteers, and here they were, reporting for duty.
Walking back around the desk, I opened my bottom drawer and drew out two scripts. “Auditions are next Tuesday, so that gives you time to look over the story and see what parts you might want to play.”
Until that moment, auditions hadn’t been set at all, but I needed to see what these newbies could do as soon as possible.
“There are multiple parts you can try. The male lead, his father, his best friend, the female lead’s father, and a police officer. You’re welcome to try out for any or all of them.”
If nothing else, we could use the muscle to build the sets, and hopefully more students would show up at my door on Monday.
“What time on Tuesday?” Aiden asked. “We have football practice after school.”
If football took priority, then why were they here?
“Auditions start at three thirty. The latest you can show up is four.”
The boys exchanged a look that said I would not be seeing them on Tuesday. Up to them. Collins had to know that the two activities would overlap, so if he wanted them to join the play, he needed to make some compromises.
Looking up, I caught a glimpse of the clock above the door. “Go ahead and take those with you. I appreciate you wanting to join, but if you can’t make it on Tuesday, don’t worry about it. No harm done.”
“We’ll be there,” Burke said. Aiden didn’t look so confident.
I felt the same as Aiden. “Then I’ll see you in the auditorium next week.”