Chapter 20
We stand in the theater room, silent and in shock. Ms. Easterling reads us the entire official statement from Oyster Pit ISD.
“Y'all, we got squashed by a clown with a giant rubber sledgehammer,” she says as she drops the paper, which wafts miserably to the floor. “With that said, we're no longer doing Pansgender!”
Everybody groans.
I hang my head in shame. I was trying to save Pansgender!, but I butterfly-effected it into oblivion instead. Thankfully, everybody else is too angry to notice me sweating bullets.
“I need this show to happen so I can get into the BFA program at Yale,” Naz says.
“And I need it to happen so I can get my agent!” Byron adds.
“Is there something we can do? Get a lawyer to help us?” Sweet Mike asks.
“There is nothing we can do to keep the show alive at school. It's over,” Ms. Easterling says. “Before I give you even more news, I can offer you the option of voting for another musical.”
“NO,” most of them shout, with some weak “yeses” scattered throughout the room. Daisha and Byron shake their heads at them.
“Well, here's what can happen,” Ms. Easterling says. “My friend at the community theater says there's an opening at the beginning of March for performances. If we can pay him by the end of the year, he can secure the dates for us.”
“That community theater is cursed,” Byron says.
“So many bad things happen there. A light fell on Lucy Dunlavy and broke her neck during Anything Goes five years ago.
Someone had an aneurysm during Romeo and Juliet.
The whole cast of Trip to Bountiful got monkeypox.
Need I go on? I don't feel comfortable performing there.”
“How much do we need to pay?” Daisha asks.
“Thirty thousand dollars. There's the grant we lost, plus insurance, plus booking the building, an orchestra, plus all the other production costs I factored in to create a memorable show.”
Everybody groans.
“I might as well get to the second half of this misery marathon: I regret to inform you that as of today, I am being let go from my job,” she adds.
The groans turn into gasps and shouts of “no!”
“I wish I had better news for you. Now that we're an IntegriTruth school, you're going to have to decide for yourselves what your truth is, not theirs.
To them, I'm not a person. But don't worry about me.
I'm not afraid to live my life,” she says as half of the room sobs.
“I love y'all so much. I'll still be in town, so if you magically whip up that thirty thousand dollars, you know where to find me.”
Daisha stands and holds up her fist. “I will avenge you, Ms. Easterling, if it's the last thing I do!”
I have opened a colossal can of shitworms. I have nobody to blame but myself, and now even Felix is mad at me.
I have to fix it.
I'm going to make sure Pansgender! happens, no matter what I have to do. After all, this play could be the thing that jump-starts my acting career if the talent agent notices me instead of Byron. My future in LA with Felix depends on it.