Curtain Up (4 page)

We also decided we might benefit from going old-school and printing out the advertisement as a paper flyer that we could distribute around town. Then we made notes about holding auditions and selling tickets, and we googled all kinds of ideas for sets and wardrobe. We also talked about turning our basement into a rehearsal space and our back deck into a
terrific stage, complete with footlights and a working curtain.

“Anya, you're going to be rich!” said Susan.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, aren't you going to charge the kids to be in the show?”

“I don't think so.” I looked at Austin. “Should we? I mean, even if we get really creative with costumes and set designs, we're still going to have some costs.”

“True,” said Austin thoughtfully. “We'll definitely need some up-front money just to get things off the ground. We might have to rent lights and sound equipment.”

He had a point. I was thinking we'd earn revenue through ticket sales, but that wouldn't come until later. In the meantime, we'd need some sort of funding to run the theater.

“Maybe Mom and Dad will give you a loan,” Susan suggested.

“No,” I said firmly. “I want to do it myself. I don't want to borrow money. From anyone.”

Susan shrugged. “I'm sure you'll think of something. Boy, I didn't realize there were so many do's and don'ts for running your own theater.”

Neither did I. Unfortunately, at the moment it was feeling like there were more don'ts than do's. . . .

Do's?

Dues!

As in membership fees!

“That's it!” I cried. “We can ask the kids who join the theater to pay dues. Nothing excessive—just enough to get the ball rolling. So, we aren't really charging them; we're just asking them to contribute to the process.”

“Excellent,” said Austin. “Creative set design, inexpensive costumes, and membership dues. Anya, you're already thinking like a producer.”

It was the best praise I could have asked for. Of course, I was also going to be the director. And I was looking forward to thinking like one of those, too.

“I think kids will be okay with paying dues,” I said confidently.

We decided we'd “crunch the numbers” (as Austin put it) and come up with an exact dues amount later. The more immediate concern was figuring out who might be interested in joining our theater. We needed kids with “a flair for the dramatic” (also Austin's term).

“Well, I know at least five girls in this neighborhood who take dance,” I pointed out. “They'd make a great chorus line. You know Mackenzie Fleisch, right?”

Austin cocked his head. “Is she the girl who always stands with her heels together and her feet pointing east and west?”

“Otherwise known as first position,” I said, grinning, but I knew this only because I'd taken a few years of dance back in elementary school. “It's a ballet thing. Mackenzie lives for ballet. Her mom told my mom that Kenzie's going to be a prima ballerina someday.”

“That's impressive.”

I created a new page in my theater document and typed in the names of all the girls we knew who took dance. Then we made a second list that included everyone in the sixth-grade concert choir, and a third with the names of all the kids who'd been in the fifth-grade play with me (minus Mouse Number Three, of course), and as many as we could remember who'd been in it the year before. Susan rattled off the names of the kids who'd been in it this year.

“We're going to need more than just performers,” I pointed out. “We'll need kids to handle sound and lighting and stuff like that.”

“Don't worry about that,” said Austin. “My friend Deon will love this idea. He can oversee all our technical needs. He won the science fair last year for making a light bulb out of a sweet potato. Or maybe it was a can opener out of an electric toothbrush. Whatever it was, I'm sure he'll be willing to help us out.”

I turned to Susan. “Do you think Mia will be interested
in joining?”

“Oh yeah,” said Susan, nodding hard. “Mia's an amazing singer.”

“She is,” I agreed. “Little girl, big voice.”

“Listen to you!” Austin laughed. “You sound like a real director. What are you gonna say next? ‘Don't call us, we'll call you'?”

“How about ‘I'll have my people call your people'?” I teased, giggling.

“Well, now, aren't we just a happy little bunch . . .”

The cool voice had come from the street. It was a voice I knew well.

It was the voice that had beaten me out for the role of
Cinderella
a year ago.

Sophia.

I quickly closed my computer as Sophia Ciancio dropped her super-expensive hot pink bicycle onto my front lawn and headed for the porch.

“Hi, Anya.” Sophia swung her long dark hair over one shoulder and smiled at Austin. “Hi. You're that guy in my English class who writes all those poems, right?”

“For your information,” Susan pointed out defensively, “he doesn't just write poetry. He's also writing an original musical revue for—”

I gave my little sister a firm nudge with my elbow to cut her off. But it was too late.

“Oh, right. I just saw something about that on Twitter.”

Since I was pretty sure Sophia Ciancio didn't follow my sister (or anyone else who wasn't world famous or at the very least part of Chappaqua's middle-school elite popular
crowd) on Twitter, I realized that someone must have already retweeted it.

Sophia laughed. “I actually thought it was a joke.”

“Well, it's not,” I said curtly. “We're creating a theater.”

“Seriously? Where?”

“Here,” I said. “At my house.”

“Who's going to be in it?”

I gave her what I hoped was a careless shrug. “Just . . . ya know . . . people.”

“Hmmm.” Sophia treated us to another hair toss. “I might be interested in that,” she said coolly. “I mean, if Austin's writing it.” She actually batted her eyes at him. I kind of wanted to puke.

Then, without even saying good-bye, she sauntered back across the front yard, got on her neon bike, and glided off, calling, “Let me know the details.”

Um, yeah
, that
is
so
not happening
, I thought.

Back to business.

But as I opened my laptop again, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd forgotten something.

Something big.

Then the front door opened behind me, and my mother stepped out onto the porch. She was holding her cell phone and looking very upset.

And that was when I realized that, unlike Sophia Ciancio, my mother
did
follow Susan on Twitter.

“Girls,” Mom said, her eyebrows knit low. “Is there something you think I should know?”

I sighed.
That
was what I'd forgotten.

I'd forgotten to ask my parents!

Slowly, patiently, my mom folded her arms across her chest. “Anya, what exactly is the Random Farms Kids' Theater?”

Before I could answer, Dad's car pulled into the driveway.

“Hello, there,” he said cheerfully as he headed up the walk. “I caught an early train.”

My dad's a big important lawyer in the city and it was unusual to see him home at this time of day.

Just my luck—a slow day in the world of law.

He looked from me to my mom and became instantly wary. “What's up?”

I took a deep breath and explained my theater idea to them, just like I'd explained it to Austin.

“It'll be great, don't you think?” I finished confidently. “And I promise we won't make a mess in the kitchen or stomp on the rose bushes in the yard or swing from the chandelier in the dining room or anything like that. All I want to do is put on a play. Well, several plays, actually. But one at a time. Naturally.”

Mom had a strange expression on her face. It was a mix of concern and something else. Pride, maybe? She smiled and reached out to hold my hand. “I'm sorry, Anya,” she said. “I love that you're thinking so creatively and that you have such confidence in your idea. But we can't have a theater in our house.”

“Well, it won't be in the house, exactly,” I clarified. “It'll be in the basement, mostly. And I've thought it all out.”

“Have you?” Mom cocked an eyebrow.

“Sure. . . . We've got tons of sheet music in the piano bench, and you're always complaining about the old clothes cluttering up the closets. Those would make a great start for a wardrobe department.”

“And what about the fact that this house also happens to be my workplace?”

Ugh. Okay, so maybe I hadn't thought it all out. I was so excited about the theater that I hadn't even considered the fact that my mom ran her own PR consulting business, which, after I was born, she'd relocated from a giant skyscraper in New York City to the paneled den space just off our living room. She even had a separate entrance for clients so they wouldn't have to come through the house for meetings.

“Maybe your clients wouldn't mind,” I offered lamely.

“They pay for my professionalism,” Mom said gently.
“And I don't think I'd be able to get much work done, let alone hold any meetings with a hundred singing, dancing middle schoolers traipsing around the house.”

I brightened. “You really think I'm going to get a hundred people to join my theater?”

Mom sighed. “That was just a ‘for instance,' Anya,” she said, handing my dad her cell to get him up to speed via Susan's tweet. “And it doesn't matter what size turnout you get. The point is, you simply can't have a children's theater in my place of business.”

“So, you're saying even though Austin and Susan and I have spent the entire afternoon making plans, we can't have a theater?”

“She's not saying you can't have a theater,” Dad clarified. “She's saying you can't have a theater
here
.”

Same thing. I needed a place to have rehearsals and perform the show. If my own house was off-limits, that meant I was pretty much out of venue options. I turned a hopeful look to Austin.

“Sorry,” he said. “My little sisters are two and four. They take naps. My parents would never agree to having a theater in our house.”

“How about we take a look at the parks and rec summer program brochure,” Dad suggested. “Maybe they're offering
a theater camp you can join.”

“No!” I sprung up from the porch step, feeling a lump forming in the back of my throat. “You don't understand. I want to do this. . . . I
need
to do this! No kid in our town has ever done anything like this before. Maybe no kid in any town has ever done it! I want to put on this play more than I've ever wanted anything in my life!”

Mom and Dad did that parent-telepathy thing where they only had to exchange one glance and each knew what the other was thinking.

Unfortunately, so did I. They were thinking no.

Suddenly I needed to get out of there.

“Come on, Austin,” I said, going down the steps. “I'll walk you home.”

But I wasn't actually walking; it was more like a very furious stomp.

We were all the way to the end of Random Farms Circle when Susan caught up to us.

“Anya, wait!”

I slowed from a stomp to a heated walk. But I was too upset to stop moving entirely.

“I asked Mom if we could have rehearsals in the backyard,” she said, panting to catch her breath. “She said it might work as long as we stay outside and as far from her office window as possible.”

“That might not be so bad,” said Austin.

“And what if it rains?” I grumbled. “And what happens when someone needs to use the bathroom?”

“Maybe no one will,” said Susan, trying to be helpful.

I rolled my eyes. “Susan, sooner or later someone's going to have to use the bathroom.”

We walked on in grim silence until we reached the next block, where the old neighborhood association clubhouse stood behind a tangle of overgrown rhododendron and climbing vines. The grumpy groundskeeper, Mr. Healy, was there, pulling up dandelions.