The Truth About Fragile Things (30 page)

It wasn’t just that we couldn’t decide on what to put on the list that kept us from pursuing our goal for two weeks. Our chances for conversation decreased steadily as opening night closed in on us. Despite spending hours together at rehearsal every day we belonged to Schatz the entire time. She pushed us around the stage like chess pieces, shoved us into the wings for last minute fittings and mic checks and to go over changes in blocking. And now that she knew everything about Bryon’s list, I think she did her best to keep Phillip, Charlotte, and me at opposite ends of the auditorium when we weren’t on stage. I suppose she figured there was no need to store dynamite next to fire.

She’d convinced Charlotte to help with makeup and costumes and ran Phillip and me almost ragged. When Phillip’s voice started croaking during one rehearsal Schatz let out a scream of terrible proportions and ordered him not to speak for three days. She made him join us at lunch hours and forced lemon water and honey into him, along with concoctions of herbs and fish oil. His understudy, Parker, had the best three days of his life, soaking up the spotlight like it could give his pale hide a tan. That is, until Phillip returned full-voiced and so incredible he made Parker look like a prop instead of an actor.

During one rehearsal when my character wasn’t on, my head started throbbing in rhythm to the banging hammers backstage. After a few minutes of listening to Taylor squeak her way through her lines with a cockney accent I went in search for privacy and quiet. Instead of retreating to the prop closet like usual, my feet led me upstairs to the sound booth. Braden was the only one inside, but instead of sitting at attention in front of his control board he was strumming an electric guitar. I thought he would jump up surprised when I entered, but he just raised his head and smiled when he saw me. His fingers kept plucking through the notes.

“Did Schatz send you up?” he asked. “Does she need something?

“No. It was just getting noisy down there. It seemed like it would be more peaceful up here.” I looked down at the people in the theater, attentive, hustling, talking, and felt like I was a hundred miles away. It suddenly looked like an ant farm—busy in a way that is utterly artificial to the watcher. He set the guitar in his lap and I studied the golden stripes running through the blue finish. “I didn’t know you played.”

His cheek twitched, holding back another smile. “I’ve played in the jazz band for three years. We were second in the state last year.”

I sat down in the empty rolling chair across from him, hiding my embarrassment by turning to the light switches. “Now that you say that it sounds a little familiar. I can’t believe I totally forgot. I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing,” he said with a genuine grin. “You ready for opening night next weekend?”

“I think so. Are you?”

“Better be.” He glanced down to make sure Schatz didn’t need him for anything yet. She strutted across the stage, showing Jeremy how to act like the frustrated director. It wasn’t a stretch.

“I always wonder if she’ll survive one more show,” Braden half-joked. Then he rested his guitar carefully against the wall and leaned forward in his rolling chair. “Can I ask you something?”

My shoulders tightened, but I couldn’t tell if it was dread or anticipation. I nodded before I could analyze it.

“Do you ever get nervous out there?” He glanced to the stage and for a strange moment I had a feeling we were both picturing the same thing—me, standing in the spotlight instead of sitting in the dark booth.

He looked so quiet and safe and I wanted to tell him the truth; I had never gone out there. No one has ever seen Megan on a stage. No one expects to. All they want are the characters. It is the place I am safest because people think I am revealing so much when I am hiding everything. “I really don’t,” I told him. “I mean some nerves before, sure, but when I’m out there I don’t even think about it.”

He smiled like he’d learned a secret and instead of resenting it I collected his expression, to remember later. “Do you ever get nervous playing guitar out there?” Before he had a moment to answer I interrupted. “I am so sorry I didn’t know that, Braden. That is awful of me. I can’t remember you ever telling me.” I looked over the theater and saw Phillip and Charlotte talking under the green light of the exit sign, his head bending over hers. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“It’s just band. And usually I’m just sitting in a chair by the piano so people don’t really notice.” He shrugged, thoroughly unconcerned.

“Do you wish they noticed?”

“No,” he laughed. “I think I like playing for this empty room better. Unlike you, I get nervous out there.”

“You do?” My words were too fervent, too intense. He stopped fidgeting with the arm of his chair and met me with his dark blue eyes. He had the most colorful face I’d ever seen. Ruddy cheeks red beneath dark freckles, black lashes fanned out over blue eyes. He was brown and pale, dark and bright, warm and cool. I knew I’d looked too long but I didn’t know where to put my eyes, wasn’t sure how to turn away without admitting my mistake. “Then why did you take drama both semesters last year?”

The smile dropped off his face and he swallowed in a tense way that made me sorry for him. “It seemed fun.”

I calculated that we had only moments before Schatz needed one of us. “Did I interrupt your playing? Does it make you nervous if I’m here?”

From the tilt of his head I knew he’d heard more in my question than I meant to say. I shifted my shoulders, feeling strangely exposed. I’d asked a question. I’d stripped off a layer in front of him.

His cheek twitched uncomfortably. “Not really.” He looked up to see if I believed him before he added in a low voice, “Not in a bad way.” I knew it had cost him, knew he had stripped off something as well.

There was too much nakedness in the small room even if it had nothing to do with bodies and skin. It was worse. And better. I rose to leave.

“Megan…” His voice stopped me at the door and I remembered the stray compliments he had dropped throughout the year, suddenly realizing that with a person as deliberate as Braden, nothing is accidental. Not one word. When I looked back at him he was grinning, soft, easy again. “You can hide up here any time you want. I won’t tell. And I don’t mind. We all need a place.”

His crimson cheeks were so red I could trace the outlines of his blush. I had a new desire to reach out and see if his face felt as hot to the touch as it looked. “Thank you,” I told him. There were other words spinning through the air. If either of us opened our mouths they might have fallen onto our tongues, come to us like breathing, but we were both still. Finally, another person who knew how to be still. “I better get back down,” I told him.

He gave a dial on his soundboard a small twist and grinned like we were sharing a joke. “Okay.”

C
harlotte and I
were both standing in the band room two days before dress rehearsals started, our stomachs sucked in to avoid puncture wounds as our costume director, Callie, did our final fittings. Girls who had already been fitted guarded the doors, ensuring no wandering trombonist walked in on us while our bodies were being squeezed and measured and carelessly exposed. The prop committee had hunted down two tweed skirts at a thrift store for Charlotte and me but they needed extensive tailoring to fit each of us.

“This is a waste of time,” Charlotte complained as Callie straightened her hem. “Megan isn’t going to get sick. You don’t need to make me an entire costume.”

“Always be prepared,” Callie replied stiffly, due to the three pins in her mouth.

“Don’t talk,” I instructed. “No one wants to see you get a pierced tongue.” My eyes roamed over the unfamiliar room, resting on the piano and the chair next to it.

Callie pulled in my waist band and rechecked the numbers scrawled in her notebook. “Did you lose weight, Megan?” she mumbled, removing one pin from her mouth and jabbing it into the fabric.

“What’s to lose?” Charlotte sneered. “She’s perfect.”

Callie yanked on the skirt, making sure it was seated correctly. “This fit two weeks ago. Now I need to take it in almost an inch. Go have an ice cream after rehearsal or something.”

“It’s forty degrees outside and I was kind of sucking in because your hands are cold.”

“Well then puff out or do whatever you are going to do on stage.”

By this time every girl in the room was studying my stomach, which I don’t like anyway because I am the only person on the planet with an outie belly button. “It’s good. It fits,” I said, inching down my sweater so there was less to see.

Somebody pounded on the side door of the band room. Alicia clamped her hand down protectively on the handle and yelled through the door, “Who is it?”

“Phillip. Is Megan in there?”

The handle jerked beneath Alicia’s fingers and she wedged her foot against the door just as Phillip managed to crack it open.

“This is a dressing room today. We’re in the middle of fittings,” she informed him.

“Well, cover up if you must. I’m coming in.” And then as an afterthought, “Is Charlotte in there, too?”

“Phillip, we’ll be done in ten minutes,” Charlotte called out. Everyone had already stopped working to see what he wanted so I smoothed down my sweater and started walking toward the door.

“I’m counting to three,” Phillip warned. I stopped just behind the door and rolled my eyes at Alicia when he shouted, “One…”

I scanned the room to make sure everyone was decent. One girl hurriedly buttoned her pants and Taylor was propped against the piano in her lingerie costume which was really just a short, strappy dress decorated with copious amounts of lace. She didn’t look the least bit concerned. Maybe her crush was meandering away from poor Braden to more attainable conquests.

“Two…” Charlotte’s eyes flashed with delight, anxious for a scene. I signaled Alicia to move her hand and I took the handle and opened the door calmly just as he yelled, “Three!”

He stumbled as he lost resistance and opened his eyes that had been squeezed shut. After a quick scan of the room he straightened up and then shifted his eyes back to Taylor who smiled smugly. Apparently the illusion of lingerie is quite enough.

“Yes?” I asked.

He looked over my shoulder and smiled at Charlotte who approached us. “I want to sink a shot from half court.” He beamed like he was waiting for a round of applause.

“That couldn’t wait?” Charlotte asked, obviously disappointed in the big finale.

“I want to sink it on my first try and I want it on camera,” he elaborated.

Callie joined us, the menacing pins still thrust between her lips. “Girls only when this is a dressing room.” She was one of Phil’s fifty one-time kisses.

He patted her arm and gave her one of his most humble smiles. “So, so sorry. Everyone looks great. You are an artist.”

I exhaled, hoping Callie didn’t get in trouble when she punched him. Schatz would hate him to go on stage next week with a black eye, because our makeup crew didn’t show any grand promise.

He turned back to Charlotte and me. “So that’s my pick. Do we need to write it down or have a candle ceremony?”

I groaned. He didn’t overlook the fact at least ten people listened to every word, their brains vibrating with curiosity, he counted on it.

“What in the world are you talking about?” Alicia asked.

“I’m not discussing this here,” I whispered.

“I thought you said cattle drive,” Charlotte said just as loudly as Phillip. “I was really looking forward to that.”

“What cattle drive?” Callie pulled the pins from her hands and glared harder.

“Inside joke,” I announced with a nervous laugh to the room at large. “Schatz will kill us all if we don’t finish up and get back on stage. Phillip,” I leveled a look at him that made it perfectly clear what I would do if he kept speaking, “you need to go so I can get my clothes on.”

“Half court. First try. I want witnesses,” he repeated as he took a few steps backwards.

Just when I thought we were free of him Charlotte piped up, “What if you miss?”

“One try every day until I do it,” he told her, flipping his hand up above his head as if taking a shot. He knocked on the door jamb as he continued to back up and managed to wink theatrically at Taylor before Alicia closed the door inches from his face.