"Raina?"
"Oh, sorry." I looked blankly at the page. He had been reciting a fairly lengthy set of lines and there were several speeches in a row.
"Daniel," he said as he leaned closer to me and pointed to the place in my script. "You're Daniel."
"Of course…" I read the line but I could feel the color rise in my cheeks. He saw it too. In spite the serious lines he was delivering, there was a crinkle of a smile around his eyes. He knew he had me flustered and it amused him.
I was relieved when Brian and Tom came through the theater doors. I never quite regained my composure for the rest of the evening. Thankfully most of what I had to do was make notes of the blocking. Tom directed the carefully movements of the men around the taped off space. Act 3 began to take shape.
As soon as rehearsal wrapped up, I slipped back stage to turn off the coffee and rinse out the mugs. I was putting the mugs back in their place when I heard Tristan's "G'night, all" faintly reach the back of the house.
Tom and Cole were the only two left in the theater when I came out from backstage. They invited me to Newly's Tavern for a drink but I decided to head home. I was working on the resume I'd be sending out when the summer job was over and it was time to get real about working. I wasn't looking forward to pounding the pavement in New York. I was looking forward even less to living with my parents until I found a job that would allow me to move out.
There was no way around it. I was going home to Brooklyn and back to the familiar Park Slope neighborhood where Jenn and I grew up. Jenn would be at Bennington, a long way from home. Sometimes the thought of being without my best buddy was enough to make me tear up. It had to happen someday, but that wasn't much comfort to me as the hours and days counted down to the end of the era--Jenn and Raina, BFF's.
We took the opposite shift jobs with the separation in mind. Both of us knew we'd have to wean ourselves off of our constant companionship. We had literally been passing in the halls for weeks with me at Tanglewood and her night work with the theater.
I was kind of quiet as we watched an hour of some Adam Sandler movie we'd both seen a half dozen times. Jenn asked me what was on my mind.
"Oh, a couple of things."
"Like?"
"Like how much I'm not looking forward to moving back with mom and dad."
"I hear you. I love your parents, but it does seem like a step backwards."
"And how much I'm going to miss you."
"Aw, Raina, I'm gonna miss you, too. You're the only sister I've got." She patted me affectionately on my leg. Jenn was from a family of three boys and her. Mine was all girls, me being the youngest of three.
"And about…"
"What?"
"Tristan King. I think I've got a crush on him."
Jenn laughed so hard I thought she was going to choke. "Honey, Tristan King cannot even spell middle class. I'm quite sure he considers Brooklyn only a small step up from Armpit, Idaho."
"You think he's so shallow that he wouldn't…"
"Raina, I don't think, I know. Wait 'til you start seeing all the other players in the drama of our incestuous Little Theater. None of the 'queens' are going to let you near Tristan. He's one of theirs."
Three
The following night I found out exactly what Jenn was talking about. Wednesday, two leggy, suntanned blondes came waltzing in in the middle of the rehearsal, stopping it cold. They swept in as if they owned the place and I guess, in a way, they did. Their families heavily endowed the theater and they both frequently played leading roles. They were featured prominently on the 'who's who' board in the front lobby.
"Tom, you horrible old man. I don't think I can forgive you for this all-male play," one of the blondes pouted as she planted a kiss on each of Tom's cheeks. "I had to volunteer for costuming just to be near the boys." The 'boys' on stage smiled with varying degrees of warmth. I happily noticed that Tristan seemed the least impressed.
"And I," piped the other one, "am going to decorate the set. From the description in here, it won't be much of a challenge." She playfully slapped the script in her hand on Tom's head.
The two of them carried on several minutes of banter with the men up on the stage. There was a great deal of hair flipping, shoulder touching and laughter at things I failed to find the least bit funny. Everyone seemed to know everyone very well. I felt about as invisible as a piece of gum stuck under the seat.
Finally, as they were leaving, Tom introduced me to 'Suze and Nicky'. Suzanne Redmond and Nicole Spencer, two rich bitches who made it very clear that I was hired help and nothing more. It amazed me that they could communicate that with almost no words at all. These girls were pretty much masters of non-verbal cues. The way they looked down their noses at me reminded me of the hookah smoking caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland saying "Who are You?"
I was suddenly more aware than I have ever been of my no name clothes and my ordinary brown chain-salon-cut hair. I was wearing my plain gold rope chain. It was the most expensive thing I owned other than my beater of a car and was a graduation present from my parents. I was ashamed of myself for thinking it looked small and cheap.
Suze and Nicky walked up the aisle toward the exit and all eyes, including mine, watched their slim asses sway under the cute little summer dresses they wore. When they reached the top of the slope, Suze turned and announced, "By the way, I'm claiming the opening night cast party and Nicky gets closing. It's only fair. We deserve some fun out of this stag party!"
It took a few moments to regain the momentum of the rehearsal. Tom told me later to make up a sign that said "Closed Rehearsal" and post it on the door.
"I know it's literally just 'play acting' for these people, but I take it seriously," he explained. "There's a lot of work that goes into these productions. There'll be plenty of time later for all the party games." I got the feeling that Tom felt almost as out of place as I did.
Tom taught speech and drama at the local high school but told me he aspired to greater things. At his age, he had to realize he'd never achieve anywhere near the success of the five young bucks he was directing. In fact, it was more than likely he'd never do anything more creative than directing Little Theater.
He explained early on that I would be filling in on stage when any of the guys had to miss a rehearsal. "Occasionally, one of them will have to go into the city," he had explained. Most of the time, if they worked at all during the summer, they did it virtually. "From the poolside, with a beer in one hand and a babe in the other," he had said, somewhat bitterly.