The Place

Chapter 1 -2

“I hope you can handle all this, Mr. Wonderful,” I addressed my potential castmate. One thing I did know: the conflicted young stud in the script— “Spider” Marlow, who woos Kate—would not be played by my neighbor. Chris had tried out for the larger but less glamorous role of Tony Lumpkin because it had greater comic opportunities. No, this was to be a blind date, assuming I got the role I felt I was destined to play.

The student-written script, Mistakes of a Night, was a take-off on a melodrama written in 1773, moving that British comedy of manners to present-day America but preserving much of the original, to great effect. The director/playwright had thrust colonial-era problems into today’s world to show just how alike they still were. Some things never changed, I thought, and romance and money were at the top of that list. I had been surprised to see how readable and relatable the doctored script was. It was going to be so much fun. And fun was my watchword—ever since the pandemic had crested, and since my family had been dissected in a decidedly un-fun manner.

I looked for Chris at the bus stop, but he didn’t show. Twenty-five minutes later, the bus dumped me at the edge of the Foothills Community College parking lot. I kicked aside clusters of plastic bottles and candy wrappers to join the intermittent stream of students heading inside one of the buildings. Then I made the long trek kitty-corner to the theater and art center. It was segregated like a poor stepchild from the more serious departments and offices, as though they didn’t want all that frivolous thespian energy to seduce the math majors. The joke was on them, I thought, spying my neighbor out in the hall in front of the double doors. Chris was both a math guy and a comedic actor with great timing. Maybe an actor needed more math than I’d imagined.

I saw him now, and he waved limply at me, pointing at the doors to indicate they were still locked. A few other people we didn’t know milled about, waiting for the same thing we were waiting for. Then a trio of honchos strode toward us.

Brisa’s cousin Joss swung a lanyard of keys, and the crowd parted so she could unlock the entrance to the theater. Behind her followed Brisa, with a sheaf of papers, and a college guy I didn’t know, whose fluid gait hinted at years of dance lessons. His strawberry-blond hair, translucent skin, and lanky build were quite the contrast to the two Latinas; Joss and Brisa both rocked the lower end of the color scale and the higher end of any bell curve.

Chris sidled up to me, and we drifted in through the doors with the motley assortment of Foster High kids and community college theater types. Someone snapped on the rest of the house lights. An aura of expectation surrounded the sea of a couple hundred empty seats, as well as the hopes and dreams of all of us would-be cast members, who Joss motioned up to the front rows. She ascended the black stairs and plopped down on the edge of the stage, while the rest of us took seats or milled around beneath the footlights by school groups—FCCers stage left, Pioneers stage right.

My stomach did that inverted, empty thing it did when I forgot to breathe properly for a long time. I shot a sideways look at Chris. He appeared unperturbed and excited, not desperate and … clenchy, like me. I glanced around more widely, pretending to search for someone I knew but really taking inventory of possible challengers and costars. Why was it so easy to tell the difference between my classmates and the college students? There wasn’t that much of an age gap, after all. No, it was more a sense of place. They belong here, I thought. We’re just visiting.

The appeal had gone out to Foster High English and Speech classes to come try out for the play because the college department’s numbers were down, not having rebounded yet after the return to in-person classes and extracurriculars. But maybe the rumor mill was right, and we’d been invited just to fill the need for set painters and ticket takers. I studied Chris’s expectant face once more. He wasn’t going to like that.

Strawberry must have picked up on the pessimism. He cleared his throat and struck a pose at Joss’s feet, then enunciated, “Friends, Romans … lowly high schoolers! The moment we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Our supreme ruler, writer, and director, Joss Morales, is about to decree who will be the heroes of our little drama … and who will be its beasts of burden.” The snickers came from the stage-left crowd. The rest of us held our breath.

Joss waved an arm at him. “Dave B., everybody. Likes to distill things to their atomic makeup, but that’s not exactly how things work around here. Yes, I am this production’s supreme ruler.” She grinned. “But, no, we are not otherwise hierarchical; we are a team. Without every single player, the show cannot go on. That means onstage and off. You are all here because we need each other, but more important: our future audience needs you. You will be working for them—not for me, or for Dave here, or for yourselves.”

My abdominal muscles relaxed ever so slightly.

Brisa spoke up. “What about for me? They will work for me, right?” she asked with mock arrogance, while really wanting that to be true.

Joss socked her in the shoulder. “Sí, jefe. I forgot. They do have to answer to you.” She addressed the group again. “My cousin Brisa, amigos. She will be my assistant, meaning she will do everything I don’t want to do and everything that keeps you all pulling together, to pull off—” Her voice rose. “—the greatest show this world has ever seen!”

The crowd buzzed, liking the prediction.

She raised her hands for quiet. “Now. To set the tone, here’s what I’m going for. We take a 250-year-old script, give it a makeover to today, and transport the audience to a place they have never imagined in their wildest dreams. We confound their intellect. We make them laugh. We take their emotions to new heights, creating a sense of yearning, and then we satisfy that yearning.”

“In short,” Dave B. broke in, “we turn a British comedy of manners into a Greek tragedy.”

Joss nodded. “Only with a purely American flavor. We come at it from the roots. We sing the blues.”

My mind scrambled to catch up. I was still stuck back on yearning. To think you could use that for something—something noble, something that only art could generate.

“Okay, let’s give this announcement the drama it deserves.” Joss got to her feet and turned toward the stage wing. “Kavi? Some mood sound and lighting, yeah?”

Moments later, the house lights dimmed and a blue spot found the director at her mark. Synthesizer tones came through the hidden speakers, starting with a low hum and building to a crescendo. Brisa came forward and handed her papers to Joss, who waved at the wings. The music dropped to background level.

“And now, the big reveal: a role for each of you who took the time to come out, try out, or volunteer to get this production off the ground. Please join me onstage when you hear your name. From Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer to Josefina Morales’s Mistakes of a Night … I give you our cast and crew!” Joss pushed her short, choppy, dark hair out of her eyes and checked her roster, then began to read. “Servants…”

She rattled off several names, one a classmate of mine from last year’s math class and the rest unfamiliar. I caught Chris’s eye in the dim light as the suspense grew.

“Kavi?” Joss raised both palms and gave him a two-arm wave. The spot changed to three colors of flashing lights, and the music swelled once more, with a recorded drum roll added. When it subsided, the director read off the main cast: “Tony Lumpkin, played by Chris Hamada….”

I gripped Chris’s arm as he jumped out of his seat. “Way to go!” I said through the applause.

“Miss Constance Neville to be played by—” a college girl who squealed and headed for the riser. “Beau Hastings will be Dave Bolnes!”

“Of course.” I watched the red-headed thespian vault from the floor to the stage without even using the stairs. The guy was clearly a natural and had expected the role.

“Spider Marlow will be portrayed by—” a lithe college guy with soft-looking, longish brown hair and a massive grin. He slapped palms with his friends on the way past.

I could get used to that energy, I thought with anticipation. In the play, Spider was Kate’s suitor. That meant that—

“Our next star, playing Miss Kate Hardcastle, is—”

I tensed, waiting to hear my name.

“Malia Kendrake!”

Malia…? Someone other than Carli Hall. The nervous smile froze on my face as another girl jumped up amid cheers to take her place next to the cute, long-haired guy. My stomach knifed inward, until I let out a forceful breath.

Not me. Every muscle was tight and immobile. Brisa got in. Chris got in. But not me.

The lights and sound fuzzed out as I tried to keep it together and not dash for the exit. “A role for each of you,” Joss had said, meaning some anonymous production crew slot awaited me. B. had been right, it was harder to say no to the fallback position, now that I’d taken a bus across town to get here and everyone knew I didn’t make the cut. Nobody wanted to be seen as a sore loser.

A hand jabbed my elbow. I shook my head and tried to hear over the pounding in my ears. “They want you,” a college girl two seats over called, and I looked up to see Brisa wildly waving me forward.

“Carlita Hall? Is she here?” Joss asked impatiently.

I stumbled over the first stair and had to stick out a hand to keep from cracking my jaw on the edge of the stage. “What am I—who…?”

“Mrs. Dorothy Hardcastle, I presume,” Joss said, glowing at me now, as a few kids gave me pats on the back. “Our elder stateswoman, ladies and gentlemen. Her costar, and our final cast member, will be … as Mr. Cadbury Hardcastle, Dean Dixon!” My popular classmate bounded toward the stage amid guttural shouts from the teammates he’d brought along to witness his glory. My costar.

Oh.

The lights and sound amped up along with calls and claps for the cast, and I gave a good rendition of pleased modesty while my stomach proceeded to digest my heart. I heard Brisa’s and Chris’s celebratory words and Joss saying something about the first time that two high schoolers had snared the leading roles….

Wait. What?

Leading roles? The two old farts in the show? Did I look old? Maybe people just thought I acted old? But Dean wasn’t mature in any way, and they’d cast him as the patriarch. The Hardcastles weren’t even the romantic stars—those were Kate and Spider, and Constance and Beau. The cool, young characters. The sexy ones.

I turned to commiserate with Brisa but instead caught Dean Dixon looking at me with an indecipherable expression. His dark-chocolate eyes showed confusion, his parted lips emitted no sound. Then he shook his head in a satisfied manner and pulled away to accept his friends’ congratulations. He must have gotten something he wanted. But that something sure couldn’t be me.