Shock Therapy

“BEADLEDEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE-!”

“You’re cracking, Champagne, come on!” the idiot director barked at me.

I glared at him; this guy was seriously being to work my nerves. “Who do you think I am, Sarah freaking Brightman?”

“No, actually, I was looking more for Merle freaking Louise, considering your role, but Sarah would do- actually, I’m so desperate for you to quit blowing this scene I’d settle for Emmy effing Rossum.”

I actually thought Emmy did okay in the Phantom of the Opera movie- way better than Gerard Butler- but I knew Zach, our director, didn’t. So much so, in fact, it might have been less insulting if he told me my vocal cords would be more effective if I had taken a cue from my character and downed a quart of arsenic before I showed up to the theater.

Not that I was particularly offended- Zach had been a huge jerk since the beginning of the entire production, mainly to me. I had no idea why, especially since I had gone way beyond the call of duty for this show. When Melinda, our Mrs. Lovett, had almost been forced to quit the show because it conflicted with her second job at the theater running the children’s company, who had volunteered to do it for her (even though she was her understudy, and therefore would have gotten the female lead if she had just kept her fat mouth shut)? Yeah, that would be me.

Speaking of which…

“Can I please just go?” I groveled. “I’m already like fifteen minutes late; the kids are going to eat the upholstery in the upstairs theater!”

“Stop exaggerating, Champagne, and focus on your high C!” Zach snapped at me, apparently as forgetful as ever to my first name. Then again, since my agent kept trying to find the best stage name to fit my “image” and kept changing it every other week (I believe the current one was ‘Victorie’. Smirk all you want, but at that point I was grateful I wasn’t ‘Winifreddia’ or something equally hideous).

“She’s not exaggerating,” Melinda vouched, sitting relaxed in the front row. “I swear that Carla kid nearly took a chunk out of the footlights once when he got too impatient…” she shot me an apologetic look- no one had tried to talk me more out of the job than Melinda herself when I first volunteered, and now I wish I’d taken her up on it. Seriously, between theater-eating brats and being cast in Sweeney Todd, it was a wonder I could even think about food without hurling anymore.

Now, for you non-theatre fanatics, allow me to explain: Sweeney Todd is about this barber who gets sent to prison for 15 years for a crime he didn’t do so that the judge who convicted him could rape his wife, who thereafter tries to kill herself. The barber- under the alias Sweeney Todd- eventually brakes out, goes crazy when he finds out what happened to said wife, and instead of shaving his clients, he slits their throats and has his landlady bake the corpses into pies. No, seriously. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

Anyway, Zach rolled his eyes and told me to go through my lullaby one more time before I go, despite the fact the entire second floor of the building might be swallowed by the time I was finished. Once he had turned around, David- the guy playing Sweeney- took his prop razor out of his pocket and mimed hacking Zach to pieces for me. I giggled.

“If you’re so eager to leave, I suggest you stop procrastinating!” Zach called, though he hadn’t seen Dave’s gesture, thank goodness. I scowled and ran through my song again.
________________________________________________________________________
When I finally skidded into the upstairs auditorium (all of thirty minutes late) no upholstery had been consumed that I could see. Then again, I’d run in through the green room into the wings, so I really couldn’t get a view of the seats.

I could, however, see my fifteen-year-old lead actor waiting for me and holding a cup of what spelled like hot water with honey and lemon.

God bless him.

“Still haven’t hit you’re Death Note, huh?” he asked sympathetically.

I let out a small sigh of content as the warm liquid soothed my aching neck. “It’s not a death note, Andre, I just happen to sing it two seconds before I die.” I took one last shot before draining the mug of its contents. “Besides, it’s not even that high for me- it’s just stupid Zach made me go over The Lullaby so much that by the time we get to the stupid thing I just…break.”

“Oh, honey,” Andre said, patting my hand soothingly. “It’ll get better.”

“Opening night’s in one week,” I reminded him skeptically.

He seemed to deliberate for a moment. “Uh…then at least it’ll all be over soon!” he offered brightly.

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for trying,” I muttered darkly, then pressed the cup back into his hands before stepping out onto the stage.

The place wasn’t in total chaos; I counted only two kids standing in positions that threatened a law-suit worthy injury if they lost their balance, and even spied a Barbie that had both its head AND clothes on.

“HEY!” I shouted over the din of about twenty eight-year-olds (plus the four teenagers besides Andre who would be filling the adult roles). “QUIET DOWN!”

Dang it all, these little freaks are going to turn me into my mother. If my mother wasn’t the cool, totally supporting person that she is.

Anyway, the chatter decreased to almost-silence, with some vague, untraceable chortling from the peanut gallery that always happens in a large crowd (all these years in the theatre, and I still have no idea what the heck a “peanut gallery” actually is.)

“Okay, then,” I called out in a fakey-cheery way. “So, show of hands, who has ‘Hard Knocked Life’ memorized?”

About seven hands hit the air. Greeeeeeeeat.

“Alrighty,” I said, tight smile plastered across my face. “In that case, who remembered to bring their libretto?”

Low mumbling, confused glances. I stifled the urge to throw myself off the stage and crack my skull open.

“Your script,” I said tiredly. “Who brought their script?”

The kids who had memorized already, plus three more, raised their hands.

Yeah. Melinda owes me like a new convertible and a date with Michael Ball for taking this stupid job for her, like seriously.

“Oh-kaaaaay,” I said, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming about professionalism and how Debbie Allan would have kicked ALL of their asses for that, “Well, in that case…why don’t we, um-”

“WHY do we have to put on SUCH a GAY play anyway?” a loud, squeaky voice demanded. I didn’t need to look to know this was Carla Sorelli, although it was kind of hard to miss her. The little brat was decked out in a glittery black leotard, a pair of white Olseon-twin-esque sunglasses WAY too big for her face, and a white feather boa to match.

Yes, you read that right. A freaking boa!

Okay, so here’s the thing with me: ever since I moved from a school where there were SO MANY same-sex orientated people were enrolled that the HETEROS were in the minority to a STAUNCH CONSERVATIVE STATE (which, for those in The Know, is really just code for some rednecks and a bunch of old people), even the slightest suspicion of homophobia pisses me off to no end.

That and the fact that poor Andre had turned about three different shades of red in the three seconds after she’d said it (because, of course, a boy sweet enough to make me lemon water and willing to play Daddy Warbucks in his free time is CAN’T be straight) made me do what I did next.

“Because, the theater manager didn’t approve the show I wanted to put on,” I answered, using that tone of voice that sounds like sugar-coated death. You know, that one preps use when they, like, compliment but are like really like insulting you, like?

“But then again,” I said, tapping my chin and feigning thoughtfulness, “A prima diva like you, Carla, really deserves a star number.”

I grabbed a script out of one of the kid’s hands and leaned onto the piano that was already sitting on stage, scribbling lyrics as I did so. A minute later, I shoved my hair out of my face and straightened up again.

“Here ya go,” I said cheerily, handing the sheet of paper to Carla. “Go outside the theater and belt it out- the entire world deserves to hear the talent of La Carla.”

Yes, everyone in the room was staring at me like I was on crack. Heck no, I did not care.

“’Rainbow High’?” Carla chirped incredulously, reading the title of the song. Behind me, I could hear Andre start to double over in suppressed laughter. “I’m not singing that!”

“Yeah-huh you are,” I said sweetly.

“Nuh uh.” The demon child paused, than declared: “I’ll tell my mom you made me, and you’ll get fired,”

I bent down to my knees so that we were eye level. “I don’t really need the reasons why I won’t succeed/I have done,” I quoted from the song.

“Huh?” Carla said blankly.

“That means,” I said in a voice of poison-coated honey, “That given the fact that your mummsie-kins checks bounce every time I try to cash them for your enrollment fee in this company, therefore she has no right to complain about anything I do since I’m the only thing letting you stay here, not that it matters because I’m a volunteer and therefore CAN’T get fired because I don’t get PAID for being here in the first place and- oh yeah, I hate your whiney butt- so you better GET SAID WHINEY BUTT OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW AND SING!”

Carla bolted out the theater door without further prompting, probably headed for the hills. Or, more likely given her attitude, the set of The Hills, Key West. As she did so, however, there was all of a sudden this whooping from the back of the theater.

I turned around to see that I was being applauded by about half a dozen guys all in black and heavy facial makeup. One of them shouted, “HOMOPHOBIA IS GAY!” in support.

In some ways, this sounds like it would be really gratifying to someone in a really bitchy mood who isn’t allowed to go home for another hour and a half.

Believe me, it wasn’t.

“WHO THE CRAP ARE YOU?!” I roared, grateful that there was finally somebody I was actually allowed to yell at without risking my career reputation. I took a deep breath, then yelled, “Actually, I don’t care WHO you are- unless you’re the ghost of Judy E. Garland-“ This was fudging a bit, since Judy Garland wasn’t actually her birth name and I didn’t know if she’d kept the name Ethel as her middle one- “GET THE CRAP OUT OF HERE THIS IS A CLOSED REHEARSAL!”

All the guys seemed stunned, and more than a little scared. One of them, who had like this rather-creepy-yet-somehow-cool-white-boy-affro thing going on with his hair, called out, “Um, I don’t know about that, but we kind of know Liza, if that helps.”

I was so not in the mood for this. Although it was kind of a relief that someone with more make up than the Emcee himself knew who Liza Minnelli was.

“Okay, dudes, seriously,” I said, somewhat calmer now. “You’ve got five minutes to get out of here, or I’m calling security.”

“But, um,” one guy said, who sort of resembled another one of the other dudes except he looked older, “we were kind of told to wait here for some people.”

It dawned on me. “Oh,” I said, feeling a blush creep into my cheeks, “You guys are here for the new modern dance class? That’s not for another half hour- this is children’s theatre.” I noted my previous rudeness and added, “But um, you can wait here if you want, just try not to like, interrupt or anything.”

The one who looked like he could be the one who’d just said something’s little brother looked like he was about to say something, but Big Brother laid a hand on his arm in what I now realize must have been a don’t-argue-with-the-crazy-chick kind of thing and said, “Yeah, we’ll just do that, thanks,” and sat down with the others in the last row.

That settled, I turned back towards the kids. “So,” I called out, “Just so we’re clear- anybody else got any problems with this musical?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled so loud at Carla before- most of the kids looked like they were about to pee on themselves in terror of me. One brave soul, who I was pretty sure was named Theresa, raised her hand.

“Yes?” I prompted politely, trying not to scare her worse than I already had.

“Well, um,” she said, looking mad uncomfortable, “I’m not, like, gonna call it a bad word or anything, like Carly,” she glanced around nervously, as though Carla were going to come out of nowhere and stab her with her mommy’s stiletto. Which, knowing her, might be possible. “But it is kinda…weird.”

One of the Men in Black called out, “No way, kid! Annie is badass!”

“Hey!” I barked at him, not knowing how much trouble I could get into for allowing profanity around little children, “Unless you want to spend the next sixty minutes hanging outside the 7-11 across the street- aka the one with the broken AC- I suggest you stow it!”

Blackie shut up.

“Weird?” I repeated incredulously, which was rather hypocritical of me. I wasn’t too crazy about Annie either. It’s not that I don’t value it artistically- the score is actually pretty good, and I love “Little Girls”- but you can’t really grow up as a kid with frizzy red curls like me without someone calling you that, no matter how much it bugs you, or forcing you to dress up in rags in front of the entire school for a talent show in order to sing “Hard Knock Life”, which everyone laughed at in it’s adorability.

Not that I’m still bitter, or anything. Cough.

But it was also the only show I knew of with enough girl parts to fill all the kids, and so I knew I needed to warm them up to it, fast.

“I’ve got some news for you, kids,” I said, as though I were letting them in on this deep, dark secret. Or like I had heart burn, or something. “Most of musical theatre is pretty weird.”

Well, it’s true. Never mind that that’s what I love about it.

“But this play is one of the least weird out there.” Again, slightly true. When you think about it, Daddy Warbucks is kind of like the American Angelina Jolie.

Oh, crap, that mental picture scares me so much. Anyway.

“Not to mention, it isn’t boring, like a lot of musicals.” This pained me a little, but I could get by because I knew the kids would find a lot of musicals boring. This because they are young, optimistic- and therefore stupid.

“I mean, we could be doing one of those lame ‘mega musicals’,” I continued, hating myself. A lot.

And, it turns out, in vain.

“Mega musical?”
“That sounds so cool!”
“Yeah, are you sure it’s lame?”
“Can you sing something from one, that way we’d know if it’s lame or not?”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah, sing, Miss C!”
“Pleeeeeease?”

Super. My first command performance, and it’s for a bunch of tweens after trashing the history of my would-be profession.

“Aw, I’m sorry guys,” I said, not meaning it at all and silently having a panic attack, “but ya know, I don’t have any CDs for any of those shows right now, and I can’t sing without music!”

One lovely little part of the future of America chimed in, “Andre plays piano, he can do music for you.”

Eye twitching, I slowly looked back at my formerly-favorite actor.

“I kind of kept them entertained while you were gone,” he said guiltily, like it was HIS fault, which was so wrong. Obviously, it was all ZACH’S fault. It always goes back to the director.

“But the only mega-musical song I know how to play is ‘On My Own’ from Les Miz,” Andre added quickly. “Do you know the words?”

I sighed heavily; he was trying to give me an out, clearly, but really he’d just condemned me. Of course I knew the lyrics to “On My Own”- that song was one of the reasons I’d survived my teen years, summed up my very existence, was the soundtrack to my soul, dang it!

Plus, it’s an alto song, so my voice could probably handle it. And it would be a good way to vent about my sucky day.

I ran my hand over my face and called out, “Harry gimmie my spotlight, we’ve got an impromptu performance here!”

Hey, as long as I’m the center of attention, why not milk it?

I heard Andre start to plink out the gentle, chime-like notes and let the singer’s character (Eponine Thenardier, for those of you keeping track at home) wash over me. Eyes downcast, I opened my mouth and sang softly:

“And now I’m all alone again, no where to turn, no one to go to
Without a home, without a friend, without a face to say hello to
But now the night is near
And I can make believe, he’s here

The chimey music continued airily as I paused, then picked up again:

Sometimes I walk alone at night, when everybody else is sleeping
I think of him and then I’m happy with the company I’m keeping
The city goes to bed…
And I can live inside, my head…

The notes picked up as I closed my eyes, corners of my lips turned up as though I was day dreaming happily:

On my own
Pretending he’s beside me
All alone
I walk with him
Till morning…

Without him,
I feel his arms around me,
And when I lose my way I close my eeeyes and he has
Found me.

In the rain,
The pavement shiiines like silver
All the lights,
Are misty in
The river
In the darkness,
The trees are full of starlight
And all I see is him and me, forever and
Forever.

The key changed and my voice hardened with bitter defiance:

"And I know,
It’s oonly in my mind!
That IIIIII’m talking to myself,
And not to him
And althoooough,
I know that he is bliiiiiiiiiind
Still I say, there’s away for us-

All the bitterness in my voice dissolved into pure anguish:

I love him,
But when the night is ooooover
He is gone
The river’s just
A river
Without him, the world around me changes-
The trees are bare and eeverywhere
The streets are full of strangers.

I flung out my hands, giving away to the song completely as I lamented

I love him,
But everyday IIII’m learning-
All my liiiiiiiiiife, I’ve only been- preteeeeeeeending!
Without me, this world would go on turning-
A world that’s full of happiness that I have never
Knooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooown!"

I only just managed not to gasp aloud as I let go of the note, then lowered my eyes to the floor as though ashamed of my outburst. I closed my eyes again and sang woefully, so quiet you could hardly hear it:

"I love him…
I love him…
I love him…
But only…
On…my…
Own…"

The houselights dimmed as the music faded out. I blinked, and instead of a French street urchin with a broken heart, I was back to being the volunteer director of a children’s theater company against my will.

Oh well- at least they don’t water the wine here.

“WHOO!” someone shouted from the back of the theater. I started; I still wasn’t fully there yet, and I had forgotten all about the Men in Black.

“Dude,” another one of them said, “that was seriously the most emo thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Me too,” a third agreed.

“You should hear ‘I Dreamed A Dream,’” I joked (even though that for real the most emo yet beautiful thing the world has been graced with since the color black).

They ignored me. “Dude!” the one with the afro cried, “Bob talked!”

“Just two words,” Little Brother argued.

“Speaking of words,” Big Brother said, eyeing him darkly, “Didn’t we make the E-word taboo back in Georgia?”

“Yeah!” Another one agreed. “Hey,” he said, addressing me. “Do you have any painfully-embarrassing songs for Mikey to sing in retribution?”

I halfway got a mental picture of Little Brother dancing around in a pink tutu singing “Popular” from Wicked before I remembered I was supposed to be pissed at these guys for once more interrupting this disastrous rehearsal.

“Retribution?” afro-boy echoed incredulously.

“And I’m not a homophobe, Frank!”

Since I didn’t have enough voice left to yell at them, I turn away and focus on the kids.
Who, I realized in horror, were still clapping.

“That was AWESOME Miss C!”
“Can we do that show, Miss Champagne? Please? PLEASE?”
“What’s it from?”
“I wanna be the one that sings that!”

As the character of Le Miz themselves would say, oh merde (for those of you not in The Know, that’s “shit” in French. Savvy?) Sure, we could put on Le Miz- which is short for Les Miserables, which I doubted the kids could even pronounce, a show that includes (but is not limited to) war, betrayal, prostitutes, French revolutionaries, alcohol, illegitimate children, profanity, convicts, and- oh yeah- all the main characters DYING (except for the ones you actually WANT to).

Of course, let’s let a bunch of eight year olds put on that show!

“Um…” I was cornered. I had nothing, nothing. Call me Diana Morales from A Chorus Line, that is how much NOTHING I had.

“I can actually play ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’, too,” Andre suggested in an undertone. “If you wanted to, you know, distract them or something.”

As if I hadn’t strained my mezzo-soprano enough for one day, now he wanted me to sing OPERA? Still, why does the ONE MALE IN THE UNIVERSE sweet enough to actually worry about me have to be a gay guy who is FIFTEEN?!

“No thanks,” I sighed, “My-“

“WISH IS ALREADY GRANTED!!!!”

And then, conceivably from nowhere, someone flying-tackled me to the floor, a la glomp-technique.

Seriously.

“WHAT THE-“ I said a word I really shouldn’t have in front of all those kids, at an octave I really, really shouldn’t have after all the previous things I’d done to mess up my throat that day. Regardless, I rolled underneath of Psycho Chick (wow that sounds dirty) and continued yelling.

“What the (child blocks) do you think you’re doing you little (beep) who the (censored) do you think you- BENNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I stopped struggling and threw myself at my best friend from high school, alias Melody Mae, in a manner that had Carla still been in the room might have made her imply some things.

But I digress.

“LUCY!!!” she shrieked back at me, and somehow managed to tighten her mammoth hold on me- not that I minded.

“SHAE FEELS LONELY!” another familiar voice shouted in third person.

I squealed. “SHAE-SHAE, COME OVER THIS WAY!” Somehow, I managed to grab her hands and yank her into the Pretzel of Love with us (again, so dirty sounding).

After about ten minutes of screaming, still all entangled on the floor, I asked, “Hey wait- aren’t you claustrophobic, Mel?”

She said the English version of “merde” and then added, “Yeah- and I think that little kid in the corner took a bite out of that chair while we were freaking out, no joke.”

“JENNY!” I shouted scoldingly, not even bothering to look up, and somehow the three of us were able to untangle ourselves in time to save the chair.

“What the heck are you doing here?!” I demanded once crisis was averted.

Shae started squealing again. Melody, apparently her translator, shrieked, “SHOCK THERAPY MADE A DEMO AND WE’RE GONNA BE FAMOUS AND WE’RE TOURING WITH MCR!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Are you serious?” I asked breathlessly, and not just because my voice was quickly going bye-bye; I wasn’t a big fan of My Chem, but that was only because I never really listen to any music other than show tunes. I did, however, highly respect them for writing real lyrics, unlike a lot crap-wanna-be artists, and I knew it would mean more to Mel and Shae than winning the lottery and a lifetime of chocolate-covered skittles. “That is so great!”

“WE KNOW!!!” they yelled in unison.

“Aw, dudes, we feel so loved,” one of the modern dance people said.

And that’s about the time I realized they probably weren’t there for the modern dance workshop after all.

“Sweet, we actually beat you guys here?” another MCR member, the one with the fro (Ray?) asked.

“Uh, no,” Shae said, raising an eyebrow. “We’ve been hiding backstage for like twenty minutes, looking for a good entrance.”

“Sadly no body opened any closets so we could pretend to be Gerard Butler,” Melody added.

“Michael Crawford,” I corrected instantaneously.

“Oh right, so I can get Gerard,” Mel grinned.

Another My Chem member- who I totally did not ever remember seeing on camera- mumbled audibly, “Uh, no.”

“TWO MORE WORDS!” Random My Chem member shouted, and from the way Shae was practically drooling- uh looking at him I realized this must be Frank Iero.

“Aw, Bob’s jealous,” Mikey- I recognized both him and Gerard now- crooned.
I was still in shock, though. “How did you find me?”

“Through the magical connections of fabu-rockstar-ness, duh!” Melody cried, hugging me again, this time around the waist.

Shae snorted (thankfully not any illegal substances). “That would be code for the phone book, and then your answering machine telling us-“ she put on a squeaky voice that I sincerely hoped sounded nothing like me, “-if I’m not here I’m probably at the theater or getting treatment on my cords due to my director’s totalitarian demands on my neck, leave a message if you think I won’t bite you for it.’”

Trying to cover my embarrassment at my snarly voice mail, I quickly said to the brunette leech who had attached herself to my waist and did not show any signs of letting go, “Hey Melly…”

“Yuppers?”

“Guess what show I’m going to be in next week?”

She squealed again- something highly unusual for non-preps such as ourselves. “Phantom?” she asked excitedly.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Wicked?”

“Psh, I wish, try again.”

“Le Miz? Cuz I have to tell you, Luce, that song was bada-“

“LITTLECHILDRENintheroomthanksandno.”

“Uh, RENT?” She was getting colder by the minute, and informed her as such

She let out a gasp. “PLEASE tell me it’s the Lord of the Rings musical, I swear that would be SO AWESOME-“

“It would be, but no. Think of casting for the Lord of the Rings musical, and the person is playing my part in the movie version of this show.”

Finally, comprehension dawned. “Oh, my gee,” she said slowly. “Sweeney? You’re putting on SWEENEY? And you’re BEGGY?!”

Yet more excited screaming; it would probably be getting old (and, in my case, painful) if we actually cared.

“Gosh, I just can’t believe this, I can’t freaking believe this,” I gushed, sounding more like a prep than I ever wanted to. “We have to make the most of every second you guys are here- we have to go to Ripley’s, it is so friggin awesome-“

“Already ahead of you!” Shae sang out. “Holly, Elise, and Mark-“ she explained he was their manager “-already took the bus up there, but we and the boys decided to take rental cars to see who could, as the British say, fetch you first.”

I don’t know what I found more hard to believe: the fact that my high school peeps had come hundreds of miles to hang out with me, the fact that one of those peeps had just (sort of) quoted Mean Girls, or that-

“I can’t bail on the kids!” I wailed. “This sucks!”

Well, they all hated me anyway, minus Andre, begging to know when Melinda was coming back- why bother to conceal that the feeling was mutual?

Fortunately, the solution to my problems announced itself with a shrill cry of “BUBBLES!”

I looked around to see two of my co-stars headed up the aisle, one pretty much dragging the other one up to the stage.

“WAFFLE!” I shouted back at her, my voice cracking a bit on the second syllable. Crap, Zach was going to kill me- oh well; I’d probably be bailing on rehearsal for a couple days anyway.
Waffle- less formally known as Stacy O’ Tormeg- rushed up to me once she’d managed to lift all 110 pounds of her blonde lithe figure onstage, promptly threw herself at me. Melody, who was still wrapped around my naval, didn’t appear to like this very much (and not just because she nearly fell back on her behind- Mel gets rather territorial of me.)

“Oh, em gee,” Stacy said exasperatedly once she’d let go. “That freak Zach made us go over ‘Kiss Me’, like, twenty times after you left! I thought my lips were going to fall off.”

As if to illustrate this fact, she whipped out a compact mirror out of the pocket of her pink sweatpants and started reapplying her lip gloss.

“And I thought poor Jeffery was going to suffocate during ‘Ladies and their Sensitivities’- he’s still got Melinda and Dave trapped down there going over ‘Priest’,” Theodore Asher- the person Stacy had dragged up- informed me.

I winced in sympathy- “A Little Priest” was nearly eight minutes long. It might be hours before Linda and David were free again.

“I’m telling you, Bubbles, you got off easy,” Stacy continued, somehow managing to talk and put on lip liner at the same time. “You looked kind of freaked, though, so Lisa and I thought we should come check on you.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” I said sincerely. Apparently too sincerely for Melody, who tightened her grip on me and asked icily, “Who’s Lisa?”

The three of us busted out laughing. Seeing as this only served to make Melody look even more annoyed, I quickly explained: “Everyone in our company has a stupid nickname- it’s, like, tradition.”

“Yeah,” Theo agreed, “and mine happens to be the stupidest of them all.”

“Is not!” Stacy insisted. “We were rereading the first Harry Potter, just to kill time during rehearsal-“

“Well, actually Dave bet that we could reread the entire series during all the time he spent rehearsing, since he’s the lead and all,” I corrected.

“The scary thing is, open night’s in a week and we’re already third of the way through Order of the Phoenix,” Theo chimed in.

“Anyway,” Stacy continued, nonplussed, “We were reading the first HP, and it turns out some random Ravenclaw chick in Harry’s year is named Lisa Turpin.”

“And since I’m playing Judge Turpin, I got stuck with the lame-ass nickname,” Theodore concluded.

The kids had pretty much stopped paying attention to anything on stage after the Pretzel of Love had come untangled, so I didn’t feel the need to give him the There-Are-Little-Children-In-The-Room-No-Swearing-Idiot speech.

“Aw, come on,” I said instead, giving Mel a little squeeze to let her know she needed to be patient. And to not bite my understudy. “It’s nowhere near as lame as mine.”

“Bubbles is a fun nickname!” Stacy insisted. “Besides, it’s about the only thing we can call you, since that weirdo agent of yours Adolpho keeps changing it every other week. Why do you keep him around, anyway?”

“He’s Patti Lupone’s nephew’s cousin’s hairdresser’s son in law’s godson,” I said patiently.
As usual, everyone ignored this highly reasonable vouch of character and shook their heads. Except for the Shock Therapy and My Chemical Romance members, who just stared me like I was on crack some more.

“Soooooooooooo,” Melody said, conceivably to break the awkward silence, but I knew better. She had An Agenda. “If Bubbles-“ she spat the word out like it offended her taste buds “is the Beggar Woman, and this Melinda is Mrs. Lovett, who are you, Stacy?”

I stepped on her foot, while Stacy unwittingly answered, “Johanna, of course! I mean, it’s the only other lead female part, right?”

Still hopping on one foot, Mel hissed, “I KNEW IT!” in a not-very-subtle-way at me. “Eviiiiiiiiiiiil.”

“Uh,” Stacy said, looking rightfully confused, “what?”

Melody looked at her with a narrowed eyebrow, as though impatient that she didn’t hear her properly the first time. “Eviiiiiiiiiiiil,” she said more pointedly.

I smacked her, then my own forehead. “You see,” I said, utterly mortified, “Melody Mae has an irrational distain for Miss Johanna Barker/Todd/Turpin/Hope- mainly, she has a massive crush on Anthony and holds a grudge against her for getting engaged to him.”

Instead of, oh say, goggling at Mel as though she had lost her mind, like any normal person would do, Theo just nodded solemnly. “I get that,” he said in all seriousness. “Although, why anyone could fall in love with that bastard Anthony, I’ll never know.”

While Shae, My Chem, and even Andre held back a snarling Melody, Stacy rolled her eyes and said snarklily, “’Cha, cuz you’re not bias at all.”

“He asked her to marry him before she even knew his name!” Theo insisted. “That is just wrong, it doesn’t fit the ‘hot-sailor-to-the-all-too-innocent-‘rescue’ profile! He’s totally just getting her away from the Judge for her body!”

“You mean Freddie is totally just getting me away from you for my body?” Stacy asked, with a lot more perception than a natural blonde with a love of pink such as Stacy usually puts forth.

Theo suddenly found his shoes very interesting.

Stacy heaved an overly-dramatic sigh. “Shut up, no matter how many times Anthony crops a feel, you’ll always love my pookie-pedophile.” This stated, she then grabbed Theodore by the scruff of his collar and promptly made out with him for a good three seconds before resurfacing again. “Got it, loser?”

Melody stopped struggling (which was good, since Andre had almost turned violet with the effort to hold her back, and even Gerard was looking a little green around the gills). “You got it, loser?” I asked her sardonically.

She nodded, still looking miffed, but whispered to me, “It could just be an act. They are actors, you know.”

No. Over two months of working together, I hadn’t noticed they were actors yet.

Mikey, however, seemed more preoccupied with something else than Stacy’s virtue (which, considering she’s worn an abstinence ring since the sixth grade, I was pretty sure was still intact- although she was smart enough to keep birth control on her and get the facts, just in case.) “Um, wait,” he said slowly, “I only vaguely remember the girls were telling us about the plot of this thing- and that mainly because they had hidden my favorite unicorn toy as ransom to listen to them in the first place- but isn’t, like, Johanna fifteen? And um, the Judge guy is practically sixty and is trying to sleep with her?”

“Are you implying I don’t look like I’m fifteen?” Stacy asked staunchly, though I could tell by working with her this long she was using her I’m Appalled Voice, which she reserved for acting purposes only.

“And I can pass for sixty?” Theo asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh…” Mikey trailed off while everyone else chortled behind his back.

Giggling, Stacy saved him: “I was cast overage because I’m the only one in the audition room who could hit the operatic notes for the part- I only came in the first place to support Lisa’s audition.”

She wasn’t kidding; I swear, forget high D, Stacy can hit like a high…F. As in, Freaking Fantastic. Or Frequently Communicates with Dolphins and is only heard by Freaking Dogs. I have NO IDEA what she was doing in Orlando, when clearly she belonged on 42nd Street playing Jemima in a Cats revival, or something.

“Hey, don’t I know you, Mister?” Theo jokingly asked Mikey, (who didn’t know he just quoted my signature line in the play).

Stacy rolled her blue eyes for the umpteenth time. “Duh, he and the rest of My Chemical Romance are only completely covering the walls in your dorm room- which is really nice to come home to, I must say, no offense guys.”

Theo looked like he had swallowed his tongue.

“OH MY FREAKING GOSH!” he yelled suddenly, not unlike a fan girl, “YOU GUYS ARE LIKE FREAKING MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE!”

Everyone burst out laughing, minus the kids, who looked up confusedly, and Stacy, who just shook her head and smacked her boyfriend upside his. “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere…” she muttered.

“Ow!” Theo cried, gripping the back of his skull. “You didn’t have to use the flip off hand!”

“My abstinence ring does not flip you off, Teddy,” Stacy said tiredly, the taxing work of rehearsal clearly taking hold of her. “For pity’s sake, it’s not even on my middle finger, it’s on the ring.”

Theodore glowered at the glinting silver on her hand. “Whatever,” he said darkly, “That ring denies me my most sought after pleasure in life- it is, as Bubble’s friend said, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.”

“Aw!” Stacy cooed. “If that wasn’t so blasphemous, perverted, and all around stupid, it would be totally sweet!”

I knew I had to intervene now, otherwise we would never get out of here. “So, yeah, about my friends, Staceodore,” I said charmingly. “They’re only here for a little while, and I haven’t seen them in years- ya think you could do me a favor and watch the little br- angels for me, pretty please?”

“Sure!” Stacy chirped, at the same time Theo said, “Uh, no.”
“Great!” I said perky-fully, addressing the blonde. Then I quickly grabbed Melody and the rest of the group and made a dash for the door, but not before I heard Andre whisper to Theo:

“If it’s any consolation, I happen to know for a fact that you have absolutely nothing to worry about as far as Freddie and your girlfriend go.”

HA! I wanted to scream at him as Melody pulled me up the aisle enthusiastically, I KNEW you didn’t just get locked into that closet with Freddie randomly! I KNEW!

But I figured it would be more fun to leave Theo confused instead.