Blue Sky and Other Things That Are Good For You

My least favorite class was theater. I needed to have a fine arts credit and before photography opened up, this was the only one I could take. Now though, since I’m taking photography, I don’t actually need this class. But they didn’t have any other classes for me to take at this time, making it so that I was stuck in here.

Mrs. Bergs gets up on stage, “Okay everyone!” the room goes silent, “I’ve chosen the play for this year.” Everyone was hoping for Romeo and Juliet, since we’ve done Shakespeare forever, it would only make sense. “I decided to get off of the Shakespeare trail,” there were some groans from the class, “and moved to Jane Austen.” I wasn’t much of a reader, but I knew who Jane Austen was. “Working with Katie from creative writing, we’ve put together a script for Pride and Prejudice.” Katie, a senior who I guess also takes creative writing, hands out the scripts to everybody. This is how I chose a character, I flipped to a random page of the script and the first woman character on the page was who I would audition for. The booklet opens to a page near the end of the story. Elizabeth was the first woman, so I guess that’s who I was going for.

“I want you all to read the lines of the character you have chosen to audition for. Let’s start.” Mrs. Bergs was the one teacher who picked randomly. She’d see a name and decided she liked it at that moment.

“Blue Sky.” She calls, “that makes me thirsty.” A common joke following my name.

I step up onto stage and tell her that I’m auditioning for Elizabeth. Mrs. Bergs looks surprised for a second and then gestures for me to begin. “From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, you manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

The class was silent, all staring at me. “um, yeah. So, can I go back to my seat now?” I ask.

“you’ve got the part.” All the girls’ eyes went wide.

“what?”

“you have this charm that is needed for the character.” She says.

“but Mrs. Bergs. Every girl in here is auditioning for her, you haven’t seen anyone to compare me to.”

“nonsense. You were perfect Sky. You will be playing the part of Elizabeth Bennett.” She says, “now the rest of you girls, please choose one of the sisters or friends. I’m sure you have all read the book by now. And you Sky. You’ll need to watch the movies if you haven’t already.”

“there’s movies?” this again silenced the class. I should’ve kept this conversation for after school.

“well of course there are movies dear.”

“I haven’t even read the book and you want me to watch the movie?”

“okay. Read the book, watch the movies and study the differences between each Elizabeth character.”

I sigh. “fine.” I step down from the stage and go back to my seat in the corner. Amanda, Ryans girlfriend was next.

“before I start. Could I just point out that Blue Sky here doesn’t even appreciate Jane Austen let alone want the part. Why don’t you give it to someone like me who deserves it.” Stuck-up bitch.

“we’ll see about that Miss.Wildding.”

Amanda huffs and speaks her lines of Jane Bennett, the Older sister. I wasn’t paying attention, and instead started flipping through the script, getting an idea of the story. One thing was for sure, I was the main character. Another, I had to flirt with a guy, a lot. Jane Austen had some weird thoughts in her head.

“I think you’ll be great as Mary, Amanda. But that’s not final.”

“Mary?!” Amanda shrieks.

“you despise everybody. Fits Mary perfectly.” Another huff and Amanda is off the stage, she shoots death stares at me for the rest of the period.

The door opened loudly after the girls were finished. Everyone looks up and it’s none other than Ryan. Amanda gets up quickly and runs over to him. “she’s making me Mary!” Amanda complains to him instantly.

“Mary? What are you guys’ doing. Jesus’ birth?” he jokes. A few chuckles came out from the rest of the class. Even Mrs. Berg laughed at that one. “sorry I’m late Mrs. Berg. I just got the message that I was switching into this class.” That he was what?!

“It’s quite alright Ryan.” She hands him a script, “here’s the script. We just started the boys auditions. So just choose a character and then read the lines of your choice.” She then turns to the rest of us. “Class, Ryan Richard will be joining us because, well I think it’s quite obvious, we don’t have enough guys to play all the characters in the play.”

Ryan smiles that signature smile and glances over the whole class. The girls all sit up straighter, trying to get noticed, while I just sink down lower into my seat. I didn’t need him in this class too, Religion was bad enough. Amanda drags him to where she was sitting but he shakes his head.

“I’m going to go sit in the back.” He says and before she can protest he occupies the seat next to me. “so, what part did you get?” he asks.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I reply.

“fine. Since I don’t know anything about this story, I’ll just choose a random character.” Sounds like me.

“have fun with that.” I say sarcastically and then go back to reading the script.

“Ryan. Have you chosen yet?” Mrs. Bergs asks.

“I have.” He says.

“good, then come up here. Who did you choose?”

He gets up and heads to the front of the room, “um, Fitzwilliam Darcy or what-not.”

“or what-not?” Mrs. Bergs asks.

Ryan shrugs, “is that how it’s pronounced?”

“it is. Continue.” Ryan reads the lines that came just before what I said, “And this is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater policy concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by every thing. But disguise ”. I just really hope he doesn’t get the part. But being the famous Ryan Richards, he was sure to land it.

The class ended up silent, just like it was with me. “you, you uh, got the part.” Mrs. Bergs says, still shocked. What surprised me was that while every girl wanted to be Elizabeth, not every boy wanted to be Darcy. Mrs. Bergs gets out of her thoughts, “you and Sky will need to work together after school some to get in the extra practice. Maybe even watch the movies together.” I can’t believe she just suggested that! Ugh!

Amanda freaks and Ryan jumps down from the stage, once again taking the seat next to me. “so you’re Elizabeth, huh?”

“unfortunately.” I reply.

Ryan grins, “how about we watch those movies after school?”

“I can’t. I have work. Plus, I guess one of the movies is like six hours long.”

“okay, then Saturday. We’ll do a Pride and Prejudice marathon.”

“I can’t.” I repeat, “I have to work.”

He stares at me for a second, like he’s trying to figure something out. I knew he wasn’t going to give up, but I also knew that I honestly didn’t have anytime for a two hour movie, let alone a six hour movie.

The rest of the characters are assigned and the bell rings. I grab my bag and rush out of there, knowing that Ryan would chase after. He grabs my shoulder and turns me around to face him. “Hey, I know I’m going to get killed for asking, but is everything okay?” He was looking down at me and his eyes were filled with worry. Something I hadn’t seen in someones eyes for me in quite some time.

“look, Saturday will be fine. I’ll work something out.” The only question was how? I never missed a day of work in my life, and then I also had to baby-sit.

The last half-hour of school I was once again asked to go to the principles office. This time I had a feeling I knew what it was about and I wasn’t in the mood for it. But skipping out on those is like get suspended.

Just as I reach the door, Ryan walks out. He looks down at me and for once doesn’t smile. This didn’t look good.

“come in Sky.” Cathy says and I close the door behind me. Instead of sitting down I cross my arms and lean against the door. “that was Ryan Richards.”

“I know who that was.” I reply hastily. Part of me didn’t mean to reply that way, but the other did. I was mad, not at Cathy, but at Ryan. He never barged into my life before, why now?

“He’s worried about you Sky.” Those words made my stomach knot up. No one had ever really admitted that in the past five years, except for Cathy herself.

“so?”

“what’s going on?” she asks.

“nothing. I don’t know why he came to you. He really doesn’t have the right to do that.”

“like I said, he’s worried about you.”

“well, he shouldn’t be.”

“really? Because I worry about you. It’s okay to have more than one person care about you Sky.”

“look, I got the part of Elizabeth for the play and Ryan got Darcy. Surprise, surprise. He asked if today worked to watch the movies, because Mrs. Bergs wants us to ‘watch them together’. Well I work today. So then he asked if Saturday worked and I told him I worked then too. I don’t get what the big deal is. So I’m busy, so what?”

“Sky, you work full time between your two jobs and also get straight A’s. that leaves no room for yourself.”

“and? We’ve been over this Cathy. This is how I live. It works. I go to the yogurt place, stop by home before babysitting suzy and then I go home to bed. I get eight hours of sleep, that’s more than three-quarters of the students here.”

She sighs, “if it’s about money, I can help you pay-“

“no. that’s not how this works.”

“Sky, it’s okay to let other people help you.”

“but that’s just it. I don’t need help. Ryan just needs to stay out of my business. He’s done that for the past fifteen years. And it worked that way. I told him that Saturday will work. I’ll just tell Ted that I can’t make it into work.”

“do you want to know what I think?”

“no, actually, I don’t.”

she ignores my statement. “I think you’re scared that if someone starts caring for you, they’ll just suddenly stop like what happened with your parents.”

I take a deep breath “I’m just not in a good mood today. Okay? By tomorrow it’ll be over.” I turn to leave.

“Sky.” She says and I pause, “you really should take some time for yourself. You deserver it.”

I just shut the door and head out early. No reason to go back to class at this point.