Chapter 16

 

“Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Val?”

The girl giggled and toyed with her newly darkened locks.

“I feel weird with my hair this color,” Val admitted. She leaned back against the wall of the hallway behind the auditorium.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Aleda said, “But you do look weird without pink hair.”

“Not to mention you’re supposed to be a blonde anyway,” Mara pointed out.

Val shrugged. “I’ll just say I’m going for the Snow White look, then. Besides, I’m not even as pale as our girl Leda here, and aren’t you supposed to be Spanish?”

“Well, sure, my dad is Spanish, but have you seen my mom?”

Val considered this for a moment. Aleda’s mother looked like she would get as red as her hair after five minutes in direct sunlight.

“Yeah. Fair enough.”

“Exactly,” Aleda said with a lopsided grin. “Still, though, I am a little worried that the audience will be able to see us.”

“Nonsense,” Mara said. “We’re stage tech. We are the darkness. If you want to worry about something, worry about the actors getting in the way.”

Val nodded. “Seriously. After all the times those idiots have tripped over the scenery, I’ll be grateful if they get through the whole performance without screwing something up.”

“We are the darkness?”

Mara nodded definitively.

“We are the darkness.”

“I wish somebody would have told Mrs. Dodges that,” Val said, pulling at her black hair again. “She threatened to shave my head if I didn’t do something about my hair. I don’t know what the problem was—pink hair isn’t any more noticeable than pink skin.”

“If anything, I would have thought it would be less noticeable,” Aleda reflected, holding one hand in front of her and looking at it thoughtfully. “Hair just sort of fades into the shadows—I’m pretty sure I glow in the dark out there.”

“Hey, really?” Nate asked, walking up to the girls. “That could be useful—we could just use you to light up the stage instead of wasting all that electricity.”

Mara and Val giggled. Aleda rolled her eyes and smirked.

“Hey, Nate.”

“Hey, Leda. Are you ready to do this?”

She shrugged. “No sweat. It’s not like I have any lines to remember. What about you?”

“Ready and waiting,” he said. “I’ve got my makeup on and I’m ready to roll.”

Val snorted.

“You know, Nate, only you could get away with saying that,” she remarked dryly.

“Yeah,” he said with a grin, “I know. Although, seriously? I don’t know how you girls do it. There’s so much crap on my face I keep waiting for it to get up and leave without me.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mara said. “No girl actually—.” She spotted one of the school’s more popular girls out of the corner of her eye and corrected herself. “Most girls don’t actually wear that much makeup.”

“Thank God.”

Mrs. Dodges walked along the short hallway, a copy of the script under her arm and her third cup of coffee in her hand.

“Ten minutes to curtain, everyone,” she announced, glaring around at the groups of actors and stage techs still hurrying to get everything prepared. “I want this makeup finished! Where is the lighting crew? You should be in your places! Soundboard, you too! Enough chatting—we only have a few minutes to our first performance and I want it to be flawless! You’ve had two hours to get yourselves together, let’s get moving! Leads! Where are my leads?”

She continued her rant, stalking into the chorus room-turned-dressing room to shoo the actors out and towards the backstage.

“I guess that’s my cue,” Nate said, squeezing Aleda’s hand and kissing her cheek. “Wish me luck!”

“Good luck!” she called after him. He hurried off through the back entrance to the stage to wait in the wings.

The other assorted techs found their places—the lighting crew and soundboard had to be ready immediately; stage crew had a little bit more time. The first set of backdrop and props were already on stage waiting for the curtain to part and would not need to be moved until the next scene.

Aleda, Mara, and Val waited for the actors to find their places, then followed them through the backstage door and settled down among the props that were not currently in use. Before the lights in the auditorium went out, Aleda sneaked a peek around the corner of the heavy main curtain. Mom and Papá were watching this performance. They had dropped her off early so that she could get ready with the rest of the cast and crew, then disappeared somewhere for the next two hours.

They had been dressed up nice when they dropped her off, though, so she wasn’t sure exactly where they would have gone. The few parents that had come backstage were helping out, and Mom hadn’t been among them.

She supposed it was possible that they had gone to have a look around this school that their daughter attended. Everything but the main entrance and the art wing was gated off, but that had never been much of a concern for Mom. She had learned how to pick locks decades ago, even before becoming a hunter.

Aleda scanned the audience. She spotted her parents almost immediately, sitting near the front despite the fact that their daughter would only be on stage between scenes.

Well, they would definitely be able to see her, black clothes notwithstanding.

They saw her peeking and gave her an enthusiastic wave. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they looked a little disheveled. It was her high school, surely they wouldn’t have…

Aleda shot them a dirty look and disappeared behind the curtains.

She had barely gotten out of the way when the lights went out and the sound system started playing the overture. A few moments more and the curtain opened. The musical began.

The three girls watched the opening scene, even though they had seen it a hundred times before. They had to be ready to adjust the set as soon as the scene was finished and Mrs. Dodges had gotten on their cases enough times already for going too slow. Nate was on the other side of the stage, waiting for his entrance. Every so often he looked across the stage and gave her a smile. Aleda smiled back, elbowing Mara to get her to stop giggling at her. At least Val was leaving her alone—she was too preoccupied with her own eye candy to notice Aleda’s.

The opening scene was soon over. Aleda and the rest of the stage rats hurried on stage as soon as the lights went down to switch the train façade for a livery stable. She risked a glance in her parents’ direction, who once again waved enthusiastically when they saw she was looking. Aleda swallowed a groan. She finished adjusting the set and hurried back offstage, hoping that nobody else in the audience had noticed. Nate, as the Mayor, and several others tiptoed into the scene as the stage rats left. The lights went on again and the musical resumed.

The whole thing went by rather quickly, considering how little to do there was for her and her friends. Nate came to wait on her side of the stage when he could. It was a shame he hadn’t gotten a singing part. He had a nice voice when he actually cared to use it. All he got to do in this musical, though, was bluster about and demand Harold Hill’s credentials every time he saw him. Even the Mayor’s wife had a more interesting role. At least, she was making it more interesting.

After the initial rush of nerves, the musical also went by very easily. Everyone soon realized that this performance was the same thing they had long since grown completely bored of in rehearsals. Aleda caught herself wanting to reach for her pre-calculus homework.

Within moments, it seemed, the performance was finished.

Now was the part that Aleda really was a bit nervous about.

After the leads, the secondary characters, and the chorus took their bows, Mrs. Dodges had the crew come on stage.

On the one hand, Aleda was glad that they were getting recognized. On the other hand, she had avoided being in the cast in order to avoid the spotlight.

She was reasonably sure she was going to trip over something in front of a few hundred people.

Still, she ran out onto the stage with the rest of the stage crew, and was grateful to make it through her bow without tripping, falling, or generally alienating the audience. If anything, they only applauded louder for them. She even heard some whistles.

Aleda mused on this while they ran back offstage.

“Hey, Mara?” she asked while they headed back to the chorus room.

“That’s me!”

“Is it me, or did we get more applause than the actors?”

Mara paused and grinned crookedly at her.

“Of course we got more applause.”

Aleda tilted her head and frowned.

“But… Okay, I’m confused. The actors are the ones that were out on stage most of the time. Shouldn’t they get it?”

“Key difference between actors and tech, Chica,” Mara said. She pointed towards the auditorium. “Aside from the parents out there, the people who came to see this circus are the people who know us. So of course we get more applause.”

“Makes sense,” Aleda admitted. “Though I do kind of wish the actors’ friends would have come to see them.”

Mara’s grin widened. “Oh, don’t worry. They did.”

“Huh?”

“All the actors are friends with each other. All of our friends are out there. As I said—key difference between actors and tech.”

Aleda glanced around at the crush of cast and crew milling about in the hallway.

“They do get a little clique-y, don’t they?”

“Don’t get me wrong, tech can be the same way. But we also tend to have some friends outside of the productions.”

Yeah, that was true. Mara had a small group of friends she had known since freshman year. Val, of course, had an entire social circle large enough that Aleda still hadn’t met all of them. Just about every weekend at least one of them hosted another party. She was always invited, of course, as a friend of Val’s, but she hadn’t attended one until Halloween.

Actually, aside from Mara and Val, she wasn’t sure if any of them could really be considered her ‘friends’.

Mom and Papá found her immediately. She hesitated for a moment, wanting to make sure to say goodbye to somebody. She had already talked to Mara and Val, though, and Nate was all but unreachable. He was surrounded by his parents, friends, and other actors, all talking and congratulating each other. Aleda glanced at him one more time, hoping to at least catch his eye, but it was no use. Her parents pulled her out of the chaos and they drove back home.