“You’re too fat,” Ms. Barlow says.
“Huh?” That isn’t the script.
She marks something on her clipboard and flips to the next page. “I’m sorry Wren. Despite your… attempted… acting, you know I’d love to give you the lead role but you’re just too fat.”
“I’m not fat,” I say confidently, because I know I’m not fat. Is she even allowed to say that to a teenage girl? Sure, I gained a few pounds over the summer but that hardly makes me fat. Plus, I’m on day twenty-six of the 20 Minute Abs DVD, and if I tighten my core I totally have a six pack under the inch or so of flab.
“Gretchen is five feet ten inches and a hundred and five pounds. She’s an aspiring model.”
“It doesn’t say that in the script.” I wag my papers at her.
Ms. Barlow’s short hair flies around her face as she whips her glasses to the top of her head. “That’s irrelevant. It says that in my mind and I am the writer and the director.”
I wish the lights were on so I could glare at her, and not just at the darkish blob I can see. I don’t stomp my foot on the floor, but I want to. “I’m telling Mom.”
She waves away my threat with a flourish of her hand. “Good. And while you’re at it, tell her to stop filling the house with ding-dongs and Twinkies. It’ll do you both a favor.”
Okay. This is about to blow up to epic-Barlow-like proportions if I don’t do something to scale it back. I smooth my hands over my shirt and stand straight. “You’re right, Aunt Barlow, I’m sorry. But I really want this part so if there’s anything I can do to make myself perfect for the role, please let me know.”
“I’m Ms. Barlow while in school. I’m not your aunt right now, I’m your director.”
“Yes,” I say, humbling myself to her greatness, something she laps up like starved puppy. Ms. Barlow starred in Broadway plays in her younger years, before age and three divorces and heaps of melodrama took its toll and made her resemble a haggard man.
“Why do you even want this role? You watched me slave over this script all summer and you never cared.”
“I care,” I say. But she’s right. I don’t care about this stupid school play.
So even though I have no interest
in a school play, probably because my mom, the failed actress, and my aunt, the failed Broadway star-turned-theater arts teacher shoved acting down my throat since I was in infancy, I am going to get this role. And then my picture will be put in the yearbook and The Art Institute of Lawson will be impressed and they will accept me and I’ll get an awesome job as an interior decorator.
That all starts with Wren Barlow playing the lead role in the Lawson High School play.
Ms. Barlow taps her foot on the footrest in her tall chair. She scribbles something on her clipboard that makes her nose crunch up like she’s smelled something bad. “Thanks for auditioning, Wren. Will you send in the next student?”
Mr. Harrison is asleep in his chair when I walk into wood shop. The heavy metal door slams shut behind me, making him jump. His fist rears back instinctively like he’s about to punch someone. When he sees me, his fist lowers and clutches his chest. “Wren, you almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry about that.” I drop my backpack into one of the cubby holes at the back of the warehouse. I grab a pair of safety glasses out of the bucket and wipe them clean with the bottom of my shirt. Mr. Harrison is the oldest and coolest teacher at Lawson High. He’s part war hero and part adorable grandfather. He’s the only teacher who can swear like a sailor in class and not get in trouble. Pretty much nothing is off limits in his class except talking about the war. One time this idiot on the football team asked Mr. Harrison if he had ever killed anyone. His face went blank for the longest time, and some people say he had a bit of drool drooping out of his mouth by the time he finally snapped out of it. Then he called the student a pansy ass and sent him to detention.
“I did half of the work for ya,” he says, leading me to the back of the warehouse. “But the other half is up to you.”
I groan. “Hands-on experience is so over rated.” He shakes his head at my cheesy smile and takes the canister of chewing tobacco out of his back pocket.
I took woodshop freshman year, on accident. My first two choices for elective classes filled up before I remembered to sign up and so as a last resort, I was forced to choose between woodshop or dance. Freshman year was a weird time for me. I tried being all punk rock and dyed the tips of my hair hot pink. Dance class so wasn’t an option back then.
But woodshop ended up being a million times better than dance. It was the last class of the day and Mr. Harrison always let us out fifteen minutes before the bell rang. Not surprisingly, I was the only girl in the class and ended up meeting my first two serious boyfriends there. (Not at the same time, though.)
Mr. Harrison helped me get through my breakup with that first guy after he left me for Margot, by teaching me how to use a rotary saw and make fleur-de-lis necklace holders. Since then, I’ve become addicted to the art of woodworking, particularly when it comes to fixing up our house. All week I’ve been working on a three piece crown molding for my bedroom renovation. When it’s done, I’m hoping it looks like a relaxing French boudoirs. Oh, and Margot didn’t actually date him, thank God. She’s a better best friend than that.
School has been out for thirty minutes so I’m surprised to find a student in the back of the warehouse using the skill saw. I don’t recognize him from behind, but from what I can see of his backside, he’s too hot for Lawson High. Maybe he’s a movie star researching his next film role. He’s wearing jeans a tight fitting black shirt. His brown hair touches his shoulders and is as silky smooth as mine is after an hour of flat-ironing it to death. Ugh, why do guys always get the best hair?
Mr. Harrison gives an old man arthritic grunt as he settles onto his work stool. He slides the longest piece of molding across the workshop table toward me. “Cut this on the chalk line.”
I slide open my tape measure, but he stops me. “Use the square. Come on girl, I taught you better than that.” Of course he did. The normal me would have known to grab the square to mark a perfect line, but right now I can’t think over the thudding of my heart in my chest. How is it that I’m more nervous standing across the room from a guy who hasn’t even noticed that I exist, than I was moments ago while auditioning for the biggest role in the school play?
I head over to the pegboard wall with all the tools on it. The square, which actually looks like a triangle, should be on the lower left corner but it’s not. I check the workspaces around me but still can’t find it. I’m about to tell Mr. Harrison that someone stole his tools again when I see it.
It’s shoved in the back pocket of the hottest ass I’ve ever seen. I make my way over to the possible movie star, miraculously not dropping dead from cardiac arrest. A sheepish grin falls over my face. “Can I have that square?”