My Life After Now - By Jessica Verdi Page 0,50

me like a man. Comprende?”

He looked like a deer caught in headlights, but he managed a nod. “I’ll…do my best.”

“Your best better be good enough. Because this play is pretty much all I have right now, and I’m not going to let you ruin it for me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Just then Andre called out to everyone from the edge of the stage. “Hello, my lovelies! Counting today we only have nine rehearsals left. Opening night is going to be here before you know it, so let’s all make this time count, okay?”

“Absolutely!” Elyse said, running up the stage steps to join him. “Ty and I were just saying last night how we both really think this is going to be the best Eleanor Falls production ever. And as your leads, we want to thank each and every one of you for all your hard work.”

At least I wasn’t the only one staring at her with disdain this time. I had a feeling her condescension-veiled-in-sweetness act was beginning to wear thin on just about everybody.

I glanced at Evan. He rolled his eyes and we both laughed.

The moment was sheer miraculousness. It made me feel sort of warm—in a good way.

“So to show our thanks,” Elyse continued, “we brought cookies!” She held up two tins. “Homemade chocolate chip! Now let’s have a great last two weeks of rehearsal!”

Rousing cheers went up throughout the auditorium. My castmates were such a disappointment, allowing themselves to be bought so easily.

“Can you believe thi—” I began to say to Evan, but then I realized that he was no longer standing beside me and was in fact on his way up to the stage in pursuit of cookies like everyone else.

I bypassed them all and headed straight toward the prop table. Elyse could take her cookies and shove them. I wanted my sword. For some reason, I was pretty sure I would feel better once I was armed.

As I passed the cookie melee, I heard her and Ty talking.

“Aren’t you going to have some, baby?” he was asking her. “Your mom worked so hard.”

A-ha! Elyse didn’t even make the damn cookies—her mother did.

“You’re not serious,” she replied. “You know I don’t eat sugar!”

“Ellie, your body is perfect. You can eat whatever you want,” Ty cooed.

Oh god, I literally could not listen to another word of this. I grabbed my sword, started humming “Wig in a Box” from Hedwig just to shut Ty and Elyse out of my head, and headed backstage.

• • •

My scene with Evan was actually going well. Probably because the animosity I was feeling after he bailed on our nice, nonhostile miracle moment in favor of Elyse’s cookies added an extra layer of edginess under the lines.

Me: Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?

Evan: What wouldst thou have with me?

Me: Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

Evan: I am for you.

Ty: Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

Me: Come, sir, you passado.

Then…the fight. And it was every bit as awkward and stilted as it had been the last zillion rehearsals. From the moment we drew our swords, a shroud of hesitancy came over Evan, so thick I could almost see it. He was still afraid of me. This close to opening night, we should have been dancing—no, flying—fearlessly though the choreography. And instead we stumbled through it like we were blindfolded as Andre’s patent sighs carried from the back of the house.

“Should we stop?” I called into the darkness.

“What would be the point? I really don’t know what to do with you two anymore,” Andre replied unhappily.

We were just finishing up the run-through when my phone rang.

“Sorry, I thought my ringer was off,” I apologized to Ty, who was in the middle of his final monologue. Elyse shot me a malicious look from her deathbed.

I hastily located my phone and muted the ringtone. The number flashing on the screen was an unfamiliar one, but it was a 212 area code—a Manhattan number.

I ducked into the hallway and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak to Lucy Moore, please?” an upbeat male voice said.

“This is she.”

“Lucy, this is Darren Clark from CBG Creative.”

CBG Creative? Could that be…?

But why would he be calling me? There was no way I’d gotten the job.

“Hi,” I said.

“I wanted