.” She sighed. “Sometimes, when I get an opportunity, I wonder—is it because I deserve it, or because I help fill a quota?” Emily took Sirena’s hand again.
I frowned. “A quota?”
Hanna smirked. “Yeah. Did they ask me to be on Student Council because I’m smart and have good ideas, or because vampire girl helps Student Council look diverse?”
Paloma whacked Hanna on the leg but nodded. “You can go crazy asking yourself questions like that.”
My shoulders dropped. “That sucks.”
“I mean, I definitely have a distinct point of view that’s important,” Hanna added. “It’s smart to include me.”
I caught Paloma’s eye, and we smiled.
“I feel that,” Sirena agreed. “But the thought occurs to me, too.” She sighed and laced her fingers through Emily’s.
Paloma cleared her throat. “We shouldn’t think too hard about it. Zelda’s right. We’re all going to be great. Okay?”
We nodded and voiced our agreement, but I couldn’t totally shake off my unease.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Will was nowhere to be seen.
And predictably, neither was Jonas.
But loads of other people were—all of Gilda Radner, plus probably fifty or sixty guys. Some people were doing vocal warm-ups, others were stretching, and a small group of guys were circled up playing zip-zap-zop. Once again, my fellow Gildas had drifted off to be with their home teams, and so once again, I was alone.
Still, I was sure Will and Jonas were on their way. I signed all three of us in and sat in the middle of three chairs at the end of an empty row. I put my Second City tote bag on one and flung my arm over the other to save them for Will and Jonas’s inevitable arrival. Because they were coming . . . right?
Ben plus two other guys in their early twenties hopped up on stage. The zip-zap-zop guys collapsed their circle, everyone found seats, and the crowd fell silent.
“Okay,” Ben said with an authoritative voice, “Welcome to auditions.”
Some guys called out, “Woooo! Ben!”
Ben smirked and continued. “I’m looking for six to eight people for the Varsity team and Roger and Dion here are looking for eight to ten people on each of the Junior Varsity teams. Anyone who doesn’t make Varsity or JV, as well as everyone else who isn’t auditioning, will be put onto Skill-Building teams. Every year, JV performs a show the second-to-last night of camp, and the Varsity team performs the final night for everyone at camp as well as for reps from Second City, iO, and UCB.”
None of this was news to me, but every time someone mentioned the final show, I got the shivers. I imagined myself up there, sweating under the lights, deep in the moment, sharing the stage with other great performers.
But there wasn’t time to get lost in my daydream. Ben pressed on. “No matter what, you will be a different performer at the other end of two weeks.”
I twisted around, searching for a glimpse of Will or Jonas. Were they seriously going to miss this?
Ben took the pen from behind his ear and tapped it on his clipboard. “Based on this list of everyone who signed in, we’ll split you up into groups of six, and we’ll just do some Montages to start.” He made a notation, replaced his pen behind his ear, and pushed up the sleeves of his white, long-sleeve T-shirt to his elbows. This shirt was tighter than yesterday’s and showed off some serious muscle definition in his arms. Between the missing lover boys and this specimen of male perfection, focus eluded me. I closed my eyes and tried to ground myself.
“When your group’s called, have one person get an audience suggestion,” Ben continued, “and then you can all go straight into your Montage. Feel free to employ call-back scenes that go forward or backward in time. Give us a minute to make groups, and then we’ll start.”
I nodded, eyes still closed, and flexed my hands. Trust yourself.
“What’s a call-back scene?” Emily hissed in my left ear. I jumped and moved my arm to make room for her.
“ ‘What’s a call-back scene?’ ” I repeated.
She nodded, eyebrows furrowed.
I looked up at Sirena, who naturally, was with her. Already I was starting to recognize Sirena’s sympathetic Emily-just-needs-to-hear-it-again-out-loud look.
“Okay,” I said, tucking my curls behind my ears. “Let’s say the first scene is about a teacher and a student arguing . . . over a test score. You take some element of the first one—maybe testing in this case—and it inspires the next scene to be about . . .