things to do in Montage. Most people have nearly forgotten the earlier scenes, and so the audience gets to experience the joy of remembering coupled with the warm feeling of an inside joke. I love it when it works out.
“You are very funny,” Hanna rumbled in my ear as we climbed off the stage.
“So are you.” I smiled and high-fived her. “You have amazing timing.”
“Thanks, but you, Zelda-girl, you have something special.”
I blushed a little. “That’s really nice of—”
“I didn’t know they let vampires in here,” a guy in the next group said to his friend, passing us on their way to the stage.
I frowned, but a quarter-second too late, realized the vampire jibe had been directed at Hanna.
“He—” I began, pointing behind me at the guy.
Hanna lowered my hand and just shook her head. “It’s fine, Zelda-girl. Normally I’d skewer them, but today I’m saving my best lines for the stage.”
I laughed. “You are awesome, and those guys are idiots.”
“Damn straight.” Hanna high-fived me and retreated to Paloma and her crew, and by the time I returned to my seat, Will was already in position for his Montage group. Emily was up, too.
Unfortunately, Emily was too anxious to be her best self. At one point, she played a really funny newscaster who was so nervous, she couldn’t remember any of the news, and later managed a spot-on Irish accent, but the guys she was performing with mostly sidelined her. After the third scene, where she played someone’s mom, a guy behind me whispered, “That fat girl is really bombing.”
His friend chuckled and whispered back, “What did you expect?”
I frowned, wishing I was the kind of person who would just turn around and pummel those asshats. Instead, I looked over my shoulder and threw eye-daggers at them.
Peering out from under their baseball caps, the one with a gap in his front teeth grabbed his crotch and the one with close-set eyes glared back and flipped me off. I looked to the coaches to see if anyone was paying attention to the cretins, but the coaches were spread around the room, eyes on the stage.
Geez, I thought. Bro zone doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Two hours later, it was time for the One-Liner round.
I turned to Will for reassurance, but he was digging through my bag.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Jonas has a nosebleed.”
I leaned forward to look at him, and sure enough, Jonas was pinching his nose and tilting his head back, but blood was running down his chin.
“Good god—take that blood faucet to the bathroom.” I pushed Will to standing. Leading Jonas by the elbow, Will helped them edge their way out.
As I watched them go, my group was called. I took a deep breath and trotted up on stage. Unfortunately, Crotch-grabber and Finger-flipper stood on either side of me. My weakest aspect of improv next to two sexist body-shamers. Awesome. With the Gildas distracted by their teams and Will and Jonas gone, I looked up for some support from Ben, but his eyes slid past mine.
“Last round,” Ben said, looking at his clipboard. “Most high schoolers don’t play this game because it involves . . . a bar-going culture, but I think you can handle it. It’s called 185.”
“We play it!” Hanna and Paloma’s group shouted.
“You do?” Ben asked. “Where are you from?”
“Wisconsin, baby!” Hanna yelled. The rest cheered.
“Ah, well, there you go.” Ben smiled.
They mostly missed trying to give each other high fives.
“Okay, it goes like this,” Ben continued. “You get a list of occupations from the audience, then the controller doles them out. For the purposes of the audition, we’ll skip that part, and I’ll just give you the occupations.”
“Or I can do that,” Dion offered.
“I’ll do it,” Ben insisted.
Dion shrugged and leaned back against a pillar.
“So, I’ll say ‘doctors,’ for instance. When you’re ready, you step forward and say, ‘185 doctors walk into a bar. The bartender says, “We don’t serve doctors here,” and the doctors say_____,’ and then you insert a pun. Like, ‘We only wanted a shot!’ ”
This line earned Ben some groans and a few laughs. “It’s just an example,” he said, grinning. “Okay. Got it?”
I nodded, my stomach suddenly home to a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
“Okay. 185 . . . lawyers,” Ben called out.
Crotch-grabber stepped up. “185 lawyers walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘We don’t serve lawyers here,’ and the lawyers say, ‘Then how will we pass the bar exam?’ ”
Crotch-grabber smiled, all his teeth showing, seeming pleased by his