OUR STORY

This is the final draft of my second story for Fiction. Or rather, the second draft. I do plan to continue this story into next semester, hopefully make it a novella.

It is rather long, so make sure you've got time to read!

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“Tell the story,” Mr. Moore told us. I wish that were possible, but there is no way to tell the truth, no way to make the story real. You may think that our story is trivial. It would seem so, to an outsider. That’s why I’m trying so hard to make you understand. I worry that I will never be able to express what we went through, how we felt, and what it meant to us. We never mean to be cliché, because we believe it when we say we were misunderstood. We loved each other and we hated each other, but we utterly abhorred everyone else. Until now. How can I tell it so that you will understand, and understand completely? If I don’t tell the truth, the whole truth, you never will. My name is Victoria Thames, and this is our story.

September 16^th. Audition day. We’d all practiced for days, at the very least. Some of us, I knew, had practiced for weeks, months, since last year’s audition. And then there were the rest of Them, crowding our hallways with noise and clutter; who’s-popular gossip, math homework, these things they deemed more important than the task at hand. But we knew how it really was.

I say “we” because even then, before the auditions and before the casting, there were those of us who knew that the others couldn’t succeed in our world. They were only in it for the fun, or for the fame. They did not feel the pull, the drive. They couldn’t hear the siren call. And we knew that they wouldn’t make it. They would be cut, and Moore and Derrick would say it was for scheduling purposes. How could we put on a play if we had to work around cheerleading, ballroom, or – God forbid – football? Despite what Moore and Derrick said, we knew the truth. We knew that only a select few would make it. Only those who, like myself, had earned the favor of Moore and Derrick early on would be accepted. We’d been in Moore’s drama classes and Derrick’s choir classes since we were freshmen. They knew and respected us. The same could not be said for the Others.

For me, the audition was the easy part. I’d been auditioning for Moore and Derrick going on four years, and it didn’t scare me anymore. What scared me was the fact that this was my last chance. I would be graduating in May, and that would be it. If I didn’t do this now, I never would. Yes, I’d been in plays before, but always some stupid background ensemble role. I’d never spoken a word on stage, only sung and danced, if I did anything at all. I’d never had that telltale red mark from the rough adhesive of microphone tape on the back of my neck, never had the privilege of carrying in my backpack a script that had doubtless been handled by someone famous. I’d spent the last three years fighting tooth and nail for those things and I was not going to turn back now.

The day the List went up, I couldn’t eat. I was too nervous. Moore and Derrick had promised us that the List would be up by lunchtime, but it wasn’t. We all trooped in to Musical Theatre with mutinous expressions, but they assured us that the List would be posted before school let out. Most of us skipped seventh period to pace the hallway by the auditorium, waiting with silent impatience for the axe to fall. At last Mr. Moore crept around the corner. We froze, watching him as he taped the List on the auditorium door and then dashed out of sight. We rushed the door. And there it was: my name. I had landed my speaking part at last.

I quickly scanned the names near mine: Jane, Ashley, Melanie, Ben, Lorrin, and Matt. All six were friends of mine who had been fighting just as hard as I had. I didn’t have to look to know who had landed the lead roles: Rob Laine and Emily Cambridge. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them hugging each other. I knew that it was dangerous for them to be dating. If they split up, it would jeopardize the success of the entire production. Still, I would rather see them dating each other than see either one of them with an Outsider.

The day after the List had been posted, I walked into the choir room to see Emily sitting on top of the piano. Mr. Derrick’s piano, to be specific. It had been at the school nearly as long as he had. It was worn and scarred, and I wondered how Mr. Derrick would feel to see her sitting atop it.

“I can’t believe I got the lead again! That is so weird!” she was exclaiming. A group of her sycophants – ballroom dancers mostly, would could never get in her way or threaten her position – dithered around and assured her that she deserved it. Why else would she have gotten it for the third year in a row?

I was quick to relate this news to my fellow supporting-cast members. We’d taken to spending the better part of our rehearsal time gossiping backstage. We weren’t leads, far from it, but neither were we chorus members. We all had this ill-conceived notion the hierarchy of the cast - leads, supporting, then chorus – was not to be disturbed, and we hated ourselves for it but we didn’t dare challenge it. That year, the leads were Emily, Rob, and some rich kid named Erik who none of us knew well. They were the stars and we cowered before their superior talent and jockeyed for their favor. And behind their backs, we tore them to pieces.

It was sometime during the middle of October, and Mr. Moore had called all of the leads and supporting cast in for rehearsal, but then he’d abandoned us in favor of working with Rob and Emily alone. Erik had jetted off to squeeze in some extra hours at his job, leaving the rest of us alone, just as we preferred it. We lounged backstage on the set pieces, a privilege allowed to those who Moore trusted not to damage them. I was lying with my head in Jane’s lap, and the others were scattered nearby.

“You know what I hate most?” Matt was saying. “I hate how no one seems to care that Rob and Emily’s relationship puts all of us in danger. I mean, there’s a reason that the cast of Harry Potter were forbidden to date each other.”

“Exactly,” Ashley said. “If they really cared, they’d put the relationship on hold until after Closing Night. It’s only fair to the rest of us.”

“And what does Rob see in her anyway? She’s cute, but that’s really all she has going for her and I can’t believe Rob would be that shallow. Has anyone else noticed how Emily’s whole body quivers when she sings?” I asked. “She seriously looks like she’s going to die.”

“I know, right?” Jane said. “And her eyes go all buggy. It’s freaky.”

When we ran out of trash to talk about Emily, we switched to Erik, who had somehow managed to land a lead role in spite of the fact that he was extremely busy with his job as a waiter at that new Italian restaurant in town, and that he was taking a trip to New York the week before Opening Night. If any of us had tried to pull that off…. But there would have been no decision for us, of course. I knew that more than one of us, myself included, had quit our afternoon jobs to free up our schedules.

I stayed quiet, contributing to the gossip only sporadically, half asleep as Jane toyed with my hair. I felt safe in the knowledge that here were people who understood me, understood how I felt about the others in the play, and the Others in the school. And I knew that they felt the same about me. As much as we loved each other, we also loved to hate each other, but we would unite against any Outsider who dared to raise their voice against us.

One Monday, midway through November, scarcely a week before the play was scheduled to open, I stopped by to visit Mr. Derrick in his office during my lunch hour.

“Hello, Victoria,” he said without looking at me. Something in his voice made my stomach turn.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. He just stared at his desk, where the latest issue of the school paper was sitting.

“Why do we have to thank them?” he said without preamble.

“What?”

He pushed the paper in my direction. It was open to the sports section, a flashy two-page spread on the football team’s recent success in the state tournament quarter-finals. I scanned the article reluctantly, not wanting to give Them the satisfaction of reading their article when I knew they wouldn’t even glance at ours. Well this was interesting. Apparently the principal had promised to take the entire team out to lunch if they won the state tournament. No, he didn’t care if they had class, he would excuse the absence. Of course he would. I didn’t even have to look to know where the article about the school play had wound up: on the last page, in the corner, barely two inches long.

Anger rippled down my spine and I had the sudden urge to throw the paper across Mr. Derrick’s office. Breathing deeply, I folded it neatly and set it back on his desk.

“Why do we have to thank them?” he asked again. “It’s not as though they” – he nearly spat the work – “give a damn about us. ‘Special thanks to Dr. Michael Scott and his vice-principals, blah blah blah…’” Derrick’s voice turned hard and sarcastic. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him so angry. My stomach twisted with the guilt that came automatically whenever he was upset about something, even though I knew I’d done nothing to incur his wrath.

“I don’t know,” I said, my voice an awkward cross between a whisper and a hiss. “It’s stupid.” Impotent in my fury, I didn’t know what else to say.

“Some things never change,” Derrick grumbled. He would know. He’d been teaching at Central High since it was built, nearly thirty years ago. Now it was only him and Mr. Moore left from the original faculty. We all knew how lucky we were that they were still around for us. None of us wanted to think about how it would be when they finally retired.

Just when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse between us and Them – not that They knew anything about it, of course – Emily betrayed us. It was the day after the Newspaper Incident. I was sitting in the auditorium, waiting for my dad to swing by on his way home from the office and pick me up. Emily came and sat by me, chattering happily about a dream she had had where she “Wore It Best.” I raised my eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how much I hated her, and I wanted to keep it that way. After a few awkward minutes, someone came in and sat down next to Emily. I wouldn’t have looked up, but his weight made the seats creak, and no one in the play was built like that. I looked up out of the corner of my eye to see who was intruding into our temple. Ian Reynolds, the star quarterback on the varsity football team, was grinning down at Emily, one of his long arms slung over the back of her chair. Unaware of my scrutiny, or perhaps he just didn’t care, he leaned down and gave her a sloppy kiss. Fortunately my dad called my mobile phone right at that moment, but by the next afternoon the entire cast knew that Emily had turned traitor.

Things only got worse from that point on. November 14^th, five days before Opening Night, also happened to be the day of the state semi-final football game. Dr. Scott had forbidden Moore and Derrick from holding rehearsal, but a handful of us showed up anyway. The most of the chorus members had opted to attend the football game, save for a few hopefuls who planned to take our places within the next few years. We accepted them willingly, albeit a bit condescendingly, because we had all been in their shoes at one point or another. Emily was conspicuously absent. We spent the afternoon building last-minute set pieces and running over bits of dance choreography and music. Although we were done after about two hours, we hung around until at least six in a show of solidarity. Just before they sent us home, Moore and Derrick gathered us around to share some unsettling news.

“Dr. Scott is threatening to shut us down,” Moore said, his low voice rumbling over the words.

“What!?” I said shrilly.

“Why?” Rob said through clenched teeth. I glanced at him sharply, gauging his reaction. He was the male lead, after all. We all stared at Mr. Moore, but he seemed unable to go on talking.

“If we don’t bring in more than fifty-five-hundred dollars with this production, the music and drama programs are going to be cut,” Mr. Derrick said after a moment.

“Bullshit,” Rob said angrily. But Moore shook his head.

“It’s true,” he said, finding his voice at last. “We didn’t want to tell everyone, but you guys seem to care the most. You came today, after all.”

We sat in stunned silence. We’d always known that we’d have to give it up someday. Either we would graduate, or Moore and Derrick would retire, but we never expected it would be taken from us. It felt as though our whole world was crashing down around us, and it very nearly was. In the past, we’d been lucky if we got three hundred audience members a night, and we would need nearly twice that to meet Dr. Scott’s demands. If we couldn’t, we would be left to the mercy of Dr. Scott and his checkbook-happy PTA. Had any of us ever seen a dime of their fundraising? Of course not. It had been squandered on a new, unnecessary football turn, new uniforms for the pep band, chartered buses for the state playoffs. We knew that therein lay the true reason that Moore and Derrick hadn’t retired yet. They were exhausted, and we all knew it. Raising students for four years only to have to say goodbye and start all over again was not easy, physically or emotionally. But they couldn’t leave us. Who would take care of us, if not them? And suddenly it wasn’t just myself I was worried for. I’d had Moore and Derrick for nearly four years. What about the freshmen, who would never know them? It was the definition of a cruel and unusual punishment.

“We’ll figure it out,” Rob said after a moment. I could hear the tension in his voice. “I don’t know how, but we’ll figure something out. I’ll see if I can get my dad to run an ad in the Daily News. That should bring in some viewers.”

We all nodded our agreement, slowly and without much enthusiasm. It was impossible and we knew it. All we could do was make sure that we went out in a blaze of glory.

Despite the knowledge that this would be the last musical, our spirits increased as Show Week began on Monday the 10^th. Dress rehearsals ran late into the night, and we didn’t leave until after dark. The dressing rooms were swept out, freshened up, and stocked with costumes that reeked of mothballs. The dancers polished their character shoes, and we all checked over our costumes for rips or tears, sending them to Kara the costumer if they needed fixing.

I’d had every intention of getting up early on Opening Day. I should have known better. I crawled out of bed minutes before the school bus came, and consequently forgot to wear socks to school. Musical Theater class that day was a subdued affair. Moore and Derrick had asked us all to fold the programs, but we simply couldn’t make our arms move. Emily and Erik were buried in their cell phones, and the rest of us just sat and looked at the daunting stack of paper.

“Come on, guys!” Rob said, strolling over. He was wearing a dark green button-down with a silver tie, a stark contrast to his usual T-shirt and jeans ensemble. “Why so glum? It’s Opening Day!”

“Yeah,” said Matt. “It’s the last Opening Day there’s ever going to be.”

“Well certainly, if you’ve got that attitude.” Rob sat down cross-legged on the floor, pulled the stack of programs over, and started folding him expertly. He’d clearly done this several times before. After a minute or two, Jane and I sat up to help.

“Why are you so dressed up, Rob?” Jane asked. Rob shrugged.

“It’s Opening Day,” he said. “Dressing nice helps me get in the right mindset.” We all looked at each other. For months now, we’d been lumping Rob in with Emily and Erik, on the simple fact that they all had lead roles, and as far as the supporting cast was concerned, he was just as much a diva as the other two. We had never expected him to be like us: utterly and completely devoted to his art.

Most of us didn’t even bother going home once school let out. We’d have to be back in two hours; it made more sense to stay. We gathered in the choir room and Mr. Derrick led us in breathing exercises until we fell asleep. He woke us up again at a quarter to five that evening.

“Time to get up, everyone. Kara’s opened the dressing rooms so you can all go get dressed,” he said, flashing the fluorescent lights annoyingly.

Over the next two hours, we flitted about the auditorium basement in various states of dress and undress, curling our hair, fitting our wigs, painting our faces, and munching on cheap snacks purchased from the vending machines. At seven, we met in the choir room for warm-ups. At exactly seven twenty, we were sent onto the stage and the show began.

The next two days were a blur of dozing through classes and racing through the show, only to do it all over again the next day. On the second night, Derrick announced that’d we’d made a little under one thousand dollars on Opening Night. “The show must go on,” he concluded, after giving us our death sentence.

Friday the 21^st was the state football playoff game. We weren’t allowed to start the play until half past nine that evening because half the orchestra was in the pep band. By ten o’clock, the buses still hadn’t arrived and tempers were running high. In a last-ditch effort to organize the backstage, Mr. Moore had ordered us to rearrange the set pieces. When one of them snagged on the curtains and tore them, he cursed loudly.

“Where are those damn buses?” he thundered. “They’ve got half our orchestra and our star.”

No one had seen Emily since school let out that afternoon. We all figured she’d gone to the game, since she was now dating the quarterback. When the orchestra showed up at 10:15, and we met in the choir room for notes and warm ups, Emily was still missing. To top it off, Derrick had to tell us that we were still in danger of losing our program, since we had barely scraped two thousand dollars in the last two nights.

Just then, Emily and Ian burst into the room.

“You will never believe how many people are out there!” Emily shrieked, her face flushed.

“Every seat is full,” Ian said. “Even Dr. Scott is there!” Derrick nodded at Matt, who scurried off to check if Ian’s report was accurate.

“He’s right!” he said when he got back, out of breath and panting. “It’s a full house!” We looked at Derrick, who was muttering to himself. It looked like he was trying to do some very fast multiplication.

“That’s got to be over three thousand dollars!” he said at last.

“Thirty-three hundred,” Emily said with a smile, waving her cell phone around. “We’ve had the box office guys texting us the numbers all evening.”

“Well what have you been doing?” Mr. Moore said from his spot at the piano. He was still gazing at Emily as though unsure he could trust her.

“I sang my solo at the halftime show,” she explained.

“And after we won the game” – we couldn’t help cheering – “I told everyone to come see the show because my girlfriend is the star,” Ian said. “So they did.” We all stared at him.

“George,” Mr. Moore said, looking incredulously at Derrick, “I don’t think we’ve had a full house since ’87.”

“We haven’t,” Mr. Derrick said. “I never thought we would again. This really is amazing. Thank you, Ian.” He started to clap, and we all joined in, whooping and hollering. For the first time in a week, we had a glimmer of hope.

The show started at ten-thirty and didn’t end until past midnight, but the energy from the crowd kept us going strong. Many in attendance said that Friday’s performance was the best they’d seen from us in years.

On closing night, we had a surprise visitor. During warm-ups, Dr. Scott came to make an Announcement.

“You’ve made more than five thousand dollars already,” he said. “That combined with tonight’s box office intake should put you well past fifty-five hundred. Congratulations, you’ll get to keep doing this for years to come.” There was an awkward note in his voice, as though he knew exactly how much we all hated him, but we burst into applause and he smiled.

After we’d warmed up, Moore and Derrick left us on our own for a few minutes. Rob stood up.

“This has been an amazing experience,” he began, “and I am so glad I have you to share it with.” He held out his hand to Emily, who stood up next to him. “And who else is graduating this year?” I stood up, along with Jane, Matt, Lorrin, and Erik. “Come down here.” Rob waited until we joined him at the front of the room. “This was our last chance to perform on this stage. And thanks to all of you,” he indicated the cast before us, “we’ve had, I think, our best show yet. We’ve shared something special. Never forget that. Never let the bonds we’ve made here die.” Someone sniffled, and I felt tears start in my eyes.

After Rob’s speech, Erik stood up and offered Words, our nightly prayer of strength and inspiration. And in that moment, I knew that he, too, was one of us. How could he not be? He was here day after day, night after night, sacrificing his time, his grades, his sanity for this art. How could we have thought ill of him?

We were all the same, really, when it came down to it. We had all sacrificed something to be here. Some of us just hours, some of us days, weeks. But we had all sacrificed to be here, and that as more than we could say for any of the commoners out in the audience. They would never know what we knew, ever feel how we felt in that moment before the curtain rose, standing there in the pitch-darkness, our hearts pounding. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” That was how we stood together on that closing night.

No one else will ever truly understand the bond we shared. I’m not sure if even we understood it. Some of us never even spoke to each other again after that night. But such a bond cannot be unmade, not by distance nor the slow march of time. Some part of us still remembers those days, remembers the friendships that were forged, the legacy that was left. In the end, that is the only part of the story that can truly be passed on. I hope that I have done it justice.