I throw the covers off and stumble over to Zoe’s desk, where the electronic call board is up on her laptop screen. Sure enough, the apprentice company is supposed to meet in front of Haydu Hall in an hour. The whole apprentice company, not “the apprentice company minus Brooklyn Shepard.” Somehow I assumed I no longer had any apprentice privileges since I wasn’t cast, but that’s not true at all. I still have a chance to make a good impression on Marcus, the person who matters most. According to my mom, he can work miracles; maybe he’ll make all the misaligned pieces click inside me and today will be the day I transform from a hesitant amateur into a real actor.
Zoe and I spend way too long getting ready—we want to look pretty enough to be memorable, but casual enough that it doesn’t look like we put in a ton of effort. There’s no time for coffee by the time we’re done, but I have so much nervous adrenaline running through my blood that I don’t even need it. We meet up with Livvy and Jessa in the hall, and as we head over to Haydu, the modern steel-and-glass theater where all the musicals are performed, we try to guess what Marcus will teach us. As we pass Legrand, I worry for a minute that someone will see me and report me for skipping lighting crew, but logically I know that’s not going to happen. Today I’m not an expendable manual laborer. Today I’m a performer.
About half the apprentices are already gathered in front of Haydu, and everyone looks as apprehensive as I feel. The moment we arrive, the group subtly rearranges itself to center around Zoe, and I realize I’m not the only one who feels her magnetic pull. She seems to know everyone already, though I’m not sure how that’s possible. I make an effort to stay right next to her; the closest moon is the one that shines brightest.
Two of the boys come over to hug her, and she introduces them to me as Kenji and Todd. Todd’s totally my type—he looks a little like Russell, actually—and I shoot him the flirtiest smile I can muster at nine in the morning. He smiles back, but two seconds later he reaches for Kenji’s hand. Of course.
“These guys are in Midsummer with me,” Zoe says, leaning an arm on Todd’s shoulder like he’s a piece of furniture. “They’re also the cutest couple on the face of the earth, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“There’s no way we’re cuter than Sean and Dmitri,” Kenji says, and they all laugh, including Livvy. I figure that must be a reference to something that happened at Midsummer rehearsal, and I hate that after only one day, they’ve already formed inside jokes without me. Nobody bothers to fill me in.
“So, which show are you in?” Todd asks.
“I’m just in one of the side projects,” I say. “We haven’t started rehearsals yet.”
Kenji looks confused. “But…you’re an apprentice, right? I thought everyone got cast in something on the main stage.”
I can feel my face turning pink, but I shrug and try to look like it doesn’t bother me. “I guess my audition wasn’t as good as I thought?”
“I’m sure it was fine,” Kenji says, but he doesn’t look sure. He looks like he feels really sorry for me.
“You weren’t cast at all?” Livvy asks. “Man, I’m sorry. I guess I should stop complaining that I have to play a little boy again.”
“So, what, you’re spending the whole summer doing tech?” asks a redheaded girl who wasn’t even part of our conversation, and I wonder how many other people are listening in. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Everyone’s going to find out eventually anyway.
“Well, I still have my side project,” I say. “But, yeah, I am doing a lot of tech.”
“Wow. That’s awful,” says the redhead. She moves a little farther away from me, like my lack of talent might be contagious.
Before I can answer, Marcus bursts through the doors of Haydu with a big canvas bag over his shoulder, and everyone falls silent and backs up to clear a path for him. He doesn’t even glance at us, and when he hits the bottom of the steps, he keeps going, heading around to the back of the building like we’re not even here. We look at each other, unsure of what to do, but nobody moves until he barks, “Are you coming or not?”
We scramble into a duckling-like row behind him, and I wonder if we’ve already failed our first test. Jessa strides along in front of me, her giant puffball ponytail bobbing up and down. She looks a lot more confident than I feel, but maybe that’s because she’s so tall. I concentrate on holding my head as high as I can.
Marcus stops on a stretch of flat lawn surrounded by weeping willow trees. “Sit,” he orders, like we’re dogs, and everyone does. I expect him to lay out what we’re going to do for the next couple of hours, but instead, he launches right in like we’re already in the middle of a conversation. “Acting is not about pretending to be another person. Any actor who tells you that deserves to be blacklisted from every stage in America. Acting is an embodiment of real life. When you act, you are not recreating. You are creating.”