Chapter Ten
Callie
High school parking lots are one of the most dangerous places on earth. I don’t have statistics to back that up, but I know it’s true.
I pull into the school parking lot Monday morning in my dad’s giant, newly repaired mint-green Buick, with “Back in Black” by AC/DC blasting from the speakers. I feel tough, powerful—like I’m driving a tank.
I’m a badass teacher—I’ll run you down even if you’re a student—I’ve got twenty-nine more in class just like you.
The outfit helps too—leather boots, blue jeans, a starched white blouse, and a black leather jacket. It’s my armor. The morning air is cool and crisp today, but I barely feel it. I’m locked and loaded and ready to roll.
As I march towards the main entrance, I spot Garrett and Dean and Alison Bellinger outside the doors. They pause when they see me, waiting.
“Damn,” Dean chuckles. “Callie’s got her shit-kickers on. Did you dig them out of a mosh pit from 1993?”
Garrett crosses his arms. “Somebody’s channeling Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.”
He looks fantastic. His hair is tousled from the breeze and kisses his brow, and he’s wearing a dark-blue sweater that’s snug around his biceps and soft, worn, light-blue jeans. I remember his arms around me yesterday on my parents’ porch. The wonder and exhilaration of the moment.
Of him.
The intensity in his eyes, the desire and possessiveness in the grasp of his hands. The scorching feel of his mouth, his wet, talented tongue that made my stomach swirl and my head spin.
So much for not complicating things.
But I’m not going to play head games with myself or Garrett—we’re too old for that shit.
I have feelings for him—I always have—our breakup had nothing to do with either of us not wanting each other desperately. But these aren’t just leftover echoes of a sweet, first love—this is something new. A throbbing, breathless attraction to the amazing man he’s become. I want to be near him. I want to know him, inside and out, all over again.
And he feels the same way. Garrett wants this version of me as much as he always did—maybe even more. I heard it in his whispered words and felt it in his kiss.
I don’t know if we have a future, if it can go anywhere. We have separate lives on opposite ends of the country. But I’m not going to worry about that—for now, I’m going to take each day as it comes and enjoy every moment we can.
Except for now. Now is not the time for enjoying or worrying or relationship building . . . now is the time for focusing. Now is the time to be ice and steel—don’t smile, don’t waver.
“Little fucknutters don’t know who the hell they’re dealing with,” I growl.
Alison pumps her fist. “That’s the spirit.”
Garrett opens the door for me. “Go get ’em, Gangster’s Paradise.”
~ ~ ~
The first few periods go great. This mean-teacher shit actually works.
I scowl and frown and lay down the law. I make them take notes on stage direction and famous playwrights—the boring stuff. Fun, dramatic, silly exercises? Not today, kiddies . . . maybe not ever again. I imitate the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld—no fun for you!
I tack homework passes on the wall, to be given out at my discretion. There really isn’t any homework in theater—the only homework my drama teacher in high school, Mr. Pelligrino, ever gave us was practicing pratfalls. But these kids don’t seem to realize that. They respond to my attitude, to the role I’m playing—I am Pavlov’s bell and they’re the dogs.
Until . . . fifth period. My D&B class.
They’re different.
It’s not just because they’re the meanest of the bunch. But I see something in them, in each of them. The performer in me senses it. There’s emotion simmering in this room, talent just waiting to be tapped into.
It’s in David Burke—the slouching rebel, the Hamlet and leader of the pack. The other kids defer to him, wait for him, even if they don’t realize it. If I win him over . . . I win them all.
It’s in Layla Martinez—she’s a Juliet—quiet, tragically pretty, with the most expressive eyes I’ve ever seen.
It’s in Michael Salimander—the dark-haired, clever kid who probably only took this class to drive up his GPA. He reminds me of Puck, there’s brilliance in him, and if the comic doodles that cover his notebook are any indication, creativity too.
It’s in Simone Porchesky—the Medea, with her blue-black hair and blood-red lipstick, and a resentful chip on her shoulder.
They could emote. They could perform. They would draw all eyes to them.
They could be magnificent.
“What do you want?”
I don’t yell the question, but project my voice through the rectangular room, grabbing their attention from the scattered chairs they sit in. When they don’t answer, I take off my jacket, hang it on the back of my chair, walk around to the front of my desk and fold my arms.
“We want a striptease! I wanna see titties!” Bradley Baker yells from the back of the room.
Garrett was right—he is a dipshit.
I ignore him. “You have to be here; I have to be here. So, what do you want to do while we’re here?”
“We want you to cry again.” Simone sneers.
I nod. And look to the rest of them for answers.
“We want to do something that doesn’t suck,” Toby Gessler offers, popping an earbud out of one ear.
“We want to get out of this room,” Michael says.
“Okay. Anyone else?”
“We want money.” David smirks. “You get paid for coming here; we should too.”
The gears in my mind go spinning. With Alison’s advice and the token system my sister used with her kids when they were little, and Garrett’s words.
“The key to controlling your class, is figuring out what each kid wants . . . and giving it to them . . . letting them know . . . you have the power to take it away.”
“You know what I want?” I ask.
“We don’t care.” Bradley laughs, but no one else joins in.
“I want to put on a play. At the end of the year. With just the theater students.”
Julie Shriver hadn’t put on a play at Lakeside for years. Quickly, I flip through scripts in my head—something with a small cast, with catchy songs, something with an underdog . . . something they would like.
“Little Shop of Horrors. Do you guys know it?”
A few of them shake their heads. The others don’t respond.
“It’s about a plant from outer space. And a guy, a florist, who had been pushed around his whole life, finds it and takes care of it. Then . . . he chops up everyone who’s ever been mean to him and feeds them to his plant.”
They laugh.
“Dayum! Like Saw on Broadway,” Toby says.
“Gruesome.” David nods. “Is there blood?”
“There is.” I nod.
“No way am I getting up on a stage,” Simone scoffs. “I’d rather have my belly-button ring slowly ripped from my body. And my nose ring too.”
Bradley flinches and covers his nose.
“You wouldn’t have to,” I shoot back. “Not all of you will be actors. We’ll need . . . a director’s assistant—someone to keep things running smoothly. A stage crew to make and move the sets. Sound crew, light crew. We’d need makeup crew and costume design.”
“I’ll be in your play.” Bradley holds up his hand. “But only if I get to kiss a really hot chick.”
I’ve been on enough stages to know when my audience is captivated. Right now, this one is, so I keep it going.
“The second boy I ever kissed was in a play, a stage kiss. He shoved his tongue down my throat, even though he wasn’t supposed to, in front of an auditorium full of people.”
“That’s messed up,” Simone says.
“It was. After the performance, my boyfriend kicked the crap out of him.”
Layla’s voice is quiet, and lilting, but I hear her. “That was Coach Daniels, right? You guys used to go out when you were in high school?”
I chuckle a little. How do they know these things? No point in denying it now. “That’s right.”
Then I clap my hands. “So, how about this? You work with me and I’ll work with you. We start working on the play, and I’ll award a one-hundred-dollar gift card to the best theater student at the end of each semester.”
“Can you do that?” Michael asks.
I shrug. “We’ll call it a scholarship. I won’t ask Miss McCarthy if you won’t. If we don’t know we’re breaking the rules, we’re not really breaking them, are we?”
There’s more than one way to skin a cat . . . and there’s a bunch of ways to teach a class.
“Five hundred dollars,” David says from the back, daring me with his eyes.
I lift my chin and nod sharply.
“Done.”
My voice is brisk and authoritative, without even trying, as I walk back behind my desk.
“Michael, I’d like you to be my assistant. Auditions will start next week, and we’ll need to get crew sign-up sheets posted. Are you good with that?”
“Uh . . .” His eyes are round behind his glasses, like an owl who has no idea how he ended up on this particular branch. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Good. As for the rest of you, before auditions, there’s some basic acting techniques we need to go over.” I snap my fingers and point at the small elevated platform in the corner—the makeshift stage. “David, you first.”
He rolls his shoulders and flips his dirty-blond hair, then he rises and hops up on the stage. He lifts one leg, like a flamingo, holds his right arm over his head and his left arm straight out to the side.
I sit back in my seat and fold my arms.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m being the tree.” He grins smart-assedly. “Isn’t that what theater is all about? Feel the tree . . . be the tree . . .”
The kids laugh, and I join them.
“Theater is about taking something that’s been done a thousand times before—Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller—and making it feel like something new again. Making it your own. So forget the tree . . . be the leaves instead.”
You got this, Callie.
And I think I just might.