Understudy
Cheyanne
Young
Genre:
YA Contemporary Romance
Date
of Publication: Feb 15th, 2014
ISBN:
978-1495380525
ASIN:
B00IGRK2PC
Number
of pages: 178
Word
Count: 45,000
Cover
Artist: GoOnWrite.com
The
high school play is in two months and senior Wren Barlow just became
director. Wren still isn't over the fact that she got stiffed as a
stagehand instead of the lead role that she totally deserved. Now she
is in charge of rehearsals, costumes, navigating around cast member
hookups and managing the real life drama at home.
The
principal counts on her to succeed because tickets have been sold and
the money has been spent. But when he drops a gorgeous bad boy on her
and wants him to help the play for extra credit, she falls hard for
someone she knows she can't date.
With
everything spinning out of control, the mysterious and secretive
detention king named Derek has a few tricks up his sleeve and wants
to help—too bad Wren is scared to give him a chance to prove
himself
Chapter
1
It’s
two forty-five on the dot and my stomach is nestled firmly in my
throat. Ms. Barlow sits in her director’s chair at the back of the
theater arts classroom. She tells me to stand on the zebra print x
made of tape in front of the white board, in the place she usually
stands while she’s teaching class. Today is the first day I’ve
seen the zebra print x. I wonder if that’s the same zebra print
tape she took away from a freshman last week.
The
classroom is abnormally dark with a single spotlight shining directly
on my face. I wish I’d worn makeup. My nose is too oily, I just
know it. Three stapled-together pages of Ms. Barlow’s original
script shake in my hands as I stand, waiting for her signal to start.
She
has a peacock feather tucked behind her ear and a pen in her hand as
she scribbles something on her clipboard. Her bright orange hair is
gray in the dark. I clear my throat.
“Yes
Wren,” she says without taking her eyes off her clipboard. “You
were auditioning for a minor role, but then you switched for the role
of Gretchen? Am I reading your chicken scratch handwriting
correctly?”
“Yes
ma’am,” I say, wondering if I should tell her I signed up for
auditions while writing on someone’s back in the hallway before
class and that’s why my handwriting resembles chicken scratch. I
wasn’t going to audition at all until Mom pointed out the
requirements in The Art Institute of Lawson catalog places a strong
emphasis on extracurricular activities. And if I’m going to be in a
school play for the sole purpose of winning the affections of my
dream college, I might as well do it right. Even if my best friend is
also auditioning for the lead role.
Ms.
Barlow stares at me over the rim of her purple teardrop glasses,
appraising me as if she doesn’t see me in class every day.
“You
do know Gretchen’s role includes a lot of kissing with the male
costar?”
I
didn’t know that, but I nod anyway. It’s too late to back out
now. Plus I like kissing. I can handle kissing.
Ms.
Barlow laces her fingers together and rests them in her lap on top of
her clipboard. “You may begin.”
I
swallow. The words on my paper blur into a mess of jumbled letters
that form nonexistent words. Good thing I have it memorized. I
crumple the papers and hold them in my clenched fist.
“Jeremy?
Is that you?” I squint my eyes, which comes naturally with the
blinding spotlight on me and take a step forward. “Jeremy, get
down! What the hell are you thinkin’? Are you crazy?”
“Stop.”
Ms. Barlow’s hand flies out. She tilts her head to glare at me over
the rim of her glasses. “Why do you sound like a melodramatic
southern belle?”
“Because
my character lives in Alabama?”
She
shakes her head. “No. Do it again.”
My
heart pounds so hard it turns my chest into goo. “Jeremy! Get down!
What the hell are you thinking—are you crazy?”
Ms.
Barlow lowers her voice and assumes Jeremy’s lines. “What do you
care?” she says with a snarl.
“Of
course I care.” I clench my chest. “Jeremy, you can’t jump.”
“Give
me three good reasons why I shouldn’t jump off this bridge and end
my worthless life right now. Actually, just give me one.”
I
heave a sigh, a big dramatic one like I’ve practiced in front of my
mirror for the last two days. Unfortunately it comes out like I’m
choking on my own spit. I ignore the teacher’s disappointed nod.
“How about this one?” I say, tossing my hands up in surrender as
I stare at the empty desk in front of me, pretending it’s Jeremy.
“I’m in love with you.”
“You’re
too fat,” Ms. Barlow says.
“Huh?”
That isn’t the script.
She
marks something on her clipboard and flips to the next page. “I’m
sorry Wren. Despite your…attempted…acting, you know I’d love to
give you the lead role but you’re just too fat.”
“I’m
not fat,” I say confidently, because I know I’m not fat. Is she
even allowed to say that to a teenage girl? Sure, I gained a few
pounds over the summer but that hardly makes me fat. Plus, I’m on
day twenty-six of the 20 Minute Abs DVD, and if I tighten my core I
totally have a six pack under the inch or so of flab.
“Gretchen
is five feet ten inches and a hundred and five pounds. She’s an
aspiring model.”
“It
doesn’t say that in the script.” I wag my papers at her.
Ms.
Barlow’s short hair flies around her face as she whips her glasses
to the top of her head. “That’s irrelevant. It says that in my
mind and I am the writer and the director.”
I
wish the lights were on so I could glare at her, and not just at the
darkish blob I can see. I don’t stomp my foot on the floor, but I
want to. “I’m telling Mom.”
She
waves away my threat with a flourish of her hand. “Good. And while
you’re at it, tell her to stop filling the house with ding-dongs
and Twinkies. It’ll do you both a favor.”
Okay.
This is about to blow up to epic-Barlow-like proportions if I don’t
do something to scale it back. I smooth my hands over my shirt and
stand straight. “You’re right, Aunt Barlow, I’m sorry. But I
really want this part so if there’s anything I can do to make
myself perfect for the role, please let me know.”
“I’m
Ms.
Barlow while in school. I’m not your aunt right now, I’m your
director.”
“Yes,”
I say, humbling myself to her greatness, something she laps up like
starved puppy. Ms. Barlow starred in Broadway plays in her younger
years, before age and three divorces and heaps of melodrama took its
toll and made her resemble a haggard man.
“Why
do you even want this role? You watched me slave over this script all
summer and you never cared.”
“I
care,” I say. But she’s right. I don’t care about this stupid
school play.
So
even though I have no interest in a school play, probably because my
mom, the failed actress, and my aunt, the failed Broadway
star-turned-theater arts teacher shoved acting down my throat since I
was in infancy, I am going to get this role. And then my picture will
be put in the yearbook and The Art Institute of Lawson will be
impressed and they will accept me and I’ll get an awesome job as an
interior decorator.
That
all starts with Wren Barlow playing the lead role in the Lawson High
School play.
Ms.
Barlow taps her foot on the footrest in her tall chair. She scribbles
something on her clipboard that makes her nose crunch up like she’s
smelled something bad. “Thanks for auditioning, Wren. Will you send
in the next student?”
About
the Author:
Cheyanne
is a native Texan with a fear of cold weather and a coffee addiction
that probably needs an intervention. She loves books, sarcasm, nail
polish and paid holidays. She lives near the beach with her family,
one spoiled rotten puppy and a cat who is most likely plotting to
take over the world.
She
also writes under the pen name Amy Sparling.
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