Jensen strides over to her with a metronomic military gait that reminds me of my father. I amble to the middle of the roof and stop, far enough from the edge that I have the illusion that I’m not four stories up. If I stay here, I can handle this. I stand with hands in pocket and regret my choice to wear a T-shirt today.
Jensen and Twintails confer for a moment, going over the form I’d filled out. Jensen shakes her head a lot; Twintails nods. Finally, “Mr. Shoemaker?” Twintails looks up.
It’s [ˈʃuːmaxɐ].
“Very well, Mr. [ˈʃuːmaxɐ]. Would you be so kind as to recite us a poem?”
A poem?
“Yes.”
Off the top of my head?
“We need to hear your voice and how you project. Anything will do. A single verse is fine.” She pulls a cellphone from her pocket and holds it up like she’s going to take a photo.
Very well, then.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Marvelous,” the porcelain doll says and makes a genteel clap.
“Good volume,” the pink haired girl says.
“Yes,” Twintails says. She fiddles with her phone’s screen for a second. “Liz, would you stand next to him.”
The demure girl hops off the parapet and comes over to me. She’s quite short, the top of her head level with my lowest rib, and I feel like Dorothy in Munchkinland next to her. She's kinda cute, I suppose, but she looks too... I dunno, pure for my taste. Too much like the daughter on an old '50s sitcom, all goodness and obedience.
Twintails snaps a picture of us, stares at the screen for a moment then shakes her head in disapproval. “No, no, no.”
“I'm sorry,” the demure girl says and heads back to the group.
“Liz, you stand next to him.”
The girl in the tweed coat comes forward. “Heya,” she says and throws an arm over my shoulder. She’s only half a head taller than the other Liz, but her poise makes her feel much closer to my height.
“Excellent.” Twintails holds up the phone for another picture. “Turn towards each other. Now give each other looks of smoldering passion.”
Tweedy Liz twines her fingers behind my neck and pulls my head down until it’s mere inches from her face and all I can see are her muddy brown eyes. Our bodies are tight against each other, her breasts pressing into me, her warm breath on my neck. This is my first experience with drama and I’m really kinda liking it.
“Yes, that’s it. [ˈʃuːmaxɐ], grab her by the shoulders. I want you to look like you’re about to tear her clothes off.”
I raise my hands, hesitate. I don't even know this girl. Is it really okay to touch her like that? My hands tremble as I grab Tweedy Liz by the shoulders, my fingers sinking into her coat as part of me expects her to pull away, to scream that I’m assaulting her. But instead she lifts a leg and hooks it around my knee. My leg gives out and we sink towards the ground.
“Superb improvisation,” Twintails says.
“I think this has gone far enough,” Jensen says.
Tweedy Liz and I are both on our knees, arms around each other. Her head moves towards mine and before I know what’s happening, our lips are touching. She has flavored lip-gloss—cherry to be exact—and I can tell she had nacho chips for lunch. Her tongue slides across my lips. She eases me back towards the asphalt, her body following mine down, her weight pressing down onto me. I’m starting to wonder what kind of script this is when Twintails announces, “Very good. That will suffice.”
Tweedy Liz stops on a sudden. Her arms let go of me and I collapse onto the rooftop. “Great work,” she says as she stands up. She takes out a compact to check her makeup and fix her hair.
You too. Very believable.
I struggle back to my feet, hoping like hell nobody notices the bulge in my jeans right now.
“Wow, Liz, that was amazing,” the purple haired twin says.
“Yeah, I could totally believe you’re a slut,” her sister says.
“Thank you!”
“Now then,” Twintails says, “Lucretia.”
“What?” Jensen says.
“You’re next.”
“What?”
“Stand next to him, please.”
Jensen stalks towards me, giving me the evil eye. “Don’t get any ideas,” she says as she takes position next to me.
“Yes, that looks great,” Twintails says, snapping a photo. “Turn towards each other.”
We do.
“Show me some passion.”
We stand there. Jensen glares at me, which makes it absolutely impossible for me to muster anything resembling passion.
“Whoa,” the pink haired girl says.
“I haven’t seen such intensity since Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson were in Beyond the Rocks,” the porcelain doll says.
“That is amazing,” Demure Liz says.
“No way we can compete with that,” Tweedy Liz says.
“Grab her by the shoulders, [ˈʃuːmaxɐ], like before.”
I hesitate.
“Do what she says,” Jensen tells me, though the look on her face makes me think I’d be better off running for the next county. Nonetheless, I reach up and grab her by the shoulders, pulling her against me.
“That better be a roll of pennies in your pocket,” she whispers in my ear.
Quarters, actually.
“Common courtesy is, you get a girl drunk before trying to convince her of that.”
“Fantastic,” Twintails says. “Now pull him down, Lucretia.”
“That’s not part of the script!”
Disappointed groans go up from the audience.
“Very well, then, I suppose this shall do.”
Jensen pulls away, stalks back to Twintails’ side.
Twintails works her fingers across her phone for a few seconds, stops to read something, then looks up. “Now, according to Liz’s notes, you have a very fine ass. Could you please demonstrate this talent for us?”
You wouldn’t really call that a talent, now would you?
“However you classify it, it’s a necessary portion of the casting process.”
I highly doubt that.
“It really isn’t,” Jensen says while rubbing her head like she has a migraine.
Something creaks behind me. I spin around expecting to see a teacher coming up to ask what the hell we’re doing—well, at least she didn’t come up five minutes ago when me and Tweedy Liz were on the ground—but instead I find a girl standing atop the elevator shed, her cellphone pointing right at me. Her hair is cropped short in a pixie cut and she has on boyish clothes such that, if not for the swell of her chest, I would’ve mistaken her for a guy. Her skin is a dark teak, could be Arab, Persian, Indian. “Got him,” she says and flicks her fingers at the phone screen.
A moment later a half dozen cell phones start chiming with incoming messages. When I turn, back all the girls save Jensen have their phones out.
“Mmm,” the purple haired girl says.
“I would most like to spread marmalade on that,” the porcelain doll says.
“I’d rather slap some baloney on it,” the pink haired girl says. What does that even mean?
“Save as wallpaper,” Tweedy Liz says.
“IT’S NOT THAT NICE!” Jensen says. Thank you! No, wait...
“Yes, exactly as Liz described,” Twintails says.
“She has great taste,” Demure Liz says.
“Don’t mind them.” A voice comes from over my shoulder. I twist my head to see the pixie girl standing behind me. “They’ll be over this in a week—less if Ryder picks up any more cute recruits.”
“We can only hope.” Jensen joins us. “I hope the director’s okay with how this is going.”
I thought Twintails was director. She’s certainly running things.
“Enmity?” the pixie girl says. “Nah, she loves acting too much. She could never direct.”
So where is the director?
“Oh, she’s around somewhere.” The pixie girl’s phone chirps. “Speaking of.” She glances at the screen. “Yup, she wants some line readings. Oi, Enmity, where’re the scripts?”
“Bring forth the scripts,” Twintails—Enmity—shouts.
Demure Liz scrambles forward with two thick sheafs of paper, photocopies by the look of them. She hands one to me and one to Jensen.
“Why do I have to do this?” Jensen says.
“You have such good chemistry with him,” pixie girl says.
“Don’t you start too.”
Pixie girl ignores her. “Take it from page ninety-two. Schumacher, you read Haversham, Lucy, you’re Emma.”
We both flip through our scripts until we find the spot.
“You picked this on purpose, didn’t you?” Jensen says.
“Me? Never.” Pixie girl points her phone at us in a way that I infer means she’s recording this. Jensen sticks up her middle finger and jams it right in front of the lens while her other hand holds up the photocopy so she can read.
EMMA: Oh, Charles, please tell me you’re uninjured.
HAVERSHAM: Don’t fret, dear Emma, the Boche’s shot missed me clean.
EMMA: That is a fine relief. I could not bear the thought of being separated from you. If you should die, I would go to the cliffs and—
HAVERSHAM: Say it not. A light so beautiful as you should not be snuffed out like a candle at midnight.
EMMA: But Charles, so many candles have been snuffed out all over Europe. Even here on our blessed isle of Albion, the barbarous Hun rains death upon us with the indiscriminance of a child hurling mud against a wall.
HAVERSHAM: That is why we must fight on, even should the whole of the free world seek the vain safety of neutrality—England alone shall persevere, or the whole world shall writhe under Hitler’s iron heel.
EMMA: Oh, Charles, so brave and stolid.
“That’ll do.” Pixie girl touches her screen and then slides the phone into her pocket. “Good job on ya both.” She’s fighting back a snicker.
Wait, seriously, this is the play we’re doing? I close my script and hand it back to Demure Liz.
“Indeed it is.” Jensen doesn’t seem any more enthused than I am.
“Best we could find that meets our criteria,” pixie girl says.
And what, pray-tell, is that?
“Well, the cast has to be mainly female, and the royalties within our budget.”
Which is?
“If,” Enmity says, “we succeed in blackmailing our adviser into rejoining us, we should get approximately a hundred dollars from the school.”
A Franklin? That’s it?
“Indeed,” Jensen says.
Don’t you have, like, a treasury? Money from the ticket sales of your last play?
“We do not talk about it,” every girl on the roof says in unison with much solemn shaking of heads.
“We... could do a fundraiser,” Demure Liz says after a moment. “Like a bake-sale or a—”
“Don’t say it,” Jensen says.
“—carwash.”
Now there’s an idea. Middle-aged pervos are always looking to get their cars waxed by hot young—oof!
Jensen elbows me in the ribs. “Yes, we could also rob a bank,” she says.
“Ooo, I like that,” the pink-haired twin says.
“Our dad has some guns we could borrow,” her violet haired sister says.
“I dunno, I think the carwash is better,” Demure Liz says.
I quite agree.
Death glare from Jensen, no surprise. “We are on the roof, you realize?”
Do I look like Jacopo de’ Pazzi to you, Lucretia?
“That was the de Medicis, and besides defenestration requires a window.”
Then I guess I’m safe.
“Do you want me to—”
“Wow, the belligerent sexual tension here is unbelievable,” the pink haired twin says.
“So much passion boiling under the surface, it sets me aquiver,” the elegant porcelain doll says.
“Sex on the floor! Sex on the floor!” Tweedy Liz chants.
“I’ve never seen such an obvious example of an ‘OTP’,” the purple haired twin says.
“I-I think I’m going to go home and write a fanfic about them,” Demure Liz says.
“Ooo, send it to me when you’re done,” pixie-cut says.
“Et tu, Ritu?” Jensen says.
“Can’t help it. I got a thing for kill-kill-kiss-kiss romances.”
Can you really call it “fanfic” if it’s about real people?
“Of all the things wrong with this discussion, that’s not even in the top ten,” Jensen says.
“Don’t worry, I’ll post it on Facebook when I’m done,” Demure Liz says.
Please don’t.
Enmity raises her hand and the group immediately falls silent. “Hear me, and hear me well,” she says with all the gravitas of Charlton Heston getting ready to smash the Ten Commandments. “There shall be no spawning in this club without my permission.”
“Thank you for settling that,” Jensen says amid groans from the rest of the group.
“However, I recognize that unresolved sexual tension is a poison to group dynamics, so I hereforthwith order you, Lucretia, to throw [ˈʃuːmaxɐ] to the ground and ravish him with great force.”
Moderate force would be acceptable.
“How about, ‘no’?” Jensen says.
Yeah, I’m gonna have to agree.
“If that is your choice, then so be it, but I must warn you: men are fickle beasts. If you do not ensnare him soon, his affection will surely wander.”
Objection, your honor. I would needs have affection for her before it could wander.
“Let it wander, if there’s any woman foolish enough to take it.”
The twins squee.
“That’s so romantic,” Demure Liz says. “Like Princess Leia calling Chewbacca a walking carpet.”
I definitely don’t want you writing fanfic about me.
“Our very own Beatrice and Benedick,” the porcelain doll says.
“‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me,’” Jensen says, but that only encourages them.
‘What, my dear Lady Disdain. Are you yet living?’
And that don’t do anything but make matters worse. Thankfully we’re saved by the bell—or, more accurately, by the opening strains of Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage” from Enmity’s cell.
“Yes? ... Understood, I’ll send her right down.” She hangs up. “Liz has located another recruit.”
“Hopefully he’s better than the last one,” Jensen says.
Oh, she wounds me. How she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul.
“I’ll go and fetch him at once.”
“Very well. You may go as well,” Enmity tells me. “We shall have a read through tomorrow. Make sure you are here.”
If I don’t find anything better to do, sure.
“If you do not come, my minions shall hunt you down and harvest your organs for stew meat.”
Okay then, I’ll be here.
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