penning lyrics.
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mr. Ellison criticized. I was starting to regret that he was back, since his attitude was so negative. Mr. Lord’s enthusiasm, on the other hand, was contagious. “Anyway, we’re out of time for this week. These young people have other places to be, as do I.”
Actually none of us wanted to leave – we wanted to keep brainstorming ideas for turning Twilight into a musical -- but he was the advisor and he said the meeting was over.
“Okay, fine, but kids – fool around with some songs before next week’s meeting. Bring your ideas.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Mr. Ellison said. “But I suppose if you want to,” he added in response to our crestfallen faces. “Just don’t get too excited about this idea yet, until I know if we can make it work.”
“Of course it can work--” Lord shot back. The teachers argued as we filed past them out of the theatre.
Jealousy jabbed my heart as Lucey and Nigel left hand in hand, but at least I had a script to distract me now.
10: Twilight on the Brain
T O MY SHOCK AND DISMAY, for the first time in my life, I found myself thinking more about boys than theatre. It was inexplicable and indefensible.
As I started to work on the Twilight script – Mr. Ellison and Mr. Lord having announced that Zowicki approved the show -- I should have been energized by the assignment, not to mention the crisp weather as September slipped into October. October was my favorite month of the year. I loved how one day might bring Indian summer with eighty degree temperatures, and the next snow. October was impossible to script. I liked that unpredictability in Mother Nature, but not so much in myself.
My former ability to focus 24/7 on all things theatre was replaced by an absurd monomaniacal fixation with boys. In particular, Nigel. I daydreamed about him all the time – about kissing him, about the dates we never went on, and about being Bella to his Edward -- and shed considerable tears as befitted a broken romance. But Nigel and Lucey were hot and heavy already, so any future for me and Nigel was gone with the wind.
In one of my dreams, Nigel wore Alex’s favorite green T-shirt with the little frog over the heart. I think Alex – or at least his shirt – crept into my dream because he started dating Jocelyn after Nick’s party, which was extremely disturbing, even though he wasn’t my business anymore.
Alex and Jocelyn spent a lot of time with Lucey and Nigel, plus Kristina and her new boyfriend Carter. I walked through the halls of Crudup with my eyes down to avoid all of them. Lucey and Nigel found an inordinate amount of time to lean against the lockers snogging. On the other side of the hall, Jocelyn would be attacking Alex. At least he had better PDA manners than Nigel; I saw him rebuff her once from the corner of my eye. And at least my locker wasn’t in the same section as theirs, creating a buffer zone – small mercies.
Being Alex’s next-door neighbor, this campaign of nauseating togetherness invaded my home life. I pretended not to see from my bedroom window when any combination of Alex/Jocelyn/Nigel/Lucey arrived next door, and ignored the laughter and music leaking from the windows. I refused to go outside during these times for fear of running into them. I avoided playing the piano lest they eavesdrop on my heartbreaking ballads. I became a prisoner in my own home.
One of these nights, I lay on my bed in the baggy T-shirt I wore for pajamas, listening to my iPod loudly enough to cover up the music from the Holman’s house. I stared at the ceiling, feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t get a boyfriend. Granted Crudup was small with a limited boyfriend pool, but other girls had no problem finding dates or steady boyfriends.
What was wrong with me? I raised my bare leg toward the ceiling and analyzed it. Slender, long, somewhat muscular, nothing really wrong with it –
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