The First Musical: Chapter Six: Johnathan, Part 1

I should have tucked her hair behind her ear, or touched her hand, or kissed her. I should have held her close, or said something more than gorgeous. I should have done any number of things, but I hadn’t.

I sat in the practice room for a good hour or so before I finally stopped kicking myself long enough to head to my apartment. There, the kicking recommenced, but less cruelly. My mind was dazed with thoughts of her; my ears were filled with the sound of her voice. If I closed my eyes, I could see her, and when I reached out, she didn’t run away. I imagined what her skin felt like, or her chocolate hair, or her lips against mine.

Between my imaginings, I scolded myself. Someone had hurt her, and I wouldn’t prove I wasn’t the same by trying to romance her. But was it so wrong to think, for a moment, she had the same thoughts running through her mind?

“Bastard!” Carmen screeched, her hand flying across my vision and stinging my cheek in the process. I hadn’t expected the violence, but her reaction was expected.

Tact had never been a strong suit of mine. So when I had told her she couldn’t have the lead, that she wasn’t talented enough for it, I had anticipated anger and resentment.

“I don’t have the talent for it?” Her voice grated, hurting my ears and seeming to hit just the right nerve to set a headache blooming. “But you give it to Gisele? Who doesn’t even perform? Asshole!”

“You have the second best role,” I said, expecting another slap across the face. She didn’t disappoint. This time, the promise ring on her hand left a small scratch across my cheek.

“I want the lead,” she hissed before storming off.

“But I can’t give you that.”

“Sucks for you,” she snapped over her shoulder.

“Can you at least not take it out on Gisele?”

Carmen turned on her heel and marched up to me, granting me a third smack. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want to.”

Then she was gone. I ran my hand through my hair, reminded how much I despised girls like her. They were too hotheaded. It made me really grateful she hadn’t been the one. Gisele’s anger I could handle, because it could be broken down and worn away. She didn’t harbor it because her energy was better spent elsewhere. Carmen’s fury wasn’t so simple. Hers had to be cooled off over time, and even then there was no guarantee she wouldn’t hold a grudge.

I caught sight of Gisele exiting a building across the way. I didn’t go to her, but was surprised to see her head wasn’t bowed today. In the past week, some of her confidence had returned. It was a small victory, but there was still a long way to go yet.

Baron didn’t join her, as I watched. He waved as they passed, but didn’t stop to chat at all. Either Carmen had guilted him into not talking with her, or perhaps it was something I didn’t understand. Maybe he thought she had persuaded me to give her the lead. If he really did know her, though, shouldn’t he have known that was unlike her?

The First Musical: Chapter Five: Gisele, Part 3

I listened to the notes he played, soaking in their simple intricacy. The possibilities for singing these lyrics were numerous. “Because you know I love you,” I began singing, slowly, guessing this would be more of a ballad. “Though you have chosen someone—wait a minute. What?”

Johnathan stopped playing again. “What?”

“Irial knows she loves him but he’s with someone else? How does that work?”

He nodded; “Irial is at his equivalent to a bachelor party, at a tavern, when he meets Collette, who is also out with friends. They notice each other immediately, but try diverting their friends to other people—unsuccessfully, I might add. So they end up dancing together, and quickly fall in love.”

“That’s so cliché.”

“But still plausible. Especially in literature. So, anyway, here, they’re walking home and he accidently lets slip that there’s someone else, named Delilah, who he’ll marry the next day.”

“So Collette is pissed?”

“Not quite. She’s angry at first, but she doesn’t stay angry long because she does love him,” Johnathan continued. “At this point, she’s more hurt than angry, but you’ll see when she’s angry again, especially when we put the dialogue with the lyrics.”

“Okay.”

“Ready to begin again?”

“I’ll try.”

After a few measures, I began, the notes emitting from my lips different from the ones I had first sung; “Because you know I love you, though you have chosen someone else; and it tortures me to think you would abandon her for myself….”

I sang through the next verse and chorus, and when I’d come to the end of my lines, Johnathan said, “Here you and Irial converse more, and when you tell him to leave, he replies in his own section.” He then sang Irial’s part. It was more playful than Collette’s. His voice entranced me, though. There was depth to it that brought the words to life, as though he could spin the song into moving tapestries. I stared at him before long, only pulled back to the rehearsal when he said, “Then you insist on his inanity while he tries to blame you partially for this late development. At this point, you’re infuriated at the accusation, but still hurt and troubled because he won’t listen to you.”

With this brief explanation, I broke into the new section, a little faster, a little more distressed, volleying the lines with him. Toward the end I found myself staring at him, again. I hadn’t meant to, but that’s how luck would have it. There was something that drew me to him and terrified me. My brain screamed that he was dangerous, that this scenario had already played out tragically before. But Johnathan had helped reawaken in me this need to sing, and that felt like reuniting with an old friend. I didn’t want to lose it again.

“...don’t kiss me,” I finished, his blue-green eyes flying to mine as the final note died away. Something in those eyes wanted to reach out, touch me, but there was a wariness. Almost as though he believed I might be an illusion of the light.

“Gorgeous,” he whispered, his eyes still holding mine.

For the longest time neither of us said anything. We just sat there staring. My former numbness was overrun with emotions I couldn’t name and thoughts that flitted away as soon as I realized they were there. It felt like we could have stayed like that forever, statues of something that never happened and never could be. But then he moved to touch me and I snatched up my keys, running out the door before he could make a sound.

I felt guilty, leaving him so suddenly. But I didn’t need a relationship, even if I was possibly going to break my no performing rule. My mind kept thinking that if I hadn’t left, he would have kissed me.

If he had, I feared history would have repeated itself.

The First Musical: Chapter Five: Gisele, Part 2

“She can’t have the part,” Johnathan said from behind me.

I didn’t sit up or answer him; I did note that I would have usually been scared by his sudden appearance, but I reasoned it had been expected. Surprises seemed to be his forte.

“You’re the only one who can be the lead,” he said, sitting beside me on the piano bench.

Shifting my head to see his silhouette, I said, “That still doesn’t make sense. If people were born to play roles there’d never be the cookie-cutter actors crapped from art schools.”

“They have always been around.”

“So what’s different about this?” I asked wearily, sitting up again. My tantrum at the keys seemed to have drained my energy.

“The role is more demanding in its original form than most people would think. Only a certain person can fulfill its demands.”

“And I’m that person?” His head—the features slowly becoming more distinct through the blackness—nodded and I asked what I hadn’t realized I’d wanted to know: “How can you be certain?”

“Because I am. I knew the moment I first saw you, though I wasn’t so sure, then. You were so unlike what I’d imagined.”

“How so?”

“I believe you already know how. Shall we begin?”

“What?”

Johnathan reached out and pulled a cord and a small lamp on the piano revealed sheet music on the ledge.

“This is a copy of the third song. This doesn’t have all the dialogue that’s between the sections.”

“Why a copy?”

“Because the original is delicate; it’s too old to be handled much.”

“Oh.”

“Shall we begin?” he repeated, stretching out his fingers.

“I can’t read sheet music, you know.”

“All the better,” he said in his calm way, playing the opening measures. “The accompaniment is meant to be a helping hand, not a leading force.”

“But—”

“Just feel the music and sing the lyrics. I’ll sing Irial’s part.”

“So her name is Collette? That’s pretty.”

The music ceased and he turned to face me. “You’re Collette. You embody her spirit, her dilemma, her personality.”

“I know.”

“Good. Now sing.”

“Only if you swear you’ll tell Carmen why she didn’t get the lead.” Nothing I could do would sway him or fix things with her; he had to at least fix what he’d helped spoil.

“Tomorrow. Now sing.”

The First Musical: Chapter Five: Gisele, Part 1

Carmen slammed the door to our dorm and practically threw her bag across the room, plopping despaired onto her bed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, turning in my seat to face her.

She lifted her head out of her pillow and turned towards me. “I got a secondary role. He fucking gave me a secondary role. And, above all else, the character’s name is Mary Grace. Who the fuck names their kid Mary Grace?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You should be. That and ashamed. What did you do? Blow him? Or did you just out and out fuck him senseless?”

“What?” I screeched, indignant.

She back on her heels. “Well you got the lead. The part you knew I wanted.”

“I—? He didn’t.”

“He did.”

“I told him I didn’t want it,” I said. “I told him it was the wrong choice.”

“Damn right it was,” she threw her pillow at me, hitting the wall next to me. “I’m the one who’s been singing, who’s taken lessons and auditioned for everything. Who paid to go to sing camps every summer;” she slammed her fist into her other pillow.

Grabbing my keys, I left. I was done listening to her and, as crazy as it might have been, I thought there might be some way to talk him into naming someone else the lead. Outside my hall, I realized I didn’t know where to find him. So I went to the only place I thought he might be.

The lights in the room were off, and I left them that way. I dropped my keys beside me on the bench.

“Be here,” I whispered under my breath. “Please be here.”

It felt like forever that I sat there, waiting for absolutely nothing. My hatred for him, which had dissipated some days ago, was renewed. He didn’t have a right to come into my life and decide I needed to perform again. Or put something as silly as a role between my roommate and I. Johnathan wasn’t the one who’d have to live with her for the rest of the year; he didn’t have to worry about his best friend being her boyfriend. Or any of that. So for him to upturn my entire world was completely unfair, on so many levels. I had every right to hate him.

In my frustration for thinking he’d be here in the first place, my fist landed on the keys, a harsh cacophony of sound erupting in the room and slowly dying away. I felt this urge to sing grow inside me. I hadn’t felt that urge in years.

“Don’t dare apologize; I know you don’t mean it,” I began, giving into the feeling. Occasionally I’d hit a chord on the piano, helping to build and simultaneously release the anger flooding me. “Remove the sorrow from your eyes; and just admit you like it. You hurt, you tear, you pull apart. Destroy, consume, damage my heart. You could care less about it all. Don’t touch, don’t kiss, don’t even call me back. I won’t answer. Don’t follow me. You know my answer.”

No more words came, and I couldn’t tell if there was any emotion in me to fuel more. I slouched on the bench, staring at the keys. My voice was rough, it was true, but I hadn’t had lessons or sung—except for that one karaoke night—in a few years.

“Carmen really should’ve had the part,” I whispered, my arms landing crossed on the keys and my head resting on them. The plethora of notes sang and bounced around the room for a while, but I didn’t move. I was waiting for something to happen, for some emotion to move forward; but I didn’t want to cry, and any anger I had was practically a distant memory now.

The First Musical: Chapter Four: Johnathan, Part 3

The girl auditioning had a flighty little voice. I marked her sheet chorus in the event she made the cut. Chorus didn’t have a lot of parts but there would be quite a few of them for the scenes in which they did appear. Her voice wasn’t strong or powerful even with the microphone on her ear. I wasn’t even sure I was going to cast her, but I always felt badly for dismissing people before they were done. Given my latest actions, I didn’t want to feel worse than I already did.

When the mousy thing finally finished, I thanked her, calling forth the next person.

The college had allowed me to use one of the smaller auditoriums as I planned to cast mostly students in the production. There was a small balcony, but no orchestra pit, and the seats needed to be replaced. Even the walls were drab and dated. The stage, at least, was in decent condition with a beautifully carved—though faded—proscenium.

Carmen sauntered onto the stage, her blond locks pulled back into a high ponytail.

“I’ll be auditioning for the lead,” she said, as though I didn’t know already.

“You don’t even know what the available roles are.”

“I know there has to be a lead female role of some kind.”

“The production is entitled Musical as there is no other title given to it. You may claim to audition for the lead, but I will ultimately decide if you make the production at all.”

“I realize that,” she answered. “I’ll start now.”

And she did. Her voice had a certain beauty to it, but there wasn’t anything raw about it. She was trained to sing, and in that training, she seemed to have lost the soul of her voice. I marked Carmen down in one of the two secondary roles. It would suit her, playing one of the best friends to Gisele’s lead. Hopefully it would minimize damage control as she would be the better of the two.

“Thank you, and we’ll be in touch,” I said, as I had for probably the thirtieth time that night. “Next?”

A few people later, Baron stepped onto the stage. He had a demanding yet unassuming presence, standing with his feet apart and his thumbs hooked in his pockets.

“I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Sing a few lines from your favorite song.”

Shrugging, he began a country song; I was right about him. He had a great baritone voice. If I needed, he could probably hit most of the tenor and bass ranges. I marked him down for the male lead’s friend.

“Did you want a part?”

“I don’t care,” he said, shrugging again. “Did she audition?”

“Yes, she auditioned,” I said, adding a question mark to his sheet and setting it off to the side. “Thank you, we’ll be in touch. Next?”

From there the auditions went downhill. It seemed every person who had ever thought they might be able to sing came. I was somewhat grateful, though. It meant I had more time to think about Gisele and how I would begin her rehearsals.

We could start right into the thick of it, but that would be impossible. It would be giving her a crutch without her realizing it. Then when her rehearsals coincided with everyone else’s, we wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“Thank you, we’ll be in touch. Next?”

I had a month with her. In that time, she had to learn to trust me as well as herself. The production would fall apart if she didn’t trust especially herself. Trusting me was just a bonus. There had to be a balance between working on the music and working on her self-esteem. I didn’t yet know where that was.

“…Next?”

The First Musical: Chapter Four: Johnathan, Part 2

“What do you want now?” Gisele asked, her gaze fixed stonily on the textbook before her. We were in one of the study nooks of the library. It was largely empty on the Friday afternoon.

“I wanted to apologize for the situation I put you in last time.”

“Just leave me alone and we’ll call it good,” she said, leaning closer to the book as though wishing she could disappear into it to escape my presence.

Wincing, I forged onward; “I already told you I can’t. You’re my lead.”

She faced me, unable to mask her anger. To see her so furious hurt because I really was sorry.

“Casting me as the lead will ruin your production,” she said before turning away again.

“Because you really do have stage fright?” I asked. “Or because of something someone else did?”

Her hands clenched so tightly into fists to suppress their shaking, her skin paled. Tension seized her body and she refused to look at me. “What do you know about that?” she asked softly.

“Nothing really,” I said, taking the empty seat on the other side of her. “It’s all speculation.”

“Keep it that way.”

“I’ll need to know if I’m going to help you.”

“I don’t want your help,” she snipped, glaring at me.

“You will if you’re going to be ready to perform.”

“What makes you think I want to perform? I haven’t performed in over two years and I’ve been perfectly happy.”

“That’s a lie. You aren’t happy.”

“You don’t know me well enough to make that judgment.”

“Either way, you were born to perform. You come alive when you perform.” I was prepared to fight her every step of the way; I had mentally readied myself to deal with any emotional breakdown she might face. There wasn’t anything that could happen I couldn’t support her through if she let me.

“That sounds as convincing as saying you were born an angel of good intent.”

“I wasn’t. I never said I was, either.” Gisele glared harder at me. It’s hard to say I hadn’t deserved it. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Because that’s so comforting to know.”

“It may or may not be, but it’s true. Your rehearsals start in a week. The practice room, for now,” I said, not wanting to add to her hostility any more than I already had.

“My rehearsals?” She cocked her eyebrows.

“You’re my lead. The first month will be private rehearsals. If you don’t show up, I’ll drag you there.”

“How can I convince you you’re wrong? That you need to cast someone else?” she asked, better concealing her anguish.

“I’m not wrong,” I assured her, standing. “I’ll help you see that.”

The First Musical: Chapter Four: Johnathan, Part 1

She has the most angelic voice I’ve ever heard. It was cruel what I did, but I realized it was the only way I could guarantee she would audition. Relying on Baron and Carmen wasn’t working. She had left me no other choice.

And now I better understood the source of her stage fright. It was less fear and more a reminder of a betrayal. Helping her overcome it would be much more challenging than I’d anticipated; it wouldn’t help she already distrusted me.

I had her, though. Gisele stood up to me, pushed back. I still unnerved her for whatever reason, which fueled her distrust. But when she ran from me this time, it wasn’t in fear.

The next day, I didn’t shadow her; I didn’t even go to the campus. She was emotional—whether pissed off, sad, or some harrowing combination of the two—and I preferred she work through it without having to deal with me. I didn’t want to make things worse.

But as I sat reviewing the musical, modernizing some of the dialogue, I couldn’t help but remember how she had cried. Though I knew she had to be the lead—and her audition further proved that—I wished there had been an easier way for her to realize that as well. Hurting her wasn’t what I had intended to do. She had to be strong.

At this rate, I wasn’t sure when would be a good time to tell her who was starring opposite her. The most probable reaction would be quite dramatic.

It's finals week

Dear readers,

In all honesty, this has been a long and challenging semester for a myriad of reasons. I have spent the weekend wrapping up a final project and will be spending the next few days working on a take-home final, completing a group project and presentation, giving a final, computing final grades, and editing and submitting a conference submission. Then I plan on allowing my brain to not think for a little while and cleaning my apartment (which hasn't received a good cleaning since spring break).

All this to say there will be no new posts this week. There is still more to share related to The First Musical, but I haven't had time or energy to go through it yet. I will try to have more ready to go for next week. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Teagen