“Hey! I got a part!” he said, beaming. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We’re putting it on in the studio where I take class. The performance is a week from Saturday. Can you come?”
“I’ll try. I’ve got two big assignments,” she said. The upperclassmen always said that you could tell the freshmen by the look of terror in their eyes.
“I think they’re trying to kill us,” Jake said, pulling a PowerBar out of his pocket. “Sorry, that’s breakfast and lunch. I haven’t had time to eat all day.” She laughed. She hadn’t either. “If you come to the play, we can have dinner after, if you want.” She hesitated, not wanting to encourage him for a romance she didn’t have time for. She was running from one class to the next, and then rushing to the library to do homework. She had called Lara once to say she was okay, but had had time for nothing else. Dating was out of the question. She didn’t see how anyone could manage it. “I’ll check in with you closer to the time,” he promised, and took off on a skateboard he’d been carrying. She wished she had Rollerblades sometimes to get places faster. She was using her bike a lot, but even that didn’t seem fast enough.
A week later, Jake knocked on her door. He looked tired and had a stack of scripts under his arm. “Are you catching up?” he asked with a warm smile.
“Not really. I feel like the last skater in the Ice Follies. I don’t think I’m going to catch up for the next four years.” She was panicked about it.
“I’ll give you a ticket to the play,” he said, as he handed her one. “Come if you can. If you can’t, I understand. No pressure.”
“Thanks, Jake,” she said, happy to see him again. At least he was a familiar face in a sea of unknown ones.
In the end, she left the library at six-thirty on Saturday, and decided to go to his play. She had the ticket in her backpack, and slipped into a seat in one of the studios where they held classes and small performances in the Tisch building. The play started on time, and Jake was powerful in the role he’d been given. She was stunned by how talented he was, how professional, and how convincing he was onstage. It was a masterful performance by all of the players.
“You were fantastic!” she told him when he met her in the hall afterward. She had waited for him.
“I screwed up about four times, and blew my lines.”
“I didn’t notice,” she said honestly.
“Do you have time for a pizza? I’m starving. I threw up before the performance.”
“Sure. I’ve got to go back and work after that, though.”
They walked a few blocks to a pizza parlor bursting with students, but they found a small table for two, and each ordered a pizza. She ordered a small Margherita and Jake an extra-large with everything on it, including anchovies. When it arrived, she looked at it in horror.
“That looks disgusting.”
“Yeah, doesn’t it. I can hardly wait to eat it,” he said, and she laughed. “So tell me your story,” he said with a huge slice of pizza heading toward his mouth.
“No story,” she said simply. “Four years of high school and here I am.”
“No documentaries, never ran for public office, no national awards, or two years in prison? How did you get in here?” She laughed at the image and shook her head with a mouth full of pizza. “Brothers? Sisters? A boyfriend? Parents you love or hate? Your mother’s a drug dealer and your father’s in rehab?”
“No brothers, sisters, or boyfriend.” She’d never had one but didn’t tell him that. It made her sound like a freak. She’d had a few dates in high school, but no serious romances. “No broken heart, no rehab. My mother was…is…an actress. My father’s a businessman. My parents divorced when I was seven, and my mom moved to L.A. I grew up with my father in New York, and I have a fantastic stepmother, who talked my father into letting me come here. He wanted me to be an accountant or a lawyer.”
“No evil stepmother? Christ, you’re disgustingly normal. No drama there.” There was more drama than she was admitting to, but she didn’t know him well enough to tell him. He was destroying her comfortable position of being invisible. He wanted to see and know everything. “Okay, my turn. A sister, two half-brothers, and two stepbrothers, who are twins. My parents are divorced, but still love each other, even though they’re married to other people. Sometimes we all go on vacation together, which is insane. My mom’s a psychiatrist, my dad runs a newspaper, my stepfather is a novelist, and my stepmother was an artist but is now addicted to plastic surgery. They’re all crazy, and most of the time I love them. No one in jail or rehab yet, but I’m sure we’ll get there. My stepbrothers are only five and still have a long way to go. My whole family thinks it’s funny that I want to be an actor. I grew up in a three-ring circus, but they’re all pretty nice people. My stepmom is a little weird, but my father is happy with her. It’s a wonder he even recognizes her. She gets a new face every year.” Antonia laughed. He seemed surprisingly normal, considering the cast of characters, and by the time he had finished describing them to her, he had eaten his entire pizza. She was still working on hers.