Chapter Text
East Highland Community Theatre is running The Sound of Music. Again.
Specifically, they’re doing it for the sixth time in ten years, which is already more than a small town theatre company needs to produce anything, nevermind the singular most popular musical in history.
Lexi’s 80% sure the only reason they keep running this show is because Ms. Walters has been officially retired from local theatre for 15 years, and can’t be assed to learn any new music. Of course, they don’t have the budget for new costumes either; at least five Liesl’s have worn this exact sailor suit before her, and she’s pretty confident the theatre lights have ensured that she can smell all of them, regardless of how many times this thing gets dry cleaned.
At least they’re investing in a new set this year, with a movable staircase for "Farewell," benches and a whole (well, half) gazebo for her and Ethan’s dance. For the first time in over a decade they even get new flats from the art school students: a field of wild flowers that look significantly happier than the ones painted somewhere around 2007, massive curving windows for the main house. Mr. Grant let’s her look at the design ideas, if only because she’s the only one who asks and he seems very overwhelmed running a whole show without an assistant director.
Which she’s not, not technically, but she does get to offer suggestions on where to place the set pieces, when to bring in more ensemble, on whether the elementary school kids come across just the wrong side of precocious (they always do, but that’s children in the theatre.) She’s the one who has to deal with actor meltdowns, like Danielle refusing to wearing the habit even for the first 10 minutes, just because it covers up her new dye job, or Ethan struggling with his fears of humanizing a guy who elects to turn his back on a struggling family to align with a bloodthirsty political party.
“That’s literally the point of the role,” she tells him, and Ethan still mopes around for all of lunch break, before he gets to show off his UCLA summer dance lessons. She doesn’t blame him for that one; there’s few things women in drama love more than a guy who can dance, and Ethan's nice enough. If somebody gets laid out of this show, it might as well be him, because it certainly isn't going to be Mr. Grant. Not with that hairline.
Ethan’s not so subtly accepting phone numbers from various nuns while she takes a look at the nearly-finished backdrop. The flowers are beautiful, spiraling around hills that very nearly look alive, right up until the furthest corner, where things have gotten a bit anachronistic.
There’s a kid bent over atop the flat, brush in hand as he traces a long stemmed something, bright yellow and standing out amongst the carefully drawn fields.
“What’s that?”
The boy tilts his head back to regard her with a flat kind of expression, like this is a question that really didn’t need voicing.
“’S a sunflower.”
It’s not really that at all, more a sad kind of yellow stalk, but there’s a difference between a helpful comment and outright derision, and one is best left to her and Mr. Grant after the rest of the cast goes home.
“Okay,” she tries to use her babysitting voice, kind of high pitched and saccharine, but she can tell right away he doesn’t care for that. “Can you see any other sunflowers here?”
He humors her, stands and does a long, obvious sweep of the backdrop, before turning back to face her. “Nah, I don’t.”
“So, why are you painting a sunflower?” It feels obvious, the way everything about this show should feel obvious, but goddamn if everyone else just doesn’t seem to get that.
“‘Cause they told me to paint a fuckin’ flower.” He drops the brush back in the can, flicks his eyes up towards the ceiling like he’s asking for help. “Look, you want somethin’ else, I’ll paint somethin’ else.”
She takes another look at his unfortunate creation; he had the right colors, but the wrong shape, petals that sag in an oblong circle, stark against the soft blue sky.
“We were just going for a wildflowers theme, right? So, think, like, blues and purples and reds.” Lexi tries to gesture out towards the remainder of the flat, the sections the art department finished last week. He follows her gaze, seems to linger on the bunches of blue flowers, and the look that comes over his face feels kind of like someone is pinching her sharply on the arm.
He squats back down without another word, picks up the brush and starts to clean it off, and she feels the need to explain something that she can’t quite articulate.
“Not that- I don’t mean yours is bad, or anything.”
When he glances back up his eyebrows are knit together, but he doesn’t seem mad, just kind of resigned. “Y’want me to paint over it?”
“Yes,” she whispers, like if it’s quiet it won’t hurt his feelings so much.
He goes to work immediately, filling in the same blue of the sky over his handiwork, and she should probably go back to Mr. Grant with some more notes on Danielle’s solo because the girl desperately needs them, but she just keeps hovering over his shoulder like she’s frozen in place.
He notices, pauses and looks at her just from the corner of his eye, waiting for her to make another remark.
“Are you in art school?” She asks, more out of curiosity than anything else, because he’s gripping the brush with the same tension she holds her own pencil late at night, when writing feels as foreign as solving chemistry equations, and she can barely remember that this sort of thing is supposed to make her happy.
He shakes his head roughly, focusing on the solid blue strips across the fabric. He keeps a hand set on the flat to steady himself, drawing short, sharp lines, covering up what she’s realizing must have taken him much of today’s rehearsal.
“It’s a community service,” he says suddenly, and the brush scrapes the material a little more harshly.
“You’re volunteering?” Technically, they’re all volunteering, because this place hasn’t made a profit in over two decades, but that seems even less likely for him, squeezing a paint brush like it’s unfamiliar and looking as if he’d be more comfortable literally anywhere else in the world.
He lets out a little noise that might be a laugh, if he gave it some time and effort, and she wasn’t literally breathing down his neck.
“The court said I gotta perform 250 hours community service, so here I fuckin’ am. Servicin’ your community,” he huffs out the last words just as he finishes the cover up job, and she feels that pinching again, all along her neck this time.
“Got it,” Lexi answers, but he doesn’t look back up, just keeps watching the flat, his handiwork steadily erased. “That kinda makes sense, um, about the sunflower. ‘Cause, I guess, people like you wouldn’t really think about that stuff.”
He sits with that for a second, before he stands again, slowly, not in any kind of hurry, but like he wants to be looking at her when he says what follows.
“People like me?”
As always, it does sound far worse out in the open than it did in her head. “Just… Not a theatre person…” She swallows the words, unsure where she was going with that, if it would really help anything right now.
He stuffs a free hand in his pocket, rocks back on his heels, eager to get away. “How ‘bout you tell me exactly what you want? So that way we can both know I ain’t gonna fuck it up.”
She wants to apologize -she should apologize, because there’s being attentive to detail and then there’s being an asshole- but he just has this resigned sort of look, and if she draws this out any longer she’ll run the risk of putting her foot in her mouth yet again, as she’s too often wont to do.
“I think some more red flowers would be nice.”
“Fuckin’ great.” He turns back to hover over the drying paint, something evidently more engaging than continuing to discuss anything with her, and it’s enough of a response that Lexi feels the conversation has reached its natural end.
Even so, she wants to open her mouth for some reason, not an apology, but some kind of explanation about how important theatre is to the local culture, and how he really is doing her a service here, but Mr. Grant waves her back to the stage for “Maria,” and when she looks over her shoulder, he’s staring down at the flat with a hard look of concentration.
Luckily, the ensemble numbers are coming along better than others, mostly because it’s the third time half of the nuns have played these same roles. There’s something comforting in that, in going through the same motions you’ve always done and knowing what to expect, no character studies, no solo struggles. Just the same part you’ve lived before, the very day this person exists in always.
In a weird way, Lexi thinks that’s why she’s always enjoyed theatre. It’s not like math, where there’s just the one answer, or writing, where she has to explain every little thought that bounces around someone’s head, justify a reason for lines of dialogue. On stage, there’s different options, several ways to play the same character, but they don’t all work the same. And someone tells you, definitively, if something isn’t working, so you can fix it. Someone tells you what to say, who to love, who to hate. How to feel. Acting makes you turn your brain off, because if you’re thinking too much, you’re already failing.
Unfortunately for her, Danielle doesn’t seem to find the same appreciation for critique, and her comment about being more energetic during her introduction is met with one of the largest eye rolls she’s seen in her life.
“Why don’t you show me, Lexi?”
She should be smarter than to take bait like that, but she also knows she can do it significantly better than anything the other girl is bringing to the stage. So she takes the suitcase and goes behind the carved doors to the fake mansion, takes a short breath and envisions herself on the biggest stage, in front of a crowd who came to see her, hundreds who will wait outside the stage door to tell her how fucking brilliant she is, they’ve never seen an extremely well known character from an incredibly popular family musical performed this way. And she bursts through the doors and into the Von Trapp’s living room with a bold smile, arms open to receive the lingering snickers of Danielle and two of the nuns, who shouldn’t even be on stage right now.
“Okay, so, like-“ Danielle mocks her movement exaggeratedly, arms outstretched, clown smile on her face, and for the first time, Lexi wishes she’d taken Maddy up on that offer to teach her how to properly throw a punch.
“If you could focus on the role and stop gossiping about ugly guys with your stupid friends, yeah. Like that.”
All three girls look momentarily dumbstruck, which is a very nice image, one that sends a current of something like pleasure down her spine, before the blonde one lets out a hacking laugh.
“You’re such a fucking bitch,” Danielle snaps, and if all eyes in the theatre weren’t on them before, they certainly are now. “I know you don’t have a life outside here, but the rest of us do.”
She drops the suitcase back to the ground, tries to walk off stage without thinking of every single person staring at her, but that’s a task easier said than done, and her shoe scrapes the bottom step as she stumbles off.
“I’m sorry you’re not good enough and you gotta take it out on everybody else, but this shit’s supposed to be fun, Lexi. Do you even know what that is?”
It gets harder to walk at a normal pace, and the aisle is blurring as she picks up speed, pushing through the double doors and rushing up the stairs as fast as character shoes can take her. She trips again, over an uneven step or her inability to see right now, scrapes a knee on the covered floor, but it’s hard to feel with the sting in her eyes and the cold sensation overwhelming her body.
“Hey!” Somebody’s on the stairs after her, probably Mr. Grant or maybe poor Ethan, upset he got lumped in with the psychotic bitch who’s ruining this for everyone.
The catwalk creaks when she steps on it, but the little sway is familiar, not frightening. She sinks down and curls up on the boarded floor, knees to her chest, chin already wet with the tears that won’t stop coming.
“Fuck!” Whoever’s coming to get her was not expecting the platform to move, and when she looks over it’s the sunflower boy, hands white-knuckling the metal railings and a face like he’s watching his life flash before him. Still, he slides forward an inch, holding on as tightly as he can, and when his eyes find hers she almost wants to laugh.
“This shit safe?”
Lexi nods, so he very gingerly follows the path over to where she’s sitting, drops down so quickly the whole thing sways and he curses again, palms splaying across the surface.
“It’s not supposed to move,” she mutters, and he frowns deeply. Something wet slides off her nose, so Lexi turns to try and wipe it away, coming out with a handful of snot and more tears that don’t seem to have any intention of ceasing.
“What’d you do up here?”
She glances back over just as some leftover snot escapes, and he’s at least kind enough not to say anything about it, just drops his eyes down to the floor.
“Why’d they build a fuckin’ sky trap that moves?”
“It shouldn't move,” she repeats, pulling her legs in tight, settles her chin just between her knees like she’s eight, and if she closes her eyes, then nobody else can see her either.
“Why’s it move at all?”
Decidedly, he can still see her, and the entire cast and crew could see her when she ran away crying, too. Things don’t work like she’s eight, anymore.
“'Cause this place is old as shit and nobody cares about it. They'll fix it when they gotta put the light plots in.” She sniffles a little, tries desperately to ignore how wet her tights are growing. “If we were a real theatre, we’d have a big one, and real lights, and everything.”
“This ain’t a real theatre?” He releases a sigh, clicks his tongue gently. “Coulda fooled me.”
Lexi thinks there’s a tiny laugh that comes out, but mostly it’s hidden by the tears and the general state of what’s happening with her nose.
“You run a tight ship,” he says, and it sounds a bit like admiration, even if she’s not sure he means it.
Tight ship is a polite way of saying she’s a control freak. Mom used to say passionate; Cassie was passionate about clothes and concerts and her friends, and Lexi was passionate about sitting in the den and watching Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on repeat the entire summer before eighth grade. And as soon as she started going to theatre camp, she was passionate about micromanaging. But wanting things to be good, the absolute best version that they can be, isn’t so wrong, is it?
“Do you think I’m, like, a total bitch?” It comes out as soon as it pops into her head, an obscure ask of someone she just met this morning and made a very unfavorable impression on.
He looks a bit caught off guard by the question but he pauses before answering, like he’s really thinking about it anyway.
“I mean, Ion really know you. But I think a lot of people call girls bitches when they just mean they good at being in charge.”
It’s definitely not what was she expecting from him, some guy half-assing flats as a punishment. And he doesn’t look like an art student, but he doesn’t look like a violent criminal either. Just some kid who’s worried she’s gonna throw herself off the catwalk, concerned enough to follow her up here.
“What’d you do? To get community service?” Her voice comes out sounding too much like Cassie, too probing. Too expectant, and she tries to backtrack. “Sorry, I’m being nosy.”
He smiles a little, just the corner of his mouth, like he can’t quite commit to the whole thing. “Nah, you good.” He pulls his knees up so he can scoot in beside her, slide along like she invited him here. “I killed a guy. Manslaughter, though, it was just, like, this crazy fight.”
She must look as pale as she feels, because the smile grows on his face, and he nudges her elbow with his own.
“‘M kiddin’.”
“Oh!” She forces out a strangled laugh, which only makes him chuckle, and she can’t figure out why he doesn’t want to do that more, because he’s got a very nice smile.
“I, uh, sold weed to high schoolers. Nothin’ exciting.”
Lexi thinks for a moment; he doesn’t look familiar, but it’s definitely possible she doesn’t know everyone at school, too buried in books and audition songs. Too close to the outskirts at every party, not cool enough to hang under the bleachers during gym.
“I’m a high schooler,” she says flatly, and he nods.
“D’you wanna buy some weed?”
She laughs along for real this time, even if the tears are still slipping down her cheeks. It’s a few beats before she realizes he’s trying to get that reaction, trying to make her feel better, and something stirs in her chest.
“No, I don’t- I don’t do that stuff.” For a second, she wonders if that’ll make her sound like a total nerd, before she remembers just an hour ago she very nearly instructed him to Google Austrian wildflowers for historical accuracy before backhandedly insulting his intelligence, and if there was a chance for him to see her as cool or nice, that ship has definitely sailed. “I just mean, like- I don’t recognize you.”
He ducks his head a little, turning back out to observe the empty seats. “I’m not in school,” he says, kind of soft, in case someone else could hear them.
Not in school at all, or not in her school, or out of school because he’s some Doogie Howser genius?
“How old are you?” Lexi asks, and he doesn’t wait a beat before responding.
“25.”
She squints a little, watching him, but he doesn’t give anything away. “I really can’t tell if you’re joking.”
The smile returns, like he just can’t help it. Like he really wants to.
“Nah, I’m 17.” He glances at her from the corner of his eye, and even in the dark up here, they look so bright. “‘s why they got me paintin’ your flowers and not sittin’ in jail.”
Right, that makes sense. They wouldn’t send a grown adult to work on a kid’s show just so he can learn how to process emotions through the theatre. Although, Lexi notes, that would be a solid musical.
“I’m 16,” she says, mostly in lieu of anything else.
“Goin’ on 17,” he finishes, gesturing down to the stage. “Watched you singin’ yesterday. You sound real nice.”
She wipes at her face, in case he can tell how her cheeks tingle just a little at that. “Thanks.”
He hugs his knees in closer, squints out at the building spread below them. “S’kinda cool up here. You can see everything.”
She’s been hiding in catwalks since about sixth grade, to cry about people who won’t talk to her or get away from the ones who would, but she realizes this is probably his first time, and he’s looking out at the house with this sort of far away look.
“That one’s a weird song, yeah?” He peers over the edge of the platform, right down to where Ethan is leaning out the door of the gazebo. “Like, he’s a real dick, innit he?”
Her face still feels wet, but it seems like the active crying has finally stopped, and the aching in her chest doesn’t squeeze so tight.
“Rolf?”
“Yeah, the Nazi dude.”
“She doesn’t know he’s a Nazi at that point,” Lexi argues, and he tilts his head back to look over at her, face scrunched a bit, like he’s turning it all over in his mind.
“‘Right, but he’s not bein’, like, romantic.” He rubs at something on his shoe, and when he pulls back, his fingers tap against her knee. “‘Cause, you ain’t seem like a girl who wants a dude to say how she don’t know nothin’ and he’s gonna teach her everythin’.”
She’s not sure if that’s a compliment either, or if he’s qualified to make any kind of statement on what sort of girl she is, or anything about musical theatre in general, frankly.
“They’re pretending,” she offers, and he raises an eyebrow. “It’s all really tongue-in-cheek, ‘cause he doesn’t mean the stuff he says, he just wants to give her a reason for why he’s hanging around. Like, he’s gonna take care of her, and stuff.”
His eyes grow a little wider as he thinks on this, and it’s funny, to have someone’s full attention when she’s doing something as ridiculous as explaining a musical everyone and their mother has seen.
Not him, though.
“Everything about her being so innocent, and that- she’s trying to get him to kiss her.” She looks down towards where Ethan is going through his steps, the jump off the bench that he executes perfectly. “You haven’t seen Sound of Music?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. I seen, uh, Grease. Once. On tv.”
She smiles a little, despite the fact that Grease is popular taste at it’s worst; an over-produced film that strips what makes the stage show so excellent and shoves in a ham-fisted attempt to make anyone think these 35 year old actors can play high school students. There’s a lot of injustice in the world, but giving Danny a song specifically about Kenickie’s car ranks pretty high on Lexi’s personal list.
“Grease is fine,” she offers, and his face relaxes a bit, like maybe that’s the answer he was hoping for. “They did Grease here a couple times.”
“Yeah?” He just keeps looking at her, waiting for further explanation, and it’s almost an unfamiliar feeling. “Who’d you be?”
“Sorry?”
“In Grease, who’d you be?” His foot bumps hers again, and the image of the gold stripe around his sneakers clashing with her years old character shoes is a funny one.
“I wasn’t in it.”
“If you were, who’d you be?” He sounds a little exasperated, pulling this answer from her with pliers, so she gives it some extra thought before answering.
“Sandy’s like the only soprano.” Naive, innocent, no real fun. It’s a perfect fit.
For a second, he looks like he’s going to say something else, but he just pushes himself up to his feet, one hand still gripping the bar for reassurance. He extends the other down to her, and it’s a few final sniffles before she takes it, lets him help her to her feet. The platform threatens to slide again, so he quickly drops her hand, sets both on the railing as he looks up at her with something nearer to humor than fear. Standing, they’re much closer than she realized, toe to toe in this place she intended to speed cry for five minutes and then walk back downstairs like nothing at all had happened.
“You feel any better?“ He sounds too sincere in the question, like he’s invested in the outcome, and the apology comes fumbling out before it’s even fully formed in her head.
“I’m really sorry about earlier.” She wraps both hands around the bars, squeezes tightly. It does feel secure, even if the metal’s cold and ancient and peeling off against her palm, because it feels like something’s propping her up, helping her realize just how crazy she’s being about all this.
He does that funny little smile again, an imitation of something real, but the look in his eyes doesn’t seem as cold as she’d expect.
“S’all good,” he answers, and he’s in the process of starting a very slow 180 turn, both hands on the rail at all times, when something else pops in her head.
“The guy with the blurry phoenix tattoo, is he in your program?” She’d assumed that was just another artistic trend she didn’t really understand, like dresses with under boob cut outs and the revival of 2000s aesthetics, but it kind of makes more sense if he’s also being forced to assist a group of theatre nerds imitate Austria on a stage in southern California.
“Bart?” He pauses in the twist, neck craning to look back at her, and the whole motion seems very uncomfortable, but he commits anyway. “Yeah, we’re program buddies.”
“Really?”
“Nah, I’m pretty sure he actually killed a guy.” He turns back away, inching forward with the same bravery and coordination as a toddler. Slow, steady, determined.
“That’s not a funny joke.” Lexi follows, and maybe it’s watching him treat this like climbing Everest, but she keeps a hand on the rail too, trailing just close enough behind that her nose bumps his sweater when he freezes at the end.
He spins around, and there’s another moment where they’re entirely too close, made even closer when he leans down just an inch to cut the difference between them.
“Who says I’m jokin’?”
The good thing about theatre is that no matter how dramatic Lexi may feel she’s being, someone else is likely to out-do her in very little time.
She comes into rehearsal the following afternoon ready to do the apology rounds (you have to give in sometimes, actor’s egos and all) but Danielle is too busy gushing over her new finale dress, Mr. Grant caught up in finally speaking to someone who can handle the lights, and Ethan once again displaying a deep arsenal of dance skills.
She can’t fault him that; he is talented, and he’s so eager for the sake of being eager, not even to show off, just because he wants this to be as excellent as she does.
They start with their dance rehearsal, moves she’s been practicing in her bedroom for weeks, even before the cast list officially came out, because nothing feels so romantic as being swept off a park bench by someone inventing reasons just to be around you.
It’s arguably more romantic that Rolf ends up such a terrible person, because unfulfilled romance is the height of everything, the tragedy of being 16 and having nothing but love in your heart and too much sensibility in your head.
The kiss is the only part that feels off; Mr. Grant even frowns the first few times they do it, which is, understandably, not the reaction kissing on stage is meant to invoke. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Ethan, or with kissing, or with kissing Ethan, specifically. For one, she’s old enough to separate herself from a role (unlike ten year old Wendy, who plays Brigitta, and keeps singing even when she’s very much been asked not to do that) and for another, Ethan’s a fine enough stage-kisser. It feels pretty okay, even. But the reaction -the big squeal of happiness, the relief in receiving that big kiss, the one people have written songs about- is a bit harder to play.
Mr. Grant pulls her aside, asks if there isn’t someone else she could picture when she’s trying to convince Ethan to lay one on her, a school crush or a celebrity or something.
“Yeah, sure. Totally,” she promises, and he vanishes to go chain smoke outside the auditorium.
Lunch comes from the same depressing strip mall restaurant as always, the same one they go to after opening night, where the meal is just as disappointing as the general audience reception. She’s picking through the passable sections of a salad when someone else starts down the same aisle she’s sitting in. She’s half-expecting Ethan, ready to complain about some of that choreography, but it’s sunflower boy again, holding a plastic take-out bag.
He sits himself just beside her, unraveling a sandwich from some deli paper. She watches, because this is one of the worst salad’s she’s had in a long time, as he takes a big bite, chews with his gaze out towards the stage.
“How you eat that shit?” His mouth is half full when he asks, waving towards the container left abandoned in her lap.
“It’s fine,” she lies, and he takes another bite, little peppers falling out the end of the sandwich.
She’s weighing the odds of him noticing if she just reaches over and grabs a few, because they look significantly fresher than whatever vegetables died to make this salad, but he just takes the second half and plops it on top of the armrest, sitting between them like a gift she’s too afraid to accept.
“You all order the worst food,” he admonishes, like it’s her fault there aren’t any good restaurants nearby. “That pizza the other day? Never had nothin’ that bad before.”
She doesn’t touch the offered half, just watches it as it sits equidistant between them, glaring, yet inoffensive.
He glances between her and the food, uses his elbow to slide the half off the armrest and tumbling into her lap. “S’for you.”
“I can’t take your lunch,” she tries, but he just takes another big bite.
“I got real food, might as well share.” He slips a hand over to grab the salad container, holds it up for inspection with a grimace. “You really want this?”
She doesn’t, because lettuce is never supposed to be that color, but she’s not some weird little charity case he has to be nice to just because everyone else in the cast hates her.
She snatches the salad back, sets the sandwich half directly back on the armrest, and his face falls, momentarily.
“You don’t have to pretend to be my friend, okay?” Lexi takes a large bite of her own meal, swallows it down with nothing but spite and pride.
He looks a little confused by that one, soft wrinkles around his eyes as he frowns. He finishes his own half, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, uncaring for good impressions.
“Why would I be pretendin’?”
There’s a lot of answers to that, some crueler than others, but one’s pretty obvious: “You saw me cry.”
He pulls a flat sort of smile, but there’s that little squint in his eyes, forehead creasing almost in a frown, like he’s holding back something bigger. “Ion wanna make you feel worse or anythin’, but a lota people saw you cry.”
She scoots down further in the seat, tries to focus on the gaggle of little kids on the edge of the stage, her fake siblings, but the pit in her stomach is only growing larger.
“You look real hungry,” he says, and he’s right, which is the worst part. She’d had half a banana for breakfast, and three bites of lukewarm spinach leaves really aren’t gonna cut it.
“What kind is it?”
He picks it up again, holding just a little too hard, til she can see his fingers leaving dents in the bread. “Italian.”
It tastes as incredible as it looks, squished bread and everything, and when she looks back over with a mouthful of salami, he’s smiling for real.
Lexi tries to chew and swallow, which feels far more difficult when someone’s actively watching you do it, before she gets out the next question.
“What’s your name?” She’d spent a small amount of time (twenty-two minutes, because she kept an eye on the clock, and anything further would have been excessive) looking through her and Cassie’s yearbooks, but she couldn’t find him in any of them. So either he goes to another school, or the Doogie Howser theory was more correct than she expected.
He scrunches up the deli paper all into a little ball, looks down at it as he answers, “Fezco.”
She has to fight the urge to ask if that one’s a joke too. “I’m Lexi.”
He glances over at her with that same kind of wrinkle in his eyebrows, and it occurs to her that maybe he’s actually just amused by this whole situation. By her.
“Yeah, I know who you are,” he says, and he reaches over to pluck the remaining paper from her lap, balls it up between his hands just the same. “You runnin’ this shit.”
“Not really,” she sighs, because when the cast t-shirts come, her name will be beside Liesl and not Assistant Director, no matter how much she pretends.
He shrugs, props a foot up on the seat in front of him. And that kind of thing usually pisses her the fuck off, because it’s horrible theatre etiquette and just shitty to whoever has the misfortune of sitting in front of you, but for half a second she thinks she wants to slip her foot up there too, press hard enough to leave a dusty footprint, see how everyone else likes when she doesn’t give a shit.
Virgil books an ensemble role on a regional tour of Hair, which is as exciting as it is horrifying, because now they’re out a Captain Von Trapp, and there was a local audition for Hair she didn’t know about.
It’s Ethan who steps up, of course, because Wes is playing Max and can barely manage to learn his own lines. But now there’s no Rolf, and Mr. Grant swears they’ll have a replacement by next week, but she can’t very well practice the choreography all on her own.
Instead, Lexi spends all of rehearsal working with the nuns (Emma is absolutely not pulling her weight, and everyone can tell) and trying to break in her new shoes; dark red this time, which isn’t strictly historically accurate, but Cassie swears she looks so good when she tries them on at home. And they go perfectly with the pink dress, making her feel like a real romantic heroine when she spins and the dress fans out, all soft layers and those dark shoes.
The only problem is that she can’t execute the spin if someone doesn’t give her the momentum, and once Mr. Grant sends the girls home just to talk over stuff with Ethan while working through his second pack outside, it’s just her and the crew alone on stage.
Sunflower boy -Fezco, if that’s real- is helping fix the hinge on the main door, wielding a screwdriver with slightly more enthusiasm than he seemed to hold for the flowers. His friend with the tattoo is propping up the door, and when she gets close enough he’s complaining about fuckin’ pigs all over my ass again, so just sort of loops back around and continues to try it on her own.
It works, partially, until she tries the spin on the bench and forgets there’s no one to steady her but her own feet and some very fresh shoes. The fall doesn’t hurt, and she’s had far worse on stage, but the embarrassment of everyone freezing and staring at her definitely does.
“Lexi!” Poor Bobbi rushes over instantly, trying to help her back to her feet, but her ankle buckles and the other girl has to sit her onto the bench.
Bobbi’s asking her something else, if she’s alright or if she needs ibuprofen or to file a formal complaint with the safety officer, only Lexi just tries to focus on unbuckling the shoe straps, with shaky hands and little success.
Someone else’s hand bumps hers out of the way, and it’s a quick movement for him to free both buckles, gently setting her foot back on the floor with the lightest pressure.
“I like your shoes,” he whispers, and a finger traces the undone strap around her ankle, before he drops it and stands back up to face her.
Her mouth is a little dry, from the frustration of the fall or from the soft way he keeps looking at her, eyes so gentle it almost makes her want to scream.
“How’s it feel?” He asks, and Lexi waits too long to answer, too focused on how to breathe in and out at a normal pace again, that he feels the need to clarify. “Can you walk?”
She slips the shoes off (because it would be ridiculous to assume he’d do that too, or that she’d even want him to) and takes a tentative step with Bobbi’s arm laced through hers. It’s no trouble, a little sore, but nothing lasting, and she nods quickly.
“All good, thanks.” She tries for a confident smile, but she doesn’t seem to stick the landing, because he looks even more concerned.
“Lexi, you gotta be careful.” Bobbi brushes at her dress with care, picks the smudged dirt off her skirt.
“Yeah, shit, sorry. I know it’s dry clean only.”
Bobbi smiles back at her, warm and inviting as always, reaches out to squeeze her arm through the puffy sleeves. “You gotta take care of the girl inside the dress too,” she instructs, and Lexi can’t help but smile back.
She pulls away to go yell at a stage hand about moving some furniture, and Fezco turns away too, seemingly satisfied she’s not in mortal danger yet again.
It’s pretty funny to imagine that’s any kind of real concern for him.
“Can you give me a hand, actually?”
He spins back around in a half-pirouette himself, twirls the screwdriver in one hand. “With what?”
She gestures vaguely towards the benches, and when he follows her gaze, he’s looking at the fake stone itself.
“What’s wrong with ‘em?”
“No, not like that.” She tries to cross to the gazebo so she can show him the whole thing from the beginning, but every few steps makes her foot feels like it might snap in two, and even a Tony-winning actress would probably make the same pained face Lexi’s expressing right now.
“You gotta sit down,” he tries, but she’s made it all the way to the open door, and it doesn’t even hurt so much anymore. Closer to a 7 than a 9 on any kind of scale.
“I just need you to hold my hand. With the dance, and everything. For balance,” she explains, because it’s all simple enough, and when she looks back from examining the growing red spot on her foot, he’s frowning deeply.
“You just fell on your ass,” he says, as if she needed reminding.
“I’m all good-“
“Okay, Ion do that stuff,” he waves around the stage with such emotion that he’s arguably contradicting himself there. “And you shouldn’t be doin’ that right now either.”
Lexi huffs a little, but it only makes him do a tiny half-grin, as if all of this is amusing to him.
“You mad stubborn,” he states, and again, it almost sounds like a compliment if she dwells on it. “I’ma tell your friend you gotta go home.”
Bobbi would send her home if she thought she was injured; replacing two actors is a Herculean task at the best of times, never mind two weeks before tech with a cast who still struggles to remember their blocking.
“Well, I biked here. So, if I can’t dance, I can’t very well bike home.” This logic seems sound enough, sure to get her what she wants, until it leads to her standing in Converse and her street clothes outside his car, trying to argue as he stuffs the bike in the backseat.
“-nobody even wants to listen to me, huh?”
Fezco shuts the car door (her bike fits, barely, unfortunately) and shoves something into her hand.
“Put your address in.”
She does, if only because her bike is in the car and she might as well get in too, but it’s not giving in to popular demand. It’s just being practical.
The car ride is mostly silent, save for her overriding the GPS directions once they get off the main road. He drives one-handed, which she’s always assumed is one of those too-casual things that people do when they’re trying to be something they’re not, but for him it just seems like a thing he does.
“Thank you for the ride,” Lexi tries, and he nods slightly. “I can give you one tomorrow. Um, so we’re even.”
He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, still facing forward, a squinted kind of side-eye. “You drive?”
“Oh, not really, actually.”
He holds her gaze for several more seconds, seemingly uncaring to watch the road, before he hocks out a laugh.
“Why’d you offer then?”
“I mean- I can drive, my sister just takes the car a lot.” She turns back to look out the window, in case he can’t stop staring and gets them in a crash. At least it won’t be her fault. “It’s just nice of you to drive me back. Even though we’re not friends.”
“Right, ‘cause I’m pretendin’.” He finishes the sentence with a tiny sigh, and when she offers the briefest glance over, his face is kind of pinched. “I really ain’t a natural liar like all of you.”
It takes her a moment to realize what he means. “Acting isn’t lying.”
“It’s pretendin’,” he says, and he’s right, but only if he’s never watched an excellent film or cried to Les Mis a half dozen times in a row. “I’m not good at that.”
Lexi watches the ice cream store go by, the bowling alley where Cassie dropped a 5 lb ball on her foot for saying her dress was ugly. The playground slide she and Rue used to hide in when they didn’t want to go home without each other.
“And I thought we were, like, acquaintances. Maybe.”
She tugs a little on the edge of her skirt, where her thighs are rubbing against the worn down seat cover. “Acquaintances?”
“Mm, people like me know big words too.”
That feels heavy in her stomach, because it was wrong to say to a random kid trying to help her out with this thing that means so much to her, and even worse now, that he seems like a moderately okay person.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” She turns to look at him, twisting against the seatbelt as it digs into her shoulder, but it feels important to tell him this for real, and not some throwaway comment out the window because she’s too scared to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
“All good,” he gives a little smile, that slight upturn that pushes back anything further. “I guess I kinda lied to you too.”
The heaviness keeps pushing down, like a weight in her body, drawing her down into the uncomfortable car seat and the road rolling beneath them.
“I did think you were being a bitch that day. Y’know, to the blonde?”
“Danielle.”
“Yeah. But she was being a bitch to you too, so in my book that cancels out.” He makes the turn onto her street, and Lexi holds the seatbelt in a tight hand, tugging safe and secure across her lap.
“You weren’t a bitch to me.”
He sighs a little, as her phone beeps and the car pulls to a stop. He has that wrinkle in his forehead again, thinking hard about something.
“You seem like you’re real passionate,” he seems to settle on the words as he says them, slow and contemplative. “That’s a good thing.”
She unbuckles the belt, but it’s still stuck in her hand for some reason, twisted up in a fist.
“But, your girl was kinda right.” When he meets her eyes again, it’s that soft sort of look, the one he’s maybe good at hiding away. “It’s supposed to be fun, right?”
It is. And sometimes theatre is fun, when she’s on stage and everything comes together just so, and the adoring dozens in the audience tell her she’s a genius, that this extremely popular show has never been done so well. Other times it makes her want to pull her hair out, because nobody else seems to care about this as much as she does, not even Mr. Grant.
In all honesty, the hair-pulling moments can sometimes be as fun as the standing ovation moments, but she’d probably sound like even more of a freak if she voiced that.
“Are you having fun?” She asks instead, and he shrugs a shoulder.
“Sometimes.” He narrows his eyes a little, looks from her to the house behind her. “Your fam coming to the show?”
Cassie’s promised to attend, but she had said the same last summer and skipped it for some field party, so Lexi’s unsure if she should bank on that. Mom’s there every year, regardless of how many times she’s seen the show, but last year she also lavished praise on fucking Ethan for playing Aaron Fox as this lovable guy next door, even when she had absolutely elevated Jessica to the most desirable role.
“We’ll see,” she tries.
He nods towards the door, and she knows it’s not meant to kick her out, but she probably shouldn’t let him waste any more gas on this.
“Thanks for the ride.” The belt slaps against the seat when she releases it, a kind of whipping sound, and he raises his eyebrows.
“You gonna give me one tomorrow?”
Lexi tries to bite back the smile, but the attempt feels rather unsuccessful. “You want handlebars?”
“Spokes, c’mon.”
She lets him see the grin on that one, ear to ear and genuine, before she pushes open the car door.
He’s unstacking chairs before rehearsal the next day, filling up the back of the audience where they had to remove a bunch of seats after the water pipes leaked during a community college cabaret night.
She tries to help, but she’s somehow not as fast or able to carry three chairs at once, and in the time it takes her to finish a row, he’s completed the rest of the section.
“How’s your foot?” He glances down towards her shoes, and the memory of how soft his fingers felt against them almost make her turn away.
“I iced it last night.” Actually, she’d held three separate bags of frozen french fries over the ankle and taken ibuprofen every 4 hours to make sure she’d be good to go, because the idea of missing any amount of rehearsal while she already didn’t have a dance partner was enough to keep her up half the night with anxiety nightmares.
Fezco nods as he leans back against the wall, and part of her wants to say they should both get back to work, if there’s time to relax there’s time to practice, but maybe that’s the same part of her that likes the stress of being so overwhelmed she can’t manage to think about anything else.
“Is your family coming?”
He makes a tilted sort of frown; not upset, but maybe just unsure. “It’s just my brother and my grandma. And this really ain’t their thing.”
She understands that family friendly productions aren’t interesting to absolutely everyone, but it’s important to broaden your horizons and expand your cultural interests. Which she tells him, to the most raucous laugh she’s heard yet.
“Yeah, I’ma tell them that, promise.” He sounds honest about it, even if he’s shaking his head a little.
It’s kind of funny, because he seemed so drawn and serious just days ago, but he’s been nothing but smiles in the time since. She wonders if he’s been holding it all in, or if she knows the only good jokes he’s ever heard.
She wants to say something along those lines, something about how he’s got these little dimples set in his cheeks, but instead something else comes out.
“It’s just my sister and my mom,” she says, half under her breath, as if everyone else around them doesn’t also know who her family is. “And they said they’re gonna come, but. You know. Stuff comes up.”
He stares at her for a lingering moment, maybe weighing something over in his head, before he shrugs.
“Well, I’ma be there.”
“Don’t you have to be there?” Attending something as a punishment is probably worse than not attending at all, but at least the seats will look more full.
He wrinkles his eyebrows a bit, smile playing on his mouth with that halfway confused expression, like she’s said something funny again. “They don’t make you go see it. I just gotta, like, build your doors and shit.”
Oh. “Right,” Lexi nods, and he sort of nods back, eyes dropping back down to her shoes before he pointedly looks up at the stage. The kids are back today, they’ve got to iron out all the kinks in "Farewell" before Kelly goes on vacation to Disneyland and misses half of tech. Which is insane; no matter how much a ticket to a theme park costs, it can’t be worth missing the single most important week of rehearsal. And she’s only 7, so it’s not like she’s going to remember everything anyway.
“Seems like a lot of li’l kids for a show about a war,” he remarks, and she’s reminded that he’s one of the only people in this building and presumably the entire county who couldn’t recite “Do-Re-Mi” immediately, if asked.
“It’s not about the war. It actually takes place before it even starts.” She watches him watch the stage, a half dozen kids in sailor suits and wearing matching upset expressions. She should get up there, even if she could do the choreography in her sleep. Standing here talking to him isn’t making her a very good pseudo-assistant director. “You really haven’t watched The Sound of Music?”
He gives a little eye roll, subdued, but not so much he doesn’t want her to see. “D’you think everybody’s lyin’ to you, or is it just me, ‘cause you think I’m some typa criminal?”
“Aren’t you some type of criminal?”
She’s seen the kind of smirk he gives next, too many times at too many parties, where she’s Cassie’s plus-one until somebody slightly more interesting comes along, but it’s never been directed at her before.
“Nah, musical theatre rehabilitated me,” he swears, and there’s a different look growing on her face, one she thinks would be more at home on stage, swooning in a half built gazebo.
“I don’t think you’re lying,” she says, and he lowers his gaze down to the floor, his foot accidentally knocking hers as he rubs it across the greying carpet. “I just can’t believe you haven’t seen it. It’s, like, one of the most famous movies ever.”
He offers an ungraceful snort at that. “Ion know, I watch a lotta action flicks and shit.”
“But like- your grandma never showed you Sound of Music? It’s a big grandma film.”
“She’s not that kinda grandma,” he promises, and she’s unsure what exactly that’s supposed to mean.
“Well, you should watch it anyway.” Just in terms of personal enrichment and film appreciation, of course.
“Do you wanna watch it?” He asks the question without any kind of pretense, just straight forward, like he really wants to know.
Mr. Grant is calling her name, somewhere miles away, because they’re standing alone together, far from this show she’s supposed to be caring about, and he’s got a sort of red on his cheeks for something she couldn’t name.
She’s in her head again, taking too long to answer, and the red is getting darker and his face is falling, just as her name sounds louder, insistent, and she’s not Kelly, not a child. She can’t ignore him. She has a job to do, after all.
So she rushes down the aisle, hops in line beside Roy and fulfills her role here, the dutiful sister who takes care of her family, goes through the motions and dreams of some secret kind of meeting outside in the rain. And when she looks back to the corner of the theatre, he’s still standing there waiting, arms crossed over his chest, and a big grin when she nods, just barely.