Standing for Weirdo

Chapter 5

Two exact weeks after that session, our interest had failed to die down and the class felt like a henhouse while Mr. Hedford called out the names of the cast.

I was Lady Windermere, which was not surprising. Alex would be my Lord, with Jacob as his rival and Ashley being my fictional mother. No idea why the professor thought she could pull off a scene where she took the fall for someone else, namely me, but I'd gotten the lead and that was what mattered. Mr. Hedford would hear no complaints from me.

I looked at Stella in between the rounds of cheering and "Silence! Silence!" that followed every new appointment. She had gotten a smaller role, which sucked. I'd have wanted her to be Mrs. Erlynne instead of Ashley, but she didn't seem to be bothered by the cast. I got a super bright smile from her when I turned to her with concern. She started to mouth something, but then someone knocked on the door.

By some miracle, Professor Hedford heard it over the din and managed to quiet the unruly body of students before telling whomever it was to come in.

The door opened and Trevor entered, lugging his guitar around. Combined with his longish, dyed hair and black painted nails, it made him look like a rock star wannabe. However, he hardly lifted his gaze from the floor, and his bony shoulders were too hunched to be the real thing.

"Professor Hedford," he said, that gravelly voice sending the class into silence at last. "I've started working on the score and would like to hear your opinion before I go ahead to compose the full piece."

He offered a few sheets of paper, with letters and lines and scratches, and the professor stared at them with a raised eyebrow.

"And... what might this be exactly, Mr. Bennett?"

"A nocturne. Minuets were more common during the social soirées of Victorian society, but the rhythm marks them as being more upbeat than a nocturne. I believe we could use the contrast to highlight the tragedy in the making, even while the public is still lost in the comic relief of the situation. I'd also need three movements for the minuet, which would make it run over fifteen minutes, and the scene is not long enough to support the full performance."

It was clear that Mr. Hedford was impressed. Just about as much as everyone else. Now they could believe Ashley's claim that he had studied music, in spite of his looks.

I had to smack down an inappropriate surge of pride for accomplishments that weren't my own.

"Why not a sonata, then?" the professor asked, as if it was a surprise test in Lit class.

Trevor's head jerked up and he allowed himself a small smile, just an invisible curve of the corner of his lips. "No way, Professor. That is reserved for romance, and I think Lady Windermere's Fan is about everything but that. Before you suggest it, sir," he added, tongue in cheek, "Rondos are out of the question as well. Too much frivolity and good nature."

And just like that, our pompous professor laughed. "You seem to know a lot about our play, Mr. Bennett," he said.

"I know a bit about Wilde."

"So I see. More than my precious literature students, methinks. But I must confess that I'm at a disadvantage, because I can't claim to know 'a bit' about notation."

"It's not notation," Trevor replied, taking a step forward to point at something in the sheets of paper. "Here, I wrote the name of the notes so that they don't have to be interpreted. The lines are tempo... ah, just the length of the sounds."