Showtime

9. Opening Night

[Avni: Opening night! Just- yeah. Enough said.]

"EJ?" Avni asked. He was loitering around backstage.

"Oh hey! Good, you're early too." He glanced at the bag in her hands, "Are those the famous Mathur Kaju katlis?"

She smiled internally at his pronunciation- she could tell he'd tried hard. "Yeah," she said. "It's tradition, right? Also, did you buy Gina a plane ticket for tonight?"

Gina had texted Avni while she was coming to school.

"Maybe."

"Oh my god," Avni squealed and hugged him, well as well as she could seeing she had a huge bag in her hand. "Thank you, that's really sweet."

He beamed, "It's no problem. You want to get going?"

Avni nodded.

♡♡♡♡♡

"How many people are in here?" Ricky asked to the ceiling?

"Umm four?" Avni said.

"What are you guys doing here?" Nini asked, turning around.

"Oh, um-" EJ looked at Avni. "We sort of have this ritual we do before every opening night."

"We just sit in the middle of the stage and breathe," Avni said. And then- "Do you guys wanna come?"

"Avni!" EJ whisper-shouted.

"What? They're the leads- and this is a moment. We're passing the baton!"

"That's dramatic."

"When am I not dramatic?"

"Fair enough."

"Do you guys want to?" Avni asked. "It works, for what it's worth. You take in the stage, feel at one with its energy- whatever- it works."

Ricky glanced at Nini and they both nodded. "Why not?"

The four of them sat down on the gym floor.

After a moment of silence, Nini said, "Kourtney's playing Taylor tonight."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah and she's going to ace it, but-"

"She hasn't learnt the choreography for Status Quo- Gina's choreo is so fucking complicated and-" Avni said, going from calm to panicked in seconds.

"Okay you guys are doing this wrong," EJ butt in. "No talking, no panicking. Avni, keep your shit together. You have no scenes with her."

"It's not even about that! I need-"

"Well make it about that. She'll pick it up, and we'll help her as much as we can, and if she goes on stage and does something completely different, then that's okay because no one in the audience actually knows the original choreography," he said firmly.

Avni let out a breath, "Yeah you're right."

"Hmm."

"We're going to kill this."

♡♡♡♡♡

"Sharpay's here!" Somebody yelled as Avni walked backstage.

"And she brought her sweets," Caden grinned at her. He was senior like her, and he'd been through a few opening nights.

She grinned back. "Everyone please make sure to take more than one piece- there will be no fainting today!" she told the room. "Also who sent that?" she pointed to huge basket of flowers.