30 Day Trial Period

3.5 Day Two: Parker/Lizzie

TUESDAY 

DAY TWO

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PARKER

By the end of this trial, I would be able to write a whole book about the way Lizzie Hernandez texted. I'd call it "The Art of Barely Texting Your Fake Girlfriend Back and it doesn't bother your Fake Girlfriend that much because she finds the way you text absurdly cute". Lizzie Hernandez uses perfect grammar when she texts. She uses punctuation and never uses emojis, which leads me to believe she doesn't even know where to find them. If she made a mistake, she'd send another text with an asterisk to point that out:

1. She knows there's a mistake.

2. This is how she'd fix the mistake.

See? Very cute.

From the wings of the stage, I waved at the orchestra pit. Lizzie jumped, realizing my existence and overwhelmed by the attention. I blew her kisses, so she gave me the finger. Snickering, I disappeared back through the heavy curtain. It was after-school drama practice and the high school theater was buzzing from actors practicing lines, the band tuning their machines and the crew chatting about everything and anything before our director appeared.

There was something magical about an empty theater.

Despite nobody sitting in the velvet red seats, the air was still thick from past performances. History lined these walls.

"You're ridiculous," Ian said from the floor. He was putting batteries in the microphone packs. He was all limbs like a spider with boney joints. His hair sat hidden underneath his baseball cap with the Zelda logo. He wore a cartoon character wardrobe of similar sweatshirts, pants and the same pair of Vans every day.

"Since when were you and Lizzie tight, anyway?" he asked and I briefly eyed Camille, sitting close by and humming the Prologue's melody. I knew better than to try and joke around with Camille while she worked.

"I'd tell you about our torrid love affair, but I don't want to make you jealous."

"Whatever." He rolled his eyes, but I couldn't stop smiling. He commented, "I give you guys a month."

Oh, he had no idea.

My phone buzzed.

LIZZIE: [How about you get some work done?]

I chuckled and tapped away a reply.

PARKER: [How about you come make me?]

My entire existence wanted to go back out onto that stage, but Director Donnelly called for our attention. She was a woman made of soft round edges, who wore bohemian drapey clothes and a short blonde bob that never had a hair out of place. I adored her costume jewelry and smoky eye shadow. "I hope you all had a great weekend, but it's Tuesday and you're all on my time now. We have plenty of work to do. Honestly..." She bit her lip. "We're running a little behind...."

"I wonder whose fault that is?" I whispered to Ian, nudging his foot. I motioned to the piles of actors surrounding Norah. "I mean, they act like it's the first week of practice. If it were me, I'd just recast the whole thing-"

"Ssh," Camille shushed me, her eyes flashing red.

"What?" I whispered back when I looked around and realized I was using my stage whisper, not the one reserved for shit talking and secrets. Norah locked eyes with me and gifted me the meanest grimace I had ever seen stain her pretty face. From my chin to the tips of my ears, my skin caught fire. That was my bad.