Beneath The Skin(146)

Clayton keeps watching me with that wolf-like, hungry glint in his eyes.

I don’t know whether to be turned on or scared.

“Great,” says Nina, the intros finished. “Let’s get right to it. Act one, scene one.”

Is this some sort of game to him? Kissing girls he likes, then running away and expecting them to chase after him? I’ve had my fair share of game-playing guys in my past. Sure, I dated very few of them, but I never had one that I could properly call a boyfriend. Everyone in New York City was shopping for the next best thing. Everyone knew a hundred other people. Games, that’s all the men there could play. Whether on the stage or off, everyone was an actor, even if they never stepped foot on a stage.

I hate to think of Clayton like that. In fact, I can’t. There’s something so different about him. Maybe this isn’t a game, I consider, chewing on my lip in thought. Maybe this is his way of … showing interest.

Like when you’re a kid on the playground and you shove your crush into the sand and make them cry.

The read-through begins. I patiently wait for my lines to come, reading along with the script. The Stage Manager role has a crap load of lines before anyone else even speaks, introducing each family to the audience and painting a picture of two houses on an empty, deliberately set-deprived stage, setting the scene for the audience’s imagination. What a weird play, I tell myself.

Really, I do know this play, I swear I read it long ago. But the roles are all confused in my mind, and I don’t even really remember how it ends. Of course, this doesn’t help the nugget of guilt that sits in my chest, wondering what other highly deserving actors could be sitting in my place right now, as I wait for Emily’s first line. Victoria hasn’t spoken a word to me since the day the cast list was posted. That was at the beginning of the week, five days ago. Eric swears she’s just been busy, but I know better.

Finally, after an eternity, it’s my first line. I draw breath and recite it plainly, as if I were reading from a textbook. Ugh. I feel so stiff. I read my next line, and again, I might as well be reading advanced algebra equations. I can’t help but feel self-conscious, worried that everyone in the room is thinking the same thing: This is the person Nina cast as Emily, the lead? This is the one who beat out all the others?

I’m certain there’s even people in this room who wanted the role of Emily, but got cast in other parts. It’s not just Victoria, I realize; all the women wanted my role. Some of my competitors are in this room right now listening to me, comparing themselves to me, scoffing inside their heads.

As I read the next line, I glance up to survey the table. I see the costumes girl yawn. I see the face of someone else near her appearing utterly bored. I catch the assistant director who tiredly meets my eyes, smirking.

I suck.

I suck so much.

When my scene is over and the character of Emily has exited the stage, I let go a little sigh, which doesn’t seem to go unnoticed by Eric, who gives me a little pat of encouragement on my thigh.

Then, I feel someone softly kick my foot under the table, so I retract my foot a bit, figuring it to be in the way. Then, my foot’s tapped again, more deliberately.

I look up.

Clayton’s gone back to staring at me again. It’s his foot. He smirks, his eyes narrowing as his shoe taps mine again.

A rush of excitement surges up through me.

What a game-playing, mind-toying asshole.

I pull my feet under my chair, far away from his. Then, I pretend to pore over my script and ignore him utterly, despite my stomach-tumbling desire to do the exact opposite.

I am exercising some serious discipline here.

I push through the next scene, also making it a point to ignore the others in the room. I can’t be judged by all of them; I judge myself badly enough.

The role of George—who is Emily’s love interest, wedded to each other in act two—is played by a guy I haven’t met before. He’s a decent-looking man, most likely an upperclassman. His well-groomed hair and plain, coppery face make for a fitting George and male lead, if you discount the Stage Manager role and his twenty-or-so billion lines I don’t envy.

When it comes to the scenes in which Emily and George flirt, I look up and try to say the lines across the table to the actor who’s playing him—whose real name I’ve already forgotten from the intros earlier, or perhaps never paid attention to in the first place. A few times, I lose my place in the script due to looking up and stumble over the words.

“Just read for today,” Nina cuts in, startling me.

I look up, my heart slamming against my chest in the not-so-pleasurable way. “Sorry?”