Understudy Read Online Free Page B

that.
     

     
    The light board has a maze of buttons and switches, most of them with the labels rubbed off from years of use. Although it’s electronic, the dull colors and square shapes mean it’s from the eighties and I wonder how it’s survived this long. Several minutes pass and I’m tired of pretending to be interested in this thing, but I’m too terrified of running into Derek, so I keep standing here.
    Someone slaps my butt and I spin around. “Don’t tell me the hottest girl in AP English is a stagehand?” It’s Greg. That Greg. Ugh.
    “Touch me like that again and I’ll castrate you.” I turn back around and push a button like I know what I’m doing. A spotlight flips on, blinding Gwen and Ricky who are reading from their scripts in center stage. Quickly, I push the button again. At least now I know what that one button does.
    Greg leans over my shoulder, his breath hitting the back of my neck. Invading personal space is one of his favorite pastimes. “What ya doing?”
    I sigh. “I don’t even know.”
    “Yeah me neither. I’m supposed to be the sound guy, but Teach said we won’t have any sound clips for a week or two so I’m just supposed to hang out.”
    “That woman is so freaking OCD about her plays but she seems to have screwed up a million things already.”
    Greg takes my necklace in his hands and shifts the clasp until it’s at the back of my neck. Goosebumps trail down my arms. Not because I like him—because I don’t—but because he’s a guy and he’s touching my neck. Greg is cute, but in a way that makes you want to punch him. He’s insanely book smart but in an effort to hide it, he’s a smartass. He will say the meanest shit at the worst possible time, and it’ll make you feel like you’re a loser and yet that somehow makes you want to try harder to impress him. He loves to make girls cry.
    Last month I accidently made out with him at Margot’s beach party.
    That’s probably why he’s being so nice.
    “I found a place behind that curtain that makes a really great spot to sit,” he says, staring me right in the eyes because he’s also kind of short for a guy. “Want to go sit ?”
    I know he wants to make out, and it’s probably the only thing that will take my mind off Derek and how stupid I feel for wasting an entire weekend daydreaming about him.
    I glance around and find Aunt Barlow at the front of the stage, engrossed in her two lead actors. She won’t miss me if I sneak away for a while.
    “Yeah,” I say. I know this is stupid and a bad decision. I know it’s the sort of thing that parents tell their little girls about when they have the boys only want one thing talk with them. Greg is a skeeze and I’m not even sure why I say the next few words, but I do. “Let’s go sit.”
    He grabs my hand and pulls me through backstage clutter, weaving in and out of the short mini curtains on the side of the stage. Margot whistles and wiggles her eyebrows as I scamper past her.
    At the very back of the stage there is one final black velvety curtain in front of a concrete wall. It drags along the floor. Greg lifts the edge and motions for me to walk behind it. It’s pitch black behind there, and it can’t possibly have more than a few inches of space.
    “Are you crazy?” I whisper, taking a step back. I’m vaguely aware that I just kicked someone’s shoe. “We can’t fit back there.”
    “Yeah we can, it’s like two feet deep.”
    “Are you sure?”
    He winks. “Yeah, babe. Trust me.”
    “You go first.” I’m all down for making out behind the stage, but not if our bodies make two obvious lumps under the curtain. Greg steps behind the curtain and disappears. “Move around,” I say. I hear him shuffling his feet like a salsa dancer, and to my delight, the curtain doesn’t move at all.
    “Come on back, it’s lonely without you.”
    “Shut up,” I whisper. “Someone could hear you.” He laughs. I lift the edge of the heavy curtain, but before