Leo: Stage Fright Page 3

Lydia smiled, thinking about his dark eyes with the little gold flecks. "He's a poet, right?"

  "He writes pretty well, but his first love is art," A.J. informed her. "He says he wants to try his hand at scene design."

  "Really? So you're friends?"

  "We've had a few classes together," A.J. said. "Besides being unbelievably good-looking, he's really intelligent and talented."

  "Everyone at Connally High is talented," Lydia said, "otherwise they couldn't have gotten into a school for the arts."

  "No, but I mean he's really, really good," A.J. insisted. "Not only at writing and art, but in science and math, too."

  Lydia grinned. "He sounds too good to be true. No wonder I was weak in the knees."

  "What do you mean, weak in the knees?" A.J. asked, suspiciously.

  Now it was Lydia's turn to gush. "You said it yourself. He's handsome, nice, kind, and all-around wonderful."

  A.J. suddenly hit the brakes and the little orange Toyota fishtailed across two lanes to a stop at the side of Mockingbird Lane. "Lydia, don't you dare."

  Lydia was still gripping the dashboard and looking around to see what had caused their sudden stop. "Don't I dare what?" she gasped.

  "You leave Eric alone," A.J. said angrily. "He's mine."

  "Yours?" Lydia squinted at her friend in disbelief. "You mean your boyfriend?"

  "Yes. I mean, no," A.J. sputtered. "But I want him to be, so just butt out. There are plenty of other guys for you so leave mine alone."

  "But you hardly spent any time with Eric tonight. I mean, if you guys were so tight, why didn't I see you together?"

  "Because I was too nervous," A.J. confessed. "I was shocked that he even came to the show. But I was feeling much more relaxed by the end of the evening. And I think, if you hadn't have fallen, we could have had a great time at the restaurant."

  "Oh, come on, A.J., you—" Lydia bit her lip, stopping herself before she said anything too mean.

  A.J.'s eyes brimmed with tears. "I know what you're thinking. Why would a boy like Eric like somebody like me? Well, there's more to life than looking like a model and having to be the centre of attention all the time."

  Lydia winced. "Is that what you think about me?"

  "Yes." A.J. jammed the car in gear and screeched back on to the road. "That's what everyone thinks. Lydia, you are so self-centred. I just wish, for once, you would think about somebody else."

  Ow, that stung! Lydia decided she'd better lighten things up or one or the other of them was sure to say something they'd really regret. "I'm sorry you feel that way, A.J. But I'm a Leo. Leos crave the spotlight. I can't help it. I'll try to be—"

  "I'm sick of hearing about you being a Leo," A.J. snapped. "Well, I'm a Capricorn, and we have feelings and creative thoughts, and need some attention, too."

  "If it's attention you want, do something about yourself," Lydia shot back. She couldn't help it. What right did A.J. have to hurt her feelings? "I mean, you say you came to the party with Eric and what did you do? You left him and spent the entire night at the hors d'oeuvres table, spilling food all over yourself." Lydia pointed at the ketchup smear on A.J.'s jacket. "Very attractive. That's a sure-fire way to get a boyfriend."

  A.J. paled. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, and stared straight ahead. When she spoke, her words pierced Lydia's heart like an arrow. "You are cruel and selfish. No wonder someone left that trap door open for you. I wish – I really wish you'd broken your neck."

  Lydia inhaled sharply. She could not believe what A.J. had just said. The girls rode the rest of the way to Lydia's house in a fierce silence.

  A.J. didn't even pull into the driveway - she just stopped the Toyota in the middle of the street. Without another word, Lydia pushed open the door and got out. She never looked back.

  Chapter four

  Uranus is putting on the brakes today. Don't be surprised if something "leaps at you out of the blue". Something totally unexpected will happen. Could be awesome, could be a disaster. Play it cool, Leo, and let your dignity rule the day.

  Lydia couldn't sleep. It was her second night since the accident, and AJ.'s words kept exploding through her head like little lightning bolts.

  "No wonder someone left the trap door open for you."

  Could it really have been deliberate? If the open trap door had actually been meant for Lydia, then whoever did it must have made sure that Lydia – and Lydia alone – crossed the stage in the dark.

  Once again Lydia got out of bed. Maybe a glass of milk would help her sleep this time. She shuffled past her brother's room into the tiny kitchen on the other side of the living room. Saturday's events played through her head like a music video on MTV.

  First Garrett Hughes, the technical director, had stopped her on the way to the party. "Go back to your dressing room and get your costume. We're not your slaves."

  Sure, Garrett was a bit overbearing, and made no secret of his contempt for actors in general, and Lydia in particular – but did that mean he wanted to hurt her?

  Then there was Bill Glover, with whom she'd always had a love-hate relationship. He told her at the party that he'd left a small token of his appreciation for her in the dressing room. What did he leave? She never found out.

  And Robin, for that matter. Hadn't he said something about leaving a bouquet of flowers from "a secret admirer"?

  Thinking of presents in the dressing room, she remembered that the new girl, Page Adams, had left a family heirloom – her grandmother's brooch, or something – for Lydia.

  And A.J., with whom Lydia hadn't spoken since their fight in the car. She'd told – no, ordered Lydia to go to the dressing room and get her purse.

  And what about Keenan? Lydia took a sip of the milk she'd poured. Ugh. It was sour. Her mother had forgotten to go to the store again. Lydia poured herself a glass of water to get rid of the bad taste.

  This is crazy. Lydia added the glass to the pile of dishes in the sink. If I start thinking this way, soon everyone will be a suspect. Lydia shuffled back to her bed. No one is out to get me. Bill Glover was right — it was an accident, pure and simple.

  Monday turned out to be as disastrous as the weekend. After finally getting to sleep on Sunday night, Lydia overslept. She had been late to school enough times to know that they weren't going to be happy if she did it again.

  She bolted out of her house and made it to John Connally High in record time. She was without make-up, barely dressed and completely rattled. So when she opened her locker and its total contents exploded on to the floor, Lydia slumped into a heap next to it, completely defeated.

  Brrring!

  "Great!" She stared miserably at the pile of spiral notebooks, old tennis shoes and greasy lunch bags scattered about her feet. "Now I'm late for class!"

  "Having a problem?" a deep voice echoed in the nearly empty school hall.

  Lydia raised her head. Eric. Perfect. First he finds me at the theatre practically strangled by my own scarf. Now he sees me slumped like a slob in the middle of this trash heap. If he thinks I'm a total loser, I don't blame him.

  "Need some help?" he asked in a kind voice.

  "Call the police, there's been an earthquake." She gestured weakly at the pile of debris at her feet. "Better yet, call an exterminator. I think some of this may still be alive."

  Eric chuckled and dropped to one knee beside her. He was again dressed in black.

  Hmm. Must be his serious artist look.

  "From the look of things, I'd have to say that you are having a bad day."

  Lydia rolled her eyes. "My daily horoscope said something totally unexpected would happen to me," she said, thinking he would make fun of it. When he didn't, she continued, "I'm a Leo, and—"

  "I figured that," he interrupted politely.

  "That obvious, is it?" She winced at the memory of A.J.'s words about being self-centred, and hoped that's not what he meant.

  "You're in the theatre. That's the
first clue."

  "OK, Mr. Zodiac, let me guess your sign." Lydia thought about the astrology she knew, then picked an honest, straightforward sign. "Virgo?"

  "Almost." Eric's grin widened as he said, "I'm an Aries with my moon in Virgo."

  Aries. Lydia flipped in her mind through her Love Signs book. Aries was one of the signs most compatible with Leo.

  "We're both Fire signs," he continued. "Which means, I guess, we'd better be careful."

  "Or invest in some flame-retardant outfits," Lydia said, with a suggestive arch of her eyebrow.

  "So what did your horoscope say?" Eric asked, as he started to collect some runaway pencils that had rolled across the hall.

  Lydia looked at the ceiling and recited what she'd read that morning, finishing with, "Flay it cool, Leo. Let your dignity rule."

  "Sounds like good advice," Eric said, handing her the pencils.

  "What it should have said is, stay home," she replied. "And pull the covers over your head."

  "Hey, an overstuffed locker is not a cosmic problem." Eric was now busily trying to find caps for the pens that littered the floor. Lydia didn't have the heart to tell him that most of those pens probably didn't write.

  "It's not just the locker," she said, grabbing her old, sweaty gym suit that had never really dried and sat like a mildewing mountain between them. She quickly tucked it into the bottom corner of her locker. "It's the homework I left at home. It's the test I'm to take in Romance Literature that I know I'm going to blow because I haven't kept up because of all the time I've spent on the play. It's my parents fighting again."

  "I thought your parents were divorced," he said, handing her two spiral notebooks from the first semester.

  "Who told you that?"

  Now it was Eric's turn to look embarrassed. "A.J. I, uh, asked her about you. Truth is, I bugged her until she gave me the briefest of details."

  "Yeah? What else did she tell you?"

  Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for him to repeat A.J.'s charge that she was selfish and cruel.

  Eric surprised her. "She said you are a wonderful actress and one of the world's greatest friends."

  "This must have been before Saturday night," Lydia said wryly.

  "I think it was." Eric ran one hand through his jet black hair. "Anyway, I'm sorry about your parents. Mine split up when I was seven. Luckily, I like my stepdad well enough, even if he thinks the arts are for weirdos and losers."

  We're actually talking! Lydia was happy for the first time that day. So I'm a little late for class – this is more important.

  "It's true," she said, tossing her tennis shoes, several leotards and two pairs of socks back into the locker. "My parents are recently divorced. It wasn't pretty, believe me. Dad has already moved in with his girlfriend, which really burns Mom because she's still alone. Now we live in this dump of a house, since it's all my mom says we can afford, while Dad is happy as can be in his deluxe condo."

  Motor-mouth! Now you've told him things you've never told another soul.

  "My family sounds pathetic," she said, not looking up at him. "Sorry to whine."

  "Hey, what are friends for?" He touched her shoulder and a delightful shiver ran through Lydia's body.

  "Truth is," he said, picking up a couple of old candy wrappers and tossing them in the trash, "it's a relief to find out you're human like the rest of us."

  "Human?" she repeated. "What, you thought I was some sort of cyber robot? Or a wind-up doll?"

  Eric's face reddened. "I didn't mean it to sound like that. Please, I'm sorry. It's just that you always seem so...perfect."

  "You're not exactly a slouch," Lydia shot back. "Artist, poet, math and science genius. A regular renaissance man. What do you do in your spare time, help homeless children?"

  "Hey, this isn't easy for me, either," he said defensively.

  "What isn't easy?" she asked, really not knowing.

  "This." He pointed from himself to Lydia. "Getting acquainted. Trying to figure out if a person I'm interested in is equally..." He stopped and waved one hand as if trying to erase the last part. "All I mean is, don't work so hard at being perfect. A little imperfection is nice. If nothing else, it makes someone like you not so intimidating."

  "Intimidating. Hmm..." Lydia cocked her head to study Eric's face. He's not perfect either. That's good. He's terribly cute when he's fumbling for words.

  "So, do you want me to help with the rest of that?" Eric gestured at the remaining trash on the floor.

  Lydia glanced down at what was left and her eyes widened in horror. "Urn, no—"

  Too late. Eric lifted a crumpled sack lunch from the top of the pile. "And what have we here...?"

  "Don't," Lydia pleaded.

  Ignoring her, he opened the sack and was immediately knocked back by the stench. He held it at arm's length. "When's this from? Last year?"

  "Maybe," Lydia admitted, totally embarrassed.

  Next he lifted a slightly damp, badly wrinkled leotard and stared at it suspiciously. "Ever hear of detergent?"

  "Detergent?" Lydia pretended that she'd never heard the word.

  "Soap for clothes," he said.

  "Hmmm," she said. "I may have to try it."

  "No kidding," he said.

  Under the leotard was all sorts of junk – student newspapers from last semester, old assignments, dance shoes, candy and gum wrappers, her old theatrical head shots and resumes, rehearsal schedules from shows long past, brochures for the Dallas Youth Theatre which she meant to distribute but never did, and an orange which over time had shrunk to the size of a golf ball.

  "OK, you now know my most horrifying secret," Lydia said, wishing she was dead. "I'm the world's biggest slob. But remember," she added quickly, "you said you liked a little imperfection."

  "A little?" Eric echoed, surveying the mess. "Lydia, your locker qualifies as a toxic waste dump!"

  "I have my good points, too!" she protested, starting to cram the stuff back into the locker.

  Laughing, Eric helped her, stopping occasionally to toss old tests and long forgotten homework in a nearby trash can. They were almost done when Eric discovered something wrapped in a scrap of red material.

  He shook the bundle and a small Barbie doll dropped onto the floor.

  "You still play with dolls?" Eric joked.

  "That's not mine," Lydia replied.

  "It was in your locker."

  "Maybe so," she said with a shrug. "But I've never seen it before."

  He knelt to pick up the doll, which had been dressed in clothes resembling the red swimming costume Lydia wore as Edith in My One and Only.

  "Maybe it's some kind of opening night present," he remarked, handing it to Lydia.

  She turned the doll over and suddenly dropped it as if it were on fire. "Oh, my God!"

  "What?"

  Lydia covered her face with her hands. "Look at the doll, Eric!" she cried. "Look at it!"

  Eric sucked in his breath sharply when he saw what had alarmed her. Someone had pierced the doll's stomach with a tiny dagger.

  "Whoa. You have any idea who –"

  "No." Lydia pressed her back against the lockers trying to get as far away from the doll as possible. "It's like some kind of voodoo doll!"

  "Maybe it's a joke." Eric picked up the doll and turned it over and over, looking for some kind of clue. "A sick joke, grant you, but a joke."

  Lydia could only stare speechlessly at the mutilated doll. When she finally spoke, her words were barely a whisper. "Like the trap door being left open? That kind of a joke?"

  "Now you're making a huge assumption," Eric said quickly. "Everyone knows that was an accident."

  "Was it?"

  Before Eric could reply, a door down the hall opened and a group of students wearing bizarre masks and costumes burst into the hall.

  "What the...?" Eric mumbled as they swarmed around the startled couple, making weird bird and an
imal noises and pressing in with their strange, monstrous faces.

  Lydia realized in an instant what was going on. "Don't worry." She touched Eric lightly on the arm. "They're from my advanced mask making class. We're studying the Italian masked characters from the sixteenth century commedia dell'arte. See?" Lydia pointed to the boy wearing a harlequin mask. "There's Robin. He's Arlecchino, the clever clown. And I'm supposed to be—" Suddenly she put her hands to her mouth. "Oh, no! Today's our final day. With all that's been going on, I completely forgot about it."

  "My little Columbina!" Robin rushed forward and, taking Lydia by the hand, spoke in a phony Italian accent. "We were so worried about you. Little did we know you were out in the hall with a handsome Inamorato."

  Eric straightened up, obviously uncomfortable with all of the play-acting taking place. He backed quickly down the hall, stammering, "Well, um, speaking of class – I'd better get to poetry before Ms Hubbard blows her stack."

  "Wait!" Lydia cried. Things felt incomplete and weird. She started to go after him but Robin cut her off.

  "Let him go, Columbina. He means nothing."

  "I'm not in the mood, Robin," Lydia said, attempting to push away and follow Eric, who was just turning the corner. Indeed, Eric was like the character Inamorato – good-looking, often funny, and, Lydia hoped, in love.

  Robin gripped her arm firmly. "Lydia, it's a team project, remember?" he said in his own voice. "You want to ruin it for everyone?" Then in that fake Italian accent, he touched his heart and moaned, "Poor Arlechinno, he mees-es his Columbina."