‘My life flashed before my eyes!’ Sara said as soon as the waiter at the wood-fired pizza restaurant had left the table with our order. ‘My mother, my father, my four brothers — and that horrible Oliver Twist costume. Can you believe that was almost my last thought?’
She thumped the table, making our glasses and napkins jump and nearly causing me to fall out of the booth. An hour after Mr Peterman had dismissed us, saying that as there was holy water all over the stage, the power was out and his two leads were shaking, we’d better leave the rehearsal where it was, I was still on edge.
‘I can’t believe you’re only thinking of yourself!’ Jelena said, glaring at Sara. ‘Mr Peterman looked like he was going to strangle me for not making sure everything was safe onstage. How was I to know that Josh hadn’t screwed the stupid thing down?’
My silly impulse to yank myself away from Hayden had caused chaos for everyone else. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s my fault, guys. If I wasn’t such a clumsy idiot …’
‘Hey,’ Cassie soothed, passing me some napkins to dry my eyes. ‘Accidents happen. We’re not here to lay the blame.’ She frowned at Jelena and Sara, who were still glaring at each other. ‘You need to get some food into you, Aurora. You’re absolutely white with shock.’
I nodded, trying to stop my chin from trembling. I couldn’t block out the image of the font bearing down on me.
‘Thank god for Hayden,’ Lindsay said as the garlic bread arrived. ‘He was incredible. He looked at the font, looked at you, and the next thing I knew he was launching himself into the air and rolling you away from harm.’
I remembered Hayden’s body shielding mine and my heart started racing again.
‘That just ups his appeal even further,’ Sara said, pulling apart the buttery bread. ‘You know, for a minute there, before the font thing happened, I was almost convinced that you were going to kiss him.’
The sip of water I’d taken went down the wrong way.
‘It must have just looked that way,’ I spluttered as Lindsay pounded my back.
I felt bad about lying to my friends. For a moment there, in the magic of the candlelight, I had actually been about to surrender my first kiss to Hayden. Until that expression had appeared in his eyes.
I realised the anger I’d felt about his hesitation wasn’t there any more. It had been wiped away by the way he’d thrown himself into danger to protect me. Plus, his hesitation had brought me back to my senses in the nick of time. Otherwise, my first kiss would have been gone by now and I’d have been regretting that momentary hypnotism I’d been under.
Wouldn’t I?
I was still pondering that question as I arrived home after dinner to hear the phone ringing.
‘Hello?’ My breath was coming fast after the rush to unlock the door.
‘Aurora?’ Hayden’s voice was in my ear.
I froze. This was the first time I’d spoken to Hayden on the phone since we were twelve, except for a series of prank calls Jelena and I had pulled a few years ago.
‘Hayden, h-hi,’ I stammered.
‘Hi.’ His voice was warm. ‘I just wanted to check up on you. I threw you down on the stage pretty hard this afternoon — I could have given you a head injury.’
Hayden had saved my life and he was worried that he’d given me a bump on the head? I couldn’t believe it.
‘No, I wasn’t hurt at all. Thanks to you, Hayden.’
‘It was nothing.’ He sounded embarrassed. ‘I just saw that font coming towards you and knew that I’d better do something.’
His voice was soft and suddenly I was back there, on the stage, looking up into those autumn-leaf eyes, in that odd place where time hadn’t existed … Suddenly I felt very glad that those same eyes couldn’t see me now.
‘So anyway,’ Hayden said, ‘I was calling to say that I spoke to Mr Peterman, and he doesn’t think we’ll be able to rehearse the scene again before dress rehearsal —’
Oh my god. Just like I’d hoped.
‘— but he trusts us to go through it ourselves.’
What?
‘So I was thinking, it could be fun to rehearse it in a fresh environment,’ Hayden said. ‘We might get some inspiration. What do you think?’
‘Great, great,’ I managed.
Hayden and I, practising the kissing scene one on one? How would I subtly manoeuvre my way out of that? But what could I do? Refuse to rehearse? That wasn’t very professional.
Okay, so I’d hardly acted professionally today, what with cutting the power and all, but still.
‘Great!’ Hayden’s tone was total enthusiasm. ‘Why don’t we meet at the front gate after school tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow it is,’ I said.
What drastic measure was I going to have to resort to now?
‘You ready to go, Princess?’
I jumped at Hayden’s voice. My nerves were completely shot after yesterday’s misadventure.
Hayden refused to fill me in on the chosen rehearsal spot, even as we boarded a ferry and took seats outside in the late summer sunshine.
‘The zoo?’ I gasped as the ferry approached the boardwalk.
Hayden burst out laughing. ‘Okay, I admit it’s not the first place you’d think of to run through lines. But I recently saw this documentary where Shakespearean actors took to the streets —’
‘Hayden, you’re not serious!’
‘Yup.’ He stepped up onto the jetty and held his hand out to help me across the gap. ‘The scenes in that documentary took on new life.’
‘So we’re going to be quoting ye olde English by the chimpanzees?’ I said. ‘What’s that going to be like?’
It was hysterical. Hayden made a rule that each scene should take place in a different animal area. We played out our first fiery exchange by the polar bears; our waltz at the fancy-dress party by the meerkats; and instead of our love scene taking place in a church, we ran through it as we rode the skyrail over the park to the seals.
‘I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.’
Before I’d realised it, we’d reached the part where the kiss was meant to happen. We looked at each other awkwardly.
‘So … this is where the kiss comes in,’ Hayden murmured.
‘Yeah.’
We still had several minutes before we’d reach the exit platform. Oh god. What had I got myself into? I was stuck in a tiny carriage up in the air with Hayden, who was about to steal my first kiss. My only escape was to leap out and plunge six metres into the alpaca pen.
‘Which we haven’t rehearsed yet,’ Hayden said slowly.
‘No …’
I looked down and saw that my hands were clutching the safety rail so hard that their knuckles were white.
‘Maybe we could leave it till the dress rehearsal,’ Hayden said quickly. ‘I mean, now’s not exactly a private moment.’ He cocked his head towards the carriage full of crying toddlers behind us. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to pull it off convincingly as long as we have a sense of the blocking.’
‘Sure,’ I said quickly, feeling embarrassed.
‘So, Mr Peterman wants it to be passionate.’ Hayden looked away, his cheeks slightly pink. ‘So after that line, I’ll put one hand on your waist and the other on your cheek, like we rehearsed yesterday, and then I’ll —’
‘Shouldn’t we gaze into each other’s eyes for a minute or so, heighten the tension for the audience of “will they, won’t they”?’ I offered.
I was dying of mortification, but as a fellow actor I wanted to at least look like I was providing input.
Hayden turned back to me. ‘Definitely. So we’re looking into each other’s eyes …’
Our eyes met for real.
Right then, our carriage set down and we both jumped in surprise.
‘Hey,’ Hayden said. ‘We’ve been pretty diligent with the rehearsal. Why don’t we catch the tiger show?’
‘Great,’ I said, thankful for the change of topic.
‘They’re so cute!’ I clapped madly as Sita, one of the female Bengal tigers, leapt into the pool.
Hayden, sitting next to me on the stands, laughed. ‘Kind of fiercely cute.’
‘When I see them playing,’ I said, ‘they remind me of a larger-scale Snookums.’
‘I think I’d be a little scared of Snookums the tiger,’ Hayden said. ‘What with all the pouncing he does.’
‘I wish he had an area like this.’ I looked over the expansive tiger enclosure. ‘I just know that he and Bebe are bored at home alone all day.’
‘Hey,’ Hayden said, ‘I’ve got an idea! Have you seen that ad about DVDs for cats?’
I nodded.
‘Why don’t we make our own?’ Hayden pulled out a camera. ‘I could get some footage of the lions, the leopards …’
My face broke into a smile.
We raced around the zoo, filming not only the lions and leopards but also the elephants, giraffes, antelopes and birds of prey.
‘This will make a pretty good savannah scene,’ Hayden said, reviewing the footage on the ferry back to the city. ‘I’ll edit it a bit, add some music and transfer it to DVD for you.’
‘Hayden,’ I looked at him seriously, ‘thank you for the whole DVD thing, and for today too — a totally unusual but very fun rehearsal. But most of all, thank you for what you did for me yesterday.’
Hayden smiled. ‘It was nothing.’
I took a deep breath. ‘What I’m really trying to say is, I want to be friends with you.’
‘Friends?’ Hayden repeated. ‘How can I say no to that request, Princess?’
‘So you and Hayden are friends?’ Jelena said as she pasted copies of the script onto the backstage walls for any actors who might want a last check of their lines before they went onstage.
I’d stopped by rehearsal to see if my friends wanted to get dinner afterwards. ‘Yeah. I decided that life’s too short to hold grudges.’
‘So what happens with the kissing scene now that Hayden’s your new best friend?’ Sara waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
‘We’ve decided to just go for it on the day of the dress rehearsal.’
Sara, Jelena and Lindsay all gaped at me.
‘Well, he thinks we’re just going to go for it,’ I said. ‘But I’m going to skip to my next line — which is “Kill Claudio”. Hayden can’t kiss me after a highly unromantic statement like that. And as we’re doing the dress rehearsal in front of a live audience, Mr Peterman can’t stop us and make us go back to the kiss. Easy.’
My words were swallowed up by shrieks from the stage.
Jelena closed her eyes and grimaced. ‘Not another falling prop.’
The shrieks drew closer and a paint-splattered Cassie ran towards me, with an equally paint-covered Scott in hot pursuit. Both of them were laughing their heads off.
‘I’ve broken the ice!’ Cassie breathed as she tore by me.
‘I can’t believe we’re spending the time we should be at dinner cleaning up paint from the courtyard!’ Jelena huffed ten minutes later as she put lids back on paint cans. ‘What on earth possessed you to start a paint fight, Cassie?’ Jelena wrinkled her nose.
‘I know the answer,’ Sara said, and pointed towards Scott, who was looking for a hose to wash down the cobblestones, which were now a rainbow of colours.
Cassie grinned happily. ‘Sorry, Jelena. When Scott and I finished the last backdrop, this wild urge came over me. I was so sick of everything being polite and formal between us, so I flicked my paintbrush at him.’
‘What did he do?’ Lindsay asked with a horrified look on her face.
‘He stared at me for a moment and I got really scared that he was going to be furious,’ Cassie said, brushing a purple curl away from her face. ‘Then he gave this big grin and said, “This is war!”’
‘Cass, I am so proud of you.’ I threw a bucket of soapy water over a particularly paint-splattered section of the courtyard.
‘You’re proud of her for making a mess?’ Jelena shrieked as droplets hit her shoe.
‘Oh, be quiet, Jelena,’ Sara said. ‘Let Cass tell us her story.’
‘Scott dipped his fingers in the yellow paint and dabbed them on my face!’ Cassie laughed. ‘Then we were flinging paint at each other. That’s why the courtyard is the way it is.’ She grabbed a scrubbing brush and attacked a forest-green stain.
‘It’s a waste of materials!’ Jelena said, shaking her head, but everyone ignored her.
‘Anyway, it was the most fun I’ve had in ages, and now Scott’s totally normal around me!’
Cassie’s voice was triumphant. I hugged her, paint stains and all.
‘The ice has broken, and you’re on your way to tropical waters!’ I said.
The ringing of my mobile interrupted our joyous jumping up and down.
‘Just let me get that,’ I said. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Hi, Mum!’ I said, grinning as Scott returned and threatened to spray Cassie with the hose. ‘I bought your ticket for the play today. You’ve got a seat in the third row for Friday.’
‘Listen, Aurora, about that,’ Mum said.
My smile faded.
‘I’m not going to be able to make it. I’ve got a business dinner with a client we’ve been courting for six months.’
‘You can’t come to the play?’ I cried out.
My distress was drowned out by Jelena, who’d accidentally been sprayed with the hose and was screaming her head off about her dress being dry-clean only.
‘No, of course not,’ Mum said. ‘I want you to change the ticket from Friday night to Saturday.’
‘And you’ll definitely be there, right?’ I couldn’t keep the anxiety out of my voice. I’d only just realised how much I wanted my mother to see the play.
‘I promise,’ Mum said. ‘This is only the beginning, Aurora. Bright things are ahead of you.’
‘I love you.’
It was the first time I’d said it since the week before she left for Spain. The words felt funny on my tongue.
‘We’ll talk Saturday,’ Mum answered.
