Chapter Text
Renée sniffles again. She feels pathetic like this, all curled up in the corner of the girls’ dressing room before rehearsal, earbuds blasting the Mamma Mia! soundtrack.
I don’t wanna talk
Because it makes me feel sad…
Renée hums, leaning her head against the wall, fighting the urge to turn around and punch the painted bricks behind her.
I apologize
If it makes you feel bad
Seeing me so tense
No self-confidence…
Nobody else is in the theatre yet, she knows, since she’s the stage manager and therefore got there before everyone else. Usually, Renée savors her peace and quiet before the chaotic mess of actors and techies show up, but now she just… really wants to go home.
A knock on the door sounds, and Renée jumps up, hastily pausing her music and rubbing her eyes as she yells, “Come in!”
She regrets it as soon as she says it.
“Hey, just wanted to—hey, are you okay?” Renée’s sound designer and begrudging second-in-command appears on the other side of the door, headphones hanging around his neck.
“I’m—I’m fine, Doug,” she replies coldly, wishing he would go away even though she knows he won’t, no matter how much she tries.
“Are you sure?” Another voice, softer, could be heard from behind Doug. Hera appears in the doorway, her bag slung over one shoulder and a concerned look on her face.
“Yes, I’m sure. Just making sure everything’s ready for rehearsal today.”
Renée’s words are clipped, professional, too cool for her usual demeanor. She scowls.
Doug and Hera both sigh, stepping into the room and letting the door shut behind them. They each open an arm, and Renée wordlessly approaches and falls into the hug. That’s their thing. They look out for one another.
“Dom broke up with me,” Renée finally admits.
Doug gasps dramatically, his mouth snapping shut as soon as Hera smacks him on the arm.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Hera says. She can feel a teardrop fall into her shoulder and reflexively holds Renée closer.
“He said that I had to choose between him… or theatre…”
“And you chose theatre,” Doug says, in an oddly soothing way.
“Yeah. I chose theatre. I don’t know,” Renée groans, shrugging. Hera pats her back comfortingly as Renée lets herself have a proper cry.
Doug huffs. “You made the right choice. He’s an asshole.”
“Doug,” Hera lightly chides.
“No, seriously! Do you want me to kill that guy for you?” Doug drops his voice to a theatrical whisper, and Renée snorts.
Hera swoops in, changing the subject. “Hey, we’ve still got… ten 'til rehearsal starts. How about we go take a walk?”
Renée agrees, following Hera out of the dressing room and into the hallway, holding the door open for Doug. Like a caricature of The Wizard of Oz, the three walk with linked arms down to the courtyard of the school.
By now, the only other people there are a few stragglers waiting on rides and a handful of people tossing around a football. Renée sits on a picnic bench, Hera sits right next to her, and Doug sprawls out on the table in front of them.
“So…” Doug turns his head to look at Renée, squinting at the afternoon sunlight.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she says quickly. There’s more than a hint of exhaustion in her voice.
Doug just nods, trying to come up with some other topic of discussion.
“Have you guys seen that freaky plant thing that Hilbert made in the chem lab? I swear it’s gonna go all Audrey II on us someday.”
As Doug speaks, he lays back onto the unforgiving, crisscrossing picnic table.
“Ugh, he still creeps me out,” Hera adds. “Remember when he wanted to, and I quote, ‘dissect my brain’?”
“Ew, yeah, that was awful!” Doug exclaims, his passionate dislike for his creepy, scientifically inclined peer evident in his voice.
Renée lifts her head up from where it’s been resting in the crook of her elbow on the table’s surface. “Isn’t that when you threatened to kill him, Hera?”
“No, no, she didn’t threaten—”
“I tried ,” Hera corrects, crossing her arms.
“Right,” Renée nods, remembering with fondness how Doug had to intervene in Hera’s master plan to fill the chem lab with slightly poisonous gas. All in all, it somehow wasn’t the worst idea the three of them ever collectively had.
The conversation comes to a lull after that, aside from some random outbursts of giggles. Crows squawk and hop around in the courtyard, pecking at leaves and dropped bits of food. Doug reaches into his backpack, producing a plastic bag half-full of half-crushed Cheez-Its, his intentions clear as day.
“Doug, no, they’re all gonna come over here now,” Renée sighs, trying to grab at the bag.
Her attempts are fruitless as Doug sprinkles the orange crumbs onto the ground. Two crows quickly become five, and five crows become a loud, cawing cluster of a dozen. Renée grumbles, putting her head back down on the grimy picnic table. Hera laughs as she watches two crows fight over an intact Cheez-It.
By the time Doug runs out of offerings for the birds, it’s time for rehearsal and Renée is speed walking back to the auditorium with the fury of a thousand suns.
“If Ms. Young gets mad at me for showing up on time , it’s you two’s fault,” she explains over her shoulder as Doug and Hera struggle to keep up with her pace.
“You’re seriously scared of her? What’s she going to do, fire you?” Doug manages to say between heavy breaths.
“Yes. Precisely that!”
Doug takes Hera’s hand, apologetically dragging her along as he bridges the gap between himself and Renée. He knows as well as everyone else that Renée can’t get cut from the show, because absolutely nobody else wants to stage manage.
When they’ve gotten inside the building and Renée isn’t trying to outpace the others like she’s going to win an Olympic medal for it, they fall into their regular formation: Doug in the middle, Hera on one side and Renée on the other.
Hera can tell there’s still something off, though. “Hey,” she says, across Doug. Renée looks up at her. “We’ve got your back. No matter what.”
“Yeah,” Doug agrees, pulling Renée closer so that she’s practically smushed into his side.
“Thanks, guys.” Renée leans her head against Doug’s shoulder, letting her slightly puffy eyes shut for a second as Doug guides her along.
Pushing through the auditorium doors, Renée steels herself, too scared to look at her watch (although she knows it says 3:00—the exact time rehearsal starts).
The look on Ms. Young’s face is… surprisingly void of any outward anger. Renée sighs as she approaches her, hopping up on the lip of the stage and getting out her laptop.
“Good afternoon, Minkowski,” Ms. Young greets, the same way she always greets Renée: as an equal. If she didn’t trust Ms. Young so well, her method of friendly introduction would’ve seriously unnerved Renée.
“Hi, Ms. Young,” Renée replies curtly, flicking through pages in her three-ring binder. “Okay, attendance time!”
Rehearsal goes well enough, all things considered. Once the actors have left and Renée is sure everything is locked up for the night, she slings her bag over her shoulder and goes outside to meet Doug and Hera.
While Doug is the official sound designer for the show, Hera just likes to hang around and occasionally rewire some things in the booth. Renée has tried time and time again to get her to audition for something, anything, an open mic night for Christ’s sake , but Hera’s stage fright always gets the best of her.
“You alright?” Doug pats Renée on the shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m fine. You guys got everything locked up in the booth?”
Doug nods, full of confidence, before backpedaling. “Wait, I actually might’ve forgotten to lock the door…”
“Doug!” Renée scolds, her arms crossed over her chest.
Hera steps between the two of them, making Doug take a few steps back. “Don’t worry about it, guys. I locked the door on the way out.”
Two sighs of relief bounce off of the brick building as Renée drops her terrifying death stare and Doug sidles back up to Hera, leaning his head over her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist.
Renée can hardly stand to watch such a display of affection, so she says her goodbyes quickly and heads out to her car.
Once all her stuff is in the back seat and the air conditioning is at a comfortable temperature, Renée turns on the stereo. Immediately, her ABBA Hits CD starts playing.
When you’re gone
How can I even try to go on?
Renée makes a horrible, despairing noise as she lets her head hit the steering wheel. Unintentionally, she lays on the horn. For the first second of constant, blaring noise, Renée almost welcomes the distraction. Then she processes a scream from somewhere outside.
Startled, Renée sits up, turning off her stereo and hurriedly wiping away her tears for the second time that day.
Out her window, she can’t see much in the darkness. But in the light streaming from a lamppost in the parking lot, she can see someone in front of her car, clutching their chest. Did she accidentally just scare the devil out of some poor stranger?
As Renée debates her next course of action (reversing out of her parking spot and leaving as fast as possible is extremely tempting), the stranger shakes themself out of their frightened state and approaches Renée’s window. She double-checks the car is locked, just in case. Her ears are thrumming with her quickening heartbeat as whoever’s out there points down, signaling for Renée to roll down her window. She’d really rather not, but this person is persistent, so she does.
“Hello?” Renée says hesitantly.
“Hi! Are you in the play? I wanted to ask about joining, well, not me, really, it’s my friend…”
Renée has never been more perplexed in her life. She’s exhausted, she’s sad, she just wants to go home and do her stupid calculus homework alone in her room, and now she’s bravely confronting a stranger to address… the school play.
“Uh… yeah? I’m the stage manager, actually,” Renée responds, adding a touch of pride to her words.
“Oh, cool!” the stranger says, and Renée feels like she might recognize them. “Anyways, sorry, I know this is random. I’m—”
“Isabel, right?”
The shock on this person’s face is enough to confirm that Renée’s guess was right.
“Uh, yeah. Do I…”
“I used to be an assistant for the band director. He talks about you all the time, you know?”
Isabel seems to grin at that. It’s hard to tell in the darkness.
“Oh… right! Uh…”
“Renée Minkowski.”
There’s a moment of silent contemplation before the name finally seems to register.
“Yes! I saw your student directing project last year.”
“Really? I saw your wind ensemble performance a few months ago!”
Isabel sighs, putting her hands in her pockets. “Small world, huh?”
Renée nods in agreement. “Small world.”
The hum of the light is almost calming in its monotony, and the way it casts down on Isabel makes her curly ponytail light up like a halo.
“Anyways, yeah, if your friend needs anything… uh, should I give you my number?”
Isabel shrugs. “If you want.”
Renée hands her phone over, sighing at the fact that she’s gone from skeptical to fully trusting in less than five minutes. But she knows Isabel, sort of. Knows she’s the type of person who can be trusted, at least.
“There you go,” Isabel hands back the phone. The contact name says ‘izzy’ with a little trumpet emoji.
“There’s no oboe emoji,” she explains.
Stifling a chuckle, Renée takes her phone back.
“Well, it’s late, so…” Renée has one finger on the button for the window.
“Yeah,” Isabel agrees, stepping back from the car. “See you around?”
“See you around,” Renée sighs.
With the window rolled up, Renée puts the car in reverse, watching Isabel cross the parking lot. She thinks for a second that she could’ve at least offered Isabel a ride or something, but then she sees her walking towards the one other car left in the lot.
Once Renée gets home, she does not think about Dominik. She does not think about rehearsal. She thinks about Isabel, thinks about texting her, thinks about making sure she got home okay.
She does none of that, sets her phone down on her nightstand and turns out the lamp, and falls asleep within minutes.