Chapter Text
Three bells signaled her release from class, throngs of chatting students filed out of their classrooms, eager to go home, save for Pearl. The bright smile on her face suggested excitement, a slight skip in her step as she half-walks, half-runs to the theatre room, luminescent eyes sparkling all the while. It has to be up by now, there's no way it's not up yet! She turned a corner a little too quickly, almost running into a familiar face.
Lapis mumbled a quick "sorry", her electric blue hair pulled loosely back into a pony tail, her bangs and a few stray hairs falling out, covering her ears and framing her face nicely.
"Good afternoon, Lapis," she said with a smile, holding her theatre textbook tightly against her chest, beginning to walk again. Lapis sauntered beside her, matching her pace. "Headed to the call board?"
"You bet! Do you think you made?" Her tone of voice was confident and ecstatic; they weaved in and out of the crowed of students headed to catch their busses.
"I'm not entirely sure," Pearl scratched the back of her neck, her nerves on edge "My audition didn't go so well, I'm a better dancer and singer than I am an actor."
Smiling brightly, Lapis gave her a quick pat on the shoulder, "Eh, don't worry about it! It's a really dance heavy show so you should be fine." They got to the music and arts wing and sped up to a brisk walk. There where far less students in this part of the building as usual, but they could see a large clump of kids down at the end of the hall.
"Is it posted yet!?" Lapis called down the corridor; a few kids in the group turned their heads to see who asked, although most of them paid her no mind. One of them said a quick “Yeah” before turning back to looking at the bulletin board. "Yes!" Lapis jumped with excitement and started to take up a jog to meet up with her peers.
"You go on ahead! I'll check when it's less crowded. " Pearl called out as she was leaving.
Lapis stopped and looked back at her friend, "Do you want me to text you if you made it?"
Pearl shook her head, "No, I'd prefer to see it myself. Thank you though." She had wanted to get a good look at it when there weren't as many people around, Pearl hates large crowds, always too much pushing and shoving. Lapis gave her a smile and a nod before she turned and dashed ahead towards the group of people.
Pearl sighed and took out her phone. 2:33pm 0 New messages. Figures. She looked at the swarm of people at the end of the hall, some of them where hugging, a few kids crying, but most of them where either pulling out their phones to get a good picture of the list or shoving the rest of the group trying to get a better look.
This was the one part of theatre Pearl didn't like very much. So dramatic. Although, she figured, that is to be expected from the drama club. She walked down the hallway a little further until she found the side-hall full of practice rooms and wondered if any of them where left opened by the band students.
The first few doors she tried where locked, but luckily the forth door to the right swung opened with ease and she entered the small room. A few music stands where scattered in the corners and a small piano was pressed tightly against the furthest wall.
It wasn't a very big space, but it was a nice spot to avoid the loud fuss of the cast list commotion. She carefully placed her bag by the door; setting her book on the bench beside her she sat down, resting her hands on the smooth surface of the keys. She took a deep breath and tried to forget the worries of making it into the show or not. She just let her fingers run free, plucking out the notes of a sweet familiar tune. She played softly enough that it shouldn't be too much of a bother to anyone outside, but just enough so that the music echoed around her. She hummed along with the melody softly as she played, getting lost in the song. She continued to play one thing after another until she felt nothing but calm wash over her.
She wasn't sure how much time had past when she finally raised her hands from the instrument and stood up. She reached down and pulled the phone from the pocket of her jeans to check the time. It had only been about a half an hour but that was more than enough timed for everyone to have finished checking the cast so Pearl pulled her bag up off the ground and started to heading out the door.
She spent most of the walk down the hall trying to convince herself she didn't care, that it was a small cast, let alone the first production she had even auditioned for in this school since she moved this year and that it would make sense if she didn't make it. I mean if I don't make the show I can always join crew, right? she thought to herself. Taking a deep breath, she could see the bulletin board down the hall, I Hope I Get It was playing on repeat in her head, ironically enough, as she made her way to the list. No piece of paper had ever felt more daunting than a musical cast list. No one was around and to see her, there where still a few stragglers hanging around the band room but no one she knew and they where too busy dealing with their own conversation to even give a glance in her direction so she didn't mind.
She looked up at the sheet of eight and a half by eleven, black ink letters neatly printed--this paper was fate of how the next four months of her school career may play out. Now look who’s being the dramatic one, she thought as she felt the weight of her nerves sinking back down to the pit of her stomach, she knew it was a main cast of 8 with only a handful of ensemble members thrown in their to give a few more people a chance. She started off looking at the bottom of the page.
Four names where listed under the bolded word ENSEMBLE and none of them where even close to hers. She took a shaky breath before glancing up. The first thing she noticed was Lapis's name was printed right next to Diana. Pearl smiled, Good for her, she was happy for Lapis, that's a good role and it suits her. She skimmed over the characters quickly, not seeing it at first, her heart dropped for a brief moment until her brain processed the name stated directly after the label Judy. It was hers.
I made it, she brought a hand to her mouth in shock. ‘I made the show!’ She was grinning from ear to ear, she knew how dumb it was to feel this excited but she didn’t really care, she looked back up to read the rest of the page. Underneath the cast list was a single bolded sentence:
Rehearsals start the first of next week, contact Mrs. Quartz if you cannot attend the first read through, she can provide you with your copy of the script before Friday.
Pearl could barely contain her joy; she stood their with a dorky grin on her face, wondering if she could get her script ahead of time so she could practice her lines this weekend. However, her train of thought was cut off abruptly and she was startled out of her excitement when she heard the loud bang of a stapler directly to her left. The smile slipped from her face and her shoulders jumped to her ears, head snapping around in an instant to find the source of the uninvited sound. A shorter girl, no more than 5'3", if even that, stood before her, pinning a piece of paper to the board that she was holding about a foot above her head.
She must of noticed Pearl jump a bit because she glanced up in her direction, her bleached blonde hair falling over her right eye, she sported an old looking Ghost Busters t-shirt that was slightly askew and leaning off her left shoulder, her jeans where so tattered and torn she must have had them for years. As Pearl was glancing her up and down she said "You okay, dude?"
Pearl was still surprised at how she had just snuck up next to her without making a sound all she could do was stutter a quick "What?"
A smirk pulled at the smaller girl's plump lips as she gave a short chuckle, "I said: are you okay? You look really out of it, are you sick or somethin’? Or just a little off your rocker?"
She opened her mouth to retort, but stopped herself and just shook her head "No I'm fine, I'm okay I-"
"Did you make it?"
"...huh?"
"Ya’ know… Did you make the show?" She leaned her elbow on the wall, arching an eyebrow at Pearl. “I can only assume that’s why you’re looking at the cast list all bubbly and starry-eyed.”
How embarrassing, Pearl held a hand to her face, trying to stop herself from blushing, "Oh! Yes, actually I did."
The shorter girl looked shocked for a moment, "Wow! Quartz must really like you."
Pearl's eyes went wide, and she cocked her head to the side "W-What?"
"Whoa! Don't sound so offended." The other tossed her head back and laughed, "I'm just saying Mrs. Quartz usually doesn't cast people who haven't been in the department very long, jeez, did you sleep with her to get in or something?"
Pearl went completely red in the face, "No! I would never-" it was pretty obvious she looked up to her teacher a lot, and although she was very beautiful, she wouldn't even think about—
"I'm just pulling on your leg, don't sweat it." She chuckled again when Pearl let out a breath she hadn't realized she's been holding, hanging her head in embarrassment. "Anyway, I have to run, I have a fresh pile of two by fours with my name on em' that have to be stacked before I leave and I don't want to stay any later than I have to." She spun a key ring on her finger as she started to walk away, after making it a few feet she stopped and turned back and gave Pearl a big smile, "Congrats on making it by the way, I'll see yah around then." She turned back and headed off in the direction of the back door to the theatre.
Pearl watched her as she vanished behind the metal door before she turned back to the cast list one more time; she looked at her name and smiled. This is going to be interesting.
Out of curiosity she spared a look at the piece of paper the mystery girl had tacked to the board.
Set build schedule:
Starts THIS weekend and runs up until tech week.
It was followed by a small calendar that specified days and times set builds would be taking place with a small agenda of what they where going to get done each day.
Interesting, Pearl thought as she pulled out her phone to send Lapis a quick Congratulations! text before she walked to her car.
___
When she got out to the parking lot Pearl gave a quick glance around to see that it was roughly empty, aside from the few cars that where still left there by other students who had stuck around for whatever clubs or sports hadn’t let out yet. She pulled out her keys and pressed the unlock button before walking to where she had left her mini-van. It was an older model Mercedes her parents got her about a year ago, it was in pretty good shape for its age and she absolutely loved it, dents and all. She hopped in the driver’s seat before putting the key in the ignition.
She lay her forehead on the top of the steering wheel for a moment and let out an enervated sigh. For some reason she couldn't get the girl from before off her mind, they barely even talked and yet somehow the short ball of energy had left an imprint in Pearl’s mind. She was at least a few inches shorter than Pearl, considering she herself was 5'8 as opposed to the other girl's meager height of 5'1. Along with being much shorter, she was also on the chubbier side- additionally, she had this confident air about her and she's just kind of really... Cute? Pearl shook the thought out of her head. No actually, she didn't seem confident, she just seemed cocky more than anything. Not to mention she looked like a total slob with the way the collar of her shirt was stretched out and slipping off her shoulder. And she didn't even know where to begin with the mess on her head, it looked as though it hasn't seen a hairbrush in weeks, it was unkempt and knotted, not to mention her roots where about an inch outgrown, why would you bother bleaching it if you aren’t going to keep up with it? Not cute at all.
… But there was something in the way her cheeks would puff out just a bit as she would start to laugh. The way her hair fell in front of her eyes and she didn't seem to mind it enough to brush it out of the way. How whenever Pearl said anything, even if it was just an awkward and incoherent mess of stuttering syllables, she was looking her right in the eye as if every word she mumbled out meant something important.
It was endearing almost, something about her just reeled Pearl in, for just a moment she forgot why she was even standing there, whatever she was thinking about didn’t matter for just a moment, the musical didn’t matter, her chemistry test next week didn’t matter, everything just stopped. Something about this girl just drew her in and she didn't even know what her name was.
She let out another melodramatic sigh and turned the key, her car humming to life. She backed out of her parking space thinking, I made the show and that's what’s important. I need to make sure I don't get distracted so I can do well in the show and make a good impression on the theatre department.
__
When she got back home both of her parents where still at work so she had the whole place to herself. She threw her car keys on the table and walked to her room before flopping down on the bed exhausted.
It was only 4:31 but she should probably get started on her homework before she got distracted and she had some time to kill before she would have to start making dinner. She sat up on her bed and glared down at her book bag, trying to remember what work she had to do in each of her classes.
After a few moments passed she concluded that she should study for Chemistry test that was either on Tuesday or Thursday next week, she had to work on a character analysis for her Advanced Theatre class, and she had a project for Language Arts that she would need to turn in by the end of next week. She was doing pretty well in Chemistry at the time being and she had a whole weekend to look over her materials. In Language Arts they already started the project in class so she already had a good outline finished. Logically she decided she could just get the character analysis done and turned into Mrs. Quartz by tomorrow.
Pearl pulled out a sheet of paper and her folder before she remembered that the rubric was shut in her textbook. She shifted through her bag, only to realize it wasn't even in there. That's odd, she was sure she had it in there before. She pulled the bag in her lap and rummaged for a minute before coming to the conclusion it was no longer where she thought. She let out a long exasperated groan, letting her bag fall to the floor. Just great, she thought, I can't do the assignment without following the rubric, I'll have to ask Mrs. Quartz about that tomorrow before class. At least she had a few more days to complete it, so there was no rush, but it was the one thing she looked forward to working on. She breathed out her nose in a huff before reaching back into her bag so she could get the materials she needed to study chemistry instead.