Upstaged Read online

  UPSTAGED

  Patricia

  McCowan

  O R C A B O O K P U B L I S H E R S

  Copyright © 2016 Patricia McCowan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  McCowan, Patricia, author

  Upstaged / Patricia McCowan.

  (Orca limelights)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1004-4 (paperback).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1005-1 (pdf).—

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1006-8 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca limelights

  PS8625.C69U67 2016 jC813'.6 C2015-904522-3

  First published in the United States, 2016

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015946190

  Summary: In this novel for teens, Ellie loves musical theater and is used to getting leading roles, but after she moves to the big city, she has to share a part with a talented girl who seems determined to outshine her.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Rachel Page

  Cover photography by Corbis

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  19 18 17 16 • 4 3 2 1

  To my arts-loving daughters.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from Honeycomb

  One

  One

  Once again, I do the only thing that’s made my school mornings bearable for the last week. Still in bed, I haul my laptop off the floor, go to the bookmarked site, click Play and settle in. There I am, center stage, belting out “Popular” from the Rossmere Heights School production of Wicked. The spotlight follows me as I sing about all of the ways I’ll make over Elphaba, played by my best friend, Cassidy. It was last June, only three months ago. Forever ago. I start to sing along. My cell phone buzzes on the bedside table.

  “Yes, Dad, I’m getting ready for school,” I say before he can get a word in. I mute the video but keep watching. “Shouldn’t you be chatting up some local hotshot right now?”

  “That’s why I’m calling, Ellie.” Dad’s voice is way too chipper for eight in the morning. “Watch the next guest. I think you’ll be interested.”

  Dad’s the new host on the local TV show This City This Morning. It’s been a month now. A month since he dragged me away from Rossmere Heights to come to Toronto. Where my new high school doesn’t even have a drama club. Band, debating, coding and even archery, yes. Drama, no.

  “It’s not another social media’s eating your teen’s brain story, is it?”

  Dad sighs. “No. Just watch it, okay? I have to go. Love you.”

  “Back at you.” Though I’d love him more if he hadn’t messed up my life so much.

  I close my laptop, drag myself out of bed and pad out to the condo living room. Even after a month, I’m still freaked by the floor-to-ceiling windows in here. Our high-up view is cluttered with the windows of other buildings. Other buildings filled with other people. I’m all for an audience, just not in my own living room. I slouch down onto the still-smells-new sectional and swap my cell for the TV remote.

  “Welcome back. It’s five past eight,” Dad says from the tall stool he’s told me is too slippery. He’s six-foot-one and not really made for perching. A woman with short black hair smiles from the stool beside him. She is made for perching. She’s petite and curvy, rocking a tight red dress and matching lipstick.

  “In our studio with me now is Renée Felix, artistic director of the Youth Works Theater Company, or YWTC, for short. She is a passionate believer in the power of musical theater to engage youth.”

  I sit up straighter.

  “Good morning, Mike.” Her voice is melted-butter smooth.

  “You know, Renée”—Dad smiles at her, then at the camera—“some of our viewers may not believe this, but I once trod the boards myself. Back in high school. In The Boyfriend.”

  I moan. “Your viewers don’t want to know.”

  “I’ll bet you were the boyfriend,” Renée says, right on cue.

  “How did you guess?” He laughs and points off-camera. “Okay, my producer is now spitting out her coffee, so we better move on.”

  Renée feigns disappointment. “You’re not going to sing for us?”

  “Better not. Tell us about YWTC.”

  “Please!” I say.

  “We mount top-notch musical-theater productions, in a professional theater, entirely with actors aged thirteen to nineteen.” Renée delivers this mission statement with a warmth that makes it sound like a fancy French meal. And I’m hungry for it. “I hire professional directors and choreographers, so each rehearsal process is like a master class in musical theater for our performers.”

  “Wow.” Dad pulls his head back. “Sounds intense. But exciting too.”

  Always the cheerleader. Breakfast television is not exactly hard-hitting journalism.

  “They love it, Mike. It is such a learning experience, to see what it takes to put together a show. They really bond working together. And, of course, it’s fun too. It is musical theater, after all!”

  “Absolutely. And where do you find these performers, Renée?” Dad turns toward the camera. Toward me.

  “Yes, Dad, I’m getting this,” I answer back. He’s been on my case about moping around the condo too much. And I’ve been helping him feel guilty about having to leave Rossmere Heights. Could this theater company be the one thing that doesn’t suck about moving here?

  “Mike, you know this city is such a theater town.” Renée touches his arm. “It’s filled with teens who have grown up seeing wonderful shows—The Phantom of the Opera, Legally Blonde, Mama Mia! They’re keen for the chance to discover what it’s like to actually be in one. We have a lot of interest.”

  Filled with teens. I picture gangs of musical-theater nerds dancing their way around the subway, breaking into song. I wish.

  “And you’re going to be giving those teens that chance again soon, isn’t that right?” Dad glances off-camera. Probably getting the “keep-things-moving” signal from Bev, his producer.

  “Our next show is in late November, so we start rehearsals September 25th. We’re holding auditions for it this Saturday and Sunday at the East End United Church. Our website has all the details.”

  “Yes, we’ve got that address on the bottom of your screen,” Dad interjects, looking at the camera.

  I grab a pen off the coffee table and write the website address on the back of my hand. It’s shaky. The word auditions has made me nervous.

  Dad turns back to Renée. “What’s the show? Something classic? Like The Boyfriend?” He winks.

  I throw the pen at the TV. “Enough with The Boyfriend.”

  “No, something new,” Renée says, ignoring the bait. “We’re very excited. It’s a new off-Broadway musical called
Schooled. The storyline is perfect for teen actors. It takes place in a boarding school. Sort of a mash-up between Annie and Hairspray.”

  “That sounds weird.” I slump back into the couch.

  “Sounds great,” Dad says, clearly having no clue what such a show would look like. He smiles at Renée and then at the camera. “Okay, future musical-theater stars, polish up your best songs and—”

  I turn off the TV. I stare at the address on my hand but don’t move to get my laptop. The condo is silent all around me.

  I never had to audition at my school. I was Sandy in Grease, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Galinda in Wicked, because our drama and choir teacher, Mrs. Mowat, knew I was the best one for the lead roles.

  And what about all of those musical-theater-savvy kids Renée Felix mentioned? How many of them would I be up against in an audition?

  My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Dad’s text reads, Told you you’d be interested! :)

  I don’t text back. But the phone’s clock tells me I’m going to be late for school. Again. I look over to the wall of windows and wish for the thousandth time that I’d never had to leave Rossmere Heights, where I knew I always had a place onstage. I yank my pajama sleeves down, covering up the writing on my hand.

  Two

  Leaving school alone at three thirty, I get hit full-on by one of those warm September afternoons that make you curse the inventor of school. All around me, kids busily thumb their phones. The Java Jones across the street is already lined up out the door.

  I take off my hoodie as I walk, hoping to absorb some sunshiny happiness. This is the sort of afternoon when Cassidy and the other drama kids and I would raid the chips aisle at the Kwik Mart and head down to Clarey Park by the river. We’d gossip and do fake music videos around the picnic benches and weeping-willow trees.

  A jolt of missing Cassidy makes me stop on the spot. I pull out my phone and text her. Hey, homegirl! School out? A streetcar turns the corner, the metal-on-metal squeal of its wheels piercing my head.

  Yep.

  Knowing she’s there on the other end of the phone makes me smile. I lean against the corner of a bank building, ignoring the people streaming past. Home in 10. Skype time?

  Can’t. Sorry. :( 1st meeting for West Side Story 2day! Rehearsals start nxt wk. :D

  I let my backpack slump to the ground. West Side Story?!

  Didn’t I tell you?

  She didn’t. I’d have remembered. It’s my favorite old-school musical. As Cassidy knows. Forgot. Been busy! I lie.

  Glam big-city life! Hoping for Maria. Gotta go now.

  Maria. The lead. If I were still there, that role would be mine.

  My phone vibrates in my hand, a nudge. Wish me luck!!

  Luck, I text back.

  Bye-bye sunshiny happiness. I pocket my phone and start walking again. I get to the condo building, pull open the smoke-gray glass door and trudge through the lobby. I hit the elevator button and suddenly can’t wait to get upstairs. Not to watch the Rossmere Heights production of Wicked again, but to get an audition time for the Youth Works Theater Company. Maybe I can’t be Maria, but perhaps I can at least get myself back onstage.

  The elevator doors open with a chime. The first note of a new song.

  * * *

  Audition day. After riding the subway past two stops before realizing I was going west, not east, getting onto the train going east and then running the block and a half from my stop to the East End United Church, I’m sweaty and short of breath. I yank open the ancient door, and it’s so dark inside I can barely see.

  “Are you here for the Schooled auditions?” a sharp voice asks. My eyes adjust. At the end of a short hallway, a young woman sits behind a table next to a closed door.

  “I am.” I hurry over. “My name’s Ellie Fisk.”

  Now that I’m closer, I can see she’s probably nineteen or twenty. Her thick black hair is short, with purple streaks through it. Her nose is pierced with a tiny purple gem.

  “Fist?” She frowns at her laptop.

  “Fisk.”

  A sign on the table reads Audition in Progress. Quiet, Please! I can hear a male voice singing from behind the door. “Miracle of Miracles” from Fiddler on the Roof. He sounds fantastic.

  As the girl at the table works the touchpad with one hand, her other one snakes out to a plastic bag filled with gummy bears. She pops two into her mouth, does a final click and looks up. I smile. She doesn’t.

  “I’m Neeta Patel, the stage manager,” she says, brisk and businesslike despite the gummies. “We’ve had a ridiculous number of people auditioning, so things are running a smidge late. Makes me insane. You’re the last one today, hallelujah. Have a seat. You’re after Marissa Ivan.” She points over to a bench I hadn’t noticed, where a girl my age sits studying a binder on her lap.

  “Thanks.”

  Neeta nods, pops another gummy and goes back to her screen.

  I sit. The girl on the bench flips through the pages in her binder, her straight brown hair half blocking my view of her face.

  “Hi, I’m Ellie.” I keep my voice low but friendly.

  She glances over, flicks her bangs away from her eyes. “Marissa.”

  “I’ve never auditioned for this company before. You?”

  “I’ve been with YWTC for three years.” Her eyes give me a quick once-over. “Can we not talk? I like to focus before an audition.” Though she barely opens her mouth, I notice big white teeth. All the better to snap at you with, my dear.

  “Oh. Sure.” Three years. I wonder what sort of roles she’s had, how good she is. I pull my sheet music out of my bag and look over it one last time.

  A burst of angry monologue—“I told you not to mess with Carlos!”—comes from the audition room, startling me.

  “Yikes. Sounds serious,” I joke.

  Marissa keeps reading. Neeta keeps chewing.

  I sit there, butt on a hard pew, back against a hard plaster wall. Is everyone in YWTC so grim? Where’s the musical-theater happiness? Where’s the feeling that everyone could break into song because life is so gosh-darn swell? If Neeta and Marissa are typical of the theater-loving young people that Renée Felix cooed about on my dad’s show, I’d hate to meet the theater-hating ones.

  The door to the audition room opens, and a slim guy with curly, brown hair struts out. “Nailed it.”

  Neeta snorts but smiles.

  The guy points both hands, pistol-style, at Marissa. “Your turn, Ivan the Terrible.”

  Ivan the Terrible? I look sideways at Marissa, half-worried she’ll pull a real gun on the guy, but she laughs as she and her binder head into the audition room. “Camilla! Great to see you again. How was New York?” she says before the door closes.

  I guess it’s just me who gets the cold shoulder.

  “Omigod, look at you!” Nailed-it guy is staring at me, hand on his chest.

  “What?” I stand up to check myself out. Was I sitting in something? Sweating through my shirt?

  “You look like Snow White, all black-haired, blue-eyed, lost-in-the-woods goodness,” he says in a tone of wonder.

  I laugh, surprised and relieved. “No one has ever told me that before.”

  Neeta shushes us. “You’re scaring the poor girl.”

  He shields his mouth from her and stage-whispers, “Sorry.”

  “Actually,” I whisper back, “you’re the first person here who hasn’t scared me.”

  He nods. “Neeta and Marissa can be a tad sharp.” He thrusts out his hand. “Gregor.”

  We shake. “Ellie.”

  Marissa’s singing cuts through our conversation with the opening bars from “Popular.”

  I drop back down on the bench. “Oh no.”

  “Oh no is right.” Gregor joins me. “Marissa should know better. That song is so overdone.”

  “It is?”

  “Totally. Because it makes every person who sings it feel sassy and bossy in a cute way, which is not how anyone feels at an auditi
on, right? So it’s an ego boost. But it must be pretty annoying for directors to listen to, over and over.” He rattles this off like an expert.

  I start to sweat again. “It’s the song I was going to sing.”

  Gregor smacks his forehead. “As you can tell, I’ve written a book called How to Not Make Friends in Five Minutes.”

  I’d laugh, except I have a blooming sense that I should forget this whole audition idea.

  Gregor must see my panic. He turns to face me full-on. “But seriously, do yourself a favor and sing something else. What other songs did you bring?”

  “This is it.” I hold up my flimsy pages of sheet music. I had been so proud of myself last night, finding it online, buying and printing a copy, going over it a bit. I realize now what must have been in Marissa’s binder: a massive collection of songs she’s practiced to perfection.

  “You brought one song?” Gregor’s delivery conveys half disbelief, half pity.

  “Stupid, right?”

  He waves that aside. “Anything you know by heart?”

  I think of the songs I sang at Rossmere Heights. “‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’?”

  “Nope. Overdone, too slow, the high notes flatten if you’re nervous.”

  “‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’?”

  Gregor grips my forearm gently. “Girlfriend, you will be if I can help you out here, but no. You’re not Olivia Newton-John-y enough.”

  I can hear Marissa speaking now. She’s on her monologue. My turn’s coming fast. “The only other stuff I’m good at is from Annie. And that’s too young. I did it in sixth grade.”

  Gregor hoots. “I love it. I did ‘Tomorrow’ for my first YWTC audition four years ago.”

  “You sang Annie?” Now I’m confused as well as panicked.

  “Before my voice changed, of course. It was my homage to Sarah Jessica Parker.” He makes jazz hands up beside his face.

  “Nothing you say is making sense.” I resist the urge to grab his jazz hands.

  He gasps, widening his already large eyes. “S.J.P. played Annie on Broadway when she was a sprout. How can you be into musical theater and not know that?”

  I’m starting to feel like there’s a lot I don’t know. Marissa exits the audition room. She beams but keeps her eyes down, like she’s carrying a fantastic secret.