The Taming (6 page)

“That boy is such a moron,” Lisa muttered.

“Which one?” Travis asked.

“All of them … well … the jury is still out on the new boy. I think I can see where Travis has a point, though.”

“I do?” he asked.

“Yes, about our little Katie being smitten.”

“I am not smitten!”

“She doth protest too much!” Travis said with a laugh.

Lisa clapped her hands. “Very impressive, quoting yet another Shakespeare play.
Hamlet
, I believe.”

“I don’t care if Hamlet came into the Droopy Diaper and said it himself, it isn’t true!”

“You should at least look away from him when you protest,” Lisa said.

I realized I was still staring in Evan’s direction. I turned away.

“And close your mouth.”

I closed my mouth.

“But for what it’s worth, I do believe that Josh and Danny have also noticed
you
.”

“Me?”

“My poor little Katie, you are such an innocent!” Lisa said.

“Sweet sixteen and never been kissed,” Travis added.

My stomach seized but I kept my face blank. He was right—I had never been
kissed
, not really.

“You have to get used to people staring at you,” Lisa whispered.

“I don’t know if … I can’t … I’m sure it won’t …”

“Get used to it,” she repeated.

She was right—being right was one of Lisa’s uncanny abilities.

The effect had been just like being on stage. The new boy, Evan Campbell, had smiled at me, and presto, I was uninvisibled in front of the whole cafeteria. Just like that, he
saw
me, and then
they
saw me. It was official. Note the date and time. My world had changed … but how?

Chapter Eight

I
looked back over my shoulder and she looked away, embarrassed. I could see her, but I couldn’t tell what they were talking about. I turned away. There was no problem looking away from her. She was okay-looking, maybe cute even, but I didn’t think I’d turn around to watch if she passed me in the hall. Each to his own, I guess. Or maybe my standards were just a little bit higher … no, there was no
maybe
there, my standards
were
higher. But still … there was
something
.

I looked back again. I caught her looking at me and she quickly turned away. Clearly I was the one
she
couldn’t take her eyes off. Was she blushing? Katie Rosario was no femme fatale, that was for sure. I could tell that she was lacking in confidence, unsure of herself, and had no idea what she had going on. Then again, I thought it might make a refreshing change from the overconfident, arrogant princesses that I was used to dating.

A bell sounded—the five-minute warning. All around the cafeteria people got to their feet and gathered up their bags and trays and garbage.

“I’d better get to my next class,” I said.

“What do you have?” Danny asked.

“Chemistry.”

“You’re in luck. That’s my next class as well.”

“Great. Fantastic.” I got up and turned back towards where Katie and her friends had gotten to their feet. My eye lingered on her a little bit longer. I didn’t see anything
that
special, but still, why was it that I couldn’t stop looking?

Chapter Nine

T
he door to the back of the stage was open. I slipped in quietly and went into the room off to the side where I’d spent the last week working with the prop crew—that was part of my job. Along with Danny, we were building the scenes. Not exactly challenging, but I wasn’t looking for a challenge, just marks good enough to graduate, get out of this school and get into university.

Danny was already there, along with Travis. They were talking about the set design. Travis was, to say the least, different. With all the black eye makeup, the white powder on his face and the black clothes, he looked like a photo-negative. And his conversations referenced everything from Aristotle to Disney movies—sometimes in the same sentence. He was smart, really smart. Smart people could be dangerous. The only people you could ever really truly trust were stupid people.

“Hey, Evan, how’s it going?” Travis called out.

“Good, really good.”

He came over and gave me a big hug. I gave him a sort of hug back. He seemed to do that with everybody, and the first time he hugged me I was so shocked I was speechless. While it didn’t surprise me any more it was still a little disturbing. My family really wasn’t exactly a hugging family.

“I was just telling Danny that I’m hoping the set will reflect the sensibility and subtle sensuality of the play,” Travis said. “Not that I want to impinge on your own creativity, but it needs to have a certain panache.”

“
Panache
?” Danny asked.

“Style, flair, flamboyance,” I explained.

“Exactly, my darling! Exactly! Build with panache! Now I’d better go and talk to Ms. Cooper before I do a little directing.”

Travis left.

“
He
has a certain flamboyance,” I said to Danny.

“No question he has his own style.”

“Yeah … I guess that’s one word for it.” I paused. “Do you think he’s, um …”

“Gay?”

I nodded. Danny started to laugh. What did that mean?

“Is he or isn’t he?” I asked.

“Just because he likes girls’ makeup doesn’t mean he doesn’t like girls,” Danny said.

“I just didn’t know … don’t tell him I asked that, okay?” I asked.

“It would just make him laugh,” Danny said. “Although I think he jokes around because he isn’t so sure himself.”

“Really? Some guys would pop you just for suggesting they were gay.”

“I don’t think he could pop anybody,” Danny said. “Are you afraid of him?”

“Afraid he might hug me too hard,” I joked.

“Sounds a little homophobic to me. Hugs are nice.”

“Then maybe he should hug
you
more often. It sounds like you might even enjoy that.”

“Are you calling me gay, now?” Danny asked.

“Of course not! I was just—”

Danny started to laugh. Wow, I was going to need a playbill to sort these people out.

“Come on, we have to do a double-check of a measurement,” Danny said.

Danny got up, grabbed the tape measure, and I trailed behind him.

Coming up to the stage from behind we could hear the actors rehearsing before we could see them. Standing at one side of the stage were Josh and Katie … well, really Petruchio and Katherina. We came in quietly from behind so we wouldn’t disturb them.

Katie was good, better than good. She
was
the character. And Josh … well, he was Josh trying to play Petruchio in a foreign language—a language he apparently didn’t speak or understand.

Danny grabbed a wooden sword and handed me a second. Playfully he poked at me and I defended myself. Ms. Cooper shot us a deadly stare, far more pointed than either of the wooden blades, and we put them down and started to work.

I held the tape measure and Danny measured while I listened and watched. I hadn’t seen it at first but soon I got what they were saying about Katie. There
was
something different about her up there on the stage. The way she read the lines with such emotion, the look on her face, even the way her body changed. It was like she
was
Katherina—fiery and feisty and, well, somebody I might want to be with.

Chapter Ten

L
isa wasn’t kidding, she
had
memorized the whole play. Every single part, page and stage direction note. She could even keep the lines straight when we went out of order. Ms. Cooper levitated when she found out. Lisa was not even taking drama. Apparently, she’d started memorizing it the day I got the lead. Travis said she did it for me—for him, too, but mainly for me. He said she knew I was freaked. She wanted to help. No one had ever done anything like that for me. I sort of didn’t know how to be with it. Travis said that’s what friends did. No friend that I’d ever had before.

“
You
should’ve gone for the lead, you know?”

She smacked my head. “
I
know the words,
you
make them mean something. I’ve never seen anything like it, sweetpea. Just get out of your own way. Travis and me are here for you.”

“Travis and I,” I said.

She smacked me again.

So this was friendship. Thing is, Lisa and I didn’t do sleepovers, each other’s nails or never-ending phone calls. Neither of us knew how. She was curt, bordering on rude, even with Travis and me, and then she went and did this. So I did the only thing that made us both comfortable and ignored it, pretty much.

“Uh …” I examined Lisa from tip to toe on the way to rehearsal. “I, uh, love the thing you just did with your hair. Did you … shave that section? It looks … absolutely …” I so didn’t want to offend her with the incorrect or poorly chosen adjective. “It looks absolutely … fierce!”

Lisa stopped and turned to face me and finally said, “You’re welcome, Katie.” The girl was a genius.

Josh and I took our places at the centre front of the stage. Other actors—including Pete Vukovic as Hortensio and David Gupta as Baptista—were at stage left practising their lines.

I noticed Evan and Danny come in quietly from backstage—everybody noticed. We all looked. Evan was hard not to look at. He was the opposite of invisible. They shuffled over to the stage prop corner and started goofing with the swords. Evan handled the weapon like he’d just walked off the set of
Spartacus
. Oh my. They put down the swords and started working with a tape measure.

I turned away from Evan, back to Josh. “How about if we start right here?” I said, pointing at his manuscript.

“Sure, that’s as good as any place,” he said.

I took in a deep breath and visualized Katherina. “
Mov’d! In good time! Let him that mov’d you hither. Remove you hence. I knew you at the first. You were a movable
,” I said.

Josh just shook his head. “What exactly is a movable?”

“A joint-stool,” I answered.

“
Thou hast hit it
 … um … 
come, and
, um … 
sit on me
,” Josh said.

“
Asses are made to bear, and so are you
.”

“Um … I’m sorry.” Josh looked around helplessly. “It might help if I actually understood what her last line meant.”

“She’s saying you’re a donkey,” Evan called out.

We all turned to face him.

“An ass is a donkey. She said donkeys carry people and that makes you an ass.”

“Nice language, Katie,” Josh said. “No wonder you’re a shrew. It would be so much easier if Shakespeare wrote this stuff in English.”

“It is English,” Evan said. “Just think about your next line … about how women are made to bear.”

“You
know
my next line?” Josh asked in amazement.