Free Almost Final Curtain by Tate Hallaway Page B

into some rich, white man’s ideal for love—it’s offensive.”
    I could see the letter she would be writing to the PTA or school board already. “He’s making the music edgy,” I pointed out. “Maybe he’s going to play up the ironic.”
    “I can only hope so.”
    I was shocked by the number of cars in the parking lot. It looked like everyone in the entire school was going to be trying out. I shook my head. Mom was right. There was no way I was going to get a part in this play.
     
     
    After I’d waved good-bye to Mom and headed into school, I felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned, expecting Bea, but instead saw a kid I didn’t know. Her heart-shaped face was pale, and she had dark rings under her wide, un-makeup-enhanced eyes. The hair was the giveaway. She was one of the honor guards—an Igor. “What do you want?” I said, pulling my lucky shirt from her grasp.
    “A message from the prince,” she said, her voice wispy with that weird awe they all seemed to have for vampires.
    “No time,” I told her, hurrying my steps. “Anyway, tell Dad I’m not sorry about that betrothal thing. This whole arranged-marriage stuff is weird. It should be abolished or something; this is the twenty-first century, you know.”
    The girl’s lip quivered like she wanted to say more, but luckily I spotted Taylor talking to Lane. I shouted a hello to them, and the Igor did what Igors do—she faded into the crowd, so as not to be seen by regular people.
    Taylor waved frantically at me, pointing to something that looked like a raffle ticket in her hand. “Numbers!” she was saying when I got close enough. “Just to get into the auditorium! I’m so screwed. What are the odds of a black Eliza?”
    “I’m telling you, Taylor,” Lane said, as if this was an argument they’d had already. “It totally could work. Instead of East End, you’re a Somali immigrant, see—”
    “I am a Somali immigrant,” she pointed out. “Or at least my family is.”
    “Exactly,” he said. “And I, as Professor Higgins—”
    “Assimilates her into upper-class white culture?” I was beginning to see Mom’s point. “Are you sure Martinez is going to go there? Do you know how pissed off people will be?”
    “Isn’t that kind of what the play is saying anyway? Give up your accent and pass as noble class?” Lane asked. I thought he’d made an interesting choice for an audition outfit. He wore a black vest over a bright, white T-shirt. I was surprised at the muscles he sported. They weren’t huge guns or anything, but I didn’t remember his arms being so defined before. His hair was almost working too. It looked like he might have tried to tame it with some gel or something.
    Like me, Taylor had a specific outfit she always wore. Her hijab was canary yellow, and she wore a similarly bright red, long-sleeved silk shirt.
    She pointed at my shirt. “Mime stripes!”
    It was true. My lucky audition shirt did resemble those black and white striped shirts that mimes wore in movies and on TV. I’d never actually seen a mime anywhere else, so I had no idea if that was just some kind of weird Hollywood thing or what. The truth was, it was really kind of silly looking, but I landed the role of Medea wearing this hideous thing ... and again got cast as one of the sisters in The Madwoman of Chaillot . That kind of clinched it. It was my lucky shirt.
    Plus, it was one of the few shirts I owned that hugged my figure and showed off what few attributes I had topside, as it were. Even though skintight, muffin-top-revealing clothes were the rage, I tended toward things that fit loose and comfy. I think my audition shirt had the element of surprise.
    Lane seemed to be checking me out too. “I think it’s nice,” he said in a way that made heat rise to my cheeks. But, in typical Lane fashion, he added drily, “For Marcel Marceau.”
    Taylor snickered behind her hand, and I just shook my head and tried to hide my initial reaction to his attention