Take a Lemon

I didn’t see any great opportunities to ask Lee Ann about the flirting thing the next day, either. How would I even have brought it up? And I wasn’t sure whether I was more concerned with Geoff being hurt or just jealous on my male self’s behalf. It was so frustrating not knowing what Marsha was supposed to know. What if this was a regular pattern for Lee Ann, and her roommates had been in on it all year? I’d look pretty odd raising an objection after all this time; nor could I claim to be concerned about one particular boy’s feelings, especially after Lee Ann had chastised me for my own treatment of him. So I tried to put the matter behind me for now.

At any rate, I had more important things to worry about. That afternoon was our second blocking rehearsal, this time for the second act. This act was the one which gave me my best acting opportunities. I had an overwrought scene at the start, with Mollie freaking out about having discovered Mrs. Boyle’s body, plus a somewhat tender scene with Chris and a tense one with Giles. There was one bit at the end, in which Giles embraced me, but Jared didn’t even try to touch me when we got to that scene. The look in my eyes must have warned him away. I knew that I was going to have to get over that; I just wasn’t ready yet.

Of all my scenes where the physical contact wasn’t an issue, it was the first scene of the act which worried me the most, simply because it was the furthest from my own, relatively controlled personality. It was also possibly the most dangerous for me. I had so far managed to hold things together by trying to remain as detached as possible from Marsha’s body, seeing it almost as a costume that I was wearing and couldn’t take off, or a puppet that I was manipulating. I couldn’t easily do that and act hysterical at the same time. I didn’t have to worry about it for the walk-through, but Alvin had said that we were supposed to start getting into character at the next rehearsal and I was simply not ready.

The social problems I had caused by ignoring Marsha’s friends at the previous rehearsals seemed to be better now. I tried to talk with Naomi, as I assumed that was expected, but she still seemed a bit cold, although not unfriendly. I eventually concluded that she was just normally like that, which seemed to suit the role she was playing fairly well; at least, I had never particular cared for the character of Miss Casewell. I was actually playing the only nice female in the show, in my opinion. So Naomi was welcome to her.

Of course, that did leave me with the problem of just whom I was supposed to chat with during idle times. Jo wasn’t there, and neither was Nikki, and I wasn’t really comfortable talking with any of the guys, which I decided later was kind of ironic. At any rate, I wound up sitting next to Naomi and listening to her chatter with Jack and the boy who was playing Major Metcalf, and whose name I hadn’t noted.

At the end of the rehearsal, Alvin thanked us as usual. He also smiled and winked at me, which gave me a lot of confidence.

I didn’t see either of my roommates when I got back to our room, so I decided to get a bit ahead on the chemistry reading. I hadn’t gotten very far, however, when my cell phone rang. It was Tina.

“Hey, Teen,” I said, a bit surprised to hear from her. “What’s up?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” she replied. “You haven’t called in nearly a week.”

“But I haven’t had any new problems,” I protested. “In fact, with Nikki helping me with sewing, I’m not panicking anymore, even though I’m probably going to come up short on cash, with her doing the hard jobs.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Who’s Nikki?”

“Didn’t I tell you about Nikki?”

“No!”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t even spoken with Tina since meeting Nikki. So I explained, “Nikki knows about me, I mean what happened to me, and how I don’t know how to sew, and she was Marsha’s friend, so she’s teaching me.”

“Just like that? I thought you weren’t going to tell anybody?”

“Well, I had to tell Alvin; he was yelling at me for not knowing Marsha’s friends, and when I told him I couldn’t sew either, he told Nikki to help me.”

“And you’re OK with them knowing that you used to be a boy?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell them that part. But they knew about the experiment, since Nikki’s brother was in it, and now they know I was, too. So there’s no real problem. I would have called if there was a real problem.”

“You didn’t think I would want to know about this? And since when do you need to have a crisis to call me? Just call to talk!”

“About what?” I asked. She wasn’t making any sense.

“About….? Marrrsh…!” she whined. “Wait. How often are you used to talking to me? The other me, I mean. The one you remember?”

“All the time,” I said. “You know, whenever there’s something important going on in my life.”

“And exactly how often would that be?” she pressed.

“I don’t know, maybe once a month or so.”

“Once a month?” she sounded really surprised by the answer.

“Maybe six weeks?” I suggested.

“You’re not going to talk to me for six weeks?!”

“Not in character for Marsha, I presume?” I seriously hadn’t thought things through. Girls did seem to talk a lot more than boys, in my experience, and Tina no doubt expected more frequent conversations with her “sister.”

Then a sudden thought struck me. Not just Tina, but other girls in Marsha’s life were probably expecting a lot more conversation, such as her roommates. I tried to think if they had been giving me odd looks at my failure to chat about… whatever it was that they expected Marsha to chat about. I sighed in frustration; it was just one thing after another. But I needed to deal with my immediate problem first.

“Teen, how often are you expecting me to talk with you? Not that I’m not willing,” I added hurriedly. My question had sounded a bit off-putting once it came out of my mouth, and I didn’t want Tina to get a bad impression.

“Three times a week would be OK, I guess,” she said. “And you should really call Mom at least twice a week.”

“Three times…? What exactly are we supposed to talk about? I don’t think I can even remember that much stuff in a typical day. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, nothing interesting happened today again. How about you?’”

“There’s always something to talk about,” she insisted. “For example, didn’t you have a rehearsal today?”

“A blocking rehearsal, yes.”

“And how did you feel about it?”

“How did I… what?”

“Marsh. How. Did. You. Feel?”

“Um… good?” I answered, obviously missing something very basic.

The sound of her exhalation told me I wasn’t getting it. “What thoughts did you have before, during, and after the rehearsal? How did you think it went? Were there some things that were fun?”

“Oh!” Now I could see what she was getting at. Why anyone would care about my private thoughts at a rehearsal was beyond me, but since she was asking… I told her about the act and the scenes I had in it. I told her how I was worried about the first scene, and how Naomi had been hard to talk to. That led to a discussion of my shunning Naomi and Jack, and how Alvin had gotten the story from me, and who Nikki was…

I had to hand it to my sister. She managed to sound interested the whole time, even when I was telling her things that I certainly would have been bored to hear from somebody else. And… it was odd, but it kind of felt good to have somebody listen. I’d talked a fair bit to my girlfriends, but had always considered that to be sort of part of the dating ritual – you show interest in the other person by letting them talk about themselves. The idea that somebody would want to listen in another context was a bit new to me.

“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she commented, when I had finished.

“I can’t believe you wanted to hear all that.”

“Well, sisters should be interested in what’s going on in each other’s lives, don’t you think?”

“I guess so. But why would you…?” Then I got it. Oh boy was I being thick. “What’s going on with you, Teen?”

“I thought you’d never ask! I had another date with Danny last night…”

Ulp. I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to hear about what some boy might be doing to my sister, but she clearly wanted to tell me, and she had listened to me, so I was sort of honor bound to listen. So I just said, “yes…?”

And she talked. And talked. And talked. Whatever my concerns, it was clear that she really liked this boy, and it sounded as though he was being respectful toward her, not trying to force her to do things she didn’t want to. My ‘big brother’ instincts told me that I should have personally checked him out, but she hadn’t gone out with him while I was home. I rather wondered if that hadn’t been intentional. Their date had ended with what was apparently a very intense good night kiss and a bit of a snuggle, and she was very excited about that, so what could I say? I tried to make the same kinds of supportive comments that she had when I was talking. I don’t know if I succeeded, but she clearly appreciated the effort.

When she was done, and we had pretty much said all that we needed to say, she asked when I was planning on calling her again. I suggested a compromise.

“Would once a week be enough?”

“At least once a week, Marsh. But I’m willing to start there; I just hope that you’ll want to talk more than that.”

“OK, Teen,” I said. And we said good night and hung up. Apparently I was expected to play the role of Marsha at least part time with Tina as well. How interesting.