“This is such a waste of time,” sighed Cerise.
Karine and Laura and two guys from second year were on stage, rehearsing one of their gazillion scenes while the rest of the cast had to sit in the audience and try not to die of boredom.
“I know,” agreed Cassie and Tom in unison, and then they all giggled and tried to stifle the noise with their hands.
The crowd had already been yelled at a couple of times for being too loud while the principle players rehearsed.
“It’s like, I have other classes too. I have essays to write and shit.”
“I know,” Cassie hissed. “Why do we all have to be here if it’s just the important people rehearsing?”
“Well they might get to us,” Tom shrugged.
“Even if they did what would be the point?” asked Cerise.
“Seriously.”
“We have like one line. ‘Right away, sir.’ Wow, sure is gonna take a lot of rehearsal to get that one down pat.”
“But you’re not bitter or anything,” snarked Tom.
Finally Fred and Hugh acknowledge that it was getting late and they were all allowed to go. Cerise hoped that in the future these late night rehearsals would only impose on the time of those students who actually had something to rehearse. But no, she wasn’t bitter or anything.
As they filed out of the auditorium, Tom stammered out an invite to Cunningham’s on Friday and Cerise felt like an idiot when she realized he was talking about a pub and not some dude’s place as she’d originally thought. Everyone else had apparently heard of it. Tom went on to say that his band would be playing there and he’d really appreciate it if some people showed up ‘cause he was worried the presence of his shitty music would scare customers away and so on. Everyone laughed and a few people agreed to go while others made excuses.
Cerise’s locker was close to the auditorium, as were most of the theatre students’ so she didn’t think anything of it when Tom walked in the same direction as her as she went off to gather her things.
“So you gonna come on Friday?” he asked, leaning on the locker next to hers as she fiddled with her lock.
“Well I’m not really much of a bar person,” she shrugged.
“Come on, Cerise! Please!” He actually fell to his knees and clasped his hands together as he implored to her.
Cerise couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah ok, I’ll be there.”
“Awesome!” he exclaimed and bounded up, only to teeter over into the row of lockers next to him. “Ow,” he pouted.
Cerise giggled again as she bid him adieu and went on her way.
Karine wasn’t really into Dickens but she’d never been particularly into Shakespeare either and she’d managed to rock the hell out of a Midsummer Night’s Dream. But a Tale of Two Cities was proving to be much more boring. And Lucie was such a simpering twit of a character, supposedly perfect but actually just annoying. In fact, since they were studying the book in English, which was also taught by Fred and Hugh, she’d chosen to write her book analysis as a critique of Lucie and how much she sucks, as do all of Dickens’ female characters. She’d gotten an excellent grade on the essay and Hugh had written tons of notes in the margins agreeing with her points of view. It was pretty cool to have teachers who would actually take one’s opinions seriously. Come of think of it, Fred and Hugh were probably greatly relieved to read such a rocking essay, which was actually grammatically correct and followed standard thesis rules, as they’d given a lecture about such rules before handing out the assignment. One could only assume they’d endured years of reading mindless drivel from their brain dead students.
That didn’t make Lucie suck any less though, and this play was still totally boring as hell. At least her costume fittings had gone ok. The other girl playing Lucie was totally fat and had to have a dress specially altered, while Karine fit into everything with ease so her dresses would be way nicer. On the other hand, Lucie was supposed to be a ‘golden-haired doll’ and there had been talk of putting her in the most hideous wig that had ever been created.
The guys playing Carton and Darnay were pretty cool though, so she was having a good time at rehearsals even when Laura went on rants about character motivation and other stereotypical theatre nonsense. But both Hugh and Fred seemed to have huge hard-ons for Laura and all her dramatic hullabaloo so Karine made a point of asking them lots of questions and following all their stage directions to the letter so now they loved her too.
“Well this join’s jumpin’! Let’s get the party started, losers!” Janice exclaimed as they walked in to Cunningham’s on Friday night after another successful rehearsal.
The Tom guy who had invited them was rambling about how all his band members would surely be late because they were such a shoddy operation and then he mused that Shoddy Operation was a good name for a band and he and Janice traded a bunch of random band names and they both seemed to find the conversation extremely entertaining, totally not noticing that no one else found it even slightly so.
Was it Karine’s imagination or was Tom trying to flirt with Cerise? He kept trying to include her in the band convo and even nudged her playfully a few times. Poor guy, if only he knew that Cherry was completely clueless when it came to guys and wouldn’t know he was interested even if he rented out a billboard declaring his love.
As if to draw attention to her own ignorance, Terry joined them at that moment and Karine had to begrudgingly admit to herself that maybe Cherry wasn’t completely out of it if she’d managed to snag the hottest guy ever.
He came in with the whole gang and at first Tom was really pleased to see so many people had come to see his band but when Cerise made the introductions and referred to Terry as her boyfriend, his face fell visibly. He recovered quickly and Cherry obviously hadn’t noticed his disappointment, being the clueless wonder but Terry maybe had and when they shook hands Tom cringed.
“Haha, hey, whoa. Watch the hand, I’m gonna need that later,” he laughed awkwardly, pulling his hand away and cradling it.
“Sorry,” smirked Terry, putting a protective arm around his little Cherry angel.
“You look really familiar,” interjected Peter, addressing Terry. “I’ve seen you somewhere… soccer maybe, hockey?”
“I play for the Lakeshore Panthers,” offered Terry.
“Yes, ok, that’s it!” Peter nodded. “I have a brother in hockey, I’ve probably seen you at a game or something.”
“Oh, a hockey player,” said Tom. “How… intimidating.”
Everyone laughed and Karine gave Tom credit for making jokes at his own expense.
“You bitch!” screeched Janice. “Why didn’t you tell me you were dating a fucking god?” she howled, shaking Cerise’s shoulders.
Cerise just laughed awkwardly and Terry smiled broadly, and even winked at Janice, which set her to swooning and then cackling and then dancing in place.
“Ok well, there’s my boys… I mean, not my boys, that sounded kinda gay, didn’t it?” stammered Tom. “But yeah, my band. Well not my band, the band. Well not the band, like we’re the only band in the world but um yeah. Ok, I’m gonna stop talking and then I’m gonna walk away.”
He nodded and took off with his hands in his pockets and everyone laughed.
“That guy’s weird,” said Terry.
“Are you kidding? He’s awesome!” offered Vani, who Karine hadn’t even noticed was with them.
“I know, Tom’s hilarious!” agreed Cassie and Vani looked dumbstruck, perhaps shocked that a girl was agreeing with him.
Karine wondered if she should tell Cerise that Tom was crushing on her but before she could Sarah took all the girls aside and pointed it out.
“What? Tom’s not into me,” insisted Cerise, looking dumbfounded.
“Cerise, like wake up. It’s way obvious,” insisted Sarah. “I mean, right?” she asked the others.
Karine and Cassie nodded and Janice just laughed.
“He’s totally smitten,” said Sarah.
“Smitten’s a good word,” remarked Karine. “I mean not just in this situation but in general.
“Yeah,” agreed Janice. “It’s like a mitten with a bit of smut thrown in.”
“Yeah, that’s totally what infatuation is like, it’s a warm cozy feeling like a mitten on your hand but also full of lust. Very apropos,” Cassie concluded.
“Ok well even if Tom is having smutty mitten feelings, which I’m not saying he is but whatever, I mean I’m not so who cares?”
“Yeah no shit who cares!” laughed Janice. “If I had a boyfriend as hot as your hockey dude I wouldn’t care about Tom and his stupid suspenders either.”
It was funny because Tom was wearing suspenders that that were clearly non-functional but even funnier was that Janice was also wearing aesthetic suspenders and she even pulled on them to emphasise her point.
They all giggled and then Cassie agreed that Terry was indeed hotness personified, to the point where she was embarrassed to introduce them to her boyfriend because he was like Napoleon Dynamite in comparison, which was funny but kind of shitty thing to say about one’s boyfriend. Of course it turned out to be an understatement when her boyfriend actually showed up and it was none other than Jonah Cupryk!
“Oh my god!” Karine said in unison with Sarah and Cerise and they all laughed at each other.
“Hey you guys!” Jojo exclaimed as he joined them.
Cassie tried to introduce everyone but Jojo interrupted her and said all their names, explaining that they’d gone to high school together.
“I didn’t go to high school with any of you losers!” laughed Janice, introducing herself.
“Hey you guys! Whataya know?!” Jojo smiled happily as they joined the boys at a table.
“Jojo?!” all the nerds exclaimed in shock.
Terry just sat there with indifference, nursing a beer and chatting with Peter.
“What’s up you guys?” asked Jojo.
All the seats were taken and proving that chivalry is dead, none of the guys offered one up so the girls went ahead and sat in the laps of their respective boyfriends. For lack of options, Karine sat on Peter and Janice sat on Karine, grinding into her for good measure.
“Finally, a threesome!” laughed Peter, while pulling on Janice’s suspenders.
“Hey, it’s not gay if there’s three chicks between us, right?” asked Terry, pushing Cerise into Janice and then rubbing up against her.
“Hells yes! Let’s take this backstage and make it an official orgy,” laughed Janice, rubbing her hands all over Terry’s chest, an arm extended on either side of Cherry.
In the background Karine could hear the boys talking with Jojo and establishing that he was going to JAC and taking film, which Karl found random but Jonah reminded them of the stop-motion videos he made when they were kids.
“What are you guys taking?” asked Jojo.
“We’re all in science,” said Karl. “Except Willy who’s in social because he’s lazy and shiftless.”
Karine noticed Terry overhearing that comment and choosing not to say anything about it. She wondered if he was offended. Probably not since he was the bread in a three girl sandwich and the nerds were all just stewing in their own loneliness. Hell, even though Karl and Jojo had girlfriends they probably didn’t know what to do with them.
Shauna sat on the end of the couch smoking a cigarette while Stan and his friends Bill and Rod smoked and played video games. Shauna had always wanted to be a gamer but her parents would never let her have any consoles. The only games she could handle now were ones for little kids. But even just watching others play was kinda fun, especially if it was a game where you get to kill people.
“Shauna, go get me another beer,” ordered Stan once they’d drank everything in front of them.
“Get your own fucking beer,” Shauna grumbled.
That day when Stan had gotten all pissed at her for being a freeloader she’d done a load of laundry and all the dishes but being Stan’s maid seriously sucked. The more she did the more he expected of her and now it had gotten to the point where he would throw a shit fit if ever he came home and there wasn’t food ready for him. How the hell had he lived before she’d moved in? Had he simply starved every night? She highly doubted it. So how come now she had to do everything for him like he was a helpless child? It was so fucking irritating!
Bill and Rod laughed at Stan and Shauna resolved to stay firm in her refusal to get him anything more that night but then he pulled her face down into his lap and said some shit about knowing her place and what chicks are good for and stuff.
When he pushed her away he told her once again to get her a beer and added that she should make them all sandwiches as well. She shot up Stan slapped her ass when she stood. Saying nothing, listening to the guys laugh, she stomped to the kitchen, grabbing a beer out of the fridge. She opened it and came back in the room, hovering over Stan.
“Where’s my sandwich?” he asked.
She lifted her arm over his head and poured the beer over him. He snapped up immediately and grabbed at her arm and the drink fell out of her hand, hitting the floor. Rod and Bill just laughed hysterically but Stan looked seriously angry. Not that Shauna cared. What was he gonna do? Hit her? Like she couldn’t handle that. She’d endured way worse than his puny brain could come up with as punishment.
“Haaa! Epic!” snickered Rod.
Shauna sat back down on the couch and lit up another cigarette while Stan shuffled off to the bathroom to presumably wash out his hair. Bill fetched some paper towels from the kitchen and mopped up the spilled beer.
This band totally sucked. It was really painful. And yet all the theatre kids seemed to be enjoying it. And Cerise and the guys were all way into, although he couldn’t tell if they were being ironic. They kept saying how awesome it was but also laughing hysterically, like it was a big joke.
Finally Terry decided to just outright ask Cerise if she was genuinely liking the music.
“Ok, well they kind of suck, but listen to the lyrics!”
“What lyrics? I can’t make them out!”
“They’re about Star Trek!” laughed Cerise.
“No, this is about the Matrix!” said Vani, leaning in towards them, ostensibly to be heard over the music, although it wasn’t really necessary to hump Terry’s leg to do that.
“No, it’s Star Trek,” insisted Cerise.
“It’s about the spoon bending,” yelled Vani.
Terry could kind of make out that stupid Tom guy with his emo hair belting something about there not being a spoon.
“It’s TNG,” said Cerise. “The episode where Riker is kidnapped and he’s in like, the loony bin and he thinks he’s going crazy. Remember when some chick says she has a communicator but it’s just a spoon?”
“Oh yeah,” said Vani, stunned.
Terry always enjoyed it when Cerise put anyone in their place, even when she was just proving that she was a bigger dork than them.
That horny Janice chick was trying to get them all to dance and finally the girls all joined her and Terry went with them too. Jojo and that Peter dude joined them as well and the nerds were left alone at their table to laugh at the lyrics some more, which they apparently didn’t even get half as well as they thought they did. Stupid losers, who’s lazy and shiftless now?
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