The Course of Life Does Not Run Smoothly

 

            I’m deep in a lovely dream involving a river of chocolate when an obnoxious buzzing jerks me into reality.  I smack my alarm clock to kill the buzzer, and I stretch until every joint in my body pops.  Then I roll over and go back to sleep.  But, before the handsome pirates can come ashore, the alarm goes off again.  I hit the clock, but the noise only stops for a moment.  I slap it three more times, but it won’t be quiet.

            “Hal.  Hal.  Haley!”

            My roommate’s voice pulls me awake.  “What?” I groan.

            “Get up already,” she mumbles.

            “What time – ” I pick up my little black clock – 8:43 a.m.  “Oh, my – ”

            “Hal!”

            “Sorry!” 

            I asked Chelsea to help me on my “grand quest” to clean up my language, and she’s getting very good at it.  She had probably been lying there waiting for me to start cussing at the clock.  I roll out of bed, my bare feet landing in the pile of clothes.  I feel around for my lamp and manage to knock only one thing off the dresser before turning it on.  Chelsea flinches at the light and pulls her blanket over her head.

            “Sorry, Chels,” I stage-whisper, my voice loud in the silence of the dorm room.  “I didn’t mean for the alarm to go off that many times, I promise.”

            “Go to class,” she groans.

            I roll my eyes.  I should know better than to attempt conversation with Chelsea before her first cup of coffee.  I trip twice more between my bed and the door.  My body takes about twenty minutes to figure out that the day has actually begun.  And I have . . . seventeen minutes.  This is why I pick out my clothes the night before.  I grab the blue sweater and the jeans from the back of the chair and pull them on, followed by the brown ankle boots I bought with last month’s extra cash.  I drag a comb through my knotted curls and pull them back into a shoulder-length ponytail.  Brush teeth, wash face, rub on a little makeup, and I’m ready to go.  I grab the battered blue backpack that I stuffed my books into last night, give the messy room one more glance, and half-run out the door.

            The bell rings just as I slide into my seat.  Dr. Wilson raises an eyebrow at me, and I give him the best smile I can manage seventeen minutes after waking up.  As Dr. Wilson begins to ramble about Spanish theatre in the 16^th century, I pull out my notebook and scribble down facts that might be on the midterm.  By twenty minutes into class, however, I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open.  Theatre history is not a good class to have first thing in the morning.  At least I have only one other class today, and Introduction to Drawing isn’t until eleven.

            Afraid of falling asleep, I turn the page in my notebook to a blank sheet and begin sketching.  At first, it’s just a box, but it quickly becomes an outline of the stage in the Hollister Theatre.  Before I know it, I’m working on the backstage layout for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the play in production right now.  The set for Malvolio’s prison has given me trouble during the last few rehearsals.  A pair of hinged plywood flats form two walls of a cell, the wall that’s already onstage makes a third, and a faux oak door sits across the front.  However, there is no place backstage to put an eight-foot wall, at least not where I can reach it.  Fortunately, I’ve spent enough time backstage in that building that I could probably draw the entire thing to scale from memory; it lets me work on diagrams at any time and in any place.

            Suddenly, I realize that everybody is looking at me.  “I’m sorry, Dr. Wilson,” I say, ignoring the heat creeping up my face.  “Could you please repeat the question?”

I judge him correctly – Dr. Wilson shakes his head in resignation and repeats the question.  But I don’t dare lose focus again.  He might be understanding once, but not twice in one lecture.

            The bell rings eventually, and I practically bolt from the room.  Bethany is waiting for me.  “Hey, Nee!” I greet my best friend.

            “I’ve got bad news,” she says bluntly.  She motions for me to follow her down the hallway.

            “Personal or theatrical?” I ask, suddenly nervous.  Bethany gets this abrupt only when she’s very mad or very nervous.

            “Theatrical, but you’ll take it personally.”

            “I will not – ”  I cut myself off.  She has a point.  As the most experienced of the five theatre technicians at the school, I feel responsible for everything that happens.

            Bethany pushes the massive paneled double door open, and I follow her into the green and faded gold theatre lobby.  The thick carpet absorbs sound; once the door closes behind us, I can barely hear the students in the linoleum and cinder-block hallway on the other side.  Bethany fishes a key out of her pocket, and I raise one eyebrow in surprise.  Not that everybody doesn’t trust Bethany, but she doesn’t have a key to the theatre doors.

            “I borrowed Prof. Harris’ key,” she says without turning around, and I stifle a chuckle.  She knows me so well.

            The main lights in the theatre are off, leaving the auditorium lit only by the glow of the emergency lights along the light green walls.  Bethany and I navigate the dim room with the ease of three years’ practice.  I examine everything I pass, looking anxiously for the source of Bethany’s “bad news,” but nothing looks unusual.  The clunky stage lights are still clamped to their rails just below the catwalk twenty feet above me; the mostly-finished set is intact on the stage.  I do notice that the Malvolio prison set isn’t on the stage.  It was on the floor when I left last night.  I shove that thought back to deal with later.  Bethany walks across the stage and heads into the even dimmer wings beside the stage proper.  I follow her through the familiar maze of tables covered in props, costumes, paperwork, and loose pieces of equipment and hardware.  I bang my shin into a low stool left in the shadow of one of the floor-to-ceiling strips of curtain that hide the mess backstage from the audience.  That is going to leave a bruise.  Why do people leave stuff lying around like that?  Don’t they realize people have to walk through here in the dark?

            “Nee, you’re starting to scare me with the silent treatment,” I say, stopping when she does.

            She sighs.  “I know.  Here’s what I can tell you.  I came in after my morning meeting to get my sword so I could glue the pommel wrapping back on.”

            I nod, remembering how she nearly lost the sword when she drew it for the fight scene in Act III during rehearsal last night.  The leather strap that wraps around the sword’s handle had come off in one piece and slid back over the end of the hilt.  And it makes sense that Bethany would come in and fix it herself.  She isn’t one of the five of us who regularly work tech, but she helps out behind the scenes whenever she can, and she usually signs on as a techie when she isn’t cast in a show.

            Bethany isn’t finished talking.  “But when I got backstage, I found this.  Malvolio’s door is in the hallway, so my guess is somebody was moving it to the scene shop and didn’t watch where they were going.”

            Bethany reaches the wall and flips on the florescent lights, and I wince at the sudden onslaught of brightness.  “This is the way I found it,” she says tentatively, motioning to the corner where the four light packs stand in a stack as tall as I am.  Every stage light in the theatre is plugged into a series of cords that ends up here in this corner. 

            I finally understand why Bethany is so upset.  When I went home last night, I left thirty-nine light cords lying in a straight row in front of the packs, their big cylindrical plugs placed in careful order.  I was here late last night, and I didn’t want to stay up another hour and a half to do all of the plugging and diagramming and programming.  I put a little sign that read “Please do not touch cords” on top of them, but I wasn’t worried.  Nobody uses the theatre on Thursdays until rehearsal, and it is always locked.

            But my neat row of plugs is now a tangled mess kicked against the concrete wall.  My little sign pokes out sheepishly from the mess.  I stare at the ruin of hours of work.  Without a word, I walk slowly and carefully to the doorway and look around the corner.  Sure enough, the door to Malvolio’s prison lies on the concrete floor across the hall from the big metal doors to the set construction shop.

            “What kind of idiot...”  I trail off, unable to think of the rest of my sentence.  I want to cry; I want to scream; I want to collapse onto the floor.

            “I’m sorry, Haley,” Bethany murmurs.

            I breathe out sharply; it’s almost a laugh.  “You didn’t do anything.”  I clench my jaw tightly and spin around.  “Lemme blow off some steam.”

            Bethany waits on the stage while I power-walk around the edge of the theatre.  My emotions are swirling.  It is going to take at least three hours to figure out where all of the plugs belong, and that’s if I have help.  If I have to do it alone, it’ll take all afternoon, and I have homework to finish before rehearsal tonight.  I wish I could throw a temper tantrum.  I wish I could find the person who did this and make him or her put it back together.  I wish I could start cussing, but Nee would yell at me.  I stop in the very back of the theatre and start swinging my clenched fists around violently; I let out a sound someplace between a growl and a scream.

            When I walk back to the stage, where Nee sits, I realize that she is watching me, eyes narrowed and head tilted to one side.  It’s her appraising look.  “Afraid I’m going to explode?” I ask.

            “Figuratively speaking, yes.”

            I groan and collapse into a chair in the front row of the audience.  “I just don’t know how I’m going to do this.  I was so happy to have gotten so close to being done.”

            “I know.”  Her voice is soft, calming.

             “Do you know if Jeremy or Dan is in class?”

            Bethany shakes her head.  “I don’t know anybody’s schedule.”

            I rub my temples while I think.  Dan and Jeremy are usually willing to help out, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind being called in an emergency like this.  Neither of them are usually lighting techs, but they’ve both done enough to be useful.

            “What about Ben?” Bethany asks, referring to the other tech who does lighting.

            “He’s got a huge paper due tomorrow that he’s desperately worked on for the past three days.”  I’m whining now.  “That’s why I was running all the cords in the first place.”

            “Oh.”  Bethany twirls a strand of her short dark hair around one finger and pulls on it, a sign that she’s deep in thought.  “I can’t think of anybody else.  Kristin would be useless for this, wouldn’t she?”

            I nod.  “Yep.”  Kristin is our costumer – she’s very good at what she does, but wires and buttons scare her.  I groan again.  “I’m gonna go grab a phone and call Jeremy and Dan.  Hopefully, at least one of them will be free.”  I stride down the aisle.  Bethany runs up behind me and links her right arm into my left, and I slow down to match her shorter stride.  I’ve calmed down enough that I don’t shake her off.

            Jeremy doesn’t answer the phone, but I get Dan on his cell phone.  He can come in at two, he says, and he doesn’t have to be anywhere until four thirty.  He’s also pretty sure Jeremy doesn’t have a class during that time, either, which means he can come.  When I hang up, I can feel the anger easing a little more.

            “He can come?” Bethany checked.

            “Yep.  At least I won’t be doing it myself.”  I glance down at my watch.  Ten fifty.  “Sh – ”  I catch myself.  “ – oot,” “I’ve got to get to class.  See you at lunch?”

            Bethany nods and we hurry in opposite directions.

            Drawing class is as good as usual, but I keep looking at the clock.  The knowledge that I have to spend the afternoon in the theatre is weighing on me.  I miss the assignment and quickly copy it from Jen’s notes.  I have to keep myself from running to the cafeteria; Jeremy is usually there at noon, and I need to catch him to make sure he can come.

            I spot him and chase him halfway across the noisy room.  “Jeremy!”  When I catch up, he grins down at me from his six-foot-odd height.

            “Hey, Hal.  What’s up?”

            “Could you come into the theatre from two to four thirty-ish this afternoon?”  I’m practically begging.  “Somebody messed up the light cords, and I have to get them all plugged in and set before rehearsal tonight, and it’ll take all day if I have to do it alone.”

            “Did you ask Dan or Ben?”

            “Dan can come – Ben’s working on that lit paper.”

            “Right.”  Jeremy winces.  “The monster paper.”

            “Yeah.”

            He stares into space for a long moment.  “Yeah, I think I can do that.  Two to four?”

            “Thirty,” I add firmly.

            “Yeah.  I’ll be there.”

            “Thank you!”  I throw my arms around his neck spontaneously.

            He chuckles and hugs me back.  “You’re pretty stressed about this, aren’t you?”

            I roll my eyes.  “You have no idea.  I was in there until nearly one in the morning last night running all those cords, and some idiot decided to move Malvolio’s prison door into the hallway and kicked them all out of the way.  Somebody just cost me more than two hours of work.  And for a while, I was afraid I’d have to re-do it all by myself.”

            Jeremy puts a hand on my shoulder.  “It’s gonna be all right, Hal.  You always manage to get it done.  You’ll be fine.”

            I let out a breath.  “Thanks.  I’ll see you there.”

            “Two o’clock,” he responds with a mock salute.  “I’ll be there.”

            I give him a weak smile and head for my usual table.  Bethany’s already there.

            “So you’ve got help?”

            “Yep.  We’ll meet at two and get everything back out, then the guys can . . .”  I trail off as an awful thought sends ice through my stomach.

            “What?  Hal, what’s wrong?”

            “Did you give Prof. Harris her master key back?” I ask hesitantly.

            “Yeah; I only borrowed it to get out the sword.”  Bethany stares at me.  “Why?”

            I collapse into the orange plastic chair and drop my head into my hands.  “Because I had to lend Chris my light booth key yesterday because he was giving a tour to a couple of prospective theatre students, and all the stuff I need is in the booth.”

            Bethany winced.  “Can you get it back from him?”

            “Maybe.”      

“He’ll be at rehearsal tonight,” Bethany says, and promptly catches herself.  “But that isn’t going to help you.”

            I groan and let my head fall so my forehead rests on the table.  “I’m dead.”

            “You are not,” Bethany reassures me.  “He might be in his room.” 

“It’s worth a shot, I guess.”  I jump from my chair and head for the phone on the cafeteria wall.

            Chris is not what anybody would call responsible.  I have no idea how he ended up as the tour guide for prospective students.  I lent him a CD at the beginning of the year, and he didn’t return it for a three and a half months.  Unfortunately, the administration office had called him only a few hours before he had to give the tour, and I was the only person that he could find who had a key.  He had a key of his own once, but he lost it.  We’ve never bothered to get him a new one.

            After three rings, he picks up.

            “Hello?”

            “Hey, Chris, it’s Haley.  Do you still have my light booth key?”

            Chris’ voice is deep and slow, with a bit of a Southern drawl.  “Yeah.  I was gonna bring it to rehearsal tonight.”

            “Well, I need it before two this afternoon.  Do you have a class in the fine arts building today?”

            “Yep.  I have acting in there at one.”

            I let out a sigh of relief.  “Great.  Can you leave it on the desk in the student office so I can get to it?”

            He’s silent for a moment; just as I start wondering if he’s fallen asleep, he responds, “I guess I might be able to do that.”  He sounds as if I just asked him to sprint to the other side of campus with it, rather than go ten feet out of his way to drop it off.

            I restrain the urge to say something sarcastic.  “Thank you.”

            “’Bye.”  He hangs up.

            I stare at the phone for a moment, shaking my head.  I will never understand him.

            I need to finish my psychology reading so I don’t fail another quiz, and it takes me until two.  Then I have to run and change into work clothes.  So, it’s five after when I reach the building.  I want this done and over with, so I can stop stressing over it.  I push the student office door open. 

Kristin, a perky blonde who oozes “cheerleader,” looks up at me and grins.  “Hey, Hal.  How’s it going?”

            “Don’t ask.  This has been one of the longest days of my life.”

            “That bad, huh?”  Kristen has the gift of looking happily sympathetic.

            “I get to spend my afternoon figuring out where all my light cords go because somebody kicked them out of the way.”

            “I’m sorry.”  She looks at me with sympathy.  “Anything I can do to help?”

            “Just tell me that Chris left my light booth key in here like he was supposed to.”

            “Uhm . . .”  Kristin looks through the piles of stuff on the desk.  “I don’t see it, Hal,” she says softly.

            I groan.  “The guys are probably already here and waiting for me.  I have got to get those lights up this afternoon so I can use them during rehearsal tonight!  We’ve only got a week until opening night!”

            Kristin gestures for me to stop talking.  “It’ll be all right, Hal.  Chris is in the theatre someplace.  Just go find him and talk to him.”

            “He’s in the theatre?” I repeat.  “He made a big deal about leaving my key when he was going to be here anyway?”

            “I don’t know about him making a big deal out of it, but he just borrowed the office keys to get into the theatre.  He said he let Jeremy and Dan in there, too.”

            I spin around and march toward the theatre.

            “Chris!” I call down the backstage hallway.  “Where are you?”

            “I’m coming, I’m coming.”  Chris ambles out of the set construction shop.

            “Where is my key?” I ask.

            “What key?”

            My voice is sharp and clipped.  “The key you were supposed to put on the desk in the office for me so I could get into the lighting booth.”

            “Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that.  Let me see if I have it with me.”  Chris walks back into the shop.  I hear him dig through the painstakingly organized piles of half-built set pieces, and I nearly scream.  I bite down on my tongue, the mild pain helping me to focus.  I take a long, deep breath.

            Then, Chris steps back into the hallway and shrugs his broad shoulders.  “I think I left it in my room by accident.  Want me to go get it?”

            I calculate how long he would take to plod to his dorm, get to his room, find the key in what is probably a huge mess, and return; it would be faster simply to find Prof. Harris and ask her to let me in.

            “Have it at rehearsal tonight.”

            “Fine.  Need anything else?”  He shoots me a look of challenge.

            I’m back to biting my tongue.  “No.”  Turning on my heel, I manage to walk down the hallway at a normal pace.  Only when I reach the wings and am out of his sight do I growl in frustration, curling my hands into claws.  I stalk through the lobby and down the main hallway toward Prof. Harris’ office.  She’d better be there.  If I have to stay past midnight again to finish this job, somebody will pay. 

             “If he would just listen when somebody told him to do something, we would all be fine.”  I must look like an idiot, striding down the hallway muttering to myself, but I am past caring.  “But, no, he has to make himself a pain in the – ” I catch myself before saying the words flitting through my head.

            Prof. Harris’ closed door stops my inner monologue.  “You have got to be kidding me.”  I rake one hand through my ponytail, ignoring the twinge of pain as the knotted curls pull apart.

            I take another deep breath and spin back around.  “Chris!”  I’m really screaming now.  I pass an open classroom door, and catch the glare of the professor who’s giving a lecture there, but I ignore him.

            I barge into the construction shop and freeze in my tracks, my diatribe dying on my lips.  Chris is fiddling with the latch on Malvolio’s prison door.

            “It was you!”

            “What was me?”  He doesn’t look up.

            “You’re the one who moved the door and kicked all my cords out of the way.  You’re the reason that I’m here for the next two hours fixing all of my light cords, because you couldn’t be bothered to look where you were going!”  I’ve walked closer and closer to him as I yell, and now I’m right beside him.

            Slowly, he stands up, and his tacky cologne hits my nose, which wrinkles from the smell.  “Yeah, I moved the door this morning.  It needed to be fixed.  I figured I’d help out a little.”

            “So you just kicked the light cords out of the way?”  I try to steady my voice, but I can hear the tremble of fury in it.

            “I tripped over some cords on the way back here.”  He shrugs.  “I didn’t know they were so important.”

            My mouth works, but no sound comes out.  Afraid I will say something I will regret later, I spin on my heel and stalk out of the room, down the hallway, and into the maze of backstage.  Then, I let out the scream that has been building in me all day.  Seeing a wad of tape lying on the floor, I pick it up and fling it against the wall with all my strength.

            I hear Jeremy’s voice.  “Hal?  Is that you?”

            I drop my head against the concrete wall.  “Yes.”

            “Is everything ok?”

            “Fine.  Peachy.”  I’m practically oozing sarcasm.

            He’s silent.  Then, I hear soft footsteps behind me.  “Hal?  Dan and Jeremy said you were screaming back here.  What’s wrong?”  It’s Bethany.

            “I’m seriously contemplating murder.”

            “Who?  And can I help?”

            That earns her a exhalation that might be taken for a laugh.  “Chris and yes.”

            “Was he the one who – ”

            “Yes.”

            “Ouch.”

            I let out a wordless whine, desperately trying to rein in my temper.  “Do you know anybody else who has a key to the light booth?”

            She considers for a moment.  “Only you, Prof. Harris, and Ben.”

            I groan.  “And Chris has my key, Ben’s in class until three, and I have no idea where Prof. Harris is.”

            “This means a late night, doesn’t it.”  It isn’t a question.

            I just nod.  The effort to restrain my temper isn’t working.  “And I am going to flat-out kill Christopher Kinston.  Now.”  I wheel around to head for the shop.  Bethany grabs my arm, pulling me back.

            “But think of all the cleanup you’ll have to do afterward.  It’ll make an awful mess.”  She waits until my face softens slightly, then gives me a dimpled grin.  “But we could always stick pins into his costume.”

            The impish twinkle in her green eyes finally coaxes a real chuckle from me.  “I’ll settle for glares for now.  But you might want to make sure he stays out of my way, or I make no guarantees.”

            Bethany gives me a one-armed hug.  “I’ll do that.”

            “I gotta tell the guys that we can’t work until tonight when I can get my key back.”

            “Do you need help tonight?  I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can play nurse and hand you tools.”  She mimes handing me something.  “Wrench, doctor.”

            That does it.  I start laughing.  “Thanks, Nee,” I say.

            “For?”

            “For talking me out of murder.”

            “Anytime.”

            Later that evening, after a long rehearsal, I use Ben’s key to open the light booth and get my equipment out.  Jeremy, Dan, and Bethany help me haul things downstairs, and the four of us begin the long process of figuring out my cords.  Bethany isn’t actually much help, but she flits around the room, cracking jokes and running errands.

            We’ve only been working for a few minutes when I hear a crash.  Spinning around, I see Bethany lying in a heap on the stage.  “Nee!” I cry, shinnying down the ladder from the catwalk and sprinting across the room.  One of the flats fell over and landed on her; the plywood is cracked and Bethany is huddled beneath it.  I heave the eight-by-four board off her.  “Are you all right?”  I drop to my knees beside her.

            Freed from the weight of the wood, Bethany slowly sits up.  She slowly rotates both arms, her neck, and her back.  “I don’t think I’m hurt.”

            My first-aid training kicks in.  “Did it hit your head?” 

            “No...I ducked pretty fast.”

            Jeremy and Dan come up behind me.  “You all right?” Jeremy asks, forehead wrinkled with concern.

            “Yeah.”  Slowly, with Dan’s support, Bethany gets to her feet.  She stretches everything again. “I’m ok, guys.”  Then she looks behind her.  “Oh, no!  Hal, I’m so sorry!”

            “Why?”

            Bethany puts one hand on my shoulder, then pulls away.  Her eyes are wide and nervous.  “I bumped the flat and it fell over.  I didn’t mean to; it was an accident.  I’m really sorry.  Now you’ll have to fix it, and I know you don’t have time.”

            Anger washes over me.  She’s right -- I don’t have time.  Chris has already cost me hours of work, and this is going to cost me at least one more.  Why couldn’t she watch where she was going?

            I glance up and see all three of my friends glancing at each other.  “What?” I snap.

            “You’re actually mad at Bethany?” Dan asks, voice uncertain.

            I groan.  “Not necessarily mad, exactly...”

            “She’s mad.”  Bethany’s arms are folded across her chest as if she is trying to keep warm.  “I said I was sorry, Haley.”

            “I know.  I don’t have time.  You know that.  I just...I’m just sick of everybody not paying attention and costing me time.”

            “But the important thing is that Bethany’s not hurt,” Jeremy points out.

            “I know, and I’m glad about that,” I assure him.  I really am.  I would be horribly upset if Nee hurt herself.  But she didn’t look where she was going, and now I have even more work to do.

            “I said I was sorry,” Bethany whispers.

            I look up into my friend’s sorrowful brown eyes, and a realization hits me upside the head.  How stupid do I sound?  Nee could have seriously hurt herself, and I’m mad because it’s going to cost me time and energy?  Am I really that selfish?

            “Nee, I...”

            “I should go back.”  Bethany’s face is tight and closed now.  “See you tomorrow.”

            I jump up and follow her.  “Nee, please...”

            “I don’t want to hear about it right now.”

            I stand in shock, staring at my friend’s retreating back.  The door swings closed behind her, and I turn to see Dan and Jeremy watching me.  “What?  Do you two want to leave, too?”

            “What’s gotten into you?” Jeremy asks gently.

            “I...I...”  I collapse onto the floor.  “I don’t know.  I’m so stressed out about all this, and I don’t know what to do with it all.”

            The door opens again, and I look up quickly, hoping Bethany has come back.  My chest tightens when I see Chris’ hulking form.  “Oh,” he drawls.  “You guys already got into the booth.”  He ambles down the aisle.  “Dan said ya’ll were gonna be in here late, and I figured you might want the key.”  He stops in front of me and offers the little bit of metal that has caused so much trouble today.

            I snatch it away from him, emotions swirling.  Do I yell at him again or thank him for finally returning my key?

            “Hey, Hal?”  Chris’ voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.  “Listen, I’m sorry I messed up your cords.  I really didn’t know they were there, or I wouldn’t have touched them.  Honest.”

            I sigh.  If I’m honest with myself, I know that.  Chris may be forgetful and slow, but he’s not malicious.  “I know.  And...and...”  The words stick on my tongue, but I force them past unwilling lips.  “I’m sorry I yelled.  It’s been a rough week, and I don’t have the time to fix everybody else’s mistakes and...”  I trail off, catching myself in the same thought patterns.  “Sorry,” I finish lamely.

            To my surprise, Chris smiles.  I’ve never noticed that he has a nice smile.  “No problem.  Uhm...”  He looks around the theatre.  “I don’t know what I’m doing, but do you guys need any help?”

            I am shocked to hear myself answer, “Yeah, we could use some.”

            Chris’ cologne keeps me from getting too close to him, but his help speeds up the process, and we’re done earlier than I thought possible.

            I sneak into my room, finding Chelsea already asleep.  I grab my cell phone and slip out into the hallway so I won’t wake her.  I know Bethany will have her phone on vibrate.  If she’s awake, she might hear it, but she’ll sleep through it if she’s already in bed.  It rings several times before it sends me to her voicemail.

            “Hey, Nee.  It’s Haley.  I’m...I’m sorry about tonight.  I’m really glad you’re ok, and I shouldn’t have been worried about the stupid flat.  I hope you’re not too mad at me.  Hopefully, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.  Sleep well.”  I hang up and stare at the phone.  Bethany doesn’t usually stay angry for very long; I’ve never been so grateful for that fact.

            I pull out clothes for the next day, put my books into my backpack, and crawl under my covers, glad that the awful day is over.  Sleep pulls me in quickly, and I slide into dreams, where pirates sail the chocolate river and doors are never, ever locked.

 

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