EDITED -Jayleigh
Three
Three
All throughout the day, I noticed that Foster was in every one of my classes. Every time I saw him leisurely walk through the doorway, my stomach clenched and I had to plaster on a fake smile. In many of my classes I was surrounded by other students so there was no way he could sit anywhere near me, but in first period English and last period Psychology, he was there.
In Psychology, Fawn and Warren were already seated and in a discussion by the time I arrived. I sat in my seat behind Warren, almost glad he didn’t look up at me and see the worried expression on my face as I walked by.
Almost.
A few seconds after the bell rang, to my complete aversion, Foster walked through the doorway. I looked at him as he scanned the classroom, but I ducked behind Warren’s broad form in hopes that he would not see me. There was something about him that seemed off. I took in his pale, blue eyes, extremely tanned skin, brown tousled hair, and casual clothes, my first reaction was to run away.
“Ah, Foster Gelsey,” Mr. Greene said. “Glad to have you aboard.” They exchanged papers to get Foster caught up on what we were doing in class. “There seems to be an empty seat behind Ms. Fawn there.” He pointed in our general direction.
He looked at Fawn and smiled. “That’s perfect,” he said in the same low tone he used that morning.
When he sat down, Fawn turned around. “Hi,” she greeted. “My name is Fawn.” She held out her hand for him to shake. He took it and kissed her knuckles.
I stared, eyes wide and jaw dropped.
“Pleasure to meet you, Fawn. My name is Foster.”
Fawn giggled and turned straight in her chair. To my surprise, Warren turned around to look at me.
At least that’s what I had thought until he addressed Foster.
“So, Foster, you’re auditioning this afternoon for the play?”
Foster smiled. “I am.”
Warren nodded. “I am as well. And Fawn here,” he said, inclining his head towards my sister, “is to play Christine.”
Foster’s eyes brightened. “Wonderful.”
Fawn turned to smile at Warren. “Warren is an amazing singer. You have some tough competition, Foster,” she said.
Foster chuckled. “I am confident.”
“Fayette?” Mr. Greene called. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”
“No?” I said, puzzled. “I didn’t say anything.”
Mr. Greene scoffed, pulling off his thick framed glasses. “I just heard you speaking to Mr. Dain and Mr. Gelsey.”
“That wasn’t me, that was—”
“Fayette! Enough. You have detention with me after school.”
My jaw dropped. “I didn’t say anything!”
“I’ll send you to the office if you keep this up.”
I sighed and dropped my head on my desk. That wasn’t the fist time I was mistaken for Fawn. People would rather yell at the wrong twin than admit they’d made a mistake.
The class went by slowly. I stared at the clock most of the time, wondering why time always feels as if it slows when you stare at the second hand. I didn’t look at anyone around me during the entire class. Mr. Greene would purposely call on me during the class for answers that I did not know. Nor did I even care.
When the bell rang I sat back in my seat. “I’m sorry, Fay.” That was Fawn. She sounded sincere. It caused me to look up at her in confusion.
“I should have said something. But I really didn’t want to miss Warren and Foster’s auditions.”
I laughed. “I’m the one holding the auditions. Marcia isn’t there for callbacks. It’s my choice.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’ll see you later then.”
“Bye.”
I crossed my arms and stared at the front of the room. Foster was still gathering his belongings. Warren was behind Fawn, touching the small of her back as they walked out the door.
And I did not get that ping in the pit of my stomach when I saw them together. I refuse to.
“This kind of works out perfectly for me,” Foster said and I slowly turned my head to look at him. “I need some catching up to do in this class. Think you can help?”
I am so on edge, I have had a hard time summoning up a smile. “Sure.”
After he had spoken to Mr. Greene again and received a few more papers, he came back to his desk and pushed it closer to mine. His eyes brightened as he smiled.
“Do you wear contacts?” I asked as politely as I could.
His smile faded a little. “Contacts?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling completely ridiculous for even asking. “Your eyes look a little different than before.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I have a hard time hiding who I really am when I’m with you.”
I blinked a few times in confusion. “And who are you…really?”
Foster smiled again. “Someone who is in dire need of your expert tutoring abilities,” he said, holding up a worksheet.
We sat and talked for a long time, my uneasiness fading. He completed a few worksheets with my help. He told me that he was home schooled up until high school. His family had moved around a lot and his mother thought it was smarter to keep him out of school. He moved to Newport, Rhode Island a few weeks before.
Fawn and I had lived in Newport all our lives. Our mother had grown up there and so hadn’t her mother and father. Our entire family lived in that area. Everyone except our father.
“Did he leave?” Foster asked after I had told him of my parent’s divorce.
I shrugged. “He may have. Or he may have gotten kicked out. My mother never talks about it. He writes now and then. He sends birthday cards with a hundred dollars in each. But that’s it.”
“Where is he now?”
“California.”
He started writing on the next worksheet. “That isn’t really fair to you.”
I shrugged again. “He has a new family to take care of now. Why worry about the old one?”
“What about Fawn? Does she feel the same way?”
I shook my head. “Fawn and I don’t agree on anything.” I let out a small laugh. “Every year she takes the money out of the card and sends the card back to our father. She then spends the money on shoes, or clothes or whatever.”
“What do you do with the money?” He pushed.
I picked up my pen and started drawing on my notebook. “I used to spend it. Fawn and I would make a huge deal about our birthday shopping trip. But as we got older, I realized that he was just trying to do the best he can from where he is. I stopped going out with her and I started saving it. I guess him leaving hit her harder than it did on me. I didn’t feel any bond with him, no tie that made him feel like a part of my world.”
“Is that when you started drifting away from her?”
I looked at him. He wasn’t looking at me, but was concentrating really hard on his work.
“Does it matter?” I say, only it comes out too quickly, too defensively.
He shrugged.
For the rest of the hour, we stayed quiet except for his few questions about his work. Mr. Greene didn’t bother us the entire time, which was surprising.
When it was getting closer to the bell, I stood from my seat, grabbing my bag and putting it on my shoulder, and walked to Mr. Greene’s desk.
“Mr. Greene,” I said.
“Ms. Fayette,” he repeated, matching my tone.
“I feel that you have made false accusations against me. I know for a fact that I was not talking to Mr. Dain or Mr. Gelsey while you were lecturing. And I know for a fact that you figured that out for yourself, but decided against correcting yourself.”
“You know this for a fact, do you?”
I nodded.
“Well, Fayette. Then who was talking to Mr. Dain and Mr. Gelsey?”
I stood frozen. I knew I was not to blame and so did he, but getting my own sister in trouble just didn’t feel right.
I shrugged and turned to the door, pulling my sunglasses out of my bag.
Once the bell rang, Foster came running down the hallway. “Hey, Fay, hold up!”
I reluctantly stopped to let him catch up.
“I don’t know where the auditorium is.”
I let out a nervous laugh and headed in the direction of the auditorium.
Warren and another boy was sitting on the stage, awaiting our arrival. A few of the cast members, including Fawn, were sitting in the first row. Foster and I walked to the orchestra pit.
“Are we all ready?” I ask with a smile on my face.
I sat next to Fawn as the three boys walk onto the stage. “Warren,” I say, “you’re first.”
He began to sing. Like the day before, it was a beautiful melody that takes my breath, and the breath of all of the girls sitting beside me, away. The way that Warren confidently expresses himself was seraphic and unbelievable.
When he ends, everyone starts clapping. If he would sing like that every rehearsal, none of the girls would ever be able to concentrate on their own songs.
“Oh-okay, thank you, Warren.” I stammered, unable to find my voice. “Now, Mark,” I say to the second student. “When you are singing, remember who the Phantom is. How dark and troubled yet somehow angelic he is. Can you do that?”
The nervous boy nods and I motion for him to begin.
Mark is flat in tone and can not reach the highest notes, but isn’t completely terrible. With practice, a lot of practice, he could be good. When he finishes his song, the students clap, but not as enthusiastically as before. I smile at him, knowing how much courage is needed to complete such a song.
I take a few notes down, my ideas of his performance. I say that he could be an understudy, but not the Phantom.
“Alright, Foster. Show me what you’ve got.”
He smiled at me, and then motioned for the music to begin. It had already been fast forwarded to the Phantom’s solo in the middle of The Point of No Return when Christine knows that it is the Phantom singing to her, and not her partner, Piangi.
When Foster began to sing, he looked straight into my eyes and never looked away. His voice put Don Juan to shame. It reminded me a lot of the way Warren sang, but there was something deeper, more emotional in Foster’s voice, as if he were truly asking me to love him in return.
As he ends, leaving out the ‘you’ at the end, just like in the play, no one claps. We all just stare, stunned by his performance.
Somehow I break the trance and begin to clap. The students beside me began to do the same, shaking their heads and blinking repeatedly.
I stand and walk towards the stage. “Great job, guys. Let me go deliberate a little and I’ll be back in just a second. You can take a seat on the stage.” I turn to the students. “Can you guys keep it down? I don’t want to get into trouble because we are talking too loud.”
They all nod and I smile and walk to the switch board. I look at my notes. Warren was excellent. He deserved to be the Phantom because he had already earned it once. But there was something about Foster that made me confident he could really bring out the Phantom’s character. There was something about Foster that was dark and mysterious yet passionate that was needed for the part.
I scribbled down their parts and walked back to the stage. Fawn was leaning against the stage where the three boys were sitting, letting their feet hang.
“Okay. Mark, we’ll start with you. I need you to play Piangi.”
He stared blankly at me. “Who?”
“Carlotta’s husband.” I say slowly. “The leading tenor.” He still stares at me. “Research it, please.”
Mark nods and walks off stage.
“And then there were two,” Fawn whispered from beside me.
I laughed. “This was a tough decision. So I decided that who ever won’t play the Phantom will be able to play Raoul, which is a very good part. He is one of the main characters and very important to the play.”
“Alright, enough with the suspense!” Fawn exclaims. “Just tell us already.”
“Okay, yeesh.” I look down at my paper, as if I could forget who my phantom would be. I looked at Foster, and when his eyes met mine, they flashed a vibrant shade of purple. Quickly, I said, “Foster, you are the Phantom.”
Foster smiles and throws his hands in the air. “Thank you, Fayette. You won’t regret choosing me.” For some reason, I feared there was a hidden meaning behind his words. Then I shook that away and looked back at my list to avoid his eyes.
He jumps from the stage and is greeted by Fawn and the rest of the students. I look over at Warren, however.
“Raoul is an awesome part. He does in fact get Christine in the end,” I say, trying to boost his spirits.
Warren forces a smile and scoots off the stage. “Thanks, Fay. You’re just being nice because that’s your job.”
I laugh at that. “That is not my job. If I were doing my job, I’d tell you to get over it and learn your part already.” He smiled. “I really do like Raoul better.”
Maybe that was a lie, but I could not stand the hurt expression on Warren’s face. He had been really looking forward to playing the lead.
“And I would say ‘there’s always next year,’” I continued, “but we're seniors so there isn't next year. For most of us, that is.”
Warren’s expression suddenly changed. “Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?”
Crap, I thought. I forgot that he is totally scamming on my sister.
I straightened my shoulders and raised my chin a little. “Well, sorry for being nice. Didn’t mean to freak you out or anything.”
“No I—”
I held up my hands. “No need. I’m leaving you alone.”
I turned and began to walk away.
