Not Listening
by TheBucketWoman
Disclaimer: I do not own Life with Derek or anything else I may reference herein. No profit is being made nor is any infringement intended.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part One: Lizzie.
Parents sometimes like to tell the story of the first time they put their kids on a school bus or the first time they walk the kids to a classroom and leave them there. In Lizzie's experience it always seems like the parents say things about how hard it was to see the kids growing up and how even though it was a good thing, a normal thing, they wished they could avoid it.
Parents didn't often talk about how relieved they were to be rid of the little monsters so they could have some peace.
This was the feeling that Lizzie herself had on Friday morning when Casey (And Derek) were finally out of the house. The three minutes or so before she, Edwin, and Marti had to pile into Mom's car were the most peaceful that Lizzie'd had in days.
It was her own fault, she'd gotten a reputation for giving good criticism. If she'd had sense, she'd be more like Derek. No one in their right mind would ever ask Derek for his opinion, honest or otherwise. But Lizzie had no sense, so she was the one to watch Casey rehearse for her audition and be all encouraging and stuff.
So Lizzie spent a lot of time reading the monologues that Casey had to study, and out of curiosity, she flipped through and read the boy monologues, too. This is how she caught Derek rehearsing by himself in his room.
Wednesday night, Lizzie was actively trying to avoid Casey and so began to scope out good hiding spots. She knew she wouldn't be safe in her own room, so she'd been thinking about the games closet when she heard Casey coming. So, finding Derek's door unlocked, she slid in. He was pacing back and forth, pretty absorbed in what he was doing, so he didn't notice her at first. When he did, she gave him a scared rabbit look and signed:
"Hide me!"
He raised his eyebrows in question.
"Casey's coming!" she signed. "Hide me!"
He nodded and went over to lock his door, but not before Casey got it open a crack.
"Can I help you?" he asked. He blocked the doorway with his body so that she couldn't see in, but Lizzie hid under his covers just in case.
"Have you seen Lizzie?" Casey asked.
"Nope," he said. "Did you check the games closet?"
"First place I looked."
"Ed's room?"
Nooo, Lizzie thought. Don't inflict her on Edwin!
"No," Casey said.
Next thing Lizzie knew, Derek was pulling the covers off of her.
"What did you do?" he signed, grinning.
"Nothing," she signed. "I..." she had to struggle to explain this because she didn't know the signs for "audition," "monologue," or "torture," and they both needed to be quiet, otherwise she'd be found out.
Finally, she signed: "I don't want to listen to her anymore!"
Derek smiled. He got it. He flipped the lock on his door in case she came back. "Okay. No problem."
She would have hugged him if she thought he'd let her. But then she remembered something.
"You sent her to Edwin!"
"He's at Teddy's house," Derek signed.
"What if she goes to Marti?"
"Don't worry about Smarti," he signed. "She'll get away. Or she'll pretend to fall asleep while Casey's talking."
Lizzie relaxed again.
"What were you doing just now?" she signed.
He shrugged. "Nothing."
"You always talk to yourself?"
"Everybody does it," he signed. "People don't always catch me at it when my door is closed."
"Are you sure you weren't doing the—" again she struggled for a word. "The thing...on page three."
He paled. Derek Venturi turned pale. She couldn't wait to tell Edwin.
"I don't know what you mean," he signed.
"No?" Lizzie slipped by him and got the folded piece of paper from his desk where he hadn't had a chance to hide it yet. He gave her the murderous look he usually reserved for Edwin and made a grab for her.
"I won't tell!" she signed.
"Yeah, right," he signed.
"You hide me and I keep the secret," she signed. He had to know that they were uniting, at least for a minute, against a common enemy and that had to have some appeal for him. Of course this meant that she couldn't tell Edwin. Dangit.
Does Edwin count? She wondered. Then she decided that he did. A promise was a promise.
He narrowed his eyes and stared at her, probably trying to decide if he should come clean or keep denying what he was doing even though Lizzie had the evidence in her hand.
"So you're gonna do the play?" she signed.
"I don't know," he signed. "I didn't try out yet."
"You're gonna sign in it?"
"Mrs. Z. told me to," he signed. "She said to be ready to both talk and sign."
"At the same time?"
"No."
"I wanna see."
"You just ran from Casey!" he signed. "Doing the same thing!"
"She made me watch her do it five times today," Lizzie signed. "You do it just once, okay?"
He laughed. Then, he shook his head.
"Once," she repeated. Then she gave him the puppy face, knowing that it always worked on him, knowing he'd be flattered.
So he showed her the monologue about the kid who was trying to tell his parents what happened to the car, that, of course he didn't crash it. The entire front end got crumbled because somebody hit it in the driveway.
"'And they didn't even leave a note,'" Derek signed.
He was a natural. She had her hands pressed up against her mouth to muffle the laughter. Afterward, she asked if he was doing any other monologues, and he said that he was. But he couldn't sign the other one, which meant he couldn't do it for her without other people (Casey) hearing it.
"So?" he signed.
"What?"
"You telling me you have nothing to say?" he signed. He knew her better than that.
Lizzie thought for a minute. "You're signing too fast. That's what you always do when you lie, so that's good, but slow it down just a tiny bit. Or you'll make people dizzy."
"Lie?" he signed. "Me?"
That made her laugh some more.
"That's it?" he signed.
"For now," she signed. "You're pretty good."
Just for that, she was allowed to mess around with his computer for a little while.
The next day, Thursday, Derek looked exhausted, saying exactly four words at dinner:
"Huh?" he said. "No, nothing's wrong."
Then he signed something about Sam making him study and being tired. Mom and George seemed to buy it.
Casey, however, was even worse than she'd been the night before, running around like Marti on a chocolate high. After dinner, she tried to give everyone an advance performance. Derek straight up ignored her and went upstairs. Mom and George made up something about work they had to do in the bedroom. Marti hid.
Casey cornered Lizzie and Edwin. But then Edwin rescued Lizzie by doing something really evil.
"Um, Casey?" Edwin said.
"Yeah? What?" Casey said. "What is it?"
"You know how your voice is back to normal, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Casey said. "Your point?"
"Do you really wanna overwork it?" Edwin asked. "You probably won't lose it, but you might go back to sounding like...well...like me after I try to do the cookie monster."
Casey narrowed her eyes at him, knowing a tactic when she heard one, but after she stopped to think for a second...
"Dammit," she said, tossing the script thingee down, then picking it up and stomping upstairs.
Lizzie threw her arms around Edwin.
"That was the coolest thing you've ever done!" Lizzie said.
"Coolest thing ever?" Edwin said. "Dunno about that. Maybe top ten."
"Whatever," Lizzie said. "You got her to give it a rest. That's all that matters."
And Casey did give it a rest, until morning when she did vocal exercises at breakfast. She was lucky to be alive.
Part Two: Casey.
Casey both loved and hated auditions. She wanted to fast forward to the moment when she was in the middle of her own tryout, the moment when her instincts took over and everything was okay. Then she could relax and watch everyone else. Everything leading up to that moment was a stomach-churning, hand-shaking mess.
"How you holding up?" Wendall said, nudging her.
"Okay," she lied. She was worrying a little charm dohickee on her bag until it broke off in her hand. They were cheap tin things that clanked together as she walked anyway, so she wasn't upset.
Wendall smiled at her and moved over a couple inches, afraid that he was in for the same treatment.
"Why are you so calm?" Casey accused.
Wendall held up his hands. "Jeez!" he said. "Casey! You told me you'd done this before."
"I have," she said. "I just really really hate this part." And there went another jingly geegaw from the handle of her bag.
Wendall cleared his throat. "I can see that."
"I'll be okay when I get up there."
"So this is just part of your process?" Wendall asked.
"I guess," Casey asked. "But I'm open to any new process-type things you can suggest, because my family wants to kill me and if I wanna keep doing theater, I can't be like this."
"Okay," Wendall said. "Lemme show you what I do."
He hopped off of his folding chair. Casey followed suit. Her chair clattered and it echoed through the gym, making her wince and everybody in there turn toward her.
"Sorry," she said.
"Do this," Wendall said, holding his right hand, palm up, in front of him. She obeyed.
"Now do this," he said, doing the same with his left hand. After that, he put his right hand on his left shoulder. By the time he put his left hand on his right shoulder, she hit him because she realized he was showing her the Macarena.
"You caught onto that way faster than people usually do," Wendall said.
"You're disappointed?"
"Yeah! I was hoping we'd get to shake it a little," Wendall said, demonstrating.
"Where do you even get stuff like this?"
"Real Genius," he said. "Except I think they did the cha-cha."
"Macarena is better," she agreed.
"Now how do you feel?"
"Good," Casey said. She gave him a little sideways hug.
"You're welcome," Wendall said. She rolled her eyes and thanked him, mechanically.
"So what do you really do to loosen up?" Casey asked.
"That," Wendall said. "Silly shit. Like—" He shook himself like a dog.
"Oo—kay," Casey said, taking a step away from him.
"C'mon! It's a theater thing," he said. "You're supposed to be open and uninhibited and in the moment, and other cliches like that."
She was about to say something wiseass back to him, but that was when Derek walked in and all thought left her head.
"Oh my God, he actually came," Wendall said.
"Oh my God, he actually came," Casey said, in a completely different, more horrified, way.
"Didn't you say you tried to recruit him?"
"Yeah, but he said he wasn't gonna do it!"
"I guess he changed his mind," Wendall said. "Wanna explain to me why this is suddenly a bad thing?"
"Oh my God, Oh my God, ohmyGOD!" Casey said.
"Do you need some help? A paper bag?" Wendall asked. Casey nodded. He left, then came back a minute later with a bag for her to breathe into. It smelled like brownies.
"I don't get it," Wendall said. "Do you think he's gonna make fun of you or something?"
"Yes," she said. Of course he was going to make fun of her. He'd make fun of her even if she were the best actress in the world. The problem wasn't what he'd say. The problem was what he'd think. If she bombed in front of him, she just wouldn't be able to go home again, that was all.
"Right on schedule," a voice, thankfully not Derek's, said behind her. "How ya doing, Case?"
"Sam!" Casey squeaked. "You too?"
"Me too, what?" he asked.
"You're trying out?"
"Oh hell no," Sam said.
"Moral support?" Wendall asked.
"Yeah, okay. That works." Sam said. "And Derek's interpreter canceled. Didn't wanna leave him hanging."
"Awww," Casey said.
"Yeah, whatever," Sam said. "Derek was all 'ohh that's okay. Go ahead and leave me here all alone. Don't mind me.' And I don't do well with guilt."
"Emotional warfare," Casey said. "It's a family trait." She explained what Edwin had said to her the night before.
Sam laughed.
"Hey!"
"You'll think it's funny later," Sam said. "Trust me, Case."
He was right, but she wasn't about to admit it.
"Anyway, I'm gonna go make sure Derek doesn't run," Sam said, nodding over to Derek.
"See? He's freaking out, too," Wendall said.
"An understatement," Sam said. "So, break a leg." He kissed Casey on the cheek and fist-bumped Wendall. Wendall proved that he was not built for fist-bumping.
Mrs. Zeldin came in after a couple more minutes and made a few announcements. She passed out slips of paper that everyone was supposed to put their names on so that she could pull them out of a hat. There was a point where people stopped looking at her and started looking at Sam who signed to Derek. Poor Sam. He would have given anything to hide right then, not getting that his shyness only made him cuter. Casey laughed at the thought of telling him that.
Part Three: Sam.
After Mrs. Z. called the first girl to the stage, Derek, slipped away to throw up. It never failed. Sam handed him a piece of gum when he came back, but otherwise didn't comment.
Sam amused himself by watching people screw up their lines. Derek kept his head down, almost glued to the script, which, Sam could tell, he wasn't even reading. It looked like Derek was staring into space, actually.
Sam nudged him when it was Casey's turn to audition. He didn't hold out much hope that Derek would pick his head up, but then he did.
Should've known, Sam thought. Casey nailed both of her monologues, of course, and both boys watched her, transfixed. Sam wasn't so sucked in, though, that he couldn't tell that everyone else was laughing in the right places and liking her just as much as Derek, and to a lesser extent, Sam himself did. She skipped off the stage like Marti, another move that amused the hell out of Derek, but he stifled the laugh before anyone further away could hear it.
Another guy that Sam didn't know was next. Once onstage, the kid introduced himself as Noel Covington and started to do one of the same scenes that Derek was planning to do—the one about the kid crashing the parents' car and lying about it. Derek, thankfully was still not paying attention, having gone from staring at his script to picking at a piece of tape on the chair in front of him, so there was no way he'd noticed what the other kid was doing. Sam felt disloyal laughing as much as he did. He pretended he was coughing, but Derek wasn't fooled.
"One day," Derek signed. "I'll teach you how to lie. If it's the last thing I do."
Sam smirked.
"I don't know how you survived this long without being able to lie," Derek signed.
"We don't all have your gift," Sam signed.
"Okay," Mrs. Zeldin said from up front. "Next we have...Derek Venturi!" In another life, this woman had to have been an announcer on a game show, Sam was sure of it.
Sam cocked his head toward the stage and said, "You're up."
Derek's eyes widened just a little and he looked over to see Mrs. Z. staring right at him. He got up, rattling his chair on the way, and tried to look cool as he made the long walk to the stage.
It was a few seconds before Sam remembered that he was supposed to go with him. Derek looked behind him wondering where the hell Sam was right as he was getting up.
Everybody watched Derek, but that wasn't unusual. This was one of those situations where it's normal for him to be the center of attention. The weird thing was that Sam, as the dork who was following Derek for no apparent reason, felt eyes on him, too. This wasn't something he was happy with.
Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip, Sam thought. When he finally got to the front, Derek was already up on the stage. Mrs Z. patted the seat next to her.
"Is this a good spot?" Sam signed. Derek gave him thumbs up.
Derek went with the spoken piece first. It was about a guy who had to talk his girlfriend out of packing her stuff and leaving him. There was a prop door off to one side and Derek wheeled it over and set it up centerstage, since the scene called for him to talk to a closed door.
He started by walking across the stage and stopping suddenly in front of the door, like someone had shut it in his face. It got a laugh.
"Terri," Derek said. "Terri, come on, you don't really wanna lock me out of there, do you?" He rattled the knob a little bit.
"Okay," Derek said. "Looks like you do..."
Bigger laugh. The whole thing was four, maybe five minutes long at the most, but Derek went from joking around, to wheedling, to making half the girls in the gym cry. Including Casey.
"Okay?" Derek asked when it was over.
"Very much okay," Mrs. Zeldin said. "Start the other one whenever you're ready."
Then she turned to Sam and asked him to read the part out loud while Derek was signing it. Sam hadn't even thought to prepare for that.
Gawd, Sam thought. Will this day ever end? But at least this monologue was shorter.
"The car?" Sam read as Derek signed. "Funny story..."
Sam read the thing robotically, his voice wobbling embarrassingly once in a while as he noticed people drifting closer to where he was sitting. They did this because they wanted to watch Derek a little more closely, and because they plain couldn't hear Sam. And it wasn't lost on him that most of the same kids didn't have to strain as much to hear Derek's voice as they had to hear Sam's.
When it was finally over, after the whoops from the girls died down, Mrs Z. thanked both of them and called the next kid up to the stage. Derek slumped down next to Sam.
"That wasn't so bad," Derek signed.
Sam smirked at him, wondering how many cell numbers Derek would be getting out of this.
Part Four: Mrs. Zeldin.
Katie Zeldin's husband was chopping celery when she burst into their apartment. He just missed his right index finger with the knife.
"Matt! Ask me how auditions went!" she singsonged.
"How'd they go?" Matt asked, coming into the living room.
"Amazingly," she said, putting her stuff down. "Perfectly," she said, wiggling out of her jacket. "Wonderfully!"
"That's a lot of adverbs," Matt said.
"Should I have gone with superlative adjectives?" Katie said. "Best, coolest, rockingest..."
"Okay, " Matt said. He put his arms around her and pecked her on the mouth. "Rockingest?"
"I work with teenagers," she said. "You're lucky I don't add 'izzle' to the ends of things."
"I don't think that's exactly how that works, Katie," Matt said.
"Which is why you should not make fun of me for saying 'rockingest,'" she said.
He let that go. "So? Why was it so great?"
"We actually got some new blood," she said. "And not only that—"
He pecked her again. "What else?"
"Well," she said. "We somehow managed to snag one of the most popular kids in the school. Derek Venturi. He's on the hockey team. I don't know if he's just chasing girls or if he's really and truly discovered his inner thespian, but we got him, and he was gooood."
"Totally chasing girls," Matt said.
"Probably," she said. "Kid's got charisma for miles. And he wasn't even the only one. There was another boy, and a couple of girls."
"How 'bout the usuals?"
"We got Wendall again,"she said. "And Lisa. No Shawna this time around, but this new girl, Casey McDonald. She's another one of those kids, ya know? She got as great a response as Derek did."
"Okay," he said, "Sounds like things are picking up then?"
"Absolutely," she said. "I just need to get started on all the logistical stuff now."
"Anything I can help with?"
"I'll let you know," she said.
After the official auditions ended, Katie saw something that made casting at least one of the pieces easier. Or harder, depending on the way you looked at it. She saw Derek and Casey trading insults and playfully nudging each other on their way out of the gym. This, in itself was nothing new, the kids' chemistry was obvious, but the thing that Katie had not noticed before was the fact that Miss Casey knew how to sign, at least a little bit. That meant that Katie was going to be putting them in one of the plays together.
She expected a little bit of friction from the two of them when they saw the cast lists posted, but she was fully prepared to defend the decision.