Here's the really sad scheme. Have a party. Troy alert!
Dialogue tags are gone for this chap, because...well, they're really obvious.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all.
It was a rule of scheming that making the scheme obvious was stupid and only happened in comedic situations, which Sharpay looked haughtily down on. Therefore, the requisite secrecy resulted in bringing Troy Bolton, now an age group basketball coach, to New York through a system that would make a high school grapevine look like a bean sprout.
So, when Gabriella was called one rainy day, not long into rehearsals, neither the caller nor the callee knew how much the telephone call meant to a pair of twins several blocks away. The twins were indulging in a mud spa, but it would have delighted them, had they known about it.
"Hello?"
"Gabriella?"
"Who's this?"
"It's Troy! Troy Bolton, from high school?"
"Oh hey! Why are you calling me?"
"Well, I was in New York with a few buddies and I saw the promotional posters for...Ghost of the Playwright, I think it was called."
"Very funny."
"Thank you. No, but really, I saw your name on the posters for Phantom of the Opera, so I thought I'd look you up, see if you were the same girl from Albuquerque, see how you were doing."
"Well, I'm doing all right."
"Doing all right? Gabi, you're Christine!"
"Yeah, well...You know how Ryan Evans is Raoul."
"Don't remember."
"Raoul. Um. Okay, well Ryan Evans. You remember."
"I've known thousands of Evans's in my life."
"Sharpay is my understudy."
"Oh. Really."
"Yeah. And this was my first time auditioning for a Broadway role and all..."
"I bet she's mad."
"You're telling me."
"You know, I'd like to see you. Want to meet up for dinner this week, catch up on old times?"
"Um. Yeah, sure! How about after rehearsal one day? We're just fitting for costumes right now and doing table readings, anyway."
"Sounds great."
Now would be an excellent time to explain Sharpay's plan to those of the Ryan type of thinking.
Back in high school, after the musical, it was obvious that Gabriella was suffering a bout of unrequited love. While Troy really did enjoy doing the production with her and singing and dancing and other sorts of prancing around, he wasn't interested. As such. Even during the performances, Sharpay could see the girl getting distracted by Troy's presence.
The thing with people like Gabriella, Sharpay knew, was that while they got over people like Troy, they never quite forgot. And she knew that Troy would at least be interested in knowing how an old friend had gotten along after graduation. And she knew that people like Gabriella gave lackluster performances when they were distracted by people like Troy. And that would give her the chance to shine, the chance to take over from the girl who had the idiocy to steal her part.
But the thing with people like Troy, that she didn't know, was that they would have gladly committed to people like Gabriella if it weren't for people like Sharpay.
Yes. Very, very sad. But it's mine! All mine! I claim all very stupid schemes for myself.
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