And The Winner Is...
by TheBucketWoman
Disclaimer: I have no claim on LWD or it's characters, nor do I have any claim on Little Shop of Horrors, Faust or Haagen Dazs.
Chapter Thirty
Part One: Casey
Monday
The Audrey Two puppets were huge and unwieldy, and Casey couldn't help but be a little afraid of them, flopping as they did on one side of the stage. The puppeteers were coming in the next day, and then she knew she'd be able to see the puppets for what they were. In the meantime, she couldn't stop herself from scooting by the things as fast as she could as if they'd reach up and slurp her out of the air like a fly. She felt the same way about large statues and deserted carnival rides. They were just plain creepy. Still, she had almost suggested that Edwin might want to set up his camera inside one of them, but she got the feeling that he didn't want to touch the things either. He and Lizzie preferred their musty old armoire.
She knew that Derek saw the way she ran by the biggest one and that he was dying to make fun of her, but he'd had another speech therapy session that morning and was still a little embarrassed about it, so she knew there'd be no mockery until he was over that.
Really, this fear of puppets was getting to be just the icing on the cake of one miserable rehearsal. Jack kept making Casey do her scenes over and over, and everyone's patience seemed to be wearing thin with her and she just didn't know what they wanted. So when Jack called a break, she asked Derek.
"You're doing everything too big," he said, without hesitation.
"But this is theater, and you're supposed to—"
"I know, but you're still doing it too damn big. It's cartoony,"he said.
"But what do you really think?" Casey asked.
"You asked," Derek said.
"But—"
"And that accent,"
"Hey! What about the accent?"
"It's causing me physical pain," Derek said.
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Casey said, raising a fist. Derek smiled. The fact that he still thought she was cute when she was angry was really infuriating.
"Stop it!"
"What?" Derek said.
"Smiling!" Casey said, smacking his arm.
"Who's smiling?" Derek said, his smile widening. Then he tried to get serious for a second and that more than anything else got Casey smiling.
"I'm completely serious," Derek said, his mouth wobbling. She racked her brain to remember why she was mad in the first place, then it hit her.
"You're 'completely serious' that I'm the worst actress ever," she said.
"Here we go," Derek said. He took a deep breath and put one hand on her arm, stopping her before she could unleash the tirade she was preparing. "Take a second. Try this: this Audrey chick. What would she be like if you saw her sitting next to you on the bus?"
Huh? Casey thought. But it was an interesting question. She took a second to picture it. "So she'd be sitting there, with her cleavage and and all of her hair," she began. "And she'd be taking up as little of the seat as she could."
"What if someone asked her to move?" Derek said.
"She'd jump like the seat was on fire," Casey said.
"And why is that?"
"She doesn't want anyone mad at her," Casey said.
"Okay," Derek said. "And why does she date this creep she's dating?"
"Because he has a good job and she feels like he's the best she can get," Casey said.
"Even though he beats her?"
"Yep," Casey said.
"So," Derek said, fiddling with his camera. "Would that girl do any of this?" He showed her some of the footage. She saw herself doing a lot more posing than acting. She smiled too often. Years ago, she'd had a teacher, Miss Johnson, who told her never to turn her back on the audience, and she could see now that she took that just a pinch too seriously. She practically had her back to Chris when he was talking to her.
"Dammit," Casey said. "Why didn't anyone tell me any of this before?"
"People were just trying to get their lines down before," Derek said. "One thing at a time."
"Oh, God," Casey said, covering her face. "Could you maybe turn that off, now?"
Derek killed the playback and did some more fiddling around until he had the camera ready to go again. "Casey," he said. "Caseeeey." He put an arm around her. "Come on."
"Worst actress ever," she said.
"Save the drama for the stage, princess," he said. "If you were the 'worst actress ever' then no one would've cast you."
"This is community theater," Casey reminded him, looking at him through a gap in her fingers.
"I'll show you the audition footage again later," Derek said. "It'll remind you of what you were up against. In the meantime, you'll just have to trust me that there were standards, okay?"
"Can I butt in here?" Jack said.
"Please," Derek said.
"We're going to start up again in a few minutes, but meanwhile I'm walking around to talk to everyone individually. Little pep talk, if you will," Jack said.
"Kay," Casey said.
"What were you guys talking about," Jack said. "If you don't mind my asking."
"Derek was talking about how I'm the worst actress this side of Madonna," Casey said.
"You make Madonna look like Glenn Close," Derek teased. Then he ducked as she went for his head.
Jack didn't seem to get that they were kidding at first. "No," he said. "Casey's great! I've done about ten of these little productions and I think Casey's one of the most promising I've seen."
Derek cocked an eyebrow at her. It might have meant "See? Told you so," or it might have meant "How full of shit is this guy?"
"So what were you really talking about?"
"I asked Derek what he thought of my performance so far," Casey said.
"And?" Jack asked, turning to Derek.
"I'm in the doghouse," Derek said. Casey narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, okay," he said before Casey had a chance to smack him again. He told Jack about the questions he'd asked Casey about her character and how he'd shown her some of what she'd done that day.
"Wow," Jack said. "So when I had us all together again, I was going to lead a discussion on the characters, and I hate to say it, but—their motivations," He cringed here like he expected someone to hit him. "But I'm thinking, that maybe you should do it, Derek."
"What?" Derek said.
"Oooh," Casey said.
"I really like your 'what if Audrey were sitting next to you on the bus' line of questioning, and I fully intend to steal it later, but for now, I think that if anyone can get a good discussion going, it's you," Jack said. "And you haven't been yelling at people all night, so they still like you, and they'll be more likely to listen to you."
"Nobody ever listens to me," Derek said. "Ask Casey."
Casey nodded. Jack laughed.
"Come on," Jack said, grabbing Derek by the elbow. "Up you get. Time to play Coppola."
"Which one?" Derek said, trying to stall.
"Any Coppola you want," Jack said. "I will see if my lovely wife would mind doing camera duty—Leslie? Darling? Light of my life???" He went over to the piano to bug her.
"Light of your life, huh?" Casey heard her say. "What do you want?"
He bent closer and whispered something in her ear which got her smiling and nodding.
"So," Leslie said as she walked up to Derek and Casey. "Spielberg is it?"
"I think it's Coppola today," Derek said.
"Are you going to want this in Master shots, or shall I take a few close-ups?" she teased. She held up both hands in a framing gesture. "Dutch a few angles?" She skewed her hands ninety degrees to the right.
"You all just live to mock me," Derek said. "Nobody loves me."
"Aww." Casey put her arms around him and gave him a squeeze. "Better?" she asked.
"Not yet," he said. She squeezed him again. "One more," he said.
"Don't push it, Venturi," she said, but gave him one more hug.
"Now I'm good," he said.
Derek did his best to make the walk up to the stage look like the Green Mile, but once he was up there, he was okay.
Part Two: Derek
There was a time that Derek would have liked nothing more than to have a bunch of people looking right at him, but this wasn't that time. He had ideas on what they could do, definite ideas. He had, however, done only one play in his life. And because of that, he felt pretty sure that he was the worst actor ever, not Casey. He had video to prove it, if he could wrestle it away from Edwin. So he could find no reason for any of these people to listen to him.
"Um," Derek said. People sat in clusters around the stage and when Derek opened his mouth, a few walked over and sat in front of him. Like kindergarten.
"Why do I feel like I should have a copy of Peter Rabbit in my hands?" Derek said. People laughed, a good sign.
"Okay, so Jack figures you're all about to beat someone up," Derek began. "And he'd rather it be me, so..."
"How bad were we?" Chris asked.
Derek grinned. "Let's just say that I have some...suggestions," Suddenly his hands had a mind of their own. He tried jamming them into his pockets.
He went through the group of the principle cast and asked them about their motivations.
"Since you're not getting paid; it might not be so obvious," he said. People had ready answers, just as Casey did.
"So what if you ran through a couple scenes and pretended you were doing an indie drama?" he said. He expected people to laugh at him, and they did.
"An indie drama in which a big green plant wants to eat us?" Chris asked.
"Yep," Derek said. "Sounds a bit like Kevin Smith, doesn't it?"
"John Waters," Sheldon said.
"Eli Roth," Derek said.
"Yeah, that'd be cool," Sheldon said.
"Anyway," Derek said. "My point is, what if you wanted to play it straight for a couple of scenes? This is no longer a musical about a cute green plant."
"It's based on Faust, I think," Chris said.
Derek shrugged.
"Dude sells his soul to the Devil?" Chris said. "Extremely famous work, remade over and over again?"
"I'll take your word for it," Derek said. "So I'm thinking that if you tried to play it like that, that maybe you'd be able to go back and not be so giggly and..."
"Cartoony?" Casey said.
"Yeah," Derek said. "That."
So by some miracle, they wanted to try it.
He ran them through a handful of scenes. He made Casey sing "Somewhere That's Green" a capella, something he was exceedingly glad to have gotten on video. Once he showed it to her later, she'd be in a much better mood. She cried a little while she sang, and that set off a chain reaction. He heard widespread sniffling, and from his peripheral vision, caught a couple of people wiping their eyes. He, of course, never took his eyes off of Casey. He thanked God that he was one of the few who held it together, barely.
After she was done, his voice betrayed him, though.
"What time," he squeaked, then cleared his throat and tried again. "What time is it?" The battery on his watch had died about a week before; he could get it replaced for five bucks, but he kept forgetting to do it. He looked down at his naked wrist.
"It's 10:25," Jack said. "Think this is a good place to leave it for today, Derek?"
"Um, yeah, I think so," Derek said.
Part Three: Jack.
After everyone scattered, Jack turned to his wife, who, after she relinquished Derek's camera, turned to him with a wide and ultra-readable grin.
"Am I right, or am I right?" Jack said.
"Yeah, okay," Leslie said. "Try not to rub it in."
"But do you believe this kid?"
"He's going to be something else, isn't he?" Leslie said. "Think he knows about that contest?" She was referring to the ad that had been hanging on the bulletin board near the door since mid-June.
"I'll ask him tomorrow," Jack said. The place had all but emptied out when he saw Edwin and Lizzie leave their usual spot behind the stage.
"Hey Edwin, Lizzie," he said as they passed. "You guys know about the short film contest thing?"
"Uh-huh," Lizzie said.
"Think your brother does?" Jack said.
"More than likely,"Lizzie said.
"Are you guys entering?" Leslie said.
"Dunno," Edwin said.
"Yes," Lizzie said, nudging Edwin.
"When's your curfew?" Leslie asked.
"Twenty minutes," Edwin said, looking at his watch a little guiltily.
"So I'm guessing you need a ride," Leslie said.
Part Four: Emily
It was Sheldon's turn to drive everyone home again. As he drove, Emily couldn't resist turning around and peeking at Derek who was rapidly falling asleep on Casey's shoulder. He leaned on her as far as the seatbelt would allow, and he would have been snoring in another minute if Emily hadn't said some magic words.
"I kinda feel like ice cream,"she said.
Derek slid one eye open and looked at her.
"Do you mean it?" he said.
"There's a Haagen Dazs about three blocks from here," Sheldon said.
"You guys game?" Emily asked.
Derek was suddenly sitting upright, rubbing his eyes.
"I would say so," Casey said. She reached over and smoothed part of his hair down.
"Why do I get the feeling that the words 'ice' and 'cream' would bring Derek out of a coma?" Sheldon said.
"Not as fast as the word 'thong' though," Casey said.
"Did not need to know that," Sheldon said. He made a turn and pulled into the parking lot.
Opening night was in two weeks. Emily kept turning the date over in her mind; she just couldn't believe things were moving so fast and she couldn't figure out how they'd be ready by then. The next weekend, there would be more set painting and dress rehearsals would start. That made her think of one loose end that needed to be taken care of as soon as possible. She brought it up as soon as they'd all gotten their ice cream and found a table that would fit the four of them.
"Chris said that he's going to help with the sets again this weekend," Emily said.
"Yeah?" Casey said.
"Do you guys know anyone else we can ask to come help?" Emily asked.
"Someone with some nice shoulders perhaps?" Casey said.
"Uh-oh," Derek said.
"Yenta alert," Sheldon said.
"Michael Weissmann?"Emily asked.
"Taken, I think," Casey said.
"Stewey Stevenson?" Emily asked.
"He's gay?" Casey asked.
"Duh," Emily said. "But he's boring. Cory Plunkett?"
"Ew," Casey said. "No. I would not inflict him on my worst enemy."
"Tinker Tomlin," Emily said.
"He's still crushing on Casey," Derek said.
"Yeah, but I thought that he was crushing in a Barbra Steisand, Liza Minelli, Ashley Tisdale sort of way," Emily said.
"You think so?" Casey said.
"I do," Emily said.
"Think he'd let us set him up?"
"Wait," Derek said. He put a hand up to one temple like this was too much information for his brain to hold. She expected him to beg for a change of subject.
Instead he said: "I think I have someone."