Chapter 07: Many Dreams Fade
It still sucked that she wasn't part of the play anymore, but at least she was still friends with Paige, she thought to herself the next morning as she emerged from her house. She'd been afraid her mother would ground her over the weekend, but her anger over Abby's outburst had been short lived, and Abby found herself once again free from her mother's tyrannical fury, and able to do as she pleased. Now all she had to do was think of something to do. Paige was back in rehearsals for the play, and Ty was having a study-lunch with Naomi.
Well, she reasoned with herself, her mother had said she couldn't be in the play, but that didn't mean she couldn't go watch them rehearse for a little while. It would give her a chance to see how the new Rose was doing taking her place. Maybe she was doing better than Abby would have, then at least Charlie's dream wouldn't be dashed against the rocks the way Abby's was. So with a slight sigh she turned to head down the sidewalk towards the theater.
As she walked with her hands in her pockets she noticed some people giving her curious looks. Teenagers and adults alike who passed with their eyes strangely following her every movement. Abby wasn't a shy person, but this kind of attention was making her more nervous with every passing moment.
She made her way to the theater, then came to an abrupt stop when she saw a crowd of people outside holding signs and shouting something in loud voices. They were marching in a broad circle in front of the building… was this some sort of protest? Abby's heart jumped in her chest when she realized her mother was among those marching in front of the building, holding high a sign that read 'Don't exploit our children'.
"Oh my God, you can't be serious…" Abby muttered to herself in disbelief, but she couldn't deny it. Were they actually trying to get the play shut down? Abby rushed toward the crowd, heading up to her mother and grabbing her arm. "Mom, what are you doing?"
"We can't let this man corrupt our city's young women, Abby, we're going to get this play shut down completely." Her mother told her with a firm nod.
"What!?" Abby's eyes widened. "But I'm not part of the play anymore, you don't have to do that!"
"I know sweetie, but if it's not you, it'll just be some other poor innocent girl who's duped into this." Her mother said with a defiant tone. "And I won't see any young women duped into being used like this if I can help it." She turned toward the building and held up her sign again as another surge from the other adults, mostly women she recognized from around town, held up their signs and started yelling again.
Abby bit her lip, then slipped out of her mother's sight, moving around the crowd to the side of the large theater, where she slipped up to one of the back doors and pushed her way inside. She could hear the actors talking amongst themselves from out on the stage, mostly in nervous tones. As Abby moved into sight from behind the curtain, she could see that there was now a background sitting on the stage, and now that she was paying attention, there were other sets behind the curtains.
"Do you think the play's going to be cancelled?" One of the boys on the stage asked in a worried tone. "I mean, almost half of the cast has been yanked out of the play. That can't be good this late in the game."
"It's not good, but Charlie's not about to let this stop him from putting on his show, and neither am I." Paige responded instantly, moving up through the crowd in her Amy costume. This time she even had her hair up in a pair of pigtails on the sides of her head, and was wearing a coating of makeup. "But hey, if you'd rather just run don't let us stop you. We don't need someone in this play that's not actually committed to it."
"Of course I'm committed! I'm just saying, even the Rose understudy left! We have no one to play Rose!" The boy insisted. "Even the play is called Amy and Rose, we can't put on this thing without a Rose!"
"We'll find someone." Paige replied with just as much confidence as before, without a trace of doubt in her eyes or voice. "We are going to do this thing, no matter what it takes, and we are going to make it something to be proud of!"
"R-right." The boy blinked and backed down under Paige's furious stare, shrinking into an almost pathetic huddled form that slinked away from her.
"You realize this is technically trespassing." Abby squeaked and whirled around to see Charlie looked down at her with a kind smile on his lips. He pushed his glasses up his nose as he spoke again. "What can I do for you, Abby?"
"Is it true?" Abby asked him worriedly. "Is the play going to have to shut down?"
"Legally, there's nothing those people outside can do to stop us from putting this play on." Charlie told her in a simple, direct manner. "But I'll be honest, a lot of the people in that crowd are the parents of the actors, and if they withdraw permission for their children to be in it, we'll have no choice but to cancel the play. We cannot do this without actors."
"Can't you just move it?" Abby asked. "Take it to another town, where people won't freak out so much."
"It's possible, but… I'm not the one who controls the funding for this project. I suspect if the reaction is bad enough here to drive us out of town, they won't support a second attempt elsewhere." Charlie told her. When he noticed Abby's eyes darken he flashed her a smile and gripped her shoulder in a comforting manner. "Hey, it happens all the time in this business. I feel lucky just to have gotten as far as I have. If the story isn't told now, then it will just have to wait until later."
"Y-yeah. I guess." Abby agreed, though her heart wasn't in it.
"Relax, and you can of course hang around as long as you want. It's not like you're here stealing secrets." Charlie winked with a chuckle, then after one more reassuring squeeze released her shoulder and turned to head back out onto the stage. Abby gripped the curtains that dangled beside her and leaned against them, watching the scene out on the stage as Charlie once again brought the remaining actors under control to get a few more scenes rehearsed. It looked silly with only half of the actors present, but as he said, "we must keep up our practice if we want to remain perfect, or all of your effort will be wasted."
After the last few scenes Charlie dismissed the actors with a smile and turned to make his way into the back, while most of the kids made their way towards the changing rooms. Paige heaved a sigh and wiped her somewhat sweaty forehead with the back of one hand as she looked around, then paused when she spotted Abby watching from off-stage. A smile tugged at the corner of her lip as she turned to approach her.
"You ready to come back to work yet, Archer?" Paige asked.
"I wish I could." Abby sighed. "But my mom's one of the parents out front carrying around a big sign."
"Ick." Paige made a face of disgust. "Makes me feel lucky. My mom really doesn't care what I do as long as I'm sure I wanna do it." Paige gestured for Abby to follow, then turned to make her way into the girls' dressing room. Abby went with her, shoving her hands into her pockets on the way. When they walked in most of the other girls were already filing out, with only a few stragglers wiping off the last of their makeup.
"Sounds nice to me." Abby took up a position outside one of the stalls, leaning against the wall while Paige slipped into it and closed the door behind her. "I wish I could come back to the show, but the last thing I wanna do is get Charlie in even worse trouble."
"Yeah, I hear you." Paige replied. "Personally though, I think you need to be tough with your mother."
"Excuse me?" Abby raised her eyebrow.
"You're not actually just going to let her win, are you? Lay down and take her judgment without a fight?"
"She's my mother." Abby pointed out. "What am I supposed to do?"
She heard Paige sigh from inside the changing booth. "Did you learn nothing from history class about the 60's? Protest, fight for your rights, whatever you have to do. We need you here, Archer, you were a way better Rose than that pretender ever was anyway."
"Thanks, but I don't know if I have the guts to DEFY my mom… I mean, what if she raises Hell for Charlie? I don't want to put any more pressure on him either." Abby pointed out.
"Talk some sense into her. What IS her problem anyway?"
"Well…" Abby hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath. "Honestly, I think her biggest problem is that she's convinced Charlie is using the lesbian leads to attract perverts into seeing it."
There was silence inside the changing room for a moment, then a crack in the door opened and Paige's head appeared, accompanied by the sight of a bare shoulder. "That settles it. You HAVE to fight her on this, then."
"What? Why?" Abby blinked.
"Because she's unequivocally WRONG about everything. You have to show her that she's wrong, because Charlie doesn't deserve to have his show destroyed by a misconception, and I don't deserve to have my big break taken from me by one either."
"Okay first… I'm impressed you know what unequivocally means." Abby told her.
"I have lots of tutors and a brain." Paige huffed.
"Second…" Abby trailed off for a moment, shaking her head. "Maybe you're right… but she's not going to just LISTEN to me. She's pretty sure everything I say now is influenced by you guys, she'd just get more suspicious if I argued with her."
Paige pursed her lips in thought, then her eyes flashed and a devious smile spread across her lips that reminded Abby uncomfortably of the old sneaky Paige who was constantly at war with her before this whole thing began. "She may not listen to you telling her about the play, but what if we showed her?"
"What, give her the script?" Abby asked. "Could work I guess…"
"Nah, the script can be taken out of context as well as any description, and besides, this is past just her now. What we need is a sneak preview." Paige grinned. "She can't argue with us when we SHOW her what we mean. And everyone else will see it too."
"Perform the play!?" Abby's eyes widened. "But there's still props missing, costumes are still being perfectly fitted, the makeup isn't perfect, we don't have a lighting guy, we're not well-rehearsed enough… and I'm not part of the play anyway…"
"Well we'll find a way to make it work, any way we possibly can." Paige slipped back into the stall, then emerged a second later wearing a thin white t-shirt with her usual skirt as she approached Abby. "So are you going to keep sulking or take a stand and make them see that this play is worth doing?"
Abby blinked, then set her mouth in a determined lone and nodded back. "You're right… we can do this."
Paige grinned. "Glad to see you back to your old annoying self. Now let me finish getting dressed and we'll go find Charlie. We need to get everyone together on this if we're going to make it work."
***
"I don't think this is such a good idea, ladies." Charlie sat down on the edge of the bed in his local hotel room, watching the two girls in front of him with a bemused look on his face. "I appreciate the sentiment, but we're not ready, and it wouldn't be my decision to make if we were. There are people above me, and they would never go for it."
"But if we don't show everyone that this play is important, it'll never be put on anyway." Abby complained.
"And YOU are not allowed to have anything to do with this." Charlie looked at Abby. "Don't take this the wrong way, Abby, but if you do this it could open us up to a whole new level of legal trouble."
"She's damn good at organization and she knows what she's doing here, we need her." Paige stepped in this time. "Come on Charlie, we're trying to help you!"
"I appreciate that." Charlie gave them a gentle smile. "But you won't do that by getting us in even worse legal trouble. Please, let me handle the legal and production issues. All I need from you, Paige, is for you to study your lines and be ready to be the best Mary you can be."
Paige glared at him for a few moments until Abby was sure she was going to explode, but she just turned back towards the door. "Come on Abby, he doesn't want our help." She flung the door open and marched outside in a huff.
"Um… good luck, Charlie." Abby waved behind her, then followed Paige out of the room, closing the door behind her and jogging to catch up with her further down the hall. "He's just doing what he thinks is best, it's no reason to get angry with him. He's trying to protect us."
"Well I'm not going to sit here and be 'protected'." Paige shoved her hands almost vengefully into the pockets of her sweater. "We are going to put on this play, we are going to show everyone why it's so important. Whether we have Charlie's permission or not. Come on." She marched out into the streets, with Abby close on her heels.
Abby still wasn't sure if this was a good idea, but Paige's determination was so infectious she found herself getting caught up in it, especially since those kids they confronted with the idea first before they could leave the auditorium quickly got on board with it. They were as into this play as Paige was, and Abby knew she would love to jump back into it if she possibly could. If she could just get her mother's permission to do it…
They made a lot of progress rounding up those who were left still participating in the play, but night was quickly beginning to fall, and soon they found themselves wandering down the dark streets side-by-side with tired but fulfilled smiles on their faces while the pale glow of the moon illuminated the world around them.
"So it's settled. This coming Saturday, we put on the play in the amphitheater in the park." Paige stretched her back out and let out a cute yawn. "Just gotta make sure everyone's there to see it somehow…"
"I'm sure we'll think of something." Abby found herself smiling as well, looking up at the bright pale moon high overhead. "Hey, Paige… what do you think of all of this?"
"Hm?" Paige glanced over at her out of the corner of her eye. "Think of what?"
"Homosexuality, how people are responding to it, all of it." Abby replied.
Paige shrugged. "I make it a policy not to listen to what moronic losers think of me… or anything else for that matter. So why should I listen to any of them now? As for my stance on homosexuality, well…" She held out of her arm and scooted closer to Abby, slipping the arm around her shoulders and holding her close. "I think my view on THAT should be pretty obvious."
"Haha." Abby laughed with a soft blush. "I'm still not entirely sure what this means, exactly. To be honest I've barely thought about it. Not just because you're a girl, but because you're YOU. I always hated you, and you always hated me. Sure we've worked together well over the years but this… this seems like…"
"That's why I don't think about it." Paige raised a finger to her chin and turned her face to look at her. "I know what I want, why ask why I want it?"
"There's a certain shallow wisdom to that…" Abby giggled again.
Paige scoffed. "Depth is overrated. People thinking too much is exactly what causes this sort of insane homophobia in the first place. 'Why are they different?' 'What did I do wrong?' 'Oh woe is me, someone has an opinion that's DIFFERENT from mine!' If people would just chill out and stop asking why something's different, they would just relax and let it BE."
"Wow… I've never thought of it like that." Abby blinked. "I never took you for the hippy type."
"Hippy? Ewe. I shower!" Paige shuddered. "I just think people are stupid, is all."
"Well, I can't argue with that." Abby smirked. "SOME people, anyway. Lots of people are nice and intelligent."
"We'll disagree on that." Paige smirked and squeezed her shoulders lightly with one arm. "Come on, my mom's been pretty neutral on the whole thing, so if you want we can hang out there for a while."
"Sure, that sounds kind of nice." Abby smiled back and they turned to make their way toward Paige's house down the silent, empty streets. They had a lot of work to do still before they were ready to even put on their pre-play, rehearsals of their own and plans to work out. They didn't even know how to make sure everyone was there to see it, but they weren't about to let that stop them. This was way too important to just give up on.
To Be Continued
