90s Queen Bee #Wattys2016

Chapter 26 - The play

1998

The sound of rolling thunder grew louder, like it was coming right at me.

'Watch out!' someone shouted.

I opened my eyes and realised it wasn't rolling thunder at all. It was the rolling wheels of an enormous set design hurtling towards me along a stage floor.

I yelped and jumped out of the way. A cut out of an old ship set atop spikes of glittery blue, green and white ocean waves whooshed past. It was the set from one of the first scenes, when Viola and her twin brother Sebastian found themselves shipwrecked and separated.

I'd landed precisely where I'd wanted to be in '98. I looked down and saw that I was wearing my black Bonds top and baggy brown Bloch pants – I used to wear these all the time.

Oh shit! It suddenly dawned on me that I'd made a terrible, awful, stupid mistake. I'd forgotten to imagine myself the night before the play when I could have packed a spare bra and shirt in my bag and stashed them where Robin couldn't find them.

Think, Sammy, think. What had happened exactly? Robin had handed me my first outfit and told me to get changed. My first scene was as Viola, the girl, so the costume had been a tight dress with a sewn-in bone corset. It had been so tight, my bra hadn't fit underneath it.

After the first scene, she'd thrust my boy costume at me. She'd said there'd been a last minute wardrobe change and I wouldn't be wearing the brown shirt I'd rehearsed in. I'd looked down to see a flimsy white silk shirt. I'd searched for my bra. She'd said there was no time to find it and that I'd be fine without it.

She hadn't given me the chance to check my reflection as she'd steered me out of the changing room. I remembered getting a glimpse of myself in a mirror backstage and not noticing my exposed nipples. Little had I known that a dark backstage area and a stage lit up in eye-searing yellow were not the same thing. On stage, my boobs had looked like two fried eggs. That was according to my brother Ben, who'd been in the audience.

And so I'd delivered my lines under the unforgiving glare of the stage lights. The audience had laughed and I'd had no idea why – the scene wasn't supposed to be funny. When I'd left the stage, Mrs. Rockman, the home economics teacher, had told me what I'd looked like in a way that had sounded accusatory, like I'd deliberately ditched my bra.

I remembered fleeing to the changing room in tears, mortified that my parents – along with everyone else – had seen everything. I'd looked up to see Blair twirling my bra around his finger. I remembered how hurt I'd felt at the sight of him flinging it over to Mudsey, who'd shot it back like a slingshot. Robin had laughed and asked, 'Lost something, Sammy?'

They'd also stolen my normal clothes, so I'd been forced to stand in a corner with my arms wrapped around my chest, not knowing what to do. Penny had given me her bra and told Mr. H what had happened. He'd tracked down a musty black dinner jacket for me to wear and I'd performed the rest of the play with tears shining in my eyes – tears that I'd let spill over my cheeks between scenes.

Robin, of course, had denied knowing that the shirt was see-through and gotten away with it.

Now, without any spare clothes as backups, I'd have to somehow cling like grim death to the bra and top I was already wearing so Robin couldn't knick them.

I spotted Penny standing under a huge white arch covered in fake flowers. She was wearing her Romeo + Juliet t-shirt.

'Penny, the sets look amazing! You should become, like, a visual designer or something when you grow up!' I felt smug knowing her future career path before she did.