Falling for you.

2

“I’m so nervous” Dani squeaked.

“For God’s sake,” El sighed. “All you’re doing is reciting a short poem.”

Dani looked a little deflated. I don’t think El meant for her voice to come out like that, but sometimes she can sound a bit harsh. After all, Dani was mostly her to support me and El. Sure, she did GCSE Drama, but this wasn’t really her thing.

I smiled at her. “you’ll be fine, you look really pretty”

Dani smiled gratefully back at me. “You look lovely too Liv. I wish I had a figure like yours” She sighed then too, and ran her fingers through her brown frizzy hair. It is usually in little ringlets – her hair is naturally like an afro only not as bad – but today she had straightened it.   

Yeah right I thought. She was just being polite. Did I mention that she does ballet dancing? So imagine her body shape.

“Thanks Dani”

El yawned. “I don’t know what you’re getting so anxious about. It’ll be over before you know it.”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember the lines I’d picked for my audition.

The room fell silent as Mr Claud cleared his throat. “I think we’ll just go around the room for these” He said, and nodded at Eleanor who was sitting on the seat closest to him. She sashayed over to the open space in the middle of the room. She faced Mr Claud and smiled - a shy smile. She hadn’t even started and she was already acting.

Mrs Clarke nodded approvingly. She liked El because El was never shy and was always ready to speak out in class.

Eleanor did a speech from the paly – the beginning of the scene where Juliet is on her balcony and Romeo sneaks over to speak to her. She was good. She move around naturally and put loads of expression into her voice. Mr Claud was concentrating intently on her. His eyes following her as she moved. At the end she looked up at him under her dark eyelashes. He nodded and smiled at Mrs Clarke.

Great.

After that was a couple of ones that you could barely hear because the mumbled from the nerves. Dani went next. Unlike El, she didn’t move to the middle of the room. Instead, she stayed where she was and just stood up. She began reciting her poem in a loud, clear voice. She was actually quite good. A little stiff, but she put loads of expression in and at least she remembered all the words. Naomi Tate forgot her words, while Lilly Ryans refused to even start. Two more girls just stood there, shyly looking at the carpet as they did the bit from the play.

On and on it went. So far nobody compared to El and Mr Claud was looking bored. A few more girls went up with okay-ish performances. I felt more nervous.  The time dragged and dragged. Then suddenly Mr Claud’s eyes were on me. “Olivia Woods?”

I stood up. I was determined to take the stage like El has done. That meant standing in the middle of the room.

It seemed a very long walk from my chair to the middle.

As I faced Mr Claud, I could feel my legs shaking. My heart pounded so loud I was pretty sure the whole room could hear it.

“I’m going to be reading from Act 2 scene 2”

Too quick, slow down I thought. I started, doing my best to keep my voice low and my measured.

I loved the lines I’d picked. When we studied Romeo and Juliet at school I’d been bored at first. All the fighting between the two families seemed pointless. And then I started reading the love scenes.

I could feel my neck flushing with the intensity of what I was saying. I looked up into the middle, seeing nothing and no one. For a second, I forgot I was Oliva Woods, neither loved or in love. I became Juliet.

“My boundary is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite”

I could feel what that meant in my heart. In my soul.

I love you so much that it will never run out Is what it’s saying.

I clasped my hands together to try to stop them from shaking. The I slowly made my was back to my seat.

I saw Mr Claud nodding as he scribbled in his notebook.

“Now, I’m going to leave you for a few minutes to go get some refreshments.” He announced before leaving the room.

“You were great Liv” Dani beamed at me.

“Thanks” I said, feeling myself blush.

“I thought you didn’t care which part you got?” El raised her eyebrows at me. Then she grinned. “Not that you fooled me. And you were good, I bet you’ll get it.”

“I bet you will” I smiled at her. “You were brilliant.”

I was suddenly filled with relief that it was over. That I’d done it. And done it okay.

Mr Claud appeared a few minutes later with a tray of plastic cups, some biscuits and a couple of cartons of juice. As we took a drink, he started speaking.

“The standard this evening has been very high. I will send the full list of girl invited to take non-speaking parts to your headmistress tomorrow, but for now I would like to see the following people for second readings to assign the main parts. Danielle Pazer, Blair Peters, Eleanor Calder and Olivia Woods.”

Yes. I was up for one of the female speaking roles. But which on would I get? Of course, there was Juliet. Plus her nurse – sort of her nanny from when she was a child. There was also her mother or Romeo’s mother. At least I knew I had one of them.

One of them.

I didn’t want one of them. I didn’t want to be a boring mother or sensible nurse.

I wanted to be Juliet.