Tuesday & Max

40

IT MAY BE ROUGH GOING

JUST TO DO YOUR THING'S THE HARDEST THING TO DO

BUT YOU'VE GOTTA MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC

The stage lights are hotter than she expected. They make her sweat. Everyone looks a little plastic in the yellow light. Her fear catches in her throat and makes the first few lines creak out of her mouth like it's a stubborn old door that won't open. The first song she sings wobbles. She forgets a couple of lines and fluffs a few more in a haze of red-tinged panic.

But.

It's somehow fun anyway.

Harry hugs her in the wings after her first few scenes and, frankly, he's the only thing that keeps her standing.

In the dressing room before Liesl's iconic scene in the rain with the telegram boy, Rolf, Tuesday freezes when she lifts the dress off the rack. Open neckline. On anybody else, it'd frame their delicate collarbones. She can't bear to put it on with everyone else there so she dashes to the bathroom, fighting out of her previous costume inches from a toilet. When she emerges from a cubicle to look at herself in the mirror, the last person she wants to see stands in front of it.

"Oh," Alexis says, jumping slightly as the door swings back and hits the stall wall. She stumbles away from the mirror and Tuesday takes her place before it, trying to look like she's just testing how the dress fits and not trying not to cry at the way its subtle pinkness matches the colour of her sprawling shoulder scar.

"You're doing really well," Alexis says, filling the silence. It's clear that she's been crying.

"Thank you," Tuesday says.

"No, seriously. You have a really nice voice."

"It's not as good as yours."

"It is."

Tuesday tugs at the neckline. "I didn't know you stayed."

"Yeah," Alexis shrugs. She looks down at her ankle, which she's holding an inch off the floor to avoid putting too much weight on it. "I'm gonna go to A&E later because I think it's probably broken, but I wanted to stay and see how it went."

"Does it hurt?"

She whistles slightly between her teeth and smiles weakly. "Yeah. But not if I don't really move."

"I didn't want your part," Tuesday says before she can stop herself. Alexis looks at her. "I mean, I did want it, but only like I wanted everyone else's parts. I was way too scared to have ever auditioned, even if I'd got the chance. And nobody knew about my mom until tonight, apart from Candice, Jon and Harry."

"Yeah..." Alexis sighs. "I'm really... I didn't mean to do that. It was really shitty. I just couldn't stop talking. You ever have that? You know it's wrong, what you're saying, but you just keep going and going and going."

Everything cruel Tuesday has ever said to Julia flashes through her mind.

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

They fall into silence. Tuesday glares viciously at her scar and tries not to look like she's glaring viciously at her scar.

"They won't notice," Alexis says.