Chapter 22: INTERMISSION 2

The lights in his daughters’ high school auditorium dimmed just as Paul Webber entered the room. He enthusiastically sat down next to a professor from the Texas Academy of the Arts and tapped her shoulder.

“Hey,” Mister Webber smiled, “the girl putting on the show tonight,” he began, “that’s my daughter!”

The professor didn’t look up from her LCD handheld console/clock hybrid.

“So…” Paul twiddled his thumbs, “is your kid in the play too? One of Chloe’s friends, perhaps?”

“I’m from the TAA,” the woman informed Paul, still focusing most of her efforts on beating her high score on her video game.

“Oh!” the father of Maryanne and Chloe gasped, “In that case, please accept my daughter into your school!”

“We’ll see…” the professor groaned, shoving the game console into the pocket of her pencil skirt and staring directly at the theatrical stage at the back of the room.

 

Backstage, Chloe was pacing around anxiously with her hands behind her back, fully dressed from head-to-toe in Victorian-style clothes. She looked towards all her actors in their poorly-produced DIY attire and facepalmed.

“Relax, Sis,” Maryanne smiled, “We’ve got this in the bag!”

Chloe stared her twin up and down. “That’s… nothing like what I asked you to wear,” the playwright bluntly remarked, staring at her sister’s homemade black and purple witch costume which looked like something straight out-of one of the girl’s poorly-written fantasy novels.

“Improvisation, or whatever!” Maryanne giggled. “Remember? It’s just like you said earlier!”

“Don’t get carried away, Mary,” Chloe scolded. “As for the rest of you…” she turned to the rest of her cast, putting her hands together and flashing them an enthusiastic grin, “go out there and kick some ass, got it?”

“Places, everyone!” a stagehand called out, peeping their head in through the stage curtains. The stagehand looked over to Chloe and smiled. “Good luck, Chloe,” they said, “I know how much this means to you!”

“Thanks,” Chloe whispered back as the curtain slowly lifted.

 

Chloe looked over to the actors who had taken their positions crouching just out-of-view from the audience, giving them a nod before slowly, confidently marching towards the center of the stage.

“Woo!” Paul howled as the spotlight illuminated his longer-haired child, “That’s my daughter!”

Chloe’s face turned a bright red before taking a deep breath as the girl regained her composure. “Showtime,” she thought to herself. The girl looked up to the ceiling, left hand on her chest, right arm extended into the air. She took a deep breath and looked to the crowd.

“Payeth close attention, ladies and gentlemen,” Chloe commanded, “for the tale thee art about to witness is like no other in the history of mankind!” she proudly proclaimed.

The curtains slowly lowered on the stage as two or three stagehands set up props all around Chloe. The professor from the Texas Academy of the Arts took a clipboard from out of her overcoat. She withdrew the pencil which was rather fittingly located in her pencil skirt’s pocket and put it to her papers. As the curtains rose back up, Chloe looked to her sister and gave her a nod, before looking back to her captive audience and preparing to deliver her character’s opening soliloquy.

“Oh, lief gods, wilt thee not holp me to findeth mine sister Jacqueline?” Chloe asked, getting into character. “We spendeth every moment together! She can has't not gone too far, for we hadst plans for the present day!”

“I’ll help find your sister, Chloe!” Maryanne called from backstage before running onto the stage, still in her witch getup.

Chloe sighed. “The show must go on,” she thought. “Jacqueline,” she nervously smiled, “thou has’t arrived just on time!”

“Jacqueline who?” Maryanne smiled, “I am the great and powerful witch Sumire Shakespeare!”

“Oh, Jacqueline!” Chloe said through gritted teeth, “Thee at each moment doth be quite the jokest’r!”

“I’m serious!” Maryanne smiled, “Your dear sister Madeline has-”

“It’s ‘Jacqueline’,” Chloe whispered angrily.

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“Yes, indeed,” Maryanne nodded. “Your dear sister Jacqueline has been abducted by aliens! We need to rescue her!”

“Stick. To. The. Script.” Chloe snarled to Maryanne under her breath.

“Let’s go, Chloe!” Maryanne laughed!

The professor glanced up at the stage before writing another note down on her clipboard.

“Oh, Jacqueline,” Chloe said, trying to keep her composure, “taketh off that fartuous costume and join me by the swimming pool as we planned!” Chloe said, grabbing the hem of Maryanne’s short witch dress and throwing the garment over her twin’s head and to the downstage right.

Maryanne blushed and quickly covered the plain pink underwear that she was standing in, much to the confusion of the audience.

Chloe stood still for a few seconds before sighing and bringing her palms to her face in frustration. “I thought you’d be wearing the costume I told you to wear underneath that trashy Halloween outfit...” she muttered, face still in her hands.

“Is this supposed to be funny?!” the drama school professor shouted out. “There is nothing funny about stripping your characters to their underwear!” she cried, as the crowd began to boo the twin girls. “Only lazy writers would do something like that!” the teacher chuckled.

“I thought…” Paul mumbled, “I thought it was kinda funny…”

“Well of course YOU did,” the woman teased. “You’re their father!”

Chloe stared out to the booing audience as her face turned red – almost as red as the metaphorical fire which was setting her dreams up in flames right before her very eyes –  in a twisted combination of anger, sadness and embarrassment.

“Hey,” Maryanne smiled comfortingly, putting a hand on Chloe’s shoulder as the playwright’s arms dropped to her sides, “don’t listen to them! ‘The show must go on!’ …Or whatever. Right?”

“How can you say that after what you just did…?” Chloe sniffed, tears slowly running down her cheeks and fists trembling, “HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT AFTER RUINING MY PLAY?!”

“There’s always next ye-” Maryanne began before being interrupted by Chloe’s fist knocking her to the center stage floor. “Ow…” she groaned.

“How could you do this to me?!” Chloe roared, “This was my chance to get into my dream school, and you wrecked it!” Chloe stared down at her sister, curled up in a fetal position on the stage, gently sobbing in nothing but underwear and a witch’s hat.

“I just thought…” the witchy cosplayer sniffed, “I just thought your play could be more interesting…”

“Stop fighting!” Mister Webber called out, climbing onto the stage and picking up Maryanne’s dress before running to center stage and standing awkwardly between his two daughters. “Put this back on,” he blushed, handing Maryanne the mini dress.

“Thanks!” she smiled, standing up and wriggling into the costume again.

“Let’s go home,” the man smiled.

As Paul and his daughters passed by the professor from the TAA, Paul shot her a pair of finger guns and a goofy smile. “So…” he began, “whaddaya say? Isn’t my little Chloe perfect for your school?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman coldly scoffed, “the Texas Academy of the Arts accepts only the finest!”

“Please,” Chloe begged, adjusting her dress as she got down on her knees and groveled before the drama professor, “give me another chance! I’ll find another actress to play Jacqueli-”

“Good day,” the professor said, putting her foot on Chloe’s face and pushing her over.

The unimpressed teacher proceeded to walk away, withdrawing her console from her skirt pocket and resuming her video-game from where she left off earlier.

“Come on,” Paul Webber sighed, “let’s take you two back home…”

Chloe glared at her twin sister who was hiding behind their shared father.

“One day,” the young playwright growled, “I’ll make you pay for this.”

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