Read Jack & Louisa: Act 1 for Free Online

heart was beating a mile a minute. I felt a fat, hot tear threatening to spill from my lower lid onto my already wet cheek. Stupid sprinklers.
    I had been home from camp less than an hour and I’d already rejected its most important lessons, lessons that had nothing to do with triple time steps or breath control. They were about community, generosity, and encouragement. Not jealousy and hostility. In my head I could hear the voice of one of my acting instructors, Avery. “Louisa,” she would have said, shaking her head with disappointment, “how do you expect people to support you if you don’t support
them
?” I had become a poster child for What Not to Do.
    You know when people say “If I could go back . . .” and then launch into a (usually boring) story about something they would have done differently? I’d never really thought about changing past events since I was always thinking about the future, dreaming about what lay ahead (opening nights and original songs written just for me by famous Broadway composers). But as I walked home, sick to my stomach, and already feeling guilty about the pizza I was sure to refuse, I was overcome by an intense desire to “go back”—to five minutes ago.
    Instead of saying “Prove it” to Jack, I would have said “Start from the beginning and tell me
everything
.” I would have invited him over for pizza, and I would have grilled him, in a
nice
way, about what it was like to be on a Broadway stage. I would have asked him to confirm every piece of advice given by my camp instructors. And then, because I would have been so welcoming and friendly, he might have showed me the “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” dance because he
wanted
to, not because he felt challenged. And I would have made him teach me every step until his parents came to get him, and I would have practiced until bedtime, determined to perfect them in the morning.
    But there was no way to go back, and instead of making a new friend, I had just alienated the one person in Shaker Heights who might have understood me better than anyone. I passed a neighbor’s garden gnome who sat in the middle of their soggy lawn, smirking at me through the sprinkler spray.
You blew it, Lou
,
he seemed to say. I looked back at his crinkly face and thought,
You’re right, gnome. I did
.
    • • •
    A heat wave saved me from further embarrassment before school started up again. Temperatures spiked into the mid-nineties, keeping just about everybody glued to their air conditioners instead of their lawn chairs. It was too hot to go outside, which meant I was able to successfully avoid running into Jack. I tucked my
Mary
Poppins
cast recording behind my CDs of
Once
and
Newsies
and tried to convince myself that I could spend the next two years of middle school pretending that Jack didn’t exist. How hard could that be, really?
    Determined to bury my shame with a flurry of activity, I spent my time getting ready for school: a trip to Staples, where I was meticulous about picking out my supplies (I mean, seriously—when it comes to pens, there is a
noticeable
difference between
micro
and
fine
point). I cleaned out my closet and let Mom implement her “If you haven’t worn it in the last year, it’s going to Goodwill” rule. Then she took me shopping for new clothes, a somewhat depressing venture, since once again I had to walk past racks of Junior sizes and straight into the Kids’ Wear section. I had really been hoping for a growth spurt during the summer, but sadly—no dice.
    Even though I kept busy, I couldn’t escape the occasional reminder of my brief, though painful, exchange with Jack.
    One evening, my parents, unaware that I’d ever spoken to him, devoted our entire dinner to speculating about our new neighbors.
    “Mrs. Thompson says they’re from New York City,” my mom reported, her eyes flashing at me with expectation.
    “That’s exciting, huh, Lou?”
    “I guess.” I shrugged and casually