Page 99 of Everything's Coming Up Rosie

Fun is great every once in a while, but I live in the real world. And here, in the real world, there are jobs to be done and decisions to be made.

Big decisions—like, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I tell Daisy as I leave the room. “But we really are just friends.”

“Don’t you want to know if I kissed Louie?” She follows me.

“No,” I say. “I walked in on you guys kissing, don’t you remember?”

“Oh, right.” She giggles. “Sorry about that.”

“It was like two seals fighting over a grape,” I joke.

She laughs. “Yeah. It got pretty intense there. He’s a really good kisser. You wouldn’t think it, but he does this thing where—”

I hold up a too-much-information hand in the air as I walk into my bedroom and start pulling clothes from my dresser.

“We made out like we were teenagers!” Daisy calls from the other room. “I love kissing.”

“That’s gross and I don’t want to hear any more!” I call back, half teasing, half serious.

I want to ask her why she’s not more concerned about all the things that could go wrong dating a coworker, but I don’t.

I can’t be the one to rain on her parade.

I walk into the bathroom and get dressed, aware that the melancholy is back in the hollow part inside me. Am I... jealous?

Of course I want Daisy to be happy, the same way I want my friends back home to be happy. But why does their happiness leave me feeling like the last kid picked for the badminton team in gym class?

I’m weighing what I have against what other people have and coming up short. Why do I always come up short? And why does this matter so much?

It’s not a competition, Rosie.

Besides, I don’t have time to sit with any of this right now. These feelings are not why I’m here. I’m here to direct a show.

I grab my things, pack up a bag, and head out to the theatre.

***

I spend the next several days diligently working on the show.

I meet with Ginny and talk through the costumes, explaining what I want for each character. She barks back at me when she doesn’t agree, but ultimately we come up with a plan. It’s obvious that making the costumes gives her a sense of accomplishment, and I feel good about leaving them in her hands.

Veronica and I talk through the musical numbers, and while she tries to insert tap numbers all over the show, I’m able to successfully steer her in a more traditional direction.

And then there are rehearsals.

Our schedule is fairly intense, given how soon the show is coming up, which means that every afternoon we are blocking scenes (a fancy name for telling people when and where to move), learning songs, or teaching choreography. The cast starts doing that thing casts do—falling into a rhythm, becoming friends.

And I pay attention. Because this is another thing I love about theatre. By the end, if I do my job right, these people will feel like family.

Dylan starts to put together a list of backstage volunteers, and every night after rehearsal, Booker shows up to work on the set, basing it off the many photos I emailed him.

I took shop class in college—you had to in order to graduate—but I require a refresher before I’m any help to him at all.

We haven’t talked any more about the non-date at Buster’s, and that’s just fine with me. I can’t come up with words for any of the things I’m feeling at the moment.

I just know that the summer will be short, and I don’t want to waste time not being around him, no matter what logic and reason say.

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