Act chapt 2

I decided instead of just lying in my bed, I would do some research
for acting class and look for a scene to do. I say to myself. "Well, if
me and Aaron are comedians when we're just hanging out together, we
have to do a comedy." Then I realized ooh, we can do something by Neil
Simon, like the Goodbye Girl. So I looked for a play by Neil Simon that
Aaron and me could do. Then right before I had to go to class, I found
Barefoot in the Park. It was about a newly wed couple that moves into
this apartment. The apartment is on the 5th floor, it has no elevator,
and there is a hole in the skylight.

That night after class, I went to the library and got the script, and
e-mailed Aaron that I found a play that we could do. I started to read
the play there were a lot of very funny scenes that the two of us could
do. There were two scenes that I liked. One was in the very beginning,
when Paul (the husband) finds the hole in the skylight, then there was
one at the end where Paul walks out on Corrie after a
disagreement.

Friday in Acting class I showed him the two scenes and he liked the one
in the beginning. So we told Mrs. S what scene we were going to do. We
discussed what we should do with the scene. It wouldn't be hard setting
the stage because the apartment has no furniture in it yet. We agreed
to start rehearsal that following Sunday night at 10:30.

"Well, I finally get to see if the rumors about the ghosts are true," I
said to him.

"What did you say?" He said looking back at me.

"Ghosts, there are ghosts in St. Mary's. I thought everyone knew that,"
I said laughing at the expression on his face. "They're friendly so
don't worry about them too much. "

"Ok, see you Sunday night at 10:30 up here on the stage," he said
looking around him as if the ghost was lurking nearby.

"See you there," I said as I went to the door still laughing to
myself.

The rest of the day I was both up and down. One minute I would be
thinking about the scene I had to do and be happy, the next I would
allow myself to wallow in my own pity. I'd be in tears one second, and
in the next I would be laughing my ass off. So after awhile I went on
the net and tried to see if anyone was on. Of course no one was, the
minute I have a problem no one is there. So I decide to e-mail Tom,
because I just love to torture myself. I asked him how his search for a
job was going.

After I e-mailed Tom, I just went to bed extremely early hoping that
sleep would help me out some. Unfortunately I still had the habit of
sleeping with Tom's shirt on, and holding a few stuffed animals that he
gave me. At one point in the night I dreamt that someone was strangling
me so I flung the shirt off and started throwing my stuffed animals. In
the morning I found the shirt by the door, and two of the stuffed
animals hanging from the dresser. I laughed despite myself and put my
stuffed animals on my bookshelf and shirt on the shelf in the
closet.

Saturday was basically wasted on doing homework, stuck typing up this
paper and that paper. This is the first week of class and I already
have three papers due. Not to mention the reading assignments that I
have to do, approximately 50 pages for each class, multiplied by 4. My
head feels like it's going to explode. If I retain any information at
all after this semester it will be a miracle.

Sunday night I was hanging out with Ashley, Amber,and Katie before I
had to go down and rehearse with Aaron. They wanted to come down and
watch. I was reluctant at first, then said oh what the hell the more
people who see us do our scene, the more feedback we'll get. The more
feedback, the better. So all three of us traipsed down to St. Mary's at
10 o'clock at night. The school gets kind of creepy at that time of
night. It gets eerily quiet; the barren trees that line the drive start
to look like evil creatures with gnarled hands ready to grab any
unsuspecting person who is insane enough to be walking alone at night.
It started to remind you of the scene from Snow white where she runs
away from the hunter into the woods. We got to St. Mary's safe and
sound and Aaron was already there waiting for us, he was playing around
with the mats jumping around, doing silly things to amuse himself while
going over his lines.

"Well, I see you already started, maybe you don't need me after all," I
said when we stepped into the room.

"No, I was just studying my lines," he said picking up the mat and
folding it up to put back underneath the stage. "Who are these lovely
ladies you have brought with you?"

"This is Ashley, Amber, and Katie," I said introducing each one of them
to Aaron, who shook each one of their hands. "Guys, this is Aaron.
"

We all talked a bit. Katie started to do flips and cartwheels, to see
if she could still do them. It was either that or just to show off that
she can be bent like one of those plastic toys that you get as a kid;
that you end up breaking because you end up tying it up in a knot that
you can't get untied. After a while, I was getting a little impatient
and wanted to get working on the scene.

"So, shall we get started now?" I asked Aaron.

"Sure, thing."

Since we pretty much knew our lines because of rehearsing in class, we
gave our scripts to Ashley. We told her if we started to fumble or
asked for a line just to give it to us. With that, we started our scene
and it went ok, just a few screw ups in the lines. I skipped a line and
he got lost so we had to start over again. Pretty soon we finally got
to the end of the scene and Ashley being the instigator that she is
goes: "It says here in the script that you're supposed to 'kiss
passionately'"

Needless to say, Aaron and me both started to blush a nice shade of
red, which only made things worse because soon everyone started to get
into the act.
"Go ahead, you want to be true to the script don't you." Amber
baited.

I looked at Aaron hoping that he would shoot down their idea, and say
no we can hug instead or something but instead he said, "well, why
not."

I just looked from Aaron to my so-called friends with a look of shock.
I mean, it's not that I didn't want to kiss him at all, it's just I
would have to do it in front of my friends and then later in class. I
was scared out of my wits. Eventually, I gave in. What the hell, this
is part of acting, we're supposed to let go of our inhibitions.

We started to go through the scene, my usual calm self was nowhere to
be found, I kept on flubbing lines, and my concentration was elsewhere.
I felt my eyes go darting to Aaron's lips. I've acted before but
usually it wasn't a romantic scene I was doing, or only with just one
other person. So I blamed my acting inexperience on my nervousness.
When it was my line and I forgot it, or just totally messed it up, I
would blush. Finally, I got my act together and was able to act the
scene correctly.

"'...Frozen skinny lovers found on 48th street,'" Aaron recited,
wrapping his arms tight around me.

"Are we in love again?" I asked, looking up at him.

"Yes, we're in love again." He replied, leaning in for the kiss.

I had to admit, despite the fact it was just a small little peck on the
lips, it sent big shivers down my spine. I could tell I was surely
going to have a tough time separating fantasy and reality with this
scene. Was it Aaron's kiss that sent the shivers or was it Paul kissing
Corrie? I'm in deep trouble. Or at least my heart is; which at this
point was pounding against my ribcage so hard I was sure he could feel
it. I broke the kiss and said scene, and Ashley, and friends started to
cheer, and whistle. I snuck a peak over to Aaron, and he had a smile on
his face. Yes, this is going to be a hard one Allison, but oh I am
certainly up to the challenge. At this thought, I smiled; kissing an
adorable guy over and over again, is certainly a good thing.

"So, shall we do the scene again?" I asked, after awhile.

"Sure thing," Aaron said, winking at me. What was that all about? I
asked myself.

We worked through the scene two more times, each time we kissed, the
feeling became more intense. Oh, please, don't let this end. Can I just
keep rehearsing the scene for the rest of my life, and never stop? I
don't care about performing it for the class, because that means that
it will have to end. It's just acting, I tried to tell myself; you're
just getting into the scene.

Soon it was nearly midnight and we decided to call it a night. Aaron
offered us a ride up the hill, so we wouldn't have to walk up the scary
hill at night. Granted on a good day I dread having to walk up on that
hill. I sat in the front seat with Aaron, he dropped Ashley and the
gang over at Brownlee, then dropped me off at the arch so I could go up
to my room. I almost leaned over and kissed him goodnight. Instead I
just reached for the door handle and said.

"Goodnight, I'll see you in about 9 hours. We should have just slept
over down there. I hear there's a couple of comfy couches down in the
basement," as I said this I realized what that would have implied, and
started to blush.

"Maybe, another time," he said, smiling at me. "Good night Allison.
I'll see you in class."

I got out of the car and went into the door to my building. When I
finally got back to my room, I realized I never stopped smiling since
Aaron dropped me off. I changed into my pj's and just crawled into bed,
I didn't even go on the net to chat with my friends like I usually do.
I just wanted to go to sleep, and see what I would dream about.

I awoke early the next morning, so early I woke up before my alarm went
off by a good 15 minutes. I got ready for class and the day at a
leisurely pace. It was as if my feet were inches off the ground, and if
I hurried too much the feeling would go away. Even when I found some of
Tom's stuff laying around I didn't go into a funk like I usually do, I
just put it aside with the intent of giving it to him later. I looked
over at the clock and saw it was time to go, I grabbed my coat, keys,
and script and was on my way to class.

As I walked down the hill, I kept on humming or whistling a song. When
I got to class, I said hello to everyone. Some people said hello back,
others like Rose, and Sara looked at me like there was something
up.

"What?" I asked.

"We just want to know why you're in such a good mood this morning,"
Rose said.

"No reason," I said I was going to say more but in the corner of my
eye, I saw Aaron come through the door. He did come early after all. I
sucked in a breath, and let it out quickly.

"Yeah, rehearsals are going great. I think it's going to go well next
month," I told Rose, to signal to her to be quiet.

"How's my favorite wife doing today?" Aaron said when he reached
me.

"Great. How's my husband doing?" I said not even suppressing the smile
that came on my face when he sat on the step next to me.

Rose and Sara, both exchanged a knowing look at me before they went to
talk to Jeff.

"Oh, I'm good. I wish I had more sleep last night. Should have just
stayed overnight here, then I would have only had to wake up five
minutes before class," He said, nudging me with an elbow.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Of course you have it easier than I do.
You don't have to trudge down that hill to get to class; you drive your
car to class," I said sneaking a sideways glance of his face, and saw
there was a big smile on it.

"Oh you poor poor thing. Walking all that way from Cannevin. You make
it sound like it's a five mile trek up Mount Everest or something." He
said playfully.

"It is. It's at least 5.9 miles uphill both ways in ten inches no
twenty inches of snow with the wind blowing at 100 miles per hour. It's
a tough hike but someone's got to do it, and I guess that someone is
me," I said laughing.

He laughed with me, a hearty genuine laugh, it made me smile inside and
out. It made me want to think of something else so we could just laugh
all day and not care about anything else that was happening in the
world. Not caring about classes, not caring about the 9-11 crisis not
caring about Tommy. We continued to laugh for a few more minutes until
Mrs. Saraceni popped into our little bubble. Immediately we quieted
down, I was biting my lip to keep from laughing and I looked over to
Aaron and it looked like he had a hard time doing the same. I nudged
him with my elbow and he just started cracking up.

"What is so funny Aaron?" Mrs. S asked looking over at Aaron and
me.

"Nothing," Aaron replied wiping the smile off his face and poking me in
the arm causing me to giggle.

I felt as though I was back in grade school joking around with my
oldest best friend in the world. Having fun, and not caring what anyone
thought about anything. It was a great feeling.
Finally when Mrs. Saraceni realized Aaron and I were both done joking
around she continued with the class. She explained about what to expect
in the next few weeks. Next week was coaching which meant we had to do
our scene in front of the tutors and Mrs. S and they would give us
feedback on the scene to help out work out the kinks, and make the
scene run smoothly. The week after that was the performing of the
scenes. Two weeks left of working with Aaron, a lump slowly formed in
my throat. Can't this continue on for a month or two more? I mean just
a month to rehearse a scene isn't enough? I want two months. After all
I want this to look professional, not like we put it together in a
week.

After she explained to us what the procedures were we went downstairs
to watch a video of a previous class's first scenes. We sat in a little
room no bigger than a closet with a few chairs and a television and VCR
set up. I sat on the floor next to Kelly and Aaron sat next to me. He
sat next to me in a way that my left side of my body was touching the
right side of his. So as we watched to video when either he or I
shifted we bumped a shoulder, brushed hands etc. At one point I felt
someone hit my back and I saw Rose behind me smiling. I glared at her
and she shrugged and went back to watching the video. When they got to
a scene that was similar to mine and Aaron's I went to point it out to
him that it was from the same play I turned my head the same time he
decided to turn his so I was looking directly into his eyes. I was
caught off guard by the closeness of his face to mine and looked back
at the screen.

After a few moments, I leaned over and whispered in his ear. "This is
from our play. I think we can do ten times better then these two, what
do you think."

"Yeah, I mean look at the guy, he's this sniveling little geeky guy.
And let's not even get me started on the girl," he said leaning closer
to me and placing his hand on the floor behind me so that our bodies
were now overlapping.

I soon found myself leaning back so that Aaron was supporting me; my
shoulder was pressed against his chest. I felt warm where my body
touched his. I felt secure, and safe. I didn't even realize I was doing
it until I felt another hit on the back. I looked back at Sarah this
time and she was wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. I realized why she
was doing it and readjusted my position. Immediately, the warmth and
the safe feeling faded away. The cocoon that I felt wrapped around me
disappeared.

I inwardly scolded myself for doing it. What I was exactly mad at
myself about was beyond me. Was I mad because I should still be holding
a flame for Tom? Was I mad because I haven't even thought about Tom in
the last few days? When just a few days prior to that he consumed my
every thought and action. I shook my head and muttered, "you like it,"
under my breath.