Arizona & Tea
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It wasn’t my objective in life to throw a half-drunken Arizona Green Tea bottle at Luke Hemmings’ face.
But I did. And it was the worst decision of my life.
I had no idea what the lip-ringed blond male bombshell, that even had tighter skinny jeans than me, felt, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t too happy about it. The thing about this certain Luke Hemmings, was that I was sure he was the complete epitome of an ass. He probably slept through morbid horror movies in his spare time, completely avoided the thought of kisses and hugs, and most likely laughed through tragic scenes in romantic stage plays… See? It almost seemed too ass-like to be true.
Besides his demeaning personality I proudly just stated, there would be no absolute way that I would entertain the atrocious thought of liking him even enter my mind. Sure, he had these odd, puzzled features that moulded into some sort of an attractive face if put together, a huge collection of secret stuffed Penguin toys up on his shelves, and great man legs; but I was pretty sure that he was in no way of being my type.
And I liked to keep it that way.
Before you start buying antique pitchforks and torches from Portland EBay to hunt my ass down for my probable demise, let me tell you what truly happened between the hours of nine-thirty to eleven right on the day for my special stage play debut.
The totality of being good with words became my pride and soul, as I left North Carolina the moment I aged sixteen to venture to the world of glitz and glamour, most conceivably called the city of Manhattan, to pursue my dream as a playwright. My mother was in hysterics when I told her I wanted to become a scriptwriter the year I learned there was such things called stage plays, but in the end she agreed to let me live in this pleasant two-roomed apartment I shared rent with Brandon Mercer, also known as the vinyl-hoarding low-paid cinematographer and director that loved to speak about my non-existent boyfriend named Andrew and also hid a Yorkshire Terrier puppy called Percy Jackson in the closet when the landlord come to question about the barking noise. For two years, I juggled a hundred jobs for a pay check, but was always a playwright by night.
I wouldn’t call myself playwright-successful like Shakespeare or Thomas Meehan, but in the span of two years and forty-two point five – certainly-failed scripts of different kinds of genres, I had managed to finish a 250k-worded script filled with tragedy and romance too much for my liking, but somehow good enough to be produced as a R-15 play, according to Jazlyn Elswood (aka the woman who was producing my play).
Now, the real story didn’t start until nine-thirty am at 17th Greenwich Str. Corner in the Elswood Playhouse, where in my play would take place. Circular was the room itself, with its black-circled patterned walls and circular chairs that surrounded the circular stage. The only thing un-circular about the small Manhattan playhouse was the three bright stage lights that hung above the black ceiling which beamed rectangular rays of light upon the black, circular stage in the middle.
As I stood upon the high rows of chairs, almost near the ceiling and also where the lighting work took place, I couldn’t help but feel smug, because how many people dreamed to achieve this and in two years, I somehow attained all of this.
Take that, mom! I smirked and folded my arms near my chest. I knew I could do this.
“-I never said you couldn’t do it.”
My mom smacked my head with a programme, snarling in amusement. I didn’t realize I was talking out loud, so I cupped my lips with my palms in slight embarrassment.
“Whatever,” I coughed but the tint of my cheeks told people otherwise. I loved my mother, I really did; but sometimes, she could be such a pain in the ass. In the back of my head, I murmured to myself that forever and ever I would love my mom for being here to watch my first stage play, unlike my father. “The play starts at nine, mom. Get out of here; it’s Cosette and Cosette time only.” I pointed at myself for emphasis, and then showed her my iPhone screen in haste to get her out.
“But the lighting men are also here,” she responded in that ‘aww, don’t kill the fun’ tone, complete with a joking smile. I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes at her obvious observation.
“Uh, duh? Please, please, go take your seat.” I started pushing her with my fingers towards the door.
“Okay, okay!” She laughed lightly, like some bells chiming from afar. There were a hundred reasons why my father married my mother, aside from being in love with her; he used to say that her laugh was the best thing he’d ever heard in his life. However, seeing as he was out of our lives for the past four years with no explanation, I wasn’t so sure if he was serious.
“I just want to tell you that there is kids fourteen and under trying to get in at the entrance,” she hissed loudly and swift. “You gotta get down there and stop all the mess.”
“What?” I blinked at my mother’s brown eyes in disbelief. “Why the hell would pre-puberty teens want to watch my R-15 stage play?” She shrugged and pushed me out of the door instead.
Formal-dressed adults wove their way around my rapid walk down to the first floor. “God, kids these days,” I muttered while I walked down the long, swirly steps. I mean, I was flattered with this endeavour but I would not want some petty children get in the way of me and my play. What if the critics based their ratings on the public who watched too! I did not want a manoeuvring stage play with children making their giggles and sounds here and there. It would simply ruin the whole tragic, heart-breaking tension the lights and the dialogue and the characters managed to manifest during the every practice.
I went to the lobby and neared the main door in which I was startled to see at least a dozen pre-teens and teenagers standing outside the door with black and white band shirts shirts. They all had their phones up in the air and the white-assembled guard had to use a long pole to keep them out of the too-formal-for-teens Elswood Playhouse.
I soon realized there would be a celebrity in sight, or possibly going to watch my play. I gasped silently in thought, but quickly walked away from the main door so I wouldn’t block the people walking in. What was this 5SOS? I mused, taking in the logo with a slanted line strike through five sticks on a random girl’s shirt. I hoped it would help me get a higher rating if a celebrity was there to watch too. But then I punched myself in the stomach. I was thinking too shallow, gosh. Of course, the critic wouldn’t base it that way.
Sighing, I placed my head up high and trod to the guard who still held a pole in the entrance. “Why are they here?” I asked the guard in complete confusion as I felt a lot of eyes from the teens.
“Some band called 5 Seconds of Summer are coming in, but in the back of the building.” He whispered loud enough for me to hear. I knit my forehead in confusion, but thanked him for the information.
The second my roommate, Brandon Mercer, guffawed at the sight of me sitting at the edge of my seat, watching my script come to life on stage, he threw a piece of Caramel Popcorn onto my cheek.
“Oh good, you came!” I whispered in absolute glee as Brandon threw his hands in a ta-da style, scattering three programmes on the floor. Since we were on the top floor where in nobody but Jazlyn the producer and the lighting men did their thing, it was a perfect place to watch the play without annoying heads obverse of your view.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, you woman.” He curled his lips in delight, plopping on the chair next to me. The brunet twenty-one-year-old never attended any event if it wasn’t art-solicited, so our passion for stage plays was a good mutual interest for both Brandon and I since we met two years ago. “Oh, and here’s the Arizona you wanted.” He tossed a refreshing-looking bottle, nearly thumping my stomach.
As the lighting became overcast, I understood which scene this was. It was the act in which Lory, the female protagonist, stated the most important and heartfelt line of all, where I felt that it was the peak of romance that ever escalated through this story. It was the scene quite like in movies, where in it would be silence and nothing played but the echo of the words of love that uttered through the air.
It was ironic. I was a playwright that wrote love… but didn’t even want love.
“…the last thing I think about before I sleep,” a breath of silence.I waited for the actress to finish.
And in every moment in between.
“And in every moment in between.”
It was so quiet that I could possibly hear a pin drop.
But then someone laughed.
I perked up abruptly, looking around for the sound. It was some sort of a manly laugh, like it was freely let go with no reason. Even the crowd underneath must have heard it, because they began flipping their heads around. Fortunately, the actors on stage did not let go of focus and continued on.
“Shit,” Brandon mused beside me. “That is one sexy piece of shit.”
I cringed at the use of his curse words. I wasn’t too keen on boys who smoked or cursed, but the fact that my friend just called someone sexy was something alerting to me. Sure, Brandon Mercer was gay, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have a type. He was picky, that one.
“Shut up, Brand.” I slapped his arm, but he nudged me multiple times to point towards someone down below. “No, seriously, Billings. Check him out.”
I refused to look, so I just continued to watch my play.
However, the same laugh echoed across the room. This time, I gritted my teeth and stood facing down the audience. I could feel Brandon’s fingers grabbing my wrist to calm me down but honestly I just felt so hurt and annoyed that someone actually laughed at my work.
And then I spotted him. A mass of spiked, blond hair was the only thing I could see; but the moment he tossed his head up for another case of hilarity, I was ready to smack my Arizona straight across his face.
Only in the later time I realized how awful the antic of throwing a bottle really was.
Nevertheless I didn’t regret it, because actually it added something extraordinary to my ordinary life.
But I did. And it was the worst decision of my life.
I had no idea what the lip-ringed blond male bombshell, that even had tighter skinny jeans than me, felt, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t too happy about it. The thing about this certain Luke Hemmings, was that I was sure he was the complete epitome of an ass. He probably slept through morbid horror movies in his spare time, completely avoided the thought of kisses and hugs, and most likely laughed through tragic scenes in romantic stage plays… See? It almost seemed too ass-like to be true.
Besides his demeaning personality I proudly just stated, there would be no absolute way that I would entertain the atrocious thought of liking him even enter my mind. Sure, he had these odd, puzzled features that moulded into some sort of an attractive face if put together, a huge collection of secret stuffed Penguin toys up on his shelves, and great man legs; but I was pretty sure that he was in no way of being my type.
And I liked to keep it that way.
Before you start buying antique pitchforks and torches from Portland EBay to hunt my ass down for my probable demise, let me tell you what truly happened between the hours of nine-thirty to eleven right on the day for my special stage play debut.
The totality of being good with words became my pride and soul, as I left North Carolina the moment I aged sixteen to venture to the world of glitz and glamour, most conceivably called the city of Manhattan, to pursue my dream as a playwright. My mother was in hysterics when I told her I wanted to become a scriptwriter the year I learned there was such things called stage plays, but in the end she agreed to let me live in this pleasant two-roomed apartment I shared rent with Brandon Mercer, also known as the vinyl-hoarding low-paid cinematographer and director that loved to speak about my non-existent boyfriend named Andrew and also hid a Yorkshire Terrier puppy called Percy Jackson in the closet when the landlord come to question about the barking noise. For two years, I juggled a hundred jobs for a pay check, but was always a playwright by night.
I wouldn’t call myself playwright-successful like Shakespeare or Thomas Meehan, but in the span of two years and forty-two point five – certainly-failed scripts of different kinds of genres, I had managed to finish a 250k-worded script filled with tragedy and romance too much for my liking, but somehow good enough to be produced as a R-15 play, according to Jazlyn Elswood (aka the woman who was producing my play).
Now, the real story didn’t start until nine-thirty am at 17th Greenwich Str. Corner in the Elswood Playhouse, where in my play would take place. Circular was the room itself, with its black-circled patterned walls and circular chairs that surrounded the circular stage. The only thing un-circular about the small Manhattan playhouse was the three bright stage lights that hung above the black ceiling which beamed rectangular rays of light upon the black, circular stage in the middle.
As I stood upon the high rows of chairs, almost near the ceiling and also where the lighting work took place, I couldn’t help but feel smug, because how many people dreamed to achieve this and in two years, I somehow attained all of this.
Take that, mom! I smirked and folded my arms near my chest. I knew I could do this.
“-I never said you couldn’t do it.”
My mom smacked my head with a programme, snarling in amusement. I didn’t realize I was talking out loud, so I cupped my lips with my palms in slight embarrassment.
“Whatever,” I coughed but the tint of my cheeks told people otherwise. I loved my mother, I really did; but sometimes, she could be such a pain in the ass. In the back of my head, I murmured to myself that forever and ever I would love my mom for being here to watch my first stage play, unlike my father. “The play starts at nine, mom. Get out of here; it’s Cosette and Cosette time only.” I pointed at myself for emphasis, and then showed her my iPhone screen in haste to get her out.
“But the lighting men are also here,” she responded in that ‘aww, don’t kill the fun’ tone, complete with a joking smile. I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes at her obvious observation.
“Uh, duh? Please, please, go take your seat.” I started pushing her with my fingers towards the door.
“Okay, okay!” She laughed lightly, like some bells chiming from afar. There were a hundred reasons why my father married my mother, aside from being in love with her; he used to say that her laugh was the best thing he’d ever heard in his life. However, seeing as he was out of our lives for the past four years with no explanation, I wasn’t so sure if he was serious.
“I just want to tell you that there is kids fourteen and under trying to get in at the entrance,” she hissed loudly and swift. “You gotta get down there and stop all the mess.”
“What?” I blinked at my mother’s brown eyes in disbelief. “Why the hell would pre-puberty teens want to watch my R-15 stage play?” She shrugged and pushed me out of the door instead.
Formal-dressed adults wove their way around my rapid walk down to the first floor. “God, kids these days,” I muttered while I walked down the long, swirly steps. I mean, I was flattered with this endeavour but I would not want some petty children get in the way of me and my play. What if the critics based their ratings on the public who watched too! I did not want a manoeuvring stage play with children making their giggles and sounds here and there. It would simply ruin the whole tragic, heart-breaking tension the lights and the dialogue and the characters managed to manifest during the every practice.
I went to the lobby and neared the main door in which I was startled to see at least a dozen pre-teens and teenagers standing outside the door with black and white band shirts shirts. They all had their phones up in the air and the white-assembled guard had to use a long pole to keep them out of the too-formal-for-teens Elswood Playhouse.
I soon realized there would be a celebrity in sight, or possibly going to watch my play. I gasped silently in thought, but quickly walked away from the main door so I wouldn’t block the people walking in. What was this 5SOS? I mused, taking in the logo with a slanted line strike through five sticks on a random girl’s shirt. I hoped it would help me get a higher rating if a celebrity was there to watch too. But then I punched myself in the stomach. I was thinking too shallow, gosh. Of course, the critic wouldn’t base it that way.
Sighing, I placed my head up high and trod to the guard who still held a pole in the entrance. “Why are they here?” I asked the guard in complete confusion as I felt a lot of eyes from the teens.
“Some band called 5 Seconds of Summer are coming in, but in the back of the building.” He whispered loud enough for me to hear. I knit my forehead in confusion, but thanked him for the information.
The second my roommate, Brandon Mercer, guffawed at the sight of me sitting at the edge of my seat, watching my script come to life on stage, he threw a piece of Caramel Popcorn onto my cheek.
“Oh good, you came!” I whispered in absolute glee as Brandon threw his hands in a ta-da style, scattering three programmes on the floor. Since we were on the top floor where in nobody but Jazlyn the producer and the lighting men did their thing, it was a perfect place to watch the play without annoying heads obverse of your view.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, you woman.” He curled his lips in delight, plopping on the chair next to me. The brunet twenty-one-year-old never attended any event if it wasn’t art-solicited, so our passion for stage plays was a good mutual interest for both Brandon and I since we met two years ago. “Oh, and here’s the Arizona you wanted.” He tossed a refreshing-looking bottle, nearly thumping my stomach.
As the lighting became overcast, I understood which scene this was. It was the act in which Lory, the female protagonist, stated the most important and heartfelt line of all, where I felt that it was the peak of romance that ever escalated through this story. It was the scene quite like in movies, where in it would be silence and nothing played but the echo of the words of love that uttered through the air.
It was ironic. I was a playwright that wrote love… but didn’t even want love.
“…the last thing I think about before I sleep,” a breath of silence.I waited for the actress to finish.
And in every moment in between.
“And in every moment in between.”
It was so quiet that I could possibly hear a pin drop.
But then someone laughed.
I perked up abruptly, looking around for the sound. It was some sort of a manly laugh, like it was freely let go with no reason. Even the crowd underneath must have heard it, because they began flipping their heads around. Fortunately, the actors on stage did not let go of focus and continued on.
“Shit,” Brandon mused beside me. “That is one sexy piece of shit.”
I cringed at the use of his curse words. I wasn’t too keen on boys who smoked or cursed, but the fact that my friend just called someone sexy was something alerting to me. Sure, Brandon Mercer was gay, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have a type. He was picky, that one.
“Shut up, Brand.” I slapped his arm, but he nudged me multiple times to point towards someone down below. “No, seriously, Billings. Check him out.”
I refused to look, so I just continued to watch my play.
However, the same laugh echoed across the room. This time, I gritted my teeth and stood facing down the audience. I could feel Brandon’s fingers grabbing my wrist to calm me down but honestly I just felt so hurt and annoyed that someone actually laughed at my work.
And then I spotted him. A mass of spiked, blond hair was the only thing I could see; but the moment he tossed his head up for another case of hilarity, I was ready to smack my Arizona straight across his face.
Only in the later time I realized how awful the antic of throwing a bottle really was.
Nevertheless I didn’t regret it, because actually it added something extraordinary to my ordinary life.
Notes
I have so much in store for this story!
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Leave a review x.
Haha a weird story but also very funny and entertaining. Keep it up!
5/25/15