Page 52 of Never Forever

Call would be early tomorrow morning to avoid the worst of the day’s heat.

“Just a few more days to go, I promise,” she said to the cast and crew. “You guys are champions and we’re making a great movie.”

Everyone clapped, exhausted and sweaty.

The crew started cleaning up the sets and I practically ran toward my sister’s bookshop. Turn The Page. It was right on the square, a mere 200 steps away and each step felt like I was running through mud.

But inside that bookshop were salty snacks and Gatorade and sweet, sweet air conditioning. And of course, my sister.

I had some news I wanted to tell her.

“Carrie!”

Someone called and I turned this time with a smile I didn’t have to fake. My beloved theater teacher coming after me as fast as her short legs could take her.

“Weidman!” I said, walking toward her, cutting her run in half.

The woman was almost seventy, but she didn’t act like it. And everyone in town just called her by one name. Like Cher. Or Lebron.

I didn’t even know her first name.

“Where’s the fire?” I asked her.

“No fire. Well, maybe a fire,” she said when she got to me. She braced her hand on my shoulder and caught her breath. “Oh honey,” she said. “You must be dying in that coat.”

“I’m fine.” I was not. “What’s going on?”

She caught her breath and clapped her hands. Weidman looked like a cartoon brought to life. Big eyes, soft, curly silver hair. Like a kindly witch or a curious forest creature with all the good ideas. “Well, we’re in rehearsals for our community summer play.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Weidman had a knack for doing wild plays. Or choosing regular plays and doing wild things with them. One of the summer shows I’d done with her, I’d played a dog in the musicalCats. One might ask, are there dogs inCats?

No. The answer was no.

She did a gender swappedGuys and Dollsone year.

There was the play where everyone was on stilts.

“Children of the Corn,” she said.

I had to think about it. “The eighties horror movie about children who haunt corn fields? That’s a play?”

“It is now.”

“Is it still scary?”

“More scary. Though, some of it is in verse. Also, there’s a musical dance number.”

Of course there was.

“When do you open?”

“The end of September. Just after the Fall Festival.”

“That’s late, isn’t it?”

“Well, someone has been filming a movie in town and making scheduling a little tricky.”