(no subject)
I feel like I don't have anything worth saying anymore. My parents got divorced last week. I'm tired all the time. I just want Christmas to come and then for it to be April and to get into college.
This is an article someone wrote about me for their journalism class, though they don't go to my school. Michelle, my best friend, has another best friend named Rachel D. from another school. Rachel and I, though we hadn't met for a long time, were sort of unspoken rivals. But she trailed me for a day, and then there's a bit at the end about my acting. Read it if you want, the article is under the cut. I, unfortunately, sound like a serious bitch in the first part . . . but I suppose it can't be helped, I was having a bad day that day.
----- Original Message -----
From: rachel dempsey
To: truthorrdare@hotmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: piece
thanks. you don't have to lie, i wouldn't be offended, but i re-read it today and it wasn't quite as bad as i had remembered. you can show it to rachel if she wants to see it. love, white rachel
>From: "Mimi Orr"
>To: "rachel dempsey"
>Subject: Re: piece
>Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 19:55:09 -0500
>
>I love it Rachel..very well done, its very good. You should feel good about it.
>love, michelle
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: rachel dempsey
> To: truthorrdare@hotmail.com
> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 10:03 AM
> Subject: FW: piece
>
>
> >here it is--i know it's not the best thing i've ever written. but you wanted to see it, so...
> >love, rachel (dempsey)
> > >
> > > Her name is Rachel, but her friends sometimes call her Ray or Ratchel. She's a senior in high school, so like all seniors in mid-November, she thinks about college a lot. Her top choice is Yale. She hates Shakespeare and poetry and loves the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She believes in ghosts. Sometimes when she's being sarcastic she acts so serious that people can't tell that she's joking. Her stories sound better in her head than they do when she tells them. She bites her nails.
> > > This girl's name is Rachel Douglas, although I could just as easily be describing myself. I have never met her before today, but Rachel and I are unsettlingly similar. Aside from a plethora of superficial parallels, we share a best friend, Michelle Orr. Our relationship, as best I can describe it, is one of rivals, strangers, and clones. Today I am shadowing her to try to separate the real Rachel from the identity thief I have created in my imagination.
> > >
> > > My first glimpse of Rachel is in the hallway of her school, Duke Ellington School for the Arts, before her first class. Michelle and I are standing by Michelle's locker, loading her backpack for the day. Rachel, a little ways down the hall from us, is jumping around in circles as she tries to put on a silver ballet flat without letting her foot touch the grimy floor. She waves to Michelle but does not say anything to me. I flash back to my telephone conversation with Michelle the night before.
> > >"She might try to lose you on purpose," said Michelle.
> > >"What?"
> > >"Oh, nothing," Michelle answered quickly. "I hope it all works out."
> > >
> > >By the end of AP English, Rachel's first class of the day, I am starting to think
> > >that maybe it won't work out. An hour into the day, Rachel has not so much as looked at me, even though I've been sitting next to her the whole time. When class lets out she nods at me curtly, then walks away with Michelle, leaving me to trail along behind.
> > > "Rachel, perk up," Michelle says. "Just think, after tonight we're done with the misery that is the senior repertoire." Rachel and Michelle are both drama majors at Ellington. They are putting on a show tonight that showcases what they have learned in their years of acting class.
> > > The thought of finishing the repertoire seems to mollify Rachel. To my immense relief, she actually acknowledges me for the first time all morning. The seniors in the show didn't get out of school until 10:00, she explains, and she's tired. She only got three hours of sleep last night.
> > > Rachel's next class is Anatomy. The teacher is absent, so the students sit at their desks and talk. Rachel and I compare our first impressions of Michelle as we wait for the substitute. I tell her about how I stopped talking to Michelle in seventh grade when I wasn't invited to her birthday party. Rachel says Michelle made fun of her and hurt Rachel's feelings on the first day of school, and they didn't speak for a month.
> > > The substitute arrives a few minutes into class and hands out a worksheet. A group forms to work on it, with Rachel in the middle.
> > > "I hate science," she says, labeling little pictures with the words metaphase or telophase or anaphase.
> > > "I hate this," someone affirms.
> > > The rest of the students seem to look to Rachel for answers, but she brushes off their obvious respect. "Don't take what I said," she says for one answer. "I don't really know what I'm talking about."
> > > The worksheet only takes about fifteen minutes, but the students have to stay at their desks until class is over. Rachel is worried that I'm bored. "Wait for rehearsal. That'll be the interesting part of the day," she promises. "I hate it when people are bored."
> > > We talk to pass the time, and as we talk the similarities between us build. Rachel was going to apply Early Action to Yale, as I did, though she didn't get her application in soon enough. When I admit to not liking math, Rachel agrees, "I feel that." Both of us read and write in our free time, but neither she nor I likes poetry. We share an aversion to Shakespeare. The election made her "very disappointed." "I was cussing so much that day," she says of November 3rd, the painful day after the election. I can sympathize, remembering ruefully how I refused to accept defeat even after Kerry had conceded.
> > > Yet among these familiar traits I begin to find things I can't relate to. Rachel knows what she wants to do with the rest of her life, counting "acting, filmmaking, writing, and producing" among her ambitions. She doesn't sleep very much, or socialize, because "there's not any time." Plays and rehearsals take up a phenomenal amount of her life, and her devotion to acting makes me feel lazy in comparison.
> > > Classes at Ellington are on a block schedule, so when we are finally let out of Anatomy it is time for lunch. Rachel and I meet Michelle at her locker and head out to the front steps of the school building, where we eat. Rachel has a croissant she bought that morning, and I have a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich. Michelle didn't bring lunch, so she just watches us.
> > > The two of them decide that I just have to see a scene from the musical Gypsy that Michelle was playfully acting out a few days ago. Every time Michelle starts, though, she and Rachel collapse into giggles, and Michelle can't get past the first few words.
> > > "Why did I do it?" she says over and over again, in the short intervals when her laughter is controlled enough to be able to speak.
> > > "Wait, stop!" says Rachel, barely breathing with laughter. "This is why we can't be in acting class together. Center!" At the last word, the two of them breathe out deeply and get into a squatting position, a routine that I realize later is part of an acting warm-up. At the time I am mystified and very aware that I do not belong with them in their comfortable inside jokes.
> > > Rachel tries to imitate Michelle's act, but Michelle reprimands her with, "No! That's all wrong." They decide that maybe Michelle can't get it right because we're standing in the wrong doorway.
> > > A group of students is already sitting on the steps of the right doorway. Rachel says politely, "Excuse me, could you move for just a couple of minutes? We're having a performance." To my surprise, the students obediently pick up their lunch trays and walk away, reminding me that we are at an arts school. At Maret, the small, academically-oriented private school where I go, this kind of request would probably be laughed at. At Maret I would probably laugh at it.
> > > Even at the new doorway, every time Michelle flings her arms out and says, "Why did I do it?" she laughs so hard she can't continue. Eventually we give up and head inside. The arts classes at Ellington start after lunch, so it's almost time for "the interesting part of the day:" rehearsal for the senior repertoire.
> > > Michelle, Rachel, and I get to the auditorium at 12:30 exactly, the minute rehearsal is supposed to start. Five minutes later, the room is still empty except for a few of the other actors who have come early to practice their parts.
> > > "Didn't rehearsal start at 12:30?" I ask.
> > > "Nothing here ever starts on time," Rachel and Michelle answer in unison. I can't help but compare the disorganized nature of Ellington classes with the relative regimentation of life at Maret.
> > > Around 12:45 the director, a tall, bald, graceful black man named Mr. Johnson walks in. Michelle introduces me to him.
> > > "This is my friend," she says. Rachel, standing next to us, says defensively, "She's my friend, too!" I sit down in one of the seats that surround the stage, and rehearsal begins.
> > > The actors start out with warm-ups. They do squats, stretches, breathing exercises, voice exercises. Finally they get into their positions onstage and start the play.
> > > "We spend all our lives trying to do things they put people in asylums for," one actor begins. The rest follow with their own quotes. The scene ends with the Mr. Johnson saying, "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. The director has made his decisions for the callback list. And the numbers are." At this point, there should be a blackout, but the lights people aren't ready yet. Everyone just yells, "BLACKOUT." I am completely lost trying to understand the play's plot.
> > > Before long I realize that I am not the only one who is lost. The play is due to open in six hours, and it is still not finished. The actors and the Mr. Johnson throw out ideas and test them. They try the scene without the blackout, speed up the quotes, alter the director's words.
> > > "What's the rhythm? We need a rhythm," someone says.
> > > "This isn't going to work," says someone else.
> > > "Okay, let's do that again."
> > > The actors go back to their starting positions and the scene begins. Mr. Johnson interrupts. "Can you start over and do that again?" he asks the actor speaking. "Stay inside your character. You drop out too quickly."
> > > A striking Dominican girl named Yolanda is having particular trouble with her monologue. "I feel myself doing the same stuff over and over again," she says in frustration.
> > > "It's okay--just relax," says Mr. Johnson. Yolanda tries the lines again. "Okay, stop. Good, Yo, good."
> > > She starts from the top and messes up. "Can I start again?" The actors onstage all move backwards to their starting positions and Yolanda begins.
> > > Mr. Johnson still isn't satisfied. "Don't act between the lines," he tells her. "Use the lines to say, 'This is the most incredible moment of my life!'" Between each word he slaps his knees to emphasize his point.
> > > The scene starts again for what must be the eighth time. "You've got to hit this, Yolanda. You've got to hit it," Mr. Johnson says.
> > > Yolanda starts saying her lines and Mr. Johnson interrupts. "HIT it!" She barely pauses before continuing.
> > > "You've got to keep going, Yoli," says Mr. Johnson. "Just dive back in." Yolanda looks as though she might cry for a second before she pulls herself together and keeps going.
> > > Rachel is in the next scene. She walks onstage, carry two Starbucks coffee cups, but a few minutes into it Mr. Johnson calls a break.
> > >
> > > As soon as they step into the dressing room the actors start screaming. "I don't know what he wants me to do!" yells one girl.
> > > "He don't fucking know what he wants you to do!" Yolanda yells back.
> > > "You will be an out-of work director if you do that!" the girl continues.
> > > "Honey, that's why he's working at this school." Yolanda is sitting against a mirror, her legs sprawled out, almost crying. The other girl is crying, lying in the lap of a fellow actor.
> > > "I'm hungry," says Rachel from her perch on a makeup table. She seems barely to register the drama in front of her, and I get the impression that the histrionics I am witnessing are not infrequent.
> > > After awhile everyone calms down. People begin to notice me. Upon hearing about my project, a round, smiling girl named Brittney says that when she first saw me I reminded her of Rachel. Everyone teases her. I am tall; Rachel is average height. I am white; Rachel is black. Physically, we look nothing the same.
> > > "Let's tell stories about the beatings we got that we didn't deserve," says someone, perhaps wanting to keep people distracted from the show and maintain the relative calm that had settled in the dressing room. For the first time all day I remember that I am white and almost everyone else is black. In fact, I am the only white person in the room.
> > > My parents would never have dreamt of beating me. Rachel doesn't have any beating stories, but she is the only black girl without one. We spend the rest of the break watching dramatic re-enactments of childhood castigations which are funny and shocking at the same time.
> > > "God, we are so dramatic," says someone.
> > >
> > > Seven hours and as many meltdowns after rehearsal started, it is 7:30 and almost time to open the house. The actors are grouped together, holding hands, in the middle of the stage. They all listen to Mr. Johnson.
> > > "This is just another rehearsal, another opportunity," he tells them. They end with a cheer and break out of the huddle, clapping.
> > > The actors clear the stage, but it only gets more frantic. Ushers and stagehands run around and shout at each other.
> > > "Where am I supposed to be? Right there?"
> > > "Molly, this mic is going to be hot the whole show, right?"
> > > "Where are the reserved chairs?"
> > > "Spotlights, you should be out!"
> > > "Close the door! The house can't be open yet!"
> > > But in a few seconds the house does open, and the audience begins to filter in. People stake out seats in the bleachers, which have been set up right on the stage. The show is not sold out, but the crowd is respectable.
> > > The show starts around 7:50, twenty minutes behind schedule.
> > > "The only thing acting has done is pay for my psychoanalysis," it begins. A few people say their lines out of turn, or stutter, but I am amazed at the progress the actors have made from where they started that afternoon, and even undeservedly proud.
> > > Rachel comes onstage, dressed all in black except for her silver shoes. She begins her monologue.
> > > "You look so vacant," she yells at an invisible lover. "Don't you get it? Let's just let this die.No use sticking around." Someone whistles in amazement during a quiet moment, and among the applause at the end I hear a murmured "wow." Michelle's mom, sitting next to me, whispers, "She's going straight to Manhattan."
> > > I can't believe that the sad, furious woman I see onstage is the same girl I followed around all day. Certainly she hadn't just been stomping around and giggling at lunch, or studying the phases of mitosis in Anatomy.
> > > Suddenly I see a side of Rachel that I can't even begin to compare myself to. Suddenly the concept that she is anything like me--that I am anything like her--seems ridiculous.
> >
> >The other Rachel walks off the stage. I set down my notebook and pen, lean back in my seat, and watch.
> >
>
This is an article someone wrote about me for their journalism class, though they don't go to my school. Michelle, my best friend, has another best friend named Rachel D. from another school. Rachel and I, though we hadn't met for a long time, were sort of unspoken rivals. But she trailed me for a day, and then there's a bit at the end about my acting. Read it if you want, the article is under the cut. I, unfortunately, sound like a serious bitch in the first part . . . but I suppose it can't be helped, I was having a bad day that day.
----- Original Message -----
From: rachel dempsey
To: truthorrdare@hotmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: piece
thanks. you don't have to lie, i wouldn't be offended, but i re-read it today and it wasn't quite as bad as i had remembered. you can show it to rachel if she wants to see it. love, white rachel
>From: "Mimi Orr"
>To: "rachel dempsey"
>Subject: Re: piece
>Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 19:55:09 -0500
>
>I love it Rachel..very well done, its very good. You should feel good about it.
>love, michelle
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: rachel dempsey
> To: truthorrdare@hotmail.com
> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 10:03 AM
> Subject: FW: piece
>
>
> >here it is--i know it's not the best thing i've ever written. but you wanted to see it, so...
> >love, rachel (dempsey)
> > >
> > > Her name is Rachel, but her friends sometimes call her Ray or Ratchel. She's a senior in high school, so like all seniors in mid-November, she thinks about college a lot. Her top choice is Yale. She hates Shakespeare and poetry and loves the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She believes in ghosts. Sometimes when she's being sarcastic she acts so serious that people can't tell that she's joking. Her stories sound better in her head than they do when she tells them. She bites her nails.
> > > This girl's name is Rachel Douglas, although I could just as easily be describing myself. I have never met her before today, but Rachel and I are unsettlingly similar. Aside from a plethora of superficial parallels, we share a best friend, Michelle Orr. Our relationship, as best I can describe it, is one of rivals, strangers, and clones. Today I am shadowing her to try to separate the real Rachel from the identity thief I have created in my imagination.
> > >
> > > My first glimpse of Rachel is in the hallway of her school, Duke Ellington School for the Arts, before her first class. Michelle and I are standing by Michelle's locker, loading her backpack for the day. Rachel, a little ways down the hall from us, is jumping around in circles as she tries to put on a silver ballet flat without letting her foot touch the grimy floor. She waves to Michelle but does not say anything to me. I flash back to my telephone conversation with Michelle the night before.
> > >"She might try to lose you on purpose," said Michelle.
> > >"What?"
> > >"Oh, nothing," Michelle answered quickly. "I hope it all works out."
> > >
> > >By the end of AP English, Rachel's first class of the day, I am starting to think
> > >that maybe it won't work out. An hour into the day, Rachel has not so much as looked at me, even though I've been sitting next to her the whole time. When class lets out she nods at me curtly, then walks away with Michelle, leaving me to trail along behind.
> > > "Rachel, perk up," Michelle says. "Just think, after tonight we're done with the misery that is the senior repertoire." Rachel and Michelle are both drama majors at Ellington. They are putting on a show tonight that showcases what they have learned in their years of acting class.
> > > The thought of finishing the repertoire seems to mollify Rachel. To my immense relief, she actually acknowledges me for the first time all morning. The seniors in the show didn't get out of school until 10:00, she explains, and she's tired. She only got three hours of sleep last night.
> > > Rachel's next class is Anatomy. The teacher is absent, so the students sit at their desks and talk. Rachel and I compare our first impressions of Michelle as we wait for the substitute. I tell her about how I stopped talking to Michelle in seventh grade when I wasn't invited to her birthday party. Rachel says Michelle made fun of her and hurt Rachel's feelings on the first day of school, and they didn't speak for a month.
> > > The substitute arrives a few minutes into class and hands out a worksheet. A group forms to work on it, with Rachel in the middle.
> > > "I hate science," she says, labeling little pictures with the words metaphase or telophase or anaphase.
> > > "I hate this," someone affirms.
> > > The rest of the students seem to look to Rachel for answers, but she brushes off their obvious respect. "Don't take what I said," she says for one answer. "I don't really know what I'm talking about."
> > > The worksheet only takes about fifteen minutes, but the students have to stay at their desks until class is over. Rachel is worried that I'm bored. "Wait for rehearsal. That'll be the interesting part of the day," she promises. "I hate it when people are bored."
> > > We talk to pass the time, and as we talk the similarities between us build. Rachel was going to apply Early Action to Yale, as I did, though she didn't get her application in soon enough. When I admit to not liking math, Rachel agrees, "I feel that." Both of us read and write in our free time, but neither she nor I likes poetry. We share an aversion to Shakespeare. The election made her "very disappointed." "I was cussing so much that day," she says of November 3rd, the painful day after the election. I can sympathize, remembering ruefully how I refused to accept defeat even after Kerry had conceded.
> > > Yet among these familiar traits I begin to find things I can't relate to. Rachel knows what she wants to do with the rest of her life, counting "acting, filmmaking, writing, and producing" among her ambitions. She doesn't sleep very much, or socialize, because "there's not any time." Plays and rehearsals take up a phenomenal amount of her life, and her devotion to acting makes me feel lazy in comparison.
> > > Classes at Ellington are on a block schedule, so when we are finally let out of Anatomy it is time for lunch. Rachel and I meet Michelle at her locker and head out to the front steps of the school building, where we eat. Rachel has a croissant she bought that morning, and I have a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich. Michelle didn't bring lunch, so she just watches us.
> > > The two of them decide that I just have to see a scene from the musical Gypsy that Michelle was playfully acting out a few days ago. Every time Michelle starts, though, she and Rachel collapse into giggles, and Michelle can't get past the first few words.
> > > "Why did I do it?" she says over and over again, in the short intervals when her laughter is controlled enough to be able to speak.
> > > "Wait, stop!" says Rachel, barely breathing with laughter. "This is why we can't be in acting class together. Center!" At the last word, the two of them breathe out deeply and get into a squatting position, a routine that I realize later is part of an acting warm-up. At the time I am mystified and very aware that I do not belong with them in their comfortable inside jokes.
> > > Rachel tries to imitate Michelle's act, but Michelle reprimands her with, "No! That's all wrong." They decide that maybe Michelle can't get it right because we're standing in the wrong doorway.
> > > A group of students is already sitting on the steps of the right doorway. Rachel says politely, "Excuse me, could you move for just a couple of minutes? We're having a performance." To my surprise, the students obediently pick up their lunch trays and walk away, reminding me that we are at an arts school. At Maret, the small, academically-oriented private school where I go, this kind of request would probably be laughed at. At Maret I would probably laugh at it.
> > > Even at the new doorway, every time Michelle flings her arms out and says, "Why did I do it?" she laughs so hard she can't continue. Eventually we give up and head inside. The arts classes at Ellington start after lunch, so it's almost time for "the interesting part of the day:" rehearsal for the senior repertoire.
> > > Michelle, Rachel, and I get to the auditorium at 12:30 exactly, the minute rehearsal is supposed to start. Five minutes later, the room is still empty except for a few of the other actors who have come early to practice their parts.
> > > "Didn't rehearsal start at 12:30?" I ask.
> > > "Nothing here ever starts on time," Rachel and Michelle answer in unison. I can't help but compare the disorganized nature of Ellington classes with the relative regimentation of life at Maret.
> > > Around 12:45 the director, a tall, bald, graceful black man named Mr. Johnson walks in. Michelle introduces me to him.
> > > "This is my friend," she says. Rachel, standing next to us, says defensively, "She's my friend, too!" I sit down in one of the seats that surround the stage, and rehearsal begins.
> > > The actors start out with warm-ups. They do squats, stretches, breathing exercises, voice exercises. Finally they get into their positions onstage and start the play.
> > > "We spend all our lives trying to do things they put people in asylums for," one actor begins. The rest follow with their own quotes. The scene ends with the Mr. Johnson saying, "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. The director has made his decisions for the callback list. And the numbers are." At this point, there should be a blackout, but the lights people aren't ready yet. Everyone just yells, "BLACKOUT." I am completely lost trying to understand the play's plot.
> > > Before long I realize that I am not the only one who is lost. The play is due to open in six hours, and it is still not finished. The actors and the Mr. Johnson throw out ideas and test them. They try the scene without the blackout, speed up the quotes, alter the director's words.
> > > "What's the rhythm? We need a rhythm," someone says.
> > > "This isn't going to work," says someone else.
> > > "Okay, let's do that again."
> > > The actors go back to their starting positions and the scene begins. Mr. Johnson interrupts. "Can you start over and do that again?" he asks the actor speaking. "Stay inside your character. You drop out too quickly."
> > > A striking Dominican girl named Yolanda is having particular trouble with her monologue. "I feel myself doing the same stuff over and over again," she says in frustration.
> > > "It's okay--just relax," says Mr. Johnson. Yolanda tries the lines again. "Okay, stop. Good, Yo, good."
> > > She starts from the top and messes up. "Can I start again?" The actors onstage all move backwards to their starting positions and Yolanda begins.
> > > Mr. Johnson still isn't satisfied. "Don't act between the lines," he tells her. "Use the lines to say, 'This is the most incredible moment of my life!'" Between each word he slaps his knees to emphasize his point.
> > > The scene starts again for what must be the eighth time. "You've got to hit this, Yolanda. You've got to hit it," Mr. Johnson says.
> > > Yolanda starts saying her lines and Mr. Johnson interrupts. "HIT it!" She barely pauses before continuing.
> > > "You've got to keep going, Yoli," says Mr. Johnson. "Just dive back in." Yolanda looks as though she might cry for a second before she pulls herself together and keeps going.
> > > Rachel is in the next scene. She walks onstage, carry two Starbucks coffee cups, but a few minutes into it Mr. Johnson calls a break.
> > >
> > > As soon as they step into the dressing room the actors start screaming. "I don't know what he wants me to do!" yells one girl.
> > > "He don't fucking know what he wants you to do!" Yolanda yells back.
> > > "You will be an out-of work director if you do that!" the girl continues.
> > > "Honey, that's why he's working at this school." Yolanda is sitting against a mirror, her legs sprawled out, almost crying. The other girl is crying, lying in the lap of a fellow actor.
> > > "I'm hungry," says Rachel from her perch on a makeup table. She seems barely to register the drama in front of her, and I get the impression that the histrionics I am witnessing are not infrequent.
> > > After awhile everyone calms down. People begin to notice me. Upon hearing about my project, a round, smiling girl named Brittney says that when she first saw me I reminded her of Rachel. Everyone teases her. I am tall; Rachel is average height. I am white; Rachel is black. Physically, we look nothing the same.
> > > "Let's tell stories about the beatings we got that we didn't deserve," says someone, perhaps wanting to keep people distracted from the show and maintain the relative calm that had settled in the dressing room. For the first time all day I remember that I am white and almost everyone else is black. In fact, I am the only white person in the room.
> > > My parents would never have dreamt of beating me. Rachel doesn't have any beating stories, but she is the only black girl without one. We spend the rest of the break watching dramatic re-enactments of childhood castigations which are funny and shocking at the same time.
> > > "God, we are so dramatic," says someone.
> > >
> > > Seven hours and as many meltdowns after rehearsal started, it is 7:30 and almost time to open the house. The actors are grouped together, holding hands, in the middle of the stage. They all listen to Mr. Johnson.
> > > "This is just another rehearsal, another opportunity," he tells them. They end with a cheer and break out of the huddle, clapping.
> > > The actors clear the stage, but it only gets more frantic. Ushers and stagehands run around and shout at each other.
> > > "Where am I supposed to be? Right there?"
> > > "Molly, this mic is going to be hot the whole show, right?"
> > > "Where are the reserved chairs?"
> > > "Spotlights, you should be out!"
> > > "Close the door! The house can't be open yet!"
> > > But in a few seconds the house does open, and the audience begins to filter in. People stake out seats in the bleachers, which have been set up right on the stage. The show is not sold out, but the crowd is respectable.
> > > The show starts around 7:50, twenty minutes behind schedule.
> > > "The only thing acting has done is pay for my psychoanalysis," it begins. A few people say their lines out of turn, or stutter, but I am amazed at the progress the actors have made from where they started that afternoon, and even undeservedly proud.
> > > Rachel comes onstage, dressed all in black except for her silver shoes. She begins her monologue.
> > > "You look so vacant," she yells at an invisible lover. "Don't you get it? Let's just let this die.No use sticking around." Someone whistles in amazement during a quiet moment, and among the applause at the end I hear a murmured "wow." Michelle's mom, sitting next to me, whispers, "She's going straight to Manhattan."
> > > I can't believe that the sad, furious woman I see onstage is the same girl I followed around all day. Certainly she hadn't just been stomping around and giggling at lunch, or studying the phases of mitosis in Anatomy.
> > > Suddenly I see a side of Rachel that I can't even begin to compare myself to. Suddenly the concept that she is anything like me--that I am anything like her--seems ridiculous.
> >
> >The other Rachel walks off the stage. I set down my notebook and pen, lean back in my seat, and watch.
> >
>