Look Both Ways by Alison Cherry Read Free Book Online Page A

“We’re going to start hanging the rep plot today. Grab a piece of the plot, check in when you’re done, and I’ll give you another. Remember to pull out your shutters and label your circuits, okay?” She looks up. “Who brought doughnuts?”
    Douchebands smiles and gives her a little salute.

    “Of course,” she says. She plunks a folder down onto the concrete and takes a doughnut with pink frosting. “Get to work.”
    Everyone descends on the folder and extracts little slips of paper while I stand off to the side. Finally, the boss notices me and asks, “Can I help you?”
    “Um, I’m one of the acting apprentices?” I say. “I guess I’m assigned to lighting this rotation. I’m Brooklyn.”
    “I’m Dana Solomon. You can call me Solomon. Grab a piece of the plot from the folder, and let me know if you have questions, okay?”
    I don’t know what a plot is, but I pull out a slip of paper, hoping there’ll be instructions on it or something. But all I see is a bunch of symbols, boxes and circles and slashes and shapes that look like little milk bottles. I can only tell which is the top because of the heading, which says “MID-GAL R” in block letters.
    “Um,” I say. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t know what any of this means.”
    “You ever seen a light plot before?”
    “Not really, no.”
    “No tech requirement for actors at your school, huh?”
    “I’m still in high school,” I say. I can practically see Solomon suppressing an eye-roll, but it’s not my fault I don’t know how to do this. I didn’t come to Allerdale to do lighting.
    “Do you have tools?”
    “No,” I say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was going to be—”
    “Zach!” Solomon yells, and the guy who was bumming cigarettes turns around. “Brooklyn’s with you today. Get her a wrench, okay?”

    Zach doesn’t even try to hide his exasperation. “Fine,” he says. “Come on.”
    He leads me into a small, cluttered room he calls the “LX office,” tells me to leave my bag on the ratty couch, and hands me a wrench. “Tie that off,” he says. “There are tie line spools all over the place.” I have no idea what any of those words mean, but I don’t want to look like an idiot, so I nod. Zach seems to be carrying his wrench in his back pocket, so that’s where I stick mine. I’m not wearing a belt, and my shorts immediately start to fall down on one side.
    “Which piece of the plot do you have?” he asks.
    “Um…” I look at the piece of paper clutched in my hand, now slightly damp from my nervous sweat. “Mid-gal R?”
    “Mid-gallery, stage right. Okay, we’ll do that first.” Zach leads me onto the stage and points to a metal balcony about twenty-five feet in the air. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
    “No,” I say. Finally, a question I have the right answer to.
    “Good.” He looks at the paper for a minute. “Okay, we need three Source Four thirty-sixes, three twenty-sixes, and a nineteen. Let’s go.” I trot along behind him, hoping this is going to start making sense soon.
    Source Fours turn out to be big black lights with clamps attached to the tops. We cart them up a narrow, winding, metal staircase; Zach carries four at a time, but I’m barely able to manage two. The floor of the mid-gallery is a metal grid, and I can see what’s happening on the stage below my feet. It’s a little disconcerting, and I feel a tiny wave of vertigo, but I don’t say anything.

    I watch Zach hang one of the lights, and it looks pretty easy—slip the clamp over the bar, attach this thin piece of metal he calls a safety cable, tighten the bolt with the wrench. “That doesn’t look too hard,” I tell him cheerfully.
    He looks at me like, How did I get stuck with this moron? “It’s not,” he says. “Put a twenty-six there and a thirty-six here, okay?”
    “Sure.” I heft one of the lights up onto the bar. “So, where are you from?”
    “Chapel Hill,” Zach says.
    I dig my