Page 21 of In What World

“That didn’t happen last time I was in here,” she says.

I scan the limited space for something resembling a bulb or an LED strip. “Where is it coming from?”

“No clue,” she says. “But you look good in red.”

She is still a relentless flirt. Even when we’re stuffed inside a box together, she sees fit to behave this way. I want to divorce myself from it all, but she has her body sort of over mine, and there’s no getting around our direct contact. I haven’t thought about my elbows before. That’s where her ridiculous leopard coat presses into me, and I have this suddenawareness. What are my elbows like? Should I be incorporating more elbow care into my daily routine?

“Okay! We did it!” I say. “No trapdoor! No Dallas! Let’s stop!”

I fumble for the handle to escape this coffin of embarrassing thoughts and impossible light sources. My plan is interrupted by the sound of Dallas’s voice, piped in from what seems to be beneath our feet.

“Five, four, three, two, one,” he booms out.

It’s the same commanding voice he employs when he has his actors put up a scene for the first time. My eyes water from the familiar comfort. When Dallas counts you in, it means you’re on the precipice of leaving your reality behind and stepping into an entirely new world.

“Action,” his voice whispers.

The Memory Machine jerks, and the red light shuts off, plunging us back into darkness. There’s nodingto let us know if whatever just happened has finished. It feels like the kind of thing that needs a ding. Instead, there’s only a strange sensation of suspension, like we’re on an elevator that hasn’t yet reached its destination.

I throw open the door anyway, needing oxygen and daylight and maybe—even though I’ve never smoked in my life—a cigarette, because this whole thing is strange in a way that unsettles my spirit.

Judging by what we felt inside the machine, I expect to find us somehow floating above the stage, but we’re firmly on the ground. My cold brew with too much lavender and half-and-half from Alice is right there on the same table where I placed it after I followed Cilla backstage.

Cilla saunters out of the machine after me. “You were lovely company in there.”

I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I chant in my head.

“Let’s figure out how Dallas got the machine to do that,” she continues, examining the unadorned exterior. “I don’t see any speakers or a light source that could have made it glow. Not to mention the fact that it moved when I pressed that button.”

“He probably got Jim to rig up something for him,” I guess, though this is a theory with little substance behind it. Jim doesn’t even come to our cast parties. He’s not trying to do projects for Dallas in his free time. Rigging up something would require Jim to know what the Memory Machine is actually for, and no one knows that.

“Aw, Jim. That’s right. What a guy. Let’s go find him,” Cilla suggests.

“I’m sure Jim will bethrilledto be greeted by the famous Cilla Cove,” I taunt. “You know how he loves theater kids whocome back to visit as adults. Maybe you can perform a scene fromHeartbeatsfor him?”

“Sounds great,” Cilla replies without missing a beat. “Want to run it with me? We can do the one where I help Dr. Parker deliver twins in the parking lot. Jim will love the emotional stakes there. I know he’s got a boundless well of feelings beneath that stone-cold exterior. Do you want to play the pregnant woman, the doctor, or me?”

“I didn’t actually watch your show,” I say.

I pull my phone out of my front pocket and open my texts with Alice, typing out,Let’s talk after rehearsal ends at 7:30. Well, probably 8:30. Maybe 9. Who knows what’s going to happen without Dallas.

The text doesn’t deliver. Instead, that dreaded loading bar appears at the top of the screen. My phone has been disconnected from the school’s Wi-Fi, and it says SOS in the upper-right-hand corner.Tell me about it.When I try to rejoin the Wi-Fi, my phone doesn’t recognize the network. I long-press my text to send it as an SMS instead.

Even the green bubble fails.

I school my face to remain neutral as I tap on a random app. When it won’t load, I tap another. I reopen the Wi-Fi window, trying again to join the network, typing out the school password I long ago memorized. My phone tells me the password is incorrect.

When I look up, Cilla’s got that megawatt smile on her face. It’s so unabashed that an unexpected wave of nerves surges through me. I’m used to being observed, I remind myself. I spend every day enduring the relentless scrutiny of high schoolers. This is no different.

“The Wi-Fi probably got unplugged,” I say. “Happens all the time.”

Before I can investigate further, we hear the unmistakablecreakof the main auditorium doors yawning open. The stage curtain is pulled shut, preventing us from seeing who’s entered, but the impromptu harmonizations and aggressively loud footsteps tell me everything I need to know.

“Shit,” I say, too stressed to remember my own self-imposed no-swearing-at-school rule. “The students are here. I scheduled a pre-dress meeting so we can talk about what we’re going to do without Dallas.” The mention of his name cuts Cilla’s smile in half. I shove my phone back into my pocket and move downstage. “Don’ttouch anything. And don’t show your face yet. If they know you’re here, they won’t listen to a word I say.”

Cilla mutters something like “Bossy as ever,” but I don’t have time to care. I have to be—ironically—the boss.

The stage curtains are heavy, dusty, and very, very old. It takes an unnecessary amount of energy to part them and step through. Sure enough, theSpring Awakeningcast is filing into the auditorium, laughing and chattering like nothing is wrong.