Bea was completely losing it. She was going through the motions and doing her job, and doing it amazingly well, but she was definitely losing it. Not everyone could see it, you had to really know her, but her friends could see it clear as day. You'd think that the show going well would make her less on edge and less crazy but it had the opposite effect. She had this internal drive, this hunger, to prove that this show could be and would be amazing and it was killing her. It was her last show, her moment in the sun, and it was tearing her apart.
Naturally we were all completely worried. We'd engage her in conversation but she'd brush us off. We'd try to get her to eat something but she'd refuse. We were acting about as crazy as she was just so we could help her. That's all we wanted to do, help her, but Bea couldn't be helped if she didn't want help. Instead she continued on her warpath and pretended that everything was fine. She was good at doing that.
We knew that things had gotten bad enough that we alone couldn't bring her back to normal. There was only one person, other than maybe Bea's mom, that could make her less crazy when she got this bad. And that person was Len, who was never around us or Bea long enough to know what was going on. To fix Bea and to keep her from having a meltdown on opening night and ruining her hard work, we needed Len. She was our only hope. If only she would listen to us when we told her that.
YOU ARE READING
The Stage Manager
Short StoryBeatrice "Bea" Masters has been her theater department's wonderkid ever since she became the stage manager when she was just a freshman. But after the fiasco that was last year's musical (which was not her fault), Bea has been dying for redemption...
