Things I Can't

© 2014, Sophie Diagon, All Rights Reserved

(The settings are in a pre-audition room in London, presumably in a theatre. A group of guys occupy the room. They are visibly nervous, some pacing, some reading lines. Faint music and singing can be heard from a nearby room. Louis is sitting in a plush chair in a corner, reading lines.)

LOUIS: (quietly humming, tense) Stranded at the drive-in, branded a fool, what will they say, Monday at school? Sandy... (biting his lip) can't you, um, feel, can't you... hear? Shit... (dejected, frustrated) Perfect, just perfect. What can't she? (unaware that one of the guys is standing behind him) Know?

GUY 1: See. (Louis stiffens but doesn't turn around) It's supposed to be 'see'. How do you not know that? Grease is, like, the most famous musical of all times. Everybody knows the lyrics to that song.

LOUIS: (snappy) Obviously not everyone.

GUY 1: Obviously. (short silence before he speaks again, light, teasing tone) Dumb of me to question your obliviousness. Most people auditioning for Grease don't know the lyrics to the audition songs. Common mistake, eh?

LOUIS: I guess most people auditioning for Grease had a late night shift pro-audition day too? A shift they simply couldn't skip because one of their colleagues was hospitalized. On the busiest night of the week. When their other colleague was sick. They probably also woke up to find that their roommate had managed to break the coffee-machine... (dry) on their audition papers.

GUY 1: (stunned, struggling to come up with a comeback) That... doesn't sound like the norm, no. It doesn't sound very fun.

LOUIS: That's because it isn't. (tilting his head towards GUY 1, conversationally) Especially not when time that morning is spent on trying to keep said coffee-machine from electrocuting said roommate instead of learning important lyrics and lines.

GUY 1: Yep, fun is definitely the wrong adjective there.

LOUIS: Try dreadful.

GUY 1: Dreadful... (nodding, biting back a smile) Yeah, dreadful could work.

LOUIS: Horrifying, demonic, torturous, exhausting, devastating.

GUY 1: (nodding in agreement) Also suitable options. They certainly can't be trashed for unoriginality.

LOUIS: (snorting, turning around in his chair to face the guy) Oh, if you don't learn some basic conversational originality somewhere between the fifth and the sixth time your roommate accidentally switches places on his hair coloring and the shampoo bottle, which - for the record - very similar bottles, then there is something seriously wrong with you.

GUY 1:Wow. Sounds like you need a new roommate, man.

LOUIS: Nah. The idiot might be an idiot but if it weren't for me then he'd be a dead idiot.

GUY 1: (sadly shaking his head) The sacrifices you make for your friends, huh.

LOUIS: Besides. (eyes glinting dangerously) After the fifth hair coloring incident the color in said roommates hair somehow turned pink over night instead of beach blond. We're still not sure how it happened.

GUY 1: (huffing out a surprised laugh) You should maybe look into the possibility that the coffee-machine broke down manually and not by accident.

LOUIS: I should.

GUY 1: And I'm starting to get a feeling that the following almost-electrocuting wasn't as innocent and accidental as you want me to believe.

LOUIS: (grinning) You accuse me of electrocuting my best friend?

GUY 1: (returning the grin, winking) Almost electrocuting.

LOUIS: (amused) You're just an expert on making rude assumptions, aren't you. (curiously looking up at him from his chair, biting his lip in thought) What's your name, big guy?

GUY 1: (visibly pleased) Big guy?

LOUIS: You're way over six feet tall and you know it, don't go around fishing for compliments. It doesn't suit you.

GUY 1: I'm not so sure telling you would be a good idea.

LOUIS: Why? Are you a criminal on the run who just broke out of a maximum security prison and don't want the police to find you because you were in jail for murdering little children and the other inmates hated you?

GUY 1: (entertained) No. But you seem to have a thing for vendettas and when I play Danny I don't want you jumping me in a dark alley.

LOUIS: (eyes reflexively jumping down to the forgotten lines on his lap before he has time to cover it up, huffing indignantly at the other boy's smug face) As if you'll take the Danny part. It's one of the many things you can't that made you ink that dumb phrase on your skin. (nodding towards one of the tattoos on GUY 1's arm) I have the talent and the looks. I'm sure that rates higher on the desirable qualities list than hybris, buddy.

GUY 1: I know the lyrics.

LOUIS: (nonchalant) I'm a fast learner.

GUY 1: It still gives me a considerable advantage. There are nerves involved by now. Nerves destroy the learning process. Fortunately for me I don't have anything left to learn, because I already did my homework.

LOUIS: I once memorized eighty pages of calculus within the span of three hours. I'll take those odds any day. But thanks for your concern.

GUY 1: (taunting) What was that word again? The one you didn't know. Hear? Feel? Be, perhaps, was that it? Be?

LOUIS: (dry) See.

GUY 1: Right. You'll do fine.

LOUIS: (sudden) I'm Louis.

GUY 1: That's... interesting, but I didn't ask.

LOUIS: (smiling, sweetly) No, but your friends will when they put my face up on Grease posters all over town and not yours.

GUY 1: (trying but failing to suppress a grin) Smooth.

STAFF: (Opening the doors to the audition room and letting previous actor out, loud, shouting) Louis Tomlinson! You're next.

LOUIS: (jumping up from his seat. GUY 1 jerks back in surprise as LOUIS unexpectedly leans in close) And when you're friends ask where to find me. (smiling, breathing hotly against GUY 1's ear) They can find my phone number in your left pocket. (pulls back and enters the audition room. End of scene.)