Work of Art

Chapter 18

There ended up being only eight other students who showed up to the first team meeting. There was of course Maggie, Jonah, Henry, and Nora, but also four other students who sat waiting for Nick to start the meeting. As she sat there waiting to start, Nick tried to talk to the four others who were waiting. While she lived working with her group of friends, there was always something that excites her about new people who lived the arts as much as she did. There was only one other senior, a boy named Meyer, who Nick recognized from her drawing class. Beside him were two junior girls and a freshman that she had never seen before. Nick could help but notice the lack of freshman present, that is until the door swung open with a powerful bang making everyone in the room look towards the entrance. There standing in the door was Alice, slightly dissheveled.

"Alice!" Nick greeted, "I was just thinking about how we needed more sophomores."

"Hey!" Nora exclaimed in a teasing manner. "Am I not enough for you?" The sophomore girl pointed, wiping a fake tear from her eye.

Nick walked over to her friend. "Now, now dear of course you're enough to. But if you keep up that act, I think you'll find more interest in the cast than in set crew," she jested.

Nora smacked her playfully before turning to Henry, who was staring at his laptop intently. "Can you believe this! First I'm not enough, now she doesn't even want me here."

Henry looks up confused, only catching the tail end of Nora's dramatics. "Who doesn't want you?" He asked perplexed.

Jonah watched the pair in amusement. "Not you, isn't that right dear friend," he insisted to Henry all while reaching over and closing his laptop.

The two junior girls looked at each other in confusion at whatever transpired between the group of friends. Only now Maggie found herself interjecting into the whole debacle. She leaned over to the pair of girls, pretending to whisper. "Those two have a thing for each other but they both refuse to admit it." The juniors looked towards the pair who were now both blushing, obviously having overheard Maggie's words.

"We do not," Nora huffed under her breath as she leaned back in her chair, casting a sideways glance in Henry's direction. She couldn't help the subtle grin that quirked her lips as she saw Henry looking at the floor blushing.

Nick, oblivious to the moment, decided to start the meeting. She started first by introducing the musical and handing out scripts to everyone. The group of now ten spent the next hour reading through the lines and stage directions to pull out useful bits of information for what they needed to include in the sets and props. They had only made it through the first few scenes before it was five o'clock and Nick decided to end the meeting for the day. As everyone made their way out the door, one of the juniors, Gia, spoke up asking when the next meeting would be. Nick originally proposed the following week but everyone was eager to continue working so they settled on meeting again tomorrow already. It only required Nick a little bit of convincing to have the group agree to meet at the hospital instead of at school the following day so that she could continue to work on her capstone while they read and brainstormed.

The following day passed quickly, and soon Nick found herself waiting in the parking lot after a day of classes. She had agreed to carpool with some of the underclassmen who couldn't drive themselves yet. It was the least she could do, seeing as they were all working around her schedule. Nick had even called the hospital the night prior to make sure it was okay to have the group meet there. The original recipient of the call was a bit leery, but Grace picked up the call after a moment and assured the young girl that it would be no issue at all as long as they behaved and weren't disruptive.

"Nick!" Alice cheerily greeted. The carpool had worked out so that Nick was driving Alice and the freshman girl over, while Maggie was taking the younger members of their friend group. As much as Nick wanted to drive with her friends, she figured she owed it to the group to get to know the others.