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PHOEBE STOOD IN the Miss Darbus classroom, her makeup artist for the movie, Maggie, doing some touch-ups before they started filming. She tried not to look at Mack too much or the anxiety she was working to push away would come back.
"All right, hello, hello, hi," Quinn clapped her hands. Maggie pulled away from Phoebe, allowing the girl to look at the director. "Now, I like to shoot the rehearsal to see where the disasters might be, okay? So let's go. Let's go, people."
Phoebe stepped into place, repeating her monologue internally.
"Hey, guys, I'm Alyson, call me Aly," Alyson Reed introduced. "No nerves today, all right? We got this."
"Scene 27, take one," the clapper loaded said. "Mark."
"Psst," Ricky whispered, making her look over to see him cupping his mouth with his hands. "You are my brightest burning star."
Phoebe furrowed her brows, not understanding him. "What?"
"You are my brightest burning star," Ricky softly sang the lyric from Perfect Harmony (the song he'd sung to her at the Frozen premiere) louder. He then lowered his glasses and pointed to himself. "Ricky." Phoebe lightly laughed at him.
"Okay, it is gritty, it is dangerous. It is High School Musical 4 but it might as well be Kill Bill 3. Now, for the record, I'm used to shooting a lot of takes. We might do this 50 times today. Okay? Thank you," Quinn put her headset on. "And action."
Phoebe and Gina pretended to talk to one another while Mack approached them. "Hey, can I talk to you guys about something?"
Phoebe turned to him. "What's up?" The lines were the same but also a lot different. Instead of being Mack's best friend, she was now both his best friend and his girlfriend.
Mack led the two of them away from the extras. "This is really hard for me to say."
"Sam, you're scaring us," Gina told him. "What is it?"
"It's about. . . Miss Darbus," Mack quietly stated.
"Okay. . . now I'm really scared."
"What's wrong with her?" Phoebe asked. "Is she okay?"
"I just found out. . . Miss Darbus doesn't have much longer," Mack revealed. Phoebe's eyes widened. "At East High. She's retiring."
