young, scrappy and hungry | a hamilton story | √

Chapter 40

It was the show before Carleigh's Eliza debut. Kasey could tell that her friend was getting a little nervous about the next day, but she seemed that she was handling the stress well. 

Pippa popped into the girl's dressing room at intermission. "How are you all doing?" she asked. 

"I'm great!" Ariana exclaimed. 

"I'm glad," Pippa said. "What about you, Carleigh? I know that tomorrow is going to be an intense day for you."

Carleigh ran a hand through her ponytail. "I'm trying not to think about it too much tonight. Tonight is the show that matters for now, and I'm just trying to get through it without second-guessing my own track."

"Good," Pippa said. "How are you, small Kasey?"

"I'm alright, what about you?"

"I'm getting there," Pippa said. Kasey nodded. She knew that the shooting had really affected Pippa. She'd been through so much.

"That's good," Kasey said, hugging Pippa. 

"Kasey Winslow to the stage, places in five," the intercom announced. Kasey blinked and pulled away. 

"I have to go," she said. "Have a good show."

"You too, Kasey."

~~~~~~

Kasey hurried to the stage. She found the stage manager, who was frantically dashing across the stage and back. He almost collided with her when she got to stage left.

"What's going on?" Kasey asked.

"There's a problem with your mic, they're trying to find your replacement mic now. Apparently it was taken backstage to tech to fix," the stage manager said, flipping through his binder. 

"What's wrong with my mic?"

"Apparently the battery died halfway through the first act. Sound noticed but there wasn't time to pull you off, so they just let it go."

"Here!" one of the techies said, running up to the stage manager. He handed it off to Kasey. 

"You have only three minutes until 'What'd I Miss', so I suggest you change mics as quickly as possible."

Kasey grabbed the mic and ran down to the ensemble girls' quick change room. "Quickly, take my mic out of my hair," Kasey instructed Ariana. Her friend looked confused but she obeyed.

"Why?"

"Apparently my mic died," Kasey said. 

"That's stupid- usually tech charges all of the mics before the show," Carleigh commented from her cubby near the door. "Maybe they need to replace yours. Didn't your mic cut out when you were Angelica, too?"

"It seems to use battery a lot quicker than the others," Kasey said.

"I'm sorry, Kasey, but I'm going to have to take your ponytail out in order for me to get the mic out of your hair," Ariana apologized, slipping the black hairband out of Kasey's hair. 

Kasey had been curling her hair almost every night. Every ensemble member had a different hairstyle that marked them as different- Carleigh's go-to hair was the pouf. 

"Curtain in one minute," the loudspeaker announced. 

"Shoot," Ariana cursed. She quickly pulled Kasey's mic pack out of her costume and clipped the replacement one in. "You put the mic wire in with the ponytail hair, right?"

"Yeah," Kasey replied.

Ariana quickly positioned the mic on Kasey's forehead and took some of Carleigh's bobby pins to pin the mic in place.

"You need to go," Kasey told Ariana. "Just go, the curtain's going to go up any second now."

"Are you sure?" Ariana asked. Carleigh and the others had already left. "I can stay."

"It's fine, just go!"

Ariana gave Kasey one last look before hurrying to the stage. Kasey grabbed her hairband from her cubby and then ran out the door, scraping her hair into a ponytail.

She could hear the opening bars of 'What'd I Miss' and ran onstage just as she was supposed to make her entrance. 

~~~~~~

The rest of the act went well, thankfully. Afterwards, Daveed came up to Kasey while she was putting her mic away.

"Hey, you know our Cabinet Battle duel? The fans voted that you were better than me," Daveed said, pouting a little bit. 

"Nailed it," Kasey said. "Looks like you're going to have to study up on those 'Helpless' lyrics."

Daveed rolled his eyes. "Next time, I'll win."

"We'll see about that," Kasey told him. "When are you going to sing 'Helpless' for the Ham4Ham?"

"I was thinking tomorrow, as long as you were available, because Lin wants you to be there, since you won," Daveed said. 

"That should be fine, I'll make sure to get to the theatre early," Kasey replied. 

"Ready to go?" Carleigh asked, walking up to the two of them. 

"Yeah," Kasey said. "See you tomorrow, Daveed! Have fun practicing 'Helpless!'"

She followed Carleigh to the stage door. 

"By the way, Lin wanted to talk to you. He said it could wait until after the show tomorrow, and he said not to worry, it's just about Alaina," Carleigh said.

Kasey froze for a brief second. She'd almost forgotten about Alaina. "Alright, thanks, Carleigh."

"Anytime," Carleigh replied, looking closely at her friend.

But Kasey gave no indication that the reminder about Alaina had affected her.