Sugar Plums and Ruptured Eardrums

Riley's heart was pounding, and she could feel the blood rushing to her ears. This was her moment. She knew the second she stepped onto that stage, the trajectory of her life would change forever. It was her who was the Snow Queen, not Michelle, not Veronica, no one else but her. Tonight, the twenty-eight-year-old would show the whole world her worth at the Ballet Center for Wayward Teens. 

In the audience, a man sat, waiting for the show to begin. His name isn’t important, but for the sake of storytelling, it was Manuel. Manuel, despite his best efforts, meant absolutely nothing to this show. Sure he helped build a few set-pieces and did one or two sound checks, but that was all. He was nothing more than an extra set of hands along with all the other dads. He was no hero, and he sure as hell wasn’t excited to watch his daughter Vanessa in this lame production of the Nutcracker. His seat clung too tight to his sides, and the lady next to him refused to stop talking during the whole show. All this work for a few extra hours of visitation and seeing his daughter shuffle around in an ill-fitting rat costume.  

Vanessa stood in the wings opposite Riley, staring her down. She, along with many others, thought it was strange that the company’s Prima Ballerina of a group of teenagers was a woman in her late twenties. It was hard to put a finger on her. Was she trying to relive her glory days, or was she that desperate for attention?

After changing out of her Rat Queen costume, Vanessa had now adorned her Snowflake ensemble. This costume consisted of a cardboard cut-out of a snowflake and a white feathered headband that was definitely used in last year’s production of Chicago. The High School Edition, of course. All the costumes for this show were made by hand and last minute, mainly by the cast’s mothers and held together with spit and sheer will. Some pieces were held together by chewed pieces of gum, but we really don’t need to talk about that.

The music swelled, and everyone knew it was time to begin. The Waltz of the Snowflakes came over the loudspeakers, and the girls took their places, knocking each other's cardboard flakes on the way out of the tiny wings. 

Since they had no guys to play the titular Nutcracker, director Tonya Ngyuen took it upon herself to turn the world-renowned ballet into a feminist exploration piece where Clara travels the realms by her lonesome. This meant that the poor girl playing Clara, 5th grader Nicole Adiche, who was genuinely very talented for her age, had multiple hard solos that would last whole songs. It got so bad the poor girl was doing lifts on her own, don’t ask me how she did that. I don’t even know.  

Vanessa and the other Snowflakes took their places, and that’s where things started to go wrong. The girl two steps from Nicole’s left should have been five steps from her left. Riley took downstage center when she should have been upstage. Jeremy, the primary sound technician, was supposed to be up at the booth, but he left for his scheduled smoke break/call from his daughter at college. And last but most crucial of all, Manuel had just gotten a massive headache and had no Advil in his possession.

Vanessa could not get this girl to scoot over no matter how hard she tried. It got to the point where Vanessa had no other choice than to take her stupid headband off and hit this girl with it to get her attention. 

When the feather made contact, it was, in that moment, everyone came to the realization that they had no clue who this girl was. Sure she was short enough to blend in with everyone else, but that can only get you so far. 

Director Tonya, she had you address her by her full title, or you were forced to start bar on the left, lept from her seat in the audience, and ran backstage. She pushed past the artistic director and the stage manager to get a better look at the mess that was about to unfold.

“Where’s Angelica?” she asked. “Where is she?” 

When Jeremy eventually returned to his post, he noticed that the main cable connecting his laptop to the speaker system was oddly chewed on in a few places. Taking a further look, Jeremy followed the tiny tooth marks down the cable and under the sound booth, where a little rat made a small nest in the mess that was the many untangled cables. Immediately, Jeremy swatted at the thing and lurched where it ran. In the skirmish, all sorts of cords and cables were pulled on and violently ripped out of their sockets. One, in particular, was right up against an open bottle of Mountain Dew that was teetering on the edge of the booth. 

“Has anyone seen Angelica? Who is that girl out there? Get her off my stage.” Tonya was rampaging through people, knocking props off their tables and ripping through costume racks. Even after looking all over the place, the missing girl was still nowhere to be found. 

From the audience’s point of view, the dance was not going horribly. If you had no clue who these girls were, you’d think they were alright. Yeah, their formations weren’t perfect, and their costumes looked stupid, but it’s still better than you could do.

Onstage, however, the girls were falling apart. Feet were not pointed, turns were not fully rotated, someone's shoe flew off! Vanessa was still trying to get the mystery girl off the stage, but every time they got close to the wings, the girl would run back to center. 

Riley’s whole body was sweating. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This was her moment. She was going to fix this. No one was going to ruin what she worked so hard to get. 

Jeremy was still in deep combat with the rat. He thought he had it for a second, but it burrowed ever deeper into the pool of wires. The Mountain Dew inched a little closer to the edge. 

Manuel checked his watch. There was still one more act of this thing. Maybe he could get a snack during intermission. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his wallet. No cash. Manuel sat back in his seat and sighed. A girl sat next to him sighed as well and caught his attention. He recognized this girl! That was one of Vanessa’s friends. What was her name again? Andrea? Angela? Angelina?

“ANGELICA!” Tonya had given up on keeping this catastrophe a secret. She was going to find this girl whether she liked it or not. The rasp of Tonya’s voice echoed throughout the audience. 

Oh, Angelica. That’s her name. Why isn’t she on stage? Manuel thought. He looked over to Angelica, whose face held a horrified expression.  

The Snowflakes all flinched and looked over to their manic director. Fake Angelica and Tonya made eye contact, and the imposter took off to the other side of the stage. Tonya ran onto the stage, leaping and dodging past the dancers to catch her foe. 

Riley stood center to perform her adagio. She didn’t know that anything was happening around her. The adagio wasn’t supposed to be there, but she did it anyway. Riley knew this show was a train wreck, and she was to be the one who would fix it. Suddenly, as if hit by a moving truck, Riley was knocked off her feet and sent flying off the stage and sent tumbling into the front row. Her scream rang throughout the theater and all the way to the sound booth. 

The scream shot up Jeremy’s spine, and his head jolted up, hitting the underside of the soundboard. That was the lynchpin that sent the Mountain Dew flying off the booth and into the uncovered pit of wires below. The greenish-yellow liquid splashed onto the nearby socket and spilled into its tiny black slits. This caused a chain reaction where every cable in the vicinity began to pop and explode, and those would pop the other wires and the others, and eventually, all the cables were out of commission. This also meant the speakers were out as well. Speakers don’t go out as quietly as wires do. 

Vanessa had just gotten her spot back. 

Tonya had caught the mystery girl. 

Jeremy grabbed the rat in his hands. 

Manuel’s headache was finally starting to go away. 

Every single speaker in that theater simultaneously popped and burst. Every single person covered their ears with their hands. A particularly older gentleman sitting in the front row started screaming like he was back in Korea. This caused a mass panic and everyone leaped out of their seats and sprinted out of the theater. 

The girls ran backstage and did not help Riley up off the ground. Vanessa laughed. Serves her right, she thought. For a split second before going into the wings, she took a look into the sea of empty seats and saw her dad, the only person to have stayed seated during the whole performance. She smiled and waved at him, and he waved back. 

Everything was wrapped up pretty quickly after that. Tonya eventually tracked down Angelica and grilled her for answers. It turns out that the girl on stage was her cousin Elena who she paid to do the show for her that night. They didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. 

Jeremey explained what happened in the booth and management let him off with a warning. There was no way they were going to fire him. No one else in the area was trained to run a soundboard. Now they had to check if anywhere else had rats. 

Riley was able to get herself up onto her feet, but not for long. She managed to not land on anything vital, but she did dislocate one of her toes. The woman then began wailing and crying that she would never be able to dance again. It was her pinky toe. The EMT on site popped it back into place within a matter of minutes and told her to ice it for a few days. 

Manuel waited for his daughter outside the stage door in the freezing cold, making tiny clouds with his breaths. Almost everyone else had left at this point and the cheap sign on the marquee had been turned off. Eventually, Vanessa stepped outside with two large dance bags on either shoulder. Manuel took them both from her, and they silently walked towards the car. 

When they both got into the vehicle, there was a single moment of silence before the pair burst into uncontrollable laughter. Manuel couldn’t contain himself enough to turn the ignition on. 

“Well, that was dramatic,” was the only thing the man could squeak as they continued laughing in the unheated car.