Today we were blocking a scene near the beginning of the show, when Don Lockwood meets Kathy Selden for the first time. Don and Kathy exchange banter as they sit on a bench, and the chorus needed to mill around convincingly in the background, like we were regular people out for a night on the town.

Jude and Diya stood by the prop bench at one corner of the stage, and Mrs. Sorenson split the rest of us up into groups so she could place us in different locations in the background. Margot and Ethan weren’t in this scene, so they were working in the choir room with Ms. Langford.

Since I was standing with Laney and Ada, Mrs. Sorenson grouped us together and told us to walk slowly from one end of the stage to the other. “You’re three tourists in Hollywood. You’re dazzled by everything. Got it?” Mrs. Sorenson moved on to the next group.

Laney smiled sadly while watching Mrs. Sorenson direct Harrison to pretend he was in a newsstand, selling papers. “Harrison will be so disillusioned with the world in his forties that he’ll never read any newspapers. He’ll just keep complaining about how there’s no good art anymore.”

“Have any of your Love Realism relationships turned out happy?” I asked, half listening, half watching Diya take her place on the bench.

“Of course not,” Laney said. “That’s why it’s called Love Realism. I used to get a little carried away with my crushes.” Ada nodded emphatically. “I’d sit around fantasizing about some guy who didn’t really exist. This way, I look for the imperfections underneath all the hotness, and then I’m less likely to embarrass myself around them.”

I was still pretty sure that Harrison liked Ethan, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I didn’t want Laney to get hurt, but it was hard to tell if she actually liked Harrison, or if it was all for the game. Still, she was right, she wasn’t embarrassing herself in front of him. Ever since Winter Formal, I’d seen Laney and Harrison talking more at rehearsals and sometimes in the hallways between classes. They were definitely friendly now, and she seemed surprisingly chill about it.

Mrs. Sorenson clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Places for the beginning of the scene!” she yelled as we all shuffled back to our positions onstage. “Go!”