As If on Cue

CHAPTER ONE

It is six a.m. and I am debating the opposite of frozen with Reid Callahan.

It’s ‘melted,’ I mumble into my pillow, salty, because how dare he wake me up before the sun on a Monday? In my current state of bleary-eyed rage, I throw a pillow vaguely in the direction of my doorframe, where Reid is standing.

No way. The opposite of frozen is definitely boiled. I’m serious. ‘Boiled’ is the only valid title if you’re going for parody. ‘Melted’ is fundamentally flawed.

"You’re fundamentally flawed."

He snorts, and I hear the clink of metal against ceramic. A spoon swirling in cereal. By now, I’m used to Reid in my house in the early hours of the morning, mastering complex arpeggios on the clarinet under the instruction of my father. Reid is pretty much the only person in the entire universe who matches Dad’s intensity for a musical instrument. Which means he’s always here.

It’s kind of unbearable.

Why are you here? I ask.

It’s Monday, Reid says slowly, as if I don’t know the days of the week. Monday morning lessons have been a thing since school started two weeks ago—and will continue to be a thing that makes Monday even more Monday for the duration of my junior year.

"I mean here, Reid. Why are you in my bedroom?"

To pay up, he says.

He nods toward my desk, where a large iced chai from Kiskadee sits on top of an elephant coaster. Of course, he decides six a.m. is the perfect time to deliver my Wow, you actually wrote a play chai. Winning a bet against Reid Callahan is still always losing, in a way.

Your timing is impeccable.

I fall back onto my mattress and roll over, facing the wall and closing my eyes in an attempt to return to my dreamscape. Before Reid woke me up with three staccato knocks, I was sitting at a table read for my big-budget Broadway play featuring the Chrises. We were staging a fight scene between Pine and Evans. Hemsworth leaned over to whisper in my ear, You’re bloody incredible, Jacobson. And I didn’t brush off his praise or downplay my talent—I owned it. Thor called me, Natalie Jacobson, incredible. I felt incredible. In my dream, playwriting is more than a high school hobby. It’s possible.

Reid flips the switch next to my door and my eyelids twitch as synthetic light tries to push through them. Don’t want you to oversleep!

Thanks, I deadpan, sitting up because I am now officially awake and Reid has Won. I reach for my glasses while my eyes adjust, already plotting my revenge for his ruining of the epic Pine-Evans fight scene.

You’re welcome. Reid’s hazel eyes meet mine. They seem to change color depending on what he’s wearing. This morning, they pick up his green button-down. The least you can do is be on time, considering you’re wasting Mrs. Mulaney’s.

It’s so elementary, I almost laugh as I move from my bed to the adjacent desk and start weaving my disaster curls into two disaster braids. Any other day, I’d fire back a snarky retort. Not today. Because today is the culmination of an entire summer writing with my best friend, Henry Chao. Before homeroom, we’ll enter scene and deliver a dialogue to Principal Mulaney about why Melted deserves to be our fall play—a performance that has the potential to shift the entire fate of Lincoln High School’s drama department.

I can’t afford to be distracted.

Bye, I say.

I shut the door on Reid and reach for the chai on my desk. Straw between my lips, I take a long sip. It doesn’t quite taste like victory, but it’s still a Kiskadee chai. Therefore, delicious. I enjoy it, unfazed by Reid’s basic insult because with Melted I have a chance—a real chance—at convincing Mrs. Mulaney that keeping LHS’s drama department intact is just as valuable as new band uniforms.

Seriously, Reid’s biggest problem is being an outfit repeater. When the school committee announced that significant budget cuts were coming for extracurricular activities at the end of sophomore year, the drama club had an emergency meeting. It was initiated by me and our former advisor, Miss Bryant, who quickly jumped our sinking ship of a drama program for a full-time faculty position teaching theater at Boston Arts Academy. But when Reid heard about the cuts, he didn’t flinch. It’s that obvious the band is relatively immune from total destruction, thanks to a passionate band director who, over the course of a decade, revitalized the music program from the ground up.

That teacher? It’s none other than Aaron Jacobson. Reid’s teacher. My dad.

It’s complicated.

I pick up the pillow I launched at Reid and toss it on my bed on the way to my closet. Today’s aesthetic is comfy and confident, like how Mom would style herself for meetings with her publisher. This is that important. I pull a new floral T-shirt dress off its velvet hanger, rip off the tag, and pair it with a denim jacket and white sneakers. To complete the look, I swipe a clear pink gloss over my lips.

Satisfied, I stuff my laptop into my backpack and I’m on the move. Downstairs, the kitchen smells like raspberry hazelnut coffee and burnt toast, the scent of creative anxiety.

I pause at the bottom of the stairs when I catch sight of the kitchen table scene.

Mom sits at the head of the espresso wood table, staring intently at her laptop screen. Reid’s next to my mom, his button-down now unbuttoned to reveal a white graphic T-shirt that says MUSIC IS MY FORTE, with a spoon in one hand and The Fundamentals of Musical Composition in the other. Dad sits across from Reid, sipping on coffee and sorting through papers that spill out of his Band Bible—a three-inch blue binder with his certified nonsensical organization system. Last year, I created the most beautiful color-coded filing system for his monster binder. He was not pleased. How Dad transformed Lincoln High School’s concert band and orchestra into a nationally recognized, award-winning program—yet cannot accept the convenience of alphanumeric order, page numbers, and labels—is beyond me. But no matter what, he’s always in band mode, his back-to-school haircut still slightly too short, his salt-and-pepper beard slightly too long.

My stomach clenches, witnessing the comfortable quiet that is the three of them together.

How’s the solo coming? Mom asks Reid.

Reid’s eyes flicker up from his reading. More work ahead. How’s the book coming?

Mom closes her laptop and smirks. More work ahead.

He nods and raises his coffee mug. Solidarity, Aunt Shell.

Reid is the only person who can get away with calling my mom any variation of Shell. Aunt Michelle was one syllable too many for toddler Reid. I wish he dropped the Aunt. It makes me feel like we’re related—which, no, we absolutely are not.

Being the children of dads who were childhood best friends does not a family make.

You’re too hard on yourself, Dad says, looking up from his organized chaos. Is it the new music for the homecoming game? Is it a set for his jazz band, Lincoln Street Blues? Who knows! Both of you.

Reid brushes off Dad’s words with a shrug and looks up, his eyes meeting mine from across the kitchen. Hey, Nat.

Enter me, the girl who always seems to arrive before her cue.

Morning, I say, reaching for the box of blueberry Pop-Tarts above the stove. I take the entire box and slide into the chair across from my mom.

You’re up early, Mom says. Her hair is a messy bun of curls, now two shades darker than my own from the dye job masking her gray roots. Beside her laptop are a half-eaten apple and an elephant mug filled with what I’m sure is lukewarm coffee. Plastic purple reading glasses are perched on the tip of her nose as her eyes remain trained on her screen. Nervous?

My eyes focus on the apple, its exposed flesh already brown. Better than yesterday, when there was nothing left but seeds and core. On Mom’s best writing days, the apple stays untouched, her fingers dancing on the keys, no chance of breaking their rhythm for a bite. On those days, Mom is Michelle Jacobson, New York Times bestselling author of The Lola Diaries.

I can’t remember the last time Mom forgot to eat her apple.

I’m ready.

So, can I read it now? Mom asks.

I perform the shrugging girl emoji.

If she reads it, she’ll encourage me. She’ll critique. She’ll call me a playwright.

You can read it when it’s real, I say for the thousandth time. That’s what you’d say.

I know, Lee.

Mom’s voice begs me not to press further, so I don’t. Before the pressure to follow up Lola, Mom was a force in publishing and proof that writing could be more than a hobby.

Now, I see my mom stare at a blank Word doc for hours. I hear the defeat in her voice when she says, I know, Lee.

And even though my stomach dips, everything inside of me is relieved to not love writing like that, to not be following in her footsteps. I love theater, but writing and directing are hobbies, and that’s all they will ever be. I’m not sure what Adulting looks like for me—I don’t even know what I want to go to college for—but I do know it won’t be my parents’ life. Dad’s symphony orchestra dreams landed him as an overworked and underpaid high school band director. Mom’s burnout is so intense there are days she doesn’t get out of bed.

I’ve seen firsthand what art can do to a person who loves it too much.

The mental toll of tying your financial security and self-worth to a creative pursuit.

Well I read it, Reid interjects. The title needs work.

Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. "Reid read it? Wow. That hurts."

I swallow a piece of my Pop-Tart. It’s not like I had a choice.

"You bet that I couldn’t name every Survivor winner, he says, closing his book. You basically handed it to me."

He even named them in order. It was bizarre.

I mean, who still even watches that show? It started before we were born.

I roll my eyes, but honestly? It wasn’t the worst bet to lose. Last week, when he was reading my script at breakfast, he didn’t even hear me come down the stairs, he was so absorbed in Melted. Before I made it across the kitchen, he laughed. Genuinely laughed. Like he got it.

It honestly did not compute. Because we do not get each other, Reid and me.

It’s actually funny, Reid had said, his mouth full of Froot Loops. You’re funny. Then he smiled at me and I almost forgot how much I hate him.

When I reached for the box of Froot Loops and it was empty, I remembered.

Mom stands. I guess I’ll have to take Reid’s word for it.

Off to do some productivity sprints? Dad asks.

More like prep, Mom says. "Now that my syllabus is approved, there is so much prep."

Dad waves at his chaos binder, like exhibit A. Relatable.

It’s going to be Mom’s second year teaching creative writing at Emerson College, a side hustle that pays the bills while she impatiently waits for inspiration to strike. And bills we do have. Mom spent most of June in Ft. Lauderdale looking for a caregiver for my bubbe, after she fell down the stairs and broke her hip. In July, our air conditioner busted in the middle of the hottest Massachusetts summer in, like, two hundred years. And a few weeks ago my dad learned that his budget for new supplies got cut in half—forcing him to purchase new music for the fall Harvest Festival out of pocket. All summer, it has been one unexpected expense after another.

Mom always says bad things happen in threes.

I say don’t pick a career that relies on creative whims to pay the bills in the first place.

All romance writers this semester? I ask.

Mom nods. Romance is her brand, the literary space where she has made her career. Readers have been waiting nearly four years to see how she follows up The Lola Diaries.

Maybe it’ll be inspiring, Reid says.

That’s the hope, Mom says.

Nirvana always gets me through a long prep session, Dad suggests. Just don’t forget Delia has lessons with Rabbi Sarna at three. My twelve-year-old sister is in full bat mitzvah prep mode, eating, sleeping, and breathing Vayishlach 36:40.

Mom waves away his reminder. We have a tasting with the caterer after.

Dad nods. Four-thirty.

Good luck today, Lee.

Mom squeezes my shoulder then tucks her laptop under her arm and retreats to her office in the name of class prep, leaving me alone with Reid and my dad. Pretty much the worst combination. Before I have a chance to form words, they’re in their own musical world.

Six weeks until the Harvest Festival, Dad says.

Every fall, the concert band performs at the Lincoln Harvest Festival in Pine Hill Park. The Harvest Festival is a community event filled with hayrides, farm stands with local produce, and so many cider donuts—pretty much peak fall in New England energy. A few years ago, Dad proposed that it also be a performance opportunity for the band, where the marquee event is a classic film score. Past performances have included Casablanca, E.T., and The Wizard of Oz. It’s an event that the town has come to anticipate and is excellent—both in terms of the local media attention it receives and the boost it gives to small businesses that participate.

Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope is this year’s Harvest Festival score. The hype is already building, thanks to Aaron Jacobson’s local on-screen news debut in a piece highlighting how the band’s participation has increased Harvest Festival turnout.

The screen time has absolutely gone to his head.

It’s a cool story, objectively.

But the school committee does not need another reason to obsess over the band.

Neither does the town, for that matter.

Because as a town, Lincoln is as average as it gets. Our sports teams are mediocre. We don’t have a marching band. Our drama club is small. Our entertainment options are a movie theater, ice skating, a roller rink, and a mall with every store that’s in every town.

But Lincoln’s concert band and orchestra program?

They are exceptional.

Reid shifts the conversation to his current role: recruitment for the jazz ensemble.

We need more percussion, Reid says.

Makayla’s— I start.

Rosalind Levy is sick on the snare, Reid says, cutting me off. Which will make up for losing Tricia, I think.

Dad nods. Cool. Good to know.

I wait for Dad to ask me about Makayla’s sister, who is an incredible drummer. He doesn’t. He continues talking to Reid like I didn’t try to speak, like I couldn’t possibly contribute something valuable to this conversation.

Like I wasn’t once a musician myself.

We won’t know for sure until we hear how everyone meshes.

I am invisible.

Finally, after another Pop-Tart and what feels like endless band chat, Dad closes his binder and heads to his studio in the basement to set up for Reid’s lesson. Reid stands and brings his cereal bowl to the sink, so I reach into my backpack for my laptop, ready for thirty sweet minutes of alone time, just Melted and me.

I open the file.

"It’s not too late for Boiled."

I jump, my fingers jamming into my keyboard. Why are you so fixated on this?

"Imagine if Adina could instantly boil anything she touches. She’d be unstoppable! Reid says. Think about it. Artists need to be open to criticism, Natalie. Collaborative."

"Right. Except we’re not collaborators."

Reid’s jaw tenses. I know.

So why are you still standing here? Don’t you have a clarinet to blow?

Reid nods and takes a step backward. As a matter of fact, I do.

He descends the stairs, not missing a beat. His cheeks don’t flush, not even when I emphasize blow. Reid woke me up before the sun and co-opted my parents… and I couldn’t even make him blush? Everything makes Reid blush! I’m seriously off my game.

What a waste of a line, honestly.

CHAPTER TWO

An hour later I’m waiting in the wings, my cowriter cannot stop pacing, and our talent is late.

In this case, the wings are the bench across from Mrs. Mulaney’s office, where I sit scrolling through my phone while Henry grows more annoyed with each step. Fitz is supposed to be here by now. As the de facto leaders of LHS’s drama club, we’re supposed to present Melted as a unit. Henry and I as the writing and directing duo behind the scenes, and Fitz representing on the onstage talent.

I stare at my phone, watching our Team Melted group chat light up.

Makayla Okoye

IT’S MELTED DAY AHHHH

7:29 AM

Arjun Patel

7:29 AM

Arjun Patel

Tell us everything ASAP. I know we subscribe to being a low stakes org but…

7:30 AM

Makayla Okoye

TODAY THERE ARE STAKES

7:30 AM

Arjun Patel

(no pressure!!!!)

7:31 AM

Makayla Okoye

(some pressure upside down smile emoji )

7:31 AM

I swallow the lump in my throat. Cool. Pressure. Cool cool cool.

I get it though. We’ve always branded ourselves as a low-commitment come to have fun! club. We’re not serious thespians like the musical theater kids or intense musicians like the band. We’re a mix of athletes and scientists, quiz bowl captains and future politicians, all bonded by our mutual appreciation for the yes and technique and putting together a solid production. For us, theater is in the B story in our life. But the best character moments are always in the subplots. So the thought of losing it?

It rattled us more than we expected it to.

So we came up with a plan. A low-budget proposal Mrs. Mulaney and the school committee cannot refuse.

I switch into my private group chat with Henry and Fitz as it buzzes with an update.

Fitz (Not Ava)

SORRY. OVERSLEPT. ON MY WAY!!

7:35 AM

We should’ve told her to be here thirty minutes ago, Henry says.

Fitz stopped falling for that years ago.

Henry exhales restless energy and pushes his clear plastic frames up the bridge of his nose before taking his own phone out of his pocket. He runs his fingers through black hair as he scrolls automatically through his phone. It sticks up in every direction, like he didn’t bother to brush it. Pillow Pet hair, we call it, since his sleepover pillow of choice when we were kids was Ribbit the frog, which always left his longer-on-top style extra tall the next morning. That’s how long Henry has been my best friend—since the era of Pillow Pets.

She’ll be here. Hey— I pat the empty bench space beside me —let’s do a run-through?

Henry takes a seat. It’s perfect, Nat. You nail it every time.

I’m caught up in the fundraising logistics.

You are absolutely full of shit.

But despite this, Henry presses his back against the wall, exhales, and begins.

Thank you so much for meeting with us, Mrs. Mulaney. We know budget cuts are difficult to navigate. That being said, we—Natalie, Fitz, me, and every member of the drama club—have worked all summer to find a solution that cuts the budget without cutting the club entirely.

I jump in. "We made a checklist of all of the costs associated with producing a school play—and learned the biggest barrier isn’t production costs. It’s licensing fees. Over some emergency dumplings, the entire Lincoln High School drama program put their heads together and came up with something unique and original… but most importantly, something free. Melted."

Henry stands. And now we’re at Fitz’s part. We can’t even rehearse without—

I grab his wrist and pull him back down to the bench. I was going to be Fitz.

You should’ve said that before we started.

"Okay, well, I’m saying it now. Let’s start over. Maybe this time, don’t begin with the whole we know budget cuts are hard disclaimer?"

Henry frowns. "But they are."

Right. But I think stating it gives Mrs. Mulaney an auto-out.

Okay. Fair. Henry nods and we rehearse the first part again. He takes my note and the introduction flows more naturally this time, leading me right into the Fitz portion of the presentation.

"Melted is the story of sisters Adina and Emma and a world where everything is on fire. It’s part sister story, part an incisive commentary on the climate crisis, and loosely inspired by Frozen. Classic theater productions like we’ve performed in the past have their place, but didn’t resonate with the student body and contributed to lower audience turnout. Melted solves the licensing problem and revitalizes audience engagement. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a Frozen opposite play? It’s a show written by us, for us."

We’ll keep production costs low with homemade costumes and set design, Henry adds.

And think of the publicity opportunities! Students proving that you don’t need a big budget to make art that matters.

The closing argument.

It’s good, Henry says, the twitch in his fingers gone.

"We’re good," I say.

Henry and I have been collaborators since middle school—but Melted marks a new era in our partnership as our first full-length script. The words poured out of us over one very long, caffeinated weekend in June. I write for character development and pacing. Henry is attuned to plot and overall hilarity.

We’re a perfect team.

It shouldn’t even matter, Henry says. "This. The play. Yet the idea of Melted not being enough makes me feel like I’m going to vomit."

I snap the rubber band friendship bracelet Henry made me in sixth grade against my wrist. He is ten months older than me to the day, but it’s never mattered until this year. Because now Henry is a senior, I am a junior, and we are in our final act together at LHS.

We’re supposed to have a final curtain call, I insist.

Our first was A Christmas Carol. The summer after third grade, Henry and I were thrown together at the elementary school’s summer theater camp. I needed an outlet for my energy. Henry needed to break out of his shell. On the first day, he raised his hand and told Mrs. Tamorelli how weird it was to do A Christmas Carol in July. I agreed, it was weird, and raised my hand to say so, adding that it’s also weird to assume everyone celebrates Christmas.

We’ve been best friends and collaborators ever since.

"Chao and Jacobson does have a nice ring to it," Henry declares.

Not as nice as Jacobson and Chao.

Wouldn’t that be the biggest plot twist?

Henry and I start laughing because he’s right. It would be. But Henry is going full Business Bro at Babson next year. Sure, he’ll write an entire one-act play just to make me laugh, perform Shakespeare monologues in the park for a passing audience, but it’s all whatever he can fit in between track practice, debate team, and his shifts at his family-owned restaurant, Chao Down. Art makes him happy.

Henry taught me art doesn’t have to be all-consuming, like my parents make it out to be.

It can be low stakes. It can just be fun.

Shit. Henry glances at his phone. We are officially late. Where is Fitzgerald? Homeroom starts in twenty.

Henry’s white sneakers squeak against the floor when he stands. He pushes up the sleeves of his navy half-zip, readjusts his glasses for the second time, and holds his hand out for me to take.

Natalie! Henry!

I hear her voice first, followed by the clicks of block heels against vinyl.

Ava Fitz Fitzgerald, the person who completes our trio, appears before us, looking frazzled but fabulous in a white blouse with long flowing sleeves paired with a denim button- down skirt belted at the waist and black ankle booties. Her strawberry blonde hair is secured in a high ponytail with a scrunchie, rainbow drop earrings dangling from her ears. It’s a total look she’d present on If the Shoe Fitz, her fashion- focused YouTube channel—sans the tiny drops of sweat that bead above her perfectly arched eyebrows.

I’m here!

Finally, Henry says.

I’m sorry! Luna’s files corrupted in post and three hours of footage disappeared.

Shit, I say. Are they okay?

Fitz shakes her head. We were up until three a.m. trying to recover them.

Luna Blue is a teen BookTuber who lives in Anaheim. Fitz met them for the first time at a YouTube convention last year. Fitz called from that convention and came out to me as bi with the tipsy proclamation, I’m kinda in love with Luna Blue! They dated for half of sophomore year, until the long distance became Too Much and they decided that for