If We Were Villains: A Novel

We spent the rest of the day at the bar—a dimly lit, wood-paneled hole-in-the-wall where the staff knew most Dellecher students by name, accepted as many fake IDs as real ones, and didn’t seem to find it odd that some of us had been twenty-one for three years. The fourth-years had finished auditioning by noon, but Frederick and Gwendolyn had forty-two other students to see, and—allowing for lunch and dinner breaks and deliberation—the cast lists probably wouldn’t be posted until midnight. Six of us sat in our usual booth at the Bore’s Head (as clever a joke as Broadwater was capable of), collecting empty glasses on the table. We all drank beer except Meredith, who was mainlining vodka sodas, and Alexander, who drank Scotch and drank it neat.

It was Wren’s turn to wait at the FAB for the cast list to go up. The rest of us had taken ours already, and if she reappeared empty-handed it would be back to the beginning of the rotation. The sun had set hours before, but we weren’t finished dissecting our auditions.

“I fucked it up completely,” Meredith said, for what might have been the tenth time. “I said ‘dismember’ instead of ‘dissemble,’ like an absolute idiot.”

“In the context of that speech it hardly matters,” Alexander said, wearily. “Gwendolyn probably didn’t notice and Frederick probably didn’t care.”

Before Meredith could reply, Wren burst in from outside, a single sheet of paper clutched in her hand. “It’s up!” she said, and we all leapt to our feet. Richard guided her to the table, sat her down, and snatched the list. She had already seen it and suffered herself to be shunted into a corner while the rest of us bent over the table. After a few moments’ silent, furious reading, Alexander sprang up again.

“What did I tell you?” He slapped the list, pointed at Wren, and shouted, “Barkeep, let me buy this lady a drink!”

“Sit down, Alexander, you preposterous ass,” Filippa said, grabbing his elbow to pull him back into the booth. “You weren’t all right!”

“I was so.”

“No, Oliver’s playing Octavius, but he’s also playing Casca.”

“Am I?” I had stopped reading once I saw the line drawn between my name and Octavius’s and leaned in for a second look.

“Yeah, and I’ve got three—Decius Brutus, Lucilius, and Titinius.” She offered a stoic smile to me, her fellow persona non grata.

“Why would they do that?” Meredith asked, stirring what remained of her vodka and sucking the last drops off her little red straw. “They’ve got plenty of second-years to use.”

“But the third-years are doing Shrew,” Wren said. “They’ll need all the bodies they can get.”

“Colin’s going to be a busy boy,” James remarked. “Look, they’ve got him playing Antony and Tranio.”

“They did the same thing to me last year,” Richard said, as if we didn’t all already know. “Nick Bottom with you all and the Player King with the fourth-years. I was in rehearsal eight hours a day.”

Sometimes third-years were chosen to take a role in a fourth-year cast that couldn’t be trusted to a second-year. It meant classes from eight until three, then rehearsal with one cast until six thirty and rehearsal with another cast until eleven. Secretly, I didn’t envy Richard or Colin.

“Not this time,” Alexander said, with a wicked little smirk. “You’ll only have rehearsal half the week—you die in Act III.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Filippa said.

“How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!” Richard declared.

“Oh, shut up,” Wren said. “Get us another round and perhaps we’ll put up with you a little while longer.”

He rose from his seat and said, “I would give all my fame for a pot of ale!” as he made his way to the bar.

Filippa shook her head and said, “If only.”