— act two, scene two: random

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     "So... you two?"

     Rita and Savannah sat across from Megara and Ricky with suspicious faces.  While Savannah sat back with her arms crossed, Rita leaned on the tabletop with her elbows.  Megara and Ricky's legs were smashed together as they started getting slices from their pizza, trying to play off like they casually did this every week.

     Ricky nervously chuckled as Megara wrapped her fingers around a greasy slice and stuffed it through her mouth.  He hadn't expected so soon that he would be faced with Megara's two best friends — which said a lot because Megara wasn't friends with anybody.  Like, hardly anybody had ever taken the time to get to know her and be part of her circle.  And now, for the first time since they were children, Ricky had to make himself part of her circle again.

     "Yeah, um..." he looked to Megara for help completing his sentence.

     "It's new," Megara said with her mouthful, reaching for a cup of soda on the table to wash down the giant bite she had just taken.  Despite the messiness, and Megara's seriousness, he smiled.

     Nevertheless, Savannah and Rita weren't impressed.  Matter of fact, Savannah looked incredibly disgusted.  "How guys still wanna date you after they see you eat is beyond me."

     Rita waved her index finger between them, decorated with a large emerald ring.  "You're telling me that after a decade of throwing balled-up paper at each other's heads and glaring at each other in the hallways—"

     "Megara also threw him into a locker one time," Savannah added.

     Megara groaned, swallowing everything harshly.  "That was an accident!  I was skating through the halls and I literally didn't think anyone was gonna remember that part, to be fair," she raised her eyebrows as she looked at Ricky apologetically.

     Ricky patted her fist on the table with his right hand as he extended his left arm to fall over her shoulders.  "I know, it's okay."

     Rita couldn't have looked any more confused, whereas Savannah just looked tired.  The blonde went and grabbed a slice of pizza for herself as Rita continued.  "But all of that is behind you now?"

     "Come on, Ricky's not so bad.  He defended me from Amelia a couple of times, remember that?" Megara said, tapping her nails against the soda cup in front of her.  "Maybe deep down we've been friends all along?"

     Ricky, eyes trained on her while she was talking, nodded in agreement.  "Yeah," he added.  "Megara's even helping me rehearse for the musical, and I've been invited to her family's parties for years so maybe it was inevitable that we were gonna find our way back to each other?"

     Megara nodded.  "Yeah."

     Rita squinted.  "This is very..."

     "Suspicious?" Ricky asked.

     "Unlikely?" Megara asked.

     "Random," Savannah finished for her, this time being the one with her mouth full.

     "Everybody hold!  Nini, where were you?  We've been here for an hour."

     Megara was sitting next to Rita on the floor near the bleachers since Kelsi hadn't yet been introduced in the musical yet, under the guise that she was there to support Ricky.

     "I'm so sorry.  I lost my phone and spent last night living as a hunter-gatherer, which, by the way, did you know there are things that are only on TV at a certain time?  Anyway, I picked it up in the lost and found — wait, did you say an hour?"

     Miss Jenn nodded.  "Gina sent you and me a text asking if we could come in early so she could talk through a new idea.  You didn't get it?"

     "No, my phone was missing."

     "You've gotta keep better track of your stuff.  A real triple-threat means singing, acting, and being organized."

     "Got it.

ASHLYN: I saw it, too. EJ was supposed to return that phone. Feeling hashtag complicit.

SAVANNAH: Something fishy's going on here, but it could be EJ's sweaty clothes, so who knows.

     "If you had been here, you'd know Gina pitched a whole new dance break for Gabriella and Taylor in the middle of Status Quo, and she had Carlos work it out with her, and it is dazzling," Miss Jenn said with literal sparkles in her eyes.

     "You and Carlos?" Nini asked.

     "Gina, why don't you hydrate and show Nini the new choreo?"

     "That was weird," Rita said, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she straightened out her posture.  That was usually the reason the Latina didn't watch her friends during their rehearsals (granted this was Megara's first play since like, middle school), the bleachers wrecked chaos on your back after sitting in them for too long.

     Her face in the palms of her hands, Megara carelessly shrugged before realizing something.  "You really think she of all people would have lost her phone?"

     Rita's eyebrows knitted together, eyes still trained on the kids in front of her talking to Miss Jenn.  "Oh, that's even weirder."  Megara nodded before erupting into a yawn. 

NINI: Is it just me, or is it possible Gina stole my phone?  She schedules an early rehearsal she knows I'll miss, and then shows up with a new dance number featuring her freakish gymnastics skills that she knows I can't do, and now I'm in the doghouse with Miss Jenn.  Is any of this an accident? If she's willing to steal a spotlight, what else is she willing to steal?

     "I think Carlos is gonna stressed out very easily with me," Megara huffed.  "Like because I'm not getting Kelsi's body language right," she used her fingers to do quotation marks in the air.  "He wants me to rewatch the movies to get her cheerfulness down."

     "Nini, how was your night?" Ricky asked the stressed brunette on the other side of the room.

     "Not so hot.  Excuse me," she pushed past him with a lowered head.

     "Okay..."

RICKY: "Not so hot"?  Was that about my voicemail?  Is that her answer?  That was her answer.

[ . . . ]

NINI: I've seen the movie a few hundred times.  Vanessa Hudgens walks in and stands there.  What I don't remember is where she jumps into the splits, and cracks her pelvis.  Oh, it's on.

MEGARA: I'm gonna be honest, I just wanna go home.

     "Hey, can I borrow her for a second?" Ricky approached Rita and Megara, but Megara could already tell something was off by the way he was standing around.

     Still skeptical, Rita nodded, waving her wrist.  "She's all yours."

     Megara awkwardly chuckled as she got up from the floor and walked around the corner with him so they'd be out of earshot.  Then her smile faded away.  "What's the matter?"

     Ricky shook his head and took a step back.  "Woah, who said anything was wrong?"

     Megara's droopy eyelids almost hid the fact that one of her eyes twitched slightly.  "Just tell me what you did."

     "Meg, I think I screwed up," Ricky said.

     Megara took a deep breath before speaking.  "Why do I have the feeling I'm going to be hearing that a lot?"

#JJ
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