Encore Edie by Annabel Lyon

looks up. “He’s mad at his daughters?” she says slowly.
    Around us, the tables are filling up. I see girls from school look at us and whisper to each other. I don’t know if being seen with Regan is a good thing or not.
    “You’re going to hate me, okay?” she says. “I think we should write it in plain English. I mean, we can’t just cut this—we have to make it easier to understand. Nobody can say this stuff.” She twists the book around so she can read from it. “‘You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, singe my white head!’ I mean, like, what?”
    I don’t say anything.
    “What do I know?” she says. “My thing is costumes.” She leans back and looks around, and I realize she’s going to pick up her bag in a minute and go.
    I twist the book back so I can see it. “Lightning,” I say slowly. “Lightning is better than his daughters. Thunder is better, rain is better. His daughters are more evil than a storm.”
    “Simpler,” Regan says.
    “I would rather get hit by lightning than go into my daughter’s house. I would rather stand out here in this storm than ask her nicely for shelter. I would rather die than ask my daughter for anything.”
    “Which is the good daughter?” Regan says. “Cordelia, Goneril, or Regan?”
    “Cordelia.”
    Then she really is putting her coat on, packing up her books, picking up her tea.
    “Wait!” I say. “You said you’d help me!”
    “You don’t need my help,” she says. “You’ll be fine.”
    I watch her sweep off, little eddies of whispers in her wake from all around the store. Forget King Lear; she is the crazy one.
    I take another sip of my coffee. It’s still hot and bitter, but bearable, just. I glance at the book again, then take out a clean piece of paper.
    I would rather get hit by lightning …

    “… and then she just took off.”
    “Slow down, Edie,” Sam says. “What time is it?”
    “You weren’t asleep, were you?” I say. “I can’t sleep. I’m not sleepy. I’ve got the shakes. Regan is so strange. Were you sleeping? I’m still working on the play. I think it’s going really well. Can I read you some? Were you sleeping?”
    On my desk, The Shot’s biggest coffee cup is empty, for the fourth or fifth time.

    One week later. I’ve been sitting in Mr. Harris’s office for the last forty minutes or so while he reads through what I’ve written. At the beginning I tried to say something, but he looked up and said, “Don’t talk.”
    Now he puts the pages back together, taps them square, and hands them back to me. “It’s a start,” he says. “What about the music?”
    I pull out my sister’s iPod (she can kill me later) and give him the earphones. Right away his eyebrows go up.
    “We’ll have to change the words,” I say.
    “Apparently,” Mr. Harris says.
    We talk some more about what I’ve proposed: plain language, each actor adapting his or her own lines so it will sound natural. We’ll use my CD for rehearsals, and Sam thinks the Concert Jazz Band would work for the actual performances. She’s already talked to her band teacher, who can get the scores and is willing to help.
    “Very nice,” Mr. Harris says. “Very collaborative. One thing we haven’t discussed is direction. I think the three of you can share that, yes? Regan for theatre experience, Sam for musical experience, and you.”
    “I don’t have experience.”
    “You’ve read the play,” Mr. Harris says. “Nice to have at least one person involved in the production who’s done that.”
    Is he serious? “You’ve read it too, though, right?”
    Mr. Harris gives me a look I can’t read. “A long time ago,” he says finally. “I think I remember the important parts.”

    “People,” Mr. Harris yells. He holds his hands over his head and claps. “People!”
    Sam, Regan, Mr. Harris, and I are sitting in the fifth row of the theatre. The rows in front of us are empty. Behind us, the