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Car Conversations With a Would-Be Girlfriend
Sometimes conversation flows most easily while riding in the car
It was my first college show, and for the first time in many years of doing theater, I was playing the lead role. It was a role in which I was onstage for about 95% of the show, so I didn’t have a whole lot of downtime in rehearsal. But I managed to find the time to talk to Wendy.
She was pretty. Like, out of my league kind of pretty. In high school, I would have been too intimidated to even approach her. But maybe finally being the lead in a musical gave me a kind of stupid confidence. Or maybe it was that, even though I was attracted to her, I wasn’t trying to date her.
When she found out that I lived in the next town over from her, and I took a couple of buses to get back at the end of the night, she offered to drive me home. I gratefully accepted the offer.
“I have a secret,” she said as she drove. “I don’t even go to school here.”
I laughed.
“Then how did you end up in the show?”
“My ex-boyfriend suggested I show up to the auditions and just not tell anyone. He is a student here.”
“Your ex?”