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Despite the late November chill outside, the rehearsal space was hot and cloying. Everyone there seemed so much taller and older and intimidating despite the whole group's general air of optimistic, over-confident incompetence. No one had really stopped to say hello to her and tended to look straight over her head, with the exception of Robert, of course, who when he wasn't criticising Chris's creative input, was barking notes at Lucy, like a sacked military general with nothing better to do, and which did absolutely nothing to resolve her stage fright. After a while, the constant banging of the hammer assembling props (who knows why they were being built in the rehearsal room anyway?); the constant bickering of her uncle and the director and the constant nagging fear that she'd ruin Christmas with her terrible performance became too overwhelming; she rose to her feet, dusting of the debris from her jeans and silently slipped out of the room without drawing too much attention to herself.
The door clicked quietly shut as she shuffled down the corridor. There wasn't really far to go in the mostly empty drama department at her Uncle Robert's university - just the rehearsal room; a couple of disused classrooms and a small cupboard, tucked away in a corner, with a navy blue, tacky-textured door. Cautiously - Lucy did everything cautiously - she tried the handle and with a kick of her foot against the bottom of the door, it unstuck itself and swung open on its hinges.
Feeling her way around the entrance, she fumbled for a light-switch, the back of her hand knocking against a cord and yanking it. With a click, the lights flickered on. The bulb was an old-fashioned, incandescent one that vibrates with a high-pitched hum as it turned on. She saw shelves piled high with weird and wonderful props from productions gone by, a few of which she recognised, such as a ledger from an ill-fated murder mystery a few years back, of which she'd heard many a story from her uncle at family gatherings. Glancing past the packed shelves, she came across something glossy, tacked onto the walls.
Pictures.
Looking over them, they were mostly faces she recognised. Her uncle's friends in a variety of colourful and in some cases, eclectic costumes; a friendly looking boy with a brilliant lopsided grin, despite the blood running from one of his nostrils next to a small bewildered one, yet somehow seemingly content; one of a woman, trying her best to appear seductive but with an air of over-the-topness that it was more amusing than anything else and a couple of clearly exasperated stagehands toying with a broken set piece. Evidently, this photo was taken unbeknownst to them.
Looking over this discovery, the vaguely familiar faces she'd barely gotten to know over the past few weeks seemed all the more human and all the less intimidating and Lucy got the feeling that maybe, just maybe, this production might not be so bad.