Unnaturally Green by Felicia Ricci

Author:Felicia Ricci [Ricci, Felicia]
Language: eng
Format: epub

“Okay, Catchphrase time!” announced Annie.

It was game night at Glinda standby Libby’s apartment, a tradition newly forged by a small and dorktastic group of Wicked cast members. On these special Sundays we rang in the end of our eight-show week with rousing games of Catchphrase, Scattergories, and Charades, all while watching the MSNBC show To Catch a Predator.

“Someone would please explain the rules?” said Nic, who played Fiyero (Wicked’s romantic lead). He wore wide-rimmed glasses and a t-shirt with a picture of an electric guitar. “How is this game played, please?”

“Awww, Nic,” said Libby.

Nic, who was French Canadian, hid his slight accent onstage, but sometimes let his foreignness creep into everyday conversation, at which point one or more of us would coo at him like he was a toddler speaking his first sentence.

“It’s like that game Password, except with teams,” began first-violinist Cary, our resident expert on everything.

As Cary explained the rules, Marshall seized the remote and started flipping through to find MSNBC. Nobody really understood why watching pedophiles get publicly shamed was part of our tradition; it just happened that the first time we’d assembled we’d gotten a huge kick out of it. Somehow, it stuck.

“Oh, look! There it is,” said Libby, pointing to the TV and giggling.

On the screen there was a man in acid-wash jeans, who was later identified as a pastor, sitting on a stool by a kitchen counter. “What’s in the bag?” asked host Chris Hansen in the most serious voice I’d ever heard. “Condoms?”

“No,” said the pastor. Then he hung his head. “Yes.”

“See? They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” said Etai, stirringly.

We all gasped as we watched the pastor get tackled to the lawn by a bunch of policemen with bowl haircuts.

“It’s just pure filth,” heckled Etai from his corner armchair.

“Are we ready to play?” called Annie, her smiley face at its smiliest.

“Hang on,” Libby said, rising to her feet. In her frilly cardigan and sparkly headband she began lighting a row of tea lights, which she set next to the snack bowls and cheap wine Marshall and I had brought. From the looks of everything, Libby had cleaned and tidied her decidedly chic apartment. High-ceilinged and fully-furnished, it was part of a corporate housing building where many Wicked cast members lived.

“Libby, you are quite the hostess,” I said as she walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of grapes.

“Oh, stop!” she said so cutely that I wanted to call the cute police.

“Need any help?” I asked.

“Just sit your pretty booty down,” she said.

Lately, Libby and I had grown closer. Each game night we’d been swapping stories, testing our favored styles of conversation and senses of humor. Like Etai, Libby had gone to a conservatory program for college. Before that, she’d done summer theater—something we had in common—where she was hailed as an adorable little ingénue. (In contrast, I had tackled such roles as Fagin in Oliver!, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Captain Hook in Peter Pan, and Fred Phelps and other men in The Laramie Project.

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