My voice bounces around the auditorium, harshly magnified. I sound awful

“How’s your voice?”

Devora, Chan, and Baylee clamor around me anxiously when I show up on the morning of the first performance, fashionably late. The plan is to use the morning to run through the entire production again, on stage, and then everyone will go home and come back in the early evening to get ready for the grand performance.

“Can you sing?”

“Can you talk?”

My voice is a rough, hoarse croak. “Yeah. Kind of. I hope so.”

Devora and Chan look at each other in alarm. “Uh oh,” Chan says. “You… don’t sound too good, Rena.”

Baylee eyes me sympathetically. “I’m so sorry, Reens. Such bad timing…”

“Tell me about it.” I feel miserable.

“What’s going to be with… you know, your part in the play?”

We go to find Chaya and Shaindy. They’re huddled with Miss Weller, discussing something in urgent tones.

“Rena’s here, but she can barely talk,” Baylee announces, thrusting me forward.

I blush tomato-red. “It’s okay, I can talk, kind of…” I say weakly.

Miss Weller surveys me critically. “I think with the mic, it’ll be fine. We’ll try it out now.”

The play begins. I watch the opening scene disinterestedly. Mindy, Chani, Hadassah, and Bruchy transform into a Spanish family of the early 1500s, incongruously dressed in their regular clothing while declaiming dramatic speeches and handling old-fashioned props.

“She does it so well,” Baylee mutters as Mindy concludes a particularly emotional monologue.

I half-shrug.

When it’s time for our first appearance on stage, I say my lines into a mic, self-conscious. Tonight, we’ll have small mics attached to our costumes, but now I use a regular handheld one. My voice bounces around the auditorium, harshly magnified. I sound awful.

For the first time, it’s a relief to escape the stage.