Parallel

deal, but if you’d spent as much time as I had constructing the Perfect Schedule, and if you’d convinced yourself that your future success absolutely depended on your taking six very particular courses, then the disruption would feel catastrophic.
    “The great news is, you have two wonderful courses to choose from,” Ms. DeWitt chirped. “Drama Methods and Principles of Astronomy.” She smiled, looking at me over the rim of her turquoise glasses. The air suddenly felt very thin.
    “No!” She got this startled look on her face when I said it. I hadn’t meant to shout, but the woman had just yanked the rug out from under me. Plus, her fuchsia pantsuit was giving me a headache. I cleared my throat and tried again. “There has to be another option.”
    “I’m afraid not,” she replied pleasantly. Then, in a girlish whisper, as if we were talking about something far less important than my entire academic future: “I’d go with drama if I were you.”
    I should mention something about my high school: It’s what they call an arts and sciences magnet, which means that in addition to its regular public school curriculum, Brookside High offers two specialized tracks: one for aspiring actors and performers and the other for overachieving young Einsteins lured by the promise of college-level coursework. I made the mistake sophomore year of assuming that “college-level” meant suitable for the average college freshman, only to learn eight weeks into the harmless-sounding Botany Basics that our final exam would be the same one our teacher had given the previous year. To grad students at Georgia Tech.
    So, while courses with names like “Drama Methods” and “Principles of Astronomy” would’ve undoubtedly been cake classes at a regular school, when you go to an arts and sciences magnet and happen to be neither arts nor sciences inclined, these innocuously titled gems are grueling, time-intensive GPA busters. Oh, and did I mention the mandatory grading curve?
    It was a choice between bad and worse.
    “Drama,” I said finally. And that was that.
    In fifth period that afternoon, our teacher informed us that she’d selected Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia as our class production. I’d read the play the year before in AP English and loved it (mostly because my essay, “People Fancying People: Determinism in Arcadia ,” won the eleventh grade writing prize), so when it came time for auditions, I tried out for the role of Thomasina Coverly, the precocious teenage lead. Not because I actually wanted the lead (or any other part, for that matter—I was lobbying to be stage manager, safely behind the scenes), but because Thomasina’s lines were the easiest to memorize, and since the same girl had won the starring role in every school play since kindergarten, I figured at worst I’d wind up as her understudy. Plus, trying out for the lead role had the side benefit of irritating that girl, the self-appointed queen bee of the drama crowd and my nemesis since kindergarten, the insufferable Ilana Cassidy, who assumed she’d audition unopposed.
    But two days later, there it was: my name at the top of the cast list. I’d gotten the part.
    This coup caused quite the uproar among the drama kids, all of whom expected Ilana to get the lead. My cast mates were convinced that I, the inexperienced interloper, would ruin “their” show, and I suspected they were right. But Ms. Ziffren’s casting decisions weren’t up for discussion, and my grade depended on my participation.
    The show opened to a packed auditorium. Seated in the front row was a prominent casting director who’d flown in to see her nephew play Septimus Hodge. This kind of thing happens all the time in magnet school land, so it was easy to ignore (especially since the entirety of my mental energy that night was focused on the very real possibility that I would forget my lines and single-handedly wreck the show).
    But then I got a call from that same casting director, inviting me to audition for Everyday Assassins , a big-budget action movie that was set to start shooting in Los Angeles in May. According to the casting director, they were looking for a dark-haired, light-eyed teenage newcomer to play the lead actor’s silent accomplice, and with my chestnut waves and gray-blue eyes, I was a perfect match. Would I be interested in flying out to Los Angeles to audition for the role? Figuring the experience would be great material for my Northwestern