Excerpt from If We Were Villains by M L. Rio, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Something funny?" James asked, as he reached over to turn out the light.

"You'll have to be Cressida," I told him. "You're the only one of us pretty enough."

We lay there laughing in the dark until we dropped off to sleep, and slept deeply, with no way of knowing that the curtain was about to rise on a drama of our own invention.

SCENE 2

Dellecher Classical Conservatory occupied twenty or so acres of land on the eastern edge of Broadwater, and the borders of the two so often overlapped that it was difficult to tell where campus ended and town began. The first-years were housed in a cluster of brick buildings in town, while the second- and third-years were crowded together at the Hall, and the handful of fourth-years were tucked away in odd isolated corners of campus or left to fend for themselves. We, the fourth-year theatre students, lived on the far side of the lake in what was whimsically called the Castle (not really a castle, but a small stone building that happened to have one turret, originally the groundskeepers' quarters).

Dellecher Hall, a sprawling red brick mansion, looked down a steep hill to the dark flat water of the lake. Dormitories and the ballroom were on the fourth and fifth floors, classrooms and offices on the second and third, while the ground floor was divided into refectory, music hall, library, and conservatory. A chapel jutted off the west end of the building, and sometime in the 1960s, the Archibald Dellecher Fine Arts Building (generally referred to as the FAB, for more than one reason) was erected on the east side of the Hall, a small courtyard and honeycomb of corbeled walkways wedged between them. The FAB was home to the Archibald Dellecher Theatre and the rehearsal hall and, ergo, was where we spent most of our time. At eight in the morning on the first day of classes, it was exceptionally quiet.

Richard and I walked from the Castle together, though I wasn't due to audition for another half hour.

"How do you feel?" he asked, as we climbed the steep hill to the lawn.

"Nervous, like I always am." The number of auditions under my belt didn't matter; the anxiety never really left me.

"No need to be," he said. "You're never as dreadful as you think you are. Just don't shift your weight too much. You're most interesting when you stand still."

I frowned at him. "How do you mean?"

"I mean when you forget you're onstage and forget to be nervous. You really listen to other actors, really hear the words like it's the first time you've heard them. It's wonderful to work with and marvelous to watch." He shook his head at the look of consternation on my face. "I shouldn't have told you. Don't get self-conscious." He clapped one huge hand on my shoulder, and I was so distracted I pitched forward, my fingertips brushing the dewy grass. Richard's booming laugh echoed in the morning air, and he grabbed my arm to help me find my balance. "See?" he said. "Keep your feet planted and you'll be fine."

"You suck," I said, but with a grudging smirk. (Richard had that effect on people.)

As soon as we reached the FAB, he gave me another cheery smack on the back and disappeared into the rehearsal hall. I paced back and forth along the crossover, puzzling over what he had said and repeating Pericles to myself like I was saying a string of Hail Marys.

Our first semester auditions determined which parts we would play in our fall production. That year, Julius Caesar. Tragedies and histories were reserved for the fourth-years, while the third-years were relegated to romance and comedy and all the bit parts were played by the second-years. First-years were left to work backstage, slog through general education, and wonder what the hell they'd gotten themselves into. (Each year, students whose performance was deemed unsatisfactory were cut from the program—often as many as half. To survive until fourth year was proof of either talent or dumb luck. In my case, the latter.) Class photos from the past fifty years hung in two neat rows along the wall in the crossover. Ours was the last and certainly the sexiest, a publicity photo from the previous year's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We looked younger.

Excerpted from If We Were Villains by M L Rio. Copyright © 2017 by M L Rio. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.