I don’t have that ability, so the mystery of why I go unrecognized continues.
Homecoming was fast approaching, as was about half a dozen assemblies I’d be performing at. And for the first time, I was actually nervous. Julian caught that I was off one day while we were rehearsing.
“Hey,” he pulled me close, his lower half pressed against mine as his soft hazel eyes searched mine. I loved that we had the same eyes, even though we weren’t technically related genetically. “It’s just me and you, Darling. No one else. Okay?”
I nodded, as tears threatened. I’d always loved his ability to see through me so completely, but at this moment, I kind of hated it. Mostly I hated that I was having nerves at all, and because of what, a guy? Yuck.
He traced the back of his fingers over my cheek. “Let’s do a new routine. Give you something to focus on.”
“Okay. I have an idea.” He listened as I walked him through what I’d come up with, adding to it, changing some of the transitions. I loved how we worked together. “Too tragic?” It was basically the story of birds and one gets trapped and put in a cage.
“It’s beautiful, Darling, I like the metaphor, but it’s quite dismal.”
“It started as two happy birds just being happy,” I frowned.
“Alright. How about both birds are caged to begin with, separated from each other, and then they both break free to be with each other?”
I nodded as I thought it over. “I like. How about, both birds are caged and then their cages are brought together, and then they’re put into the same cage — and they fight. But then they become friends.”
“Yeah,” Julian nodded, his eyes smiling at me. “That’s the story.”
・❀・❀・❀・
Confession. I was secretly hoping that Dominic was one of those guys who saw assemblies as the perfect reason to skip.
Our performances, or at least the ones I’d be attending, were divided over three weeks, with two performances each week. Performance number four was at Parkwood.
Dominic caught up with me in the hallway before math. “Hey. Where you been? You been sick or something?”
I’d been doing assemblies at other schools. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. “Are you worried, or just curious?”
His jaw tightened and he shrugged his shoulders. “Curious,” he sounded irritated.
I chuckled, and didn’t answer. I took the seat just in front of the very middle and he slid into the seat behind me.
“You’ll tank your grades if you miss another day, you know.”
“Aw, you are worried.” I twisted in my seat to look at him. “You going to the Assembly tomorrow?”
“Yeah. It’s Homecoming week, I’m on the team. You gonna be there?
I took a breath. “Yep.”
The bell rang and I turned back in my seat hoping today was another video because they were the only time I learned anything from this class. Midterms were also fast approaching and I was pretty sure Mrs. Walsh’s Advanced Maths class was an inevitable part of my future.
Parkwood’s Homecoming week was way more celebratory than Canyon Crest’s had been, but that might have had something to do with the fact that Parkwood’s football team had taken state the past five years in a row. There were activities planned for every day of the week. I’d missed Monday’s because I was performing at another school, which had included the announcements for who was up for homecoming royalty. Tuesday involved banners and signs, I participated with the in class stuff, but after school I went to study group. Wednesday was the day Arts in Motion, and more to the point, Julian and I, would be performing at the assembly. Thursday was decorating, Friday was basically an all day pep rally, then the game and the homecoming dance was Saturday night. I’d been asked by a few random guys and both Zack and Erin, pretty sure Erin only asked because Zack did. I sort of turned them both down but invited them to come with the group I was already going with. Erin said she’d think about it, Zack said yes, then Erin said yes too. Aimee cut me off before I could even extend the invite. “I’m already going with the FBLA President. Chris Wisowitz,” she added his name as an afterthought, so that ought to be a fun date.
・❀・❀・❀・
I was unrecognizable the day of the performance. My hair was big and long and blue and feathery. My make-up was blue and white and sparkly. My eyelashes were huge, with curly blue feathers at the corners, my lips were plump and yellow. I had a beak. Kayley squealed when she saw me. “Omigawd, you look so awesome! Are you supposed to look kind of scary though, because you kind of do.”
“Duh, Kayley,” Kimber took her phone out to snap a picture. “Giant bird creature, who wouldn’t find that kind of terrifying?”
I laughed. “I’m so excited you guys are going to be here.”
“Where’s Julian?” Kayley asked.
“Subtle, Kays.” Kimber elbowed her.
“I think he’s talking to the principal.”
“Gross.” Kayley stuck out her tongue. “Is he a bird too?”
“Yes. But where my costume goes white, his goes black.”
“Awesome,” Kayley smiled, eyeing my skin tight costume.
“Okay,” I waved them away. “Go get seats before the good ones are taken.”
Kimber leaned in for a quick selfie before she left.
Julian found me back stage near the ladder to the catwalk. “There’s the most beautiful bird creature I’ve been looking for.” He wrapped his arms around my middle, lifted me up and spun me around before he set me back on my feet and planted a hearty kiss between yellow lips. (Yeah, his were yellow too.) Julian’s everything demanded my complete attention on him as he stared down at me between dark feathery lashes. “Are you ready, Darling?”
“Yeah,” I smiled up at him.
“Good. Let’s give ‘em a show. Up you get,” he motioned toward the ladder.
As I stepped off the ladder and onto the catwalk I caught sight of the entire football team, standing just feet from where we had been. I didn’t have to wonder which one was Dominic — he was the one looking up at me, just looking, while everyone else chattered and cajoled.
“Hey,” Julian bumped his knuckle against my chin, directing my gaze to his. “It’s only you and me right now.”
He was right. I needed to focus. It’s easy to forget sometimes that what we do isn’t without risks. I held his look for a breath or two. “It’s only you and me.”
Julian and I settled onto our perches, we were lowered down so we were both in sight, but still about 10 feet off the ground, and the assembly began.
Until it was our turn to perform, we basically just hung out on Lyra hoops, suspended above the stage, acting like birds and watching the show from our little perches. The principal came out and talked some, Julian and I pretended to be bored to sleep by it. And then the football team led everyone in a karaoke version of the school song. Julian and I acted amused unless someone sang off key, which was part of the shtick. As Ryan repeated the last line of the song in a horribly off key solo and the rest of the team pretended the sound was hurting them to death, Julian and I did the same. We shuddered and covered our ears, and then we both feigned fainting. Julian fell backward, I fell forward, hanging from our knees. There were a few gasps and lots of laughs.
The cheer squad came out next and every time they would do a trick, we would act so amazed, and then try and do our own tricks, which were basically just changing positions on the Lyra, and when they’d jump up with their legs out, we’d hold the bar above us and kick our legs out. It basically had the effect of making us both look incapable of anything athletic.
AIM dancers were next. We decided to combine our new routine with an older one, slightly altered, for the rest of the performers.
So here’s the routine: the central character, played by Linda’s actor boyfriend, Royce, if you’re curious, enters the stage where Julian is, and they interact. Royce, makes cutesy gestures, Julian does tricks and spins. And then the day sta
rts and the rest of the performers come cartwheeling and backflipping onto the stage from all directions dancing and spinning.
This part of the routine was a slightly altered version of the ‘Busy Day’ performance. Basically the work references became school references, but the choreography was pretty much the same. Rushing about in the mornings, people would roll across the stage on Cyr’s mostly in straight lines, until one of them, Aaron, gets a flat tire, dropping the wheel to teeter in a spin. While the chaos of commuting continues Royce strolls through and stops to help. They patch up the flat and pump it back up, with a pump, and Aaron is on his way. The ‘at work,’ now the ‘at school’ routine, involves spinning on chairs, around in circles and across the stage from desk to desk. The central character strolls through collecting papers and books from others as they hurl, spin or flip past. Then he takes his stack of papers and lugs them ‘home’ through more commuter chaos, and sits on his bed trying to make his way through the stack. Julian does tricks, and spins, but Royce is too overwhelmed by his workload to notice. When he does eventually notice, Julian has fallen asleep.
There’s a dream number which is completely independent to the whole story, because dreams, that’s basically the younger performers, including Mr. Pringle’s daughters, in a series of dance routines. And then our story line continues.
Royce makes his way through the rolling and spinning and cartwheeling commuters, over to me. Royce makes cutesy gestures, I do tricks and spin. Royce buys me — Linda comes on stage and he hands her his credit card. Then straps are attached to the bottoms of our perches and a giant net falls between us and Julian and I are moved more toward the center of the stage.
The next part of our routine is Julian and I mirroring each other in our positions and spins, eventually moving off of our perches and onto the stage. Then Royce comes back on stage and pulls down the net between us, revealing our new perch — our Cyr — suspended several feet off the ground. We run around, confused and upset that our environment has changed, and then we both decide to go sit on the perch and this is when things get heated. We pull and spin and gracefully fight over the perch — until, it breaks. And by break, I mean it’s lowered to the ground and we unhook it. And then we try to make something of it, our sad broken perch. We start by doing cartwheel rolls, like everyone has already seen. He does one, then I do one, each time we add a little something to it. Like a spin or a flip over the top — that’s all Julian. And then, while Julian is on it, and I’m trying to take it away, it begins to spin and spin and spin, like it’s spinning out of control and then, he jumps off and it circles around us — and then we both jump on, and it’s spinning and we’re still fighting, and then Julian jumps off and I’m left alone on the wheel for a bit, and eventually, my spinning becomes kind of the same thing over and over so I hop off and persuade him to come spin with me, while the wheel circles around us. Then we’re both on the wheel having fun together.
Then we’re off the wheel again, and Royce comes back and reattaches it to the suspension strap, and we get on the perch together happily spinning and performing tricks while Royce makes cutesy gestures. Then Royce settles in to do his work and we settle in together on our perch. I lean my head on Julian’s shoulder and he leans his head on mine.
And then the lights go down.
Cue applause.
Nobody cued the applause. People just applauded. And cheered. We could hear Kayley screaming, “I love you, Julian!” over the crowd, which made us both laugh, mostly because we knew it was her.
And then the lights came up, and Julian said, “I hope you know how utterly amazing you are, Darling,” as he kissed me on the cheek.
“You’re the best person I know, Jules,” I said back. “You know I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
All the dancers came out to take their bows, as Royce introduced them or their group. When he got to us, and said our names, we rolled off the Cyr, and lowered ourselves toward the stage, and then we hopped down to the floor and hurried to the front of the stage to take our bows.
The front two rows were filled with the football team and cheer squad. Bright spotlights can make it hard to see the audience, but when Dominic yelled “Kat!” I turned. He was waving. A bolt of panic shot through me, but instinct took over, I blew him a kiss and waved back. And then I grabbed Julian’s hand and we ran off the stage smiling and waving to the crowd.
“Katarina?” Julian pulled me into the dressing room back stage. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t be here right now, Jules. I can’t talk to him like this. And I’m kind of freaking out. And it’s freaking me out that it’s freaking me out because what the what? I don’t even know! And I’m—
“Freaking out?”
“Yes!”
“Okay. Kat, Darling, go home and I’ll cover for you.”
“You’ll cover for me? How?”
“If anyone asks I’ll tell them you weren’t feeling well, and went home. It’s the truth isn’t it?”
Chapter 13
So I went home. I changed and showered and washed all the ‘needs special removers’ makeup off my face.
I’d been avoiding my phone on purpose. But then I forgot that I’d been avoiding it and looked at it to check the time. It was 2:15 and I had texts from Dominic.
DW: You were at my school today!
DW: Did you know?
DW: Scratch that. How could you have known? But hey, you know now! I was one of the football players, obviously, so we actually shared stage time, which is something I never imagined would happen.
DW: I waved but I’m not sure you saw me.
DW: And I tried to talk to you after but they said you’d left.
DW: Are you trying to avoid me?
Fuck my life. But there was more.
DW: I’m kidding. Someone else said they’d heard you weren’t feeling well. I gotta say, that was one hell of a performance for not feeling well, but I get it. When it’s go time, I’m on, and there’s nothing else but me and the game until it’s over.
DW: Confession. I saw you and Julian back stage before you went on. And I thought maybe you looked a little off. And I really hope you get feeling better soon.
DW: And a question: Does he always call you Darling?
He was close enough to hear us? And didn’t recognize me — as me — at all? Wow. I’m not sure which one of those things I found more bizarre. Granted I was wearing a lot of makeup and feathers, but still. It’s weird.
I tried out half a dozen different responses before settling on one that I hoped could be interpreted both innocently and honestly:
KF: I knew it was you! I blew you a kiss, right? I feel bad about rushing off, but I was feeling pretty wretched and figured I’d rather go home than risk vomiting backstage — so unprofessional.
He doesn’t always call me Darling, but often. And I’m not the only one, it’s anyone he’s very close to really.
And then something happened that I completely didn’t expect.
DW: This may sound weird, but I’m glad we didn’t meet. I like what we have — just the way we have it. I’ve thought about what it might be like if we actually met, and I’m pretty sure it’d be amazing, but it also makes me nervous, because I know my tendency to nope out of anything involving attractive females. I guess what I’m trying to say, and this is probably going to sound beyond lame, I think our NOT meeting was meant to be.
Hmm. Maybe that explained why he never recognized me, why when I tried to get close he’d shut me out. It was like he had to deny me, because if he didn’t he’d reject me, and lose me. Was that a thing being in denial did?
I made a note to take Psychology next semester. Maybe I could also figure out why I always ran from drama. Meh, it probably had something to do with my “dad” in quotes.
KF: Lol! Yeah, that’s kind of lame. But I think I get it.
・❀・❀・❀・
It feels like I should have been able to predict Thursday’s interaction with Dom
inic, but I didn’t.
“I didn’t see you at the assembly,” he said as he leaned over my desk.
I laughed, because how could I not?
Judging by his expression, he didn’t find it funny at all. “You would have liked it. It was a dance thing.”
“Dominic,” I stopped laughing. “I was there.”
His eyes narrowed, doubtful. “Were you?”
“Yeah.”
“How come I didn’t see you?”
“I don’t even know how to answer that question.”
“Did you see me?”
“Singing, on stage with Ryan? Yeah. I saw that. I saw the whole thing, Dominic. I left right after, because I was feeling an extreme need to bounce, and school was basically over, but I saw the whole thing.”
“No more skipping, okay?”
“I’m not skipping.”
“Then why haven’t you been here?”
I leaned forward. “Why do you care?”
He began to fidget and stopped leaning over my desk. “I don’t.” He took the seat behind me and busied himself with his book until class started.
He kept his distance after that.
I had some regrets about it, because I really like Dominic, but the hot and cold of our strange relationship was actually easier to deal with when it was hot and cold.
Parkwood Panthers killed the Eastwood Rangers Friday night. There was much happiness and celebrating, with a huge bonfire after the game, which is basically a massive fire in the parking lot that people gather around. Our gang had ballooned to 20.
Here’s the list if you’re curious: Kimber and her friends: Claire, Ambree and her brother Taylor, Jayla, and Mika, and there was also Kayley, and her date Luke, Sara and her date Oliver, and Kayley’s other friends: Monica, Lisa, April, Celia, and Jacob, and then I’d invited Erin and Zack from Biology, and Carly who I knew from my old school, and Alaina who I knew from AIM.
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