by Beth Vrabel
Jackson whistled again and I jumped to my feet to clap for her. I was proud of my brave friend.
Sarah stood. The hostess gave her a huge hug and whispered something in her ear before announcing a small intermission before more performers would take the stage. As Sarah walked back to our seats, Harp and Lila stood, both clapping for her. She stood at the end of our row of chairs as Jackson hugged her and then me.
When my arms dropped, she moved to slide in front of me to her seat. Sarah’s eyes widened and a small noise escaped her throat. And I knew before I even turned around what—or rather, who—she saw. I had been so caught up in Sarah’s performance, so sure I was in the clear, I had forgotten to look for Kara.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” I said, grabbing each of her arms in my hands. “I’m so sorry.”
But Sarah didn’t look at me. I’m not sure she even heard me, though Jackson did.
“What did you do, Pipi?” The disgust was plain in his voice.
Soon Kara was standing beside us. “Well,” she said, “when Pipi gave me the heads-up that you’d be here, I never thought you’d be planning something like this. A club, really? That is so not going to happen. Everyone at school is going to know, Sarah! How could you be so selfish! People are going to talk.”
Around us, the people attending the open mic quieted. The happy murmuring stopped, and the air suddenly felt thick.
Kara’s mom sauntered down the aisle, her arms crossed. “It’s time for us to leave. Come with me,” she said to Kara. “You, too, Sarah. Let’s go home.”
Sarah shook her head. Jackson piped in, “My dad’s going to give us a ride home.”
Kara’s mom lifted her chin. She acted like she didn’t even see Jackson. “Now, Sarah.” Again, Sarah shook her head. Estelle leaned in, her mouth an inch from Sarah’s ear. “It’s bad enough that you air your dirty laundry in public. Do not make a scene.”
“Dirty laundry?” Harp said. “Are you serious?” Lila motioned for them to step back, but Harp stayed put.
Estelle acted like she didn’t hear them.
“If you need a ride home, kid, we can help,” Harp said to Sarah.
Estelle straightened. “My niece will be coming home with me.”
“No,” Sarah said. Her voice was quiet but firm. “I’m going home with Jackson. Please leave.”
Kara sighed. “Are you serious?” Sarah stared down at her feet. I watched as a tear fell from her face and hit the floor.
After what felt like forever but was probably just a few seconds, Estelle turned and marched out of the room with Kara following. She held her cell phone to her ear.
“I’m so sorry!” I gushed to Sarah. “I didn’t know what you were going to say! I didn’t know for sure they’d be here.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I told you, though. I told you how much this”—she gestured around the room, now emptying of people—“meant to me. I told you.”
“I had to,” I said. “You don’t understand, if I didn’t do what she wanted—”
Sarah held up her hand. “It doesn’t matter, Pipi. Whatever your reason, it doesn’t matter. You took this moment from me, and I can’t get it back.”
“But it’s not like they didn’t already know! I mean the only new thing is the club and—”
Sarah ran to the bathroom in the back of the room. The hostess watched her and then glanced at us. Quickly, she followed Sarah.
“You don’t get it,” Harp said. “The ‘coming out,’ it never stops. It’s all the time. And it sounds like Sarah’s family didn’t take it the way they should’ve. This was a chance to feel loved. To feel supported.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, but Harp and Lila turned away. I pivoted to Jackson, pulling on his arm. “Listen,” I said, “if you understood—”
“Save it, Pipi,” Jackson said.
We rode home in silence. Jackson’s dad said, “So, uh… the spoken word didn’t go well, I take it.”
Jackson stared out the window but said, “Mostly, it was awesome.”
Sarah didn’t look at me. Her cheeks were wet.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I spent the rest of the weekend holding Myrtle the Turtle and wishing I could papier-mâché myself a shell. Every couple of hours, I checked my phone to see if anyone texted me. No one did.
I texted Tasha late Sunday night. How are you?
Almost immediately, I saw the three dots.
I added: I messed up.
The dots disappeared.
I called Sarah over and over, without a single response. After dozens of apologies, I added: I messed up, but the club is a great idea. It’s a really great idea.
I couldn’t get Harp’s words out of my mind. I had stolen this from Sarah. Even worse? I had used her the same way I had been willing to use Eliza to get back at Kara. Just like Kara, I manipulated people to get what I wanted.
On Monday, I waited for Sarah at her bus line. She paused when she saw me and then turned her back to walk away.
“Wait!” I rushed behind her. “Sarah, wait, okay? Let me explain!”
Someone tapped my shoulder from behind. Kara, of course.
“And just what would you explain?” She crossed her arms.
“I’m going to tell her the truth.” I backed away from Kara. “That if I didn’t tell you about the open mic, you’d get Eliza fired.”
“Which I’ll still do unless you keep your mouth shut,” Kara snapped. She fluffed her hair. “Besides, what do you care? You’ve been friends with Sarah for, what? A month? She’s my cousin.”
“You know that makes it a thousand times worse, don’t you?” I said. “She loves you; you hurt her for no reason.”
Kara shrugged. “She shouldn’t have kept secrets from me.”
“Sarah should’ve been able to talk to you when she wanted to.”
“And who’s to blame for that?” Kara raised a painted-on eyebrow.
“Both of us,” I said.
“Whatever.” Kara rolled her eyes. “Of course, Aunt Belle said it’s all just fine. That Sarah can be whoever she is everywhere she is.” She crossed her arms again. “Can you believe she actually kicked Mom out of the house? Mom was trying to protect her, to let her know what had happened and how starting a club like that would mean everyone would know and it’d affect Sarah forever, even if it turns out that she’s just conf—”
“She isn’t confused! Didn’t you listen to anything she said?”
Kara rolled her eyes. “Aunt Belle kicked me and my mom out! Her own sister and niece!”
After two days of nonstop worrying, my face felt like it was splintering at the sudden grin that popped up on it. “I would’ve liked to have seen that.”
Kara glared at me. Her nostrils flared for a second, and then it was like her face shifted into a stony smile. She linked her arm into mine and squeezed it against her side as I tried to shimmy it free. “You spent this whole year trying to get revenge on Sarah, Jackson, and me. Congratulations, you succeeded.” She shrugged. “Now, let’s stop talking about Sarah and start thinking about Frau Jacobs.”
“I’m done,” I snapped. “I gave you what you wanted for both of them. What you do now is up to you.” I yanked my arm out of hers.
Kara moved so she stood in front of me, blocking my escape. The fake sugary smile vanished, and her arms crossed. “You want out? Fine. But you’ve got to stay out. Stay away from Sarah. Stay away from Jackson. Do that, and I won’t bring up Eliza again.”
“They hate me now,” I said.
“Great. Keep it that way.” Her snake smile stretched. “Now, if you’re not going to help me with Frau Jacobs, get out of my way.”
“Can’t you just stop all of this? I mean, enough people have been hurt. Let’s just move on.”
“Move on?” Kara cocked an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I said. “Move on.”
“Yeah, why don’t you do that, Pipi McGee?”
“I will,” I said, more than a little surprise
d at Kara’s warm smile. “Can you? I mean, let this go with Frau? With me? I’m sorry, okay, if that’s what it takes. I’m sorry.”
“Aww. Thanks.” Kara smiled. “You know, seeing Sarah on stage on Friday? It was really empowering. It’s a shame that the school took that away from Frau Jacobs so many years ago.” She shrugged. “I’m going to make sure she gets the welcome back to the stage that she deserves.”
I stood in the hall, letting streams of students pass by me and waiting until the last possible moment to go into homeroom. Kara practically sprinted down the hall ahead of me.
When I finally got to the classroom, Kara stood by Frau Jacobs. She had one earbud in her ear. The other was in Frau Jacobs’s ear. Both of them swayed to the music.
Sarah sat in her usual seat, smiling at something the girl beside her was saying. She looked totally normal, like nothing in the world was bothering her. Jackson glanced my way, scowled, and turned around. Despite Kara’s sneers about everyone finding out about Sarah’s poem, I hadn’t heard any rumors or whispers about her. I knew no one from the bookstore would repeat it, and besides, no one from school aside from Jackson, Kara, and me had been there.
Principal Hendricks came over the intercom with the morning announcements and again talked about the talent show. “Don’t forget, students and staff, today is the last day to sign up for this Friday’s talent show! Sign-up sheet is outside the office.”
Kara nudged Frau Jacobs, who blushed and waved her hand like she was brushing away a gnat. But when I swung by the office at the end of the day (to make sure my name was still next to Jackson’s and Sarah’s), Frau Jacobs’s name was on the talent show sheet.
After school, Mom told me the basketball team had decided to stick with weight training and wouldn’t need me to lead spin classes for them anymore. Mom scheduled me to instead lead for the Fab Over Fifty spin class. I was so not into it that one of the women threw her towel at me. “We’re old, not dead,” she snapped.
The next day, I told Coach that I didn’t want to be team manager anymore. She nodded. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and the team, but maybe that would be for the best.” And that’s how I knew everyone was talking about me.
I didn’t tell Mom or Dad I had quit. Instead, I spent the time I was supposed to be at practices in the art room, working on the wings. I listened to that opera, Elektra. The first time, I watched it on YouTube, taking in the subtitles. Then I just listened to the soundtrack.
On Tuesday and Thursday, Sarah somehow managed to be on the other side of the kindergarten classroom the entire time we volunteered. Jackson shot me a look every once in a while, something between disgust and pity. On Thursday, as we waited for the bus to take us back to the high school, I confronted Sarah and Jackson.
“Look,” I said. “I’m going to back out of the talent show tomorrow, okay? You guys can perform, but I’m going to—”
“No,” Sarah said, even though Jackson had started to nudge her in the side. She shook her head at him and then looked at me with eyes so cold I could’ve mistaken her for Kara. “We’re doing the show together. All three of us.” Not meeting my eyes, she added, “Bring the wings you’re working on. Jackson says they’re awesome.”
“Are you okay, Sarah?” I asked. “I mean, I know you got in that fight, but I see you with Kara at lunch, and if you need to talk or—”
Sarah glared at me. “Kara and I are fine.” She smiled, but again, she looked just like her cousin. “We’re fine, too, Pipi. I want you on that stage with me.”
“I don’t have to be there,” I said. “I could bring the wings and not be there.” But Sarah was already turning away.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I heard Jackson ask her.
Sarah nodded. “She deserves it.”
She is such a better person than you, my brain whispered, which of course made me feel even worse.
Ricky still sat next to me on the bus, but we didn’t talk. His arm pressed against mine and it was all I could do not to lean into it.
A few of the sixth and seventh graders must not have gotten the text that I was back to being a social pariah, because kids still purposefully swatted at me or tugged on a piece of hair in the hall for luck. But by the middle of the week, that had mostly petered out as well.
In fact, by Thursday afternoon no one would even look at me. I wasn’t a laughingstock anymore. I was invisible.
I had gone straight to the art room during lunch every day that week. Every day, I thought I’d finally paint the wings. But every day, they seemed too small. I added more, making them stretch just a little bit farther until they were so big the art teacher had to help me hang them from a rolling wardrobe hanger since the stand I had been using wasn’t strong enough to keep them upright.
But you know what? They were beautiful. They were so beautiful.
“Are they done?” I turned to see Jason, the high school boy, as he popped his head in the art room on Thursday afternoon. “A club we started at the high school is going to expand here next year, so we were meeting with Principal Hendricks. Thought I’d check on the wings.”
I shook my head. “Not done. Still a work in progress.”
We both stared at the wings. He smiled. “Maybe that’s the point.”
On Friday, the day of the talent show, I stood in front of them. They were slightly bigger still.
“Well, the talent show’s about to begin,” I told the wings. “You’re not finished. You’re all out of proportion. And you’ve got nothing attached to you. Are you ready?”
The wings didn’t answer.
I was prepping to roll the wings down to the stage when Jackson and Sarah showed up in the art room.
“Hey!” I rushed toward them. “You’re here!”
Jackson just nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Figured you could use some help getting the wings backstage.”
I had wrapped the wings in black fabric to protect them from any dings along the way. And, yeah, to keep them a surprise when they were rolled out onstage during our performance. I had texted both Jackson and Sarah last night: Want to meet to rehearse before the show? All over school that week, I had spotted kids working on their performances together—and I’d seen Jackson and Sarah together, of course—but no one was talking to me. Sarah had replied: We each get five minutes. You, me, Jackson. You explain the wings, we’ll read our poems. No rehearsal needed.
I texted back. Are you reading the same poem, Sarah? I hope so.
Neither of them had replied. I wanted to ask again now; the squeaking wheels of the cart were the only sound between us. Jackson’s lips moved silently as he rehearsed his poem, but Sarah was completely stone-faced. I wimped out and didn’t ask.
Once we got backstage, I checked out the schedule of performers posted on a corkboard beside the curtain. There were four acts before Frau Jacobs performed, and then Jackson, Sarah, and I were last. A kid in sixth grade juggled red bouncy balls. A seventh-grade girl twirled in a pink leotard and matching cowgirl hat. A trio of girls in my grade worked on their dance steps. A sixth-grade math teacher smiled to himself, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter, as he flipped through notes on index cards.
Sarah grabbed the other end of the wardrobe roller from Jackson. Without meeting my eyes, she said, “We’re going to enter from stage right with the wings. You enter stage left.” She motioned across the stage. “The theater teacher said it’ll be more dramatic that way.”
I squinted across the stage. The curtain was down, but I could hear kids filing in. “Shouldn’t we stick together?”
Sarah cocked her head to the side. “Are you calling me a liar now?”
“What? No, I just—”
“Go, Pipi,” Jackson said. “The theater teacher sent another person over there, too. She said entering from different sides ups the tension or something.”
I paused, scanning both of their faces. “Are we okay? I mean, we haven’t talked.”
The theater teacher, wearing
a big headset and holding a clipboard, clapped her hands and called for everyone to get to their spots. Sarah nodded toward the other side of the stage. I grabbed for the wardrobe.
“No,” Sarah said. “We’ll bring the wings out.”
I squinted at her. “But they’re my part of the performance.”
“It takes two people to push them, and you’re the only one over there,” Sarah said. “Would you just go?”
I darted across the stage. My hands were sweaty and my stomach squiggly at the idea of everyone staring at my wings, but mostly my heart just thumped with worry at Sarah’s fierce expression. Would she ever forgive me? Would I ever be able to explain to her why I told Kara about the open mic? Would she believe me that I didn’t have a choice? I gulped away the guilt that insisted I had a choice. I could’ve told Sarah the truth.
I stepped up to the edge of the stage and peeked behind the drawn curtain. Kara was in the audience, flitting from row to row, whispering and laughing like a toxic butterfly. After she left, whoever she was talking with turned and talked to the person next to them, always laughing. The hair on my arms stood up and I shivered. What was she up to?
One by one, eighth-grade kids—the ones Kara had just talked to—trickled from the side of the auditorium toward the stage. A few seconds later, they went back, laughing and whispering to the people around them.
I spotted Principal Hendricks enter the auditorium, ushering families to the front two rows. Mom and Dad hadn’t told me they were going to be here! Alec spotted me peeking and waved. He winked and pointed to me, which I didn’t understand until I felt a little poke on the back of my thigh that made me jump into the air and squeal. I turned around to see Annie standing just behind me.
“Hey,” she said.
“What are you doing back here?” I whispered.
Her eyes slid from side to side, then she said, “Spying.”
“Well, you better get back to your seat. The talent show’s going to start soon.”