by Jen Klein
“But then what do I say?” I asked.
“You fell in love with theater, you wanted to hang out with Ella, whatever. It won’t matter. The deed will be done.”
Now, however, I’m wondering if not telling Tuck was a stupid move.
We finally arrive at my new summer home. It’s located on Crestline Drive, in a large gray block of an apartment building. Ella’s parents’ van sidles past the patchy-grassed lawn out front and into the cracked-asphalt parking lot in the back. “Here we are!” Mr. Reynolds chirps, turning off the engine.
Ella shoulders her canvas messenger bag. “This is our stop.” She climbs out ahead of me.
I look through the van’s window. A giant black dumpster graces the rear of the concrete apartment building. Someone has spray-painted what might be gang symbols on its side. On the second floor, where Ella’s sister Annette lives, a wooden deck runs along the entire building. At various intervals, I see the following: five half-melted candles and three ashtrays on the top rail, two dangly wind chimes, a long-haired brunette talking on her cell phone, a guy playing what I think is a banjo, and a giant tie-dyed sheet apparently being used as a privacy screen.
It looks like a camp for wayward hippies.
Mr. Reynolds slings the strap of Ella’s duffel bag over his shoulder and then heads toward the building with Mrs. Reynolds. “This is Annette’s third year here,” he calls back to us. “She loves it.”
We make our way up to the deck, where Mrs. Reynolds knocks on the door to apartment number eighteen. Only a second passes before it flies open and Annette leaps out with hugs for everyone, including my parents and me. “Oh my gosh, you’re all grown up!” she exclaims as she pulls back from our one-sided embrace.
I stare at her. Annette used to babysit me when I was little. My parents loved her because she was so strict. Even on the occasions when Annette brought Ella with her so we could play, she always made us go to sleep exactly at bedtime, and she never sneaked us candy, like the other sitters. She was nice enough, but she wasn’t exactly fun…which I’m pretty sure is why my parents agreed to let me stay in Olympus for the summer: because hard-core Annette would be in charge.
The Annette of my memories was also rather plain. She didn’t use makeup, her hair was always in a ponytail, and she wore dark-rimmed glasses that tried to be artsy but were more librarian. Current Annette still doesn’t wear makeup, but she also doesn’t have glasses or a ponytail. Her hair—the same light brown as Ella’s—is now long and straight, with sideswept bangs. She’s…pretty. Hard-core, no-candy, bedtime-tyrant Annette is now pretty.
“Well, I am sixteen,” I tell her.
“Of course you are.” Annette gives me a patient smile. “It’s just that it’s been a long time.”
Thankfully, the inside of Annette’s—I mean, our—apartment is nicer than the exterior led me to believe. Daisy-patterned curtains cover the windows. There are cobalt-blue throw pillows arranged neatly on the sofa and papasan chair in the living room to our right. A bamboo coffee table holds a set of glass coasters that match the pillows. The walls are hung with framed pressed flowers…and also with a calendar featuring a bald man in his underwear eating spaghetti. Annette laughs when she catches me looking at it. “The guys at the restaurant where I work made those. Aren’t they funny?”
None of the parents bat an eye, so I lean closer and flip through it. Yep, twelve photos of squishy dudes playing with pasta. Hawt.
I’m starting to feel better about the living situation until we delve further into the apartment. Namely, the bedrooms. Mine is small—which I’d expected—but it also has two twin beds that make the floor space extra cramped. I heft a suitcase onto the bed by the door. Might as well use it as extra storage space, since the closet and the dresser are also tiny—
“That’s cool.” Ella slings her duffel bag onto the far bed. “I’d rather be by the windows.”
“We’re sharing a room?” Ella’s eyebrows shoot up, making me instantly regret the question. Yes, I am aware that many people the world over share rooms, but I’ve never been one of them. I am an only child, which means that I was expelled from the womb and immediately put into my own bassinet. I’ve always had solo space. Always.
Ella gives me a funny look. “Did you think you’d share with Annette?”
Actually, I thought she would share with Annette—since they’re siblings and all—but I don’t say it. I only shake my head and go back to the main living area.
Annette brings out iced tea for everyone, and we all sit around for a while, being extraordinarily polite, while she goes over the house rules: no parties, no boys, no alcohol (apparently Tyrant Annette isn’t dead after all), and we have to come right home after the show every night. We’re less than a mile from the theater, and it’s well lit the entire way, so we can walk or I can drive us. Dad gives Mom a nervous glance at that information, but she squeezes his hand and he settles back against the cobalt pillows.
“Rainie, keep your cell phone on you at all times,” Mom reminds me.
“Should we get her pepper spray?” Dad asks. Ella smirks at his question.
The parents hang out for a little longer. My dad wants to take everyone out to lunch, but the Reynoldses say they need to get back down the mountain because Ella and Annette’s little sister has a soccer game.
As Ella’s parents are getting ready to go, mine pull me out onto the wooden deck. “Shall we go over the final points of the Great Negotiation?” My father is referring to the series of discussions I’d endured before receiving my parents’ stamp of approval on my summer plans.
“Please, no.”
“It’s like joining a sports team.” Mom brushes an imaginary strand of hair out of my eyes, which is something she does when she wants to touch me but doesn’t know how it will be received. “People are counting on you.”
“You have to follow through,” Dad says. “The whole summer.”
“I know.” Because we’ve been over it. A lot.
“Also, it’s the key to continuing to own a car for your senior year.” Dad makes a face that I think is supposed to be hard-ass. “No follow-through, no car.”
“I get it,” I tell him. “I’ll stay here and be a part of the team.”
“We know you can have a productive summer,” Mom says. “We know you can be successful.”
“And by ‘be successful,’ we mean ‘finish.’ ” Dad swoops me into a hug. “We’ll miss you.”
Against all sense, my throat tightens. I allow Dad to hold me a second longer than I normally would before I pull away.
“Have a good time in Europe,” I tell them both.
Twenty minutes later, Ella and I watch from the deck as the Reynoldses’ van cruises through the parking lot and disappears around the building, taking all four of our parents in it. “Bye,” Ella says, and I’m surprised to hear it come out in a strangled whisper. I’m about to ask if she’s okay, but instead we’re both simultaneously startled and silenced by the sound of Annette’s voice in the apartment behind us. It’s not the calm, authoritative tone I’ve known since my childhood—the one saying, “No, you cannot have another drink of water, go back to bed.” Instead, it’s a loud war whoop followed by one word delivered in a deafening screech:
“Biiiiiiiiiiiiiitches!”
Ella and I whirl as Annette careens through the doorway. She has one open bottle of beer in her left hand, and two in her right. On her face is a giant, victorious grin. She slaloms over and hands a bottle to each of us. “I have three words for y’all.” She performs a little dance move that is half hip-shake and half shimmy. “You. Are. Welcome.”
Without any parents around to witness them, Annette’s true rules are a lot less tyrannical: “Be quiet when I’m asleep, and don’t steal my booze.”
Ella doesn’t seem fazed at all by her sister’s remarkable change of attitude, but I’m shocked. Pleasantly so.
However, by the time the next morning’s sunlight is peeking between the p
lastic vertical blinds of the bedroom I now share with Ella, I’m more than ready to get out. The apartment’s walls are already closing in on me. It doesn’t help that I’m exhausted after a night of sleeping only in fits and starts. Not a great way to start the summer with Tuck.
I pull on the clothes I chose last night—jeans and a tank top for a deliberately casual look—and slide my feet into raspberry Havaianas. I spend twenty minutes trying to pull my hair into a ponytail with just the right amount of escaped tendrils before giving up and letting it hang in curly waves down my back. Maybe I’ll catch a break and it’ll turn out that Tuck loves chicks with messy hair.
By eight o’clock, I’ve strolled up Nine Muses Street—which is what substitutes for a downtown area in Olympus—and am pushing open the door to Barney’s Bagelry. A little bell heralds my entrance with a ching-ching. I walk past a bulletin board filled with advertisements for room shares and art shows and mountain-bike rentals. I order a steaming mug of coffee from a young bearded guy wearing a baseball cap with Lug Nut embroidered on it.
The vibe in Olympus is really confusing.
On the rear wall is a set of swinging saloon doors. A small hand-lettered sign beside it says Gallery and More Seating, but I decide not to go exploring. I also eschew the handful of stools and tables in this room, instead settling into a vinyl beanbag in the corner. I set my mug on the conveniently located—but weird—carved stump beside me so I can have my hands free to dork around the Zeus! website on my iPad. I click on a photo and stare at the toga-clad Tuck that fills my screen. Muscles, hair, spear? Check, check, check. Clues to how he will react to my appearance in Olympus?
Nothing.
It all happened so fast that I haven’t had time to formulate a plan. Do I greet Tuck with a hello? A hug? An extended hug? I swipe Toga Tuck away so I can scan through his other pictures when—
“Hey, I took those.”
—a male voice comes from behind me. As I scramble to close out of the site, I register someone plopping into the nearest beanbag. Long jean-covered legs stretch out, and a black Chuck Taylor bumps my foot. “Sorry,” the guy says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt—” He stops because I’ve gotten my iPad shut down and now we’re staring at each other. “I know you.”
He does, and I know him too. It’s Ella’s dark-haired ex-boyfriend, who, now that I’m seeing him in broad daylight, looks even hotter than he did the first time I met him.
“Rainie.” I nod to him. “Wendell’s party.”
He grins at me. “Blue dress.”
I’m startled into a pause, oddly touched that this random boy remembers what I was wearing two weeks ago. Although…
“It was gray.” Okay, so he only kinda remembers the dress.
But apparently he remembers me.
“Milo.” He extends a hand over the stump that our coffee mugs are now sharing. “What are you doing here?”
I shake his hand, realizing he’s asking about the town, not the coffee shop. “I’m working at the theater.”
“Cool!” He lights up. “Another Dobbsian in Olympus—I like it. What’s your gig?”
“Um.” I scramble to remember my job title. “Actor-technician.”
“Very formal.” He cocks his head. “You’re not a drama girl, are you?” My answer must be broadcast all over my face, because he grins. “Then why did you come here?”
“I just…” I think fast. “I want to be a drama girl.”
This time, Milo laughs out loud. “Just like that? You heard a clarion call to the stage?”
It does sound a little silly.
“Sort of,” I tell him. “Our school does this thing where the theater class has to write and perform their own monologues.”
“Oh yeah?” Milo looks interested, so I forge ahead with my story that is partially true but also partially a lie (again, depending on how you look at it).
“Yeah. They were really good this year. Everyone loved them.” I don’t mention Sarah or Marin or their snoring. “One of the monologues really got to me.”
Milo pulls his knees up to his body and wraps his long arms around them. “That’s cool.”
“Yeah, and then I started thinking about all the performances I’ve seen at our school. How fun it seems, how the theater kids are all bonded.” Milo is nodding along, which makes me decide I might as well go for broke. “My friends and I went to Wendell’s party, and everyone was really nice—” (mostly true) “and normal—” (not at all true) “and friendly” (unclear, since I didn’t talk to anyone else once Tuck arrived). “So there was no clarion or anything, but Ella said she could hook me up, and I wanted to check it out. To be a part of it…” I trail off, looking at Milo looking at me. “What?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I just like your reasoning, that’s all.” He takes a sip from his mug—which, from the smell, I can tell is hot chocolate—and sets it back down. “What was the monologue about?”
“Huh?” Of course I know what he’s asking, but I’m buying time. Not sure how to answer when my interpretation of it—the reason I feel like Tuck understands me—is all about what a hot mess I am. That’s not something I’m going to admit to a cute stranger.
“The one that made you pay attention.” Milo cocks his head again, smiling at me. “That monologue.”
“I couldn’t really do it justice in an explanation,” I tell him. “But you should ask Tuck Brady about it. I bet he’d let you read it.”
“Good for Tuck. He was freaking out about that piece.” Milo rises to his feet, slinging a camera strap across his shoulder. “I’m walking over. You wanna come with? I will be so kind as to regale you with pro tips.”
“Pro tips?”
“So you know which way to go when someone says ‘exit stage left.’ ”
“Yes, please.” I shove my iPad into my backpack and scramble up. “I would love to not look like a complete fraud.”
•••
Nine Muses Street is adjacent to Blue Ridge University—where Annette is a student—and is strewn with stores selling incense and herbal tea and clothing made out of hemp. Milo points out a green-awninged restaurant called McKay’s as the gathering place of choice for Zeus! company members. “Decent food and, apparently, cheap drinks if you have a fake ID.”
“Do you have one?”
“Please.” He shoots me a sideways glance. “A Mexican American guy in the South? I like to stay on the right side of the law.”
“Fair.” I don’t have a fake either. I’ve never needed one at house parties or to snag an occasional taste of something from my parents’ liquor cabinet when Sarah and Marin are over. Plus, I’m not a big drinker. I don’t love the idea of potentially doing something stupid in front of other people. “So this isn’t your first year at Olympus?”
“Nope, my seventeenth.”
“What?!”
“Turn right, here.” Milo guides me around a corner and onto a busier street lined with fast-food places and campus parking-lot entrances. “I was six weeks old the first time my mom carried me onstage. She and Dad met selling refreshments at a summer stock theater in Roanoke when they were kids. They fell in love with it, and now we spend summers here. It’s like this weird working family vacation. Mom’s in the front office, and Dad helps build the set.” Milo hits the pedestrian button at the intersection by the big Blue Ridge University sign that graces the front of the college campus. “You know, I should warn you that not everyone might think it’s cute, how you don’t know anything about theater.”
He thinks I’m cute?
“The auditions and callbacks and interviews—they’re kind of a big deal. You might not want to mention that Ella got you in the back door.” As we cross the street, Milo pulls a purple bandanna out of his back pocket and ties it onto his head, do-rag-style, shoving pieces of his black hair under it. It makes me realize that I’m starting to get sticky warm. It’s going to be a hot, humid day. It also makes me realize that—
“You look like a p
irate,” I tell him, and then immediately wish I hadn’t, because it seems odd, somehow. Because—
“A lot of people think pirates are hot.”
Because that’s why.
Milo grins down at me. “I’ll take it.”
To be fair, it’s not a wrong assessment.
He gestures to the long sidewalk in front of us…the one that slants up at almost a forty-five-degree angle. “Almost there.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” If I feel sticky now, I’m going to be disgusting by the time I actually start the first day of my job. Also, my breath is coming harder than I’d like it to.
I’m a mess.
“You’ll get used to it.” Milo nudges me. “Altitude.”
I certainly hope that’s the case, because by the time we reach the Olympus Theater parking lot, ringed with thick oak trees and dotted with cars, I feel like I ran a marathon. Forget messy chicks. I hope Tuck has a thing for vile, sweaty slimeballs.
Dammit.
I turn to Milo, again going with a half-truth. “I maybe don’t want to be gross for my first day on the job.”
“I don’t think you’re gross.”
For no reason, I flush when he says it.
“Is there a ladies’ room?”
“On the other side.” Milo points at a long, low brown building, in front of which stands a line of people waiting before a folding table. “When you’re done, sign in at the table. See you in there.”
He turns and lopes away. Belatedly, I call after him. “Thank you!”
I do the best I can in the bathroom with a sink, a cloudy mirror, and some paper towels, but I’m still not in prime condition when I come out and join the line. A couple of minutes later, I’m standing before the folding table, where a lady with gray curly pigtails checks names off a list on a clipboard. She hands me a packet of papers, I sign a form, and—just like that—I’m a company member of Zeus!