by Paula Chase
Michael fidgeted against the railing, as if trying to reach an itch. “It was all right.”
Rob took a gulp of bottled water, then wiped his chin with his arm. A small grin played at the corner of his mouth. “You know Maribel was hot that I didn’t go. Once I told her I was going, she definitely wanted to roll through.”
Michael started to ask why he didn’t come, but instead kept it low-key. “Oh yeah?”
Rob nodded. “A friend of hers used to mess with JZ.” His eyes rolled. “Keep in mind, dude totally played her. But she still must have given him a good review, ’cause Maribel was pressed to meet him.” He shook his head, laughing. “She kept saying she wanted to see if he was as cute as his pic. I’m like Mar, day-um, where’s the loyalty to your girl? He dogged her out, hello.”
Michael chuckled politely, conscience now of how loud they were inside. And he didn’t want to act overly relieved that Rob had unofficially called bygones. “That sounds like JZ,” he said. “Kid is like butter with chicks, for real.”
“The thing is, I was going to dip by the party but Madame asked me to fill in for Melias.” He dabbed at his brow with the towel. “I didn’t get out of the performance until eleven-thirty. Mar still wanted to go but I was through.”
So happy to see Rob’s absence wasn’t his fault, Michael admitted it, his grin sheepish.
“Real talk, I thought you were icing me ’cause of what I said Friday night about not auditioning.”
Rob shrugged. He stood up, walked to the back of the stage, and placed his water and towel on the floor, raising his voice to be heard. “Naw, I’m not tripping. It’s your future, Sean Gianni.” He walked over to Michael, his fist extended for a pound. “We cool through whatever.”
Michael grinned. If Rob was calling him by the nickname he’d given Michael when they’d first met, a mixture of Sean John and Gianni Versace—two designers whose work Rob thought Michael’s style resembled—then they were definitely cool again. He knocked fists with Rob, satisfied that his friendships were in order without any casualties.
High from that satisfaction and still infected with the way Rob performed, Michael sat in the Del Rio Bay auditorium the next day, staring at the Carter application through the room’s dimness, an off-key version of “Start of Something New” assaulting his ears. By the time he’d registered the blissful silence when the music halted momentarily, Lizzie was in the seat beside him plucking the paper from his fingers.
“Oh my God, is this an app for the Carter?” Lizzie’s green eyes gleamed as she looked from the paper to Michael. She gushed on as Michael nodded. “Are you thinking of going? For which major? Their art major?”
Michael told her about the new program, speaking in the usual hushed reverence reserved for rehearsals. The last thing he needed was Mr. Collins peering through the darkness from the stage, evil-eying him for disrupting his henpecking disguised as stage directions to the Bay Dra-da cast. A dance number broke into full effect, showering the auditorium in sound, just as he finished.
Lizzie stared wide-eyed at the paper. She held it gingerly in her fingers, as if the paper were made of fragile parchment.
“So you’re thinking of going?” She scowled, rushing on before he had a chance to say anything. “Mike, you’ve gotta go. God, I’d kill to attend the Carter. But you know my ’rents.” She nagged in a nasally passage that sounded nothing like either of her parents, making Michael laugh. “Elizabeth, we’re glad you have an appreciation for the arts, but school is school and theatre is an extracurricular activity.” She reluctantly handed the paper over to Michael and slumped in the seat.
Michael tweaked her shoulder. “It’s all right. Either you’ll end up like Julia Stiles—Columbia graduate actress—or the Olsen twins—NYU dropouts slash actresses.”
He and Lizzie laughed freely within the cover of loud music and dancing.
“It’s definitely going to be Columbia actress then.” Lizzie shook her head, her eyes gazing at the application on Michael’s lap. “My parents would kill me if I dropped out of school for acting.” She plucked the application off his lap, reviewing it as she spoke. “Oooh, did you see this?” She poked her finger at a line on the program’s fact sheet. “There’s housing for the summer students. How cool is that? You could live in DC, on your own, all summer while you go.” Her grin exploded. “Oh my God, that’s so starving-artist. I’m glad we’re good friends because I know you’ll understand when I say I’m so jealous.” Her eyebrows wriggled playfully. “Not like push you down the stairs so I can take your place on stage jealous ... happy for you jealous.”
They laughed, long and hard, trading jokes about theatre-cides, “accidents” befalling leading guys and girls right before showtime, before lapsing into silence. Lizzie’s attention returned to the application. Michael gazed at the stage.
Mr. Collins’s voice, thin and proper, rang bass-less in the auditorium and the music stopped instantly. High-strung and persnickety, he was hands-down one of the least liked teachers in the school among anyone taking advanced math. But here, in the auditorium, the students respected him. Persnickety and high-strung translated to innovative and often well-hailed productions.
The students on stage hung on to Mr. Collins’s every word, anxious to get it right, anxious to please both him and their own thirst for success in the spotlight.
Michael couldn’t blame them. Because of Mr. Collins, Madame Jessamay, and Bay Dra-da, he’d found his place at school. Before joining the troupe’s crew, he’d assumed he was doomed to go through high school feeling like a fish out of water as the clique became increasingly busy with their own schedules.
Until then, his designs had been secret from everyone except Mina because he’d been too afraid JZ would find his stash of drawings and give him grief for sketching girl’s clothing.
I was only thirteen though, he thought to himself, justifying his reluctance to crow about his talent. He shifted in the chair as the old feeling, the icy fear of discovery, wrapped itself around his heart.
His head ticked slowly side to side as he spoke. “But I’m still doing it.”
Lizzie, practically vibrating beside him with excitement, tore her attention away from the application. “Still doing what?”
“Holding back.”
Lizzie frowned. “Umm, are you gonna tell me what you’re talking about or is playing Twenty Questions part of the fun?”
Michael’s smile was tiny, but genuine. He plucked the application from Lizzie’s grip and shook it gently at her. “This. I want to audition, but I’m also kirkin’ out about it.” He talked through Lizzie’s confused gape. “Liz, when Mr. Collins reviewed my designs the first time, I was a wreck. Having people judge my designs is still like ... woah. I’m not used to it.”
“Now you know how I feel every audition.” The giggle in her throat died when she saw the worry crease on Michael’s brow. She rubbed his shoulder. “But Mr. Collins loved your designs, Mike. Who wouldn’t?”
“Thanks.” He shrugged. “I’m just saying, there’s a part of me that’s scared to put myself out there. Rob said there’s already over a hundred candidates. If they’re applying, they must have the talent.”
Lizzie laughed. “Have you never watched reality TV or Bay Dra-da auditions?”
Michael chuckled along. “True.”
He’d sat through enough theatre auditions to know that plenty of people showed up without an ounce of talent. But this wasn’t a Bay Dra-da audition, which he reminded her. “Lizzie, people come from all over to attend the Carter. Trust, they’re gonna have some level of talent.”
“Mike, you have more than ‘some level’ of talent.” Her eyes rolled. “I should be recording this. Next time you go on lecturing me and Mina about something, I can remind you of a time you weren’t Mr. Know-It-All.”
“Shoot, don’t trip.” Michael’s eyebrow popped in mock disapproval. “I do know it all.” He knocked shoulders with Lizzie. “But if you must keep score, go ahead and mark this as the first time
I didn’t have all the answers.”
Lizzie looked toward the stage as her group was called. She stood up. “It’s only because you’re thinking about the answer.” Lizzie’s smile was gentle, apologetic, as if talking to a toddler. “If you just did what your heart wanted, I bet you wouldn’t be questioning what to do.”
“Oh, so what?” Michael grinned. “You gunning for my job as clique guru?”
Lizzie backpedaled up the aisle. “Uh-uh. That job you can have.”
Her laughter was lost in the hundredth run-through of “Bop to the Top.”
“I can do this!”
“And I’m here helplessly in love.”
—Black Eyed Peas, “Don’t Phunk With My Heart”
Twenty-nine.
Thirty.
Thirty-one seconds.
There’s my boo-boo, Mina thought, a huge smile brightening her face as Brian’s image rolled across the television screen for a few fleeting seconds. He was handsome in the dark blue Duke uniform, calf muscles flexing as he ran up the court. The camera even captured the glistening of his thick black curls, damp with sweat.
High-definition was the shiggity.
The picture faded into a commercial with big-busted girl-women in tiny tee shirts, and a sly murmur of approval made its way between JZ, Todd, and Greg.
Mina let their crude boob jokes and Jacinta, Kelly, and Lizzie’s disapproval of them buzz over her head as she restarted the clock on her countdown to the next appearance of Brian’s face on screen.
He’d gotten a lot of playing time, so far. Mina had been rewarded with a camera shot of him every thirty to ninety seconds.
The next best thing to being with Brian was watching him on television. At least that’s what Mina told herself. The Duke game popped back on the screen. She stared intently, trying to ignore the snug seating arrangement on the large sectional sofa. Squeezed between JZ and Kelly, she was surrounded by couples to her left and right.
She’d imagined that having a Duke viewing party would be better than watching the game solo. Color me wrong on that one, she thought.
Instead of gossiping with her girls about the cute players and catching up on the latest DRB dirt, Kelly and Lizzie were in low-voiced discussions with Todd and Greg. They threw Mina a bone every now and then, responding if she said something to them but otherwise lost in their own conversations. She’d stopped bothering twenty minutes ago.
Even Michael, JZ, and Jacinta, her three aces in the hole as the only noncoupled people in the room besides her, had fallen through.
Michael sat in the easy chair, at the end of the sofa, actually into the game.
And JZ was hogging Jacinta. Anytime Mina tried talking to her, JZ, being silly and rude like a kid trying to get his mother’s attention, interrupted.
Not that she’s hating it all that much, Mina thought, sneaking a glance at Jacinta tucked under JZ’s wing.
Mina wriggled, making a breath of space on her quarter of the cushion. JZ spoke up and her arm vibrated from his loud voice, because they were sitting so close together.
“Man, this game sorry.” His arm dipped from around the sofa to Cinny’s shoulder as he analyzed the game. “Florida State’s basketball team ain’t no match for Duke. Look how slow their point guard is and the defense not strong enough.”
“FSU balling better than I’ve seen ’em do before.You gotta give ’em that,” Greg said.
“And Duke not invincible,” Michael said, glad anytime there was actually conversation about the game. He rocked his chair back so the footrest popped up.
JZ scowled. “Sorry-ass Florida State fan.” His eyes, wide, skated toward the door in search of Mina’s parents.
Mina laughed. “That’s what you get, Big Mouth. But they left ten minutes ago.” She shook her head up at him, nagging in close range. “You didn’t notice ’cause you were all up in Cinny’s grill.”
JZ palmed her face, pushing it gently out of his own.
“Ay, first of all, I like FSU’s football team,” Michael corrected, interrupting Mina and JZ’s duel. “Now let me hear you talk smack during football season, punk.”
Todd and Greg laughed, co-signing.
JZ joined in. “You know I don’t mess with Duke during football season,” he said.
“That’s what I thought,” Michael said, snickering.
“Shhh,” Mina said. With some effort, she popped off the sofa, holding her hands up for silence. The camera followed Brian down the court. Clapping, she sang her support. “Go, Brian. Go, Brian. Two points. Two points.”
“Girl, sit down,” JZ said, nudging the back of her thigh with his foot.
She swiped at him, refusing to sit until the camera angle changed to a wide shot of the Duke players running back up the court.
“Are you gonna stand up every time?” JZ scowled. “I’m gon’ miss half the game.”
“You said it was a sorry game, anyway,” Jacinta said coyly. Her eyes twinkled at JZ in a flirtatious wink. She put her hand up for some dap and Mina tapped it with her own.
“It is.” JZ sniffed with indignation. “But if y’all gon’ make a brother come out and watch basketball, at least let me see the game.”
“We could turn to the Georgetown game,” Mina said with a sly smile.
JZ rolled his eyes. “They’re not even playing today.”
“Lucky for you,” Mina said.
JZ bumped hips with her. “Man, whatever.”
“Ow.” Mina smacked his arm. “Stop, boy.”
JZ kept it up, bumping hips, smushing Mina even more between him and Kelly.
“It’s not enough room for you and your phat booty, Mi,” JZ said, an innocent grin on his face. “You’re practically on Kelly’s lap.” He leaned on her, his shoulder pinning her between him, the sofa, and Kelly.
Kelly pushed back, trying to help Mina out, but was no match for JZ’s strength.
Mina pushed at JZ’s strong arms, finally squeezing her way out. She stood up, giving him the evil eye “You’re ignorant.”
She squatted to sit back down and JZ moved quickly to fill the spot, stopping her mid-sit.
“Come on, Jay, stop playing.” She pouted.
“It’s too crowded on the sofa,” he said. “Sit on the ottoman.”
“Here, sit on this side,” Jacinta said, making room.
JZ threw his body across Jacinta’s lap, his long arms stretched out to take up the tiny space meant for Mina.
“I see I need separate y’all two as usual,” Michael said, shaking his head at their antics. “Come on, Mi, sit with me.” He scooted over, leaving a sliver of space for Mina to squeeze in. She settled in and stuck her tongue out at JZ.
In answer, he spread his legs and arms out in the new open space her absence left, grinning devilishly. “Ahhh, that’s better,” he said.
Todd and Greg’s exclamation over a play saved Mina from more taunting.
“Oooh, dude, did you see that?” Todd said. He and Greg high-fived. “Jay, watch the replay, dude. The shot was sick.”
“Did you make me miss Brian making a shot?” Mina asked, threatening.
JZ waved her off, his attention on the game.
The noise level went up as he and the guys analyzed the highlight.
“Brian on fire, ain’t he?” Michael said.
“Uh-huh. Fifteen points, four assists, eight rebounds,” Mina said.
“Dang, I didn’t know you were watching that close!” Michael’s head snapped back as he eyed her, surprised. “Got his stats and everything.”
Mina’s voice rose and she eyed her girlfriends pointedly. “Shoot, not like I have anybody to talk to.”
But her words and Michael’s laughter were lost as the guys’ voices grew more animated and the buzzing of the girls’ mixed in as they began their own conversations.Within seconds, there were several different conversations going on at once on the sofa, an island of couples.
“Oh sure, now they talk among themselves,” Mina said, rolling her ey
es in feigned offense. “Nobody wanted to say a word when I was over there.”
Michael’s eyebrow steepled. “Like you wouldn’t be all hugged up with Brian if he was here.”
Mina scowled in mock disagreement before smiling wide. “You know I would.”
“Leave ’em alone.You’re just stuck with me tonight.”
Mina patted his thigh. “That’s swazy too.” She fidgeted until she faced Michael, her hip corked into the crevice of the easy chair, their faces only a foot apart. “You never asked me what I thought about Rob. Scared I didn’t like him?”
“Shoot, I figured you would have turned in your report already. But go ahead.” His eyes probed hers, brightening when she gave a thumbs-up.
“I like him. He rolled like he’d been chilling with us forever.” Her voice rose, high-pitched with excitement. “You know I love anybody who can hang tight with the clique. Oh my God, but if he doesn’t remind me of you, I don’t know who he reminds me of.”
Michael’s chest shook as he chuckled under his breath.
“Uh-huh, you know exactly what I mean.” Mina’s laughter mixed with the growing noise of the clique. “He was cracking on stuff and people like he’d known us forever. I was tripping off how straightforward he is.”
“Yeah, that’s just him though.” Michael nodded toward their rowdy friends. “What did they think?”
“Everybody said he was cool.” Mina leaned in and pressed against Michael’s shoulder. “So that means you can stop hiding him and invite him over more often.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Michael said with a gentle shoulder nudge. “I told you, he’s who I chill with to get away from y’all.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mina rolled her eyes, then lowered her voice. “Jess thinks he’s gay. She called him your boyfriend. But you know that’s just Jess, always think she knows people’s business.” Mina pretended not to see the disapproval in Michael’s knitted brow. She rambled on to fill the awkward pause. “It’s official, though. I like him. If I ever need to replace you, I’ll give him a call.” She wriggled her shoulder against him to get a laugh, but Michael’s return smile was weak.