Exit Stage Left

by Nall, Gail

So I climb over Amanda and Trevor and sink into the free seat. I squeeze as much to the right as possible to get closer to Trevor and far, far away from Steve-o, who reeks of pot and smirks at me when I sit down.

  “Long time, no see,” he says as his brother peers around him and stares at me.

  I ignore them both, yank my phone from my purse, and text Harrison.

  Where R U?!!!!!!! I need backup!

  I glare at the screen until he replies.

  Sick. Got flu. Or maybe the plague.

  Srsly? Pathetic excuse.

  Glad u miss me.

  Am by myself here. All ur fault. I squish myself closer to Trevor, who’s whispering something to Amanda.

  Not by yrself. A there. Gs r there. And scary cousin.

  A trying 2 ignore T. Gs can’t form sentences. Oliver here. I don’t say anymore on that subject.

  Then get him 2 b yr backup. Have 2 go puke now.

  That’s hilarious. Really hilarious, Harrison. I sneak a look down the row, avoiding locking eyes with Johnny Grimaldi, to see if Oliver can somehow sense that I’m thinking about him. Again. But the lights have dimmed for the movie, and I can barely even see him over everyone else.

  I shove the phone into my purse. Why didn’t Harrison warn me he wasn’t coming? Probably because he knows I’d have gone and dragged him out of his house. He’s probably faking because he was afraid of the scary Grimaldi cousin. And she doesn’t even look all that scary. She’s more Selena Gomez than Snooki.

  And, Harrison was supposed to be my ride home. Although . . . that totally opens up the possibility for Trevor to drive me home. That’s not so bad.

  I glance at Trevor, who’s looking at the screen. Sitting here next to him, like we’ve done a million times before, feels so right. He’s got a big tub of popcorn in his lap. I snake my hand over—making sure to brush his arm—and grab some.

  “Thanks,” I whisper.

  He gives me about half of his usual smile and turns back to the movie. Okay. Well, better than nothing, I guess. I drop the popcorn into my mouth—and nearly choke on the massive amount of butter that clogs my throat.

  I force myself to swallow the fat-laden stuff and lean over to whisper in Trevor’s ear, “What’s with the butter?” He never got butter on his popcorn before, because he knows I hate it. And he knows I like to steal some from him.

  “Hmm?” He’s still watching the movie.

  I put a hand on his arm to get his attention. And to, well, put a hand on his arm. “The butter?”

  “Oh yeah,” he whispers without looking at me. “Amanda said she liked it.”

  I’m sorry, what? I lean forward and glare across Trevor at my friend. Except she’s watching the movie too, and doesn’t even notice. As I sit back, Trevor moves the popcorn toward her and shakes it. She holds up her hand in the universal sign for no.

  Okay. I take some more deep breaths. Seriously, if I have to keep up this deep-breathing stuff, I can join Mom at yoga and be a pro at it. Hmm . . . I wonder if there’s any future in yoga. Somehow I doubt that’s a major I can declare in community college, but I make a mental note to look into it anyway.

  Once I’m calm enough not to climb right over Trevor and grab Amanda and shake her, demanding, Why is he buying the popcorn you like? I sort through the facts in my head. Just because he bought buttery popcorn doesn’t mean she asked to share it. So it’s not fair for me to be mad at her. Trevor’s just confused, that’s all. And it’s my job to make him un-confused.

  I stuff my feelings of jealousy toward my best friend down into the part of my soul where I store things I don’t want to think about. Like Oliver. My dad. My sheer desperation to find a purpose to my life. My general anger at Ms. Sharp, and even more jealousy toward Amanda for taking away the thing I loved most, even if she didn’t mean to.

  I need to focus on the Right Now. And right now, I need to remind Trevor that we belong together.

  The movie is a lame monster film, which Trevor seems totally engrossed in. He’s got a Coke in the cup holder between him and Amanda. I lean across him in a way that’s sure to make as much body contact as possible, and reach for the drink.

  “Thanks,” I say before I take a sip.

  He just sort of grunts, eyes still on the screen.

  Okay. Time to break out the big guns. I stretch across him again to replace the drink, pretend to lose my balance, and steady myself by reaching out to place one hand on his chest and the other on his knee.

  “Shit, Casey, you knocked over the popcorn,” he says in a voice that’s louder than a whisper.

  The people in front of us turn around and glare. I look down, my hands still on him. Sure enough, the tub of popcorn that was sitting between his knees is sideways, and fluffy pieces of popcorn blanket the floor like snow.

  “Sorry,” I say snippily. I make sure to slide my hands off as slowly as possible as I sit back down.

  Which he doesn’t even acknowledge. Instead he says, “When did you turn into such a klutz?”

  My face heats up, and I’m grateful it’s dark in the theater. Almost instantly, the embarrassment turns into anger. “And when did you turn into such an asshole? Oh wait, you already were one.”

  Trevor tenses up, probably ready with a comeback, but the guy in front of him turns around to glare again, and he settles for crunching up the popcorn bucket.

  I can practically feel the smirk radiating off Steve-o as I cross my arms and fume and try to watch the movie. I want normal, but why does normal have to be so freaking hard?

  After the credits roll, I lag behind the group as we walk across the parking lot to the ice cream place, waving the trail of Steve-o’s cigarette smoke from my face so it doesn’t ruin my voice, and trying to plot my next move. I’ve mellowed a little since going off on Trevor, and I think he has too. At least, he seems to be in a better mood and he held the theater door for me rather than letting it shut in my face. I should probably still be mad at him, but this is just how we are.

  Ice Cream Palace is one of my favorite places in the world. Dad used to take me and Eric here all the time when we were younger and he was actually around on a daily basis. I’d always order the biggest hot fudge sundae on the menu. And Dad would always have to finish it for me. It’s sort of bittersweet, coming in here now.

  The guys push three tables together. Amanda sits first, and—of course—Trevor claims the spot right next to her at the head of the table. She motions at me to come sit on her other side, but Rosalita gets there first. I move to grab the free chair on Trevor’s other side, but Steve-o’s already sliding himself into it.

  This is not going the way I planned. At all. Now I’m going to have to amp up my flirting game from a distance. I pick a seat at the very end—at least from here I have a direct line of vision to Trevor.

  As I wipe the crumbs off my chair, Johnny Grimaldi shoves in next to me, and Oliver takes the last free seat to my right. It won’t be awkward at all to sit next to him, in his perfectly messy clothes and perfectly messy hair and that smile that makes it look like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Then I think of the way he touched my hand yesterday, and that feeling that something was about to happen, and I have a hard time not scooting my chair over right next to his.

  I’m afraid my face will betray me, so I avoid Oliver’s eyes by focusing on the other end of the table. Except that’s where Trevor’s engaged Amanda in some deep conversation. She keeps shooting glances my way, but really, what can I do from way down here?

  Oliver’s phone rings while I’m feeling sorry for myself yet again. “It’s my dad,” he says as he moves away to talk.

  I spend the next few minutes eating ice cream and ignoring Johnny Grimaldi, who keeps smiling at me. I think it works, because he starts passing a flask back and forth under the table with his brother. (Because it’s entirely normal to drink at a cute little pink-and-white ice cream shop.) Trevor’s moved his head closer to Amanda, and doesn’t even seem to notice that she’s moved as far as possible
next to Rosalita. At least she’s trying. I have to give her credit for that, even though we wouldn’t even be in this situation if she hadn’t done the unthinkable to begin with.

  “Sorry about that,” Oliver says as he sits again and dips into his half-melted ice cream. “London time, you know. I feel like a jerk if I don’t pick up when he calls.”

  “Because he stayed up late?” I ask, perfectly nonchalant, as if yesterday never happened. I can, after all, act.

  “Well, yeah, and because I said some really horrible shit to him when he and Mom split. I didn’t talk to him for about six months.”

  Huh. That sounds more familiar than I think I feel comfortable with. So I change the subject.

  “So, um, about the other day?” I say so as not to clue Johnny Grimaldi in. Although that isn’t exactly hard to do, since he’s busy pouring whatever’s in that flask into his Coke.

  “At the barn?”

  “Yeah. I don’t—”

  “It never happened,” he says, as if he read my mind.

  Wait—is he talking about me riding horses or our Moment? I hope it’s the horses. I take a huge bite of ice cream and hot fudge to shut my brain off before it goes into overdrive. I finally swallow and say, “Okay, well, thanks. So, um . . . how’d your mom end up buying a stable anyway? That seems kind of random.”

  “Not really. She was a champion show jumper when she was our age. She’s always been involved in horses. We had a barn back home, too.”

  “My mom’s the office manager for a law firm.” I try to imagine her on a horse in her neat skirts and button-down shirts, but that just makes me laugh. Then I imagine Oliver bouncing around on a horse the way I did, and that makes me laugh more. “Sorry,” I say. “Just thinking of the movie.”

  “Did you like it?” Oliver asks.

  I swallow a mouthful of hot fudge sundae. “Are you serious? Not really.”

  “I thought it kicked ass straight to Staten Island,” Johnny says out of nowhere.

  “And I thought Casey might be into movies that kick ass straight to Staten Island,” Oliver says with a perfectly straight face.

  “Damn straight,” Johnny says, and he does some guy fist-bump/high-five thing with Oliver.

  “I’m more into movies that don’t kick anything anywhere,” I say.

  “You didn’t appreciate the ironic humor in that movie? I thought for sure you would,” Oliver says.

  I guess that’s a compliment? Who knows. He carefully runs his hand through his hair, and I wonder what it would feel like to do the same.

  Stop it, Casey. I can’t think of Oliver like that while I’m putting every ounce of my energy into getting Trevor back and making my life normal again. Oliver is not part of Normal Casey Life. Not even close.

  I turn and look past Johnny Grimaldi to remind myself of why I’m here. Trevor’s actually moved his chair closer to Amanda, and he’s talking to her in this super-intense way. Probably giving her a second-by-second play of his moments onstage last year. I know, because he had that same look on his face when he came over to see me—when I was finally over the mono but a little too depressed to go to the show—after opening night last year. Never mind that we weren’t together then. Of course, that didn’t last long. It took all of five minutes for us to make up and become Casey-and-Trevor. Again.

  Trevor pushes his hair back. He says something I can’t hear, and it must be really funny, because Amanda laughs. She looks up at me, like she’s instantly sorry.

  Nothing about tonight is going the way I planned. Especially when Trevor lays a hand on Amanda’s arm. It lasts only a second, because she pulls away, but it’s enough. Enough to tell me that he’s not trying to make me jealous.

  “Get a room, right?” Johnny elbows me in the ribs and guffaws, his alcohol-tinged breath attacking my nose.

  “Yeah . . . right.” I go back to my sundae. Why do I keep torturing myself? If I’m being truly honest, all those times I ended it, I was never actually over him. I was just sick of the fighting and tired of working so hard to keep his attention.

  Amanda angles her body to try to include Rosalita in their conversation. Trevor looks up and I shoot him my sexiest smile. He sort of nods in response and starts talking to Amanda again.

  And something hits me.

  I look desperate. Pining after him like this, flirting and getting nothing back. That’s desperation, plain and simple. Casey Fitzgerald is not desperate. Even if I feel like I am, I don’t want anyone to think that way about me.

  The only solution is to make myself stop thinking about him. As of this very second. Not the way I’d declare I was over him every time I broke it off—I wasn’t ever really, and I never tried to be. It was like a character I tried on for a few months, then I’d take off the costume and let things go back to normal. But maybe I need a new normal.

  Then it won’t matter anymore if he’s into Amanda or anyone else, and I can focus on more important things, like finding something to replace theater. I can dedicate myself 100 percent to my future, and it won’t feel like my heart is being ripped out of me every time I see him flirt with her. If she keeps putting him off, he’ll eventually get tired of it and move on, and our friendship can go back to normal.

  A whole lot of problems could be solved if I can just turn my heart off.

  “Casey?” Oliver is staring at me with worried gray eyes. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “You going to spill it or what?”

  Um, intrusive much? I opt for playing dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “There’s obviously something going on. You’ve been staring at them all night. And you watch him like a hawk at rehearsal.”

  Like a hawk? As in, waiting to swoop down on my prey? “So what if there is? Or was?”

  “If something’s bothering you, it’s better to talk about it than keep it in.”

  “And you want me to tell you?”

  He shrugs. “I’m here. I’m the Weird New Guy. Or, what was it? Silent Hollywood Guy?”

  Oh my God. He is never going to let me live that one down.

  “So why not? I’ve heard you guys have a history.” He scoops up a spoonful of dripping ice cream and waits for my answer.

  I can think of a million reasons why not. And all of them have to do with whatever it was that passed between us at the barn yesterday. In other words, things I should not be thinking about him.

  Then again, maybe I’m just too used to Harrison being my only real guy friend. And pretty much sticking his fingers in his ears and singing la la la la anytime I bring up Trevor. So maybe Oliver’s just trying to be a friend.

  And I really would like to talk to someone about it.

  So I glance over at Johnny, who’s busy trying to balance his spoon on his nose, and then spill my guts to Oliver in a low voice so no one else will here. Minus the more embarrassing parts, like the popcorn incident, but including some of the deeper stuff, like how we’ve never really been official because we’re both too focused on succeeding as actors. When I finish, I take a huge breath. He was right—it did feel good to let it all out. Except now I can also feel Johnny Grimaldi’s eyes on me, which is just plain weird. I’m really hoping he didn’t hear any of what I said.

  Oliver holds up his hands. “Okay, wait. You’ve dumped this guy more than once?”

  “Well, not technically. It’s not dumping unless you’re officially a couple.” I lower my voice again, hoping to cut Johnny Grimaldi out of the conversation.

  He shakes his head. “Okay, fine, you ditched him, then. How many times?”

  “Four times, but for good reasons, not just because I’m bored or something. We always get back together. But not anymore, because I’m over him now.” So not cool. Making me tell him everything and then putting me on the defensive. I wonder if he would’ve acted the same way before yesterday. “I thought you were supposed to be helping me, not making me feel bad.”


  He ignores that last part. “Right, because you’re over him.”

  “Definitely.”

  “So what are the ‘good reasons’?”

  I fidget with my spoon, stirring the dregs of ice cream left in the bowl. “He’s . . . let’s just say he’s not so great at keeping his eyes to himself. Or on me. He uses what we are as an excuse to flirt with other girls. I suppose I should be okay with that because I’ve never asked for anything more, but I never have been okay with it. And we’d fight a lot, about that and other stuff. Then I’d get tired of it and end things. It’s like we’re magnets, though. A few months go by and we’re back together.”

  “Huh.” He leans closer to me, close enough that I can see the tiny spot of hot fudge on his lip. I bet if I kissed him right now, it would taste chocolatey.

  My spoon hits the side of my dish when I realize I’m basically staring at his lips and fantasizing about kissing him. I made my decision—I’m focusing on putting my life back together. No distractions. No Trevor, and definitely no Oliver.

  “You have a, um . . .” I point to his lip. It’s like a role reversal of him pointing out the hay in my hair.

  He rubs at his face with his hand. “Why?”

  “Why what?” I keep staring at his mouth, hoping the hot fudge will magically reappear.

  “Why’d you keep going back to him if he treated you like that?”

  His words jolt me back into focus. “What kind of question is that? He comes back to me, I’ll have you know. And it’s entirely my decision. Don’t make me sound like some kind of helpless victim.”

  He holds up his hands. “That’s not how I meant it, at all. I’m just curious about why you’d choose to jump back into something that miserable.”

  I cross my arms. “It wasn’t miserable. Not all of it.” I know I flush a little when I think of the not-even-remotely-miserable parts. “Besides, I’ve known him forever. He’s always been in my life, even before we got together. He’s . . . comfortable.”

  “Comfortable,” Oliver repeats, with that raised eyebrow. “You make him sound like a pair of old sweatpants.”

  “You don’t get it.” Only someone who’s never had his entire life turned upside down would scoff at the familiar.