And . . . I liked it.
I mean, that perfectly formed human being was paying attention to—no, he was transfixed by—ridiculous, dorky me. We didn’t know each other beyond exchanging a few words, but all of a sudden I couldn’t focus on anyone else, and he was completely focused on me.
This had obviously never happened to me before, so I had zero idea of how to deal with it. Luckily, when rehersal ended, there was no natural opportunity to talk more, so we each drifted our separate ways.
Oh, God—what if we didn’t get cast in the play?
Oh, who was I kidding? He was a shoo-in. But what if I didn’t get a part? Would I ever see him again?
If we did both get parts . . . what would I say the next time I saw him, at the first rehearsal? What was he doing right now? Did he live with that old lady from the mall, presumably his grandmother? What was the rest of his family like? Was he considering out-of-state colleges? How did his hair smell? What would we name our firstborn?
I know, I know, I’m a crazy person. But these were the kinds of questions I was asking myself all throughout the next day at school.
Xiang demanded the lowdown, every little detail, at lunch, and together we pondered all the different potential outcomes of this new Felix bombshell. I was obviously really excited that this gorgeous guy—a junior, no less—thought I was beautiful and had said it to me, but . . . now what?
Or was I just being crazy over a simple, harmless compliment?
Not when I thought about the way he looked at me, no.
Unfortunately, I think the Felix discussion only made Xiang more unsettled, since she had the orchestra audition after school, and Parker was definitely coming. She was determined to take Kirby’s advice about starting a covert romance, parents be damned. In a way, we were in the same boat—we both knew our guys were sort of interested, but . . . what was the next step? We decided she would come over to my house for a “study session” later on to recap on whatever happened after school.
And, frankly, it was nice to have my own romantic drama—at last!
As an added bonus, this whole Felix thing was a welcome distraction from my nervousness over the results of the callback audition. Jenny had said that the final cast list would be posted “in the next couple of days,” so I spent all day wrapped up in my own anticipation, not really seeing or hearing anything around me (unless it pertained to Felix, of course). And you can bet your bottom dollar that I was frantically checking my inbox between every one of my classes.
And about every 3.5 seconds once I got home.
My mom was out, but Dad was cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I brought my laptop in and opened it up at the counter island with a heavy, dramatic sigh.
“Hey, what’s shakin’?” he asked, chopping away.
I pulled my hair back and held it with one fist in a ponytail. “They’re supposed to post the cast list any moment now. Is there any way I can add a noise alert to my inbox, so I can stop staring at the screen?” I wiggled my way onto one of the counter stools.
“Um . . . not that I know of. Maybe check under Settings. Is there a particular role you’re hoping to get?”
“No, not really. I mean, a big role would be nice, but since I’m only a freshman, I’m not expecting much. I just hope I get in. And my friends, too,” I added, thinking of a certain, brand-new, older, hottie friend.
“Well, you’ll definitely get cast—don’t you worry,” he said, adding onions to the saucepan. “And if you don’t get cast, it’s not the end of the world.”
Easy for him to say!
“Oh, you got my voice mail earlier that Xiang is coming over for dinner, right?” I asked, momentarily mesmerized by the hissing and popping coming from the stove.
“Not a problem. We got lots of beans and peppers in our local-farms box this week, so there will be chili aplenty—in fact, I’m hoping we have lots of leftovers. It always tastes better the next day, when all the juices have really settled in. It gets thicker when it cools, you know, and that gives it the perfect texture for . . .”
Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I turned back to my screen and opened up a search engine. I typed in Felix Peroni and waded through a bunch of stuff on some Argentinian viola player.
Then I came across the public listing for his Facebook profile.
It was definitely my Felix in the picture, even though he had cropped it weirdly, so it only showed the top half of his head. The page showed a few of his friends, and spiky-haired Matt Brezinski was one of them. I couldn’t access any real info, though, since we hadn’t “friended” each other. Would it be weird if I suddenly sent him a friend request? I mean, we hit it off at callbacks, so . . . not weird, right?
My dad tapped a glass with his spoon, and the ringing brought me back into reality. I realized I must have spaced out for quite a while, actually. “What, may I ask, is so interesting that you can’t answer a simple question?”
Caught! “Oh, um, nothing—”
And then, as they say, I was saved by the bell.
“Oh! That must be Xiang.” I slapped my laptop shut and sprinted to the front door.
“Salutations, my beatific broccolini!” Jimmy threw himself upon me, smothering me in a hug, while Oliver slinked inside behind him.
“Hey, guys—to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“We have great news!” Jimmy grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the kitchen, Oliver still trailing behind.
My dad looked up from the stove when they walked in. “Oh, are there two more of you for dinner, then?”
“Oh, no, they—” I started, but Jimmy cut me off.
“If it’s not too much trouble, Mr. Sullivan, we’d love to stay!”
Excuse me? Jimmy hates my dad’s veggie food almost as much as I do! I mouthed, “Seriously?” at him, and he responded with a half shrug.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all, Jimmy. Looks like we’ll have just enough with this chili. And for the thousandth time, call me Doug.” Ugh. I mentally hurled a Molotov cocktail at my dad. Sorry, but you’re a dad, not a Doug.
Hee, but I love that Jimmy still can’t bring himself to call him that, no matter how much my dad tries.
“And who is this?” My dad gave Oliver the paternal once-over, as if he was somehow telling Oliver to keep his hands off me. Oh, my clueless father.
“This is Oliver,” I said. I grabbed my laptop in one hand and Oliver’s hand in the other and dragged him (and therefore Jimmy) out of the kitchen. “Call us when Xiang comes!”
Up in my room, I tossed the laptop onto the desk and flopped onto my bed. Jimmy flung himself next to me, while Oliver perched carefully on a corner of the mattress, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself in a girl’s bedroom.
“So. What’s the big news?” I asked.
Jimmy slapped two hands onto one knee. “Well. You know how we don’t spend enough time together now that you’re off at that nunnery, and Oliver and I didn’t make it to the callbacks?”
“That particular situation has not escaped my notice.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Bee-yatch, a simple ‘yes’ would be nice. Anyway, we’re going to join your play.”
“Um . . . have you murdered off the competition?”
He waved his arms over himself and Oliver, magician-style. “Nope. You are looking at two newly minted assistant stage managers.”
“Shut. Up.”
“No, really. Apparently, no one from your school signed up, so the stage manager let us do it.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
“Shut up.”
“OK, stop saying that.”
“Really? Really really? You guys are willing to deal with Jenny McCafferty just to spend more time with me?” My eyes went back and forth between Jimmy and Oliver like an Olympic Ping-Pong ball. They settled on Oliver.
“Well, you and Derek,” Oliver said. “He insisted we do something in the play, since he’s gonna have to be there.”
>
I gasped. “The list!”
I physically launched myself toward my laptop on the desk. “They sent it out? Derek got a role? I got a role?” Oh, curse the distracting power of Facebook! I clicked on my inbox tab, and, voilà, there it was.
Maria Kilkenney—Witch, Kate O’Day—Cinderella, Felix Peroni—Wolf / Cinderella’s Prince, Derek Mylvaganam—Baker, Martha Sullivan—Little Red Riding Hood!
OMG!!
Just at that moment, my dad called us down to dinner because Xiang had arrived.
As we trudged down the stairs, I could not stop beaming, and a song started playing somewhere in the back of my head: Felix and Marty, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G . . .
Spill, sister,” I said the minute my bedroom door closed.
Xiang, Oliver, Jimmy, and I had retreated up to my room after dinner. My mom and dad were downstairs clearing the dishes (What? I had guests to entertain!), so we slipped upstairs to get the scoop on what, if anything, had happened between Xiang and Parker at their orchestra rehearsal.
“Yeah, but hurry, because my dad will be here to pick me up any minute,” said Oliver, checking his watch. “I can’t wait for my birthday in a couple of months,” he muttered.
“Oooh, then you’ll be our very own personal chauffeur!” I purred.
“I’ll take you anywhere and everywhere you wanna go,” he said, grinning in that way that really highlights his jawline.
“Hello? You wanna hear this or not?” Xiang barked at us.
“Yes! Yes! Do tell!”
Xiang’s eyes shone, and she looked like she was about to explode into a million pieces.
“It. Was. Awesome.”
We leaned forward, grinning stupidly with anticipation.
Xiang lowered her voice to a whisper. “We hooked up in one of the classrooms.”
Silence.
“Hooked up—you mean, kissed?” Jimmy finally said.
“Yeah . . . and a bit more than that,” she replied, grinning widely.
Jimmy swallowed hard, and Oliver looked a little green.
Me? I knew Xiang too well to fall for that. Xiang? Making out with some guy she barely knows? At our nun-run school? Please.
“Riiiiight. And now I suppose you’re pregnant with his baby,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Xiang sighed. “Well, not a possibility yet,” she said, “but I could totally see us going a lot further in the near future. I mean, I want to.”
She looked really serious. My disbelief started to fissure.
“Xiang. You’re kidding. I know you’re kidding.”
“Nope. We totally hit it off, and all the awkwardness just melted away. It just seemed so natural, the way we were talking and connecting, and then all of a sudden we were in this classroom, and . . .” She looked at each of us with that bright, shining expression she’d had all throughout dinner (now that I thought about it). “Well, you know.”
Oh, boy. She really wasn’t kidding.
“But . . . um, how . . . ,” I sputtered, by now completely bewildered. Shock doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling. I mean, I knew that some fifteen-year-olds supposedly start having sex, but somehow the idea just seemed really abstract and far away, something that happened to other people I didn’t actually know. Jimmy and Derek were probably doing stuff, but he and I hadn’t ever talked about it. Oh, God—what had they done together?
And here I was all day, obsessing over the fact that some guy had said he thought I was beautiful, while everyone else apparently was going at each other like . . . like . . . rabbits in heat!
“I dunno, it just kind of happened,” Xiang said breezily. “I mean, we snuck into the room after the audition to talk, and then the next thing I knew . . .” She shrugged.
“Man, Kirby’s gonna regret not having been here for this,” Oliver breathed.
“I know. It’s crazy, right?” squealed Xiang, clearly delighted to be the center of attention. “It’s weird how it’s changed the whole dynamic with Parker. I mean, before I was all jittery around him, but now it’s just, like, I’m not hesitant at all. I just want to grab him and, like, you know?”
No, we don’t know, I wanted to say. She was really pissing me off, and I wasn’t exactly sure why.
At least she wasn’t using that high, babyish voice anymore.
Just then we heard a car pull into the driveway, and Oliver sprang up to look out the window.
“Yup, that’s Dad. I gotta roll. Congratulations again on getting the part, Marty. You deserve it.” He gave me a solid hug. What a cutie.
Then he turned to Xiang uncertainly. “And . . . uh, congratulations, I guess.”
Jimmy jumped up, too. “Oooh, look at the time. Sorry, ladies, I have to finish my chem lab report for tomorrow. Later!”
He gave us ironic air kisses, and then—whoosh—they were gone.
I wouldn’t have guessed it, but apparently my gay boys weren’t terribly comfortable when girls started talking about hooking up.
Xiang pulled out her cell phone and started tapping away. I got up and watched through the window as Oliver walked to the red Honda idling in the driveway.
Which classroom had Xiang picked for her little liaison? Oh, man—Mr. Dartagnon’s room? No, too far away from the auditions. Eww, didn’t Xiang say Sister Mary Alice had couches in her classroom?
Outside, Oliver said something to his dad, who had gotten out of the car, and they both cracked up laughing. His dad had cropped gray hair and a goatee; actually, he was pretty handsome for an old guy. I could see where Oliver got his looks from.
Oliver opened the driver’s side door and dropped into the seat, then carefully backed the car out of the driveway. Like me, Jimmy just stood there, off to the side, watching Oliver maneuver the Honda. Then Jimmy waved up at me before switching on a flashlight and heading into the backyard, toward the woods.
“So,” I said, turning to Xiang, who was still tapping at her phone. “What’s your plan?”
“Plan?”
“I mean, what’s next? How is this whole Blarker thing going to work?” I could feel an edge in my own voice, and I hated the way I sounded: critical, aggressive.
Xiang’s glow-y aura dimmed a bit. “Um, I dunno. I guess we’ll just figure it out. We see each other every weekend at CYO. Plus, there weren’t that many people auditioning for the musical’s orchestra today, so we’ll probably both get in.”
I realized we hadn’t even discussed her audition at all, not even at dinner.
“You’re texting him right now, aren’t you? You’re obsessed.”
Xiang smirked dismissively and kept on tapping away. I got the distinct impression that she didn’t think I could understand, nonsmoker and non-hooking-up virgin that I am.
“Fine, whatever,” I said wearily. Xiang’s phone buzzed as I left to retrieve my book bag from downstairs. I glanced back to see her sprawled over my bed, a stupid grin spread over her face as she read the new message.
Later, after Xiang had gone home, I called Jimmy.
“Xiang’s not one to take things slow, huh?” I asked, staring at my ceiling from the exact same spot where Xiang had been sending pornographic text messages an hour ago. (OK, I don’t know that they were pornographic.)
Jimmy whistled. “Yeah, I was definitely not expecting that!”
“Yeah . . .”
“Kind of like you and what’s-his-face,” Jimmy said teasingly. He was referring to Felix, obviously—I had called Jimmy the minute I left the audition yesterday to tell him all about Felix and his . . . whatever that was. Compliment? Courtship attempt?
“Oh, please. I have no idea what’s actually going on with Felix. If anything. I mean, maybe he was just joking, or having a stroke or something.”
“Uh-huh,” Jimmy said, and I didn’t have to see him to know the skeptical expression on his face.
OK, time to put him on the defensive. “So how’s it going with Derek?”
Jimmy sighed loudly.
“That bad?” I
asked, joking.
“What? No, that was a happy sigh! A very happy sigh! I’m smiling!”
“Aww, that’s sweet,” I said mechanically. (Look, there’s only so much enthusiasm I can be expected to show. Derek’s nice and all, but you can’t blame me for not being over the moon about him taking my Jimmy away from me.)
“All this romance in the air,” Jimmy mused. “Even Kirby’s got something going on, even if it is in cyberspace.”
“I guess the only odd one out in our little group is Oliver,” I said. “Poor guy. He seemed pretty heartbroken the other week, talking about his ex.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve heard that the tide is turning for him,” Jimmy said.
“Really? He’s got a crush?” I asked.
“Yup, that’s what Derek says. But Oliver swore Derek to absolute secrecy, so don’t you dare breathe a word of this to anyone. Derek would kill me if he knew I was spilling the beans—or at least the one tiny bean that he spilled to me. I mean, he would kill me if Oliver didn’t kill him first for telling me. And he isn’t telling Kirby, because Kirby would totally blab about it.”
“OK, now you’re making my head hurt,” I said. “Honestly, who am I gonna tell? And there’s no way I even know this person.”
“Well, don’t mention anything about a crush to Oliver, for starters,” Jimmy said, yawning. “Or Derek. Or anyone. But anyway, it’s time to hang up. I seriously need to do this chemistry shit.”
“Yeah, OK,” I murmured gloomily.
“Yeah, OK?’ You sound kind of down. Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said, sitting up. “I’m just tired. Sorry. Go, go. Learn some science! We’ll talk later. Are you guys coming to the first rehearsal on Thursday?”
“I don’t think Mistress McCafferty will let us miss any of the full-cast rehearsals, so don’t worry—you’ll be seeing an awful lot of me and Oliver.”
“Aww, you guys are the best. You know I love you, right?”
“Love you, too, babe. G’night, cucumber cutie.”
“G’night, my pretty potato.”
Beyond Clueless Page 8