Dramatically Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  He laughed, earning us a dirty look from one of our advisors, since it was perfectly timed with the moment the person on the podium had finished giving the statistics of the total dead and wounded from the Revolutionary War. He cringed slightly, and then leaned in to whisper in a low voice that ran straight to my bones, “Perfect. We’re going to kick Patriot butt.”

  Weirdly enough, Kris and I made an awesome team. When it came to debating, he had no trouble getting into character, perfectly outlining logical reasons to support his side while deflecting any cons shot our way, while I brought passion and insightful jabs that tore down their arguments. And all the energy we normally put into fighting each other in the summit was now focused on taking down the debaters on the Patriot side, even though we knew this wasn’t real and history told us we were going to lose in the long run.

  As we stood to leave the meeting room, Kris looked flushed but happy, like he was coming down from a debating high. “That was fun.”

  I followed him, still trying to break character and come back to the twenty-first century. “I bet they regret putting the two of us on the same side. Damn, we’re loud.”

  “Nah. Connor and Vero were louder.”

  “Who?”

  “Oklahoma and DC? The advisors are probably happy that, for once, it wasn’t the Em and Kris Argue Show.” He turned his head to look back at me and seemed to light up even brighter. “It was nice. And see, I acted, without having to get into tight pants.”

  As he made his way out the door in front of me, I glanced down at his jeans, and, despite the non-tightness of those jeans, I couldn’t help but notice his toned butt. “Mmmhmm.” And then, I wanted to kick myself. What was wrong with me? Stupid hormones and character acting were bringing me right back to thinking of him in ways I really shouldn’t. I’d already promised myself to focus on really throwing him off—play hot and cold until he was just as confused as I felt, but so far today I was failing miserably. Yesterday, Kris had thrown quizzical and almost apologetic looks all through dinner while I hid from him, and he seemed off his game a little bit in the summit this morning. If I didn’t eff this whole thing up, I might beat him at his own game.

  But, instead, I spent most of my time trying to keep from jumping him and breaking this weird tension that had built up between us, at least on my side. When we reached the bus, Kris let me go in front of him and sort-of helped me up by putting his hand on the small of my back, sending sparks shooting straight up and down my spine. I was so screwed.

  The cold from the stone bench outside the inn seeped through my dress and tights, but I didn’t care. Thanks to the chill, there wasn’t much chance Kris, New York girl, or any other sane person would come out here and hear me. “You were right.”

  “Since I’m always right, you have to be a little clearer about what,” Grace said, and I could tell she was trying her hardest not to sound gloat-y.

  “About messing with Kris’ mind. This whole plan is backfiring on me.” A couple passed, looking like something out of a movie as they walked arm-in-arm along the brick sidewalk, and my stomach twisted even more. This part of Boston was really pretty at dusk with its old-fashioned streetlights but I couldn’t enjoy it while agonizing over my life choices.

  “Oh, Em. You didn’t actually do it, did you?” Not-gloat-y turned to disappointed really quickly and I braced myself for the lecture she was bound to dive into.

  I didn’t bother to state the obvious. “He’s better at this than me. I should have known, but, crap…”

  The movie or video game or whatever in the background suddenly stopped. “Who are you two talking about?” Alec asked, his voice as clear as Grace’s. I stifled a groan. Of course she’d have her phone on speaker.

  “Kris,” Grace said, matter of factly. “And Em’s ridiculous emotional manipulation plan.”

  “The way you said that makes it sound so much worse than it really is,” I shot back.

  A lifetime of living next door to him meant I could recognize Alec’s “Here she goes again” snort, even over the phone line. “I told you it was a dumb-ass idea, Em.”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion, oh he-who-internet-stalked-the-girl-he-liked.” I narrowed my eyes at the tourist who stopped and stared at me after that comment until she hurried away from my glare of death.

  “It wasn’t stalking, I just followed her on Photogram under a different name,” he said in an annoyed mumble. “And we’re not talking about Laura. We’re talking about you doing something stupid to mess with Kris, even if he’s a jerk and deserves it.”

  He was right and the twisty-choking feeling just got worse. I might be able to lie to myself, but not to someone who was practically my brother. “Thank you for making me feel like an idiot. Now, go away, Alec. I need to have a girl-to-girl talk with Grace.”

  “Please. Girl-to-girl with Grace is about the same as girl-to-girl with me.”

  “Wrong answer, Kohen.” I had this image of Grace reaching over, pinching the sensitive part of his ear, and dragging Alec out of her room. There was a lot of shuffling, scrambling, and an “ouch” in the background before the speakerphone turned off. “Okay, I kicked him out. What’s so huge you didn’t want him to hear?”

  A deep breath did absolutely nothing to loosen the vice-grip on my lungs. “I need to make sure this stays between you and me.” I shook my head and added, “And Leia, because I know you’re probably going to tell her, anyway.”

  “What about Phoebe?”

  “No way. She’d go all fairytale dreamy-eyed on me and I don’t need that.”

  There was a plopping sound in the background, like Grace had dropped into her butterfly chair. “Now you’re scaring me.”

  I stood up and started pacing. Maybe moving would break up the nervous energy squeezing the life out of me. “It’s backfiring. Kris is just too damned good at this manipulation thing.”

  “So? What you need to do is stop the ridiculousness and focus on your speech. Repeat after me: Kris isn’t my only competitor.”

  Of course she didn’t understand that it was more than just the competition. “I almost kissed him,” I said in the softest whisper I could manage.

  The choking sound on the other side of the phone would have been funny if my life wasn’t turning into a bad made-for-TV movie. “Oh. Wow. I didn’t see that coming.”

  I leaned against the inn’s brick wall. The fingers of my free hand automatically started digging into the grout. “It’s just…he throws me off. I expect him to act a certain way and then he pretends to be nice to me, and I don’t know how much of that is pretending or just a side of him I’ve never seen before.” The choking feeling lessened the more I dumped my problems on Grace. “Maybe I’m just getting too much into character.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. You are kind of trapped with him. His ego’s probably blocking all the oxygen in a five-foot radius.”

  My nail chipped off a little piece of grout and brick. Great, now I was an emotionally distraught vandal. “Right. God, this sucks.”

  “So stop that stupid plan of yours,” I could almost hear Grace’s shrug and her mental gears turning. “While you’re at it, I’m sure there are plenty of other guys there you can terrorize. Just avoid Kris.”

  I let that thought hang for one beat, two beats… Damn, she was always so practical. “I can try.”

  “You’re not going to take my advice, are you?”

  “Maybe?” I bit the nail that I’d broken in my unintentional vandalism of the brick wall.

  “You do this to yourself, you know,” she said, but her tone wasn’t harsh or annoyed, just matter-of-fact.

  “Thanks for the nonjudgmental support.”

  She laughed and fear’s awful grip on my insides loosened a little bit at the familiar sound. “If you wanted to cry on someone’s shoulder, you should have called Phoebe or Leia, you know.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, sticking my tongue out at my phone and wishing I’d turned on the
video chat.

  I could just picture Grace sticking her tongue out on her end of the call, too. The long pfft sound coming through the phone confirmed it. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Which means you’d be totally safe when it comes to kissing boys, especially majorly jerky boys.”

  “Yeah. I’ll think about that,” I said, the laugh that bubbled up on that comment pushing away a tiny bit more of my stress. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, her voice still laced with concern. Grace might be the annoyingly sensible one, but I knew she cared. “Anything else?”

  “Sure. Can you get Alec back on?”

  She hesitated. “He’s a little pissed at you right now.”

  “He’ll deal.”

  “Okay…” In the background, I could hear Grace calling Alec back into the room again.

  “Pick up the phone,” random threats of violence, and “emotionally vulnerable,” floated back to me before Alec heaved a big sigh and said into the phone, “Oh, now you want to talk to me.”

  Insulted nerds were the worst. “Alec…”

  Another overly dramatic “You are wasting my precious time” sigh. “No, that’s okay. I’m taking the high road and ignoring your blatantly sexist behavior. What do you need?”

  “Do you still e-mail with Wil?” I asked in a rush, forcing the words out in one breath before I could second-guess myself.

  “Yeah, got one from him the other day.”

  So my theories about him being too busy to email anyone didn’t pan out. All the unease from before came roaring back up. “Did he mention another girl? Like a supermodel named Katja or something?”

  “No.” Suddenly his disinterested tone shifted straight to eager, like I had just brought up a new Star Trek series or something. “Damn, I need to move to Freiburg if Wil’s hanging out with supermodels.”

  If I wasn’t so nauseated from Wil-stress, I would have offered to kick Alec’s butt all the way to Germany. “Funny. Can you let me know if he does? I’m trying to figure something out.”

  “Sure, because I’m a good friend who helps everyone and yet, gets left out of the loop all the time,” Alec said, blowing the needle off my sarcasm meter.

  “You know the guilt angle only really works with Phoebe.”

  “Are we done? I have zombies to massacre.”

  I broke off another tiny chunk of mortar. If I was going down for vandalism along with everything else, might as well go big. “Yeah, thanks.”

  Before I could hang up though, he added, “Hey Em?”

  “What?”

  “Just…what Grace said. Focus on the competition, okay?” All of his sarcasm and annoyance were gone.

  I wanted to jump through the phone and either strangle or hug him. “You stinkin’ eavesdropper.”

  “You politician-kisser.”

  Forget the hug, I’d strangle him if he weren’t a six-hour drive away. “Ew, it wasn’t like that. I just—”

  He made static-y sounds on the other side. “Sorry, I think our connection is getting messed up.” More static-y sounds. “You lost your chance to tell me the whole story.”

  “Bye, Alec.”

  “Bye, Em.” He stopped the sounds and grew serious. “Kick ass. I know you can do it.”

  I pocketed my phone and headed back to the bench, sat, propped my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. It was hard to tell whether I wanted to laugh or cry.

  The conference might have catered to the political and history geeks, but that night’s event was one hundred percent for the performing arts nerds. This theater was famous for its acoustics and layout, and somehow the conference organizers had managed to get us into a practice session—like a dress rehearsal without the dress part. It was funny to see Kris and the rest of his kind hiding out in the back rows of the lecture hall-like theater while us artsy types clumped in the front, close enough to feel the vibrations from the drum set as the classical-pop fusion songs zinged straight through my body. Let him have his groupies hanging all over him and feeding his ego. I had my music. I could easily take Grace’s advice in a place like this. The fact that New York was practically sitting in his lap didn’t bother me. At all. I barely noticed it.

  Even though the performers were students from a local musical conservatory and only a year or two older than us, they were amazing. Strings and woodwinds mixed with the voices of two lead singers who definitely had opera training but didn’t sound like Sarah Brightman trying to sing a pop song, which, as much as I admired her musical pedigree, was just a huge no. The songs were organic and powerful and it was impossible not to let them seep through my skin to break away anything that wasn’t music.

  The concert was a break from all the crazy in my life, at least. Lost in the music and the presence of the performers, it was easy to forget the stress from the night before. It only took a few seconds of music to unravel the knot that suffocated me and tangled around my stomach. I let it soak through my skin and straight to my bones.

  “I don’t know how they do it,” I said to Alaska in a loud whisper.

  Alaska nodded back so forcefully, I thought she might hurt her neck. “I know. Listen to her vibrato. It’s almost not human.” She never took her eyes off the stage.

  “I want that sheet music,” Ann said, staring wide-eyed and covetously at the flutes.

  I smiled at my roommate. “Agreed. If we played more of this and less of those John Williams medleys, I’d actually practice more often.” That earned a laugh from Ann, which she tried to muffle with her sleeve. Oregon-girl turned around and narrowed her eyes at me, putting her finger in front of her lips. I straightened up and tried to be the perfect model of a concert audience member while Ann shook in silent laughter next to me.

  When the musicians took their bows and headed off-stage, Red made an announcement that we had a few minutes to explore the theater before the bus came to pick us up. I walked up to the edge of the stage, staring up at the gorgeous swirly chandelier, my fingers rubbing against the worn edge of the floorboards. It even smelled just right, the perfect mix of floor wax and dust. I needed another minute of this place before crashing back to reality. A flash of motion to my right made me look up just as some of the guys hauled themselves onto the stage. The boy from North Dakota grinned down at me, holding out his hand in invitation. “You sing, don’t you?”

  I let him help me up and latched onto Alaska, pulling her with me. “A little bit,” I said with a laugh. “Aren’t we going to get in trouble?”

  “For a song or two? No way. They said we could explore the theater, didn’t they? Aren’t you dying to check out these acoustics?” North Dakota was apparently worse than me when it came to rule bending.

  Mr. Arizona passed in front of us, striking the cheesiest musical theatre pose I’d ever seen, jazz hands and all. “You know,” Arizona grabbed Alaska’s hand and twirled her so her skirt fluttered around her. “I think tonight is grand for singing.’” With barely a pause, he broke into the chorus of the song from State Fair and sang directly at Alaska, tilting up her chin with a flick of his finger when she started giggling.

  In the rest of the theater, everyone else seemed to pause, their attention finally landing on all of us who had taken over the stage. To my surprise, Red and the other advisors made no move to stop us, just smiled and watched. They were apparently cooler than I thought. Virginia ran up from one of the side aisles, vaulted onto the stage, and pulled Arizona into a waltz. Even though it looked like only Arizona and I knew the lyrics from this song, everyone chimed in when they realized we were repeating the chorus, our voices mixing perfectly.

  When it came time for the next verse, North Dakota pointed at me and I launched into the solo, twirling starry-eyed around the stage with an imaginary partner in a way that would make Mr. Landry proud. When I got to the part about feeling like I was falling in love because of “you,” my twirl landed me squarely facing the audience. One face in particular came into focus and a funny thrill rus
hed through me when Kris’ eyes met mine on that line. I became Nora reaching her emotional breaking point in A Doll’s House whirling wildly in the tarantella, trying to distract Torvald from the letters and herself from her own emotions.

  I shook off the feeling as fast as I could and let an impulsive idea take over, jumping off the stage as the chorus started again. I caught Kris’ hand, pulling him down the aisle and away from miss-prissy-Empire-State and skipped around him until his ears and the back of his neck turned red. “C’mon, sing,” I said between breaths. Maybe silliness would shake the painful, unsettling feeling tickling at my lungs and heart. Plus, Kris hated attention when he was out of his element. It was all a part of the plan, I told myself.

  He shook his head and tried to pull free. “I’m tone deaf.”

  “Kris.” I dragged out his name, a pleading whine in my voice. “Live a little.”

  I didn’t expect him to cave, but after twisting his face into a grimace, he surprised me by joining in on the last line of the chorus, completely off-key but still at the top of his lungs. Once the song ended, the people left on stage dissolved into laughter and the advisors finally tried to get us organized again.

  Kris narrowed his eyes at me. “Happy? You better not have been recording that.”

  “You really are tone deaf.” The stern set of his jaw seemed to grow sterner and I poked him in the shoulder. “Remind me not to ask you to try out for the spring musical.”

  “I never said I was perfect. Just really good at almost everything but singing.”

  I gave him one of my scrunched-nose grins. “It’s healthy to step out of your comfort zone. I’m glad you did.”

  Arizona and North Dakota passed at that moment, pulling me away from Kris. Each linked arms with mine and walked towards the exit like Dorothy and her friends in the Wizard of Oz.

  “Told you it would be awesome.” North Dakota said, waving at two of the other states who held the doors open for us so we could keep up our ridiculous formation.