I was lying on top of Wes Rosenthal. Only, this was not like any of my daydreams. This was mortifying. I rolled off him and jumped up. “Are you okay?” I was visibly shaking.
Wes stood up, too. “Don’t worry-eth, Juliet,” he said without any anger in his voice. He even smiled at me. For a second I thought that meant he didn’t hate me for the craziness I was causing. But then I remembered he was acting. He actually took what he was doing seriously, and right now his part called for him to be in love with Juliet.
Wes said some line I assumed was to get us back on track. But I had no response. I couldn’t take it anymore. The laughter of the audience. The panic coursing through my body. The thought of making Wes suffer more. It needed to end.
So I did the only thing I could think of—something super-Elizabethan. I put the back of my hand to my forehead, pretended to swoon, and let my whole body fall back to the ground with a loud thump.
“I am so sorry-eth, Romeo.”
“It’s okay.” He sat down on the ground next to me and took my hand. I felt little sparks fly through me.
I shook my head. I couldn’t let him go through this anymore. “No, I know how-eth this play end-eth. I think I shall stab-eth myself now to save-eth us both.”
“Finally,” someone in the audience yelled out.
I picked up an imaginary dagger and began to plunge it into my heart.
“No,” Wes said, stopping me before I committed imaginary suicide. “Our story is not over yet. So let’s just say, ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night ’til it be morrow.’”
I was pretty sure that was supposed to be my line. But I decided I probably shouldn’t point that out. Then he stood up and walked off the stage.
After a moment, someone finally took mercy on me and brought the stage lights down.
The scene was over. But I knew all too well that my embarrassment was just beginning.
13
“There you are!” Kayla said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
I’d been hiding in a dressing room since the scene ended. There was no way I was going back on stage—not for a bow or to hear them read the nominees for best actress.
“Is it over?”
“Yep,” she said, and held up a little trophy that had BEST COSTUME DESIGNER written on it. “I won!”
“Congratulations.”
“Hey,” she said. “You could sound a little more excited.”
“Seriously? After what just happened out there?”
Kayla sat down next to me. “Yeah, that was bad.” I could tell she was trying to hold back a giant smile. “But people will forget about it.”
I just looked at her. At least February break started Monday. I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone for a week.
“Okay,” she conceded, “maybe they won’t forget anytime soon. But come on, it was kind of funny.”
“For you, maybe.” I dropped my head onto the makeup table. “You know, for a second there I actually thought I knew the lines. I totally screwed up. What a mess. Jill’s—” I bolted upright. “Where is Jill?”
“Still in the auditorium.”
“I need to get out of here now.”
“You have to talk to her sometime,” Kayla reminded me.
“I know that. I’m going to apologize. I just prefer to do it when she’s had some time to cool down. I gotta go.”
“Fine.” Kayla tossed me my purse and my phone, which I had been charging nearby. “We can head to the cast party now.”
“Very funny. There’s no way I’m going to that. Not only will Jill be there but so will Wes.” The thought of what I did to him made me cringe. I covered my face with my hands. It was definitely burning up. I was probably stop-sign red. “I should just move out of the state. Wes is going to hate me. I won’t be able to look him in the eye ever again. I’m going to die of embarrassment. I can’t handle being in the same room as him.”
“You’re going,” Kayla said.
I dropped my hands and looked at her. “Are you crazy? No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are,” she said. “The best way to get past this is to face it. This will help you.”
“You and I have very different definitions of help,” I said. “Going to that party will be torture. Everyone is going to rip into me. I can’t do it.”
“I know you, Em.” Kayla put her arm around me. “You’ll have to deal with these people sometime, and the longer you put it off, the longer you’re going to be stressing over it and trying to avoid it. Might as well get it out of the way now, when you can have me by your side.”
“I probably won’t even be allowed in,” I reasoned. “Mrs. Heller probably wants to flunk me out of school right about now.” Which, honestly, sounded better than having to see anyone again.
“Just tell her you had a horrible case of stage fright. After all, what you did up there was pretty frightening.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Thanks.”
“But seriously, Em. The party is not going to be any worse than what you already went through. You need to just get it over with.”
“I don’t know…”
“I can always call Jill,” Kayla said, “and tell her to come meet us in the dressing room.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, you know I would,” she said.
“Fine. You win. I’ll go to the cast party.”
“That’s my girl,” she said. “You’ll be thanking me later.”
I highly doubted that would be the case, but even so, I made my way to what was undoubtedly going to be the cast party from hell.
14
I braced for the worst as we approached The Heights, where the party was being held. I imagined everyone was waiting for me to get there so they could point and laugh as one big collective group. But when I walked into the student center, no one seemed to notice. They were all busy talking and scarfing down pizza and pop. And the coast seemed clear of both Jill and Wes, at least for the moment.
“See, it’s not so bad,” Kayla said, squeezing my arm. “Everyone’s focused on celebrating their own performances and scenes, they’re not even thinking about yours.”
But she jinxed us. No sooner had the last word spilled from her lips than Ryan Watkins strode over, clutching his best director trophy. “You know, Em…” He tossed the metal statue from one hand to the other. “I could have won this on my own. You didn’t need to sabotage poor Jill. I appreciate it, but it really wasn’t necessary.”
That one stung. I really needed to apologize to Jill. But tomorrow, after things settled a little. “Ha-ha,” I said to Ryan, making sure to sound as monotone as possible. But he was just the start of it. His approach opened the floodgates.
Mason Noland and Omar Jothy, two of Wes’s buddies from the lacrosse team, came over next.
“Man, do we owe you,” Mason said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Our boy is never going to live this down. He thought he was going to get flak for the tunic and tights—”
“Hey,” Kayla said. “There was nothing wrong with that tunic. It looked hot. And I used the same pants our football players wear, so unless you have something to say to guys who are twice your size, I think you should lay off my costumes.”
Mason put up his hands in defense. “I’m just saying his clothes are the least of his worries.” He winked at me. “You gave us material that will follow him to the grave.”
“Look-eth!” Omar pointed at my face. “Emily-eth is turning red-eth.”
I stuck out my tongue at him.
“I’d watch out, O. If you don’t stop, she may pull out her invisible dagger and come at you.” Mason then pretended to plunge a knife deep into his chest.
“Give it a rest, guys,” Kayla said, coming to my defense.
“Emily knows we’re kidding,” he answered as he pretended to pull out the dagger and hand it to me with a slight bow. I accepted graciously. I knew they didn’t mean any harm. Truth was, if I hadn’t messed
up everything for Wes and Jill, I’d probably be laughing at myself, too.
Jace Brennan came over and slapped his teammates on their backs. “Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. Whatever could you guys be talking about?”
“Don’t you start,” Kayla warned her boyfriend.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He moved over to her and planted a light kiss on her lips.
He might have meant it, but Omar and Mason looked as if they were just warming up. Kayla saw it, too. “All right, you’ve had your fun. Time to give Emily a break. Looks like they put out some more pizza. Why don’t you guys go check it out?”
She didn’t need to tell them twice; they were all over the food in twenty seconds.
They might have left, but others took their place. Over the next ten minutes, three of my classmates pretended to faint in front of me, four imitated my Shakespeare-speak, and I caught about a dozen others looking at me and laughing. The only upside was that there hadn’t been any Jill or Wes sightings.
Just when I thought I’d had about as much as I could take, part of the cast from the A Midsummer Night’s Dream scene came over. Including Dhonielle. “Way to steal our thunder,” she said, faking a pout and crossing her arms.
“Yeah, we were supposed to have the funniest scene tonight,” J.J. Pickford joined in. “You know how hard you were to follow?”
“I personally feel like I should be handing over my best actress in a comedy award to you,” Sari Lawson added.
“Nah,” Dhonielle said, giving me a light jab with her elbow, “you keep it. I wouldn’t call what Emily did acting, per se.”
“I don’t know,” J.J. said, rubbing his chin, “some of the best actors are improvisers. You should know that! And Shakespeare was all about entertaining the crowd, which Emily certainly did.”
“And made myself a laughingstock in the process,” I added.
“Who cares?” Sari said. “It sucks now, but some day you’re going to look back and laugh. At our fifty-year reunion, when we’ve forgotten who half of these people are, everyone will remember you and smile. That’s more than most of us can say.”
“Infamy, woo-hoo,” I said, and whirled my finger around.
“Okay,” Dhonielle said, smacking my finger away. “If this was anyone else getting all depressed about doing something ridiculous, I’d get it. But you? You’re the one who makes up ridiculous games to play at work and sings Taylor Swift songs over the loudspeaker after the grocery store closes, and on a dare did it during store hours. I’ve heard you sing. If there’s anything you should be embarrassed about, that kind of takes the cake.”
“I guess…” But the difference with the singing was I chose to do that and it was supposed to be a joke, while the Shakespeare mishap was anything but intentional. And it involved me humiliating Wes and screwing over Jill.
“No, ‘I guess.’ You know I’m right. And in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, you need to…” She gestured for me to continue.
“Shake it off,” I filled in.
“Exactly.”
Then Dhonielle, Sari, and J.J. started jumping around and singing while Kayla and I kind of stood awkwardly watching. Theater people didn’t mind being the center of attention, but I personally had my fill for the week, maybe even for the century. At least they made me feel better.
“Thanks, guys,” I said as they shook their way to the drinks.
I let out a deep breath. “There, I did it. I faced the music, now can I go?”
“It hasn’t even been a half hour,” Kayla said.
I looked toward the door. Another group had just walked in. And I couldn’t miss that swath of red hair and those freckles right in the middle. It was Jill. “Okay, you convinced me. I’ll stay, but I gotta go say hi to someone. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“But…”
I didn’t wait to hear what she had to say. I booked it to the other side of the room. There was no way I was facing Jill right there in the middle of everyone. I took a seat at a table in the back corner. There were a bunch of people standing in front of it, so I figured they’d make good cover. To be extrasafe, I sunk down in my chair. If I could just lie low for a bit, I could sneak out when Jill was away from the exit.
With nothing else to do, I pulled out my phone. It wasn’t like I really wanted to know what everyone was posting about me, but I couldn’t help but open GroupIt anyway. Uckkk. I didn’t even know you could get two hundred plus notifications over the course of a few hours, but apparently my classmates loved sharing, commenting on, and favoriting my embarrassing moments. I was afraid to see how many posts there would be by tomorrow. It was like the jabs from this party in bulk—only in writing. Not to mention the added benefit of pictures, gifs, videos, and Vines.
How did I let myself do something so stupid? I knew I’d be asking myself that question for a long, long time. I wished I were in some sci-fi novel where I could just be sucked into some alternate dimension—one where I had learned my lines and gave an amazing performance.
I wasn’t so lucky. At least my blending into the wall seemed to keep people away. No one came up to me for about twenty minutes. But then something horrible happened. I looked up, and Jill was headed in my direction from the left. I wanted to run right, but that wasn’t safe, either! Wes was over that way, and he was walking toward me, too.
This was bad. I was trapped. Which way was I supposed to go? I didn’t even know Wes was here. Wouldn’t I have seen him before this? I figured he had skipped the party to avoid the ridicule. Why put yourself through this if you didn’t have someone like Kayla forcing you to attend? But just my luck, he showed up.
Now I had an impossible decision. Jill. Wes. Jill. Wes. Neither option seemed good. I wasn’t ready to face either of them. There was a possibility that neither saw me, and I could just get up, walk past them, and they’d never notice. But given the kind of day I was having, the odds of that working out seemed incredibly low.
If I couldn’t go left and I couldn’t go right, I had to stay put. Only, I couldn’t let them spot me. I had to escape. I didn’t have any other choice. There was only one way out: I would have to go under the table.
I slid down and prayed the tablecloth would be enough of a cover. Was I really doing this?
Please let them just walk by. Please let them just walk by.
I thought I was safe, but then I heard a knock on the table.
I froze. Who was it? Anyone but Wes or Jill. Anyone but Wes or Jill.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
No, no, no, no, NO. It was Wes. Why couldn’t it have been Ryan? I would have taken more of his stupid comments. Anything but this. This was worse than the Shakespeare scene. I did not want him to find me cowering under a table. Had my life actually come to this? Me ducking for cover at a school party? What was next? Lunch in the bathroom stall?
But I couldn’t worry about any of that right now. Wes was too close. Chances were good he would just think he’d been mistaken and hadn’t seen me there. Or that I’d gotten up before he’d made it over. Once he’d left, I’d sneak out. Or maybe I’d just stay hidden away there until Kayla texted me she was ready to leave. As I considered my options, one side of the tablecloth began to lift.
“Emily?” Wes asked, peering under the table.
I banged my head as I looked up to see him.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing what was probably going to be a really big bump. “Doesn’t hurt that much.” I tried to blink back the pain.
“What were you doing down there?”
“Ummm, earring,” I said.
He squinted in confusion, and I realized I’d been caught in a lie. I was wearing both earrings. I touched my left earlobe. “I was lucky I found it.” I tried to smile. “You know, the floor is cleaner than I’d imagined.” I patted the ground for good measure.
Why was I talking about the floor? And why was I still sitting there? I probably should have gotten up, but then I’d really have to face him. An
d by this point, in for a penny, in for a pound. I just needed him to drop the tablecloth and walk away. But he wasn’t budging. Great. Say something smart, Emily. Make him leave. “So…” was as far as I got. My mind totally blanked. I could not think of one halfway intelligent thing to say. I just sat there gawking at him gawking at me. I don’t think he knew what to make of the whole situation. Or the way I was acting. Not that I could blame him.
This conversation, or lack thereof, was more painful than hitting my head. I would have preferred that he ream me out for making him look like a fool today, rather than just look at me still sitting there. I really needed to do something. Then I got it. What I should have done all along. Apologize.
“I’m sorry about today,” I said. “I never meant to mess that up for you. It was because…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t have a good reason for why it happened.
He dropped the tablecloth and left me in the dark. He didn’t want to hear my excuse. He was leaving. Well, that was what I wanted, right? But somehow it made me feel worse.
But then he was there. WES WAS CRAWLING UNDER THE TABLE WITH ME!
First, I saw his face, then the rest of him. His whole body was scrunched up next to mine. He had to crouch his head down. He was rather tall, and the table wasn’t that high.
“Hi,” he said, and gave me a smile that showed off his dimple.
I was a little stunned. “Hi,” I managed to get out. What was he doing under here?
His eyes caught mine, and I felt that rush I always got around him. Without looking away, he said, “I’m glad I found you. I’ve been looking for you.”
What?! After all that, he wanted to see me?! A wave of relief washed over my body. Maybe Kayla and Dhonielle had been right. Maybe this wasn’t as big a deal as I was making it out to be. Maybe I hadn’t blown my chance with Wes. “Yeah?” I questioned.
“Yeah. I was worried you might be upset over the scene,” he said.
Why was he being so nice? “Maybe just a little,” I told him, then I held my arms all the way out to show I meant a lot. After all, I was still hiding under a table. It was obvious I wasn’t doing too well.
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