“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“I do, kind of, since we’re both walking in the same direction.”
He rests his elbow on my shoulder, which tugs at my hair, making my head tilt toward him. I want to wash the touch away, but it isn’t skin touching skin. I can’t let this get worse or I’ll have to start wearing a hood.
Let it go, let it go.
“You’re shaking,” Drew says, dropping his arm. “Are you that freaked out?”
“I get nervous,” I say. “I’ll be okay.”
“Everyone here is some kind of freak,” Drew says. “You’ll fit right in.”
“Um, thanks?”
“I’m serious,” says Drew. “Mandy’s in love with you, so you must have something going for you.”
“We haven’t been friends for a long time.” I can’t believe I’m confiding in Drew.
“That’s not how she talks about you,” he says. “She talks like you’re her long-lost twin who got kidnapped by pirates and finally she’s found you again.”
“Really?”
“And truly.”
At the top of a staircase, Drew gestures toward our classroom door like a true southern gentleman. As I pass, he says, “Watch out for Mandy’s feelings, okay? She’s missed you.”
There’s a hint of warning in his fixed jaw, but then he looks away. I wonder what Mandy’s told Drew about me, whether she’s missed me the way he makes it sound. I’m at a loss for words, but I nod, slip past him, and find an open seat toward the back. He sits beside me but keeps his eyes forward.
At the end of class, Drew smiles like we’re old friends. “You’ve got chemistry next? Mr. Kiernan. He can be fun. I’ll point you in the right direction.”
He walks me to the nearest staircase. “Take a right at the foot of the stairs, and straight on till morning.”
“Hey, that’s . . .”
“Peter Pan.” He smiles at my surprise. “Saw the musical in eighth grade. Changed my life.”
“Peter PAN changed your life?”
“In middle school, I was such a jock. When I told my buds I was applying to BAA, they lost it and asked if I was gay, but I said, ‘You know where there are a ton of straight girls fighting over a limited supply of straight dudes? Theater.’”
“And that worked?”
“No, they kept being total dicks.” He winks. “More fun for me.”
As he turns and walks away, it hits me: I might just have made friends with Drew.
Acting class hasn’t started, but this is my first acting challenge—to act like I’m comfortable entering the lunchroom at Mandy’s side, sitting with her friends. And the gloves are just for fun. I’m the kind of girl born to quirkiness, who spreads whimsy like the common cold.
Like Livia. She’s first to the table, having brought her own lunch, a plastic container of earthy orange paste and a bag of what look like giant bronze grapes.
Livia’s dressed all in green—always, according to Mandy—and it brings out the warmth of her dark skin. The black girls at my old school mostly stayed together—a lot of Birmingham is still weirdly divided by race—but looking around the dining hall, it’s cool how everybody’s mixed in together. Livia wears her hair in big swirly loops like an avatar from one of Jordan’s video games. Little-girl green barrettes frame her face.
“Hi, Mandy,” she says, and then locks on to me. “I know who you are.”
Does acting work on other actors? I’m about to find out.
“You must be the one who wears green,” I say. “Livia, right? I’m—”
“No, don’t tell me.” She holds her fingertips to her temples like she’s going to pluck my name out of the air.
“This is Caddie,” Mandy says, interrupting Livia’s trance.
“Caddie,” Livia says as if I’m not so much a person as a concept. “Okay, here’s the impression I get . . .”
“No, Livia,” Mandy says. “It’s stressy enough being new.”
“It’s a good one,” Livia says. “I like her, first impression.” She’s about to reveal the mystery of me to me. “You want to fit in, do the right thing. It can make people uncomfortable,” she says, “but I find it refreshing.”
So, I come off as desperate, which she finds refreshing—like wet wipes, or cucumber salad. Being friends with Mandy means making friends with this hippy-dippy girl who’s annoyingly . . . perceptive.
Mandy rolls her eyes and digs into her “South of the Border Salad,” which is actually nacho chips slathered with processed cheese and salty ground beef. “Livia’s on a ‘living on impulse’ kick.”
“You try to shut off all your filters,” Livia explains. “When an idea comes to mind, you speak it. When the impulse comes to take action, you take it. It’s harder than it sounds.”
“No,” I say, “that sounds hard, impossible even—”
Before the words fully leave my mouth, Livia has placed one of her grape things in her spoon and launched it across the dining hall directly into the back of a guy standing in line. He’s got heavy eyebrows and a distinct lack of lips. The skin where his lips should be curls back from his braces as if simply closing his mouth might hurt, making his teeth look even bigger than they already are.
“That’s Oscar,” Mandy says.
“Wait, was he in—?”
She nods. He played Lance Dalton’s son in Monkey Boy. If there’s a kid who gets to do that in all of Alabama, it only makes sense that he’s Mandy’s friend.
Oscar looks around until he finds Livia waving, then gives her a mock-threatening fist pump, mouthing the words, “I’m coming for you.”
“Sometimes, impulses can get you in trouble,” Livia says, but she looks thrilled. I’m thrilled to be sitting across from the girl who just pegged a weird fruit at a guy who played the son of a giant movie star.
“What are you eating?” Mandy asks, pointing to the battle grapes.
“Scuppernongs,” Livia says. “They grow in my backyard. Here.”
I decline, but Mandy says, “Don’t be a wuss.”
Livia scrapes the mushy insides from the skins with her teeth. I cut mine in half with a fork and knife first so I won’t have to take off my gloves. The jelly inside is sweet and tangy, but the seeds are bitter.
Even Livia’s food is out-quirking me. Livia hasn’t said a word about my gloves.
The rest of the group takes seats one by one. Hank is handsome, and also a bit sly. With a slick pompadour, he’s old-timey movie-star classic. “We’ve heard so much about you,” he says, holding his hand out for mine. When I reach out to shake, he bends down and kisses my knuckles. I feel pressure and a warm breath through the gloves, but that’s okay.
“Classy,” he says of the gloves as he lets me go. “And what have you heard about me? Did Mandy warn you how deadly handsome I am?”
He is handsome, and it might be deadly, except that he makes my gaydar go bleep.
Instead of waiting for an answer, he launches into a blow-by-blow of his attempt to get Nadia to consider producing Avenue Q, a Broadway musical where puppets in New York City sing about racism and have puppet sex. “She says it’s too raunchy. I mean, puppets! It’s not like anybody’s going to get turned on by that!”
“I don’t know,” says Drew, shoving his tray between Mandy’s and mine and hovering behind us, “I always had a thing for Miss Piggy.” He pinches Mandy.
“Tell me you’re not comparing me to a pig!”
My fork digs so hard into a corn chip, it breaks through and cracks against my plate. Mandy gets enough harassment from her mom about her weight. She doesn’t need it from her boyfriend.
Mandy pouts at Drew and he laughs. “Because you’re both bossy! That’s all I meant!” he says, crouching down beside her and trying for a hug. She shoves at the top of his head. “And violent.”
“Bite me,” Mandy says.
He does, on the meat of her shoulder, with a lot of growling from him and squealing from her until she holds a milk carton over h
is head. It rattles me, seeing them play like that, and it’s not just the touching. My oldest and probably best friend in spite of the time lapse trades saliva on a regular basis with this person who looks like a man. Drew has a five o’clock shadow, and it’s only eleven.
Instead of sitting in one of the empty seats, my new buddy Drew swings a chair around from the table behind us to place between Mandy and me. It doesn’t quite fit, so he grabs the back of my chair and scoots it—and me—over to make room.
“Rude,” Mandy says, but it’s clear that she thinks he’s adorable.
Before I can fully settle into my new spot, hands clamp down on my shoulders.
I shriek, which makes everyone laugh.
It’s Lance Dalton, Jr. He’s made it through the line and put his tray on the table behind us in order to have his hands free to maul me. He’s not touching skin, but it still makes my breath rasp. “God, you scared me.”
“Oscar Morgan,” he says, swinging his tray of nachos over my head.
He braces his hands on the table to clamber over the back of the chair on my Drew-free side, rocking the table so hard Livia’s juice sloshes out the top of her glass. He barely makes it over, nearly wiping the bottom of his sneaker on my face. Then, he plops down, face too close to mine, and beams like he planned it that way.
“And you are?”
“Caddie.”
He holds his hand out, so I shake, and it takes muscle to keep him from using the handshake to lean even closer. “I saw you in that movie,” I say.
“Ahh, yes,” he says. “Thanks.”
“She didn’t say she liked it,” says Mandy.
“Oh,” he says. “Well, Caddie, did you like it?” But I get the sense he doesn’t have a sliver of doubt what I thought.
“You were funny.”
“They cut my best scene,” he says. “There used to be a dramatic part where I cried.” I get the sense everybody else at the table has heard this many times over. “Mm-hm,” he says. “I can cry on command. It’s how I booked my first commercial. ‘Band-Aids make it better.’”
He crumples his face, takes both my gloved hands in his, and just as Mandy says, “Not again,” he starts weeping, actually weeping, in front of me. If everyone at this school already knows how to cry on command, I’m done for.
“He’s trying to impress you,” says Drew.
“Sensitivity is one thing,” Hank says, “but nobody wants a crybaby.”
Livia bangs her hands down on the table, making me jump, and says, “Impulse!”
Nobody else even looks at her.
“I’m not a crybaby,” Oscar says to Hank, feigning hurt. “Dude, that’s acting. Maybe you should try it sometime.”
“You’re just mad I don’t find you attractive.”
“I am,” Oscar says, switching gears fast to play this new game. “Hank, you got me. I’m a mess about it. I cry myself to sleep.”
“That’s not acting. It’s a party trick,” says . . . Peter. He’s standing across from Oscar, less than three feet away. Our eyes meet, and his smile falters for a second, then goes back to normal.
Is that surprise to find me sitting here? Good surprise, or disappointment?
“Hi, Jumpy,” he says.
Why should he care if I sit here or not? It’s all in my head.
“Oh!” says Oscar, waving his arms in front of him like he’s gearing up to wrestle. “Peter’s looking for a smackdown. Tell us, then, oh enlightened one, what is acting?”
“Acting requires empathy,” Peter says, playing along, “some emotional engagement, listening to your partner.”
“Acting,” Oscar says, “requires doing what the director asks you to do when he asks so that you can get paid.”
“Or she,” Livia says. “Your director might be a she!”
“All right,” says Peter to Oscar. “Just don’t let Nadia hear you say that.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Oscar says. “You know what else I won’t do? I won’t ask her to write me a check for every time that Band-Aid commercial ran either.”
“A hit, a very palpable hit!” Peter says, quoting Hamlet. He fakes like Oscar stabbed him and falls into the seat across from us.
“Nerd,” Mandy says.
“You’ve been studying,” says Oscar.
“Don’t doubt it. So, Caddie,” Peter says. “First day, and you’ve landed here.” He shakes his head like I’m in trouble—the kind of trouble that leads to bear hugs? I contract with the teasing rush of that idea.
Do. Not. Touch.
“Let’s all make her feel welcome,” Mandy says threateningly.
“Oh, she’s welcome,” Peter says. “I feel sorry for her is all. Girl doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into.”
“I do,” I say, feeling brave. Sure, he’s teasing me, but that’s part of belonging here. “I’ve gotten into an on-command-crying, impulse-following, Shakespeare-joke-making, puppet-sex-watching cult of theater nerds, and I’m actually pretty happy about it.”
Peter smiles at my verbal gymnastics. On the rare occasions when my brain lets me speak without thinking, it’s one of my special skills.
Livia motions to me. “Are you coming to Bard?”
“Of course she is,” says Oscar.
“If I get cast.”
“But even if you don’t, you can do a scene,” Livia says, like it’s a given that any scene I might do would be good enough to make it. Maybe that is a given for anyone else here. “Hank and I placed second last year with Romeo and Juliet.”
“We were lovers,” he says dramatically. “I was very convincing.” Livia giggles and reaches up to stroke his hair. Hank pretends not to notice Livia’s hand as it crawls across his cheek, and it turns into a game. Her fingers pet his lips as he mumbles through them, “What part do you want?”
I keep my eyes on Hank, but I swear I can feel Mandy’s eyes on me. “I don’t really care,” I lie. “I’d be happy with anything.”
Hank nods. “You should read for Ophelia.” Then he says to the table, “She looks like she could go crazy, doesn’t she?”
He means well, but that’s the last thing I need to hear.
“I bet Caddie wants Gertrude,” Mandy says. That’s Hamlet’s mother. She just married Claudius, her dead husband’s brother and also—surprise—his murderer. It’s a good part, but it’s not Ophelia.
I lie. “Yeah, I’m not sure what part I want.”
“You could be a good Gertrude,” Mandy says to Livia, and it feels like she’s taken Gertrude away from me as punishment for not going along.
“Give me devious,” Mandy says. Livia purses her lips and screws up her eyes.
“I think I want one of the man parts, though,” Livia says. “Or maybe Ophelia.”
Mandy’s face stays cool. “I think you should go for the friend guy.” She makes it sound like a compliment that she thinks Livia could handle such a good part.
“Horatio,” I say. “Hamlet’s friend?”
“Yeah, that guy,” Mandy says. “We should cast the whole thing right now and see how close we get!”
“Hey, what kind of a name is Caddie?” Oscar says. It’s as if he’s physically wrenched the conversation back in his direction, but I’m grateful for it.
“It’s short for Cadence, family name.”
“Ah, I was thinking maybe your parents were golfers.” Oscar puts on his best country club voice, stands, thrusts his pelvis toward me, and says, “Hey, Caddie, want to carry my club?” He mimes gripping an optimistically large “club” and swings his hand around in the air between us.
Everybody laughs, more at his idiocy than at me, but still, they’re all watching to see how I’ll respond. I should say something clever, should not care. My face shouldn’t be going hot.
Drew’s sleepy smile taunts me—this wouldn’t faze Mandy—while Peter leans in and says, “He can’t help himself. He’s not used to girls speaking to him. Mostly they just cry and run.”
Oscar’s thigh
knocks my shoulder.
“Could you give me some space?” I sound snobbish, restrained. I can’t laugh like the rest of them do—it’s on my face like a billboard, I’m certain, how odd I am.
Mandy still has her arm around Drew. She’s letting me fend for myself. Why shouldn’t she? If I can’t handle her friends, maybe I’m not meant to be one of them.
“I’m sorry,” Oscar says, putting on another character, a lovelorn one, “I just want to be close to you,” and he comes in low, balancing his hands on my thigh.
It’s not about me anymore. It’s about Livia and Hank, who are giggling, Mandy and Drew, watching and waiting, and Peter, who isn’t impressed enough yet with how far Oscar’s willing to go for a laugh.
Oscar squeezes between me and the table, slides himself onto my lap so I’m pinned to my seat, and pushes me closer to Drew, who says, “Dude, watch out,” through laughter.
I can’t let Oscar touch the places where clothes shift and fail.
Peter’s exactly across from me. He looks annoyed, but everyone else is showing their teeth. It’s hilarious—stupid, but hilarious. Hank snorts milk from his nose. Livia drops her face in her hands.
I’m a clenched fist trying to pass for an open palm. Smiling hurts. My teeth grind. Even the little muscles beside my ears feel tight.
“Wow,” Oscar says, “your thighs are really—hard. No, wait, sorry, that’s something else!” He half-stands to straddle my thigh.
I’m supposed to say something funny to put Oscar in his place—that’s what Mandy would do—but my brain’s blank. Oscar rocks like a kid getting a pony ride, except that he groans and yips, “Giddy-yap!” and “Yee-haw!”
Livia gives a half-hearted, “Oscar, enough,” and Mandy finally speaks up.
“Oscar! Stop being a jackass!”
Without any input from my brain, my elbow jabs into his ribs and my free foot kicks at his leg. He curses and grabs my thigh to balance himself.
“Get off me!” comes out of my mouth before I can remember to be cool, to be one of them, and I shove at him.
Oscar grabs my hands, but the gloves twist in his grip, and one of the seams where the thumb meets the first finger tears. Like a burn, his thumb presses my skin.
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