“Caddie.” Mom takes a long pause. “You seem awfully . . . tense.”
She’s picked up on it, then.
“I want you to feel like you can talk to me, Caddie, when you need help with something.”
A few years ago, I might have seen this look on Mom’s face and assumed she was getting a migraine. Now, I can look in a mirror any minute of the day and see that same expression on my own face.
Worry.
The first time we went to the doctor for my panic attacks, we went in together, and talking about my problems made Mom start to cry. I’d only ever seen her like that because someone had died.
That terrified me, I could have told Peter, that I could be messed up enough to make Mom cry. And then, in March, when Dad found out that Mom let me audition for the academy . . . that night was murder. Mom took me to the audition in secret, last January. We didn’t tell Dad anything until my acceptance letter came.
That night, nobody was “emotionally contained.” Mine and Dad’s tempers boiled over, and we shouted at each other until I started panicking and Mom screamed that we had to calm down, that this was hurting me.
Dad went down to the basement, got in his car, drove away, and didn’t come back until late the next night. That twenty-eight hours or so felt brutal, that he would abandon us like that, not say where he was going, not let us know he was okay.
I’d been doing better before then. The panic that had gotten so bad in middle school was under control. I hadn’t been to Dr. Rice in more than a year. But that night, Mom took me to the emergency room. They gave me a sedative to make me sleep. The next day when I woke up and Dad still hadn’t come back and I felt so groggy, caught in some other girl’s half-dreamed life, I was sure that he never would.
Later that night, when he did come back, I knew it wouldn’t last. Something had broken that couldn’t be mended. By June, he was gone.
Now I work to free my face of tension. That night in the hospital scared me. It took forever to convince Mom that it wasn’t a relapse, just a one-night slipup, brought on by the fight. No more panic. No more doctors. If I seem all right, Mom will let this go.
I wait to see if she wants to make a thing of it, but she stares into herself and crosses her arms. “Do you want to do the dressing for the salad?” she asks, and I nod.
She’s going to leave it alone, and I’m going to cooperate to thank her for it.
That night, I lie in bed waiting for sleep that won’t come.
By Monday I’ll know. If I’m Ophelia. If Peter is Hamlet.
The part of me that needs to touch is like a tiny bird I swallowed by mistake. It beats its wings against my throat, tickles my heart with its feathers, grips a rib with its claws. It tastes the inside of my skin with its little bird tongue.
When Peter looked at me—with so much need—it started chirping to get out.
Fear tugs at me and I’m falling.
I grab at the mattress, dig in with my fingers, flop onto my stomach, hold tight. Press my face into the pillow so hard it hurts. The quilt twists like it wants to smother me.
I can’t scream out loud, but there has to be some release. I kick my feet against the mattress in a muffled frenzy, legs flying fast and hard enough to carry me miles away. And when it’s done, nothing’s changed. I’m still stuck right here.
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16.
Mr. Kiernan reads the announcements during second-period chemistry: the cast list is up. We’ll be able to check during the long break between second and third. Livia twists in her seat, eyes wide and sure, and reaches across the lab table—to squeeze hands I guess.
I wiggle my fingers in a wave.
When the bell rings, Livia’s up fast. “We should all go together,” she says, but I take my time arranging and rearranging the contents of my backpack. I’d rather wait for the crowd to thin out.
Mandy pushes through the exiting students and flies to us, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Why so slow? I’m not going without you guys!” To me, she says, “Hey, you!” and there’s an acknowledgment in her voice that it’s the first time we’ve spoken since Friday. “Where were you this morning? Peter was wanting to talk flash mob.”
“I was running late,” I lie. “Hold on, I need a piece of gum.”
“I meant to tell you good job after your audition,” Mandy says. “That was pretty . . . intense, but then you ran off.”
The way Mandy says “intense” doesn’t sound entirely complimentary.
“I was weird,” I say. “You did great.” I go back to rummaging.
“Forget the gum. I saw Peter and Hank in the hall.”
Mandy reaches for my shoulder, and I jerk away. “I didn’t ask you to wait,” I say, and immediately regret how harsh I sound. Mandy’s face falls.
“I don’t want to look without you,” she says, her voice hard now too. “It’s more fun if we go together.”
“Okay, sorry. I’m ready.”
Mandy’s giddy again, walking backward to make sure I’m following. “You’re just worried you’re going to have bad breath when you’re jumping up and down and screaming, ‘Hallelujah for me, I got cast!’”
“Right,” I say, letting her draw me out into the hall.
I see Drew before Mandy does. His face is alert and too tense.
Mandy sees the curiosity—the worry—in me, and she spins around to Drew.
They hold eye contact for a few solid seconds, and then Mandy breaks off with her back to us, presses her palms to the wall. “Crap,” she mutters. “Crap. Crap.” She doesn’t turn around when she asks, “Did I even get a little part?”
“I told you she wasn’t going to like you being pushy,” Drew says before putting his hands on Mandy’s back, which is shaking. His words aren’t comforting, but when Livia steps closer to Mandy, he shakes his head to say he’s got it covered.
Livia turns to me. “Come on, we have to look,” and she darts ahead.
Mandy’s audition was good. If she’s not on the list anywhere, then who knows what Nadia wants? As anxious as I am to check for my name, it’s more important to show Mandy I care. I take a step toward her, but Drew wraps his arms around her and rocks her back and forth. He shakes his head at me. “Go on, Caddie. Go look.”
“I’m so sorry, Mandy. I know you wanted it.”
Mandy waves a hand to send me away.
I walk down the hall toward the bulletin board as if pressing through something heavy and wet. The crowd hasn’t dispersed, but it’s spread. People give one another space as they read the list over and over, looking for something they might have missed, memorizing the names.
Livia sees me and smiles big. My heart floods. I’m in the play. I’ll be one of the theater crowd. I’ll be a part of things . . . but Mandy won’t.
April is planted in front of the board with her arms crossed, staring at the list even though there’s no way she’s on it. She turns toward me and her face flinches.
“You’re that new girl. The junior?”
By the time I’m done nodding, she’s mastered her face. She’s easy to read because she’s so much like me, trying to look like she doesn’t care. “Congratulations,” she says. “All the senior girls are going to hate you.”
My heart thuds harder.
Something in Drew’s face made me wonder. I didn’t believe it. It would be unlikely for a new girl to get cast as . . .
Ophelia.
My name’s next to that name. I can’t help raising my finger to the board to trace the distance between her name and mine, to make sure they line up.
“It’s really you,” April says. “It’s a great part. I’d be nervous to play it.”
She’s saying it partly to make herself feel better, but it’s the truth, too. She would be nervous. I am. And happy, and worried, and embarrassed, and a bazillion other things.
“God, don’t cry,” April says.
I blink hard and take a deep breath to calm myself down. I scan the other names, looking for Hamlet.
It’s Peter.
I didn’t need to look. As soon as I saw my own name, I knew. If I hadn’t read with him, I doubt I’d have been cast. I’m grateful he’s not here with me. Whatever real feelings are there, we’re going to be pretending we’re in love. I feel feverish as it is—with Peter standing beside me, I’d catch fire.
All the rest of them made it, one way or another. Hank is Hamlet’s uncle, King Claudius. Oscar is Laertes, Ophelia’s brother who swordfights with Hamlet at the end of the play. Livia is Gertrude.
Drew will be playing my father, Polonius. It’s not a flashy part, but it’s a major role. I wonder if Drew’s happy with it, or if he’s feeling exactly what I am—worried because he got a part and Mandy didn’t.
We have to sign our initials to say we accept, that we’ll be at rehearsals this afternoon and every afternoon.
Signing that paper means opening up to Ophelia’s tsunami of feeling. It means working with Peter, closely, and trying to keep my head. There’s the fear of pissing off Mandy, the fear of becoming the new Macbeth asthma kid, the risk of disappointing Mom, and disappointing Dad for sure.
I want to tell Dad, I realize. I want him to be happy for me, proud, want him to reassure me that this blessing doesn’t mean I’m cursed when it comes to him.
I take my phone out to the courtyard, where the leaves rustle red and orange.
“Y-ello,” he answers, “yes” and “hello” together, all business.
“Dad? It’s—”
“Oh!” It takes him a second to realize. “Caddie. I didn’t even look. I’m expecting a call.”
If he’d seen me on his caller ID, he wouldn’t have answered.
“Can you call back and leave a message, sweetie?”
“I have some news.”
“We’ll talk soon, all right, but I need to take this call.”
“Dad, I—”
“Call me right back and leave a message to remind me.”
Click. And he’s gone.
I call right back, like if I’m fast enough, he’ll still be on the line.
“You have reached the cell phone of Charles Finn.”
Before it can beep, I end the call.
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17.
I’d been building up some kind of power by not calling Dad, but now I’ve spent it, and he wouldn’t even talk to me.
I go to lunch both hoping and dreading to see Mandy. I want to tell to her about Dad, see if she and I are okay, but she doesn’t show. Neither does Drew.
“I don’t understand why Nadia didn’t give her some part,” I say. “It’s mean.”
Hank shrugs. “I don’t think she did it to be mean. Most people would be honored to do what Mandy’s doing.”
“What?” I say.
“It was on the crew sheet. She’s assistant director,” Hank says. “Nadia would be pissed if she saw Mandy acting disappointed about it.”
Across the lunchroom, Peter and Oscar are making their way through the line. Every time someone comes up to Peter to congratulate him, Oscar acts super interested in the haircut of the guy in front of him.
Soon, Peter’s setting his tray down by mine and standing with his arms wide for a congratulatory hug. “I told you, didn’t I?” he says.
“Congratulations,” I say, clapping my hands in front of my face. “Sorry I can’t stand up. My foot’s asleep.” The longer I play this game, the better I get at lying.
Usually Peter sits across from me, but with Mandy and Drew gone, he takes the seat at my side.
“Look at the happy couple,” says Hank.
“Until he goes crazy and she kills herself,” Livia says, and I’m grateful to her for dashing even Hank’s snarky suggestion of romance.
“We get to be in love too,” says Livia, squeezing herself against Hank’s shoulder.
“Famous!” Hank says, and he takes her face in his hands and gives her a giant smooch full on the lips. Livia exaggerates fanning herself.
“All right, your turn,” Hank says, spinning his finger in a circle toward me and Peter. “We can double date, the king and the queen and the prince and the . . . What are you?” he asks me.
“A courtier? I don’t know. Are you so excited?” I say to Peter, to get away from the cute talk.
“Excited,” he says. “And terrified.”
“That’s what makes it fun,” Oscar says. “When I went in for my first day of shooting with Lance—”
“You shook so bad your costume glasses fell off your face,” Hank finishes.
“She hasn’t heard it before!” Oscar says, pointing to me. “I’m not bragging.”
“Of course not,” says Hank.
“If I were bragging, I would act like Lance was the one scared to be working with me.”
“Lance?” Peter teases.
“You work with a guy, you get to be on a first-name basis. I’m not trying to be snotty about it.”
“You’re so good at it, though, without even trying,” Hank says.
Everyone laughs, Oscar too. He still rubs me the wrong way—he did rub me, in a very wrong way, at our first meeting—but I get why they like him.
“Let’s talk flash mob.” Peter turns sideways in his seat so his knee bumps mine.
Careful.
“Cannot wait,” Livia says.
Peter nods. “I was thinking we could do it at Mandy’s Halloween party.”
“Mandy’s?” I say.
“I know it’s a ways off, but it will give us time to plan.”
“It’s an annual thing,” Hank explains. “You guys are so tight, I’m surprised you haven’t come before.” If anybody else said that, I’d question whether he meant to make me feel bad, but Hank has a way of being oblivious to the social dynamic.
“Will there be enough people there?” I ask.
“Half the school,” Oscar says.
Peter says, “Count on a hundred and fifty people. I figure if fifteen percent of them freeze, that should be about right.”
“That’s like the whole cast of Hamlet.”
“Great minds . . . ,” Peter says, pointing a finger back and forth between my great mind and his. Livia claps. They’re all looking at me with the same excitement Mandy used to show when I had a great idea. Getting cast makes such a difference.
I belong, even without Mandy here. I’m not glad Mandy’s skipping lunch, but I’m glad to know how this feels.
“Caddie, I know you’re going to beg to be my partner for warm-ups at rehearsal today,” Oscar says, “so I’ll kill the suspense now and say yes.”
“Show of hands if you vote Oscar’s banned from trust falls,” Peter says.
“Trust falls?” I say. “Like, where you fall. And other people. Try to catch you?” It takes several breaths to get out the words.
“That’s Nadia’s favorite bonding thing to do with a new cast,” he says, completely oblivious to my horror. “She’s got a bajillion variations.”
Livia says, “I like the one where you stand in the middle of the circle and let everybody pass you around.”
“But you actually like people groping you,” Hank says. “I know.”
Livia giggles.
“I like the one,” Oscar says, “where people put their hands on different parts of your body all at once, moving down like a waterfall. Kind of hot.”
“Caddie?” Hank says. “Are you all right? You look red.”
Any sense of belonging I had has fled, and I’m back in my bubble. My air’s running out—one false move and panic will come crashing in.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. “I feel like I might be getting a fever. I’m going to see if the office will give me some Tylenol.”
&nbs
p; Peter reaches out as if to touch my forehead, and I stand up fast.
“Feel better,” Peter says. “You can’t miss the first rehearsal.”
“No, I know. Thanks. You feel better too. I mean, I didn’t mean that. I mean, see you guys later.”
Going home sick is one option.
Jumping off the roof is another. Better that than dropping out of the play.
My feet carry me outside, across the drive to the amphitheater. Mandy’s there, on the lowest level, folded into herself and smoking. Drew sits with her, and when he sees me, he stands. “Oh, good. Caddie can keep you company while I scarf something down.”
Mandy looks up toward me, indifferent. “You’re leaving me?” she says to Drew.
He rubs his hands up and down her arms. “I love you, baby, but I’m hungry.”
“Okay,” she says in her mopiest voice. “Grab me a banana?”
“Sure thing.” On his way up he mutters, “Good luck,” to me under his breath.
“He’s being nice,” I say.
“Yeah. He still says I ‘wrecked his audition,’ but I guess I’m forgiven since I wrecked mine more.”
“I think you helped his audition—or you would have if he’d let you.”
Mandy takes an aggressive draw on her cigarette and lifts her chin to exhale.
“She should have at least asked me,” she says, “if I wanted to be AD.”
“What would you have said?”
She shrugs. “It might be more fun, if it were between that and a small part, but who knows? My mom’s going to be pissed.”
I don’t feel like I have permission to sit down yet, so I hover. “We missed you at lunch.”
“I couldn’t deal with everybody.”
“I’m sorry.” I step down to the lowest level and sit, leaving one big stone seat between us.
“It’s not your fault,” she says, and then after a drag, “Congratulations. You must be excited.”
“I am and I’m not,” I say. “I’m afraid of messing up, and . . . I’ve been afraid you’d be mad at me.”
She locks eyes with me. “I am mad at you,” she says, “a little. But I know it’s not fair. I’m just jealous.” She smiles. “I’ll get over it.”
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