Practically Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  “Sure.” Alec threw Em an apologetic look. “I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as I was buckled into the passenger seat and Alec shifted the car into gear, I let out an exhausted breath. “Did you have any idea she was going to do that to me?”

  “And ruin my chance at uninterrupted frozen custard consumption?” Alec took the turn out of Marranos’ parking lot at a speed I’d normally complain about if I weren’t in such a rush to get out of there. “No.”

  “I can’t believe her. On what planet did she think that would be okay?”

  “On Em planet.” At my annoyed snort, he looked over at me before focusing back on the road. “C’mon, you know her. She was just trying to help. She only does stuff like this because she cares about you and Leia.”

  “I know, but,” I gripped the door handle, trying to loosen the choking sensation in my chest, “I think we’re fine, and that Em understands to stay out of things, and then, surprise—a sneak attack.”

  “You also know she gets really focused when she puts her mind to something.” He pulled into the mostly empty school parking lot and slowed to a stop behind my car. “You know I had nothing to do with this, right? Because it’s not okay for you to take it out on me.” He nodded at the video game sticker on his dashboard that I’d been worrying at with my nail. “Or my car.”

  I dropped my hands to my lap. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” I took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. “Just… the next time you hear her trying to come up with one of her ‘plans,’ can you, I don’t know, distract her with community theater auditions or something?”

  “Only if you promise to drive yourself to Marranos next time so if she does something like this, I don’t have to put friendship in front of stromboli.”

  I stepped out of the car and closed the door, leaning in to talk through the open window. “Deal. I don’t want to get in the way of you and food.”

  “You don’t want to see me when I’m hungry,” he growled.

  I stifled a laugh at his reference. “Thanks for the ride, Hulk.”

  As soon as I stepped back, he waved and drove away. I slipped into my car, pushed the on button, and sat for a minute, trying to push back all the Leia-feelings. As soon as I started driving, though, my body went on autopilot and I ended up driving the opposite direction from home, towards Aunt Drina’s studio. It didn’t matter that my class wasn’t for another hour, I needed to dance.

  Chapter 23

  I leaned forward in my straddle, my hips popping as my chest touched the floor. An indie pop ballad blasted out of the speakers and I rolled my body with the beat of the slow guitar until my nose was touching my left knee. My hamstring tugged, still a little tight, but didn’t hurt. Class was starting in twenty minutes and I was taking advantage of every second to limber up. Technically, I was going to run my class through warmup, but the ritual of getting ready was just as important as a warm hamstring. Plus, the familiar routine helped focus my brain on everything but Leia and Em and everything that had just happened at Marranos.

  “Mind if I stretch with you?” A pair of feet appeared right under my nose and I turned my head to catch a pair of neon green legwarmers. Natalie didn’t wait for my answer, just slid into a split next to me. “It’s always more fun when you have someone to talk to.”

  “You’re obviously not an introvert,” I said. Between dance and cheer, I’d gotten so used to stretching with other people that it was actually a little comforting to have someone else in the room with me.

  “Please. Drina told me about the whole cheerleader thing and how you have a million friends. I also heard about the time you gloriously told off the judge at the shore competition a few years ago.” She leaned forward to touch her nose to her front knee and turned her head to add, “You’re obviously not an introvert, either.”

  I stretched to the other leg, my side muscles hurting with the pressure of my laugh. The way I’d marched onto the stage and torn into one of the judges for giving “constructive criticism” about the weights of some of our senior girls was legendary at our dance school. Especially since I was only ten at the time and was defending people seven years older than me.

  “No, definitely not. Touché.”

  She switched sides on her split. “Since I’m so good at reading you and your non-introvertness, I can tell something’s really bothering you today,” she said in a casual tone.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  She gestured with her chin towards the sound system, then back at me. “You’ve got Cyan Matthews on repeat, that’s a real messy bun—not a ‘I made it messy on purpose’ bun, and your mascara looks pretty rough. I’ve been there, too. All you need is an empty pint of ice cream next to you and a spoon sticking out of your mouth.”

  “That’s later,” I admitted, glancing at my reflection and admitting to myself that she was ridiculously right. I looked like the most poorly pulled-together mess on the planet. I rolled my ankles and pointed my toes, debating my next step. Even though Natalie was still a stranger, at least she was neutral. “I got in a fight with my girlfriend. And then fought with one of my other friends.” Go, me.

  There always was a pattern, a beat, a series of moments after people who didn’t really know me heard me say “my girlfriend.” First, a nod while the information really didn’t hit their brains, followed by a furrowed brow or a tilted head or a double-take widening of their eyes as they processed but didn’t fully compute. After that, an expression would flicker across their face: surprise, disgust, confusion, slightly uncomfortable acceptance, disappointment—especially if it was a guy hitting on me—that would give me a hint to what I was going to have to deal with. My favorites were the people who gave the equivalent of a mental shrug as they gamely jumped to the next thought, like when I first came out to Em and seconds later she asked me where I got my earrings. Natalie did the pause-head-tilt-think, followed by an impossible to read think-some-more moment before reaching out to pat my shoulder, a sympathetic frown forming on her lips. “I’m sorry, that sucks.”

  She automatically won a spot on my ‘good people’ list.

  The silence stretched on for about four counts before she quirked a smile at me. “So, cheerleading, huh?” Her tone was a cross between slightly awkward, teasing, and curious. “You don’t strike me as the rah-rah type.”

  “It’s an art and a sport,” I said defensively, “You should see some of the acro combinations my coach came up with for us. It’s really hard.”

  “I’m sure it is. It’s just that I saw you dance and I’ve watched you teach. I saw the look on your face those times. I’m surprised you gave this up for a set of pom-poms.” She faced me in a side split and held out her hands for me to pull her further in her stretch. “Not that there’s anything wrong with pom-poms, but I really don’t understand how anything can beat dance.”

  Usually, I’d default to my ‘dance took too many hours of my life’ speech or ‘cheer is a lot more fun,’ but something about Natalie and the way she seemed to handle things made me want to be transparent. “It has a lot more social and scholarship potential than spending my life inside a studio.” I shrugged and added, “Plus, there’s nothing like getting thrown twelve feet in the air for a great adrenaline rush. I think that was when I really fell in love with the sport.”

  “I’ll stick to jetes, thanks,” she said, then looked up with a skeptical expression. “Social potential?”

  I folded forward as she tugged on my arms to help deepen my stretch, feeling the pull in my hip flexors. “Never underestimate the power of a cheerleading uniform when it comes to getting what you need in high school. Teachers love the school spirit part, especially if you’re a good student, you get to hang out with all the other athletes, and we do enough events at school that most people know our names.” I stretched back up to sitting in my straddle and, at her skeptical expression, added, “Social clout isn’t easy to come by, you know.”

  “Wow. You make it sound like a formula.”r />
  “It is. Take a designer wardrobe. Add social-circle expanding school activity. Mix with common sense, remove any meanness, and, there it is—” I snapped my fingers, “social clout.”

  Natalie stood and immediately folded over until her palms rested flat on the floor behind her feet. “From my experience, there are people who just naturally stand out. Getting others to like them just comes easy to them. They’ve got,” she searched for a word, pausing until it came to her, “woo. Others are drawn to them. It’s the first thing you notice about them. Grace, you’re one of those people. You have woo.”

  “Please stop using that word.” Word-nerd Phoebe would have fits over someone using a verb as a noun.

  She ignored my comment and kept speaking into her knees as she bent even lower. “What I mean is, it’s not all an equation. You could have done all that stuff, but without your natural draw and personality, you wouldn’t own the room.”

  “If you’re trying to flirt and make me crush on you, right after a breakup is pretty bad timing,” I said. When she turned her head to look at me confusedly, I bat my eyelashes at her to let her know I was joking.

  She made an inelegant snorting sound and straightened up, stretching her arms to the ceiling. “Cute.”

  Aunt Drina poked her head into the studio. “Grace, you’re learning April’s part in the duet, right? Otherwise, you two need to let me know what song you want me to cut.”

  “Duet?” A duet was way more effort than the usual teachers’ number where I’d go on stage, do a few choreographed steps Aunt Drina and the other teachers, then flit back off stage.

  “For the teachers’ contemporary number,” Aunt Drina said. “Unless you both want to jump into the hip-hop or tap numbers. I know how much Natalie loves tap.”

  “Oh, you’re funny,” Natalie said, padding over to the door. “Nobody needs to see me try to tap or do hip-hop. I’ll teach Grace what we choreographed so far.” I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t have enough time, between finals and teaching, to practice, but she kept talking, turning to me again. “You’ll catch on fast. I don’t think we’ll need too much practice. And I bet it’ll be good for you to take your mind off other stuff.”

  Instead of answering, I looked at my aunt. “Are you doing a teacher’s number?”

  “Actually,” she waved a printed apron at me, “we have a few ladies in the adult ballet class who won’t go out on stage without me, so you’re looking at townswoman number three in The Breton Wedding. So, yes, I’m performing.”

  “We can practice before you have to go to school, maybe every other day? I’m okay with getting up early if you are,” Natalie said helpfully. “I can’t do the teacher’s contemporary number alone and the recital won’t be the same without it…”

  I didn’t want to think about losing some of my 4:30 a.m. study time, but at least she hadn’t mentioned weekends. I closed my eyes, feeling a sense of resignation settle over me, and said, “You two are going to team up against me until I say yes?” A part of me suspected that the whole bonding-while-stretching had probably been a part of their plan. Catch me off guard, loosen me up—literally—with a few stretches, make me like chatting with Natalie, and then drop this other responsibility right before I have to teach.

  “Pretty much,” Natalie said, just as Aunt Drina said, “Yes.”

  I shook my head. There was no use fighting the two of them. “Fine, but I get a veto if the music sucks.”

  Natalie bounced a little and gave my aunt a high-five. “This is going to be fun.”

  Some of my class started filtering in at that moment, so I rolled to standing and walked over to the sound system to switch over to my class playlist. “Okay, you two. Get out so I can teach—and before you can talk me into anything else.” I waved dismissively at them and they left, giggling and whispering like kids.

  Chapter 24

  Dance hadn’t helped much. Even though I stayed after class for an hour running through different combinations to push my body to sweat out every ounce of emotion, I still hadn’t been able to get the terrible, itchy ache out from under my skin. Showering and scrubbing at my red and blistered feet hadn’t cleared my head. And now, studying wasn’t helping, either.

  Usually, I could get lost in figuring out a problem—physics or calculus were like logical little puzzles that came with their own little roadmaps of equations that fit together so perfectly. Not like life with its messy wonky edges. But every time I blinked, I could see Em’s hurt expression and the image of Leia sitting at the table and the equations would just run away from me in the awful squish of my heart.

  I dropped my forehead onto my physics book. Maybe I’d absorb the calm through osmosis. When my phone rang, I didn’t even bother to roll my head to the side to look at the screen, even though my nose was dangerously close to getting a papercut in this position. I blindly picked up. “Hello?”

  The voice that came out of my phone was low and angry. “How dare you yell at Em like that?” Phoebe didn’t even bother with her typical super-polite greetings. For someone who was usually so even-tempered, she could get like a momma bear when one of her friends was hurting.

  “You talked to Em,” I said dully.

  “Yes, I talked to her,” she snapped back. “She was upset and was talking so fast I couldn’t even understand her at first. What the frack, Grace? You do not yell at friends.”

  Heat started crawling up the back of my neck, and I wasn’t sure if it was anger at Phoebe for lecturing me or shame at what I’d done earlier or both. Either way, the feeling was new and threw me off balance as if I’d just messed up a new lift or tumble, making me fumble a second before saying, “Em needs to know to stay out of other people’s lives. And it’s not really your business, either, it’s between me and her.”

  “It’s my business when one of my friends starts acting like a jerk to my best friend. I expect that kind of behavior from other people. Not you.”

  “I’m the one going through relationship problems and had almost become one of Em’s well-intentioned but poorly thought through victims, and you’re actually trying to make it sound like I’m the bad guy?” I blew air through my lips and got up to start pacing my room. That itchy, achy feeling was back and I couldn’t sit still. “Look, Em screwed up by trying to get involved in my life, I blew up at her. It’s done. Fight over.”

  “Badly done,” she shot back.

  I recognized that quote right away. “Don’t start quoting Jane Austen at me.”

  “You know how Em is. She was trying to help,” Phoebe said, her voice still hard.

  The disbelieving sound I made surprised even me. “Everyone keeps making that excuse for her, but that’s not acceptable. I don’t need her help.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Those four words cut through me and I shot back to avoid the heart-suffocating feeling again. “You don’t believe me because you think the whole world is unicorns and rainbows and fairytales. Wake up, Feebs. Crappy stuff happens. People fight. Things end. Relationships end. That’s life.” My words grew tight and I added, “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be comforting me? I’m the one with the relationship problems. Hell, you didn’t even like Leia when I first started dating her.”

  “This isn’t about you and Leia, this is about how you treat others, and what happened with Em was unacceptable.” Phoebe was always too empathetic for her own good. Em and Alec were good at distancing themselves, but she was a bleeding heart.

  I couldn’t take another minute of lecturing on how much I sucked. “I’m hanging up in a minute.” Peeling my forehead from the shiny textbook page, I finally looked at the screen and hovered my thumb over the “end call” button.

  “You’re better than this, Grace,” she said, sounding just like a mom.

  “You’re sticking yourself somewhere you don’t belong.” I took another deep breath to steady my voice and said, “Call me when you want to be a real friend.” I turned off my phone and tossed it onto
my bed, walking out of my room.

  Mom passed me on the landing and paused, squinting at my face. “Are you okay, honey?”

  I schooled my features into my perfectly peppy cheerleader expression. Hopefully, I didn’t have a physics equation pressed into my skin. “Perfect. I just realized I forgot to schedule my regular appointment for highlights. They’re going to kill me at the salon if I ask for a last-minute appointment this weekend.”

  Her gaze flickered to my barely showing light auburn roots and back to my eyes, and she paused, looking like she was about to say something before reaching out and squeezing my arm, instead.

  “Just don’t do anything drastic today, okay? Hair grows, but chopping it after a breakup isn’t the best move.”

  “I’m not cutting my hair, I promise I’m just getting a touch up. Besides, you know I’d never risk messing up my graduation pictures.” I fake-fluffed my hair the way Em did whenever she imitated silver-screen Hollywood starlets. “I’m too vain for breakup hair. Besides, we’re on time off, not a breakup.”

  “That’s…good.” Mom let go then patted my arm awkwardly. “Are you sure you’re okay, though? I have a pint of almond milk Rocky Road in the freezer if you need it.”

  I pulled away and started the rest of the way down the stairs. “You know what? I’m not hungry now, but tell the ice cream that me, it, and a spoon have a date tomorrow.” At least ice cream wasn’t going to yell at me.

  Chapter 25

  There was nothing worse than trying to design on only a few hours of fitful sleep. Phoebe’s chiding voice had followed me into my dreams, resulting in a nightmare where everyone, including Leia, made an appearance and I had to keep dancing while all of them yelled at me and I didn’t have enough breath to apologize. When my alarm had finally gone off, I’d rolled out of bed and headed straight for my desk, hoping that maybe focusing on my project would shake off the remnants of the nightmare. But, somehow, realizing I had no idea what I was going to actually design—or if I even knew how to design anything—just made everything worse.