by Amy Spalding
At home I start to email Justine about auditions and karaoke and the updated list of songs from Nation and my upcoming dinner with Kate Logan, but I feel weird that it’s been so long and I do have this phone and all, so I close my door and call.
“Hello?”
“HiJustineit’sme,” I say, because I didn’t expect that hearing her voice would bring a billion things crashing around in my head and heart. Home and Dad and my old room and how far away everything is now. “Sorry, it’s me.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “Finally.”
“Sorry, I’ve been—it’s busy—I . . . ” There actually isn’t a very good reason for why I haven’t called her, so I don’t know why I’m trying. I guess because actually saying that would make me sound like an awful friend.
“What’s it like there?” she asks. “Do you live near the beach?”
“No, the beach is like an hour away. I haven’t been there yet.”
“Have you seen anyone famous?”
“Um, yeah, my mother’s friends with Kate Logan—”
“Oh my God!” Justine’s voice shoots up practically a whole octave when she’s excited about something, and I can picture her face reacting to this Kate Logan news. “Is she amazing? Kate Logan, I mean?”
“Kind of, yeah. She’s taking me out to dinner tonight, actually.”
“Your life is amazing,” she says. “Oh, so auditions for the fall show are next week. It’s Guys and Dolls, but I think I have a good chance at playing Sarah.”
“You do, totally,” I say. “Ours were yesterday. I think they went okay.”
“Of course they did,” she says. “When have you not gotten a role?”
It’s true, but why does she have to say it like it’s my fatal flaw?
“I have to tell you everything that’s up with Noah,” she says, and launches into a whole speech about how he’s been texting back really fast, not like before, and it clearly means something. Hopefully I’m not awful for not hanging on her every word. Sai’s often taking up space in my brain, but I manage to keep him there.
Maybe that isn’t fair. Maybe if I actually ever kissed someone, it would be different.
I hope it wouldn’t be, though.
After Justine’s monologue on The Tenor is over, we both sound happy to end the call. It’s weird how only a year ago I couldn’t have imagined cutting a conversation short with Justine unless someone needed the phone.
I’m ready to leave when Kate arrives, but only because I’d been changing clothes for an hour, trying different combinations. I settled on an apple-green skirt with a black sleeveless shirt under a yellow cardigan (totally sounds like it shouldn’t go, but it’s so wrong it’s right) and black flats. It’s good I put this much care into it, because like always, Kate looks perfect, tonight in a simple dress printed with bright flowers and tall strappy sandals that are classy not trashy.
“You look adorable,” she tells me in a way that isn’t condescending at all, as we walk outside to her Prius. “Though it’s still surprising—shocking, even!—that Reece’s daughter would manage to wear anything other than jeans and a T-shirt.”
“So she’s always been like that?”
“Since I’ve known her, yeah.” She giggles a little. “Reece is Reece.” She pauses from buckling her seat belt and makes very direct eye contact. “How are you doing? You’ve had so much to adjust to.”
I shrug. “I’m fine.”
“You,” she says, tapping my shoulder, “do not have to be nice when it’s just us. Reece has been one of my very best friends for years, so I’m more than familiar with what a pain in the ass she can be.”
“Did she say something to you?”
“I figured out that much on my own,” she says, which makes me laugh. “And no. Was there something to say?”
It’s probably dumb to hold back, considering how much I still have left to find out about Reece Malcolm and how willing Kate seems to be. “Can I ask a question?”
“Always! I insist.”
“Did you, um, know about me? Before I moved here?”
“Well, yeah. One of my best, best friends, remember?” She gives me a huge smile like that’s so obvious. “I know, Reece keeps it all here”—she holds her hand to her heart—“but it breaks through sometimes. I treat her like . . .” Kate’s brow furrows. “A wild squirrel. Yes! If you sat on your lawn every day, a squirrel would eventually trust you enough to eat out of your hand. But you have to be so still and patient.”
“Aren’t all squirrels wild?” I ask.
“Don’t ruin my metaphor, Devan.”
“Reece Malcolm’s a wild squirrel.” I say it like a question.
Kate snorts. “Most definitely.”
“I ruined her life,” I say, which makes Kate’s expression fall immediately. “Trust me. I did.”
“Trust me, sweetie,” she says. “You didn’t.”
I think about quoting my mother, but proving Kate wrong isn’t worth reliving those words. They run through my head enough as it is.
“So how was your audition?” she asks, and I’m grateful for the change in topic.
“Okay, I think. We find out about callbacks on Monday.”
“I was thinking that you have so much competition coming up, between school and then college and then, well, life! So maybe I could work with you, help you improve, etcetera. What do you think?”
“Do you seriously want to do that?” I ask, instead of oh my God, that’s the best thing I’ve ever been offered. Ever ever ever.
“I seriously do,” she says. “And, sweetie, sometimes you’ll only get one chance at something. Stop questioning what comes your way and just grab hold. Don’t be . . . ”
“A wild squirrel?”
“That,” Kate says, “should be your new mantra.”
My mother leans into my room the next evening. “Your friends are here. Red-haired girl and boy with eyeliner. Guyliner? Is that what people call it?”
“I guess some people do.”
“There goes my last attempt at sounding cool.” She laughs and heads out of my room. I wait a moment before running downstairs, where Lissa and Elijah are waiting, both admiring the painting over the fireplace. It’s weird to see them standing here, like worlds are colliding or something, but I’m also glad. Travis’s friendship is practically too good to be true, and who knows what’s up with Sai, and of course Mira’s my enemy or whatever, but Elijah and Lissa are chill and easy to be around.
“Hey,” Lissa says.
“Hey, Devan,” Elijah says. “We just heard from Kennedy that Lawrence can’t make it.”
I just got a text with the same info. And am trying not to be devastated disappointed by it. Probably it’s best my first karaoke attempt isn’t in front of Sai anyway. Now I’ll be way less worried about looking like an idiot.
Little Osaka is not what I expected. It just looks like L.A.—shops and strip plazas and chain restaurants—and nothing exotic or international in comparison, considering all around town it’s normal to see signs in other alphabets and languages.
Travis and Mira are waiting for us in front of one of the strip plazas, and I follow them into a dark lobby filled with video games (which Elijah investigates immediately) and wait for Travis to get us a room. It turns out to be a little cramped, covered with mirrors, and filled with enough chairs and a couch so we can fit if we squeeze. Squeezing is scary with Mira around, but she’s laughing with Lissa about something on her phone and it’s like I’m not even there. And when Mira’s involved, I love my invisibility status.
Travis has his signature song’s code memorized, so he punches it in immediately. This means we’re serenaded with that old George Michael song “I Want Your Sex” while we flip through the karaoke catalogs.
“Who do you think Kennedy’s singing to?” Elijah asks. “I’m putting my money on me; I’m looking good tonight.”
We all laugh at that, which makes Travis glare at us—though not enough to interrupt his
routine, of course. I locate a code for one of the million songs I wouldn’t mind singing, and I think about punching it in, but then hold back to let everyone else go first. Except then I think of what Kate said, and I just lean forward and type it in. And no one looks at me funny at all.
Right, and then I sing (“Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which is a very cheesy and ridiculous song, but it gives me a chance to belt it to death). And even though almost everyone (Elijah excepted) has heard me sing in choir, this is obviously something different, because they do stuff like stare at me with their mouths open and cheer for notes I hit and stop paging through the catalogs so I have their full attention.
“Holy crap, Devvie,” Travis says when I’ve finished. No one has lined up a next song yet, so the room is suddenly very very very quiet.
“That was incredible,” Elijah says. “Why didn’t you say you could sing like that?”
“I, um.” I squeeze back into my spot on the couch and pick up a book to see what I want to sing next. “Thanks.”
“I can’t believe you’re from Missouri,” Travis says.
“Right, because Los Angeles is definitely the center of true talent.” Mira rolls her eyes. But she looks over at me and nods. “You should let loose like that in choir sometime. Deans won’t know what hit him.”
“Thanks,” I murmur.
“Does anyone else think Deans is hot?” Travis asks.
“Oh, no, not this again.” Mira punches in a code and jumps up. “I’ll save you all from listening to that.”
Everyone is actually better out of class, where we can be ourselves and sing what we like. Even Elijah, who isn’t in any choir classes, has this husky kind of rock voice, and if I hadn’t already asked my mother if I could go to his show, it’d be first on my priority list.
After singing for nearly four hours—the last of which we devoted entirely to show tunes (even Elijah)—we cross the street to a little restaurant where plates of sushi circle the room on a conveyor belt. It’s a relief I’ve already been out for sushi with my mother and Brad so I don’t feel like an idiot. And it’s fun racing each other to grab the plates as they go past us, and even without my new mantra I would happily accept that these people minus including maybe Mira are now my friends.
After we assemble a towering stack of empty plates, we walk outside to the two cars. I kind of want to ride back with Travis, since I figure Elijah and Lissa should be alone at the end of the night, and I guess Mira thinks the same thing.
“Travis, you can take her, right?” she asks, gesturing to me.
“Of course. I always have room in my car for Devvie.”
“It’s probably easier for me to,” Elijah says. “But thanks. See you guys Monday.”
I’m so surprised they didn’t pawn me off that I just kind of wave to Mira and Travis as they get into Travis’s car and sit down in the backseat. Lissa turns on Elijah’s stereo, cranks it way up so that everything in the car vibrates with the bass and drums. Of course I’m a huge musical theatre nerd whose iPod will verify my taste in music doesn’t often deviate, but actually I like the beat and the singer’s wail, and the way the sound literally shakes through me.
I definitely expect—even with not getting pawned off—to be taken home first. Seriously, won’t they want to make out or whatever once they’re rid of me? But Elijah pulls up to a house I assume is Lissa’s, since it isn’t mine. She must have assumed what I did, because she gives him sort of a look before calling good night and hopping out.
“You staying in the back?” Elijah turns around and grins at me. “I feel like a chauffeur.”
I laugh as I get out and then back in to the front seat. “It’s only like five minutes to my house.”
“Not the point.” He drives to the end of the street, pulls up to a stop sign, and looks over at me. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. Your voice is the best thing I’ve heard in forever.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Seriously. That’s like the nicest compliment.”
He sets his hand on my knee, which sends little shock waves through me. What exactly is this?
“I, um,” is all I get out before he leans in and kisses me. A lot flies through me, right up front that isn’t Elijah basically with Lissa and what he’s doing is wrong wrong wrong. But also that I’m finally getting kissed. And, oh my God, kissing feels really good, because Elijah’s lips are soft with peppermint lip balm (I saw him use it earlier) and he’s gentle. I know we shouldn’t be sharing this kiss but my brain kind of shuts off thanks to the soft gentle peppermint action.
“I, um,” is what I say again after he leans away, glancing kind of shyly at me like he’s awaiting my reaction. “What about Lissa?”
“What about Lissa?” He shrugs. “We made out once. Okay, tw—four times. Or something. I like her a lot but she makes it hard, makes excuses not to hang out with me or—I don’t know. Liss is a great girl. But it just keeps not happening.”
“Does she know you feel that way?” I turn around because we’re still at the same stop sign, and won’t someone pull up behind us and start honking soon?
“Trust me,” he says. “She does.”
And that is how I end up kissing Elijah for four whole minutes until a car does eventually pull up and honk. I mean, I didn’t sit there watching the clock the whole time. I just happened to notice while we were talking, and then again when Elijah squeals the car through the intersection. I’m out of breath from the kissing, and feeling tingly all over. Actually tingly.
“I knew that was going to happen,” I say, and Elijah laughs and reaches over for my hand. “The car honking, I mean!” Oh my God, this is so weird. Right? This is very strange. “My house is actually—”
He laughs again and parks the car on this random street, totally not mine at all. “You need to get home?”
Oh.
So then we’re back to kissing, a few nice and gentle like before, but soon it’s rougher, somehow, even though his lips are still soft. I’ve always worried being queen of inexperience meant I wouldn’t have any idea what to do, but kissing is easy, and even though I’m a box of nerves, I don’t do anything weird or jumpy when Elijah’s tongue slides into my mouth. I’m not dumb; I know we’ve probably taken closed-mouth kissing to its limit tonight.
“Dammit,” Elijah says, and I realize it’s because his phone is ringing, and not a reaction to kissing me. “Sorry, it’s my mom. Hang on.” He clicks his phone and holds it to his ear. “Hey, sorry, am I late? I’ve still gotta take Devan home. Yeah, as soon as I can.”
I run my fingers over my lips, wondering if this makes me different than I was just a half hour ago. Honestly, I worried I wasn’t ever going to get kissed, unless it was onstage. “Are you in trouble?”
“Nah, I just told her it’d be an early night and I guess it’s later than she expected.” He shrugs, starting up the car and taking off down the street. “She worries. My brother’s kind of wild, and she thinks I’m gonna get into trouble like him.”
“At least you know she cares?”
“Yeah, trust me, that’s not something I ever worry about.”
I have a lot of questions for him as he drives to my house, like if he thinks Lissa will kill us, and does this mean anything other than it’s pretty nice kissing each other, and if we’re supposed to be quiet about it or not. I keep them all in, though.
“Talk to you soon,” he says, touching my knee.
“Definitely.”
He kisses me again before we officially say good night, and I get out of the car and walk up to the house feeling a little floaty, and still tingly. Except then all I can think about is Sai. Stupid freaking Sai, who basically has a girlfriend now, who is not interested in me at all—despite the crazy things my mother says—and who was definitively not the boy kissing me mere moments ago. What is wrong with me?
It doesn’t help that my mother sees me when I walk in and asks, all excitedly, “Whoa, who did you make out with tonight?”
Since I’m new to k
issing, I didn’t think about the fact that my lip gloss would migrate around my face.
“Don’t look so horrified.” She jumps up from her chair. “Brad’s still out with his friends; it’s just us. You should feel absolutely free to share details about sucking face”—yes, she actually says sucking face—“with Sai. I have to live vicariously through someone, after all.”
“I didn’t make out with Sai,” I say in kind of a crazy voice.
“Oh.” She grins at me. If she were a cartoon character, a light bulb would go off over her head. “The boy who picked you up tonight.”
I give up, because she’s clearly relentless. Also if she’s bad at tons of things I need her to be good at, I should probably take what I can get. “Yeah.”
“Everything all right?” she asks, finally getting the picture that maybe I’m not as thrilled as she is about this development. Also, no one’s mom should ever be this happy her kid made out. What is that about?
“I don’t know.” I flop down on the couch and kick off my flats. “I know it’s dumb to like Sai, but I do, so maybe I shouldn’t have kissed someone else. Also there’s someone who totally likes Elijah, who I’m sort of friends with, so that feels wrong. But also he’s really nice.”
“And really cute,” my mother points out, sitting down across from me. “Are you making too big a deal about this?”
I hold back from laughing and saying that I make too big a deal out of everything. Because she has a point. “It’s just— This is so dumb.”
“Say it.” She grabs a bag of cookies from the coffee table and holds it out to me. “Macadamia nuts will help, right?”
A few bites of a cookie prove her right. “I’ve never kissed anyone before, except, like, in plays. So . . . is it stupid that I didn’t expect it to happen? Or, like, especially with someone who’s just like a guy I know?”
“It’s definitely not stupid. But don’t stress. You’ll kiss many more people in your life, and some of them will mean a lot, and some won’t. And it’s all good either way.”