by Kieran Scott
“Okay, five top things to do on a Friday night.”
“Andy. What the heck are you doing?” Stephanie asked finally.
“It’s an experiment,” Andy answered quickly, shielding his book from her view. “A scientific experiment. What makes guys and girls different? I’ve got a list of a hundred questions and I’m going to take a cross-section of the student body to try to determine the results.”
“Is it for class?” Stephanie asked.
Andy’s cheeks grew pink. “No. It’s for, you know, personal, um . . . whatever.”
Oh. My. God. This couldn’t be what I thought it was, could it? Was Andy’s quiz just a thinly veiled attempt to get to know me better? Looked like Geek Number Three was taking his stalking to a whole new level. A scientific one.
“Aren’t you introducing a few too many variables there?” Stephanie asked, raising her eyebrows. “Shouldn’t they be yes or no? Or at least multiple choice?”
Andy had no idea who he was dealing with here. If there was anyone at this school who knew how to properly conduct a science experiment, it was Steph. He opened his mouth to respond, but then just tucked his chin again. “Five favorite foods, KJ?”
My skin prickled with embarrassed heat. “Uh . . .”
“KJ! KJ! KJ!”
Suddenly Fred’s stomach was right in my face, swathed in the bright red of his Flash T-shirt. Fred likes superhero T-shirts. The kind with just the logo of the superhero on the front. He thinks they’re way cooler than ones that actually say “Batman” or “Superman” or what-have-you.
“Here. I got you a cookie.”
He dropped one of the caf ’s large chocolate chip cookies on my tray, wrapped in wax paper.
“Thanks, Fr—”
“You don’t want to eat that,” Andy put in.
Fred ignored him. “Okay, listen,” he said, spreading his arms wide, his fingers wide, his legs wide. “Which way does this line sound best? ‘Hey, Kenickie, whatcha got in the bag? I’ll trade ya half a sardine!’ ” he recited loudly. Very loudly.
I sank down in my chair. Stephanie pulled all her hair forward, hiding.
“Or . . . or . . . what about this: ‘Hey! Kenickie! Whatcha got in the baaag? I’ll trade you half a sardine!’ ” Fred drawled.
Everyone at the tables around us laughed. Dustin smacked Cameron’s shoulder and pointed. I somehow sank even lower. Cameron was laughing. Laughing at me. I had just gotten him to talk to me and now this. Why was Fred doing this to me?
“Fred, I—”
“Or wait a minute, wait a minute. One more. ‘Yo, Kenickie, whaddaya got in da bag? I’ll trade ja half a sardine!’ ” He threw on a heavy New York accent.
The entire cafeteria erupted in applause at the Mafioso version of Doody. Fred looked up as if he’d just realized there were other people in the room and raised his hand. “Thank you! Thank you!” he said, bowing his head modestly. “So? Which one? I thought the first one, but from the crowd response, maybe it’s the third. Ya think? KJ?”
“Do it again, Freddy!” someone shouted.
“No!” Stephanie and I both threw our hands out.
“You’re right, Fred. The first one. Definitely. Definitely the way to go,” I assured him. “Doody isn’t from the Bronx.”
“Okay, cool! That’s what I thought! Thanks, KJ. Thanks a lot!” Fred broke off half the cookie he’d given me, then turned and hurried away.
“I gotta go to the library,” Andy said, standing. “I’ll see you at rehearsal, I mean, unless you need me before then, and then you can just text me, but don’t forget to think about the song question, okay?”
“Yeah. I’m on it,” I said.
Stephanie and I stared at each other across the table, dumbfounded. There was just way too much stimulation at lunch sometimes.
“So, Andy’s getting pretty serious, huh?” Stephanie asked.
“You don’t think it’s really an experiment?” I asked with false hope.
“No. Unfortunately, I don’t.”
Suddenly Andy’s vacated chair was pulled out and Tama perched right on the edge of it. Jaws dropped all over the cafeteria. Apparently hell had just frozen over.
“This is never going to work,” Tama said.
“What?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to get Cameron to like you if you’re constantly surrounded by geeks?” she asked, lifting her hand.
“What?” Stephanie asked. Right. I’d forgotten to tell her about that whole Tama-talking-me-up-to-Cameron thing.
“Do you even know what just happened? Cameron was totally going to stop to talk to you, but he was thwarted by Inconvenient Truth Boy.” Tama took a carrot stick off Stephanie’s plate and crunched into it. Stephanie glared at her. She was not a fan of bad table manners. “Hey. Problem?”
Stephanie huffed and dragged her calculus book out of her bag.
“No way.” I swallowed a not-quite-chewed chunk of food and almost gagged. “He was not going to stop here.”
“Yes he was!” Tama said. “I saw him hesitate. The whole world saw it. Now tell me. Who would you rather talk to? Cameron Richardson or Andy Tererro?”
Um. No contest.
“You need to lose the losers. You need to start being mean.” Tama pointed the remainder of the carrot stick at me. “Like, stat.”
I felt a thrill of excitement. Sometimes, more than anything, all I wanted was the ability to tell Fred and Glenn and anyone else who had joined the geek parade over the years to just leave me alone. The problem was, I could never do it. The idea of hurting their feelings always made me squirm.
“I don’t think so,” I said, crumpling my napkin.
“Why not?” Tama asked.
“It’s just . . . believe me, the thought has crossed my mind. I just don’t have it in me,” I confessed, feeling somehow immature. “I can’t be mean.”
“Yes you can,” Stephanie put in.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You were just mean to Andy, like, five minutes ago,”71 Stephanie said. She wasn’t admonishing me. Just stating a fact. And, okay. She had a point. But that was only because I was pissed at my father. I couldn’t control that.
“See? You can do it. You just have to learn to focus on what you want and do what needs to be done,” Tama said. She dropped the carrot stick and broke off a piece of my half-a-cookie. “I’ll even help you if you want. I’ve blown off a few dorks in my day.”
“You will?” I was shocked. So was Stephanie, from the look on her face. “Why?”
“Because.” Tama shrugged and wiped her hand on my napkin. “I don’t know. I think we should hang out more, Cage. I feel bad that we don’t. You’re cool and I think you deserve to not have a posse of losers stalking you all over the place. I think we should do something about it.”
Every inch of my skin tingled. All these years I’d been whining about my geek plight with no clue as to what I could do about it. But now, just like that, here was a girl with a plan.
“Trust me, Cage,” Tama said conspiratorially. “The rewards will be worth the effort.”
She glanced over her shoulder and I did the same. My eyes locked with Cameron Richardson’s. My whole body turned to goo. He was watching us. Watching me.
And suddenly I was very, very intrigued.
ACT ONE, SCENE SIX
In which:
THERE ARE NEAR MISSES
“WE’LL START OUT EASY,” TAMA TOLD ME AS WE WALKED INTO THE auditorium that afternoon. “Four small words: No. Stop. Go away.”
I almost laughed. “No, stop, go away?”
“Simple. Direct. To the point,” she said, clapping her hands together. She meant business. “The next time one of those dorks corners you, try any one of them out.”
“Oookay,” I said dubiously.
“Trust me, Cage. I know what I’m talking about,” she said.
I left her at the piano where Mr. Katz was warming up the rest of the Pink Ladies, including Ashley, the Drama Tw
ins and Jane Larsen, the senior who was playing Marty. The set crew was painting the Rydell High backdrop along the back curtain, and I dropped my bag on the floor and grabbed a brush. I still had some pent-up anger to expel from last night. This would do nicely. And I’d be right here if Mr. Katz needed me for anything.
After outlining several bricks on the school wall, I started to feel calm for the first time all day. While I was painting, my dad didn’t exist. While I was painting, no one could touch me. I hummed along to “Freddy, My Love” until I felt someone watching me.
Damn. Not again.
I looked up, expecting to find Glenn drooling Yoo-hoo down my back, but it wasn’t him. It was Robbie Delano, sitting on a stool a few feet away, blatantly staring at me. His script was rolled up in his hand, and his drumsticks were jutting out of his back pocket. I gave him a quizzical smile. He just kept staring. Almost like he was looking at me for the first time.
Oh no. This. Could not. Be happening.
I knew that look. I had performed many a letdown after seeing that look. I swear, “I like you as a friend” was going to be my motto in the yearbook. Was this why he had saved me from the geek brigade the other day? Because he liked me, too? Stephanie’s scientific theories had proven correct yet again. Robbie was just like the rest of them. I almost couldn’t wait to tell her. She so loved being proved right.
I quickly returned to my work. Maybe if I seemed engrossed he would leave me alone. But no. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him move from the stool. He was coming over here. Oh, crap.
No, stop, go away. No, stop, go away. No, stop . . . who am I kidding?
His sneakers—white Converse that he had drawn black stripes across—stepped into my line of vision. He drummed out a quick rhythm on his thighs with his palms. I held my breath.
“You should consider a career in comics,” he said. “You could totally do ink.”
“No!” I blurted.
“Yeah, you could,” he said. “You have such a steady hand.”
Great. He totally missed the point. He thought I was being humble. He squatted next to me, still drumming away with his palms, and looked me in the eye.
“Stop!” I said, anguished.
“What? Oh. Sorry.” He stopped drumming and laced his fingers together. “Occupational hazard.”
Oh, God. This was not working! I thought Tama said it was simple!
“I’ve been watching you,” he said.
Go away. Just say it! Just say, “Go away.”
A concerned look crossed Robbie’s face. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t okay. My breath was catching over and over again. I was starting to hyperventilate, and I hadn’t even truly channeled my inner bitch yet. How did the popular girls do it? I saw them be mean to people every single day. Were their hearts actual blocks of ice?
“M’fine,” I mumbled.
“Okay.” He sat his butt down next to me and blew out a sigh. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said, nervously avoiding my gaze. “It’s probably totally obvious, but I have this sort of huge crush . . .”
No no no no no!
“. . . on Tama,” he finished.
Whiplash. “Huh?”
Robbie raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Well, then I guess it’s not obvious. Solid. Anyway, I saw you guys talking the other day and I was thinking maybe you could, like, plant the seed.”
“The seed?” I said.
“Yeah, you know. The Robbie seed. Drop my name, tell her how unequivocally cool I am. Farmer KJ, plant the seed. Then I come in and, you know, cultivate the seed. Water it, what-have-you. It’s not the greatest metaphor, actually.”
I grinned. I took a deep breath. He didn’t like me. He liked Tama. I was so psyched to have avoided the awkward conversation bullet, I wanted to throw myself at his feet and tell him I’d do anything he asked.
“How can I tell her you’re unequivocally cool when I hardly even know you?” I joked, all giddy with relief.
He raised his eyebrows. “Can’t you just take my word for it?”
“I guess.”
“I did also divert Glenn Marlowe’s attentions that first day,” he pointed out.
And Fred’s and Andy’s, I added silently.
“Or has that beneficence already been forgotten?” he asked.
“Oh no. Believe me. That one will be remembered for a long time.”
But there was still one largish problem.
“Um, you do know she has a serious boyfriend, right?” I said.
His name was Leo. He drove a Ducati. He had supposedly graduated the year before, but rumor was that he hadn’t actually finished school. Last year, during the musical, he always picked Tama up from rehearsal, and every time I saw them together, they were either making out or screaming at each other. They had a very volatile relationship.
“Biker dude? Of course. Everyone knows about biker dude.” Robbie lightly hugged his knees and looked up at Tama, who stood upstage, haloed by the stage lights as she delivered her lines. “In my opinion, Tama Gold deserves better than biker dude. I mean, look at her.”
Tama and the Pink Ladies were now blocking out one of their scenes with Mr. Katz. Somehow Tama looked even more gorgeous under the stage lights.
“She is a true original. She’s popular, but she does her own thing, you know? Dresses how she wants, does the musical even though it’s considered uncool in her crowd. I’ve even seen her study in study hall when all her little friends are texting each other about, like, who Hilary Duff is dating now or whatever. Who has that kind of confidence in high school? That kind of, like, ‘I know who I am and I don’t care if you like it’ thing?”
You do, I thought. Robbie was the guy who had gotten up at last fall’s talent show, sung an a capella version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and just sat down again. He hadn’t even been on the program. He’d just snaked the spot between Ashley’s Kelly Clarkson impression and the guys from the jazz band who had decided to try their hand at hair metal. No one could get away with that kind of behavior, but somehow, Robbie had. I would have gotten picked on mercilessly, but everyone just left him alone. It really was like he had a force field around him.
He was just as untouchable as Tama, but in a different way. Maybe these two crazy kids could make it work, I thought, glancing over at Tama again.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I told him.
Robbie smiled, revealing a pair of deep dimples I had never noticed before.
“Mr. Katz! I can’t work like this!” Ashley announced suddenly. She slapped her script down in a huff, her blond ringlets shaking. Ashley was a tall, big-boned, solid girl with serious lungs. She raised her voice and you could hear her in the next county.
“Oh, you can’t work like this? You’re the one hogging the stage like it’s your own personal American Idol audition,” Tama shot back.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
Ashley kept her shrewd blue eyes on Katz. “She is so unprofessional. This kind of behavior would never fly at the Papermill.”
“Never,” Cory and Carrie echoed, crossing their arms over their chests in perfect unison. The Drama Twins were fraternal, not identical, with Carrie towering a good six inches over her sister, but they consulted on hair and wardrobe every day so that they always rocked the same kind of braid and similar, but usually different colored, outfits. They also had this freakish habit of mirroring each other. It was like they wished they had been born identical.
“Ladies!” Mr. Katz scolded. He whipped open his leather bag and started blindly searching it with his hand.
“Oh my God! How many times a day are you going to remind us that you did a Papermill Playhouse production?” Tama snapped. “What were you, milkmaid number three?”
I tried not to laugh. The Papermill was this well-respected regional theater in Jersey that Ashley had been auditioning for forever. Finally, this past winter, she had gotten to play one of the random daughters in The Sound of Music, and never let anyone forget it.
> “How would you know? It’s not like you came to see it! You are so not a supporter of the arts,” Ashley retorted. “Why are you even here?”
“Cat fight! Cat fight! Cat fight!” the drama dudes started to chant.
Mr. Katz finally produced the Tums he’d been looking for, popped three of them and hung his head, at a loss.