by Kieran Scott
“I better go,” I told Robbie. “It’s not a good sign when the Tums come out in the first week of rehearsals.”
Robbie gave me a straight-backed salute as I shoved myself up from the floor. I smirked and jumped into the fray, just hoping I wouldn’t get my eyes scratched out.
ACT ONE, SCENE SEVEN
In which:
I GIVE A GIRL A RIDE
“NOW, YOU NEED TO BE CLEAR WITH MS. LIN,” MR. KATZ TOLD ME as we walked out of rehearsal. “If you don’t tell her very specifically what you want, she’ll just go off in her own direction and we’ll have Tangerine Ladies instead of Pink Ladies.”
“Tangerine ladies. That’s a good one, Mr. Katz,” Andy said.
“Got it.” I made a note.
“All right, then. I’d better get going,” Mr. Katz said. He glanced over his shoulder at Tama, who stood on the far side of the wide room, barking into her cell phone. “Can I feel free to leave the other important costume decisions in your hands, KJ?”
“Feel free, Mr. Katz. Feel free,” Andy said before I could respond. “She’s really good. I mean, I assume she’ll be really good. Although you know what they say about assuming. They say it makes an—”
“I know what they say, Andy,” Mr. Katz said, raising a hand. “KJ?”
“I’m on it.”
“Cool.” Mr. Katz smiled. “See you two tomorrow.” He turned and strolled out of the building, already fishing in his jacket pocket for his Marlboros.
“Fine! Fine!” Tama shouted into her phone. Then she clapped it closed. She did a double take when she saw me and Andy standing there. “KJ! Thank God you’re still here. I need a ride.”
My face lighted up. “No problem.” I tried not to sound too excited, but I have always wanted to see the palace Tama reportedly lives in. It’s way up in the hills near the edge of town and even has a fountain out front. Or so I’ve heard.
“So, KJ, I’m going to Whole Foods now before I go home,” Andy said, falling into step with us as we walked toward my car. “Do you want me to get you anything? For tomorrow, I mean. What are your five favorite fruits?”
He took out that little notebook of his. Tama shot him a confused look, like he was of some species she didn’t recognize.
“Actually, Andy, I’m all set in the fruit department. But thanks,” I said, pausing by my car.
“Oh.” He looked disappointed and slipped the notebook away. “Okay. Well. See ya.”
He pushed his glasses up, then turned and walked back to his Prius. I shot Tama an apologetic look.
“What happened to ‘no, stop, go away’?” she asked.
“Well . . . I said no to the fruit,” I replied.
She rolled her eyes and we got in the car.
“Hey, guys!”
“Omigod!” I blurted, hand to heart. I looked in the rearview mirror. Fred was sitting in my backseat, all bright-eyed and happy. “Fred! How did you get into my car?”
“It was unlocked,” Fred told me, leaning forward. “That ’s really not a good idea, KJ. Someone could come in here and steal all your CDs.”
He already had half of them open all over the backseat, the liner notes pulled out everywhere. Tama sighed impatiently.
“Fred, I’m going to give Tama a ride, so it’s going to take a little longer than usual,” I attempted.
“That’s cool,” he said, reaching for his seat belt. “I’m up for a ride.”
“Get out!” Tama snapped.
Fred froze. So did my heart.
“What?”
“Get out!” she repeated, turning around in her seat. “Go! We want to be alone.”
Fred looked at me in the mirror. I shrugged, at a loss. “Oh. Okay. Okay. Girl talk. I got it.” He scrambled out of the car, catching his huge bag on the door before finally yanking it free. “I’ll talk to you later, KJ.”
He slammed the door and took a step back.
“Guess that’s what you meant by being mean,” I said, my hands actually shaking as I reached for the ignition.
“God! How do you live like this?” Tama said. “They’re all over you!”
I smirked. Finally, somebody got it. Stephanie tried to be supportive, sure, but she never really seemed to understand how annoying all the stalking could be.
“Fred’s not that bad,” I said. I felt the need to defend him since he was still standing right outside my car, looking like a puppy that had just been smacked by a rolled-up newspaper. He even waved as I pulled out of the spot.
“Not that bad?” Tama was incredulous. “You need to grow a backbone, like, yesterday.”
I paused at the exit of the parking lot, feeling like a total loser. “Which way’s your house?” I asked, happy to have an excuse to change the subject.
“I’m not going home,” Tama said. She ran a fingertip over her eyebrow and slapped the visor up. “I’m going downtown.”
“Oh.” I swallowed my disappointment. “What’s downtown?”
“I have a doctor’s appointment,” Tama said with an impatient sigh. “Leo was supposed to come take me, but no-o-o. He’s too busy to help me out.”
All the tiny hairs on my arms stood on end. The Fred confrontation was instantly forgotten. Was this, like, the kind of doctor’s appointment that a boyfriend was supposed to bring a girlfriend to? Tama wasn’t pregnant or something, was she? Oh, God. If so, Leo was a total jerk. How could you not take your girlfriend to . . . to . . . wherever she needed to go?
“Hey! Watch the mailbox,” Tama said, slamming her hands against the door and center console just like my mother did pretty much every time she rode with me. I veered back toward the center line and took a deep breath.
“Where’s your Thunderbird?” I asked. I worshipped Tama’s car: a light blue throwback convertible T-bird. She looked like a movie star behind the wheel.
“My mother grounded me from it,” Tama said with a scoff. “One time she finds me passed out in the front seat and it’s like I’m an irresponsible driver all of a sudden.” She sighed and stared out the side window. “Whatever, I guess Leo’s right, though. He’s busy. He has a job. I can’t just expect him to drop everything and come chauffeur me around. Even if he does always say he’d do anything for me.”
“He does?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said with a shrug. Like it was the most normal thing in the world to have people saying they’d do anything for you. “Plus he’s dealing with all this crap right now. His dad wants him to go to college, but he wants to stay at the garage. . . . I would die if he left. Seriously. Just die. But it’s not just about me. He doesn’t want to go. It’s just his dickhead father getting into his brain. Turn right here.”
“Sounds like you really care about Leo,” I said, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice. Considering the hot-and-cold nature of their relationship, I never thought of them as being so deep.
“He is one of the few good things in my life,” she said, looking down at her hands.
Pardon? Everyone knew that Tama Gold’s life was just chock-full of sugary goodness. The palace, the car, the stunning good looks, the popularity. Girl was even an honors student. It was so unfair. Plus I would bet money that her newscaster father didn’t come home every other night trashed off his ass to throw fits over nothing. Tucker Gold probably drove home from his ten P.M. show each night, kissed her forehead and tucked her into her gold-plated bed. Not that I’d ever put much thought into it.
“It’s right here,” Tama said, pointing.
I pulled into the parking lot of one of those square brick buildings you never notice until someone tells you to go there, and stopped in front of the door.
“Thanks a lot,” Tama said. She gathered her things, got out and slammed the door. I stared at the little placard on the side of the building, trying to figure out which doctor she might be going to. There were no GYNs listed, so that was a plus. Suddenly, the door opened again and I jumped, snagged.
“Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you—you’re co
ming with me to the St. Luke’s party this weekend,” Tama told me.
“I . . . what?”
“Yeah. We’re going to do a little experiment,” she said with a mischievous smile. “You, KJ Miller, are my new project. Project KJ Gets Mean.”
“Project? Uh, no. I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do and you are. Especially after that stalkeresque behavior I just witnessed.”
“I can’t go to a St. Luke’s party,” I told her, my heart already pounding with nerves. “They’re totally insane.” Or so I’d heard.
Tama looked at me like I was so third grade. “KJ. That’s kind of the point.”
Then she slammed the door and traipsed off.
ACT ONE, SCENE EIGHT
In which:
I’M APPARENTLY BRAINWASHED
I WAS AT THE SELF-SERVE SODA MACHINE AT WENDY ’S THAT NIGHT, trying to decide between root beer and Sprite, when Stephanie nudged me with her tray. Her doctor parents had some charity thing at the hospital. Mine had teacher conferences at Christopher’s school. (Well, Mom did anyway. Whether Dad would show was anybody’s guess.) Therefore, the midweek fast food. Andy would be so appalled.
“Wanna go see the new Mark Wahlberg on Saturday?” Stephanie asked. She has a thing for Mark Wahlberg that I cannot wrap my brain around.
I bit my lip. “Actually, I might be going to a St. Luke’s party with Tama.” Stephanie cracked up laughing and I felt a chill all through my body. My toes curled inside my pink and brown Kangaroos. Finally, the laughter stopped.
“You’re serious?”
“Um . . . yeah,” I said.
Stephanie’s entire face shut down. She grabbed her tray and her ice water and tromped over to a table near the window, her pink purse bumping against her hip. I sighed and quickly filled my cup with root beer.
“You’re going to a St. Luke’s party. You,” Stephanie said.
“What? Is that so insane?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I slid into the chair across from her.
“Are you kidding me? It’s all drinking and hooking up,” Stephanie said. We’d both heard the same rumors, after all. “Neither of which you do.”
The ball of dread that had formed in my stomach the second Tama brought it up started to expand. I had spent the first two and a half years of my high school career studiously avoiding any and all situations that might lead to drinking-related peer pressure. Anything to keep me from turning into my father. Was I really going to give up on that now just because Tama wanted to make me her project?
“You’re right. I can’t go,” I said, feeling relieved even as I said it. “What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t. Tama does that to you,” she said.
“Pardon?” I asked, reaching for a fry.
“It’s like whenever she’s around, you’re brainwashed,” she said matter-of-factly. “Like this whole idea she has about you being mean to everyone. You’re not actually going to do that, are you?”
Maybe. “No,” I said, squirming.
“Good. Because it’s just not you, KJ. You’re nice. It’s good to be nice,” she told me, taking a sip of her water.
Easy for you to say, I thought. All being nice had ever gotten me was a steady stream of unwanted attention from guys with visible nose hair and major B.O. Why did she not understand this?
“So. The new Mark Wahlberg?” she asked again, her eyebrows raised.
“Yeah. Sure,” I replied.
I took a deep breath and dug into my food, trying to ignore the sinking sensation her brainwashing comment had given me. Was that what my best friend really thought of me? Well, I’d prove her wrong. I was not going to go to that insane party. Tama and I would just have to work on Project KJ Gets Mean some other time.
ACT ONE, SCENE NINE
In which:
I RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED GIFT
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, WHEN THE BELL RANG TO END ENGLISH class, I gathered my books slowly, stalling for time. Ever since that one brief encounter with Cameron, I had been salivating for another. Today, I was going to make it happen. From the corner of my eye I saw him coming down the aisle toward me. I was a genius! There was no way he could get past me without at least asking me to move. But he didn’t. He stopped. Stopped and smiled.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“Hey, KJ.”
Tingles everywhere. I loved not being invisible anymore. He slung his backpack over his shoulder. The leather arms of his varsity jacket creaked.
“Hey.”
“I heard you’re going to the St. Luke’s party with Tama on Saturday,” he said. “That’s cool.”
I froze. How had he heard about that?
“Yeah. Um . . . I guess.”
Actually, after dinner last night I had spent the rest of the night trying to figure out some unobvious way to beg out and not look like a total dork. I was going to be at the movies with Stephanie on Saturday night. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Cool,” Cameron said. “I just broke up with a girl who goes there; otherwise I’d probably be going, too.”
“Really?” I practically squealed.
Way to be cool, KJ.
“Yeah. Don’t usually miss ’em. But I guess I’ll have to find something else to do,” he said.
Thank God. He didn’t notice my piglet imitation. But he was single! Single and talking to me!
“Do you guys hang out a lot? You and Tama?” he asked as we walked to the door.
“Uh . . . not . . . sort of—”
“ ’Cause that’s cool. You and Tama hanging out. She’s cool and you’re cool, so it’s . . . cool.”
I’m cool? I am? What? We stepped into the hallway, my mind buzzing with excitement. Cameron thought I was cool. My life simply could not get any better.
Until Glenn Marlowe was all up in my face.
“Hey, KJ,” he said to my right breast. He sucked his teeth, then moved his gaze to the left. “Wow. Someone got up on the sexy side of the bed this morning.”
Cameron snorted a laugh, but covered it with a cough. This. Was not. Happening. Did the geeks have some kind of secret pact to embarrass me in front of Cameron? Were they trying to ruin my life?
“Got you something!” Glenn sang. He held up a big package wrapped in the Sunday comics and tied with a red bow.
“What is it?” I said warily. I glanced at Cameron. He was blatantly amused.
“Open it!” Glenn said, shoving the box at me.
A few passersby glanced over and whispered to each other. This was so not good. Probably the best thing to do was to just get it over with. I tore open the paper and peeled the top off the box. Please just don’t let it be a French maid’s outfit. . . .
But it wasn’t. My eyes widened as I pulled out the exact same light blue sweater that Glenn had ruined with his Yoo-hoo projectile the first day of rehearsal.
“Glenn! You didn’t have to do this!” I said, unfolding it and holding it out. I was amazed by the gesture. Glenn had done something right. Not just right, but sweet.
“Yeah, I did. I had to sell my Aragorn sword on eBay to pay for it, but it was worth it,” Glenn said with a nod.
“Thank you,” I told him, overwhelmed. “This is unbe—”
“I hope it’s big enough,” he interrupted, staring down at my chest. “Because you are very, you know, endowed.”
The hallway and all the people in it blurred. My face seared and my eyes stung and I actually felt faint. This was it. I was going to be the first person in the history of the world to actually die of embarrassment. He hadn’t just said that. Not in front of Cameron.
“You like it?” he asked.
“I have to go,” I heard myself say.
Hugging the sweater to my chest, I turned around, vaguely recalling that there was a bathroom somewhere near here. As always, however, Glenn stepped in front of me.
“Wait. KJ. Do you like it?” he asked, totally clueless. “C’mon, do you?”
I stared at the ground
. One tear escaped and I quickly wiped it away. Leave me alone. Please, please, please, leave me alone!
“Dude. Back off,” Cameron said, lowering his voice.
Glenn flinched and I ran. By the time I shoved my way into the bathroom, tears were streaming down my face. A couple of senior girls eyed me warily as I careened by them. Safely inside a stall, I sat on the toilet and pulled my feet up, willing myself to stop crying.