by Kieran Scott
“Omigod. So lame,” Tama whispered.
“So there’s gonna be chips and dip and pizza and cake,” Fred said, clasping his hands together when he was finished. “I just got the movie Grease on DVD, so maybe we’ll watch that . . . and we’ll listen to some music and stuff, you know. It’s always a good time, so . . . .”
Fred ran out of things to say. Robbie put him out of his misery by shoving himself up from the floor. “Thanks, Fred. Sounds like a serious shindig. We’ll be there.”
The circle started to break up. I stood and brushed the dust from my butt, then took Tama’s outstretched hands to pull her up.
“So, we’re going, right?” I said. Everyone always went to Fred’s party, and I knew him well enough to know that if we didn’t all show up, he’d take it personally. “It’s, like, Fred’s favorite day of the year.”
“Chips, dip and pizza? Like I’d ever miss out on that,” Tama joked.
“Well, I know I’m gonna be there,” Stephanie said, glancing at Andy as he stood and made a note in his planner.
“Me, too,” he said, snapping the book closed. “I promised Fred I’d help him set up, so that’s what I’ll be doing.”
“That was nice of you,” Stephanie said.
“I like to help people,” Andy said, shooting me a smile.
“Speaking of which, I wanted to go over that last problem from calc today,” Stephanie said. “If you have a minute.”
That was weird. Since when did Stephanie need help with math? She was usually the one who did the helping.
Andy’s face lighted up. “Absolutely. I always have time for math. I mean, unless KJ needs me to do anything, because then I’d have to, you know, stay, since I’m the assistant stage manager and all. . . .”
“No. I’m good. Thanks, Andy,” I said.
“Call you later, KJ,” Stephanie said. Then she snatched her invitation out of Tama’s hand as she and Andy walked by.
“God. You could warn a girl first,” Tama said, checking her fingers for paper cuts.
“But you are going to come, right? To Fred’s party?” I asked. She followed me off the stage, where we slipped into our coats. Mine plain, black wool. Hers creamy suede with a fur collar. Me, sailor. Her, supermodel.
“What’s the obsession with Fred’s party all of a sudden?” Tama asked. “You, of all people, should probably avoid it. Aren’t you supposed to be, like, freezing him out?”
“It’s just one party. And everyone’s going to be there,” I told her. “It’s not like I’m agreeing to date him or something by going.”
“Whatever.” Tama rolled her eyes. “Of course I’ll go. It’s tradition.” She touched up her lip gloss with her fingertip and shrugged. “You know, as long as nothing better comes up.”
ACT TWO, SCENE THIRTEEN
In which:
WE PHILOSOPHIZE ON POPULARITY
LATER THAT WEEK I SAT ON THE FLOOR BACKSTAGE, PAINTING A Rydell High banner. On the other side of the curtain, Ashley rehearsed “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” for the fourteenth time. I was going to be singing that tune in my sleep.
“I have a theory about set crew,” Robbie announced, appearing around the side of the curtain.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“We should get the cheerleaders to do it,” he said, sitting cross-legged next to me. “Think about it. Half their time is spent making banners and signs for the football team and the basketball team, and they have to do all new ones every week. They’d probably have this whole thing done by now.”
“You’re forgetting one small detail,” I told him, bending over the white R with my paintbrush.
“What’s that?”
“They wouldn’t be caught dead on set crew,” I replied.
“Ah. Right. Social hierarchy rears its ugly head again,” he said. “I, however, have no such qualms. May I? Katz gave me fifteen.” He reached for a paintbrush.
“Knock yourself out,” I said.
We worked in silence for a few minutes. At one point, Robbie scooted in my direction to get a better angle on the page and his knee sort of came down on my lower thigh. I was about to flinch away, but I thought I might look like a prude, so I stayed there. And so did he.
His knee was touching my thigh. Pressing into it, even. Did he not realize this? Was he as completely freaked by it as I was, or was it no big deal to him? Maybe his knee touched other people’s bodies every day of the week.
This was ridiculous. I had to say something. Just to break the tension. Something.
“So . . . you’re going to Fred’s party, right?” I asked.
“Definitely,” Robbie replied.
He left his knee there. I watched his profile. His concentration was unbroken. How on earth did he do it? How was he so entirely comfortable with himself that he not only went around touching his body parts to other people’s body parts with the complete confidence that it was okay, but also wore whatever he wanted, did whatever he wanted, acted however he wanted, and didn’t seem to care at all what anyone else thought?
“Can I ask you something?” I said finally.
“Just did,” he said.
“Ha ha. Seriously.”
“Shoot.” He leaned back to check his work and his knee pressed even farther into my leg. My entire body stung with heat.
“Why did you stop hanging out with Cameron and those guys back in middle school? You used to be, like, best friends.”
“I decided I didn’t want to be a part of that scene in high school,” Robbie said, still working.
“What scene?” I asked.
“That whole, fake, scene,” he said. “All these supposed athletes walking around like they’re perfect specimens of teenagerdom, being all worshipped by the parentals and the teachers when they’re just a bunch of lying hypocrites.”
“They are?” I asked.
He put his paintbrush down and looked at me. “They drink. They do drugs. They trash their bodies every chance they get, and they want everyone to believe they’re these perfect, pristine athletes. All-American, boys next door. It’s such a sham.”
“They’re not all into drugs and drinking,” I said, even though I had no proof for my argument. How did I know? I never hung out with any of those people.
“No, not all. But most,” he said. He blew out a sigh and pressed his hands into the floor so that he could turn and face me fully. His knee moved and I was clear. I missed it the second it was gone. “I watched my brother go through it. He was on the football team and the basketball team and he was always partying—half the time at our house. I can’t tell you how many times I walked in on one of his friends—one of these guys I looked up to—booting it in our bathroom after a bender. And then this one time his girlfriend, Kristy Sandless, almost drowned in our hot tub because she was so stoned she couldn’t keep her head up and all the kids around her were so stoned they didn’t realize she was in trouble.”
“Oh my God,” I said.
“I know. The ‘popular kids’? It’s like they feel like they have to do all this shit just to keep up the ruse of being popular. Like they have to push the envelope or something,” he said. “Well, that’s not me. And I knew Cameron and those guys were headed that way, so I just sort of separated myself from them.”
“Was it hard?” I asked. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of Cameron doing drugs. I wasn’t totally naïve. I knew this stuff went on. But I always sort of thought he was above that kind of thing.
He shrugged. “Not really. All you gotta do to drop-kick guys like that is start talking about anything original. Like acting or singing or poetry. They lose your number pretty fast.”
“So you decided not to be popular,” I said, incredulous. “That took guts.”
“Nah. Just common sense,” he said, returning to his painting. “But you pretty much did the same thing, didn’t you?”
I felt like I’d just tripped, even though I was sitting still. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve never bothered with the pretty posse. Why not?” he asked.
More like they never bothered with me, but whatever.
“We don’t have a whole lot in common,” I said.
“Exactly. You’re not shallow like them. You’d rather do something cool with your time like painting or studying instead of being obsessed with clothes and makeup.”
I looked down at my paint-stained T-shirt and baggy, fraying jeans. “What? You don’t consider this the cutting edge of fashion?”
Robbie laughed. “Well, I like it, but then, what do I know? I’m not exactly Versace,” he said, glancing at his own faded Arctic Monkeys T.
I grinned and picked up a new paintbrush. Suddenly I felt all warm inside. Part of me had always felt ashamed by the fact that the popular kids had never accepted me. That was why hanging out with Tama meant so much to me—she was at the center of that crowd, and she still chose to hang out with me. It was kind of like flicking off all the girls who had always ignored my existence before Tama moved here.
But now, Robbie had put a whole different spin on things. He saw my less-than-popular status as a conscious decision. As something to be proud of. And maybe, in a way, he was right. If I’d wanted to, I could have gone to parties every weekend, but I didn’t want to be around drinking any more than Robbie did. Though for different reasons. And I could have worked really hard and kept up with fashion and makeup and all that, but clearly that hadn’t been a priority for me. I was my own person. I had decided to be less than popular.
I liked that theory. I liked it a lot.
ACT TWO, SCENE FOURTEEN
In which:
ANGER ISSUES ARE DISCUSSED
“IF I HEAR THE PHRASE WHEN I DID SUMMER STOCK ONE MORE TIME, they’re gonna need the Jaws of Life to remove my foot from Ashley’s face,” Tama grumbled. She flipped down the visor in my car so hard it popped out.
“Okay. Let’s not take it out on the auto,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Tama gave me an irritated sidelong look and shoved the mirror back into place. It was Thursday afternoon, and after a long week of tense rehearsals, I was looking forward to the weekend. After I dropped Tama off at the doctor—again—I was going straight to Stephanie’s house for her family’s weekly Chinese food and movie fest. Thereby avoiding my family’s wait-for-Dad-and-see-how-drunk-he-is fest. I was looking forward to chilling and to chatting with Stephanie. Things had been a little off with us all week, and I was hoping that we could fix all that tonight.
“Whatever. I just want this night to be over with already,” Tama said, pressing her hands into her thighs.
At a stoplight, I glanced over at her. She was chewing on the inside of her cheek and her fingers were all curled up. Totally nervous. What were all these doctor appointments about, anyway? Was something really wrong with her?
“What?” she snapped, glaring at me.
“Nothing. Sorry. It’s just . . .”
“The light’s green,” she said.
I took a deep breath and drove through. “Tama, is everything okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . all these doctor appointments,” I said tentatively. I pulled into the parking lot I now knew well, having driven her a few times over the past couple of weeks. “Are you . . . sick?”
Tama blew out a laugh through her lips. “Depends on who you ask.”
My fingers tightened on the wheel. “What do you mean?”
It was dark in the car, the only light coming from my headlights, which were bouncing back at us off the wall of the office building. Tama looked at me for a long moment.
“No one knows this. I mean, no one other than Leo,” she said. “But he thinks I stopped going last summer.”
I was intrigued. I’m only human. “Okay.”
“I’m not going to a doctor doctor,” she said finally. “I’m seeing a therapist.”
“Really?” I blurted.
“My mom’s making me go.” She shook her head and toyed with the lock on the glove compartment. “She thinks I have anger issues and that I’m self-destructive.”
I was blown away. I couldn’t help it. Tama Gold was in therapy? But her life was perfect. If anyone should have been in therapy, it should have been me. I spent half my life ready to punch someone and the other half feeling guilty about it, thanks to my screwed-up family. But Tama . . . Tama lived in a palace, and her parents were totally normal and sober. What did she have to be angry about?
Although she had just made reference to kicking a fellow student in the face so hard it stuck there.
“What?” she demanded. “What’s with the face? You think I’m a freak now, don’t you?”
“What? No!” I protested. “Honestly, I just . . . I think it’s cool that you’re talking to someone. It’s good.”
“Uh-huh,” she said wryly.
“No, it is,” I said. “And thanks for telling me.”
I was touched. I mean, if she was sharing private info like this with me and Leo and no one else, then clearly she thought of me as a good friend.
“Yeah, well, who’re you gonna tell?” she said with a shrug. “Thanks again, KJ. And if you talk to Cameron, tell him you love him for me,” she teased.
I laughed as she slammed the door behind her. I sat there for a long moment, listening to the hum of my car’s engine, marveling at how quickly everything had changed. I was friends with Tama now. Real friends. And it was actually in the realm of possibility that I might talk to Cameron Richardson later. Maybe not a probability, but it was possible. Plus I was down one geek. It was amazing how much having the threat of Glenn gone had changed my outlook on things.
I felt a lightness in my chest I had never felt before. Life really could get better. I sat there for a little while longer, clinging to the novelty of it all, not wanting to go home.
ACT TWO, SCENE FIFTEEN
In which:
THERE IS DANCING
THE NEXT DAY, I BORROWED THE MOVIE FROM MR. KATZ. THE one Tama had watched in his class with the dance scene at the end. I told Robbie we had some more seeds to sow and he agreed to stay late after rehearsal. When Mr. Katz headed upstairs to go over a few things with Ms. Lin, Robbie and I slipped backstage.
“So, what’s this all about?” Robbie asked.
“You’ll see,” I teased.
It felt very quiet and still in the backstage area, after all the bustle of rehearsal. I pulled the television cart out of the prop room, and the wheels squeaked and squealed in protest. Robbie found an outlet behind a fake palm tree and plugged everything in. The VCR groaned and clicked and whirred to life. I put the tape in and hit the fast-forward button.
“This isn’t gonna be some dirty video, is it? Because I’m not allowed to watch that kind of thing,” Robbie said with mock piety.
“Yeah, I wanted to show you all the positions Tama likes to do it in.”
“Whoa! X-rated KJ!” Robbie exclaimed. “I like it!”
I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. I blushed and Robbie pulled over a couple of prop chairs from the back wall. The tape finally neared its end and I hit play. The black-and-white image popped up on the screen.
“Okay, in a minute, these two people are going to start dancing,” I said, stepping back.
“Ooooookay,” Robbie said, perched on the edge of his chair.
“The other day Tama told me that she would give anything to dance like that,” I said. “Well, she said she’d give anything for Leo to dance with her like that, but you get the idea.”
“Interesting,” Robbie said.
“So how do you feel about dancing?” I asked, knowing most guys hated the very idea with every macho fiber of their being. Although I had a chance with Robbie, considering he was dancing in the musical and all.
“I’m not morally opposed to it,” he answered pragmatically.
He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward as the dance sequence began, the picture of perf
ect concentration. On the screen, the actress’s dress billowed and fluttered as the actor twirled her out, then brought her back to him. It really was kind of romantic. In an old-fashioned, stiff kind of way. The dance ended with that kiss—that closed-mouthed kiss that they tried to make look all passionate by moving their heads around. The music swelled, and then it was over.