by Kieran Scott
“About the project!” I blurted.
“Oh. Okay,” Cameron said. “Later, dudes,” he said to his friends, slapping hands with all of them as they made their way out. “What’s the matter? You hated what I wrote, for the procedure, right? I knew it sucked.”
“No. It’s not that! It didn’t suck,” I said. Even though it kind of had, but we could deal with that later. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something else.”
Oh, God. Was I really going to do this? There was no way. No way I could possibly get the words out.
But Tama had asked out Robbie. Like it was nothing. Like no one else in the world mattered or cared or anything. I could do this. I was going to do this.
“Something else . . . ?” Cameron said.
“Would you want to go out with me? Maybe? This weekend?” I blurted.
Cameron looked like someone had just dropped something very heavy on his head. I swear he even got shorter. Or maybe he just bent his knees, I don’t know. But he was going to say no. It was blatantly obvious by the look of abject terror on his face. What was I thinking? How could I have ever believed that Cameron Richardson would—
“Sure,” he said.
“What?”
“I said sure,” Cameron told me, passing his basketball from one hand to the other. “Unless you already changed your mind.”
“What?”
He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “KJ. I said yes. You, me. This weekend. Sure.”
Oh. My. God.
“Really?” I squeaked.
“Yes. Really.” Cameron laughed. I was biffing this big time. Not cool. Not calm. Not even close. But I didn’t care. He’d said yes! He couldn’t take that back now. Or, wait, could he?
“Oh. Okay. Cool,” I said, trying to regain some measure of composure.
“Good. Well. I have to go, sooo . . .”
“We’ll talk about it on Friday,” I suggested.
“Sounds like a plan,” Cameron said. “Later, KJ.”
He walked out of the lobby, tossing the ball in the air above his head. The glass door slammed behind him and I watched him walk all the way to his car. That boy was going out on a date with me. That piece of perfection that I had been daydreaming about ever since daydreams stopped being about horses and started being about boys. He was actually going out with me.
And it was all thanks to Tama. Now I was really glad I had not, in fact, pulled her hair back at Robbie’s house.
I was just about to start jumping for joy when I heard singing. And piano playing. Had that been going on the entire time I’d been here? I walked over to the auditorium door and peeked in. Jeffrey was at the piano and Ashley, Cory, Carrie and Jane were all gathered around.
“Freddy my love, please keep in touch while you’re away . . . ,” Jane sang.
“Hey,” I said loudly. The music stopped. I walked down the aisle, twirling my keys around my fingers. “What’re you guys doing?”
“Working on our songs,” Ashley said, lifting her chin. “Since we didn’t get to them at rehearsal today.”
Jeffrey looked at me sheepishly.
“We said we’d go over them tomorrow,” I replied.
“Yeah, and then tomorrow we’ll come in and Tama will just have to go over ‘Raining on Prom Night’ and once again, we won’t have time to work on our harmonies,” Carrie said.
“I am not going up there on opening night unprepared, KJ,” Ashley told me, pointing at the stage. “That is not an option.”
“You’re not going to be unprepared. I—”
“Please, KJ! Tama has monopolized every single rehearsal we’ve had this year,” Ashley said. “It’s all about her. Her songs, her costumes, her blocking, her lighting. It’s like the rest of us don’t even exist.”
“And you just give her whatever she wants,” Jane grumbled, joining the mob.
“Is this about the dressing room again?” I asked.
“The dressing room is just one little part of it, KJ!” Ashley snapped. “Tama is a born diva, and you are only making it worse!”
“She’s not a diva,” I replied. “But she is the star. Certain things have to be done to accommodate her needs.”
“Oh my God! She has you totally brainwashed!” Ashley said.
My jaw clenched. Was Stephanie comparing notes with Ashley Brown now, too?
“She’s just using you, you know,” she added.
“No, she’s not,” I said through my teeth.
“Oh, she so is,” Ashley put in. “You’re not a stage manager, KJ, you’re Tama’s glorified errand girl.”
“Nice one,” Carrie said, sliding her palm across Ashley’s.
My face burned. “You guys have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “Tama and I are friends.”
If we weren’t friends, why would she have helped me lose the geeks and win Cameron? If we weren’t friends, why did I know all about Dr. Weiner and why she was going there when no one else did? Ashley and the Drama Twins knew nothing.
“Whatever, KJ. All I know is, it’s your job to get her ego under control,” Ashley said, grabbing up her music. “Otherwise, this beloved production of yours is going down. Come on, girls.”
All four of them strode by me, noses in the air. Jeffrey gathered his things and slunk away. I rolled my eyes and closed the piano cover. Ashley was such a drama queen, she just created it wherever she saw a void. Things had changed between me and Tama. We had been there for each other over the past few weeks. We’d helped each other. I was going out on a date with Cameron thanks to her, and thanks to me, she was going out with Robbie—a guy who would never yank her out of a car and bitch her out in a parking lot. Tama and I were friends now. Real friends. And nothing Ashley and her troupe of followers could say would change that.
ACT THREE, SCENE EIGHT
In which:
A PLOT IS REVEALED
TAMA HAD HER OWN BATHROOM. IT WAS ATTACHED TO HER bedroom and had a tub like a swimming pool, plus a separate shower with glass doors. It also had a separate vanity area, with a velvet-covered bench and a mirror the size of the wall, with hundreds of round lightbulbs surrounding it—the kind makeup artists always use in the movies. There were drawers and drawers full of makeup and brushes and hair products and perfume, and the music she was playing in her bedroom was pumped in over small silver speakers set in the ceiling. It was paradise.
The upstairs bathroom at my house had peeling flowered wallpaper and a tile stall shower with a fluorescent light that groaned whenever you turned it on. Not that I was jealous or anything.
I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my freshly made-up complexion, feeling unworthy. I couldn’t even imagine living like this. If her dad was as psycho as mine, she’d probably never even know it. Her room was so far away from the front door, I’d be surprised if she ever heard anyone even come and go. God, that would be so incredible.
“Found it!” Tama cried, bounding in from her bedroom. She swung her leg over the bench and sat, leaning in toward the mirror to apply some kind of clear gloss to her lips.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Lip Venom. It swells your lips in, like, an hour. Makes them much more kissable.”
My stomach twisted. She was going out with Robbie. She was plumping her lips for Robbie.
As you should be for Cameron. Cameron, I reminded myself, and felt a little thrill. I was actually going out with Cameron Richardson.
“Can I use some?” I asked.
Tama paused and flicked her gaze at my reflection. “Your lips are full already. Any bigger and you’d be Jolie-ing it.”
Wait. Was that a bad thing? I looked at my lips in the mirror. Were they freakishly big? Tama quickly put the Lip Venom in her bag and snapped it shut.
“Almost time,” she said.
“What are you guys doing tonight?” I asked, trying to distract myself from my balloonlike lips.
“He’s taking me to dinner somewhere,” Tama said with a shrug. “B
ut after that I’m going to take him to the diner for coffee.”
“The diner? Really?” I asked. That was, after all, not the most romantic locale.
“Totally. Leo’s gonna be there,” she said, running a finger over her eyebrow.
Hang on. Back up. “Leo?”
Tama heaved a sigh, like I was so irritatingly naïve. “KJ, if Leo doesn’t see me and Robbie together, then what’s the point of this whole charade?”
Charade? What the hell was she talking about? “I’m sorry, are you only going out with Robbie to get back at Leo?”
“Why else would I go out with him?” Tama asked. “You didn’t really think I’d date a geek like Robbie Delano, did you?”
A geek like Robbie? A geek? Was she kidding me? Robbie was the least geeky guy I knew. And okay, maybe he didn’t hang out with Cameron and those guys, but that was by choice. He didn’t want to get sucked into their hypocritical popularity vortex of doom. Which made him, in my book, all the less geeky.
“What?” Tama said.
“What, what?” I replied.
“You’re all red,” she told me. “Do I offend?”
“Well, now that you mention it, yeah,” I said. “You’re using Robbie.”
Tama laughed. “So?”
“Well—”
“Robbie is getting exactly what he wants tonight,” Tama said, standing. “He’s getting to go out with me. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even let him kiss me for real. He does have the softest lips.”
She grinned mischievously, then turned and strolled out. I felt like gagging myself. Robbie and Tama had closed-mouth kissed a couple of times in rehearsals, ergo her knowledge of his lip texture. But the idea of him kissing her for real, him not knowing that he was just being used, made me want to pick up her straightening iron and throw it at her.
I followed her into her bedroom, trying to think of something, anything to say, that would make her understand how absolutely awful she was being. Robbie really wanted to be with her, and she was toying with him.
“Speaking of stage kisses, you should really talk to Ashley. When she kisses Jonathan, she looks like a blowfish,” Tama said, tossing her cell phone and wallet into her purse. “It’s going to get a laugh and it’s so not supposed to.”
“You know, Tama, people are getting a little sick of all your notes,” I said angrily.
She stood up straight. “Excuse me?”
“It’s just . . . you’ve been acting like a diva lately and people are starting to complain,” I told her, trying to sound more diplomatic. “You might want to . . . I don’t know . . . dial it down a notch.”
Tama smirked. “Some people like who? Ashley? The Drama Twins?”
I said nothing. Thereby confirming her list.
“Unbelievable. They are just going to have to accept the fact that I’m the star,” Tama said. “I’m sorry if that makes some people uncomfortable, but the sooner they realize it, the better off they’ll be.”
She turned around and grabbed her leather jacket, leaving me gaping behind her. They were right. Her ego was totally out of control. Even if she was the star, that didn’t give her the right to run the production. That was, well, my job.
“What?” Tama said, noticing my pallor in one of her many mirrors. She sighed as I remained speechless. “Come on, Cage. You know all my notes have improved the show. You know that.”
Unfortunately, she had a point. Other than the bizarre dressing room incident, she hadn’t made any unreasonable or unintelligent demands.
“Right?” she prompted.
My shoulders slumped. “Right.”
“Thank you,” she said with a pleased smile.
The doorbell rang. The guys. Tama and her ego were instantly forgotten.
“Come on!” Tama said, shrugging into her jacket. “Let’s go see which of our gentlemen callers is here.”
Two minutes later (it took that long to get from her room to the front foyer), we swung the door open to find Robbie standing outside. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a gray shirt open over it, and he had a single white lily.
Damn, he was good.
“Hey, Tama,” he said, his eyes shining annoyingly. Then he glanced at me. “KJ. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“We wanted to get ready for our big dates together,” Tama said with a grin. She plucked the lily from his fingers. “Thanks. This is pretty. I’ll go put it in water.”
Her heels click-clacked as she walked away.
“You have a big date?” Robbie asked.
“Is that so hard to believe?” I replied.
He raised his hands. I had sort of bitten his head off there. Residual Tama anger. Dammit. Why couldn’t I control my mouth? I wished Cameron had gotten here first so that I didn’t have to witness this sham.
“Sorry,” he said. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
I blushed. Why did he have to say stuff like that? “I’m going out with Cameron.”
Robbie blinked. “Really? That’s—”
“You don’t have to say anything. I know you don’t like him.”
Robbie put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. He was even wearing real shoes. Black, shiny things that looked really uncomfortable. He’d gone all out for this thing. My heart squeezed. Maybe I should tell him the truth—that she was using him, that she still wanted Leo. That all of our seed sowing had resulted in a sickly, wilting, mealworm-riddled crop.
“Hey, thanks for this,” he said suddenly, quietly. “I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you.”
Or maybe not. Crap. He was right. This was all my fault. I’d gotten him into this mess with all my investigating and encouraging.
All you did was get him what he wanted, KJ, I thought, my inner voice sounding a lot like Tama. He wanted a date with her and now he’s got it.
Maybe it would all be all right. Maybe Tama would spend the evening with Robbie and realize how totally incredible he was. I mean, he blew Leo out of the water. Tama would have to be blind not to see that.
“You’re welcome,” I said, feeling guilty, hopeful and pathetic all at once.
Tama returned and stepped out next to Robbie. “I’m ready,” she said. “You can just hang out down here until Cameron shows. My mom knows you’re here.”
“Okay. Thanks,” I said.
“Shall we?” Robbie said, lifting his hand toward the driveway.
“We shall,” Tama said flirtatiously. I wanted to smack her upside the head. She walked toward his car and Robbie hung back for a second.
“You look really nice, by the way,” he said, looking me directly in the eye. “I just hope . . . I just hope Cameron deserves you.”
He gave me a sheepish sort of smile and walked off. Suddenly, I could hardly breathe.
But then he got in the car, and the heat passed. I was insane. Robbie Delano was just Robbie Delano. In about five minutes I was going to be out on a date with Cameron Richardson, the guy of my dreams. Cameron Richardson with his perfect hair and perfect lips and perfect eyes and perfect hands.
Get a grip.
ACT THREE, SCENE NINE
In which:
THERE’S PINKY CONTACT
THE MOVIE THEATER WAS DARK. CAMERON’S LEG WAS PRESSED into mine. During the quiet parts of the movie I could hear him breathing. He was chewing gum and eating popcorn and I could not figure out how he was doing both at the same time without being gross, but he was. He was Cameron Richardson. He could do pretty much anything.
I stared at his profile, unable to believe we were actually here. Together. Me and him. Him and me. KJ Miller. On a date with Cameron Richardson. I could reach over and pop his Hubba Bubba bubble with my fingernail. Even better, I could lean over and kiss him. That was how close he was. One lean in and my lips would be on his cheek. I wondered what he’d do if I had the guts. Would he flinch? Laugh? Turn his head and kiss me back?
I shivered. He turned and looked at me. Caught me staring.
“You co
ld?” he whispered.
Quite the contrary. But he was leaning forward and groping for his varsity jacket, which was mashed behind him. He was going to give me his jacket. Cameron Richardson’s jacket on my shoulders.
He finally freed it, spilling some popcorn on the floor. I would have been embarrassed if I’d done that, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He put his jacket on my lap, and it was all I could do to keep from lifting it to my face and inhaling forever.