Snark and Stage Fright (Snark and Circumstance Book 5)

by Wardrop, Stephanie

  Michael wasn’t in my first period class, poli sci, either, but my friend Dave was, and he sat next to me and gave me his own version of how the Pigs show had given all of western Massachusetts the thorough rocking it so desperately needed. As Mrs. Palmer was passing out the textbooks, he pushed his geek-chic horn-rimmed glasses up his long nose and said, “Hey, good news. I got your boyfriend to write for The Alt this year. After that anonymous editorial he wrote last year, I had to get him on board. And I got an official ‘yes’ last period.”

  Before turning to face the front of the room as Mrs. Palmer started, I asked, “When he accepted your offer … did Michael, um, refer to himself as my boyfriend?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I shook my head and nodded toward the teacher who’d begun speaking, glad to have a reason not to explain.

  I knew I’d see Michael fourth period in European history, and when I got there I hesitated before taking the seat next to him. But when it looked like Sarita Singh was going to take it, I hurried over to claim it as casually as I could.

  He looked up from his book and said, “Hey.”

  “Hey. I see you got your seat this time.”

  He frowned in confusion.

  “You know, ‘second row, center’? Like in homeroom last year?”

  “Oh, yeah. Our first conversation. And our first fight,” he said, but he smiled, at least slightly.

  “It got better, though, eventually … ?” I ventured.

  But he didn’t answer. Class started and I kept sneaking looks at him, wondering how I was going to make it through the whole year and if I should have let Sarita take my seat so I wouldn’t have to sit every fourth period all year with him inches away physically but miles away mentally. I looked over at his tanned arm as he scribbled down some notes about the reading assignment. I watched the muscles move under the dark hairs lightened by the sun, and I felt my eyes start to burn when I realized that I would never again be able to just reach out and touch that arm. I no longer had that privilege. Not that I would be all over him in history class, but … How was I supposed to be so close to him every day and never be able to touch him again? If we were just friends now, how would I do that? Would I eventually be able to just hang out with him and not want to put a hand on the back of his neck or brush the top of his hand so that he would wind his fingers around mine like he used to? Would I always feel, every time I was near him, that a part of me was gone, given to him permanently, even if he no longer wanted it? On the night I blew everything, I had thought that having sex with him meant that I would be giving myself away to him, but I was starting to realize that I’d already given everything that mattered.

  I was really hoping the first topic of the class would be the Black Death or something cheerful like that. But it wasn’t.

  When the bell rang, I was slamming my books together to bolt out of there when Michael asked me, “Do you have lunch sixth period?”

  I could feel the hope fluttering out of my chest and into my throat like a freed bird. I chirped, “Um, yeah. Do you?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

  I practically bounced to my next class and then into the cafeteria afterward—until I saw him sitting at a round table under the window next to a girl who made Catalina Osbourne look like a sea hag. She was tiny and lithesome, with straight strawberry blond hair held back by a white headband and big blue-green eyes. I walked to the table, set down my hemp lunch bag, and forced a smile.

  “Hey, Georgia,” Michael said. “I’m glad you have lunch now because I want you to meet Diana. She’s new here. A junior.”

  “Hi, Diana,” I managed as I sat down. “Welcome to Longbourne.”

  “Oh, I’ve lived here all my life,” she said. “I’m just new to the school.” When Dave and Shondra set down trays and took seats, she smiled at them and said, “Hi, I’m Diana DeBourgh.”

  They both said their hellos to this perky little specimen—she was like a happy little cartoon squirrel, only absolutely gorgeous and apparently unaware of it. I didn’t know what to make of her or of her being there next to Michael like they were a matched set, salt and pepper shakers, dark and light, perfectly complementary opposites. The thought that he had found a more suitable replacement for me so quickly made it really hard to eat, so I didn’t. I just tried to follow the conversation and nod and smile at the right times as Michael told Dave that he wouldn’t be at the first Alt meeting because he had a cross-country meet. Then he and Dave tossed around ideas he could write about for his first official article, mostly stuff about NSA surveillance of American citizens. I was too busy looking at the perfect elongation of Michael’s neck in his brick-red polo shirt and the delicacy of Diana’s hands as she peeled a tangelo to participate. Through it all, Shondra kept looking at me, then at Michael, then back at me. When Diana laughed at something Michael said and placed her hand on his wrist, very lightly, like a chickadee lighting on a twig, Shondra raised her eyebrows at me like WTF?

  Before I could mouth a response to her, Michael asked, “So, George, are you going to continue the anti-meat offensive this year?” just before biting into the school’s version of a Reuben sandwich.

  “Um, no … I … think it might be time to do something else, I guess.”

  “Oh, are you a vegetarian?” Diana asked me, her eyes bright as a chipmunk’s.

  “Vegan,” Michael corrected her with a smirk, then explained, “That’s like a vegetarian, only more militant.”

  Dave laughed and Shondra’s eyes widened; I wished that I could eviscerate myself like a sea cucumber, turn my own insides out and shoot away from the table and Michael and Diana, who was smiling so much and had such a sweet voice she was the human equivalent of a marshmallow Peep.

  I was relieved when the bell rang and we had to go in our separate directions, but Michael caught up with me and Shondra in the hall.

  “Hey, can I ask you two a favor?” he asked us.

  “Sure,” Shondra said uncertainly, looking at me to make sure I didn’t spontaneously combust or something.

  “I’ve known Diana forever,” he began. “Her mom and mine are really good friends, and Diana’s going to school here because her parents are going through a really ugly divorce and the money for tuition to her old school’s all tied up.”

  “Okay?” I said a little sharply, probably because I was not interested in feeling any sympathy for Miss Sexy Woodland Creature at the moment.

  “So could you guys just be nice to her, maybe show her around, help her get involved in things? She’s a really sweet girl and she’s going through a really tough time at home. Her mom moved them into an apartment in town.”

  That’s when I remembered where I had heard the last name “DeBourgh” before. They own the biggest house in Longbourne, some eight-million-square-foot fake Tudor with an indoor pool and bowling alley and a yard as big as and better groomed than Central Park. Still, I hesitated. It was too weird to see Michael—Mr. Standoffish 2014—acting as a one-man welcome committee.

  “I’m not exactly Longbourne’s School Spirit Captain … ” I said.

  He rolled his eyes and adjusted his black messenger bag on his shoulder. “I know that, Georgia. I didn’t ask you to adopt her. But I just thought you could be nice to her,” he said as he walked away backward. “For me. Make an exception to your usual policy of xenophobic sarcasm.”

  I bit my lower lip to keep it from quivering as he disappeared.

  “What the what?” Shondra marveled as we headed toward Spanish IV. “I take it you guys haven’t exactly patched things up.”

  “No comprende,” I admitted, helpless. “Looks like I’ve been replaced with a younger, perkier model.”

  “I doubt that. So tell me,” she said as we picked our seats in the front. “What did Michael say to you the last time you saw him, after the movie?”

  “That he needed time to think.”

  Shondra considered this as she slid into her seat. “Well, that’s n
ot fatal, right? That’s not the end.”

  “No, Diana ‘I’ve-Known-Him-All-My-Life’ DeBourgh is the end.”

  Shondra shook her head and sighed. “Well, I read some stuff in the paper about her dad and the divorce.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Her dad is about to be indicted for ripping off investors in some real estate scam he was pulling. Plus, he apparently had at least three women he was keeping in style in different parts of the world, and I guess Diana’s mom just found out about all of it, pretty recently.”

  “Whoa. Sucks!” I shook my head in wonder. “So when did you start following local scandals, Shon?”

  Shondra grinned as Senora Fletcher entered in a swirl of paisley scarves. “This scandal’s national, George. And I’ll have you know that I am way more knowledgeable about local events than most of you because my brother Tom now writes for the Netherfield Gazette. My parents are so proud.”

  “I didn’t think newspapers were still hiring. Good for him! Hey, should we recruit Diana for The Alt?” I whispered as I handed the stack of textbooks back along my row. “Maybe we could radicalize her—maybe she’s already really mad and ready to bring down her dad’s empire, and all of capitalism. We could totally do it—for Michael.”

  Shondra laughed at the return of my snark and turned back to see what Senora was writing on the board.

  I decided not to invite Diana to the first Alt meeting of the year, which I had to leave early. I had to get to my new after-school job: babysitting my neighbor’s four-year-old. But as soon as I got there, expecting to meet the boy’s grandmother, who picked him up at preschool and stayed until I could get there, I was met at the door by his very harried looking and very pregnant mother.

  “Georgia!” she cried and invited me in, where she brought me a lemonade and then somewhat tearfully (hormones, I guess) explained that she wouldn’t need me to watch Liam because her obstetrician had just put her on bed rest for most of the day. She’d be taking an early maternity leave so she’d be able to hang out with Liam as part of her few allotted hours of activity after Liam’s grandmother went home at three. I told her I was sorry to hear that but hoped she took it easy and that she shouldn’t worry about me. But I was disappointed because Liam is fun to hang out with, like most four-year-olds are. One minute he thinks he’s a horse and wants you to feed him pretend oats out of a beach bucket and the next he’s a ninja wearing Dinosaur Train underpants over his head as his mask. His is a nice world to live in for a few hours a day. Not to mention the fact that I needed to save up some money for college next year. And I couldn’t go back to working for Dr. Endicott, even if that weren’t a totally humiliating proposition, because his receptionist was back from maternity leave. Pregnant and recently pregnant ladies were really messing with my employment status.

  I didn’t look forward to telling my parents I was insolvent again, but at dinner, Mom assured me that she would find someone through her Longbourne Newcomers’ Club who needed a babysitter or mother’s helper. But then Leigh suggested the director of the LHS Drama Club, who was looking for someone to help during rehearsals for The Sound of Music to keep the little kids under control and ready for their cues, starting at the end of the month.

  “So you’ll be playing Maria, but I’ll have to actually be the singing nanny nun?” I clarified.

  “If I get the part,” Leigh demurred, but before Mom and Dad could jump in to reassure her that of course she would, Cassie snickered over her plate of turkey tetrazzini.

  “No one wants you to be a singing anything,” she said to me.

  “I think it’s a brilliant idea, Leigh,” Mom said. She loves to see a problem solved through no effort of her own. “George, you can earn some money and list Drama Club as one of your extracurriculars for college applications. You only have the newspaper now on that list,” she pointed out, adding in a whisper fit for the stage, “The alternative newspaper.”

  I looked at Dad, who just nodded slightly and went back to the article he was reading on his Blackberry because he thought no one would notice his lack of engagement. It was enough, he seemed to think, that he sat at the table with us.

  The next day Leigh introduced me to the musical’s director, Ms. Duval, who hired me right away, and all I had to do was wait for my little troop of von Trapps to be cast. And then the real fun—wrangling six or seven kids instead of one—would begin.

  I was less than a week into my senior year and nothing was going the way it was supposed to.

  It was going to be a long year.

  ***

  I wanted to talk to Tori, but I hadn’t wanted to ruin her second week of college with pestering phone calls about my laughable and self-induced romantic purgatory. So when my phone buzzed as I was walking home on Friday and I saw her name on the screen, I did a little hop step on the sidewalk that amused a mail carrier.

  “Hey, Tor! How’s college life?”

  “Great! Are you walking home right now?”

  “Yeah. I’m almost at the Westies’ yard, but I don’t think they’re outside right now.” I always stopped by the house a block from ours that has two West Highland terriers; I like to let them lick my hand through the fence and then chase me, yapping, along the length of the yard. Especially on days like today, it makes me really childishly, shamelessly happy. “How’s the roommate situation?”

  “Mara’s okay. And I guess all that moving around we did over the years for dad’s work has helped me get along with all kinds of people. Still … I wish she’d tone down the Jewish thing a little.”

  “Whoa! Eva Braun, please hand the phone back to my sister because I can’t tolerate your anti-Semitism!”

  “Come on, George. You know what I mean. Mara’s Orthodox, so she takes it really seriously. And she doesn’t get me, either. She went to a yeshiva school and doesn’t even want to let me turn on the lights on Saturdays, the Sabbath.”

  As I rounded the corner to our block I said, “Tor, you’ve dealt with religious zealots before.”

  “Who?”

  “Hello? Have you met our sister, Leigh? She’s the one with the purity ring and the lyrics to Carrie Underwood’s Jesus, Take the Wheel practically tattooed to her arm.”

  Tori didn’t answer for a while, but I heard her talking to someone else and then come back and say, “Sorry. That was Naleema, across the hall.”

  I allowed myself a few seconds to envy Tori hanging out every day with exotic people from all over the planet while I was stuck in Longbourne with a strawberry blond American Girl doll and a cranky ex-boyfriend.

  “So what’s going on with Michael?”

  I sank onto our front steps and waved at Cassie as she zoomed past me into the house to change into her cheerleading uniform for an away game.

  “Nothing. Same thing. He’s ‘thinking’ it out and I am giving him the space to do it, I guess.”

  “Well, are you guys talking at all?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how does he sound? Miserable, I bet. How does he treat you?”

  “Like he treats everybody else. Though he said something kind of mean to me the other day. He described me as vegan, ‘like a vegetarian, only more militant.’”

  Tori laughed. “You guys are always teasing each other, though.”

  “Yeah, but it was the way he said it. And who he said it to.” I poured out a description of Diana DeBourgh and how it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t even hate her because she was turning out to be, from what I could tell, pretty much the nicest person this side of Santa Claus. Just yesterday she had brought in these fancy macaroons to share with everyone at our lunch table. They weren’t vegan, but I ate one anyway, to be nice to her—and to prove to Michael that I can be sociable and accepting. He watched me take all three bites with an odd smile on his face.

  “So how long are you going to give this ‘thinking it out’ thing?” she sighed when I was done.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you don’t have to
hang around forever and wait for him to make a decision. You don’t have to wait for him to call. You can call him and tell him you need to talk.”

  I chewed on the ends of a hank of hair, something I haven’t done since I was about five years old. Her proposition, while both obvious and reasonable, had reduced me to the emotional maturity of a five-year-old. Maybe I should go over to Michael’s house and knock down any Lego towers he happened to have sitting around.

  “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “George!” Tori practically shouted. “You’re afraid to speak your mind? Is this the girl who brought the entire cafeteria to its knees last year with a tirade about the sexual double standard? Who writes blistering editorials comparing meat-eaters to commandants at Auschwitz?”

  “Yeeees … ”

  “Call. Him.”

  “Okay. I promise. Is Trey coming to visit this weekend?” I asked to detour the conversation because I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to do what I had just promised I would do.

  Instead, I came up with an alternative, almost-as-proactive plan: I decided that I would drop by the party at Cameron Lowe’s house tomorrow. Because Cameron was on the cross-country team, I was almost certain Michael would be there. My plan was to show up and drink just enough to be brave enough to confront Michael but not to embarrass either one of us. My mom was thrilled that I was going to a social event and I managed to talk Shondra into going, too, for moral support.

  I spent the afternoon picking out my outfit and hating myself the whole time I was doing it, for caring so much about what friggin’ shirt I was going to wear to a party I didn’t even want to go to. But after much internal debate and a photo DM-ed to Tori, I decided on a lavender short-sleeved blouse with little white chevron-y things on it and a pair of skinny jeans. I wanted to look great but not like I tried to look great.