The Pretty One

by Cheryl Klam

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she says, heading toward the front door.

  “We’re going to Danny Warner’s party.”

  “Should be fun,” she says, opening the door.

  I put down the bag of Oreos. “Lucy,” I call out.

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitate. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine,” she says impatiently. “I just don’t have time to chat. I have to meet Marybeth in twenty minutes.”

  I don’t believe her but instead of tackling her in the doorway and forcing a confession and a sisterly hug, I go back to my Oreos. After all, everything will go back to normal tomorrow when she finds out she has won the part.

  I’ll be disappointed, but in a way, it’ll be a relief.

  eleven

  upstage (verb): to overshadow another performer by moving upstage and forcing the performer to turn away from the audience.

  Even though I try to go to sleep before Lucy, I’m still awake when she crawls into bed. I know Lucy knows I’m still awake because my eyes are wide open, but neither she nor I say a word to each other. Up until two days ago, Lucy and I never went to sleep without wishing each other good night. I didn’t really think much of it when we missed the first night, but I was a little bothered by it the second time it happened, and now I find myself extremely agitated by the realization that we might never wish each other a good night again. And that would really stink because what kind of sisters went to sleep without wishing each other good night?

  “Good night,” I say.

  “Good night,” Lucy says softly, just like always.

  But I still don’t feel any better. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening as Lucy’s breathing becomes more and more regular. I find myself a tiny bit annoyed by the way Lucy so easily drifts off to sleep. She doesn’t really seem to be anxious or nervous about the cast lists at all.

  I twist around in my bed, push myself up on my elbows, and peek over my white iron headboard at Lucy. She is wearing her pink tank and boxer set pajamas and her long silky hair is splayed out over the pillow. Even when she’s sound asleep, she looks like a doll.

  I puff up my pillow and flop back down, my arms crossed over my face as I try and breathe through the stent in my right nostril while feeling sorry for myself. Before my accident, I couldn’t sleep if my nose felt the least bit stuffy, and now I have to go to bed with what feels like a piece of macaroni jammed up my nose every night.

  I spend the next five minutes keeping pace with my sister’s long, even breaths, but it doesn’t help one bit. I can’t compete, not even in the breathing department.

  I get out of bed and walk into the bathroom. As I turn on the light, the sight of my reflection in the mirror catches me off guard. The doctor had told me it would take me awhile to get used to it, but it’s been nearly two months and I still feel like I stole someone else’s face. I raise my head, getting a bird’s-eye view of my nostril as I pull the stent out of my nose. I set it on the edge of the sink and lean over it so I can be closer to the mirror. I touch my fingers to my forehead, trailing them down my cheeks to my chin. I look straight into my own eyes and think: Who are you?

  What would my old face say if it could see me now: wracked with nerves and unable to sleep? It would probably say something smart-alecky like, Boo hoo, cry me a river. But my new face knows something my old face doesn’t. So I consider my equally smart-alecky reply as I stick the macaroni back up my nose. Cry you a river? I say to my old face, but before I can make my snappy reply, I burst into tears.

  And then the stent shoots out of my nose.

  The cast list goes up at the end of the school day. I’m on way to the auditorium to see Lucy’s name on Drew’s cast list when I pass Lucy’s friend Jane Hitchens in the hall. “Congratulations,” she says politely.

  “For what?”

  “Drew’s play,” she says.

  Suddenly, I’m running as fast as I can. I get to the auditorium and elbow my way through the small crowd gathered around the cast lists, frantically searching for Drew’s list. And there it is. Right smack in the middle.

  THE END.

  GUY: DREW REYNOLDS

  GIRL: MEGAN FLETCHER

  My heart catches in my throat as I turn, glancing across the hall toward the production studio, looking for someone with whom to share my excitement. I did it! I finally did it!

  “Hey, Megan,” Marybeth says. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I got the part! I got the part! I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before. I feel so full of love, happiness, and joy that I want to scream from the rooftops, draw hearts and flowers on all my notebooks, and throw my money up to the sky.

  “Um…,” Marybeth says, motioning toward my nose.

  I grab a tissue out of my pocket (I always keep a stash, just in case) and swipe it across my nose. I’m so happy, I’m crying through my nose.

  “Does your sister know yet?” Marybeth asks.

  And just like that, my nose dries up.

  I remember how content Lucy looked last night in her sleep. How peaceful. “I don’t know,” I say to Marybeth.

  “She’s going to be bummed,” she says, half under her breath.

  “She saw it,” says Maria, another one of Lucy’s close friends.

  “How’d she take it?” Marybeth says, wrinkling up her nose like she just smelled something stinky.

  “She got cast in Russell’s play. But she’s still pretty upset.”

  “Have you seen her?” I ask.

  “I think she said she needed to get something from her locker.”

  I hurry back upstairs and toward Lucy’s locker. I’m not sure what I’m going to say to her, but I’m hoping it will come to me when I see her. One thing I’m sure of: I have upset the natural order of the world and I’m about to pay penance.

  I turn the corner and stop. At the far end of the hall is Lucy. In spite of what I have just heard, she doesn’t look upset. In fact, she’s smiling. But she has a reason to smile. Drew is with her and she is resting her head on his shoulder.

  I quickly turn and head in the opposite direction. How could I think for one minute that I could win in a duel with my sister? Even now with my new face, there’s no way I can compete with Lucy’s charm and effortless grace. I may have won the part, but she would win the guy.

  I’m halfway home when my phone rings.

  “Hey, kiddo,” my dad says casually when I answer, as if he always calls me that. “Mom said congratulations are in order. It didn’t take you long to spring to the top of the heap, did it?”

  I’m sure this is meant as a compliment, but this whole my-dad-likes-me-now-that-I’m-pretty thing is very annoying.

  “It’s not like a big, huge deal. It’s for the senior playwriting independent study. There are going to be five productions.”

  “Don’t minimize it,” he says sternly. “You’ve worked hard for this.”

  Not really. At least, not in terms of studying the craft of acting. The only thing I’ve done was have plastic surgery to improve my face and lose an inner tube of blubber, which I guess, according to my dad, counts.

  “Wow! Must feel great, huh?” he continues, obviously waiting for me to jump up and down or something.

  “To be honest…” Wait a minute. I’m going to be honest with my dad? I must have leaked a little too much cerebrospinal fluid. “I’m a little creeped out.”

  My dad is quiet for a minute as if he doesn’t know what to make of my reaction. “Yeah, well, good for you. We’ll all have to go out and celebrate when I get back.”

  I think about Lucy. I can’t imagine she will be in the mood for much celebration. And after seeing her with Drew, I don’t really feel like celebrating, either. “Um, well…,” I begin.

  “Where do you want to go? Your choice. How about the Bicycle?” he says, mentioning one of the most expensive restaurants around.

  “Actually, it’s kind of awkward because Lucy tried out for the same part.”<
br />
  “Mom said she got a part in another play, though.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “This is the first time you’ve tried out for anything. And you got a role. I’m sure Lucy’s happy for you.”

  It’s obviously a lot more complicated than that, but I don’t feel like getting into it with my dad. And so I say, “Yeah. Sure.”

  “I’m sure this is just the beginning. All the guys are going to be fighting over who gets to cast you in their play.”

  When I get home, the house is empty. The first thing I want to do is eat myself back to fatness to spite my father and bring back some normalcy. Lucy, I imagine, is still talking to Drew, giving him the guided tour of Lucyland, which is something like a Disney creation—she’s the cartoon princess with birds chirping all around her, and midgets and mice and orange-faced Oompa-Loompas sing songs about her in this crazy high pitch, and the fat kids end up in the chocolate river. Drew is hers forever, the whole thing tinged with an edge of wicked stepmother cruelty because of the brief bit of hope I was allowed.

  And to make matters worse, Simon hasn’t called me back yet. And to add insult to injury, it’s absolutely freezing in here and I really, really hate to be cold.

  I walk upstairs and open the closet door, careful to keep Lucy’s stupid dollhouse up with my foot. I glance at my reflection in the mirror on the inside of the door. I think about what my dad said about all the guys wanting to cast me now because of the way I look. I know he meant it as a compliment, but I didn’t quite see it that way. I wanted to think that I had won the part because I was the best person for the role. And even though I really, really wanted this part and should probably be kissing the mirror with appreciation (if what my dad said is true), I feel a little embarrassed, like in fifth grade when I used a dictionary for an English test when (unbeknownst to me at the time) I wasn’t supposed to and got an A. I gently nudge it back in the closet, holding it in place with my foot as I thumb through the sweaters, looking for something to put on. But they all seem too formal or something, like a costume. I just want something comfortable that I can get swallowed up in. I glance at the black bag marked SALVATION ARMY. I want one of my old hoodies.

  Lucy walks in the house about twenty minutes later, carrying a grocery bag. “What are you wearing?” she asks, stopping and nodding toward my hoodie.

  Odd. I have just upset the natural order of the world and the first thing out of her mouth was in regard to my choice of clothing? “I was cold,” I say simply.

  “Did you check to make sure the heat is on?” she asks, walking right past me.

  Lucy is acting as if it’s just another day after school, which is totally freaking me out. “Um, yeah,” I say, following her into the kitchen.

  “I got you something at the market.” She sets the grocery bag on the kitchen table and pulls out a box of doughnuts.

  She got me doughnuts? What in God’s name is going on here? “Thanks,” I say.

  “Congratulations on the part,” she says, as she begins to put the groceries away.

  “Oh, thanks.” I stand still, holding on to my box of doughnuts.

  “I’m really happy about the way things turned out. Drew was so wonderful about everything. He explained it all. Apparently Russell was just like insistent that I be in his play.” She shrugs her shoulders. “I would’ve preferred Drew’s, of course, but they’re buddies so…comme ci, comme ça.”

  I get the gist. It’s not like I won the part fair and square. Lucy won both roles and the directors drew straws.

  “But this will be fun,” she says a bit tightly. “Two sisters, both in senior productions.”

  Sure, I think. Fun. Fun like jumping into an ice cold pool of water, fun like tearing off a scab, fun like getting your eyebrows plucked, fun like having a flock of birds pluck out your eyes, fun like being set on fire and shot out of a cannon.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding my head as I open up the box of doughnuts. “It’ll be a regular old funhouse around here.”

  twelve

  protagonist (noun): the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work.

  I have always wondered what it might feel like to be cast in a starring role. I imagined that the minute the cast list was announced I would be immediately transformed into a star, parading through school with an almost halolike glow over my head as a wind machine blew my perfectly straight, blown-dry hair behind me. I’m wearing a shiny sequined outfit and (for some reason) twirling a baton. I’m surrounded by secretly jealous well-wishers who I would immediately charm by my grace and modesty. “Oh thanks,” I would say casually. “I was shocked to get the role because from what I heard, you were fantastic!”

  Unfortunately, I don’t have a portable wind machine or a flunky to drag it around in front of me. And my hair, due to impending rain, is a giant mass of frizzy curls. And because the jeans that Lucy had assured me were ultracool and extremely flattering are starting to feel tight, I’m at school the day after the cast lists were posted wearing my more comfortable but not nearly as flattering Levis, so maybe it’s a good thing—unlike in my fantasy—no one seems to care that I have landed the starring role in Drew’s play.

  And it’s also probably good that I’m not surrounded by well-wishers, because I don’t exactly feel full of grace. Maybe it’s the three doughnuts I polished off the night before, maybe it’s the fact that Lucy acted like Drew had thrown me a bone, maybe it’s the fact that Simon hasn’t returned a single one of my million messages, maybe it’s the fact that I’m not a hundred percent sure I won the part fair and square, maybe it’s the fact that I had to get to school early to finish up my work in the production studio and am currently covered in sawdust and wearing protective goggles that cover half my face and make me look like I’m preparing for an underwater expedition (instead of what I am doing, which is cutting a straight edge on a foot-long board with a table saw), but I am pretty much graced out.

  “Hey,” I hear a voice say as I feel someone tap me on my arm.

  It’s Drew. I lose my concentration, causing the board to go veering off course and spraying him with sawdust. I narrowly miss my finger and avert disaster by turning off the saw. I turn toward Drew, my heart racing.

  “Sorry if I scared you,” he says, casually brushing the sawdust off his black, short-sleeved T-shirt. “I guess I should know better than to sneak up on a girl wielding a…whatever that thing is.”

  “Circular saw.” I’m staring at the muscles in his arm. They’re totally defined but not like the gross guys in the fitness-machine ads who drank one protein drink too many.

  “I just wanted to congratulate you, since I didn’t get a chance to do it yesterday.”

  I look away from his muscles and into his deep blue eyes. I wipe my suddenly sweaty hands across the front of my jeans. “Oh, thanks.”

  “We should exchange e-mails and stuff. Anyway, the first practice will be on Monday. I’m not sure what the schedule is yet for the auditorium, but we’re going to be trading off with the other groups. When we’re not in the auditorium, we’ll be in a classroom. And you’re familiar with the performance schedule, right? The performances are the week after the fall festival. There’s one play each night, Monday through Friday. We’re up first, Monday, October sixteenth.”

  “Okay,” I reply.

  He picks up the board I just cut in half. “Wow, that’s a pretty intense machine.”

  “It’s good for cutting long straight edges. And those over there,” I say, pointing to the next table, “are jigsaws. We use them for cutting shapes.”

  “Cool.” Drew pauses a beat and for a moment I’m afraid he might just keel over from boredom. Why am I talking about saws when he’s just trying to be nice?

  He holds up half of the board and says, “So, you could make this into a star if you wanted to?”

  The board he’s holding is actually my homework assignment (which was to make two five-inch clean cuts), but I couldn’t care less. If Drew wants
a star, I’m going to give it to him.

  I take the board from him and say, “Sure.”

  He follows me over to the table saw, standing beside me as I turn it on. I haven’t actually cut a star before, but I have cut a triangle. How much harder can it be? “Damn,” I say, as the blade runs off the wood.

  Drew touches my arm, causing a tingle to run down to my fingers. “Don’t worry about it.”

  The tingle only makes me more determined to impress him. I pick up the other piece of wood. “I can do it.”

  I look from the board to the machine, giving myself a pep talk as I plot out my strategy. I turn the saw on and five minutes later, he has his star. “Here you go,” I say, handing it to him.

  “Are you always so determined?” he asks, his blue eyes twinkling. I watch as he touches his finger to a sharp point on the star. I don’t care that I’ll have to do my homework assignment all over. I have impressed Drew, which was well worth it.

  Our eyes lock and we both stand there for a minute, just looking at each other. I twirl my finger around a loose strand of hair and pull it across the top of my mouth, like it’s a mustache.

  “I guess I should get going,” Drew says. “I’ll see you later, though, right?”

  “Later?” I ask, dropping my mustache. I thought he said our first practice was on Monday.

  “Danny’s party. Lucy said you guys were going.”

  “You’re going?” I ask.

  “Thought I might,” he replies nonchalantly.

  “Great,” I exclaim. Up until now, I haven’t been looking forward to Danny’s party, simply because of George. But he no longer matters. What matters is that I’ll get to see Drew.

  Drew gives me a nod and grins. Only after he’s gone do I realize that I’m still wearing my protective goggles. I make a mental note to take them off before the party.

  I experience a Drew-inspired high that lasts all the way until third period, Mr. Lucheki’s sound production class. Even though it’s in the auditorium and there’s only twenty of us in the class, Simon and I always sit in the same seats: J 19 and 20. But today Simon arrives late, and instead of sitting in his regular seat next to me, he takes a seat by the exit, directly behind Catherine and her new best friend, Laura, a freshman techie who all the guys are gaga about.