by Cheryl Klam
“Where is he?” Lucy asks me.
I pull out my turkey rollup and apple and set them neatly on my napkin. “Contact problems,” I reply.
“I almost didn’t recognize him the other day,” Marybeth says. “He has really pretty eyes.”
We all look at her, startled by her confession. Does Simon have pretty eyes? They’re brown, I know that.
“Hey,” Marybeth says, pointing from my lunch to my sister’s.
“You guys have the same lunch. Cute.”
Lucy looks from my rollup to hers. I can tell from the expression on her face she doesn’t think it’s so cute. “I have to go,” she says.
“You just sat down a minute ago,” Marybeth says.
“I have some things I need to take care of,” Lucy says. “See you guys later.”
“Adios!” I say, like good riddance. I feel like throwing my apple at the back of her dainty little head.
“What was that about?” Jane asks the rest of us as Lucy walks away.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Marybeth give a discreet nod in my direction. Lucy’s departure has obviously thrown a wet blanket on the atmosphere. Even though Lucy’s friends aren’t exactly known for being quiet or pensive, the table is totally silent, the only sound coming from Marybeth munching on her carrots.
“So, Megan,” Jane says finally. “How’s everything been going for you lately?”
“Um, good.”
More silence.
“You must be totally psyched,” Jane says.
“Because of?”
She gives me a blank look. I can see we’re about to play twenty questions so I begin with: “Because of Drew’s play?”
Maria giggles. “No, silly. Because of your new face. Plus you got all skinny.”
“It’s got to be weird,” Annie says to Maria before I can answer. “I mean, to go to sleep one day looking totally”—she makes a nasty face—“and to wake up all beautiful, it’s got to be totally awesome.”
“It wasn’t quite like that—” I begin.
“I saw this movie once,” Maria says, interrupting me. “It was about this girl who was all sweet and nice but so ugly she only has one friend, a guy who tries to protect her from this group of bullies who are always teasing her and making fun of her. One day she gets in an accident and becomes like, totally beautiful, and the gang of bullies all want to date her but she kills them all off one by one by chopping them up into little pieces and her friend has to kill her to stop her.”
Gee. What a cute story. And so apropos.
Over Maria’s shoulder, I see Simon sitting by himself, two tables away. I’m not surprised to see that he’s wearing his glasses again. His contacts have been nothing but trouble. Our eyes lock and he shoots me a pissed-off look before grabbing his tray and heading toward the cafeteria’s industrial-sized garbage can.
What the hell?
“That’s so funny,” Marybeth says. “Because I was watching TV the other night and I saw this show…”
“I’ll see you guys later.” Angry or not, anything is better than this. I grab the rest of my lunch and hurry to catch up with him.
“Simon!” I call out. “When did you get here? I was waiting for you.”
“Oh yeah,” he says sarcastically. “I noticed.”
“Hey, beeeeeautiful,” I hear George say from behind me.
Simon looks over my shoulder at George and then at me again me, giving me a dirty look like (a) I just invited George over and (b) I did it just to make him even madder.
“I’ll call you tonight,” I say to Simon as he dumps the remainder of his lunch in the trash. He jams his hands in his pockets and walks away.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” George is saying. “You’re harder to find than a needle in a haystack.”
I really, really want to make a beeline out of there, and it takes every ounce of turkey-fortified energy to keep my feet planted exactly where they are. Lucy’s right. I have no choice but to tell him the truth. And now’s as good a time as any. The entire lunch period has stunk anyway. I might as well top it off with a bang.
“What are you doing next Tuesday night?” George asks.
On second thought, maybe I should stick to my original plan. “I’m…I’m busy.”
“How about Thursday then? After practice.”
I think about the line I have been practicing: You’re a really nice guy but I just don’t see this working between us.
“You’re a…a great guy,” I say stiffly. “It’s just that, well, I can’t see you anymore.”
“Oh.” George sounds surprised. “Are you, ah, seeing someone else?”
“No.”
“I’m not asking you to be exclusive,” he says. “I just want to spend some time with you. Get to know you.”
It sounds reasonable enough. So how do I explain that I don’t want to get to know him? “I’m sorry George. But I just…I can’t handle this right now, okay?”
“Handle what?”
“Um…us…you and me…spending time together.”
“Not now?”
“Not for a long, long, long time. Maybe never.”
George’s eyes drift down to his red tennis shoes. “I see.”
“I’m really sorry,” I sputter, as I turn and run toward the exit like the inexperienced coward I am. On the bright side, I haven’t taken a hatchet to anyone. Yet, at least.
After school I head to the auditorium to meet Drew. This is our first practice onstage and I couldn’t be more nervous if I was supposed to sing a capella on American Idol. I make my way through the backstage door out of habit since it’s what we use when we’re working on sets. But the minute I step inside I hear a cry so fierce and terrible, it makes my blood curdle. I stop still and listen while my flight-or-fight response kicks in. I hear it again, louder this time. Once again, the scream is followed by silence.
Holy crap. It’s Lucy!
I race toward the sound of her voice, my body surging with adrenaline. I’ll save you, Lucy! I’m almost relieved that after all this awfulness I have a chance to prove to her how much I love her. But as I hit the stage, I skid to a stop. Lucy’s downstage center, looking perfectly cool and collected, making a notation in her script. When she’s done, she tucks her pencil behind her ear, glances at sweet, gentle Harry Rice (the actor who’s playing opposite her), screams: “Bastard!” and convulses into sobs.
All the senior productions deal with a breakup, and Lucy’s character is a girl who is determined to fight for her man. But unlike my character (who pretty much throws in the towel with a minimum of drama), Lucy’s goes bananas, actually attempting suicide. When I read the script I found it melodramatic and unbelievable, but I was wrong. Lucy seems so upset, so totally devastated, that if I didn’t know any better, I’d think dopey, little Harry (who is rumored to have repeated fourth grade) just broke her heart. I hate to admit it, but Lucy is the star of the school for a reason. She deserves to be.
“There you are,” Drew whispers, coming up behind me.
I learned a long time ago not to trust my instincts, which is good because otherwise I would tackle him to the ground and do whatever it takes to distract him from my sister’s performance. Not that he doesn’t already know how good an actress she is, but why remind him?
“I thought we were onstage today.” I stand directly in front of him, effectively placing myself between him and the stage. Unfortunately, he’s so tall that I don’t even come close to blocking his view.
“My fault,” he says. “I messed up the schedule. We have the stage tomorrow.” Lucy sobs and Drew looks over my head at my sister.
His eyes kind of glisten and it’s obvious he’s totally, utterly transfixed. “She’s good,” he whispers.
My instincts are now telling me he’s really wishing he had cast my sister instead of me and I’m tempted to believe them (just this once). “She’s amazing,” I admit.
“Come on.” Drew nods toward the back door. “I brou
ght something to show you.”
I snap my head away from my sister, totally captivated by the excited tone in his voice. I follow him through the back door and out into the hall. I feel better as soon as I get away from the stage and can no longer hear my sister’s voice. But then again, when I’m around Drew, I always feel as if I’m floating along on my tiptoes.
He leads me into the classroom where we met the day before, unzips his backpack, and pulls out a comic book wrapped in plastic. Hiding the cover from me, he opens the book and shows me a random page. “What do you think of the drawing?” he asks.
“I love it. It’s Jim Lee, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” he exclaims as he practically beams at me.
Until two seconds ago I never would’ve guessed how excited a comic book could make me. But now my hands are shaking and my heart is racing. It’s hard to believe that only a few minutes ago I was so upset. It’s almost as if Drew knew I needed some cheering up.
“How did you know?” he asks.
“I recognize Breyfogle’s work, and I knew it wasn’t him.” I open my backpack and pull out the best of the one thousand Batmen I had drawn. “I have something to show you, too.” I place it on the desk in front of him.
He places his comic book next to it so the two images are side by side.
“That’s amazing,” he says. “Did you copy this from something?”
“What?” Geesh. I wasn’t that desperate. “No!”
“I’m sorry—I just…it’s so good. Why aren’t you a visual arts major?”
I swallow back a thick wad of pride. “I was just playing around. I thought about Batman and imagined a scene where he had to kick some butt, and that’s what I came up with.”
“I’ll show you how I draw Batman,” he says. As he reaches into his backpack, my heart skips a beat while the muscles in his arm flex and release. He grabs a pencil out of his back pocket and draws a stick figure complete with a triangular cape. He draws a bubble above the character that says, “Will you be my Catwoman?”
Is his Batman flirting with me? Is Catwoman code for girlfriend? I’m confused and excited at the same time, but I’m determined to play along. “Catwoman? I thought she was evil.”
“Well, she’s a villain, but they kinda, uh…”
“K-k-kinda what?” I stammer. It’s really amazing that I’m still able to speak at all, because I feel as if something is wedged in my throat.
“Well…Batman gets all goofy around her.”
He’s getting red in the face so I stay quiet. Even though I find it hard to believe that Drew, who always seems so cool and collected, is actually capable of feeling such a simple mortal emotion like embarrassment, it’s possible. After all, I hadn’t pegged him as a Batman guy either.
“So, what do you think?” Drew motions toward his drawing. I know he’s teasing me because of the twinkle in his eyes.
“It’s not bad. I like the cape…you just need to fill out the legs a little. Maybe the arms, too. And the face.”
“You’re right. He’s a little scrawny.” Drew says, chuckling. “So where did you learn how to draw?”
I clear my throat in an attempt to calm myself. “I’ve taken a lot of art classes. Lucy was always taking drama and dance and I think my parents put me into art because I wasn’t really into anything else. Or at least, I wasn’t really good at anything else.”
“What made you decide to study theater tech?”
How can I admit to Drew that the only reason I was a techie was because it was the only major that didn’t require an audition? That if I had an ounce of my sister’s talent I would have been a theater major? “I don’t know. I didn’t put that much thought into it.”
“But you like it, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking about my dioramas and designing sets with Simon. “I guess I do.” Oddly enough, I have never considered that before. It didn’t seem to matter whether I liked it or not because I didn’t have a choice.
“Well, I think you’re really talented.”
Drew smiles at me. I’m staring at his lips. They look so soft, and experienced. It seems like a heated moment where something could possibly happen and I’m hoping with every fiber of my being that it does. I’m looking into his eyes and he’s looking into mine and I feel I’m about to melt when the unmistakable sound of George Longwell’s soprano singing voice comes wafting into the room. “What good is a field on a fine summer night if you sit alone in the weeds? Or a succulent pear if with each juicy bite you spit out your teeth with the seeds?”
We both laugh and his hand gently rubs the back of my shoulder. It’s a relief from the tension, if not the ending I hoped for.
seventeen
chewing the scenery (noun): a completely hammy and over-the-top performance.
For some people a long, long, long time means months, maybe even years. For George Longwell it apparently means nineteen hours.
I’m walking to third period (stage production with Mr. Lucheki), trying to remember my discussion points on whether the light board operator is more important than the sound operator (which pretty much boils down to whether it is more important to see the play or hear it), when someone yells, “There she is!”
Just as I’m about to escape into the theater, George throws himself down on his knees in front of me.
“Megan, you are a rose
With a perfect nose
I know you are afraid
Of the love we could have made
But patient I will be
As I am sure you will eventually see
That I was meant for you
And you were meant for me.”
George pats his heart twice (as per usual) and stands up. “Next Thursday.” He kisses my hand for emphasis. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
I’m distracted by the appearance of Catherine’s friend Laura, who has stopped in the hall to watch and is smiling at me from ear to ear, nodding encouragement. “I have to go to class,” I say, stepping around him.
“Thursday night, Megan!” George calls out.
I want to tell him that I can’t go, that in fact I don’t want to go out with him at all, ever, but I can’t bring myself to say the words.
“Okay,” I say, hurrying into class. Simon is already there but he’s not sitting in our seats. Once again, he’s sitting across the aisle in the far corner of the auditorium, directly behind Laura and Catherine. The minute I see him leaning over their seats, chatting with them amiably as if there is nothing odd about his behavior or seat selection at all, I feel a little sick to my stomach. I’m getting extremely tired of this.
I pick up my stuff and walk over toward him. “What’s going on? Why are you sitting back here?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Catherine shoot Laura a look as if to say, Well, look who’s here…Miss Attitude herself!
“I didn’t know we had assigned seats,” Simon says with a shrug, giving Catherine and Laura a little grin.
What? What kind of smart-alecky response is that?
“Good morning, class,” Mr. Lucheki says enthusiastically. I drop into the seat beside Simon as I attempt to focus my attention on Mr. Lucheki. Besides having been the stage manager for the Kennedy Center for fifteen years, Mr. Lucheki’s other claim to fame is his shiny, not a hair on it, bald head. Normally his head is so shiny it reflects light all over the place. But not today, primarily because he’s standing in complete and total darkness.
“Which is more important,” Mr. Lucheki asks. “Sound? Or…” He claps his hands and suddenly he’s bathed in an almost luminescent light. “Light?” he says silently, mouthing the words.
“I was waiting for you,” I whisper to Simon. “Jane said I could sit—”
“I don’t care about lunch,” Simon whispers back.
“So why are you mad? Is this about George?”
“George?” Simon says. “I couldn’t care less about George Longwell. I’m just tired of you making promises you don’t ke
ep.”
Catherine glances back at me and sneers.
“What are you talking about?” I ask Simon, doing my best to ignore Catherine even though I’m really tempted to give the back of her chair a nice kick.
“What we’re talking about, Miss Fletcher,” Mr. Lucheki says, looking directly at me, “is the ability to attract attention. The ability to…” His voice fades away, replaced by static. He continues talking but all that is audible is a quiet mumble. He claps his hands again. “You see,” he says clearly again, “without sound, there are no stars.” He smiles, obviously extremely pleased with his demonstration. “I remember back in eighty-eight when Gypsy was in town. Tyne Daly was about to sing when…”
“You make plans, you cancel them,” Simon whispers. “You tell me you’re going to call, you don’t. I’m getting sick of it, that’s all.”
And suddenly I remember that I was supposed to call Simon last night.
“I forgot,” I whisper back. “I had practice after school and when I got home it was time for dinner and after dinner I had to study for the English test.”
“Whatever,” he says.
I’m silent for a few minutes as I turn my attention back to Mr. Lucheki. “Naturally her laryngitis made it difficult, if not impossible, to hear her,” he is saying. “So I decided to increase the volume on the…”
“Of course,” I say to Simon, “you could’ve called me.”
“That’s not the point,” he says.
“Since when do we keep tabs on who’s supposed to call who or who owes whom a phone call?”
“I knew you wouldn’t get it,” he says so loudly that Mr. Lucheki stops talking. Catherine rolls her eyes toward me and whispers something to Laura, obviously mocking me.
“What is your problem?” I scream at Catherine.
“Miss Fletcher!” Mr. Lucheki says.
Simon is staring at me, openmouthed. So is the rest of the class, including Catherine who is looking at me like I just doused her with a freezing pail of water.
“Why don’t you come sit down here?” Mr. Lucheki says sternly, pointing to a seat in the front row. I shoot Simon one last dirty look before grabbing my backpack and heading down the aisle.