by Cheryl Klam
Production class is right before lunch, and usually Simon and I walk each other to our lockers and go to lunch together, but not today. Even though I know Simon doesn’t want to go to lunch with me any more than I want to go with him, I hurry out of class, dump my books into my locker, and slam the door for emphasis before heading to the lunchroom where I plop myself down at my sister’s table as if I have been sitting there my entire life. As if I belong.
Maria and Jane look at me, but if they’re surprised, they don’t show it. The only person who seems surprised is Lucy, who greets me, once again, by asking me where Simon is.
“I don’t know.” Simon hightailed it out of class with his two little (in Catherine’s case, not so little) minions and I’m not about to chase him down again. If he doesn’t want to sit with me, then so be it.
The conversation stalls with my arrival, and I can feel Lucy’s eyes on me as I put my lunch on the table.
“Why did you pack my yogurt?” Lucy asks, pointing toward the nonfat lemon yogurt that I have just taken out of my lunch bag.
Up until I began my official “Lucy” diet, Lucy is the only one in our family who ate yogurt. “I just grabbed it out of the fridge,” I say nonchalantly.
“I only had two left.”
I probably should apologize, but instead I just shrug.
“You don’t even like yogurt,” Lucy says.
“It’s not bad,” I say, peeling the top off the container and giving it a lick.
“I have to get going,” Lucy says, disgustedly tossing her own half-eaten nonfat lemon yogurt into her bag.
She’s leaving? Again? “You can have it,” I shout, stopping her. I push my yogurt in her direction. “I’ll go sit someplace else.”
Lucy takes a look at my yogurt, sighs, and sits back down. “I guess I can wait a couple minutes,” she says, sliding my yogurt back across the table toward me.
There are a few moments of uncomfortable silence. Marybeth, Jane, Maria, and Annie are looking at me, their eyes open wide. I think this is how sharks look when they see a sea lion swimming through the water. I don’t know what Lucy’s been telling them about me, but they seem a little anxious, as if they’re expecting me to jump over the table and pummel my sister to the ground.
“So what were you talking to Drew about?” Jane says finally.
“When?” I ask, assuming she’s talking to me.
But she’s not. She’s looking at my sister who says, “Figuring out the logistics for the Kennedy Center.”
“What’s going on at the Kennedy Center?” I ask.
“Drew and I are going to see a play,” Lucy says casually.
I put down my spoon. I try to keep my reaction to a minimum as I begin to gnaw on my thumb.
“Just the two of you?” Jane asks, which coincidentally, is exactly what I’m wondering.
“She and Drew were talking to Mrs. Habersham and she told them she had seen this play last week by this new playwright,” Annie says. “She mentioned they were doing a special weekday presentation. So Lucy asked Drew if he wanted to go see it with her.”
Wait a minute.
Did Lucy ask out Drew or did Drew ask out Lucy?
“I don’t remember who asked who first,” Lucy says, correcting her. “But he offered to drive.”
I glance longingly toward the vending machine at the opposite end of the room. When I walked past yesterday I had noticed that it now carried Oreos. I could really, really use an Oreo. But the question is: Are they on the Lucy diet?
“I hope it’s a love story,” Marybeth says. “One with a lot of make-out scenes.”
“Yeah,” agrees Jane, who laughs like the Wicked Witch of the West, surprisingly.
“Speaking of making out,” Annie says, blinking her overly made-up eyes as she rests her giant boobs on the table, leaning toward me. “Do you have anything to share with us yet?”
“Like what?” I ask, as Lucy begins to dig through her wallet.
“Have you kissed Drew yet?” Jane asks. “On a scale of one to ten, how does he rate? And be honest.”
“Lindsey gave him a ten,” Annie says.
A ten. I can barely swallow my mouthful of yogurt. Although the news that Drew is a good kisser is hardly shocking, it doesn’t exactly put me at ease, either. “I…we haven’t gotten to that scene…”
“Not yet?” Jane gasps. “What have you guys been doing all this time anyway?”
Her question catches me by surprise and is enough to make me gag on my yogurt. I take a big sip of water.
“Leave her alone,” Lucy says. I glance at her, stunned that she’s actually standing up for me. “This is her first play, after all. It’s probably taking her awhile to get used to blocking and everything.”
“You have to be getting to it soon,” Marybeth says.
In fact, we are on page five, which means that today (if we followed the same schedule as yesterday) we’ll be blocking the kissing scene. Which is exactly why I took a double dose of my nose spray that morning. I have no intention of having snot on my face when I finally get to kiss the man of my dreams.
“Don’t forget. We want a full report,” Annie says.
“Won’t it be weird when you see the play and have to watch your sister with the guy you like?” Jane asks Lucy.
But if Lucy’s bothered by the visual, she doesn’t show it. “I guess I’ll find out. Russell is sick today and since Megan and Drew have the auditorium, I thought I’d watch.”
I glance at Lucy, horrified. I do not want my sister to be in attendance on the day when I finally get to kiss Drew.
“Anyone else interested in coming?” Lucy asks, handing me a dollar for the vending machine.
Unfortunately for me, almost everyone is.
Great.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time imagining what it might be like to kiss a guy. Not just a quick peck, but a real, heavy-duty, make-out kiss. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be with Drew. Nor did I think it would be in front of an audience, especially one that consisted of my sister and her friends. Nor did I think I would be so nervous that I would spend the minutes leading up to it keeled over a toilet in the school’s first-floor bathroom. But that’s where I’ve been for the past half hour.
I didn’t throw up, which was fortunate, considering I’m pretty sure my breath is stinky enough as it is. I purposely laid out my toothbrush and toothpaste this morning but I forgot it on the kitchen counter. I tried to touch my tongue to my nose to smell my breath and I’m pretty sure it smells like peanut butter. (The vending machine was out of Oreos, and the only other thing that looked good was the Nutter Butters.)
When I was in the bathroom I kept reassuring myself I’d feel much better once I actually got onstage. Lucy has always said that the minute she gets onstage she feels as though she’s been transported to another world and is never aware of the audience. But as I stand in the middle of the stage, gagging on my own peanut butter breath while holding my script and waiting for Drew to give me my blocking, I couldn’t be more aware of the audience if they were still giving me dirty looks across the lunch table. And it certainly does not help that (unlike in Mr. Lucheki’s demonstration) the auditorium lights are on. They’re all right there in front of me, sitting in the third row: Annie Carmichael, Jane Hitchins, Maria Merton, Marybeth Wilkens, and last but not least, Lucy Fletcher.
“Okay,” Drew is saying. “Let’s start at the bottom of page four. I remember…”
I glance at the script, but my hands are shaking so badly I’m having trouble reading it. I think about how great Lucy was yesterday and how she had moved me to tears even though she was just receiving her blocking and was still reading from her script.
Oh crap.
I attempt to steady the script by balancing it on the edge of my belt as I clear my throat. “I remember the first time we got together. You told me I was special…that you had never felt like this about anyone before. Remember?”
“I remember,” Drew s
ays, reading the part of Guy.
“Was it a lie?” I glance into the audience. Lucy’s arms are crossed and she’s giving me a smug you stink sort of look. I wipe away a bead of sweat from my forehead. I had a feeling I shouldn’t wear my hoodie but I just felt safer in it. But here I was, onstage for two seconds, and already dripping with sweat.
“Of course not.”
“When you first broke up with me I was so devastated, I couldn’t sleep.” I’m speaking in a monotone voice, with no inflection, no emotion, no nothing.
“I couldn’t eat…I couldn’t do anything. And then I thought…I’ll be okay as long as he doesn’t date anyone else. As long as I know his heart still belongs to me.”
Drew gives me a little smile that is definitely not in the script. It’s as if he knows I’m nervous and he’s sending me a message, like, don’t worry, I’ll be gentle. I gag on a lump of saliva and clear my throat again.
“When I heard that you and Wendy were hanging out,” I say, “I told myself that you guys were just friends. And last night, when you saw me talking to that guy, I could see the pain in your eyes and I knew you were jealous. I knew you still cared about me.” I pause and look directly at Lucy. She narrows her eyes and shifts uncomfortably in her seat. I look back at my script, but I’ve lost my place.
“And then you touched my arm,” Drew says, feeding me my line.
“And then you touched my arm,” I say, reading my line.
“Okay,” Drew says. “As you say that line I want you to walk over to me and stand in front of me, slightly downstage.”
“And then you touched my arm,” I repeat yet again, walking toward him. Four steps to go. Four steps and I’ll be touching his lips to mine. My breath catches in my throat as I take another step. Three, two…my heart is banging against my chest. “Remember ‘I miss you,’ you said.”
“Okay,” Drew says, stopping me. “I want you to run your finger down my arm as you say the next line.”
“You still love me,” I say, pointing my finger and running it down the length of his arm. I know it’s supposed to be a sexy sort of move, but mine is anything but. It’s more like, hey you have a bug on your arm and I’ll just squash it and smear right on down.
“But that doesn’t change how I feel about us,” Drew says, reading his line. “Now I’m going to turn away from you,” he says, as he proceeds to explain the blocking. “I want you to walk stage right.”
I know (of course) that stage directions are the opposite of what they seem. Yet I still move to the wrong side.
“Stage right,” Drew repeats. “Over here.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Lucy grin and look at Marybeth, as if to say: My sister is such an idiot she doesn’t even understand stage directions!
“Then Guy says: I can’t…I don’t want a relationship right now. I want you to come up from behind me and stand as close as you can without touching me and say your line.”
I stand behind him, as close as I possibly can. OHMYGOD. Just breathe, I command myself. Just breathe. I stare up at the back of Drew’s head as I take a big whiff of his musky-smelling hair.
“So we won’t call it a relationship,” I say. “It’s just about what feels good. And this feels good.”
“Okay,” Drew says, out of character once again. “I want you to be the aggressor, so as soon as you say your line, put your hands on my shoulders and spin me around and let me have it.” And then he gives me that smile once again, the smile that makes me go weak in the knees, the smile that makes it feel as if someone is squeezing my heart like a bottle of ketchup.
I can do this, I can do this, I can do this…I purse my lips as I put my hands on his shoulders. As he spins toward me, I step forward, stand on my tiptoes, and pucker up. I give him a smooch right on the lips that ends with the unmistakable sound of a plunger unclogging a toilet.
My sister and her friends begin to snicker. I step backward in horror as I raise my hands to my lips. What the hell was that? This was not the kiss of my dreams. No, no, NO!
“Very funny,” he says. “One more time.”
I don’t want to kiss Drew anymore. I want to get off this stage and find a quiet place to cry and blow a lung through my nose.
Lucy straightens in her chair and crosses her arms. She’s smiling and I can tell she’s enjoying this. I glance offstage, as if I’m hoping to see Simon waiting in the wings, cheering me on. I really wish he were here. I’m totally outnumbered.
Drew gives me a little nod as if encouraging me to continue.
I have no choice. I take a deep breath and lick my lips. Just as I’m going in for the kill, I hear my sister give a little snort that is masquerading as a giggle. I hit Drew smack on the kisser. With my eyes and mouth wide open and my arms straight down beside me, I slowly and robotically swipe my lips across his: up, down, right, left. There’s more snickering in the auditorium. “Okay,” Drew says afterward, silencing the audience. He looks like he’s just been attacked by a slobbering mastiff. “From the kiss I want you to move stage left…”
Afterward, Drew thanks everyone for coming and then takes me by the arm.
“Don’t worry,” he says, as he leads me offstage. “This was your first time onstage, right?”
First time on stage, obviously code for first kiss. Ugh. Just shoot me. Shoot me and put me out of my misery. I nod.
“By the time you get back onstage you’ll have this scene down pat. I promise.”
I feel a tiny bit of relief. This may have been the most humiliating experience of my life, but I take a small shred of comfort in the fact that Drew is not giving up on me.
At least not yet.
eighteen
mime (noun): the art or technique of portraying a character, mood, idea, or narration by gestures and bodily movements.
When I arrive at school the next morning, there’s a note from Drew taped on my locker. My hands start to shake as I open it. I was so terrible at practice the day before that in spite of his reassurance to the contrary, I’m pretty sure I’m getting canned. But the note doesn’t say that, at least not exactly. He wants me to meet him in the production studio at four-thirty. I read it over again just to make sure I’ve got it right. Yep. The production studio. Why would he want to meet me there? And why at four-thirty? Why not immediately after school? Whatever the reason is, I don’t think it’s good.
I’m so nervous that at three-thirty I walk to the Inner Harbor and back just to kill time before our meeting. I arrive a couple of minutes before we’re scheduled to meet. The production studio is empty with the exception of Drew, who’s sitting on a stool beside the table saw, reading his dictionary. In his faded Levis and a snug-fitting black T-shirt, he looks more like a teacher than a student. As I glance behind him at the paint cans and the background scenes stacked neatly against the wall, I feel an immediate sense of relief. We’re on my turf now, my territory. Whatever I look like, I can work a miter saw better than Bob the Builder. Whatever Drew’s about to tell me, I can handle.
“Hey, Drew,” I say cheerfully, as though there is nothing on my mind.
All he does is grin.
Weird.
“So,” I say, swallowing and forcing myself to plaster on a smile. I glance at the floor beside the table saw where someone has left a big pile of sawdust. Freshmen! This incoming class are a bunch of knuckleheads. Besides being incompetent, they’re slobs. “What’s the word?”
“Mea culpa,” Drew says. “An acknowledgment of error or guilt. As in I never should have had you block such a difficult scene in front of all those people, mea culpa. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I walk over to the corner where the cleaning supplies are kept and grab the broom and dustbin.
“I put you in an awkward position.” Drew looks at me curiously as I begin to sweep around his feet. Then he jumps off the stool and grabs the dustbin, holding it on the floor for me. “I know it can be pretty intimidating to be on the stage. Especially having to perfo
rm a…well, difficult scene in front of your sister and her friends. I could see you were nervous. I should’ve called it quits.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but I was the one doing the stinky acting.” And now he’s helping me clean up. It’s almost too much sweetness for a girl to take.
“I just want to reassure you that by the time we get back onstage, kissing me will be as comfortable for you as shaking my hand, okay?” Drew hands the empty bin back to me.
“Thanks,” I reply, although I didn’t hear a word of what he just said.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yes, fine.” I turn away and pretend to cough just so that I can catch my breath. “So why did you want to meet here?” I put away the broom and dustbin and turn back around to face him.
“Because the other day I could tell how comfortable you were in here. You seemed so relaxed. I thought it might be a good place to block a tough scene. I asked Lucheki if he would mind if I borrowed it this afternoon and he gave me permission.”
“Really?” We’re blocking the kissing scene in the production studio? Right next to the turpentine?
“Acting is acting,” Drew says with an authority that’s self-assured instead of arrogant. “It doesn’t matter where you are. Onstage or in the production studio. It’s all the same.”
He gives me a smile of encouragement.
“Whew,” I say, jiggling the top of my hoodie. “It’s usually freezing in here, but today it’s smoking. Aren’t you hot?”
“Not really. But then again, I don’t have a coat and a hoodie over my T-shirt.” I can tell by his grin that he thinks he’s pretty funny. But then, I do, too.
I take off my peacoat, followed by my hoodie. Although I hated to part with it, I was not about to have another sweating fit like I did yesterday.
“What does your T-shirt say?” Drew squints at my boobs.
“Mmm…mmm…good!” he reads out loud.
I’m gaping at my B cups bulging out from underneath my sister’s undersized T-shirt as if I’ve never seen them before in my life. Why did I take off my hoodie? And why didn’t I pay more attention to what I wore? “Campbell’s soup,” I say quickly. “Gotta love it.”