by E. Lockhart
Theo stood up from the piano. “I wasn’t playing around.”
“Oh, no?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Well, it feels like it from my end. Why don’t you want to come up to the roof?”
“Because I want to stay here.”
“Why?”
“Sadye.”
“What?”
“Sadye.” He stood up. “I think you’re—” He crossed the dance floor, reached out and grabbed my hand, pulled me in close, and breathed the words into my neck. “I think you’re—whatever I think of to say sounds like a line. But—”
“But what?” I asked. Theo’s hands were on my shoulders. His lips were almost on my ear. Was he pouncing?
“You’re funny, you’re unusual,” whispered Theo. “You’re probably too smart for your own good.”
“Oh.”
“I think about you all the time.”
“You have a lame way of showing it.”
“What I want to know is—” Theo was still whispering. “There’s something I’ve never had the guts to ask.”
“What?”
He hesitated. “Are you taken?”
“Taken?” I stepped back in surprise. “By who?”
“By Demi.”
“Demi’s gay, Theo. He’s with Lyle. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that. They’re all over each other.”
“You seem taken by him anyway.”
“I do?”
“You put your arms around him. You dance with him. You talk about him like he’s your boyfriend.”
And I knew it was true.
It was true.
Part of me was taken by Demi, and maybe always would be. I loved him.
“I’m not taken by Demi,” I whispered in Theo’s ear. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
We kissed, there in the studio, trembling and nervous, with light from the streetlamps outside spilling through the window into squares of white on the floor.
I RAN INTO the girls’ dorms just under curfew and threw myself into bed two seconds before the hall monitor called “lights out.”
But I couldn’t sleep.
Iz, Candie, and Nanette gossiped for a few minutes in the dark. Candie had recently moved her affections from the split personality half-monster Jekyll & Hyde to the psychotic dentist from Little Shop of Horrors. He had kissed her for real (not just onstage) about a week before, and she was filled with new emotion over his attentions.
I didn’t want to tell them about Theo, somehow. Well, I wanted to tell Nanette , but I didn’t want to deal with Iz’s competitive streak or Candie’s overenthusiasm. So I stayed quiet as Candie rattled on about the dentist, and when they drifted off to sleep, I grabbed my micro-cassette recorder and snuck out to knock on Demi’s window.
He opened it—not asleep yet—and the two of us ninja’d up to the roof, keeping silent until we got through the door and shut it behind us.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, hey! My Sadye!” Demi walked over to the corner where we stored our snacks under a pile of ratty wool blankets. “You’re in luck. Beverages are still—well, still a bit colder than warm!”
“Who made the beer run, you or Lyle?”
“Me,” he answered, handing me a beer and rummaging under the blanket. “They needed extra time with ‘The Telephone Hour,’ so they let me go early. We waited for you, but— Ooh, look. There are potato products left. Did you know you’d be so lucky?”
“Ooh, they had the sticks?” “Sticks and . . . ripple-y chips and salt and vinegar.” “Amazing.” I grabbed a blanket and spread it on the tar surface of the roof. We settled on the blanket, lying side by side. “I kissed Theo,” I told Demi. “Or Theo kissed me.”
“Finally.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Finally.”
“Did you get to feel his buns?”
“Demi!”
“I’m just asking. They’re like a total mystery.”
“No.”
“The buns of mystery. The mysterious buns of Wildewood.”
“Stop it. It was romantic.”
“OOOOOhhh.”
“It was!”
“No really, that’s good,” Demi said. “I’m happy for you. He seems all right.”
“I wasn’t asking for your approval.”
“Sorry, did I say the wrong thing?”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t about buns, that’s all.”
“Okay, I take it back about the buns. Forget I ever mentioned buns.”
Neither of us said much for a bit. I turned and looked at Demi’s beautiful profile, his nearly bald head curving into his sharp cheekbones, round nose, and full lips. Suddenly I wanted to kiss him.
Which was bizarre and wrong.
And he’d be grossed out anyway, I knew.
Besides which, he had a boyfriend.
Besides which, we were friends. And I loved Lyle.
Besides which, I had Theo now. I mean, I had just been kissing Theo.
Besides which—
I sat up and tried to make the feeling go away by opening the bag of potato chips. “Did you guys redo ‘Sincere’?” I asked, referring to the choreography on one of Demi’s solos.
“This afternoon,” he answered, sitting up as well. “It’s better the new way. How’s Cats?”
“Good,” I said happily. “I think it’s gonna be good.”
“I hear you had a fight with Morales.”
“What? Not a fight. Did Nanette say fight?”
Demi shook his head and laughed. “I didn’t get it from Nanette. It was all over the rehearsal room. No one’s got secrets.”
“I did tell him off.”
“What did you say?”
I explained: how Morales manipulated people’s feelings. How it wasn’t a trusting environment. How he controlled our lives, had too much power over us. And even though I knew Demi loved Morales, even though we’d argued about it before, I still expected him to take my side.
Because we’d been best friends when neither of us had anyone else. Because we’d saved each other.
But he didn’t take my side.
I guess he couldn’t.
He was so far in at Wildewood, and so rewarded for being so far in—everything was going his way, he was the king and the true believer, both—that he laid into me all of a sudden. “Sadye,” he said, “can I just say? No offense, but your attitude is bad.”
“What?”
“You know I’m not the only one who thinks it, either. Lyle says you’re always disrupting Midsummer—”
“What? I thought he liked my ideas.”
“He does, but you’re not a team player, you’re always trying to say what you think instead of committing to the ensemble. And I’ve seen you sulking around in Acting, pouting when you don’t get something right away, and you seem to think the world should come to you, like you shouldn’t have to work for it. That’s the whole point of this place, Sadye. You’re here to work. To be humble. Not to have attitude and be all defensive all the time.”
“But—”
Demi wouldn’t let me. “You haven’t had a great deal here, I know,” he said. “But did you ever think that you bring that on yourself? You do well in dance class, and you give it your all, and what happens? You get the Hot Box Girl, you get Rumpleteazer. But everywhere else, you rock the boat. You complain and you criticize the people who are supposed to be teaching us, who are dedicating their time to teach us. In acting, in rehearsals, in a lot of situations, you act like you think you know better than everyone else.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I spat back. “You have no idea how it is not to have your talent. Not to have red carpets stretching out for you wherever you choose to put your feet.”
“Yes, I do!” he answered. “I take dance class, where everyone’s better than I am. I take Pantomime. I don’t know what I’m doing in those classes at all! And yeah, Morales is tough, and he’s mean sometimes. But you know what I do? I shut my trap an
d I listen. I figure he’s tough because the business is tough, and he has something to teach us. I dance as hard as I can. I don’t prance around criticizing.”
“It’s not the same for you,” I said. “You’re Conrad Birdie. You’re Sky Masterson.”
“You don’t have to be so bitter, is all I’m saying. You’re complaining all the time and ruining experiences for other people.”
“I’m not complaining!” I said—although I knew that sometimes I had been. “I’m trying to have a conversation. I think we need to be critical of what’s going on here, not just lie back and accept whatever happens. Because otherwise what kind of artists are we?”
“We are student artists, Sadye. We’re here to learn, not to disrupt everyone’s experience because we feel insecure.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” I cried. I wanted to explain that I disrupted Midsummer because I wanted it to be better. Because I had concrete ideas for how to make it better. That I wasn’t settling for mediocrity. And—
“Look,” Demi said, before I had collected my thoughts. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to tell you this, but I don’t know when else to do it.”
“What?” My skin felt cold and the roof seemed suddenly quiet.
“I’m staying,” said Demi. “Here at Wildewood. I’m not going home to Brenton.”
“What do you mean?”
“I filled out an application form, and they accepted me for the school year. I’m going to spend my senior year here with Lyle.”
“No.”
“Sadye, I’m sorry. You know I love you, but—”
“When did you decide?”
“I knew I wanted to stay here the minute classes started. I think I asked for the application at the end of the first week.”
“Without telling me?”
“I—”
“But how can you leave me like this?” I went on pitifully. “I can’t go back to Brenton without you.”
“I can’t go back there at all,” said Demi.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Sadye. My dad can’t stand to look me in the face, and my mom is hardly any better. I have to fake who I am every minute I’m at school, and come home to people who wish I was someone else.”
I nodded.
“Here . . .” Demi walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the campus. “Here is like the family I was meant to have. I can be who I am. Do you see?”
“And there’s Lyle.”
“Yes, Lyle. And acting classes. And music. And theater history. And just . . . this place. I am never going back to Brenton.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I only found out I was in a couple days ago. I guess—I guess I wasn’t sure you’d be happy for me, and I didn’t want to spoil it by getting you all upset. You’ve been so judgmental about everything.”
“I have not!”
He looked at me. “So jealous, then.”
“I don’t want you to leave me!” I yelled.
The door to the roof opened. It was Farrell the hall counselor. “Why is there shouting up here?” he asked. “It’s after curfew. This is unacceptable, and—hey, is that beer? Do you two have beer up here?”
Demi and I stared at him. Silent.
Farrell walked over and picked up the six-pack of empties. “I can’t believe you two. Don’t you have any respect for the rules of this place?”
Demi smiled his most ingratiating smile. “Hey, Farrell, we didn’t mean to raise our voices, we—”
“Don’t ‘Farrell’ me,” he snapped. “I’ve been letting it slide with you guys hanging out on the roof, and sneaking around at night, and I’ve even been lax when you broke curfew—but underage drinking is far beyond what I’m willing to tolerate.”
We nodded dumbly.
“Who bought this beer? Who bought it?”
I looked at Demi’s terrified face, and knew that if he got caught, there was a good chance he wouldn’t be allowed to go to Wildewood for the school year. Like that guy Lyle knew who got expelled for having a bottle of whiskey in his locker.
If he got caught, he’d have come back to Ohio with me.
If I let him tell the truth, I’d get to keep him. We’d be together, Lyle would be far away, we could be together all of senior year.
“I bought it,” I told Farrell.
“You did? Where?”
“The convenience store, down the way from the stone fence.”
“The Cumberland Farms?”
“Yeah.”
He squinted at me. “You’re telling me that if I went down to that store clerk with your picture, he’d say ‘Yes, I sold beer to that girl tonight’?”
I remembered what I looked like crying, and crumpled my lower lip, clenched my throat, and blinked. “Yes. The clerk was a short guy with dyed blond hair.”
“And he sold it to you, and you walked on campus with it?”
“I jumped over the stone fence, I didn’t go past the guard,” I sniffled. “I’m such a jerk, I know. Demi had no idea I was bringing it up here. Really, he didn’t.”
I stole a glance at Demi. He was looking at me, astonished.
And then I burst into tears. Real or faked, I wasn’t entirely sure.
WHAT HAPPENED was, they kicked me out. The next morning, Demi and I had to see Morales, Reanne, and the summer institute secretary at an eight a.m. meeting in the administrative offices, for purposes of disciplinary action. But Demi was let off with a slap on the wrist and an admonition not to let his high spirits get the better of his judgment, while I took the fall.
Morales said he’d had reports from Farrell that I’d been in the boys’ dorm after hours earlier in the summer. Reports from Reanne that I was disruptive in rehearsal. He’d found me combative in Acting, and in general, my attitude had been blatant disrespect for the summer institute and all it stood for. I was eroding the morale of the community. Now they’d found me bringing illegal beverages onto campus and getting other underage people to drink them.
They had already called my parents. I was going home that afternoon.
Yes, performances were in six days, but they’d work another actor in for both Midsummer and Cats. Reanne said she was sorry, but she knew I hadn’t been happy here, and even Cats hadn’t made me happy, so maybe this was a sign that Wildewood wasn’t the best place for me after all, and the universe was sending my consciousness a message.
Morales said he found my behavior unacceptable.
DEMI HUGGED me and said he was sorry we had our Third Official Quarrel and forget every awful thing he’d said, he didn’t mean it, he really didn’t mean a word of it. We would never quarrel again, would we? Never. And I was the most incredible girl. I didn’t have to do it. I knew that, right? Did I want him to tell Morales the truth? Because he still could.
No, no, of course not.
Did I know how much he loved me? More than chocolate cake, more than sex, more than Liza Minnelli.
Yes, I knew.
“You’re my total savior and I owe you,” said Demi, having walked me to the door of my dorm room. “Anything you ever need, you tell me.”
I said not to worry. I hadn’t belonged at Wildewood in the first place, probably.
But then I burst into tears.
I was Rumpleteazer, after all. I would miss being Rumpleteazer.
I couldn’t believe I was going to miss being Rumpleteazer.
And Theo. I would miss—I didn’t even know what it was I would miss, with Theo. Something I’d never had before.
I would miss doing vocal warm-ups before a show. Putting on makeup. I would miss the Advanced Dance evening presentation with live drummers, and the Stage Combat demonstration in which I was scheduled to single-handedly defeat six boys, fighting first with swords and then with bare hands.
I’d miss hearing Candie sing “Somewhere That’s Green.” Nanette as Julie in Show Boat. Iz and Demi in Bye Bye Birdie.
I would miss seeing
Lyle in his donkey’s head and unitard.
I would miss the show-offy competitiveness. The big personalities. The smell of the rehearsal studios, the costumes hanging in the hallways, piano music from behind every door. The glitter and the sweat.
“We’ll miss you,” said Demi. “It won’t be the same without you here.”
I SPENT THE morning packing my bags. I talked to my father briefly on the telephone. He was stern, but not too mad. I had never been in any trouble before, and it is always hard to get him to emote. He did seem surprised at this new development, but ah well, there are always bumps in the road, and no use getting too dramatic about them as they’re not the end of the world.
He said he was coming to get me in the van and would be there around one o’clock if there wasn’t any traffic.
* * *
AT LUNCHTIME, I told people I was leaving. I hugged everyone good-bye: my roommates, Jade, Starveling, Flute, Snug, and Snout. Theo kissed my neck and said he’d write.
I cried some more and told myself over and over that I’d made the right decision. Then Demi and Lyle walked me out of the cafeteria to get my stuff, and insisted on carrying my bags out to the driveway near the front gate.
My dad drove up. He got out and shook hands with the boys. I heaved my bags into the backseat and got in.
They waved at me as we went down the long, curved driveway. Lyle and Demi, Demi and Lyle.
I tried not to be jealous.
Before Dad drove out of the gate, they had already turned around. They didn’t want to be late for afternoon rehearsal.
(click)
Sadye: It’s August first, and we’re in the car going back to Ohio. I have been kicked out of Wildewood for buying a six-pack--but really for being opinionated.
Or disrespectful. Or not good enough. I don’t know which.
Can I just say? It is one thing to be heroic in the moment, and another to take the real consequence and go back to Brenton when everyone else gets to stay, including your new almost-boyfriend.
Mr. Paulson (driving): You were coming back in eight days, anyhow. I had it on my calendar.
Sadye: That’s not the point, Dad.
Mr. Paulson: Sarah, why are you so down about Brenton all the time? We have a nice life there.
Sadye: It’s fine, Dad.