by Meg Haston
Seeing the open, caring expression on his face made me want to burst into tears. “I—I can’t be in the band.” The words left my mouth before they’d even registered in my brain.
Taking in his shocked expression, I expected to cry, or laugh, or do something. But I felt nothing but numbness. Heard nothing but awful, heavy silence.
“Wait. What?” Zander squinted, confused. “That’s not funny.”
I slipped my hand underneath my glasses and rubbed my eyes. “I’m not joking.” My voice was flat, emotionless. It didn’t even sound like me.
“But… why?” He was close enough that I could feel his breath start to quicken. “If you don’t want the guitar—”
“It’s not that. It’s just…” I felt like someone was wringing out my insides until there was nothing left. “Sean said I could take over Molly’s spot in the play, and I’m gonna be really busy, and—”
“The play?” His voice cracked a little, and his bottom lip trembled. “But the play’s over tonight! You can do both!”
“Zander!” I snapped, my fists curling into a ball in my lap. “I said I can’t, okay? So let it go!”
We were silent for a while.
“Oh.” Finally, Zander shoved his chair back. The scraping sound of the chair legs against the concrete sent shivers down my spine. “I get it.” His eyes hardened. “Now that your lisp is gone, and you’re hanging with your old friends again, we’re not good enough.”
“What? No!” I exclaimed helplessly. The numbness evaporated, and emotion brimmed up inside of me, threatening to overflow. I felt sick.
“Whatever, Kacey.” He looked completely disgusted. “The least you could do is admit it.”
Admit what? I wanted to scream. That every time he opened his mouth to sing, I got lightheaded? That I’d never laughed so hard in my life as I’d laughed with him? That I was too dense to figure all this out until after my best friend went on a date with him?
THAT I KIND OF LIKED THE BLUE HAIR, OKAY?
“Or are you a liar, on top of being a social climber?” He jumped to his feet and started pacing back and forth in front of the rink. The wind whipped around his coat, making it flutter behind him.
“Zander!” I croaked, gripping my left wrist with my right palm. The leather cuff had hardened in the cold. Hot tears slipped down my stiff, frostbitten cheeks. I wondered how long I’d been crying.
“You know what?” Zander raked his hands through his hair, like it was giving him a splitting headache just to be near me. “I don’t even care. I gotta get out of here.” He leaned toward me and snatched the guitar out of my lap, shoving it in its case. His eyes were downcast and slightly red. Disappointed. All because of me. I wanted to stop him, to explain that I couldn’t be in the band because that would mean betraying my best friend. Only wasn’t that exactly what I was doing right now?
“I-I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I have to.”
He didn’t answer. The only sound in the rink was the gusting wind, and two clicks as I unsnapped his bracelet and handed it over.
“Here.” I stood up and thrust it in his palm, refusing to torture myself with one last glance.
Silently, he stuffed the bracelet in his pocket, grabbed his bag, and headed for the street, leaving me alone.
Deep down, I’d actually thought he would understand, that he’d be there to help me through this. That he’d be the one person who wouldn’t desert me. I cursed myself for being so stupid. Of course he’d left. It was like I told Paige. People leave. They move on. And Zander was no exception.
I reached for my cell to text Molly my final decision.
OPENING (and closing) NIGHT
Saturday, 6:40 P.M.
I applied a final coat of mascara, then slid on my glasses. The second I blinked, tiny black mascara polka dots deposited themselves on the lenses. I groaned and started over.
Wearing jeans and a boyfriend blazer, Mom sat cross-legged on my unmade bed, watching me apply my stage makeup. Probably to make sure I didn’t overdo it. “Ella and I made something special for your big night.” She caught my eye in the mirror. “Feeling ready?”
“I guess.” My mouth parted slightly as I reapplied the mascara. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Kacey?” Mom’s voice had that annoying is there something we need to talk about? twinge. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I swallowed, trying to force the memory of my early morning with Zander from my mind.
“Yeah. Fine,” Mom repeated skeptically. That’s the thing about moms. And journalists. Nothing gets by them. And when you have a mom who’s also a journalist… forget it.
“Just a little nervous,” I lied. I bent over slightly to ease the pains in my stomach, but they just sharpened. I wished I was wearing sweatpants instead of my black pencil pants and fitted silver tank.
“I get it. It’s a big night,” Mom acknowledged. “Especially since you weren’t planning on performing this role.”
Yeah. That’s it. I nodded convincingly.
“But playing this part is something you’ve been looking forward to, right?”
“Right.” It seemed like ages ago that the girls and I had crowded outside the auditorium doors to catch the first glimpse of the cast list.
“So whatever it is that’s giving you second thoughts…” Mom came up behind me and gave me a squeeze. “Do the best you can to let it go for tonight. This is your night to shine, baby. I would hate to see you miss it.”
I closed my eyes and leaned in to her, wanting to tell her everything so she could help me fix it.
“Mooooooo—” The piercing shriek of the kitchen smoke alarm cut Ella off.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Mom turned and sprinted for the stairs. “Your dinner call’s in five, Miss Simon!”
I checked my reflection one last time. Mom had helped me with the chocolate liquid liner, since my first two attempts ended up looking like Ella had done them left-handed. Even with my glasses on, the liner made my green eyes pop. Pale peach blush accentuated my cheekbones, and creamy scarlet lipstick definitely drew the attention away from my braces. Mom had let me use her curling iron, so my hair fell in loose auburn waves around my face.
A certain somebody would have said I looked like a total fake. A phony. A lying, social-climbing, band-deserting monster.
But most people would have said I looked amazing.
I grabbed my coat and bag and reached for my cell. Four new texts.
PAIGE: U MISSED OUR CAMPAIGN MTG THIS AM!!!! WHERE WERE U?
P.S. IS HANDING OUT CAMPAIGN FLYERS AT INTERMISSION TACKY?
MOLLY: BREAK A LEG. CAN’T WAIT 2 C U.
LIV: REMEMBER DEEP BREATHS. PEACE, STAGE GODDESS.
MOLLY: P.S. DID U TALK TO Z ABOUT THE DATE? NEED INFO B4 CAST PARTY.
NESSA: ASK URSELF: WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION? (HINT – IT’S NOT KISSING Q. THAT’S JUST A BONUS.) YOU’LL B GR8.
Nothing from Zander. Not that I expected anything. I’d started about fifty different texts to him, but none of them seemed right. It didn’t matter, anyway. There was nothing I could say to make him understand, unless I told him the whole truth. And that was one hundred percent impossible.
“We’re ready!” Mom called.
“Coming!”
Downstairs, Ella stood in the doorway of the darkened kitchen, holding a cake with sparklers for candles. The fizzing, popping lights reflected off the lenses of her reading glasses. “SURPRIIIIIIIISE!” she bellowed.
“Happy opening night,” Mom said from her spot at the table.
“Thanks, guys!” I took the cake and carried it to the table. The pink icing read: CONGRATULATIONS, KAC.
“We ran out of icing.” Ella wiped a smear of frosting off her nose.
“I’m sure it’ll taste yummy.” I kissed Mom on the cheek.
“Ooh! Me!” Ella stuck out her plump cheek, and I kissed it, too.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Mom said. “We don’t want you to be late
for your call.”
The sparklers burned down and Mom flipped on the lights, revealing a rectangular box tied with a pink bow at my place setting. The attached note said: TO MY SHINING STAR, ONSTAGE AND OFF. LOVE, MOM.
“Mom!” I cried, yanking the ribbon off the box and pulling away wads of sparkly pink tissue paper. There, nestled inside, more welcome than the world’s largest diamonds, was a pair of clear contacts and a small bottle of drops. “Contacts?” I’d completely forgotten.
“Your sentence is over.” Mom smiled. “I picked these up from Dr. Marco so you’d have them in time for the show.”
I shoved back my chair and tackled Mom. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” I breathed. No lisp. No glasses. I was so ready for the stage.
“You’re welcome.” She laughed, squeezing me back. “Glad you like them. And by the way, if you don’t use those drops, it’s glasses from here on out.”
“I will. I promise.” I plopped back down in my chair. “I love them.”
Solemnly, Ella removed her reading glasses, folded them, and placed them next to her plate with a sigh.
“Go put them in,” Mom said. “We’ve got to leave soon if we want to get to the school on time.”
“ ’Kay!” I flung off my glasses and dashed for the hall bathroom.
“Kacey—” Mom started.
“Right!” Back to the table. Glasses on, one last time. Then to the hall bathroom.
The contacts were most definitely a sign. My glasses days—my Zander days—were over. And there was no better place to make my debut than onstage, in front of the entire school. In the spotlight, where I belonged.
WILL THE REAL KACEY SIMON PLEASE STAND UP?
Saturday, 7:29 P.M.
“Heyyyy, Simon!”
When I burst through the auditorium doors, the first person I saw was Quinn Wilder, standing onstage and cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. He was already in costume: His black pin-striped suit was perfectly tailored, and his bright red tie popped under the stage lights. His sandy bangs had been slicked back, making him pure leading man perfection. Behind him, the stage was crawling with tech crew, extras, and a few randoms I didn’t recognize.
I swallowed. “Hey, Wilder,” I called back. With my new crystal clear super-vision, I could see just how kissable his lips looked from all the way in the back. So how come all I could focus on was the sound of someone tuning a guitar in the orchestra pit?
“Nice…” He paused, like he wasn’t quite sure what to say next. “Face.”
I moved slowly down the aisle, letting my curled ends cascade over my green peacoat in the flirtiest way possible. “Thanks.” I hurried up the steps to the stage, dying to get a whiff of Quinn’s winterfresh essence.
“So. No more glasses, huh?” Quinn said. At the exact same moment, someone slid a gold film onto one of the stage lights, flooding Quinn with a heavenly glow and making him look like a stage god among mortal middle schoolers.
“Nope. Back to the old me.” I leveled my eyes at him with confidence. He stared right back, and we locked eyes for at least two beats. Four, in a two-four time signature. Right? Zander would know. I shook my head, banishing Zander from my thoughts. I’d made my choice.
“Looks good.” Direct, and to the point. Exactly how a guy should be, so there was no room for confusion. No sweet but ambiguous song lyrics that could drive a girl clinically insane.
“So I was thinking.” Quinn’s eyelids lowered to half-mast. “Since I’ve been rehearsing with Molly, maybe you and me should run through some of our lines before the show.”
You and I, I corrected him silently. I breathed in deeply, through my nose. “Meet you backstage after I get into my costume?”
“It’s a date.” He grinned, making my entire body tingle with anticipation.
I turned and exited stage right without another word, maneuvering through the noisy, made-up crowd with total control even though my insides were as jittery as ever. I didn’t have to turn around to know that Quinn was staring.
Just outside the girls’ dressing area, Liv had arranged rolling racks of costumes: one for the leads, one for the extras, and one for the dancers. I found the hangers with my name taped to them, and lifted my maroon miniskirt and jacket from the rack.
“YOU. LOOK. AMAZING.”
I started at the sound of Molly’s voice.
“Seriously. You look like a total rock star.”
Rock star. I felt a twinge in my stomach. But my stress turned to giggles the second I saw Molly’s background dancer costume. She was dressed as an oversized dancing die: a giant white rubber foam cube that obscured her entire body, except for her legs. Tiny eyeholes had been poked out of the black marks on the front face of the die.
“Maaaaaaan in the wings!” Nessa charged into the girls’ dressing area, balancing a stack of programs on her clipboard. “Everybody dressed?” She’d gone Broadway director chic in head-to-toe black.
And a pair of cat-eye glasses embellished with tiny rhinestones.
“Yeaaaah,” everyone chorused. I stared, openmouthed, at my friend.
She lowered her lips to the mic in her cordless headset. “All clear.”
“Okay, girls, listen up!” Sean’s voice boomed through the backstage area. Instead of his usual jeans uniform, he was wearing khakis and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up. “We’ve got twenty minutes to curtain and a packed house out there already, so I need everybody in costume and ready to rock and roll in no more than ten minutes! Got it?”
There was a brief moment of silence, and then everybody went back to what they were doing.
“Kacey? Is Kacey Simon back here?” Sean scanned the crowd until his eyes fell on me. His eyes widened slightly, like he didn’t recognize me.
“Here.” I blinked, kicking off my sneakers and reaching for the matronly oxfords that went with my costume. I smiled to myself when I saw the toes: glittery silver hearts, just like the ones Liv had drawn on my Converse two weeks ago. Hearts that only I could see onstage. I ran my thumb over the bumpy bling.
“So.” Sean smiled. “Molly says your, ah… speech problem is all taken care of?”
Translation: Say something with an s in it so I can be sure I don’t get laughed out of the director’s chair.
He could have just come right out and asked. Since he didn’t, I decided to have a little fun with him.
“Yup. Completely cured. All better.” I ducked around Molly’s left side and flashed an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“Good. Great. Glad to hear it.” He hovered awkwardly by the costume rack, trying to think of something else to say.
I let him squirm for a while. Then: “Um, I need to change? Into my co—” I caught myself just in time. “Play… outfit?”
Molly snorted inside her costume, finally catching on.
“Right. Of course. Okay.” Sean rubbed the back of his neck. “Well… see you out there? Break a leg.”
“No doubt. And I’m grateful for the… encouragement.”
Sean stared at me for a second, confused, then escaped to the boys’ side of the stage.
“Okay, so see you in a sec?” I shot Molly a grin.
“Def.” Before I had the chance to arc around her, she grabbed my left arm, and held on tight. “Hey. Is… Zander out there yet?”
My stomach clenched. This time, it was definitely guilt. “No. Not yet.”
Her eyes darkened. “But I saved him a seat in the front row!”
“He’ll be here,” I assured her. “I saw him this morning, and he said he had a really great time with you yesterday,” I lied.
“For real?” Her eyes lit up again.
I nodded. “I’ll fill you in at the cast party, ’kay? I have to change.” I scurried off before she had the chance to sniff out my crush or my lie.
I did a quick change behind the folding screen and then set out to find Quinn. I didn’t bother looking for a mirror first. I could tell from the whispers, wide-eyed stares, and flicke
rs of admiration and fear in the other kids’ eyes that I looked… back to normal.
“Hey.” A strong hand grabbed my arm and whirled me around, taking my breath away.
“Hey.” It was nothing short of a miracle that I managed a greeting. With a fedora and silver tie pin added to his costume, Quinn looked the hottest I’d ever seen him look. I smoothed my maroon jacket, just to have something to do. But my hands were shaking, and not from stage jitters.
“THREE MINUTES TO CURTAIN, EVERYBODY!” Nessa yelled.
“So you wanna run lines real quick?” The GQ cover model standing across from me still hadn’t let go of my arm. It was irrelevant, since I’d lost all feeling in my body anyway.
I nodded.
“Come on.”
I let him drag me deeper into the wings, around the mannequin and changing screen to the very back, where there was nothing but a mop propped in the corner and one of those big yellow mop buckets with a picture of a stick figure slipping and falling on the side.
Quinn kicked the bucket out of the way, and it started to roll. “So, I’m glad you’re back to normal, you know?” he murmured, backing me gently into the wall.
“Yeah.” The traces of ammonia drifting from the mop bucket were making me dizzy. My breath quickened. “So, what scene did you want to run? We only have a—”
And then he kissed me.
It was a total movie kiss. Slow motion and everything. It’s like one second I was saying something, and the next MY LIPS and QUINN’S LIPS were hurtling through space, desperate to meet. His lips were even softer than his hair, and I could even feel the flutter of his Maybelline-length lashes against my cheekbones. He gripped my face with his hands, making every nerve in my body explode like fireworks.
“Hey, has anybody seen—”
“Ohmygod. What are you doing here?” I gasped.
Zander stared at me for what seemed like hours. My entire body felt hot and tingly, but not in a good way.
“Uh—I was looking for Molly.” He lifted a bunch of yellow roses, his face turning bright red. He glared at Quinn, then at me. His lips parted slightly, but nothing came out.