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Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel)

Page 21

by Angie McCullagh


  Emily heard a few gasps, a few swells of laughter, and, as the last photo faded and the stage lights rose, thundering applause.

  She couldn’t help it, she grinned. She smiled until her cheeks ached, then gave a little wave and pushed her cart off stage. Johnson and a few kids were standing there, offering fist bumps and high fives, telling her it had been “awesome” and “rad” and “sick.” She decided right then she wasn’t going to adopt an aw shucks attitude. She’d worked hard on her presentation. “Thanks!” she bubbled.

  The halls were bright compared to the auditorium. When she got to her backpack, she had three texts. Kristen: Good wrk, sis! Ryan: Blwn Awy. Thomas, who texted in full words and sentences: I’m going to take you out for a magnum of champagne. Epic, girl. Epic!

  Emily couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so creatively satisfied. So vindicated. And she didn’t know how long the feeling would last, so she was going to enjoy it.

  Melissa showed up then and hugged Emily. When she pulled back, Melissa’s eyes brimmed. She nodded and looked away. She whispered, “I took video of that for your dad.”

  Emily nodded. She couldn’t speak or she’d start to cry.

  Trix sat in the dark auditorium. She’d never seen the photo Emily had taken of her and shown the entire school. Staring up at it on the huge screen, the theater full of hundreds of hushed kids and parents, she’d felt an avalanche of emotion: shock, respect for Emily and her talent to capture moments, trauma at the torment on her own face, serious annoyance.

  Now a freshman was doing an Irish dance that Trix didn’t know if she could sit through. She needed to splash her face with cool water, maybe smoke, though she was trying to quit. She whispered to Irony (a real name for a real girl whom Trix had been hanging out with lately), “I need a break.”

  Irony nodded. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “Nah,” Trix said, and crept up the aisle, trying not to look at the faces she passed.

  She blinked in the light of the hallway and shot to the bathroom. It was blissfully empty. She turned on a faucet, as cold as it would go, and cupped her hands under the running water. Trix could see her reflection; her lined eyes staring back at her, and decided not to ruin her makeup. Opening her fingers, she let the water run through them, turned off the tap, and stood there, wondering where to go next.

  That was when she heard the toilet flush and saw, in the mirror, Emily emerge from a stall.

  “Hey,” Trix said, stiffening. She grabbed a rough paper towel, drying her hands and throwing it in the garbage.

  “Hey,” Emily said, her voice slow and gentle, as if she were talking to a wild animal she was trying not to scare away. “What’d you think?

  “Of?” She still had a wall up when it came to Emily.

  “The photo of you. From Green Lake.”

  “I don’t even remember you taking it.”

  “Oh, well. You were pretty … distraught.” Trix remembered well the days when Emily was her go-to if she was unglued. Luckily, the ungluing happened less now. “So,” Emily said. “How are things?”

  Trix looked at her ex-friend. Only, instead of feeling torn up inside, a sort of dull, nostalgic placidity fell over her. They’d had a lot of good times. And, though they both knew their friendship was basically over, it didn’t have to be horrendously awkward when they ran into each other. They could make eye contact and say Hey. Right? They could be adults about this. She just hoped Emily wouldn’t say she missed her, or try to get her to talk about the downward spiral she’d been coasting on until a few months ago.

  “Things are great,” Trix said and shrugged. She was mostly telling the truth. She’d shaken Marjorie and her druggie friends loose in a knock-down-drag-out the day after Christmas during which they screamed at each other in a Safeway parking lot.

  Trix’s mom had broken up with Rodney the Octopus guy after realizing he was stealing from her, too.

  There were no boys for Trix. After Jamie at the beach, she’d understood that she needed to pull her act together before she could go out with anyone. So, to reduce temptation, she wasn’t drinking, either. Which, considering that she was underage, was probably for the best.

  “I noticed you’ve been in class more,” Emily said warily.

  “Yeah,” Trix crossed her arms over her chest. “School’s good. I mean, it’s school, so how good can it be? But, it’s better.” She’d gotten her grades back up and was on track to graduate at the end of her junior year. She was going to apply to the Art Institute, and Irony’s friends, some who were already professional graphic designers and seamstresses and painters who’d gone there, said Trix would definitely make it.

  Emily said, “I’m glad.”

  “And you’re still taking photos I see.”

  “My first love,” Emily said and winced. She cleared her throat.

  Clearly, they wouldn’t touch the topic of Ryan.

  Trix poked at her eyeliner in the mirror, then moved toward the door. “Okay, well, see you.”

  “Around. Yeah.”

  Trix was preternaturally calm as she found her way back to her seat, feeling oddly cleansed by her face to face with Emily and brimming with a sense of possibility. She imagined a bird—a sparrow or pigeon that had somehow swooped in through the front doors and flew around the auditorium’s rafters.

  Below the bird, notes were passed, insults were whispered, kisses were exchanged, feelings were hurt, friendships dissolved while others solidified.

  And from up there, no one looked so different from anyone else, they were all just one big, undulating mass of people in various states of learning that they were okay.

  Acknowledgments: I’d like to thank Kristy Alley for being such an astute and helpful reader, Tricia Scott for her discerning critique of Spectacle’s cover, Betsy Hudson for her keen eye and mad copyediting skills, Sarah Piazza for catching several of my ridiculous errors, my husband and kids for their patience while I wrote and revised and wrote and revised, Alice Peck for her encouragement, and the literary agents whose rejections led me to pursue my exciting e-publishing path.

  About the Author

  Angie McCullagh, who is crazy tall herself, has published several short stories in various literary journals. She also blogs, enjoys photography, and alternately struggles with the fit of her jeans and existential angst. She lives with her husband, two kids, and imaginary cat in Seattle, Washington.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Tall Pride

  2. Trailer

  3. Crush

  4. Evil X-Ray Machine

  5. Dad? And a Cat

  6. Excessive Inches

  7. Into the Night

  8. Party

  9. Tryst

  10. Hostility

  11. Regret

  12. The Runaway’s Daughter

  13. Hassled

  14. If I Could Chat with Anyone , It Would Be You

  15. Home Alone

  16. First Date

  17. Mean Girls

  18. Crash

  19. Marjorie

  20. Found

  21. Shaky Alliance

  22. Flying Solo

  23. Everyone Wants To Be Liked

  24. Bad Scene

  25. Cleanup in Aisle Emily

  26. Fun House

  27. Fading to Black

  28. Reveal

  29. Nonparent #1

  30. Girlfriend

  31. Sweatshop

  32. Idiots Suck

  33. The High Life

  34. Attention, Unwanted

  35. A Disappointment to Everyone

  36. Nonparent #2

  37. Friendship Mashup

  38. Weary

  39. The Stepmom Conundrum

  40. Gym Hell

  41. Inked

  42. Warning

  43. Rave

  44. Confrontation

  45. The Mea
ningful Email

  46. Worse Than Nothing

  47. Slipping Away

  48. Sadness/Hope/Remorse

  49. Applying Herself

  50. Tricky Times

  51. Triptych

  52. Fear and Loathing on the Dark Side

  53. Helpless

  54. Shock and Horror

  55. I don’t know what I know

  56. Pressure

  57. Lift Off

  58. Christmas Eve

  59. Landed

  60. Peace on Earth

  61. Welcome?

  62. Joy to the World

  63. Unwanted

  64. Giving It Up

  65. Not The Mother She Would Have Chosen

  66. Escape

  67. Where Am I?

  Postscript

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

 

 

 


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