I flip to the last page of notes and stop. My Common App username and password are scribbled, and then beneath it:
1. Bates
2. Skidmore
3. Bowdoin
In small letters at the bottom of the page is: NYU?
These can’t be the schools I am applying to, can they? It’s not possible. I would have chosen schools with a specialized theater conservatory. Sure, some of them have decent acting schools, but that’s not their focus. All I’ve wanted to do my whole life is be an actress.
The door behind me opens.
“I think we’re going to split the stage in half, at least initially.”
I scoot down in my seat and hold my breath. It’s Wes.
“When did you get into set design?”
With a girl.
“A couple of years ago I made a planetarium for a friend of mine. Taft saw it and asked me to start designing stuff for our plays.”
“You built a planetarium for someone? That’s so sweet.”
Wow, I would have liked to see Wes make something like that. I wonder who he made it for, and part of me feels jealous that it wasn’t for me.
He munches on an apple or something crunchy and they walk down the farthest aisle of the auditorium. I’m stuck in here now and there is no way in hell I’m letting them know I’m listening.
“That’s where we’re going to hang Titania’s bower. Taft is nearly jumping up and down about that.”
The girl giggles. I’d like to slap her. “What’s a bower?” she asks, and I roll my eyes. Wes is too good for this girl. Their feet echo on the stage and Wes points at the ceiling.
“It’s like a private room, but it’s up in a tree.” He laughs. “It sounds really stupid.”
“She’s a fairy?” she asks.
“Yeah, but a powerful one.”
It’s quiet for a second and I dare to scoot up in my seat to see what they are doing. The girl reaches for Wes’s hand. She’s tall with long blond hair, and I don’t recognize her, even though I can’t exactly see, as her face is cast in shadow. I have to press on the armrest to get a good look. My hand is still sore from the incident outside. Wes takes her hand and because it’s only ghost lighting, it’s all shadows when she leans into his chest. Their profiles are highlighted against the scenery, and I think they might kiss. My stomach clenches. His face is tilted down toward hers. Ugh, I can’t look away.
Everything is copper in my mouth. I lean hard against the auditorium seats. It makes my skin burn, but I don’t stop.
Their faces meet with a kiss, just for a moment, but the girl laughs, so they pull apart.
“Want to see the set designs?” he asks, and he leads the girl backstage. I know there is a door on the other side of the theater that lets out into the hallway, near the gym. Not even the auditorium is a safe place for me anymore.
I get up and walk to the double doors at the top of the auditorium aisle. Before I step outside, I run through the last few days with my old friends. I’ve been going about this all wrong. I’ve been asking May to tutor me, hitching rides from Panda, and saying weak hellos in the hallway. I’ve been being all awkward and sneaky.
I turn to the hazy lit stage. In my head I am on that stage as Beatrice, I am with my friends, laughing and horsing around during rehearsals. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this earlier.
I am going to try out for Midsummer. To hell with saying sorry every other minute if no one is going to forgive me. If they won’t come to me—fine. I’ll go to them.
I press my back against the auditorium door and enter the hallway. I stalk, as much as I can with a limp, down the hall, my jaw clenched. The buzz in my stomach keeps me going to Ms. Taft’s office. I pass Kylie, Eve, Lila, and Tank in a small group by Kylie’s locker.
I don’t even look over.
“Penny, you okay?” Tank calls in his booming voice.
But I keep going around the corner.
There’s usually a metal bin outside Taft’s office with audition scripts, but it’s empty now. I check the poster on the wall again—September 28th. That’s tomorrow.
I knock on the door, but when I peek in the window, no one’s at the desk. Damn it. I’ll just have to try later in the day. With a glance down the hall, I see that Wes and the girl, who is nearly as tall as he is, are farther down the hallway. They turn a corner, I assume to walk to class. I want to know about Wes’s life again. I hate that I’m jealous of her—I know him better than she does. And the only way I’m going to get near him with any kind of regularity is by doing what I love—acting.
I’m definitely coming back later.
Definitely.
I email Taft about getting a script for auditions, but when I check my phone on the way home from a neuro appointment after school, there’s no word back. Bettie drives me home, and when she stops in the driveway there’s another car I don’t recognize next to my parents’. When I open the door, Mom’s voice echoes from the living room. I check for Bettie but she’s heading down the road.
“Well, you know, it’s actually been quite difficult. Even though the Alice Berne name is on the banner of most of our events, and while I trust my team endlessly, I’ve missed being the commander in chief,” Mom says.
I frown, stepping into the kitchen, catching the look on my face in the reflection of the oven. I shake my head to rid it of that terrible expression. Through the doorway and across the foyer is the living room, where a blond journalist nods. I think I’ve seen her before. She might be on TV but I can’t be sure.
“But, you know,” Mom says with an exaggerated sigh, “when the Cenberry family saw Penny’s story run in the news last week, they contacted me yesterday to see how she was, and one thing led to another and they asked me to plan their daughter’s two-million-dollar wedding. So it looks like I’ve been rehired.”
I haven’t heard Mom’s business voice in a long time. A chill runs through me at her tone, and I press my back against the kitchen counter.
“Officially reinstated as commander in chief?” the journalist asks.
“Well, no, but I am in negotiations with my old team now.”
“Who wouldn’t take an opportunity like that?” the journalist asks, and there’s the clink of glassware.
I check for bottles; I peek at the wine fridge too—it’s still empty. Mom’s good tea from France is on the counter. It’s barely three thirty, but that’s never stopped her before.
I back toward the kitchen door, the way I came in.
“Now, I didn’t want to mention this, Mrs. Berne, but I think the readers of Rhode Island Magazine will want to know about your side of the Best Of Rhode Island incident and your twelve-week stay at the Bellevue Rehab Facility.”
I grip the door handle. Rehab center?
“Of course,” she says. “I am willing to admit that it was a very dark time for me.”
“Is all of this—in the past?” the journalist says, speaking in a concerned saccharine whisper.
“Oh yes. I had some soul-searching to do.”
“What about Penny? Has she helped you?”
“Oh, you know, she does. But Penny is . . . different. A dramatic child. She always loved the spotlight.”
“Is she back in the theater?” the journalist adds. I make a closed fist around my house keys. I’m almost at the kitchen door.
Mom went to rehab. That’s horrible.
“Alice!” Dad calls from the basement. “If you want to meet with Laney at the restaurant, you should go in fifteen minutes. I’m almost out the door myself!”
“Of course, dear!” Mom calls back.
Of course, dear?
Mom launches into an explanation of Dad’s newest invention.
With my back against the kitchen door, I close my eyes and exhale. In the darkness behind my closed eyes, a
n image flashes:
I am gripping a cell phone. An empty wine bottle rolls across the kitchen floor.
I gasp and my eyes fly open to a flickering vanilla candle on the stove. The image sifts away so it’s not as clear as it was a second ago. I know it’s not entirely familiar, what I am seeing in my head, but I can still remember and that’s something.
“Penny has shown real growth in the last year. Once she stopped acting, she became much more ambitious and serious about her studies. She was delightful onstage, such a star, but she’s much more focused on her future now.”
Yeah, I was in the library all the time to get away from you. The thought just rips through my head and I know it’s absolutely true. If I was studying at Kylie’s or in the library then I didn’t have to be here.
My body seems to be reacting for my mind. I take out my cell and text Panda.
I’m going to try out for this play and not tell Mom a single thing.
Me: Where you at?
PANDA: Sev.
I edge the door closed behind me and step back outside.
My physical therapist would do leaps of happiness because I walk all the way to the 7-Eleven at the end of Cowesett Road, five whole blocks away. Despite the fact that the 7-Eleven claims to close at eleven, they actually close at twelve thirty. True to form, I find Panda smoking a cigarette outside.
He stands next to a picnic table with a group of guys I don’t know very well, and when he sees me he waves and hangs up his cell phone. Richard sits in front of him at the table and leans on an elbow to speak more intently to Luke, one of the guys that hangs out in the computer lab a lot. I think he helped me with a document format one time freshman year. Through the smoke, Panda waves me over. Once I step to his side, I can hear the conversation more clearly.
“I’m sorry but the special edition makes sense,” Richard says. He has on a button-down shirt like usual. His thick-framed glasses are dark red today. I’m happy to see he still changes out his glasses all the time.
“Han wouldn’t have shot Greedo,” Panda says, and rests a hand on Richard’s shoulder.
“Are you guys talking about . . . Star Wars?” I ask. At first, I think there are twinkle lights above the table, but it’s dozens of fireflies batting about. Every once in a while someone has to swat a couple out of the way.
“Penny, Han Solo isn’t a killer, he’s got a conscience. Am I right?” Richard says, and I’m impressed he thinks I would know, which I do. Dad and I love those movies.
“He’s a pirate,” I say. “He’s motivated by money.”
This sends half of the table into an uproar and the other half applauds me. A guy I don’t recognize says, “See! Even Penny Berne knows.”
I bristle. Even Penny knows—a girl like me—whoever that is.
“‘Smuggler’ would be the appropriate term. Only Lando calls him a pirate,” says Thomas Weston, a guy I knew in middle school. I’m pretty sure he’s rolling a joint.
“You’ve walked into dangerous territory, Penny,” Panda says.
“I actually came to talk to you,” I say lightly, pulling at his T-shirt, which tonight has a logo of the Circle K convenience store on it.
“Moi?”
“Oui,” I reply. “Want to get a Slurpee? My treat.”
“Hey, Penny!” Thomas calls. I turn. “We heard you have some tattoos or something. From the strike.” His eyes dart to his buddies at the table. Richard even twists to me. “Is it true?”
They don’t seem grossed out and they aren’t acting like Eve, who whispered about me when I walked by her today on the way to English class. Of course, Kylie said nothing in my defense. I push up one of the sleeves of my hoodie.
“They’re called Lichtenberg figures,” I say.
“It’s fucked up,” Richard whispers. “But they’re awesome. What are they?”
As usual, I explain, “They’re like bruises. From where the lightning hit the skin. They were supposed to go away right away, but they didn’t. So I’m kind of a science experiment.”
“Wild!” Thomas says. He had stood up to get a look at my skin, but sits back down.
“You’re like a piece of art,” Richard says.
I’m surprised how much I like the attention, but I came here for a purpose.
“Slurpee?” I say to Panda, and back away from the table.
As we head inside, Richard cries, “But if Han shoots first that makes him a cold-blooded killer!”
When we push inside, Carl, the manager, is counting money behind the counter.
“You kids need hobbies,” he says, and glances up quickly.
“My hobby is my intellect, Carl. Hey, I’m auditioning for another play, you gonna come see it? Lord knows my own parents won’t.”
“Who says you’ll get a part?”
“Oh come on, Carl. Have a little faith,” Panda says with mock hurt.
Carl raises an eyebrow. “Is it going to be another musical? It took me a month to get Oklahoma out of my head. And then I saw that . . .” He snaps his fingers, searching for the word with a roll of his hand, except clenched in his fingers is a wad of twenty-dollar bills.
“Oedipus Rex,” Panda fills in for him.
“Oh god. The chorus with the masks!” he cries. I didn’t realize that Panda and Carl knew one another in any other way than just surly 7-Eleven owner and customer. But the way they are talking, Carl seems more like a friend, a coach. I wonder if it’s because Panda’s relationship with his parents has gotten even worse in the past year. I wish I could have been there for him more than just that one day with his dad. Maybe we all go through stuff we don’t want other people to know about. I’m just glad he has Carl. Even if Carl is kind of a grouch.
“No masks,” Panda says. “But it’s Shakespeare! It’s a classic.”
“If the Lightning Strike Girl is in it,” he grumbles, and motions to me, “maybe. You know, if I can clear my schedule.”
“How did you . . .” I begin, but he nods to the newspapers lining the front of his counter. The local papers have had front-page stories about me for days.
“You’re a gentleman and a scholar, Carl,” Panda says, and follows me to the Slurpee machine. “And don’t forget the recommendation you said you would write. For the job at OSTC this summer?”
“Only if you agree not to wear that T-shirt in here again,” Carl grumbles, motioning to Panda’s Circle K shirt. I bet he wore it just to annoy Carl.
“I asked you for a 7-Eleven T-shirt, but you still haven’t delivered.”
“Eleven ninety-nine,” Carl says, and gestures to the T-shirts displayed on the wall.
“Come on, Carl! The rec! You already said yes.”
“You know I will,” he grumbles, and licks his fingers to start counting again.
“You old softy,” he says, and follows me to the Slurpee machine.
Panda brings his hand to his chin and taps it with his index finger. “Hmmm,” he says. “Decisions, decisions.” I grab a medium cup and pour a Dr Pepper Slurpee.
“I would have pegged you for a Crystal Light girl,” Panda says, and pours a Raspberry Slurpee.
“I think there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I say. “Maybe that’s my fault.”
“Oh, I’m willing to bet you’re right,” he says.
I’m looking at the Slurpee levers when I say, “I want to change. I’m trying. It’s weird—not knowing who I’ve been. Maybe I’ve never been sure—even before the strike.”
“I know, Berne,” says Panda. “I told you. I’m here for you.”
I pay for both of our Slurpees and we head outside. When I place my bag down, something catches Panda’s eye. He uses his index finger to widen the front pocket of my bag and peer inside.
Then he slips out a pack of cigarettes.
“What?” I say, and pull out the
little pocket to see inside, except it’s empty. “I don’t smoke. I’ve never smoked.”
“Guess that’s not true.”
We sit down on the curb in front of the store. I want to know if he has any updates on May, but I don’t want to sound like I only came here for information. I also want the script. I guess wanting things from people and not giving anything back makes you kind of a jerk. I don’t have anything to offer him.
“For fuck’s sake,” Panda says. “At least give me a damn lighter if you’re going to take forever to tell me what you came here for.” He swipes my bag and roots around, pulling out a bright green lighter. “Don’t look at me all surprised,” he says. “It’s your bag.” I ran through the various times I had used the bag over the last week or so. I would never think that I would have cigarettes in my possession. I hate smoking.
“Keep it,” I say, wondering how I even became a smoker in the first place. Gross.
I try to find a way to start this sure-to-be awkward conversation, and focus on the asphalt. Panda told me that morning he drove me to school that I keep my feelings from people. That I hide. I don’t feel like I do. And if I do, I don’t want to be that person anymore. “I was hoping you could make good on what you said,” I finally say. “About helping me?”
“What’s up?”
“I fell down in the cafeteria because I had a hand spasm, and May walked me down the hall. It was all sorts of awkward. Our tutoring session was . . . weird.”
“Hey, who do you think convinced her to be your tutor?” He sips his Slurpee loudly and grins.
“You?”
“When the counselor asked her, she almost said no. I mean, she wanted to say no.” My heart drops. I sort of imagined in my head that she said yes because deep down, May wanted to be my tutor.
“What? You have a look on your face,” Panda says. “All I asked her was if the situation reversed, if she lost her memory and the only person she wanted to be with one-on-one was you, would she want you to show?”
I’m touched by his loyalty.
“I reminded her what you did for me too,” he adds.
“I wish I could remember.”
A Season for Fireflies Page 11