by Seven Steps
He nodded, his eyes filled with empathy. He didn’t sip his drink or take a bite of his fries. He simply sat there and allowed me to be sad for a little while.
I liked that about him.
“Well, enough about my family. What about yours?”
“Not much to tell. I live up here with my uncle, Bart. My mom and dad are back in Texas with my brothers and sisters. My dad works on an oil rig and my mom stays at home cooking enough food for the entire neighborhood.”
“What do you miss the most about them?”
He thought a minute. “I would say Mom’s famous chili ribs and Dad’s corny jokes.” He chuckled. “I always said that my friends came for the ribs and left for the jokes.”
“Tell me one.”
“One what?”
“Tell me a joke.”
He grinned and scratched his chin. “Well, they’re not knock knock jokes. There are real, full story jokes. They take a good half hour to tell and I’ll need an audience that’s not easily offended.”
“Oh, come on. Please?”
I batted my lashes at him and watched triumphantly as he caved like a house of cards.
“Fine. One joke.”
He then proceeded to tell me a joke about a preacher whose horse only stopped when someone said Amen and only went when someone said Thank God. It ended with the preacher and the horse going over a cliff. It wasn’t the funniest joke I’d ever heard, but it did make me laugh.
“Wow,” I said, giggling softly. “That was corny.”
“I know, right. He has a million of them.” He chuckled and looked at the bar, where a family of eight all dressed in matching I Love New York shirts had just walked in.
“When will you see them again?” I asked.
“Next month. Dad’ll be between shifts then, so they’ll have a little time.” He looked back at me. “I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. My best friend’s cousin. They’d be thrilled.”
I cleared my throat. “Have you told them? About what happened between us, I mean?”
He grimaced. “I told my mom. We’re really close, so… yeah. She knows.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said that if God wants two people to be together, then there isn’t a thing on this earth that can stop it.”
He gazed at me, looking deeply into my eyes until I shifted in my seat.
My spine tingled, and suddenly the room turned deathly hot.
But I couldn’t look away.
I could only stare back at Joe, wondering if what his mom said was true. Did we just happen to meet again, or was something more at work?
He blinked, then looked down at his plate.
We quickly finished off our meals and Joe paid the bill. Then he held the door for me, and we walked out into the cool city night.
“We should probably head back before my mom forms a search party.”
“I’ll call us a cab. Get you back in twenty minutes.”
He opened an app on his phone and ordered up a cab for us.
“Oh, and I was thinking.” He shoved his phone in his pocket. “When we get back, we should run some lines together. For the play, I mean.”
“Sure. Let’s see if you’re as awesome at teaching me my lines as you are with teaching me English.”
He grinned. “Ah, I didn’t do much. Just helped you study a bit.”
“I’m sure my teachers will disagree with you on that point.”
“Maybe.”
I thought a minute.
“Hey, I have a joke.”
“Oh God, no.”
“Yes. A good one too.”
“Fine. Tell your joke.”
“What do camels use to hide themselves?”
“What?”
“Camel-flage.”
He let out a hearty laugh.
“That was good. I’ve got to tell my dad that one.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, he’ll probably steal it. He steals everyone’s jokes. But it’ll be put to good use. At family reunions and parties and barbecues. That joke will live in infamy.”
I laughed too.
“I have a million of them.”
He smiled at me. “Beautiful and funny. A deadly combination.”
Butterflies exploded in my stomach as a cab pulled in front of us.
Joe opened the door.
“Your carriage, my lady.”
I curtsied. “Thank you, kind sir.”
Then, we were off, flying through the streets of New York City, back to the building we both shared.
When I thought about how we both ended up in the same place, I couldn’t help but revisit Joe’s early statement.
Was this just coincidence? Or was it something bigger than us?
Much, much bigger.
15
I could tell Mrs. Simpson wasn’t happy with me by the way her eyes narrowed.
For an hour I flubbed, stuttered, and plain forget all my lines.
Like, every single one of them.
And by the red in her cheeks, I could see she was over it.
When rehearsal ended, she called me back out to the stage.
“Sophia, I have to say I’m disappointed with your performance. For the past week you have come in consistently unprepared. Your behavior makes me wonder if you want to do this play at all.”
Great. Now I was getting yelled at in front of everyone. I could hear Charlotte and her crew tittering and my stomach clenched. Mrs. Simpson was right. I didn’t really want to be in this play. Not really. What I wanted was the extra credit. But, if I told her that, then it would just make the situation worse.
“I do want to do the play,” I said sheepishly.
“But how can I believe you if I can’t even trust you to remember your lines?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I had no answer for her. Honestly, there was no reason for her to believe that my behavior would change. Heck, I didn’t even know if I could turn it around.
“Sophia, I pride myself on giving young people a chance, but you’ve pushed me too far. I think you should step down from your role and allow someone else to take it over. I’ll find a position for you on stage crew. You will still get the extra credit points and you won’t have to learn any lines.”
Really? That was the best news I’d heard all day. All the extra credit and none of the work. It was definitely my kind of deal.
I opened my mouth to tell her I’d take it when another voice stepped in.
“Then you’ll have to put me on stage crew too.”
I whipped around to find Joe standing behind me. I was in such utter shock by not only his presence but the fact he was, once again, shirtless, that I was momentarily rendered mute.
“Joe?” Mrs. Simpson gasped. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Sophia has worked hard to get where she is. And you shouldn’t throw someone away just because they’ve made a mistake.”
A mistake? I didn’t know any of my lines. Not one. I’d made more than a mistake. I’d completely fudged it up.
“But, Joe, certainly you can see she’s holding back our progress.”
“Look, Mrs. Simpson, give me a week. I promise she will know every line in that play.”
“We have less than two months till opening night and I have a cast and crew of fifty people. We don’t have a week.”
“Then give me until Monday. She’ll know her cues and I can guarantee she’ll know at least half, if not all, of her lines.”
Mrs. Simpson chuckled. “That’s impossible.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “She can do it.”
I was struck by his confidence in me, especially since I didn’t have that confidence in myself. But it was unfounded. I didn’t want to stay in this play. I wasn’t any good at it. I wanted to take Mrs. Simpson’s offer and run. I tried to say so, but Mrs. Simpson was already speaking again.
“Fine,”
she said. “She has until Monday to memorize half her lines and to know all her cues.”
Joe gave a sharp nod.
“Deal,” he said.
“Deal.” Mrs. Simpson eyed me. “And good luck.”
I stood on stage in horror. I’d frozen and missed my opportunity to jump ship. I could have left this auditorium for good, and I’d missed it. Why did I keep freezing up? When did I become this person? I hated it. I absolutely hated the girl I was turning into.
I followed Joe into the wings of the stage, feeling like I was on the verge of a meltdown.
“Why did you do that?” I demanded.
“I think what you meant to say was thank you.”
My eyes drifted over his defined chest and abs. His strong arms. His…
I gritted my teeth.
“Can you please put on a shirt so I can yell at you?”
He grinned, and I noticed that his muscles stood out a little more.
Was he flexing?
“See something you like?”
I growled and turned away, even though my eyes would have been more than happy to keep gawking.
“I would have been happy being on stage crew. No lines. Extra credit. I wouldn’t even have to come to all the rehearsals. It would have been so easy.”
“That’s your problem. You always want everything easy.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
He pulled on a T-shirt, a fact that left me both relieved and strangely disappointed.
“Life isn’t easy, Soph. You above everyone else should know that. And you’ll never get what you want if you don’t work hard for it.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to be the lead in the play.”
“And maybe you didn’t want it because you didn’t think you would get it. And now that you have it, you don’t know what to do with it.”
“So, you’re a football player and a philosopher?”
“Nope. Just a concerned citizen.”
I groaned. I was so close to easy street. Now I was back to doing the one thing I hated to do.
Study.
“I’ll be by your house tonight. We can go over the script, then start on that math test you have on Tuesday.”
I glared at him. “I hate you, you know.”
He smiled back. “Why don’t I take off my shirt and turn that frown upside down.”
I pushed past him, surprised to realize I wanted to laugh at that little comment. “You’re an idiot.”
“Noted.”
Charlotte peeked at us past the curtain.
“Hey, Joe. Ready to go?”
“Sure.”
He glanced at me, then back at Charlotte, then back at me. His shoulders slumped forward as he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I guess I’ll see you later, Soph.”
Charlotte smiled big at me. For the first time in my life, I wanted to pull her hair.
“Bye, Joe,” I said. And then he was gone, following after Charlotte like a little lost puppy. I tried not to think about how much that bothered me.
16
That night, Joe shoved two bowls of my mom’s spaghetti down his esophagus and forced me to start to run lines before I was done eating.
Mom had gone to church earlier. The second she left, Quincey announced he was going out too, though he didn’t specify where.
That left Joe and me in the apartment to study alone. If Mom knew, she’d probably have a heart attack. Still, it was nice to have some peace and quiet.
“So, how are we going to do this?” I asked. “More color-coded flash cards?”
“Nope. We’re trying a new technique.”
“Which is?”
“You are going to sing the lines.”
My stomach dropped. Did he say sing? I hadn’t sung in front of anyone since the Spring Fling.
“I don’t sing.”
“Sure, you do. I’ve seen you on stage. You’re actually kind of great.”
“Maybe I should rephrase that. I don’t sing anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the whole being laughed off the stage thing at the Spring Fling. Which was kind of your fault, by the way. You made me miserable.”
He dropped his head. “I’m sorry about that. I guess we were both a little emotional that night.”
Our eyes met, and my heart fluttered. Even when he turned away, the fluttering remained.
He cleared his throat. “Well, Jelly Roll, it looks like you’re about to make your big comeback.”
“I don’t think you heard me. I can’t sing in front of people.”
He eyed me. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No. A girl with your voice doesn’t just stop singing. It’s physically impossible.”
“It’s possible. And I’m proof.”
“Do you at least think about singing?”
“What?”
“Like, when I’m not playing football, I’m thinking about playing football. I’m analyzing games or looking at my fantasy team. If you love something, even if you’re not doing it, you think about doing it. Is it like that?”
“Why are you pushing this?”
“Because you don’t just give up on something you love. You loved singing. I can’t imagine that you’d just throw it away after one bad night.”
“Look, I’m never going to sing again. I tried, and I failed. Can we just drop it?” Anger tinted my voice, but I wasn’t quite sure who I was angry at. Him? Myself?
I grabbed the script out of his hand, even though I had one next to me already.
“It’s not even about the singing. I don’t understand this stuff. It might as well be written in Japanese.”
He looked at me thoughtfully.
“It’s in English.”
“Yeah. Not regular English. More like the worst English ever.”
“Or the best English ever. I used to call Shakespeare liquid game.”
“Ew.”
“Not in a gross way. Look, what would you say if some guy came up to you and said, ‘hear my soul speak’?” He ran a finger across my cheek, making my entire face hot. “‘The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service’.”
He moved closer and my eyes slid shut. His voice wrapped around me like a blanket. Warm and comforting.
“Now, tell me. Did you feel that?”
Oh, I felt it.
The air cooled around me, signaling he’d moved away, and I opened my eyes. Jeez, it felt like I was on fire. I fanned myself lightly.
“I’ll bet you used that on all the girls back in Texas. They must’ve been falling all over themselves.”
He shrugged. “One or two.”
I fought the jealousy that clawed through my chest.
“Well, liquid game or not, it doesn’t help me understand this play any better.”
“Sure, it does.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Seriously? You knew exactly what I was saying a moment ago. Think, Sophia.”
“I am thinking.”
“So, what did I tell you a minute ago?”
“I don’t know. I just knew how it made me feel.”
He paused. “What did you feel?”
Like I wanted to kiss you. Like you wanted to kiss me.
I drove those feelings out of my mind. Josiah and I were friends now. Study partners. And we were in the play together. We’d already have to fake kiss. Real kissing would make everything super complicated between us when it was finally starting to be okay.
I steeled my will. I’d have to set some ground rules if this was going to work.
Rule number one. No more banter. No more fun.
“Sophia, stay with me.”
Crap, had I completely zoned out again? I looked into his eyes.
“How did it make you feel?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It was sort of hot, I guess.” I
scratched my arm just to give my hands something to do besides shake.
“Sort of hot?”
“Eh. Kind of hot.”
“That’s one of the best lines from The Tempest and you’re calling it kind of hot?”
“Like I said. It’s only kind of hot. Besides, what was so great about this girl that he wanted to fly to help her anyway? Did she have boobs they doubled as beer kegs or something?”
He grinned.
“So, you do understand Shakespeare?”
“What? No, I don’t.”
“You just interpreted it.”
“I… I… I guess I did.” I narrowed my gaze at him. “Are you a witch?”
“Nope. Just a dumb jock who doesn’t mind reading from time to time.”
“Dumb jock? Whatever.” I nudged him. “Superman.”
“Well, the title does fit me.”
I pushed him harder and he fell over with a loud laugh.
“Okay, okay,” he said, waving his hands. “I surrender. Queen Jelly Roll rules all.”
I tipped up my chin. “And don’t you forget it.”
“How could I?”
His eyes were so hazel and bright and his smile so boyish and warm that my breath caught.
I forced myself to stop staring and threw his script at him, picking up my own.
“Fine. Where do we start?”
“At the beginning, Hermia. Always at the beginning.”
17
Joe was relentless.
After I refused to sing my lines, he decided to drill them into my brain instead. Before each act, we’d translated each of the lines into modern day English so I could understand them better. Then, we went over and over them. At first, my delivery was clunky. But, after a while, I got better. After a few hours, I could do the first two acts without the script. By the next hour, I was actually acting them out. It was hard, but we kept at it, going over and over every shred of dialogue until we’d finally reached perfection.
And then, we did it all again. We continued long after Quincey and Mom came home and after Mom went to bed. At one in the morning, Quincey finally screamed at us from the bedroom.