Kate in Waiting

by Becky Albertalli

  “Okay!” Ms. Zhao calls, checking the time on her phone. “Let’s get started. I need Dauntless, Winnifred, Aggravain, Sextimus, Wizard. Center stage. Let’s hustle.” She claps her hand around her fist like a coach, and Mr. D takes it to the next level by pounding out a frantic hurry-up song on the piano.

  I reach the front of the auditorium just as Anderson’s stepping onstage, but I can’t exactly slide into the now-empty seat beside Matt. That’s just too thirsty, even for me. But then again, if I sit in one of the rows behind Matt, he might not even see me. And I don’t think we’re scheduled to run any of the Larken/Harry scenes today. So theoretically, Matt and I could go the whole rehearsal without interacting, and then I’ll go home feeling growly and strange, and then Anderson will text me to tell me all the swoony details of their new romantic lives together.

  And I’ll just be so happy for him! Because those are the ground rules!

  Whatever. I’m sitting in the front. It doesn’t have to be thirsty. I’ll just slide in here at the end of the row, a few seats down from Matt. Of course, if Matt wants to, he’s perfectly welcome to scoot closer. I settle my backpack on the floor in front of me, making it my footrest, and then I glance sideways to see if Matt’s noticed me.

  He waves.

  I wave back. And of course, my phone slides out of my hand, hitting the floor with a nice loud thud.

  Oof. I mean the floor’s linoleum, and I’ve got a decent phone case, and at least it was just phone-loud, not lunch-tray-loud. Though somehow I manage to catch Noah’s eye onstage—he immediately grins, raises his eyebrow, and mouths, ooooooooooh. Just what I need.

  But then Matt slides down the row, resettling right beside me. “Hey,” he whispers. “Phone okay?”

  “I think so. Nothing fatal,” I say.

  “Just a flesh wound.”

  Anderson’s watching from the stage, but who cares? It’s not like I’m breaking any ground rules. Matt is absolutely free to move closer to me and be cute and make cute Monty Python references, and I’m absolutely free to giggle and grin right back at him.

  And hey. Anderson’s free to feel happy for me.

  Scene 33

  Mr. Edelman, king of hands-on teaching, gives us another worksheet packet in history class. But with a twist. One, we have to work independently and in silence. Two, anyone who finishes the packet by the end of the period gets to opt out of Friday’s pop quiz.

  “How is it a pop quiz if we know it’s on Friday?” Anderson murmurs.

  “Who cares?” I’ve got my textbook open and my mechanical pencil poised and ready. I am very much a fan of opting out of quizzes.

  “Hey.” There’s a tap on my back. “Psst. Little Garfield.”

  I glance over my shoulder. “What do you want, Kappy?”

  That throws him.

  He opens his mouth to reply, pauses, shuts it again, points a finger at me, and says, “No.”

  “No what?”

  “Kappy. I don’t like that.”

  I widen my eyes. “You seem to like it just fine when Madison says it.”

  “I do not like it just fine when Madison says it.” Noah plants his elbows on his desk and leans forward, cupping his chin in his non-cast hand. “Okay, Little Kate—”

  “Yes, Kappy?”

  “Ha,” he says. “Ha.”

  I shrug with my palms up and turn back to my worksheet.

  He taps me again. “Okay, Kate.”

  “Shh. We’re supposed to whisper,” I say.

  “No we’re not,” says Anderson. “We’re not supposed to be talking.”

  “Whispering isn’t talking,” whispers Raina.

  “Anyway,” Noah says, leaning toward me.

  “No talking, please,” says Mr. Edelman.

  “Anyway,” Noah whispers. “Kate. Question.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Are you going to the block party Saturday?”

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  “You should come!”

  “Go with Ryan.” I start to turn around, but Noah taps me again. I narrow my eyes. “What?”

  “Okay, but hear me out.”

  “What?”

  “Ryan has baseball,” says Noah.

  “No he doesn’t.”

  Noah makes a face at me. “What happened to you not following sports?”

  “Kappy, I live with Ryan.”

  “Touché! Also, hey, let’s not make Kappy a thing.”

  “Please be quiet,” Mr. Edelman says, rubbing his temples. “Please.”

  “Mr. Edelman has a migraine,” whispers Brandie.

  “So are you coming?”

  “To the block party?”

  Noah nods and locks eyes with me, clearly going for an eyegasm. Ha ha ha. No.

  “Noah. What’s your endgame here?”

  He looks almost wounded. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s your endgame? Why do you need me to go to the block party? What do you want—more singing lessons?”

  “No—what? I’m already great.”

  Anderson and Raina both snort.

  “Kate.” Noah sighs. “I don’t have an endgame. I just wanted to thank you, okay? For the tray? I feel bad that you had to deal with my mess.”

  “You feel bad?”

  He shrugs.

  “Maybe you should thank Madison.”

  “Already did.”

  “Oh, I bet.”

  Anderson laughs out loud.

  “So you want me to hang out with you at the block party,” I say, “as a thank-you to me.”

  “Yes.” He grins.

  Wow, that is some f-boy self-esteem.

  “So you’ll be there?” he asks.

  I roll my eyes. “Obviously, I’ll be there.”

  Raina looks from me to Noah, eyebrows raised halfway to the stratosphere.

  “It’s a neighborhood block party,” I remind her. “Right outside Dad’s house. I’ll be at Dad’s house. Therefore, I’ll be at the block party.”

  Raina flips her palms up. “Didn’t say anything.”

  “You guys should come,” I say, shrugging.

  Brandie says she’ll try to stop by, but Raina says she has a date.

  Noah high-fives her. “Yeah you do!”

  Raina rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.

  “I can’t come,” Anderson says, pausing for the barest split second. “I’ve got plans.”

  Something about that pause.

  He’s staring at his worksheet, but his dimple caves briefly, like it does when he’s feeling awkward. A tiny knot forms in my chest. Something like dread, maybe panic.

  “Plans?”

  Somehow, before Anderson even opens his mouth, I know just what he’s about to say.

  “Plans with Matt,” he says gently.

  And then I mostly just feel numb.

  Scene 34

  So, Dad’s neighborhood has a bit of a fuckboy problem.

  I mean, it could be worse. I could be Brandie, who lives walking distance from no fewer than eight members of the lacrosse team. But it’s not great. We’ve got Mira Reynolds and her tween sisters over near the neighborhood pool, and there’s a whole crop of baby-jock eighth graders one cul-de-sac over.

  But I actually love the Remington Commons neighborhood block party, mostly because it’s barely a party. It’s just this dorky street event the neighborhood association started throwing a couple of years ago, every September and May. Half the time, the f-boys are too hungover to even show up.

  Anyway, I can’t just sit in my room thinking about Andy and Matt and their plans. So I throw on one of my mom’s old Stacey Abrams campaign T-shirts, which wins a tiny smile from my brother. He’s currently sitting at the kitchen table, eating cold pizza with one hand, and petting Camilla with the other.

  Ryan sets down his pizza. “Making a statement?”

  “It’s a good statement.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  I grab some raisin bread and eat it standing over the
counter. Then I round up the dogs, pop their leashes on, and step out into the ten a.m. early September heat.

  It’s pretty quiet this early—mostly just a bunch of dads in polo shirts hanging out in plastic chairs at the edge of their lawns, drinking bloody Marys. I spot my dad in a little chair cluster at the Kaplans’ house, looking flushed and happy alongside both of Noah’s parents, plus the dad who just moved in next door. New Dad, who’s currently holding an extremely new baby, is the youngest in the circle by at least a decade.

  Dad waves me over. “Peapod!”

  The whole peapod thing. I should probably be mortified, but it’s hard to muster it up when it’s just a mom, three dads, and a newborn. Also, it’s pretty obvious that this is the neighborhood dork crowd. Which is probably a weird thing to say about a bunch of parents, but it’s true. All I know about the new dad so far is that he and his wife dress the baby exclusively in science pun onesies. Anna and Joe Kaplan are the type who post massive photo sets to Facebook without even removing the blurry ones. And Dad’s just there with his pants tucked nice and high, and his shirt buttons off-track. Like, basically imagine the geek table from any high school cafeteria, then age them up twenty-five years.

  But the funny thing is, in some strange, subversive way, I really think that makes them cooler. Like, if you’re going to be forty-five, just be forty-five. Don’t be those parents grasping for their glory days, trying to recreate them with tennis team hierarchies and their kids’ sports schedules.

  I let the dogs lead me over to Dad’s dork squad and spend the next ten minutes fielding questions about school. And running interference against Camilla, who’s apparently determined to snuffle deep into everyone’s crotches.

  “Noah’s really loving the play rehearsals,” says Anna. “He was so anxious at first, but he’s really come around to them.” Anxious. Noah Kaplan. It really is funny sometimes how parents get certain ideas of their kids.

  “Peapod, you know what? We should grab the karaoke machine. I was just telling Bill here that you’re a fantastic singer.”

  “She gave Noah voice lessons,” says Anna.

  “We could set up a whole karaoke station here. Line up some chairs or something. What do you think?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Wow. Speaking of parents getting certain ideas of their kids. Dad seems to have mistaken me for someone who spontaneously performs in public. Non-theater people never get the whole emotional preparation factor. And even then, you could be courting disaster. It could be Ella-gate 2.0. I mean, maybe someone like Anderson could pull it off without the cringe, because he’s more consistently talented than I am and his voice doesn’t shake when he’s nervous. And he’s just overall slightly more badass. Maybe that’s why he suddenly has so much game now. Enough game to get the ball rolling on mysterious plans with Matt.

  Saturday plans. I wonder whose idea they were.

  Camilla makes a sudden move for Bill and the baby, so I quickly yank her leash back before her tongue gets involved. Then I move an open bag of chips from Charles. And then I end up just using the dogs as an excuse to leave, which is pretty much why I brought them in the first place. I’ll just take them on a quick walk around the neighborhood and go home. After all, I’m well overdue for some moping time in my room.

  I mean. I’m not moping. I’m not. Maybe it resembles moping from the outside, but it’s really just rapturous excitement. It’s me being wildly, extraordinarily happy. For Anderson. So happy that I’m just going to kneel here really fast and snap a quick selfie with the dogs. Who, by the way, make terrible models—Camilla’s got one lip hooked up like Elvis, and Charles is just a blur of movement. But I text it to Anderson anyway. We miss your face!!

  No response.

  By the time I make it to the pool and back with the dogs, Brandie’s car is in my driveway, and she’s standing on our lawn beside Noah and my brother.

  Noah hugs me. “Hey, Kate.”

  Okay. Didn’t know we were hug friends. Noah’s not a bad hugger, though—at least it’s not one of those fakey loose hugs like Lana Bennett’s known for. Also he smells good. Gotta love when boys shower. I’ll give him extra props, too, because I’ve heard showering in a cast is complicated.

  Brandie squats down to pet Charles, who goes straight into belly-up surrender position. “Charles, have some self-respect,” Noah says. Then, glancing back at me, he adds, “So I was thinking we could all walk down to the playground?”

  I stare at his arm. “Did you draw boobs on your cast?”

  “No,” he says. “Jack Randall did.”

  Of course he did. “So you’re just going to walk around like that,” I say, and then it hits me. “Wait, the play! How are you—”

  “Okay, first of all, long-sleeved costumes exist,” Noah says, looking extra amused. “Second of all, let’s not forget my man is named King Sextimus, which is clearly the name of a king who appreciates boobs.”

  “Wow. You’re gross.”

  “And third of all, I’m getting a replacement cast on Tuesday. Boob-free.” He smiles. So I’m not going to ruin your play, Little Garfield.”

  “It’s not my play, Kappy. It’s my musical.”

  “Hey,” Brandie reminds him. “It’s your musical, too.”

  Scene 35

  By the time we set out for the playground, I’d say it’s a fairly-legit party, in the sense that the dads all seem to have acquired coolers of beer. Livy Kaplan somehow catches up with our group, which is pretty impressive for a seven-year-old in Disney heels. But Livy in heels is fast enough to keep up with Ryan and Brandie, who are at the front of our pack. They’re too far ahead for me to make out what she’s saying, but she’s been talking nonstop since she joined us.

  “Has she even taken, like, one breath?” I ask Noah. We’re the stragglers, a couple of yards behind Brandie and our siblings.

  “Absolutely not. That would be a criminal waste of valuable talking time—OH.” Noah’s voice drops. “This perv. Look.” He juts his chin out, just barely, toward a yard at the center of Remington and Pine. There are probably twenty tiny kids there, plus their parents, all clustered around a duo of tiger mascots in hoodies.

  “Isn’t that—” I start to say, but then the words somehow vanish.

  Because Noah’s hand is on my hand. His right hand, the one without the cast. And just the back of it, not the palm. But still. Noah Kaplan’s hand. Pressed all the way up against mine.

  Which is weird. Next-level weird. Wow.

  Except, as fast as it happened, it’s gone. Total retreat.

  “He wears. No pants,” says Noah.

  “Who, Daniel Tiger? Isn’t he a child? And a cartoon?”

  “His dad’s not a child.”

  “So Daniel Tiger’s dad is the perv.”

  “Kate, he’s a grown man. A father. Wearing no pants.”

  “He is a cartoon tiger,” I say, sounding calmer than I feel. There’s still this fluttery knot in my stomach. “I hate to break it to you, but sometimes cartoons don’t wear clothes.”

  “Then riddle me this. Why is he wearing the hoodie?”

  “Did you just say ‘riddle me this’?”

  “Don’t change the subject.” Noah looks at me sidelong, grinning. And then he does the hand thing again! Wow. That split-second, back-of-the-hand contact—what is that? Some kind of new f-boy move? An alternative to the eyegasm?

  “I’m just saying,” Noah continues, “here we’ve established a world where the animals wear clothes, they talk, they walk around. They’re anthropomorphized.”

  “How much thought have you put into this?”

  “Years,” Noah says. “Years of thought.”

  We reach the playground, and Livy flings herself onto a swing, stomach first. “Guys, this is gonna be epic. Noah! Come on. I want to film a YouTube.”

  “Hold on,” says Noah.

  “Don’t forget to smash that like button!”

  I turn to Noah incredulously. “Livy’s on YouTube
?”

  “Livy thinks she’s on YouTube.” He pulls out his phone. “Future blackmail material.”

  “A-plus big brothering,” I say, watching him drift toward the swings.

  My own brother is standing a few yards away, arms crossed—not in an angry way. Just self-conscious, I think. He’s talking to Brandie, who’s already climbed into the play structure and is sitting at the edge of its platform, legs dangling down. Brandie’s counting something off on her fingers, and Ryan’s nodding along. It’s funny. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them interact before, other than Ryan mumbling hi from the couch when the squad comes over.

  Speaking of the squad, it’s been a good few minutes since I texted the dog selfie to Anderson. So I sneak a peek at my phone to see if he’s responded.

  He hasn’t.

  Which is a total gut punch. I know it’s stupid to get this antsy over a text I sent twenty minutes ago, but in Kate-and-Anderson time, that’s centuries. And it’s a text with a selfie, too, which makes the lack of acknowledgment even worse. It’s like when your scene partner’s supposed to cut you off and overlap your line, but they don’t. That same quiet beat of panic and awkwardness.

  But I’m being ridiculous. Andy’s probably just not checking his phone. And there are lots of reasons why he might not be checking his phone, reasons that have nothing to do with Matt. His phone could be charging, for example. He could be peeing. Or driving.

  And today’s so strange in general, that I keep feeling like I’m drifting along two steps behind my body. I blink, and somehow I’m sitting at a picnic table across from Noah, who’s got both arms stretched across the table, illustrated boobs winking in the sunshine. And that alone is mind-boggling. Just being here with Noah Kaplan. It almost feels like a time warp.

  The Kate-Noah friendship didn’t last all that long, between Noah moving here and my parents’ divorce and Noah becoming an f-boy. But we were briefly a duo, mostly due to Sunday school choir rehearsals, which we occasionally skipped in favor of prowling around the synagogue. Noah was really good at charming the parent kitchen volunteers into giving us extra pieces of that mushy, pre-sliced Hebrew school challah. Even now, when I think of Sunday school, that’s what I think of. Me and Noah in the supply closet near the women’s bathrooms, rolling challah slices into bread balls and eating them like popcorn.