Kate in Waiting

by Becky Albertalli

  “You’re kidding me.”

  But sure enough, there’s Dad, holding Charles, fully lit and framed by his bedroom window. He waves hi with Charles’s paw.

  Noah waves back. “Listen,” he says. “I’m not going to kiss you in front of your dad, and, like, your dog, but I’m just going to say this, because otherwise I might explode. Okay?”

  I nod, heart pounding.

  He exhales. “I really like you.”

  “Me too. I really like you, too.”

  He shakes his head. “Let me try again. I have been,” he says, “I have had the biggest, most ridiculous crush on you, Kate. For so long.” He catches my eye for the barest split second, and then looks away. I realize his hands are shaking. “Since middle school. Since the bread balls at Temple. Since the variety show. I don’t need you to say anything. I just want you to know.” He covers his face with both hands.

  “Noah,” I say.

  “You can leave. If you want. I’ll just.” He swallows. “I’m going to go park in my driveway. I can drive you to school tomorrow, but if that’s too weird, I totally get it—”

  “Noah.”

  He slides his hands off his eyes and looks at me.

  “My dad closed the blinds.”

  “What?” he says. “Oh.”

  “Can I kiss you?” I ask, knowing perfectly well he’ll say yes.

  The look in Noah’s eyes makes me feel like Rapunzel.

  He unbuckles his seat belt and scoots toward me, and that alone makes my heart swoop. This is actually about to happen. Noah Kaplan’s about to kiss me. Strange how it feels both preposterous and inevitable. He takes my head in both his hands, thumb tapping my lip for the barest split second. Then his lips are on mine, and I’m not Rapunzel at all.

  I’m a paper lantern.

  I’m floating, lit up from the inside.

  Scene 74

  Okay, thank God I’m in a musical that has mattresses for set pieces, and I mean that in a completely nonsexual way.

  Almost completely.

  Okay, seriously, I’m not going to have sex with Noah on a set piece during dress rehearsal.

  Or ever.

  On a set piece.

  I JUST MEAN I NEED A NAP.

  Because last night was . . . not a sleeping kind of night. Not because Noah and I stayed up late kissing. I mean. Maybe we stayed up slightly late kissing. Maybe we kissed until my lips felt like they were buzzing, and maybe I was so breathless by the end that I could barely say good night.

  Afterward, I lay in bed, staring up at my canopy, thinking about how I’ll be thirty, I’ll be fifty, I’ll be a grandma, and still. I’ll never forget the look on Noah’s face as he leaned closer, that breath of anticipation right before our lips met. And I especially thought about the last thing Noah said when I got out of the car. See you tomorrow, Kate. So ordinary, and so full of possibility. So completely drenched in magic. He’d texted me a heart emoji about ten minutes later, and I hugged my phone upside down to my chest, thinking: even that is a thing I’ll never forget. Even the emoji.

  Meanwhile, I’ve started and deleted about a hundred texts to Anderson, which is its own shot of joy. Just knowing I can text him again. I can text him anything I want to, full giddy ramblings, with nothing held back. There’s a part of me that thinks Andy’s the reason Noah and I kept getting interrupted. Because the world wouldn’t give me a moment like last night if I couldn’t share it with Andy.

  Maybe I wouldn’t give myself a moment like last night until I could share it with Andy.

  But in the end, I don’t text him. I want to tell him in person. I want to squeal and hug and freak out and obsess over details and field intrusive questions.

  And it occurs to me suddenly: I want to do that for Andy. About Matt.

  Scene 75

  The whole day feels like a dream. Noah kisses me twice in the morning, quickly and softly—once when I get in his car, and once in the school parking lot, right before we get out. After that, I immediately find Anderson, sweeping him into the BTF before the first period bell.

  When I tell him, he shrieks.

  “You did WHAT?” He bursts out of his stall, and the next thing I know, we’re jumping up and down next to the urinals. He flings his arms around me, kissing my cheek over and over. “Holy shit, yes!” He presses his forehead to mine. “Is it, like, a thing? Are you telling people? Have you told Raina and Brandie? Can I tell Raina and Brandie?”

  I beam up at him. “Go for it.”

  Turns out, he doesn’t even have to. “So, Kate,” Raina says, “What was up with all that face sex in history?”

  “Whaaaaat?”

  “You and Noah. Not even eye-fucking, Kate, you had this little smile—”

  “The lip thing!” Andy says triumphantly. “Raina, yes! I’ve been telling her this for years.”

  “And Noah’s face, Kate. Like, when you leaned forward and your hair did that curtain thing?” Raina says. “He was not okay.”

  “He should sit with us at lunch,” Brandie says.

  But before we even step into the cafeteria, we’re interrupted by a breathless Devon Blackwell. “Hey.” He blinks twice. “Zhao just called for a double dress rehearsal, so we need you to head to the auditorium.”

  “Now?” Raina asks.

  “Right now. You can bring your food—she’ll fill you in while you eat.” He pauses, catching his breath. “Sorry, I just had to track down every single one of your afternoon teachers. For the whole cast. And crew.” He shuts his eyes briefly. “It’s a theatrical emergency.”

  Scene 76

  As it turns out, Ms. Zhao’s freaking out about hats. Many of which are bulky or tall or conical. “This is totally on me,” Zhao says, rubbing her forehead. “We need to make sure they don’t interfere with your dancing.”

  Naturally, Mr. D serenades us with a song called “You Can Leave Your Hat On” while we finish scarfing down our lunches, picnic-style, in front of the stage. This is followed by a chaotic twenty minutes in the dressing room—hangers flying, fabric flapping in every direction. Only the hardest-core people, like Lana, have performed in their costumes so far, so it’s the first time we’re all competing for space to change clothes. It’s disastrous.

  I end up sharing the little bathroom stall with Raina, standing back to back as we wriggle into our gowns. “It sounds like Geostorm out there. Like not even one natural disaster. It sounds like every natural disaster.”

  “Right? Who knew getting dressed was so violent?” I say—and right on cue, something crashes, and everyone goes, oooooooooh.

  “We’re okay!” shouts Colin.

  I grin down at the tiles. Someone bangs on the door. “Hurry up!”

  “Don’t you dare rush the queen,” Raina yells back, and maybe normally I’d feel a tiny twinge of eek-hurry-up. But not today. Today I don’t feel rushed in the slightest.

  Stepping out of the bathroom, my eyes cut straight through the pandemonium, instantly finding Noah in the doorway. For a moment, we just stand there, at opposite ends of the room, smiling. He’s dressed like a king, in the same gold tunic and crown Colin wore two years ago as Prince Charming in Into the Woods.

  “Wow,” Noah mouths, pressing his hand to his forehead.

  I look down at my gown and shrug.

  Truthfully, I don’t know how I ended up with one of the tiny handful of rented costumes this year, but I did, and I love it. It’s the palest pink silk, drapey and expensive feeling, high waisted with gold rope accents, and no hat. Just the subtlest tiara. I don’t want to say it’s exactly like Rapunzel’s costume in Tangled, but I mean. It’s pretty damn close.

  And even though it’s just the dress rehearsal for the dress rehearsal, I have this opening night, center stage sort of feeling. I can’t seem to wind my heart down.

  For the next few hours, I barely see Noah—even when we’re both backstage, someone’s constantly pulling one of us aside for hair or costume adjustments. In the end, I mostly stick with Matt,
who’s in basically every scene with me anyway. We settle in with our backs against the iconic mattress pile—in our case, twenty pre-stacked mattresses that roll in on tiny wheels. There’s a ladder attached to one side, and at this point, I think half the cast has climbed up there to test it out. It’s actually super comfortable, but Bess and Suman would murder us if we messed around with it during a run-through.

  Either way, it’s nice just leaning against it—and I guess we must look cute in our costumes, with the mattresses stacked behind us, because people keep Instagramming us. At one point, during a lull between our scenes, Devon Blackwell dumps a stack of unfolded programs and a stapler beside us.

  “We got this,” Matt says, carefully creasing a bundle of papers into booklet form. Then he hands them to me, and I staple. “Hey, so, what’s the game plan for Saturday?”

  I glance around before responding—and even though Anderson is, of course, onstage at this very moment, I keep my voice low. “Okay. He’s still saying he doesn’t want a party, but obviously we can’t have no party.”

  “Obviously.”

  “So I was thinking we’ll just set up the cake and stuff in one of the dressing rooms between the matinee and evening shows.”

  “Excellent.”

  “And maybe a sleepover after the cast party, but that’s just us and the squad. And Noah,” I add, blushing. Matt opens his mouth like he’s about to ask something, but I cut him off quickly. “Oh, and Raina got those giant number balloons. Did you know they don’t make seventeen? So she’s getting one and seven.”

  “He’s totally gonna swap them around and tell everyone he’s seventy-one,” Matt says.

  “To be fair, seventy-one-year-old Anderson’s going to be a next-level badass.”

  I can already picture it. He’ll have a full set of perfect teeth, which he’ll brush every five minutes. And he and I will spend every day chilling on the porch with our husbands, texting memes and selfies to our grandkids—who, let’s face it, will probably rebel and be fuckboys. But we’ll double down and keep trolling them with videos of us singing “Somebody to Love.” We’re going to Ella our grandkids into submission.

  Full-throttle Kate and Anderson, forever and ever and ever.

  Scene 77

  Three hours until we open, and I’m hiding in the lighting booth with Noah.

  And, okay, we’re not really all that hidden—Audrey, the lighting director, could wander back here any minute, not to mention Colin and Pierra. But it’s tiny and cozy and a few steps removed from the usual disarray of opening night. Obviously, we don’t go near the computer or switchboard. But it’s nice, just sitting side by side, out of view of the window, with Noah’s arm tucked around my shoulders. Even nicer is the cloudspun feeling I get when he threads his fingers through the ends of my hair.

  “Are you nervous?” I ask. “I panicked so hard before my first show, I almost threw up.”

  “Weren’t you, like, a townsperson?”

  “Yup.” I grin into his shoulder. “But townspeople can still screw up. Not having lines didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fart into a microphone or something.”

  His laugh is so startled and genuine, it makes me laugh too. “Is that supposed to make me less nervous?” he asks.

  “Well, I didn’t fart into a microphone. Or at all,” I add quickly.

  He hugs me closer. “Are you nervous?”

  “Sort of. But I can’t tell if I’m nervous because it’s opening night, or just . . . other stuff.”

  He turns to face me, mouth twitching upward. “Other stuff?”

  “Other stuff.” I smile slightly.

  “I’m up for other stuff,” he says, leaning toward me.

  And suddenly we’re kissing. We are honest-to-God kissing in the lighting booth on opening night. It’s not exactly a body-meld embrace—Noah’s knee sort of tucks over mine, and my hands end up pressed flat on the ground. But I kind of love the awkwardness of kissing side by side. It gives me this off-kilter sort of nostalgia—a rush of longing for moments I’ve never even lived through, like handsy middle school makeouts and first summer kisses on moonlit wooden docks.

  “Do you have any idea”—Noah’s voice is low and breathless—“how long I’ve pictured this?”

  “This in particular? In the school theater lighting booth?”

  “Yup.” He kisses me again softly. “And everywhere. Lighting booths, airplanes, bathrooms, airplane bathrooms. You name it.”

  I can barely wrap my head around it. The way we keep sliding between joking and talking and kissing, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I guess I always had this idea of kissing as this moment of transformation—with swelling music and faded backgrounds and your brain filled with nothing but the kiss itself.

  But it’s not like that at all.

  It’s Noah’s lips, and the way they move softly against mine, and the fluttery ache in my stomach. It’s the way Noah can’t go ten seconds without talking, even when we’re actively kissing, and I keep erupting into giggles, and every so often one of us gets paranoid and checks our phones so we don’t miss call time.

  But I like that.

  I like that when we’re kissing, we never once stop being us.

  Scene 78

  An hour later, Raina and I attempt to sit still while Brandie does our makeup.

  “We’ll be fine,” Raina says, “we’re just gonna get out there and do our thing, same as we’ve always done it, and then no one has to be nervous anymore. It’s smooth sailing. Brandie, why are you putting lipstick on my cheeks?”

  “Just trust me,” says Brandie.

  In all honesty, Brandie’s the only person on earth I do trust for the job, because she never tries to talk me into globbing on more than I want to wear. And I get it: stage lights wash you out, you need extra definition, etcetera, etcetera. But listen. If the boys don’t have to wear bright lipstick, I’m not wearing bright lipstick. Except on my cheeks, apparently.

  I don’t know. I just want to look like me.

  Once everyone’s in costume, Ms. Zhao herds us out to the secret teacher parking lot for the ceremonial burning of the program. “We are Roswell Hill,” she says, “and we are one.”

  We all chant it over and over. “WE ARE ROSWELL HILL, AND WE ARE ONE. WE ARE ROSWELL HILL, AND WE ARE ONE.”

  I wish I could bottle up this moment and keep it for the rest of my life. Tucked up close between Anderson and Raina. Holding hands in a circle in the crisp fall evening air, feeling so flooded with love and belonging.

  “Bring it in!” Ms. Zhao says, stomping out the last few flames of the freshly charred program. We all rush to the center for the group hug of the century.

  And the next thing I know, it’s six thirty, and Ms. Zhao’s out there in front of the curtain, telling people to turn off their cell phones for the duration of the play.

  “Musical,” mutters Lana Bennett from the wings.

  The orchestra glides through the overture, and just like always, I lose my breath for a minute. But Noah hugs me. “You’ve got this.”

  “Noah, Andy, Raina—stage left please!” Devon whispers sharply.

  Noah hugs me again. “Break a wrist.”

  And we’re off.

  Scene 79

  So, once upon a time in eleventh grade, Lady Kate the Starlet steered herself right to center stage.

  It’s all so beautifully uneventful. No one forgets to push the mattresses out, no one’s voice cracks. Brandie’s flawless on the soft-shoe, the mics don’t go out, and Matt and I manage not to laugh during our kiss, even with our moms heckling us from the front row.

  Raina peeks through the curtains when the house lights come on. “Aww,” she says. “Look who brought flowers.”

  I follow her gaze downward, where people are making their way down the aisles, to the exits. Ellen and my parents are gone, which means they’re probably in the lobby, but my brother and some of his teammates are still camped out near the stage. Ryan’s holding a bouquet of b
lue and purple flowers.

  Whoa. Okay. I’m definitely supposed to be changing out of my costume right now. But also, I’m definitely too nosy to resist this.

  It takes some major skirt maneuvering for me to properly settle onto the side steps off the stage. Once I do, though, I beckon him over. “Ryan Kevin Garfield,” I say, beaming. “Wow. Holy grand gesture.”

  He looks taken aback. “Wait. What?”

  “No, don’t worry. Grand gesture in a good way!” I press my hands to my heart. “Do you want me to go see if she’s in the dressing room?”

  “Kate, oh my God.” Ryan rolls his eyes and shoves the bouquet into my arms. “These are for you, doofus. Here.”

  I shoot him a puzzled half smile. “You don’t have to give me Brandie’s flowers.”

  “They’re not Brandie’s flowers. Kate, I don’t even know where you’re getting this.” He rubs his temples. “I don’t have a crush on Brandie—”

  “Right. So when you decided to rehearse with us the other day, it’s because you’re such a fan of musicals—”

  “I decided to rehearse with you the other day because you’d literally just called me out for only hanging with fuckboys.”

  I hug the bouquet to my chest. “Okay, but what about the texting?”

  “I’m . . . eighteen. I have a phone. I text people sometimes?”

  “But you’re shady about it now! Like, I get within a mile of you, and you yank your phone away so fast—”

  “Because I’m secretly texting with Brandie?” Ryan shakes his head, grinning. “Kate, ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m talking to Noah.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “And most of the time, he’s talking about you.”

  “Got it.” I’m beaming.