Head to Head (On Pointe Book 2)

by Penelope Freed

  Trevor: Or telepathy. Telepathy would be good right now too

  Trevor: Really, any superpower that gave me the ability to either see your face or read your mind right now would be awesome. Help me out?

  Okay, now I’m out of my depth. I look up, only to discover that Katy and Jack have abandoned me. Looking around, I see them waiting in line at the boba place. Jack waves when I catch his eye, then gives me a big thumbs up. Ugh! What do I do now?

  Me: Teleportation would be awesome, I wish I could see your face too. Unfortunately, I’m sitting in public in a food court so if you teleported here, you’d immediately be dragged away by government goons and locked away for scientific experiments. This will have to do for now.

  The smile on my face, the smile I can’t help when I think of him freaking out up in Seattle, is the best I can do to show him that I meant what I said. I snap a quick selfie and send both texts at once.

  Trevor: Ummmmm…I’m not sure what was hotter, that picture or the nerd-speak you just sent me.

  Is it possible to melt into a pile of glittery goo? I don’t know if I want to scream, laugh, cry, or what. My stomach is fluttering in the best way and my cheeks actually ache from smiling. If I could stand up right now and dance I would. I’d waltz and leap around the room, spinning and laughing and kicking my legs up in pure and utter happiness. I satisfy myself by bobbing in my seat, shaking my shoulders from side to side as I read and re-read the texts.

  “So, I guess you got the right answer?” Katy laughs, dropping into the seat next to me.

  “Um, yeah, you could say that.” I show her my phone screen, grinning when she laughs.

  “Oh my god, you two are such dorks! But obviously, meant for each other,”

  Shoot, I should respond.

  Me: Katy is teasing me because I’m grinning like a fool over here.

  Almost immediately, Trevor sends me a picture of himself, grinning as big as I am. He looks the happiest I’ve ever seen, his wide mouth stretched in a smile, the warmth in his brown eyes shining through the photo.

  When I see the words he sent with the photo I have to laugh.

  Trevor: Then we shall be fools together, my Lady

  “Okay lovebirds, now that we’ve got you sorted out, we need to fix what we broke,” Katy says, pulling my phone out of my hand.

  “Hunter is on top of their Chem project, we’ll have to trust him to take care of that.” Jack sets a cup of milk tea in front of me, purple boba balls floating at the bottom, and hands me a wide straw. “He knows we’re planning to help, but the best thing we can do is trust him to do well enough on the project so they get a high enough grade. Since he got all the brains in the womb, that can be his job.”

  Katy laughs like it’s an old joke. “Yeah…Hunter’s the only one of us who can compete with Lisa in the brains department, we’re going to have to trust him on that one.”

  I don’t know Hunter well, I’ve never been in a class with him or anything, so I’ll have to trust Katy and Jack’s opinion on the matter.

  “So what are we going to do?” I have no idea how to get Lisa and Hunter together. “Do I just tell her I’m sorry and she should go for it?”

  “Seriously, Hannah? That’s the most romantic thing you can think of? I mean, yes, you should do that because you owe Lisa the apology, but that’s not going to be enough.”

  “It’s too bad prom was two weeks ago, Hunter could have asked her to go with him.” Jack muses. “We went stag together,” he adds with a shrug.

  “Lisa wouldn’t have gone anyway, dork. We’re only sophomores, it’s not like she would be thinking about going. None of us are.” I’d noticed the signs up around school but going to prom, or any of the school dances, hadn’t even occurred to me. Besides, the night of prom was the night before I left for New York, no way would I have risked going out and getting hurt or staying up too late before leaving.

  “Well, we need him to make some sort of grand, romantic gesture. What can he do?”

  The three of us banter some ideas back and forth. Jack’s idea’s all involve things at school, but I shoot them down. According to Hunter, who Jack texts for us, aside from the grade issue, Lisa’s other biggest worry is what everyone at school will say about them. A grand gesture at school is only going to make it worse.

  “I think we need to call in the big guns.” I say, after the worst idea yet—Katy suggested that Hunter decorate her lawn with a hundred roses. I unlock my phone screen and scroll through my contacts. “I’m calling Olivia.”

  “Hannah?” her voice answers almost immediately. “What’s up?”

  “Did you see Lisa in class today?”

  “Um yeah. Where were you and Katy? Ms. Parker said you had the flu?”

  “Oh...uh…yeah.”

  “Oh my god, Banana, did you play hooky? I’m so proud of you!”

  Not the reaction I was expecting, but I’m glad to know she’s not mad about it.

  Olivia keeps talking, not letting me answer. “Yes, I saw Lisa and she’s a mess. You guys need to sort yourselves out. Have you talked to Katy? Lisa is super upset about that whole situation.”

  “Um, yeah. She’s actually right here.”

  “Put me on speaker phone, I have words for you guys.”

  “Hang on, we’re in public.” I cover the microphone with my thumb. “She wants to talk to you too, can we go to the car or something so I can put her on speakerphone?”

  “Let’s go over there,” Jack points to a patch of grass off to the side of the food court.

  Once we get settled, I put my phone down on the grass and tap the speakerphone button. “Okay, you’re on speaker. Jack’s here too, by the way.”

  “Perfect, I can yell at all of you at once.” Olivia’s voice comes up from my phone. Jack is barely containing his laughter, Katy looks like she’s going to throw up, and I’m sure my own face is betraying my ridiculous state of giddy happiness and utter terror at what Olivia’s about to say. “First of all, Katy,” Katy gulps. “You’re being an idiot. Lisa dating Hunter isn’t going to make you lose a friend. Um, hello? You do realize that this means she’s more likely to hang out at your house, right? You owe her an apology.”

  “I know,” Katy’s voice is small and meek, the complete opposite of her normal. “I panicked. I don’t know. But I know that now and I’m going to make it up to her, I promise.”

  Olivia is silent for a moment before I hear her make an approving noise. “Right, okay. Next.”

  I meet Jack’s eyes, not sure which of us is going to get it next.

  “Jack, you’re an idiot in general.” Phew. “I don’t blame you for anything other than not telling me about Hunter. You could have saved us all a lot of trouble if you’d just told me.”

  Jack shrugs, not that Olivia can see him. “I’m not sorry, it wasn’t my place to tell. Hunter asked me not to say anything, so I didn’t. You can’t be mad at me for that.”

  “Ugh, fine.” I can hear the annoyance in Olivia’s voice. Bracing myself for her next words, I wait for her to speak again. “Banana. You know you’re being a total hypocrite, right?”

  “Yeah. That’s why I have to fix this. Can you help us brainstorm a plan to get them together?”

  “I’m not promising to help until you all promise to apologize properly. In person. Don’t be like me and pretend you don’t have to,” she adds.

  “We will.” I look around, making eye contact with Katy and Jack. Katy nods, and adds her own affirmation.

  “I’ll apologize to Hunter, but not Lisa. She doesn’t even know I’m involved, if I say anything to her it’s only going to make it worse,” Jack says with a shrug.

  “Fair. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Lisa

  “Tadiama!” I call quietly as I toe my shoes off inside the door. The
clock on the wall reads after nine, so I tiptoe into the house. Peeking my head in the living room, there’s my mom, tapping away at her laptop. “Hi, Mom,” I add, since I don’t think she heard me come in.

  “Okaerinasai,” she says automatically, not looking up from her screen.

  “Are you busy?” I have to do this now, before I lose my nerve. The hot chocolate I had with Olivia churns in my belly.

  Looking up, my mom studies my face for a moment before closing her laptop. Eyes focused on me, she nods. “What is it, are you okay?”

  While I was driving home, I decided that telling my mom the truth is the only thing I can do. Tell her the truth and ask for what I want. It can’t be that hard, right?

  “You know the PSB deadline is Saturday, right?” She nods, so I continue. “The deal was I could go as long as I have a ninety-five in all my classes on Friday, right?”

  “Right. Do you?”

  “Have a ninety-five? Until Monday I did.”

  “What happened on Monday?”

  “I got a seven out of ten on a quiz in my AP Chemistry class which dropped my grade to a ninety-four-point-eight.” I let my mom see the frustration in my eyes as I take a breath, willing my stomach to stop churning. “My partner and I are going to turn in our project tomorrow so that Mr. Fitzgerald can grade it early and add it to the gradebook by Friday.”

  “And you feel confident that you’ll receive a high enough grade to make up those two tenths of a point?”

  “I hope so. I think we’re going to get an A on it, no matter what. We’ve put a lot of time and energy into the project—”

  “Yes, I know. You’ve been seeing a lot of this chemistry partner,” my mom interrupts.

  I blush, reminded that not all of the time we’ve spent together has been spent working on the project.

  “What I wanted to ask is if you’ll give me permission to go, even if I don’t get my chemistry grade up to a ninety-five. I know that wasn’t part of the deal, but I’ve worked so hard Mom, and it will still be an A, no matter what. I want to go to PSB more than anything, to have a chance to train like a serious ballet student. If I never have a chance to see where I stand in the wider ballet world, I’ll never know how good I really am.”

  Purposefully, I don’t say anything about wanting to make ballet my career. I’m brave, but I don’t think I can come out and say that yet. The arguments I worked out in the car, the reasons I want her to let me go sound flimsy now that I say them out loud, but I hold tight to my desire to do this and hope.

  “So even though you don’t have the exact grades we agreed upon, because you have fulfilled all but one thing you’re debating, no… negotiating, to get what you want?”

  Well, when she says it like that, doubts that I’m doing the right thing begin to creep in. “Yes?” I say slowly, not sure what the right answer is.

  “Do you know how often my programs fulfill one hundred percent of the ideas originally pitched for them?” She’s switched to speaking in Japanese now, so I do as well.

  “Ummmmm, most of the time?” I guess, not sure where the change in topic came from.

  Mom shakes her head. “Almost never. When we begin planning, every possible wish is laid out and a lot of them are for features or abilities that no one has ever tried to do before. As we work on a project, things get dropped off the list. Sometimes it’s because we run out of time, or resources. Sometimes two features are just incompatible with each other. The end product is never exactly what we planned. Oftentimes it’s better, because of new things we discovered along the way, but it never has every single feature we pitched in the beginning.”

  Hope is blooming in my heart, but I keep a tight rein on it, in case she isn’t going where I think she’s going with her speech.

  “Your dad and I discussed it last night. You have worked so hard and done a good job on keeping your grades up. You’ve proven to be responsible and trustworthy. Even when you started being more social than you have in the past, you didn’t let it affect your grades.”

  Please say yes. Oh please, please, please say yes.

  Without saying anything, my mom opens her laptop back up and clicks on something. Wait? That’s it? She didn’t give me an answer yet. My mom may be strict, but she’s never been cruel. Confused, I sit, staring at her as she turns the laptop to face me.

  The screen is open to the PSB webpage, in large, all-caps letters across the top of the screen are the words “THANK YOU FOR CONFIRMING YOUR ACCEPTANCE”

  “Really?” I leap up out of my seat to hug my mom. “Really, truly? I’m going?” It hasn’t sunk in, I’m actually going to get to go? All the work, all the stress, all the late nights studying. I’m so relieved I want to cry.

  “Yes, you are going. I know your dad and I are tough on you, but we do want you to be happy, you know?” Mom strokes my hair lightly, something she hasn’t done in a long time. “Your dancing gives you joy, I wouldn’t want to take that away from you, especially when you’ve earned the chance to go.”

  “Thank you, thank you!” I say, hugging her tight. Eventually, I pull away.

  “You better go tell your friends. And your Chemistry partner. He was very worried about you when he stopped by earlier. He’s Katy’s brother, right?”

  All my thoughts come screeching to a halt. “Um, did you say Hunter stopped by?”

  “Yes, he dropped off your chemistry project so you could check it over before you turn it in tomorrow. He said he finished it, but knew you would want to double check his work. He stayed for tea. Very nice young man. Did you know he wants to work at SpaceX one day? He was very excited when I suggested he meet your father.”

  Did my mom wink at me?

  When did my life become the twilight zone?

  Stunned, I sit there until my mom nudges me. “I had Ray put it up in your room, it’s getting late, go get started checking it before you go to bed.”

  “Goodnight, Mom, and thank you. For everything.” I lean down to kiss her cheek.

  “Goodnight, Lisa, don’t stay up too late.” She kisses my cheek in return before turning her eyes back to her computer, already typing by the time I’ve walked out.

  There are so many thoughts floating through my brain I can’t focus on a single one.

  I’m going to PSB.

  My mom apparently likes Hunter?

  Hunter finished the project for us?

  I’m going to get to dance all summer.

  I float up to my room on a cloud, even my heavy dance bag doesn’t weigh me down. Opening the door to my room, there’s a small binder sitting on my desk, the finished project from Hunter. But I have some people to text before I can concentrate on looking through it.

  Pulling out my phone, I stare at my messages, not sure who to text first. Do I tell the girls I’m going to PSB? Or do I thank Hunter for finishing the project? Before I can make up my mind, my phone lights up with an incoming Facetime from Hannah.

  “Hey, I wasn’t sure you’d pick up,” Hannah says, already looking worried.

  “Hi. Actually, I was about to text you.”

  “You were? Is everything okay? Wait, Hang on. Before you tell me anything, I need to apologize.” Wow, that wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Hannah keeps talking, not letting me get a word in. “I was being such a hypocrite Lisa, I’m so sorry. I was so busy telling you not to date Hunter, even though I was practically dating Trevor, that I didn’t even stop to think about it.”

  “Was?” Hannah’s answering smile tells me there’s a story there I want to hear.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry I was such a terrible friend. Can you forgive me?”

  I smile back at her. “I was really mad at you. It just felt like you got everything you wanted. I know, I know that’s not true,” I say when Hannah opens her mouth to protest. “But it felt like it. Your parents support your dreams, mine only se
em to care about my grades.” Hannah tries to interrupt again, but I hold up a hand to stop her, not done speaking. “To top it all off, you have this perfect thing with Trevor—he’s a thousand miles away. He can’t distract you, not the way Hunter distracts me. So yeah, I got mad when you told me not to date him.” I shrug.

  “But of course I forgive you. Besides,” and now I grin. “We can’t be mad at each other if we’re going to be dancing together at PSB all summer!”

  “Did your parents…? Did they say yes already?” Hannah’s voice gets louder and louder with each question. Laughing, I fall back on my bed.

  “I talked to my mom tonight. Well, first I talked to Olivia, she gave me some good advice, and then I talked to my mom when I got home.”

  Hannah laughs. “When did you talk to Olivia? We talked to her too and she just yelled at us.”

  “We?”

  “I, uh, was hanging out with Katy and Jack. This afternoon.” At least Hannah has the grace to look embarrassed. When I think of how lonely I was in class tonight, how worried Ms. Parker was because she thought they were actually sick, I can’t stop the hurt that creeps back into my tone.

  “You and Katy skipped class together? To go hang out?” I don’t say without me out loud, but I know Hannah is thinking it, the same as I am.

  At my accusation, Hannah’s cheeks go bright red. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t want to go to class because I…It sounds so stupid now. I didn’t want to go because I was still upset over everything that happened in New York. But I was home, and I honestly didn’t feel good, I swear. Then Katy showed up with Jack and they dragged me out with them. We didn’t plan it on purpose or anything.”

  “Is that why you haven’t been to class all week? The week before recital? I thought for sure you would come straight to class from the airport on Tuesday.”

  Hannah looks away from the camera, picking at something on her bed. “Yeah. I know it’s dumb. But I couldn’t do it. I don’t know. I think I was embarrassed or something.”

  “What were you embarrassed of? We are all so proud of you! We wanted to celebrate with you when you came back, hear about the amazing classes you got to take, the teachers and dancers you got to meet. I don’t understand.” I would have come home shouting from the rooftops about the cool things I got to do in New York, not hiding away because I didn’t win. “You don’t think we care that you didn’t win, do you? You were in the finals, Han, that’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.”