“You know it.” We’d reached the end of the hall, where it split in a T. My locker was to the right. The school exit and the sweet freedom it offered were to the left. “Coming with us?” he asked.
I smiled and nodded. “You know it.”
He dashed off without another word.
On my way out of the school, I took a detour and walked past the auditorium. Two sets of red double doors were set into the concrete walls, one for the lower-level seats and one for the balcony. Both were propped open, and I nearly turned back and went another way. I didn’t want anybody to see me. Voices drifted out of the auditorium, and I could hear the sound of hammering and the whirring of a drill. Light music filtered from the auditorium speakers.
I didn’t break my stride, just turned and peered in through the door as I passed. I briefly caught sight of the stage and of the group of kids working on a castle set. Tapestries were being painted on one wall. An ornate frame was being hung on another.
Kat was there, standing near the wall, paintbrush in hand.
I couldn’t tell if she was happy or not.
Seeing her made my heart hurt a little.
•••
Union Skatepark wasn’t much to look at. It was basically a hollowed-out abandoned warehouse where someone had constructed a bunch of ramps and stuff. Black metal pulsed through the warehouse, echoed off the walls, vibrated in my chest. It was actually kind of nauseating. I immediately wanted to turn back around and leave. Then I saw Grady and a couple of other skaters in a tattered booth, their arms gesturing wildly as they tried to impress one another with their boarding exploits.
Grady saw me approach, nodded his head. Another skater, Ramona, turned in her seat. She was wearing an Akira T-shirt and a ball cap pulled low over her hair. “Where’s your deck, Dessa?” she asked. She had to shout to be heard over the music. She asked me this every time I showed up at Union to hang, even though she knew I didn’t own a skateboard.
I’ve only set foot on a board once, and it didn’t end well for me. I still had a tiny scar on my right elbow where I’d whacked the cement ledge surrounding the fountain in Brookstone Park.
I flipped Ramona a one-finger salute.
“Anybody wanna hit the half-pipe?” Grady asked, not even looking in my direction even though I just talked to him back at school.
“Let’s do it.” Ramona stood on the booth, looking like a gymnast as she dismounted onto the cement floor. She kicked her deck up into her hand. “Kick back and enjoy the show, D,” she said to me. Then she brushed past me and rode out to the ramp. Grady and the others followed.
So I sat in a booth, all by myself. I watched as the crew of skaters practiced their moves. They landed some, bailed on others. Vic Lewis, a tall, dreadlocked dude with a video camera and a booming laugh, recorded them as they flipped their boards in the air or slammed their knees on the wooden ramps. I bought myself a fountain soda large enough to swim inside. I tried not to let the pulsing music get to me.
Most of all, I wondered why I was even there in the first place.
My mind was on Kat the whole time.
I couldn’t stop thinking of her, working alongside a new group of friends. Did they know? Did anyone know, other than Arwen?
“This is so dumb,” I said to myself, shaking my head and standing. I was sitting around, insanely bored, being a selfish little brat and hanging out with people I didn’t even care about.
And so I left Union in my wake, not turning back. Nobody saw me leave.
•••
The walk back to the school took about thirty minutes. By the time I reached the door by the dumpsters, the sun had dipped low in the sky and most of the people in town were probably sitting down to dinner with their families. I didn’t know if the drama dorks were even at school anymore, but I wanted to check anyway.
I’d tried texting Kat on my way, but I hadn’t gotten an answer.
As I approached, I noticed the door had been propped open with a cement block. Pieces of large poster board and debris jutted out of an open dumpster. One of the theater dorks, a short, stocky kid, was chucking what looked like a fake boulder made out of Styrofoam into it. The sight of it was actually pretty comical.
The kid turned to face me. He had thick glasses and close-cropped black hair. I recognized him from the halls, but I didn’t know his name. I was pretty sure he was a freshman. Flecks of white paint coated his shirt, hands, and arms.
“Greetings and salutations,” he said.
“What’s up?” I answered.
He shrugged and said with a smirk, “Another day toiling for the Capulets.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“I’m Quan, bee-tee-double-u,” he said.
“Dessa.”
“I know. You’re Kat Beckford’s friend, right? Dessa?”
“Yeah.”
“Kat’s crazy cool.”
Quan held the door open for me, which was strange. Who does that? Well, Quan the Freshman, apparently. “After you, m’lady,” he said.
I was a little weirded out, but considering the complete apathy that had greeted me at Union Park, a little bit of weird was totally fine.
I walked through the same backstage door I’d used not even a week ago, when I’d accidentally stumbled onto Kat’s secret. Quan was behind me, humming a tune and snapping his fingers.
The backstage area was still dark. Instead of music wafting through the speakers, I heard booming voices amplified through the empty auditorium.
“Hark!” a male voice called. “What light through yonder window breaks?”
“They’re rehearsing Act Two right now,” Quan whispered from behind me. “Kat’s stage left. We’re painting the Capulet castle interior. Follow me.”
As the actors on stage continued their performance, Quan led me behind the framework for the set being used. I could see the actress playing Juliet standing on a ledge up above. I didn’t know much about Romeo & Juliet, aside from seeing the DiCaprio movie on TV once when Kat and I were bored and just wanted to watch eye candy. I recognized this scene, though. It’s the one where Romeo wishes to be a glove or something.
A work area had been set up on the opposite side of the backstage area. A spotlight on the floor cast a striking glow on a set piece where three other people stood on ladders or knelt on the floor with paintbrushes.
I spied Arwen near the curtain, her eyes fixed on the actors on stage. Her hefty binder was open in her hands. She’d positioned a large pair of headphones with a mouthpiece on her head. She followed along with the actors, one finger tracing the script page in her binder. She glanced up at the lights, cupped her hand over the mic, and whispered something. A second later, the lights dimmed just a bit.
Kat was on one of the ladders, her back turned to me. I waited silently while Quan walked up and waved his arms at her. She looked down, then over, then saw me.
Her eyes lit up.
She dropped her paintbrush into a bucket perched precariously on the ladder’s ledge, then climbed down. She almost fell but leapt from the last rung.
“Dessa!” she whisper-shouted. A few of the other kids turned to look at us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arwen’s gaze leave the stage to focus on me and Kat for a moment.
We hugged, and it was like all the pain and the anger washed away. It was just what I needed.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Kat said. “I don’t even know why we were fighting in the first place.”
I do.
“Me neither,” I said with a smile.
Our hug lasted a bit longer than hugs usually do, but neither of us cared. Then Kat drew back and held me at arm’s length. “You’re gonna have fun, I promise,” she said.
I looked around. “Where do I start?”
Quan stepped up and handed me a paintbrush, like he had it ready and knew exactly what I was going to say. “M’lady.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said.
Then, with a grin beaming on her
face, Kat explained what she and the others were painting. I hung my backpack on a hook near a line of ropes and sandbags, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.
CHAPTER FOUR
Last winter, the drama club put on a performance of a musical called Fiddler on the Roof. I didn’t see the play. Kat and I had better things to do with our nights, like sneak out of her dad’s place to go party with Coen, Luke, and a bunch of seniors. But one morning, we all got out of first period to go down to the auditorium to watch a scene. Mr. Baker, the advanced English teacher and the play’s director, had introduced the performance. The curtains parted, and what looked like a poor village appeared.
The theater geeks hopped and danced and spun around and sang, all while wearing thick woolen clothes lined with fur and hats with fur flaps. The whole time I was watching, the only thing I could think was ...
“They look so hot and sweaty under the lights.”
“I know, right?” Kat whispered from beside me. “The short one looks like he’s going to pass out.”
“God, I hope he doesn’t keel over and fall off the stage,” I said, snickering.
I thought about that morning as I stood backstage, paintbrush in hand, watching the two actors playing Romeo and Juliet. They faced each other center stage, about thirty feet from me, holding hands and staring deeply into one another’s eyes. The boy playing Romeo was William Tuttle. Everyone knew Will. Class president, debate team captain, a voice for the students. Even the students who didn’t care, like me and Kat. Tall and lean, Will’s coffee-colored skin glistened under the harsh spotlights. Juliet was played by Maisie Bishop, a waif of a girl whose flowing, layered clothes made her look like she already wore a costume.
I found myself enamored as I watched them move about the stage, interacting with the other actors, reading from little pink script books they had secreted in their back pockets. I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to act, to pretend to be someone you’re not in front of seats filled with parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and strangers.
This was also what made me extremely uncomfortable about the whole scenario. Like, I was afraid someone was going to mistake me for a background actor. They’d slap an ill-fitting corset on me and make me stand up on stage in the blazing lights. With my luck, I’d pass out and fall into the seats, like Kat thought the little dude from Fiddler was going to do.
“These violent delights have violent ends,” one of the other actors said to William, while Maisie waited in the wings to make her entrance. She rushed to William and took his hands. They looked comical. He was so tall and dark, and she was so ... well, not.
The voice of Mr. Baker boomed from somewhere in the darkened seats. “All right. Thus ends Act Two. House lights to full.”
William and Maisie let out a breath in unison, their shoulders deflating. “That was so good,” William said.
“You’ve really got the rhythms down,” Maisie told him.
From behind me, Arwen quietly said, “Please bring up the house, Heidi” into her mic.
The lights over the auditorium seats slowly turned on. Mr. Baker sat in the second row, taking notes in his wool coat and barely-tied tie. One light gleamed off his bald head. I didn’t have him as a teacher but I walked by his class every day.
“Great work today, all,” Mr. Baker said, closing his notebook and standing. He adjusted his coat. “Let’s remember for tomorrow, this is the highest moment of joy for our star-crossed lovers. Though their love is a secret, they are beyond happy. They do not know that it will all come crashing down soon enough.”
“Typical teenage love,” William joked. “Am I right?”
His cast mates laughed. Mr. Baker smiled. “Precisely, Mr. Tuttle.” He made a shooing motion with both hands. “That’s all,” he said. “Begone.”
I hadn’t been at my work space too long and hadn’t made much damage, so Kat and I didn’t have too much trouble cleaning up. As we did, Quan buzzed about, directing us where to place our dirty brushes and cans of paint. Kat and I carried our things back to a sink area. As we did, Arwen rushed out from behind the curtain, nearly colliding with Kat.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” Kat said, like she’d never even spoken to Arwen before. Their eyes didn’t linger on one another. There was no indication that they even knew each other’s names. Arwen went on her way, and Kat continued to follow me back toward the sink.
I stacked my can of paint near an open cabinet containing a bunch of supplies. “She seems nice,” I said.
“Who?” Kat asked. “Arwen?”
“Is that her name?”
“Yeah.” Kat dropped her brush into the sink, which was half-filled with hot, soapy water.
And that was it.
No elaboration or anything.
I added my brush to the mix, then followed Kat back to the stage area.
The cast had gathered in the front couple of rows of red auditorium seats. Many of them shrugged on their coats and slung backpacks on their shoulders. Will Tuttle stood in the center of them all, as usual.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said, looking up as Kat and I reached the edge of the stage. He shielded his eyes against the glare of the spotlight still beaming down on us. “Dessa Kingston, is that really you?”
“Hey, Will.” Will and I had known each other since elementary school, but we rarely spoke. Different circles. I knew how much he hated to be called anything but William.
And, right on cue ...
“Huh-uh,” he said. “It’s William, sweetie. Not Will. Not Bill. Not even will.i.am.” He shook his arms at his sides.
I smirked. “Sure thing ... William.”
“Welcome to the DC-ers,” he said.
“The what?” I asked.
“DC-ers. Drama Club. I can draw a diagram if you need it.” He smiled, and I realized that he wasn’t being sarcastic or anything. He was joking around.
I wasn’t used to joking around.
“I’m good,” I said. “I’ve seen your work in art class.”
“Zing,” Quan piped in from behind me.
“Some of us are going over to Pizza Palace,” Maisie said, drinking from a flower-patterned water bottle. “You two wanna join us?”
I looked at Kat. I just wanted to go home, maybe eat a bowl of cereal while ignoring my parents and my two brothers, Isaac and Beckett.
I could see in Kat’s eyes that she felt differently.
“Sure,” I said, voicing Kat’s thoughts because, for some reason, she couldn’t. “Pizza sounds great.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Pizza Palace was one of those restaurants tacked on to the side of the building as an afterthought. A place where people could still eat and not think they’re in a food court or something. This particular restaurant stuck to the side of the Brookstone Mall. Memorabilia from Brookstone’s past covered the walls. A ton of high school football and baseball photos. Images from the time the president visited the snowmobile factory outside of town. Taxidermy fish and deer and other animals thick with dust stared down at you while you devoured a deep-dish pepperoni.
Maybe eight or nine of us rode together over to the mall. Kat and I hitched a ride with Maisie and Arwen and Heidi, the sophomore in the lighting booth. We crammed in Maisie’s tiny, cluttered car. It smelled like vanilla perfume.
Again, I just wanted to go home.
Kat, Arwen, and I were sandwiched in the back, with Kat in the middle. Her leg pressed against Arwen’s, and I kept trying to not be obvious as I watched their reaction to one another. Still, nothing but the occasional friendly phrase or two.
A giant line of windows in Pizza Palace looked out on the mall. A long table ran alongside it. We sat down there, Kat and I facing out toward the other stores. Arwen sat across from Kat, sliding into her chair before someone else could take it. Zombified shoppers moved from one tacky clothing store to the next, all buying the same things, all looking the same way.
“I’m famished,�
�� William declared, plucking a menu from the middle of the table. The waitress, an older lady who looked like she didn’t give two craps about working at a kitschy pizza joint, came over and took our order.
I sucked down my fountain drink, silent among the chatty friends.
“What did you guys think of the advanced chemistry test yesterday?” Quan asked. Even though he was a freshman, the kid was already in senior-level courses. He made me feel dumb.
A few others responded with “easy” and “a breeze.” Which made me feel dumber, since I took the same test and pretty much filled in all the Cs on my Scantron card.
“So, William,” Maisie said, leaning forward in her seat. She had her legs tucked under her bottom and rested both elbows on the table. “Is your boyfriend coming to opening night?”
“He better,” William answered. “And he better have a big old bouquet of flowers with him.”
I knew that William was gay. He made no effort to hide it. “Loud, black, and proud,” was his motto for pretty much everything—and that included being proud of his sexuality.
Our waitress dropped three baskets of breadsticks on our table. I took one and pulled it apart, its melted butter and crusted parm oozing onto my fingers.
“How about you, Arwen?” Maisie pressed. “Any chance this mysterious new lady friend of yours will come to the show?”
My ears perked up. I tried not to glance at Kat, but my eyes darted in her direction nonetheless. She seemed shell-shocked by the question. Thankfully, no one was staring at her but me.
Arwen laughed nervously. She didn’t look at Kat. “We’ll see,” was all she said.
“She exists though, right?” William asked with a smile.
“Yeah, she exists,” Arwen answered. And I could have sworn her eyes flitted over at Kat. They didn’t linger, though. “She’s actually pretty great.”
“Aww,” William said.
And that was it. No elaboration. No awkward follow-up questions. To these guys, Arwen having a girlfriend and William having a boyfriend was NBD. No big deal. But I guess Kat still needed some time.
The conversation shifted to a discussion on Romeo & Juliet. The DC-ers talked about how excited the cast was to get to dress rehearsals and when there would be costumes and makeup and everything would be finalized for the performances. The pizza came, rousing a cheer from the gang. They began to sing some song from a Broadway show I’d never seen, which made me slink down in my seat a bit.
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