by Wendy Mass
“Your mom should be here in a minute,” she says, shuffling through one of the piles of paper that didn’t seem to have gotten any smaller since this morning. “So I can also assume you and your friend straightened out the note situation this morning?”
I scoot down the bench to see her better. “What do you mean?” “I’m sorry I read it, I didn’t mean to.”
“Read what?”
“The note you gave me.”
Why is she apologizing for reading my absence note? I feel like I’m in one of those dreams where two people are talking but the conversation doesn’t make any sense.
“I have to go into a staff meeting now,” Mrs. Lombardo says, picking up a few folders from her desk. She pushes herself up and heads through the back door. “You’ll have to work this out between yourselves.”
“Wait!” I call after her. “Work what out? Between who?” The door swings shut and I’m alone for about two seconds before my mother walks in, carrying a big white bakery box.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she says with a big smile. “I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d drop these off for you to hand out to your class. You know, for your birthday and because you passed your driver’s test.”
I stare at her.
“You okay?” she asks.
I put my hands on my hips and firmly plant my feet. “No, I am not ok. I’ve just been pulled out of play tryouts where I had to be the first to audition and everyone’s trying out for the same parts, I just had a very bizarre conversation with the school secretary, Megan may be throwing up her cucumber sandwiches, I’ve broken five of the seven deadly sins in as many hours, a demon may be inside a girl in my world religions class, Grant Brawner called me by name, my license photo looks like a dead fish, I have to drive my friends all over town in two hours when I’ve never even driven without Dad before, none of my birthday wishes have come true yet, and now you’re here with muffins like I’m in second grade? So, no, I am not okay.”
The taken-aback look on my mom’s face clearly says not only am I not okay, I may actually be insane. She places the box gently on the counter and tentatively reaches out and pats me on the head like I’m a little girl.
“Into every life a little rain must fall,” she says in the soothing voice she used to read me to sleep with when I was little. “I know you’re not in second grade, but everyone likes muffins, and like I said, I was in the neighborhood. I made more than necessary for the luncheon I catered today. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I glance up at the clock on the office wall. There’s only a few minutes left in the period and I don’t want to miss any more of the auditions. Now, of course, I feel bad because she was just trying to do something nice and I lashed out. Maybe this is why she doesn’t usually ask me what’s wrong.
“No, it’s not you,” I tell her, picking up the box. “This was very nice. I’m sure everyone will love them.”
I balance the box on my hip while I open the door, but Mom doesn’t move to follow me out.
“One more thing,” she says. “When your father dropped you off after the test, did he say where he was going this afternoon?”
“No. Why?”
She shakes her head and shrugs a bit. “I picked up a strange phone message for him, but I can’t reach him on his cell.”
“Who called?”
“The woman said she was calling from City Hall and wanted your father to call her back. It was all very vague.”
I try to recall if he said anything about where he was going, but I don’t think he did. He had been acting a little strange, with all that talk about dreams, but he didn’t mention anything about City Hall.
“Is City Hall where the jail is?” I joke. “Maybe Dad’s secret life has caught up with him.”
Her head tilts. “What secret life?”
“Haven’t you noticed he’s been sort of secretive for the last two weeks? He’s not around the house when we get home from school anymore, either.”
Mom shakes her head. “I didn’t know that. I’ve been working so much.”
“He’s probably just bored because he doesn’t have a job, so he’s out more.”
She nods. “Probably.”
I glance at the office clock again and she gets the hint. She gives me a squeeze on the arm and says she’ll see me for dinner. That’s my mom. Not even asking where I’m going to be after school. Sometimes I think she wants to ask, like it’s on the tip of her tongue, but she almost never does.
I’m about to push open the auditorium door when I decide that
I don’t actually want to hear any more of the auditions after all. If pressed, I wouldn’t be able to explain why. I leave the box of muffins next to the door and take the closest stairs two at a time. Mr. Simon has a free period now and the photography room is empty. He never locks the darkroom so I shouldn’t have any trouble picking up my photo from this morning. I turn the knob and start to push the door open when I hear, “Hey, don’t you see the light on?” I quickly look up and see that the red light above the door is indeed lit, indicating someone is using the darkroom. But by this time some light has already been let in. Any damage has already been done.
“Sorry ’bout that,” I say, and walk the rest of the way in. To my surprise Greg Adler is standing over one of the photo trays, tongs in hand. “What are you doing? Extra credit?”
Greg just looks at me. “Something like that. What are you doing here?”
I point up at the clothesline. “I came for my picture. It’s hanging right over your head.”
He reaches up and pulls off the photo, handing it to me. There are a couple of streaks over Katy’s and Zoey’s faces from where the chemicals dripped, but other than that it looks as good as I remember it.
“Thanks,” I say, turning to leave. “Sorry I ruined your picture.” “It’s okay,” he mumbles. “I can make another one.”
The dismissal bell rang while I was in the darkroom, so I no longer have the halls to myself. It can’t have been more than five minutes since I left the box by the auditorium door, but when I pick it up it’s a lot lighter than I remember. I flip the top open and find only crumbs and a pink birthday candle. After carefully tucking the candle into one of my pants pockets, I toss the box into a nearby trash bin. I feel a twinge of guilt that I let the muffins get stolen after Mom went to all that trouble. I’ll have to double-check to see if carelessness is one of the seven deadlies.
Luckily by this time Mr. Polansky is calling up the boys. I take a seat in the last row and try to decide who would make the cutest Romeo. The boys are lucky. There are a lot of good boy parts in the play. Finally everyone has had a turn, and Mr. Polansky announces that the results will be up on the school Web site by midnight. I hurry down to the front to grab my bookbag and Megan joins me.
“So why did Mrs. Lombardo come get you?” Megan asks. We head out to wait for her mother in front of the school.
“My mother came and dropped off a box of muffins for my birthday.”
“Like you were in second grade?”
“That’s what I said!”
“But it was still nice.”
“Yeah, it was. But someone stole them from outside the auditorium door.”
“That sucks.”
“I hope whoever ate them enjoyed them.”
“I don’t,” Megan says matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, me neither.” We sit down on the front steps to wait. After a minute I ask, “So how were the other girls?”
Megan pauses. “They were okay. It’s hard to tell, you know, just from that short piece. But don’t worry, you were one of the best ones.”
I manage a small smile. Some people think Megan is self-absorbed, but I think she’s a good friend.
“But,” she adds, “there are good roles besides Juliet, you know.”
“Definitely!” I say with more enthusiasm than I actually feel. But I don’t want to let Megan down. The best she can hope for from her performance is probably Juliet’s moth
er, Lady Capulet.
Megan’s mother pulls up, and on the way to Katy’s house Megan tells her it’s my birthday today.
“Yes, I knew that,” she says. “I spoke to Josie’s mother this morning.”
“You did?” I knew my mom had threatened to call her about Megan not eating anything, but I never thought she’d really do it.
“Yes,” Megan’s mom says. “We had a nice conversation.”
She doesn’t say anything more, so neither do I. Megan is oblivious to us, softly singing to herself, “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast.” She really has a beautiful voice. It’s a good thing she hadn’t tried out for Anna last fall or I never would have gotten the part.
2:20 P.M. – 3:30 P.M.
Chapter 7B: Everyone
Jennifer Bloom waits for Mr. Polansky to call out the next emotion. Right now they are in the middle of “fear,” and she’s picturing herself dying in her bed alone because she heard Brad is going to break up with her after auditions today. She heard this from a friend who heard it from her sister who heard it from Brad’s brother who heard Brad talking on the phone. She can’t imagine why he would do it. They have been happily together since middle school. They won “Best Couple” in their eighth-grade year-book. Maybe he’s tired of her. Maybe he wants someone who looks more exotic and curvy, like Megan over there.
Brad White watches Jennifer out of the corner of his eye. Her face is pale and haunted-looking. He wonders what she is imagining. Fear is an easy emotion for him to do. He just pictures Jennifer breaking up with him before he finally has persuaded her to have sex, and then he has to start all over with another girl. Not that he doesn’t love Jennifer — he very much does. But still, it’s been a long time of just kissing and touching.
Mr. Polansky calls out “Love,” and Jennifer can’t help but turn toward Brad. All of her memories of him holding her in his arms, whispering how beautiful she is, the time he won her the huge stuffed turtle at the county fair, all of it shows on her face and she feels like she’s melting.
Brad immediately turns to Jennifer when he hears that “love” is the next emotion. He thinks of the times she allowed his hands to wander, the times she made him chocolate chip cookies with M&M’s hidden inside, the time she cheered him on when he tossed a ring onto a Coke bottle and won her a huge stuffed turtle. The next thing he knows they are kissing, right there on the stage, in front of everyone.
Jennifer is the first to pull away when she hears Mr. Polansky clapping at them. She has never loved Brad more or been surer that he loves her too. The grapevine must have been wrong. He would never break up with her.
Jennifer is right, Brad will never break up with her. But a year from now, Jennifer will break up with him when she finds him in the second-floor janitor’s closet with a freshman girl named Candy. Jennifer will leave school for the day without telling the office. She will go straight home to cut Brad’s head out of four years of photographs.
Mr. Polansky holds his breath while Josie performs. He’s glad she wound up going first so that each performance will have to measure up to hers. It will help him judge better. He can tell she’s upset by the way he structured the audition, but she still gives a fine performance. She really does come alive up there. He wishes he could focus only on what would be best for the play itself, without having to worry about the kids’ feelings on top of it. But he can’t. He feels like it’s part of his job to help shape them like they are balls of clay. His decisions have the power to affect the rest of their lives. He has to tread carefully.
After Josie leaves with Mrs. Lombardo, Megan watches the rest of the auditions. She can’t imagine how Mr. Polansky will make his choice between Josie and the two senior girls. She leans forward and tries to peer over his shoulder to read his notes, but he’s covering them with his arm. Last fall Mr. Polansky had told her that her singing voice was the strongest in the play and that she should have auditioned for Anna. Maybe that’s why he organized it differently this year, so people couldn’t decide what roles to try for. But she and Josie had made a deal, and Josie wants Juliet more than her. It’s almost like Josie needs it with a kind of need that scares Megan a little, and she’s not easily scared. With her peasant blouse on, Megan had really felt like Juliet. For about one minute she had thought about just going for it. But she couldn’t. Somewhere deep inside, Megan knows this won’t be the last time she’ll have to make the choice.
Josie’s mom walks slowly down the school steps toward her station wagon. When Josie turned thirteen, her mom had made a conscious decision to be a more hands-off type of mother than her own was. That way, she figured Josie wouldn’t resent her the way she had resented her own mother. She can still hear her mother’s voice ringing in her ears. A little lipstick wouldn’t kill you; you want a boyfriend someday, don’t you? Where are you going? Did you do all your homework? I don’t want you hanging out with that girl. Those pants are too tight for you. And on and on and on. By the time she was grown up and out of the house her mother no longer judged or criticized her every move. But the damage had been done. She figures if she leaves Josie alone, they can be friends after the teen years are over. One of the women at the catering hall keeps tabs on her daughter by reading her daughter’s diary every day after she leaves for school. Josie’s mom thinks that’s a terrible invasion of privacy. Back in the office, it was all she could do not to laugh when Josie rattled off her laundry list of teenage woes. She almost said, “Snap out of it. You won’t even remember half this stuff in a year.” But she didn’t want to seem unfeeling, especially not today. She can’t help it if once every four years she goes overboard to make sure Josie’s Leap Day birthday is special. On this one day she can forget Josie is growing up and changing every day, right under her nose.
Mrs. Lombardo hurries out of her staff meeting to use the copier in the library because the one in the office is broken again. On her way she sees a big white box sitting on the floor by the auditorium doors. Intrigued, she bends down, creaking as she goes, and lifts the top. Muffins! Why would someone leave a perfectly good box of what appear to be homemade muffins in the middle of the hall? A trash can is not so much as two feet away! Kids are so lazy. She picks up the box and is about to toss it when she suddenly changes direction and heads back into her meeting. The office staff gobbles down the muffins, and one of them points to a candle on the bottom of the box. Mrs. Lombardo peeks in and suddenly is not so confident that the box was intended as garbage. She excuses herself again and returns it to the exact spot she took it from. She hurries to the office without looking back. The photocopies can wait.
Greg Adler is rendered speechless when Josie Taylor, of all people, walks into the darkroom. Darn Mr. Simon and his no-lock-on-the-door policy! Greg quickly turns toward her so that his body blocks his tray. He can only hope that in the inky darkness she won’t be able to see that he had used her negative to develop another copy of her photo with Zoey in it. He hadn’t even known he was going to do it until a few minutes ago. He had gotten permission to use Mr. Simon’s empty room to practice his bar mitzvah material, since he had study hall this period anyway. And then he went into the darkroom to check on his own picture and the next thing he knew, he couldn’t stop staring at Zoey and her stupid hot dog.
Josie finally leaves and Greg breathes a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to tell her that she hadn’t ruined his picture, because he was afraid she would want to see it. He swishes it around in the solution for another minute and then carefully lifts it out. Since he can’t very well hang it to dry, he waves it in the air for a few minutes and then sticks it between the pages of his notebook. When he gets home he’ll find that most of the photo is stuck to the notebook paper except for the picnic table, the hot dog, and Zoey’s arm.
3:57 P.M.– 5:10 P.M.
Chapter 8A: Josie
“It’s about time you guys got here,” Zoey says, tapping her watch. “Only three more minutes to go.”
Katy swings aro
und in her desk chair to face us. The school Web site is up on her computer. “So how did the audition go?”
“Pretty good, I guess,” I tell her, not wanting to talk about it. “Don’t listen to her,” Megan says. “Josie was great.”
“So were you,” I reply, even though we both know she wasn’t. “When do you find out?” Katy asks, keeping one eye on her computer screen. She hits the refresh button, but it’s still not there yet.
“Tonight. By midnight.”
I pull out the picture of Zoey and Katy, and while they are oohing and ahhing at it, I take my gift from Niki out of my bag and climb onto Katy’s bed. Using my new car key, I slit open the tape on the box. The card on top reads, “To my favorite leapmate on our fourth birthday, just a little something I thought you could use to even things out.” To even things out? What does that mean? I dig through a layer of squishy packing peanuts and pull out a small purple tube. How strange. I turn it over in my hand until I find the even-smaller label.
Breast Boost
Rub this lavender-scented lotion onto your breasts each night before bed to achieve fullness and growth. Guaranteed!
I immediately thrust the tube back in the box, hoping no one saw it. Luckily they are still watching the screen. I should be grateful I didn’t open the box in the car when Dad gave it to me. As high as my embarrassment threshold is, it ain’t high enough for that.
“It’s up!” Zoey squeals. “Quick, turn on the printer.”
I push the small box into the bottom of my bookbag and join them by the desk. At least now I know what I’ll be doing before bed tonight.
The screen blinks the words: “The Orlando High Sophomore Scavenger Hunt,” in our school colors, purple on a bright yellow background. I am suddenly excited to do this. There aren’t too many good things about being a sophomore, but the scavenger hunt is one of them. Plus, it will take my mind off the play. It’s nice to have a much-needed break from focusing on myself. As we wait for the list to print, Katy reads the rules out loud.
