Exit Stage Left

by Nall, Gail

  “Very good, Casey,” Ms. Sharp says after I sing the last words to “Climb Every Mountain.” “I knew you’d do well with that song.”

  I glow like a Christmas tree on fire. If I have only one solo, I figure I might as well do the best I can with it. Even if it’ll probably be my last time in the spotlight ever.

  “All right, everyone, good work today! Only two more weeks until showtime. We’re going to push straight through next week. No stopping, no complaining, no sleeping. See you all Monday.”

  “For tech rehearsal,” Hannah shouts over the rising voices in the auditorium. “Monday is tech!”

  I scoop up my backpack from the floor and sling it over my shoulder.

  “Ms. Sharp’s entered drill sergeant mode,” I say when I join Amanda.

  “But she’s right—that really sounded great, Case. I kind of wish she’d tell me I’m doing okay.” Amanda pauses, lost in thought. Then she perks up. “Hey, do you need a ride home? We could stop at Starbucks and drink the biggest, most sugary drinks on the menu.”

  “I can’t. Eric’s going to take me.” I don’t add that he has band rehearsal for another hour, so I may just end up grabbing a ride with Trevor.

  “All right, talk to you later. I’m going to ask Ms. Sharp something about the first scene.” Amanda waves and rushes to catch up to Ms. Sharp.

  I sidle up to Harrison as he’s walking out of the theater. Trevor’s in front of us, joking with the Grimaldi twins—who were once again hanging out at a rehearsal for a play they’re not in. Trevor leans forward and pulls Danielle’s bouncy ponytail. She shrieks like a little kid. Her voice literally makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end. And I wish I hadn’t seen that happen.

  “Poker tomorrow night, Casey,” Harrison reminds me before he pushes open the front door of the school. He pauses. “You know I don’t mind giving you a ride home, right?”

  Translation: Be a good girl and let me take you home so you can’t hang out with the boyfriend I don’t like.

  I give him a sickly sweet smile. “Why, it’s so nice of you to finally understand my driver’s license predicament, Gunther Engelbert. But I fear I must decline your invitation this evening.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Fine. You owe me about two hundred dollars in gas money by now anyway. But seriously, text me if you need anything, okay?”

  “Oooookay,” I drawl out. Honestly, I’m dating a fellow theater geek, not an ex-con.

  “Oh my God, you guys! Only two weeks! Isn’t this fun?! I can’t wait!” Danielle corners Oliver in the lobby. I smirk. At least he can’t trail after me and remind me about his bad feeling.

  I lean back against the concrete wall, wondering where Trevor got off to anyway. The lobby slowly empties out. The Grimaldi twins hurry by, if you can call sauntering hurrying. Steve-o gives me a wink, which is the creepiest thing ever, while Johnny just stares at the floor.

  “Hey, you.”

  I look around and catch a flash of Trevor’s hair from around the hallway.

  “I feel like I’ve barely seen you all week,” he says when I round the corner. He makes a pouting face and I can’t help smiling.

  I give him a light punch on the shoulder. “You must’ve forgotten our rendezvous by the vending machines yesterday.”

  “I mean, like, you and me. Not you, me, and Oliver.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I’m not sure why I’m apologizing for Oliver walking in on our Coke machine make-out session.

  “I could almost swear he did that on purpose,” Trevor says.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.” I need to change the subject. Fast. “I just . . . it’s Amanda. She just seems really unhappy lately.”

  He leans against the lockers and frowns. “Can we not talk about Amanda?”

  She’s my best friend. I feel like I need to talk to someone about her, because I’m not sure how to help her with whatever it is she’s dealing with. Oliver would listen.

  Except I’ve made my decision there. So I draw up a deep breath—like a going-for-a-high-C serious straight-from-the-diaphragm breath—and say, “All right. No Amanda.”

  “Good.” He brushes a finger lightly across my lips and every single nerve in my body stands on end. “Hey, before I get distracted, you want to go to Notes with me on Sunday? I told Johnny I’d scope out the drum kits for him. Could use some company.”

  “Um, will Johnny be there?”

  “No, just you and me. I’ll even buy you dinner.”

  “That’s so thoughtful,” I tease. But really, it’s not something that normally happens. I could count on one hand the number of times he’s bought me anything that costs more than movie popcorn, most of which he eats himself. “I’ll be there.”

  He clasps my hand and draws me closer. So close I can smell the sweet scent of fabric softener in his sweater. He looks down at me, his hair hiding the lockers lining the hallway and everything else that isn’t me and him. The fluorescent light above us flickers, making Trevor’s face look a little purple. Although I suppose mine looks the same, so no judgment there.

  “Now where did we leave off in our vending machine rendezvous?”

  My heart picks up speed. “I think it was right about here.” I reach up and wrap my arms around the back of his neck, pulling his face down to mine.

  I’ll never get tired of this. It crosses my mind—somewhere between him tangling his hand in my hair and me pushing him back against the lockers—that he’s probably going to ask me to come over again. And I have no idea what I’m going to say. I mean, I’ve been over to his house so many times, but somehow I feel like the rules have been rewritten and I don’t know what they are now. Does going over to his place mean more? Somewhere in the space of my brain that hasn’t shut down because of Trevor’s lips, I know exactly where he wants it to end up. But I’m not sure what it is that I want. I wish I could talk to Amanda about it.

  I’m so confused, and this thinking thing isn’t going so well since Trevor’s turned us around so that my back is pressed against the cold metal lockers and there is literally no space at all between us. So I give up trying and let him take over all my senses.

  Until I hear the crying.

  “Wait,” I say against his lips. “Is that someone crying?”

  He makes some kind of noncommittal sound and kisses me again.

  And someone sobs.

  I move a hand up between us. “No, that is crying.” I can’t just stand here sandwiched against Trevor while someone is so upset that they’re crying in an empty school hallway. He doesn’t really move, so I push a bit more before I slide out from where I’m pinned between him and the lockers.

  Trevor thumps his forehead against the locker next to me. “Are you kidding me right now?” he says under his breath.

  “It’s coming from down there.” I point to the corner. I take a few steps and realize he’s not following me. So I motion to him, and finally, after heaving the loudest sigh ever, he moves forward. We round the corner and spot the person right away, huddled up in a ball against the lockers, blond hair streaming around her face.

  It’s Amanda.

  I give Trevor a worried look that he doesn’t return. “Amanda?” I say quietly.

  She doesn’t answer, so I squat beside her and rest a hand on her back. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t do it. Any of it.”

  “What, the show?”

  “You’re not quitting the show,” Trevor says from above us. “You can’t. It’s too late.” He drops his voice and says, a little more quietly but not so much that Amanda can’t hear, “I told you Ms. Sharp should’ve cast you, Case.”

  I give him a good glare that I hope says, Be nice.

  Amanda jerks her head up, spots him, and begins swiping at her tears.

  “I have to go.” She leaps up and is down the hall before I can say anything else.

  “She’s a head case,” Trevor says. “She can’t take the pressure, and if she doesn’t
pull it together, the whole show is going to be a goddamn train wreck.” He reaches for my arm to pull back me back to him.

  Except I’m seriously not in the mood right now. I step away from him. “She was really upset.” I put my hands to my forehead, as if that’s going to give me the answer to help Amanda. “I should go. Can you take me home?”

  His face is a cross between irritation and disappointment, but right now, the only person I’m worried about is Amanda.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Where’s Amanda?” Harrison looks at the crooked clock in his uncle Bart’s tiny kitchen for the four hundredth time.

  “I don’t think she’s coming,” I say as I balance a card on its side. It falls over the second I let it go. I peel it off the sticky table.

  “Why? I’ll text her and see where she is. She can’t possibly be doing anything more important than playing poker.” Harrison pulls his phone from his pocket and starts texting.

  “Good luck hearing back. She hasn’t answered any of my texts. And when I went to her house, her mom told me she didn’t want any company.”

  Harrison looks up from his phone and adjusts his glasses, waiting for an explanation.

  I tap the edges of the cards against the table. “Yesterday after rehearsal, she was in the hallway. Crying.”

  “Why?”

  I sigh. “I don’t know, but I’m worried about her. She’s been really stressed about the show. But it’s more than that. I think she still has a thing for Trevor. Because when he said—”

  But Harrison cuts me off. “No, I think she just realizes what an asshole he is.”

  I chuck a card at his head. It floats down to the floor, nowhere close to its target.

  “I’m going to find Bart so we can start playing,” Harrison says.

  I pull my phone out, wishing Amanda would send me something that says, Hey, I’m okay, or even just a simple, Can we talk? But she doesn’t.

  The card I’m balancing slides off the table and onto the floor. I reach down to pick it up from the gritty tile, along with the other one that I tried to throw at Harrison. Seriously, who lives here? The whole apartment is a disaster. It looks like a frat house from one of those really bad college movies.

  I look up as Harrison returns with some guy wearing a green visor and looking like a taller, twentysomething version of Harrison, black-framed glasses and all.

  “You’re Uncle Bart?” I ask as I stand up to see him better.

  “Hobart Manfred Kaelin, also known as Uncle Bart to this kid here.” Uncle Bart punches Harrison in the shoulder and grins. Then he reaches out his hand to shake mine.

  “I don’t call you Uncle anything,” Harrison says as rubs his shoulder. “Casey, this is Bart. Hobart. He goes to the community college.” He says community college with a little emphasis. I don’t know if that’s to reassure me that people do go to community college and don’t die of anonymity, or to prove my point that if you go to community college, you’ll be stuck here in Holland for all eternity, living in a biohazard apartment, and teaching your cousin and his friend how to play poker.

  “Hobart? Your family really knows how to pick names,” I say to Harrison.

  “It’s a tradition. Or a curse. I haven’t really decided,” Bart says as he sits down. “So, are you the lucky lady who gets to be Harrison’s girlfriend?”

  “No!” Harrison and I say at the same time. I’m adding clueless to the list of things that people in Harrison’s family apparently are.

  Bart stops shuffling cards and looks at us. “Sorry I asked.”

  “We’re just friends,” Harrison says.

  Bart shuffles the cards. “Have you guys ever played poker before?”

  We shake our heads.

  “Okay, we’re doing a penny game. So first, we each have to make a bet.” Bart pushes a penny into the middle of the table. Harrison adds one.

  Okay, these guys are cheap. I move twenty cents to the pile. No guts, no glory is what I always say. Or, at least I am starting tonight. Poker shark Casey goes for broke.

  “Casey, this is penny ante. One cent is all you need,” Bart says.

  “Fine.” I shrug and pull my nineteen cents back.

  “I’m going to deal you each five cards. Look at the cards, but don’t show them to anyone.” Bart starts dealing.

  Harrison’s phone beeps. He picks it up, looks at it, and puts it down.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  “No one,” he says.

  “Is it Amanda? If it’s her, you have to tell me.” I pick up my cards and look at them.

  “It’s not. So now what do we do?” Harrison looks at Bart.

  “The goal is to get the best hand of cards you can.” He goes on to explain the rules, and I try really, really hard to listen. Except I’m having trouble thinking about anything except the Amanda situation.

  I must be zoning out, because Harrison pokes me with his little finger.

  “Let’s just play a few hands,” Bart’s saying, “and I’ll tell you what you do or don’t have. Casey, you go first. What’ve you got?”

  I lay out my five cards. Bart scrutinizes them from across the table. “Yeah, you don’t have much of anything. Your best move is to fold.”

  I look at him. “Fold what?” Like a towel? I’m afraid of what might be growing on a towel in this apartment.

  “That means you give up this time around.”

  I put my cards down. Bart moves on to Harrison, who has the beginning of something Bart calls a full house. Harrison puts one card in the discard pile and picks up a new one.

  “Aren’t you going to answer whoever it is that texted you?” I ask Harrison.

  Harrison rolls his eyes. “Give it a rest, Case. I know you’re just trying to find out who it is.” He looks across the table at the hand Bart sets out for us to see.

  “I have two kings, so I’m going to discard these three other cards and see if I can get more kings,” Bart says. “Okay. Now, Harrison, it’s your turn again.”

  Harrison sets his hand of cards on the table. He has two sevens and three nines.

  “Full house!” Bart says. “Rock on, man.” He high-fives Harrison across the table and then fans his cards out on the table. “So, if I stayed in, I would’ve lost. I have three kings, which is good, but Harrison’s full house beats three kings.”

  “This is fun,” Harrison says, beaming.

  “Of course it’s fun if you win,” I say.

  “Sore loser,” he sings under his breath. Harrison’s phone beeps again.

  “Are you going to answer it this time?” I’m kind of annoyed that he’s getting texts he chooses not to answer when I’d kill to have Amanda text me right now.

  He doesn’t answer me. But at least he types something back before he pushes his phone into his pocket.

  “It’s Oliver, by the way,” he finally says.

  I search Harrison’s face for some clue about why Oliver’s texting him, but it betrays nothing. He’s pretty good at this card shark thing (which shouldn’t surprise me—at all).

  I don’t have room in my head for Oliver right now—he takes up a lot of space, and thinking about him just tangles up all my feelings. And I should push thoughts of Amanda off until later. Because poker is the last item on The List, and I’d better become one kick-ass poker player really soon or I’ll have nothing to show for all my searching these past few months.

  Bart deals another hand to each of us. I set out my cards. An ace, a three, a seven, a ten, and a queen. Nothing, again. I begin to think that kick-ass-player thing isn’t going to happen. And I have no idea what my next step will be.

  I fold again, just in time for my phone to chime. I grab it so quickly, hoping against all hope that it’s Amanda. Or Trevor. I could use the distraction.

  What’s up? It is Trevor. I guess he’s forgiven me for bailing on him yesterday.

  Playing poker. Just went all in, I type back. I don’t know what that means exactly, but it makes me sound interestin
g and mysterious.

  No holding back 4 my girl.

  I grin like a maniac at my phone until another text from Trevor pops up.

  We still on for tomorrow?

  So maybe the band thing isn’t entirely off the table yet. Something that feels like hope flickers in my heart. You bet. Get it?

  *groan* Meet me @ mall.

  Because this is Holland, the only decent place to buy a musical instrument is at Notes, in the mall. I wonder if Trevor actually talked to Eric about getting some kind of a deal from his friend’s store. Did Eric actually agree to that, after everything he said about Trevor?

  I also wonder why Trevor doesn’t just come pick me up. But that might be for the best, since then he’d be grilled by my mother.

  “Casey? Are you going to look at your cards?” Harrison says.

  I look over my phone to find five new cards facedown in front of me. “Yeah. Sorry. It was Trevor. Seriously, Harrison, if you keep rolling your eyes, they’ll get stuck like that.” I look at my cards. Nothing.

  “I’ll fold.” I put the cards down, pick up my phone, and type another text to Trevor.

  C ya 2morrow.

  Can’t wait, he texts back.

  Me either. Now if only Amanda would let me know if she’s okay. Because I’m really afraid that she’s not.

  Chapter Thirty

  After a twenty-minute conversation in which I have to convince my mother to drive me to the mall, she finally agrees. But not after asking me how I’m shopping after I spent all my money on “roller skating and basket weaving,” demanding to know if Trevor and I were getting “serious” (shudder), making me call my dad because I’ve been too wrapped up in the disaster that is my life to talk to him lately, and then threatening to accidentally take me to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles instead of to the mall, never mind that they aren’t even open on Sunday.

  I would’ve been better off walking.

  I get there five minutes late, but at least I’ve beat Trevor. I grab a seat on a bench by the door, and almost immediately, someone sits next to me. Like, right next to me.

  Oliver.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. He is, literally, the last person I expected to see at the mall.