Dramatically Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  DRAMATICALLY EVER AFTER

  DRAMATICALLY EVER AFTER

  EVER AFTER • BOOK TWO

  ISABEL BANDEIRA

  DRAMATICALLY EVER AFTER

  Copyright © 2017 by Isabel Bandeira

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except in cases of a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Use of any copyrighted, trademarked, or brand names in this work of fiction does not imply endorsement of that brand.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  available upon request

  Published in the United States by Spencer Hill Press

  www.SpencerHillPress.com

  Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books

  www.midpointtrade.com

  This edition ISBN:

  9781633921009 paperback

  9781633921016 eBook

  Printed in the United States of America

  Design by Mark Karis

  Cover by Jenny Zemanek

  EVER AFTER SERIES

  BOOK ONE: Bookishly Ever After

  BOOK TWO: Dramatically Ever After

  BOOK THREE: Practically Ever After

  (coming in 2018)

  To the Veterans of Foreign Wars and its Auxiliary, who gave so much in service and continue to give to the community through programs like Voice of Democracy—with special thanks to the Department of New Jersey, ANMAC Post 6253, and in memory of Mrs. Louise Stagliano. I am who I am today, in part, because of my participation in VoD. Thank you for helping a very shy teen find confidence in her own voice.

  My last word echoed just slightly in the bathroom-turned-recording studio and, when I looked up, Phoebe and Grace were looking at me with identical expressions of awe. Alec, in true Alec-ness, was still busy playing producer, his eyes focused on his computer screen and one hand in the air to indicate silence.

  “Annnnd, we’re done recording,” he said, punctuating his words with a dramatic click of his mouse.

  “Woah, Em.” Grace’s stare made me squirm a little bit. “That was amazing.”

  “If you don’t win, the judges are idiots,” Alec said with a nod.

  I bit my lip and stared at the back of Alec’s laptop, perched precariously on the edge of the sink. I still hadn’t completely come down from the nervous rush of energy that always ran through my body whenever I acted or did a dramatic reading. Even though I wrote the speech and had read it a million times, it still felt new and wonderful and awful, all at the same time.

  “Play it back?” I asked Alec, who frowned.

  Phoebe narrowed her grey eyes at me. “Oh, no you don’t. It’s perfect. If you listen, you’re going to want to record it again.” She stood up from her crouched position between the toilet paper roll and the tub and caught me by the sleeve of my sweatshirt. “C’mon, Alec can clean it up and e-mail it to Mr. Hayashi for you.”

  No way. As much as I loved my friends, they weren’t the most unbiased judges, especially Phoebe and Grace, who had helped me turn my improv stream of consciousness thoughts into an actual speech. A speech that needed to be perfect if I wanted to win, or at least catch the attention of the judge from Rutgers. I tugged my sleeve free and ignored her, focusing my attention on Alec. “Play it back or I’ll tell Laura about how you made the pretty elf-princess love interest in your game look just like her.”

  Alec looked from Phoebe to Grace to me, and frowned at the two of them. “Sorry, blackmail wins.”

  Phoebe groaned and pushed her way out of the bathroom. “I’ll call Dev and let him know I’m going to be late,” she said as she passed me, Grace following close on her heels.

  Grace gave me a little shove as she passed. “Don’t question and fix this into oblivion, okay? It’s perfect the way it is.”

  “You’re biased because you helped me write it,” I said before the door clicked behind me and I nodded at Alec. His lips set in a straight line as he fiddled with his mouse, then my voice filled the room.

  It took a second to adjust to hearing my recorded voice—something that never really went away, no matter how many times I did something like this—then, I leaned back against the vanity mirror and mouthed the words along with the recording. There was a missed emphasis in one spot, and something was wrong with my tone in the best part of the speech. I hit the mirror repeatedly with the back of my head. “Damnit, is there a way to chop that section from the last recording and stick it in this one?”

  Alec stopped the recording. “You do realize this is supposed to be like a live speech, right? You won’t have anyone to remix you if you make it to nationals and have to read this out loud.”

  “But I need this to be perfect,” I said, cringing a little at the whininess I heard in my own voice. None of my friends understood. They weren’t trying to get into programs with incredibly tiny admissions rates that were ninety percent dependent on how the admissions people liked a few acted-out scenes. “C’mon, out of everyone, you know what’s been going on here. You know who’s judging for our state. And you know how huge this would be for me.” If Dr. Lladros liked the speech and my delivery, there was a big chance she’d remember my name. And I couldn’t beat that kind of direct exposure to her, especially after her compliments about my voice and delivery during the Mason Gross summer session I’d attended. Winning state, with her as a judge, would be huge for my application.

  He took a deep breath and began speaking carefully, like he was tiptoeing around me, “You’re really talented, Em. You don’t need some speech competition to stand out. Besides, you realize you’re going against all the kids in our state, right? Every speech will probably start sounding the same after a point, anyway, and the judges won’t remember any of them.”

  “And that’s why it needs to be perfect.”

  “No, that’s why it needs to be real.” Alec leaned forward, pointing at his screen. “This is real, Em. It’s good. It doesn’t have to be polished, like the fake shiny stuff Grace puts on her hair to make it look like something out of a magazine. This is like…distilled you.” He crossed his arms, barely toned from dedicated years of science tests and gaming, and stared me down. “Look, if you don’t trust us, the people who’ve known you practically your whole life, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what I can do to help. Because I’m not messing with this.”

  I tried my best pout at him, but his expression didn’t budge. Alec was always the easygoing one in our group. So, when he pushed back on something, I knew I wasn’t going to win. “I could just record it myself,” I said in a voice I knew was seriously bordering on whiny.

  “Go for it. But I won’t help you with any technical glitches.”

  “I’m supposed to be the bossy one.”

  “Whatever. Are you done with your pity party now? Because we’re going to miss the matinee for Perfect Zombieism Two if we don’t get out of here soon.”

  I made a dismissive gesture with my hand and hopped off the vanity. I had the awesome ability of storming out of a room with great effect, kind of like Vivien Leigh when she played Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, even though the bounce factor of my chin-length curls added an annoying cutesy element I couldn’t help. Turning my drama factor to high, I swung open the bathroom door and stomped out into my room.

  “Told you Alec would take care of it,�
� Grace said in a slightly bored tone from where she had propped herself on the window seat.

  Phoebe looked up from her phone, smiling past me at Alec. “I thought she’d talk you into at least one more try.”

  “You three are hilarious. This is only my future we’re talking about,” I said, grabbing a jacket and starting out the door with a massive sigh. “God forbid any of you miss your precious movie for me.”

  “It’s Zombieism. You don’t want to walk into school on Monday and be the only person who hasn’t seen it.” Alec pushed past me, keys jingling in his hands. “It would be like all of us turning into Phoebe or something.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Phoebe said, though she laughed as she said it.

  A smile tugged at my lips and I fought to keep my tortured expression. “I’d be suffering for my art,” I pointed out.

  Grace spoke around the hair elastic in her mouth as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. “And I’m suffering for some kettle corn. Break some speed limits, okay?”

  We piled out of my house and over the lawn to Alec’s driveway. Alec hit the button to unlock his beater Subaru station wagon. “Of course, Princess Grace. And you can pay the speeding ticket later, right?”

  “Nope, this is all on Em. I’m not the one who made us late.”

  I grabbed the passenger front seat door handle before Phoebe or Grace could reach it. “You all suck.”

  Life at the Katsaros house after Dad’s former company had layoffs in August had settled into a pattern of job interviews, random statements about how he and Mom weren’t made of gold, and constant reminders that he and I had very different ideas of how I should live my life.

  One of the positives of Dad being laid off was that he was almost always home when I came home from school, giving me and my baby sister, Chloe, a chance to hang out with him and help out with his projects. Dad always had an artistic eye and, with all his newfound free time, he was able to dive into fun things, like a swirly headboard for Chloe’s room or a new mosaic backsplash for the kitchen. We were already halfway through planning an epic lamp he wanted to make for my room. It was nice to have practically unlimited Dad-time whenever we wanted.

  But unlimited Dad-time also meant unlimited chances to be reminded that I was on the way to becoming the family disappointment. He was almost always home when I came home from school, asking about my grades, checking in with my teachers, and micromanaging me to get the future he wanted me to have. While Mom’s position at Schuylkill University meant I was guaranteed both getting into an Ivy-without-the-Ivy and a free ride, it also meant daily lectures about applying there and getting a practical degree.

  And he was on a roll from the minute I walked into the house on Monday.

  “You know,” Dad said, idly, as he chopped carrots into slices for Chloe’s snack, “Another poll came out with Schuylkill University graduates toward the top in jobs and salaries after graduating.”

  I scrunched my nose and stole a carrot stick from the chopping board. “That’s great for Mom. More people will want to go there after that, right?”

  “Great for you, too, if you go.” I didn’t give him an answer, just my usual head shake. Dad dove into the same lecture I’d been hearing since mid-junior year. “I just cannot understand why you don’t want to apply when you have the ability to go to one of the most elite universities in America for free.”

  “Because there are other schools I’d rather go to that have what I want to study.”

  “With average grades like yours, it won’t be easy to get into colleges on academic merit.”

  “My grades,” I said, correcting him, “are not that bad, they’re Bs. Mostly.”

  “Not your math grades.”

  “Teachers need to learn how to appreciate creativity in answers. And I get As in history to balance those out. I’m above average, at least. And you should be happy I want to stay close to you and mom wherever I get in.”

  “Ephemie, do you see what happened to me because I have no degree?”

  “You had a good job and they just had layoffs. Companies do that, even to people with degrees in, like, astrophysics. That has absolutely nothing to do with college.”

  “But if I had finished my law degree…”

  “We’d be living in Athens right now or you and mom would have broken up instead of getting married. And I don’t think I’d be really good at speaking Greek.”

  “…I would have had more on my resume for a more stable position in the company. And it would be easier to find work now.”

  “I don’t want—” I started, but then Chloe popped into the kitchen and both Dad and I shifted into “nothing is wrong” mode. We Katsaros-es might have been stubborn about letting go of arguments and wanting to win every fight, but there was an unspoken agreement amongst all of us that we weren’t supposed to pull Chloe into our problems.

  “Were you fighting again?”

  Partly because she always tried to fix things.

  “No, we were just talking,” Dad said, then moved over to the stove and held up a pot. “Do you want a snack? I made carrot sticks and tomato soup.”

  Chloe and I shared a look. She might only be six, but I could already see her people-pleasing instincts warring with a strong sense of self-preservation.

  Dad must have seen the look because he sighed and added, “From a can.”

  “Yes, please.”

  While Dad busied himself getting bowls together and muttering about how he was a perfectly good cook and how he had two picky daughters, Chloe wrapped her little arms around my waist and said, “When we’re done snack and you’re done homework, can we finish seeing that old movie? I liked it a lot.”

  I melted some more, then pat her on the head while detangling myself from her. “You’re sneaky, but good, munchkin.”

  “Movie?”

  “Yup. You, me, and My Fair Lady later.”

  She then plopped down into an end seat with a sugary grin and dropped her doll on the other seat so Dad and I had to sit next to each other on the bench at the table. The UN had nothing on this first-grader.

  I squirmed in the squeaky vinyl diner booth, wishing I’d taken more time that afternoon to look decent. In my ratty yoga pants and Pine Central sweatshirt with no concealer and my curls frizzing out of the claw clip I had found in my purse, I looked like a reject straight out of Perfect Zombieism. The look had been okay for hanging out and watching bad sci-fi movies at Alec’s house, but here at Carlo’s Diner with their big windows looking out on Main Street, I felt like I was on display to the entire world.

  Life was a stage, and, even though I wasn’t at Grace’s level of fashion, I always tried to stay as in character with my personality as I could. And “Em” was confident, flirty, and had a fun sense of style, even when her boyfriend was five thousand miles away in Germany.

  The bell over the diner door dinged and Phoebe pushed into the diner, her eyes searching the room before finding us and hurrying over. Even she looked cuter than me in the long-sleeved red archery t-shirt she’d paired with a short teal skirt. Somehow, over the past year, she’d found a way to make her bookish sense of style really work, like a quirky young Judy Garland.

  “Heard from Wil?” Phoebe asked as she slipped into the booth next to me, her boyfriend Dev right behind her. It was like she could read my mind sometimes.

  I fiddled with my fork. “Just a quick e-mail, but you know how those are. Wil’s English isn’t that great.” I guess the fact that we made out when he was supposed to be studying his English as a Second Language textbook the whole year he had been here as an exchange student probably didn’t help. “We’re video chatting tomorrow.”

  Alec sat across from me, flipping open his menu to study it even though we always got the same things. “I never noticed his English was bad. He totally kills it in three languages when we’re gaming.”

  “That’s because you never have any deep conversations with him,” I pointed out.

  “You haven’t, either, if
what I used to hear coming from your yard was a sample,” he countered with a grin. “He probably just sucks at speaking flirt. I’m telling you, you need to take German. It beats all other languages when it comes to sounding cool.” He shrugged. “I’m still a little mad I let Grace talk me into French.”

  “Nein. I’ll stick to English, thanks. I know the important stuff: umarme mich, küss mich, and ich liebe dich.”

  “’Hug me,’ ‘kiss me,’ and ‘I love you’ aren’t exactly useful phrases,” Alec shot back.

  “Oh, they’re very useful,” I said. I then added, matter-of-factly, “And French like that might help you impress girls if you ever tried putting it to use. Just not with French girls, because long-distance relationships suck.”

  Without saying anything else, Phoebe reached over and gave me a tiny, one-armed hug. There were a lot of reasons why she was my best friend, and the way she just knew how not to push things was one of them. I saw her nudge Dev and he looked up from his phone to say,

  “This might cheer you up. I was in the office today and heard Mr. MacKenzie say they’re going to announce the winner of the speech contest tomorrow morning. Looks like someone in our school got state.” I froze, icy fear stretching from my heart like the moment our roles were put up on the board for a play or musical. After Dev’s flash mob at the homecoming dance last year, he and the school’s vice principal actually talked sometimes. Like vice principals were real people or something. If Dev heard it, this couldn’t be a rumor.

  “It has to be you.” Phoebe’s voice got all high-pitched and she squeezed me even tighter. “Nobody else in this school could have done anything half as awesome as your speech.”

  “Except, oh, I don’t know—maybe the whole senior AP English class?”

  “Nah. I’m in that class and I can guarantee no one in there has anything interesting to say,” Dev said, which earned him an elbow in the side from Phoebe. “Present company excluded, of course.” He winked one green-grey eye at her. I’d thought those were contacts until one day I overheard him explaining to one of the other girls in the theatre club that his eye color wasn’t sooo unusual in India. Which made me feel better I didn’t end up looking stupid by asking a question like that.