by D'Ann Burrow
The third two stumbled. The guy tried to laugh it off, but the girl looked like she was probably going to kill him tonight while he slept.
The fourth pair was the first to really earn a glare from Whitmore. The girl hadn’t even made it through her first sentence without forgetting a word.
When the fifth pair, the first one with two girls, stepped to the center of the room, I looked up at the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes left in class. Since Mrs. Whitmore was going row by row, we didn’t have anything to worry about. She wasn’t even going to get to us. I’d learn the first page tonight. Kennedy probably already knew her lines. We’d be fine. I relaxed some, sliding down in my desk, enjoying the fact that the people performing weren’t us.
They were good. Scary good. So good I watched them even though I didn’t care about the drama surrounding both of them finding out they were going on a date with the same guy on the same night. They’d been practicing, and the whole room knew it. I pitied the next two people called down to perform. The next victim was clutching the edge of his desk so tightly, even I could see how white his knuckles had gotten.
“Kennedy and Tanner.”
No. It wasn’t our turn. I gave Mrs. Whitmore a look that suggested she needed to consult the seating chart, but Kennedy was already moving, even if I wasn’t sure if she was still going to be conscious by the time she took her assigned spot.
My mouth was dry.
I couldn’t even swallow. Still, I was doing better than Kennedy. Right now, I wasn’t sure if she was breathing. And she hadn’t looked at me since Mrs. Whitmore announced today’s little test.
“What are you doing here?” Kennedy didn’t even sound like herself. Was that on purpose? And why was she staring at me? “What are you doing here?” She repeated her line, pausing at the end like it was a signal.
Oh crap, it was.
“Um.” I knew this. Really. I’d read it. We’d gone over it on Friday.
“What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” When Kennedy said the line like that, it kind of sounded like a threat.
“I’m. Um.” And that’s when I heard the first laugh. I tried to glare at whoever it was, but when I turned to look at the rest of the class, they all looked like they could have been guilty.
“Eyes on your partner.” Mrs. Whitmore sounded as dangerous as Coach Mears when he thought I was slacking off doing weights.
But I couldn’t look at her. Kennedy’s lip was shaking just as much as her hands had been earlier. If I didn’t know any better, I’d even say she might be about to cry. She didn’t strike me as one of those girls. Not a crier. Especially over something as stupid as this.
“Do you need your line?” Kennedy asked the question through teeth clenched so tightly I was surprised I could understand what she said.
“I’ve got this.” God, I hoped I had it. “I came to pick you up.”
I waited for Kennedy’s next line.
It didn’t come.
“I came to pick you up for our date.” Mrs. Whitmore spoke from just over my shoulder. Too close. Why was she standing next to me?
“You’re early.” Kennedy kept going until Whitmore held up a hand to stop us.
“Why don’t the two of you accompany me into the hallway for a moment?” She asked it like a question, but it wasn’t a question.
Every eye in the room on us, we followed the drama teacher like she was leading us to the gas chamber. When we got into the hallway, she closed the door behind us and waited. That’s all. Just waited. Her forehead creased, and her lips moved like she was saying something without saying anything.
Kennedy stood in front of her, rocking back and forth. Heel to toe. Heel to toe. Heel to toe. She hadn’t even looked this nervous on her first day of school when I’d run into her in the office.
“I expected more of you.” Mrs. Whitmore wasn’t looking at me. She was just staring at Kennedy, disappointment clear on her face. It would have been easier if she’d just been angry. This was a lot worse.
Kennedy looked her dead in the eye. “I’m sorry. I know we weren’t adequately prepared.”
“No you weren’t.”
Something was wrong here. Kennedy knew her lines. Hell, I suspected she knew mine. Why was she the one getting the lecture?
“I looked over the resume you gave me. For someone with your background, I expected to be impressed by you. After all, if you need me to give you the recommendation for the intensive, I’m going to need to see a great deal more effort.”
“You’ll have it.” Kennedy didn’t even try to make an excuse or apologize or blame me.
“Can you assure me of that?”
Kennedy’s eyes darted to mine for a flash – not even a hummingbird moved that fast. “I can.”
“I’ll give you one more chance tomorrow.”
I was about to step in. I was about to take some of the blame. But that’s when the bell started ringing about five minutes too early.
“Fire drill.” Mrs. Whitmore said the words as if she were cussing. “You two stay here.” She pointed at the ground before moving toward the doorway. She leaned in, already giving instructions. “Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Leave your things. We need to go. Micah, leave your purse. Shane, we’d appreciate it if you’d get in line today.” After she seemed satisfied the whole class was relatively close together, she pushed past me and stood next to Kennedy. “This way.”
The hallway leading outside the building seemed like one of the janitor’s storage closets exploded. Now we knew where all the broken desks went to die. Not just all the broken desks made their way here. Every dented filing cabinet, rolling chairs without rollers, and a surprising number of lopsided cafeteria tables had joined the party in the hallway. Had no one heard of a dumpster? The school wasn’t that bad off.
We stayed in the line, snaking through the hallway like rats in a maze in relative calmness. I only heard the first hint of a whisper when we’d almost gotten to the exit. I distinctly heard my name muttered in the same breath as Kennedy’s. Someone laughed in reply.
Mrs. Whitmore turned and shot a death-glare down the line, resulting in instant silence. She pushed open the exit door, and I could see we among the last of the classes to make it out. The rolling hill at the front of the school was covered with lines like ours so was the parking lot and so was the football practice field. An unusual energy bubbled from the assembled students. More than one was pointing at the building.
“Crap, it’s really on fire.” Hippie-girl was walking backward while pointing at the building. Almost as a unit, everyone in line spun around. She was right. A definite column of smoke drifted up from somewhere in the back corner of the school.
“Lunch ladies tried to bake again.”
“Probably.”
“Does this happen often?” Kennedy was looking at me, waiting for the answer to her question.
“How many fires do you call often?”
“More than once a year.”
“Then, yeah. It’s kind of a regular occurrence.”
“Awesome.” Her face signaled she thought it was anything other than awesome.
The first squeals of a siren rang in the distance. At least two trucks. Or maybe one truck and a police car or an ambulance. Definitely not just one truck.
Mrs. Whitmore saw the smoke too. With an expression suggesting she was counting the days until retirement like Mrs. Norman, she started patting the air with her hands. When it was clear that none of us understood her signal, she said, “Why doesn’t everyone take a seat? Looks like we’ll be here a while.”
We broke out of line formation, and most of the class ended up seated in clusters of three or four. Except for me and Kennedy. As the two outsiders in the class, we were stuck standing next to each other, both of us alone without truly being alone. A third siren in the distance rang out, and Kennedy frowned before sitting down. I joined her.
“What did Mrs. Whitmore mean when she said that about your resume?”
Kennedy wouldn’t hav
e looked more caught-off guard if I’d hit her. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Then why’d she say it? Why did she expect more of you? Did you do drama at your old school?”
Kennedy leaned forward, resting her elbows on the inside of her knees, her fingertips massaged her temples. “Yes, I was in theater at Holy Cross, but that’s probably not what she’s talking about.” She inclined her head to the side and nodded as if she were agreeing to continue the explanation. “Since Holy Cross is a girls’ school. I was in a local theater company in town too.”
“You lost me at girls’ school. No guys?”
“No guys.”
“At all?”
She raised one eyebrow at me as if I were confirming every stereotype she’d ever heard about athletes. “Not unless you count the custodian.”
“And that made you join a theater company?”
“I think you could say I needed more than that. Our experience was limited at Holy Cross. Since I was in the upper school, we’d done Little Women three different times. Annie was a favorite for the lower school.” She sat up before resting one palm on the ground behind her, leaning on it, she kept looking at me. “My parents weren’t exactly thrilled with my interest in theater, but I paid for it myself.”
“How?”
“Part of the money came from working as a lifeguard. Part of it came from a trust fund my grandmother left me.”
Trust fund. I thought those only existed in fiction. I studied her. From her manners to her clothes to the way she wore makeup without looking like she had on makeup, she looked every bit the part of a real rich kid. Not the ones around here who lived up on the hill and tried to show everyone just how much money they had. Kennedy had enough money she didn’t have to show it.
“Did you like the theater company?”
“It was the only place I’d ever felt like I was really home. Well, maybe at the theater and at the beach.” A spark I’d never seen before flashed in Kennedy’s eyes. And then it was gone. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” She’d stopped looking at me. Now she was flicking her thumb back and forth across a blade of grass. Every muscle in her body signaled defeat.
“Because Mrs. Whitmore won’t give you the recommendation?”
Kennedy shrugged a shoulder but didn’t speak.
“What if she did?”
“She won’t.” The threat of tears gave a rough edge to her voice.
“She could. What if we practiced tonight?”
“Tonight?” Kennedy looked at me like I’d just said I believed pigs knew how to fly.
“Tonight. After I’m done with football.” I thought about it. I could move the two lawns I’d had scheduled for later to tomorrow. It would make for a late night, but I could do it. “I could pick you up. We could go to the library or something.” I couldn’t believe I was even suggesting it. It didn’t matter to me if Mrs. Whitmore thought we were trash ready to be thrown out, but today it had been clear we were dead last in the class.
I didn’t come in last in anything.
“You want to rehearse?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
She kept looking at me like she was waiting for the punch line to a joke. “The library’s probably not the best spot. We have to talk, you know. Maybe you can just come over and we could run our lines on the front porch. Do you want to come around seven?”
I hadn’t planned on somewhere quite so public. No one I knew ever stepped foot in the library, but if I met Kennedy at Loretta’s, Scarlett would see us. If Scarlett saw us, Stacia would know about it before I finished saying my first line. We’d just be practicing for class, but Stacia wouldn’t care. No matter how much I tried to explain or apologize for something that hadn’t happened, she hadn’t believed me. She only cared about what everyone else thought when I’d disappeared on Saturday.
I almost changed my mind about offering to practice. After all, we could learn our lines without being together. I’d work on my part alone. Kennedy already knew hers.
But then I studied Kennedy’s face. She almost looked like she had some kind of hope. And, at least in this class, she was on my team. I never let a teammate down. “I’ll be there.”
18
Rule #73 – Someday you’ll look back on this and laugh
September 4
3:15 p.m.
* * *
“Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we?” Mrs. Whitmore rubbed her hands together with far too much enthusiasm. I cast a glance at Tanner. That wasn’t confidence I saw in those eyes. Crap.
“Today?” Mrs. Whitmore looked a lot like Mrs. Kirby when she called people down to read lines and she knew they weren’t prepared. They must teach that questioning grimace in theater-teacher-school.
I swallowed down a taste of bile. I hadn’t felt nervous about doing a scene in front of the class since I was in elementary school. After all, I was the only freshman accepted into the advanced theater class.
“We’ve got this.” Tanner shot me the same cocky smile he gave me when we first met, making me even more nervous. He definitely didn’t need any help with his confidence. His lines were another story.
Much to my surprise, he showed up last night, just like he said he would. A screech in the driveway followed by three quick knocks at the door, and he was standing on the porch, ready to tackle the scene. A flit of movement at Scarlett’s window suggested she was tackling telling the rest of the cheerleading squad that Tanner was at the house with me.
I’d never worked so hard on two pages of lines. Tanner might be able to memorize a playbook, but a book of plays was a totally different story. When he finally said he had to leave, my future flashed in front of my eyes. No recommendation from Mrs. Whitmore meant no Unified auditions for me.
Now as I made my way to the front of the room, I wondered if everyone else in the class could hear my heart pulsing in my chest. Hopefully, that was just me. Mrs. Whitmore nodded for us to begin, and I hoped she’d still be smiling at the end of the scene.
I closed my eyes, took a breath, and plunged into the scene. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to pick you up for our date.” A corner of his lips shot up in a teasing grin.
“You’re early.”
“I couldn’t wait to see you.” His voice sounded like melted butter on toast.
“I’m not ready yet.”
“You look plenty ready to me.” Tanner reached out, resting a hand on my shoulder before skimming it down my arm. Every girl in the room shifted forward in her chair. He leaned down and brushed a kiss on my cheek.
That was not part of the scene we rehearsed.
My cheeks warmed, and I continued on despite not having a clue what I was saying. My heart still hadn’t settled its normal pace when we finished, and there was an odd buzzing in my ears.
I turned to Mrs. Whitmore, ready for her lecture. She had tears in her eyes. “Well done. Well done!” She bounced on the tips of her toes. “That’s the level of commitment I expect from you.” She nodded at me before turning to Tanner. “And you were quite impressive too.”
“I had a good partner.” Tanner waved off the compliment while walking back to his seat.
I made it back to my desk, but the world was still a little blurry. I didn’t hear half of Mrs. Whitmore’s lecture or the pages she told us to read for homework. When we stood to leave, Mrs. Whitmore called out for us to stay.
“That really was quite an improvement over yesterday.” She stared at Tanner, clearly surprised he had it in him.
“We practiced last night.”
“Yes, it was clear you rehearsed.” Her eyes flicked back and forth between us. “Nicely done. I don’t think I’ll have trouble writing your recommendation after all, Kennedy. I do see your promise.”
“Thank you.” I walked toward the door with Tanner right beside me. Once we were out of Mrs. Whitmore’s earshot, I turned and looked up at him. “What was that?”
“I think it was acting.”
&n
bsp; “You know what I mean.” I could still feel where he’d kissed my cheek.
“Oh, that.” He raised his eyebrows. “It felt right for the moment.”
“So you ad-libbed a kiss?”
“Something wrong with that?”
I squeezed my hands into fists. “What if you’d made me forget my lines?”
A hint of concern came into his eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t think of that. Still, she seemed happy with it.” Everyone was happy with our performance. Mrs. Whitmore was probably changing her plan for the spring play right now. She had a guy who could be a romantic lead. The rest of the girls in the class would probably be fighting to have him be their partner during the next scenes we worked.
He reached down, running his thumb over my jaw before stopping at my chin. “I promise, the next time I kiss you, I’ll make sure you know it’s coming.”
6:45 p.m.
Loretta’s kitchen
* * *
“Well this sucks.” Scarlett held one hand on her hip and shook her head. I couldn’t quite figure out what annoyed her so badly. For a minute, I thought she might have heard about Tanner’s ad-lib in theater, but then I remembered the cheerleaders and the theater people were two different social classes. No chance of that rumor spreading.
I hadn’t said a word the whole way home, not that she would have tried to carry on a conversation with me. At this point, it was easier to pretend she was just my driver or something, and that seemed to work for her too.
Scarlett looked around the empty kitchen. “We’re on our own tonight. Can you cook?”
“Not really.” Maggie tried to teach me, but I’d inherited my mother’s culinary skills. The smoke detector went off one too many times during a conference call, and my father banished me from the kitchen.
I followed her into the dark room and tossed my bag down on the kitchen counter, surprised at the lack of music coming from downstairs. Typically by this point of the day, Loretta had moved onto music Ellie played while she was doing yoga. Today it was quiet. “Where’s your mom?”
