by Rachel Wise
“What I think Sam is trying to say is, who are you going with on Saturday afternoon?” Hailey crossed her legs and pulled her buttered bagel closer to her. Hailey pretty much existed on bread and rice in the cafeteria.
“Why? Do you need a date?” he said to her, a smile spreading across his face.
Wow, this was just getting worse. Soccer Player Asks Out Best Friend’s Crush by Accident!
“No!” she said. “I’m going with Sam on Friday. But I know you guys are seeing two shows for the review.”
“Wait—seriously, why are you asking? Pasty, can you still make it on Saturday night?” Michael asked, looking at me with a genuinely worried expression.
“Yeah, of course,” I said, feeling somewhat more relaxed.
“And we’re not asking for any particular reason,” Hailey added. “We’re just making conversation.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, I’m going with a couple of guys on the baseball team,” he said, and took another bite of pizza.
“Cool,” I said. Wow, some conversation we were having. My mind raced for something else to say.
“Sorry to eat and run, but I have to meet Jamal. He wants to see my language arts notes.”
“Okay,” I said.
“See you Saturday night, Paste. Don’t be late,” he said, flashing another adorable smile as he stood and picked up his tray.
I got a fluttering feeling in my stomach. Even if he hadn’t asked me on a real date, we were still going out together on Saturday night, just me and Michael. Who knows what would happen?
“I won’t,” I said, trying to give him a sparkly smile back, praying I didn’t have spinach stuck in my teeth.
“She won’t!” Hailey called while he was walking away.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore.
“Hailey, remember how I said I had something to tell you yesterday? And then Allie came in and went psycho on us?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling, her legs pulled up on her chair.
I took a deep breath. I seemed to be taking a lot of those lately.
“Well, I didn’t forget what I wanted to say. I was just a little afraid. But I have to be honest.”
Hailey put her legs down, and her face got serious.
“What’s up?”
“You need to dial down the Michael plans and pushing me closer to him and all that. It’s driving me crazy!”
Her face went red. She looked as though I had punched her.
“I thought you wanted my help,” she said, her voice shaky.
“I did. I do! I love scheming about boy stuff with you. But it’s just gotten to be a bit much lately. I can handle Michael myself sometimes.”
“Well, you’re always complaining how you never get to spend enough time with him. Maybe I’m tired of listening to that all the time. Maybe that’s gotten to be a little too much for me. If you guys would just go on a stupid date, I wouldn’t have to listen to you complain all the time.” She crossed her arms and pressed her mouth shut.
“You said I should be honest!” I was starting to feel awful.
“Fine, see how you do on your own,” she said, getting up. She took her stuff and started to leave.
“Hailey, come on,” I called, standing up.
She turned around and held her hand up. “I think we need a little space. How’s that for honesty?” she said. I stopped in my tracks and watched her walk out the cafeteria doors. That went well.
That night in bed, I was still trying to piece together what happened. We didn’t see each other after the scene in the cafeteria. She had practice after school, and I went straight home. All afternoon, while I did my homework, I kept sneaking glances at the computer, hoping she’d IM me, but no such luck. I didn’t IM her, either.
I wrapped my down comforter around me tight. I could hear Allie’s faint singing over the fan I had switched on to drown out her voice. So much for saying what I really was thinking, but maybe Hailey was right. Maybe we did need a little space from each other.
Chapter 8
SCHOOL PLAY OPENS, EVERYONE SURVIVES
It was finally Friday, the day of the first performance of the play. Hailey and I hadn’t really talked since our big argument. We’d managed to avoid each other yesterday. I didn’t even go into the cafeteria at lunchtime. Instead I hid out in the Voice office, making a checklist of what I was going to look for in evaluating the play:
Overall singing quality
Choreography
Set design
Costumes
Lighting
Lead actress’s performance
Lead actor’s performance
Main supporting role
performances
I tapped my pen, trying to think of anything I could be forgetting. Mr. Trigg walked in.
“Why, hello there, Ms. Martone,” he said. “How are we on the day of the big show?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just making a list of things I want to look for when I see it.” I looked at my list again, and wrote down Sound engineering?
“I did a few theater reviews back in the day,” he said, sitting down and unwinding the striped scarf he always wore around school, but for some reason never in the Voice office. “Nothing beats going to see a show in the West End in London. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance.”
“Can I ask you a question, Mr. Trigg?” I said while I put my notes away.
“Fire away,” he said.
“What if the play’s not good and we have to write about that? I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings,” I said.
“Just tell it like you see it,” he said, “and you’ll be brilliant.”
I nodded and thanked him, but I wasn’t so sure about my brilliance.
At home my mom and I ate a quick dinner that was actually kind of a breakfast—scrambled eggs, toast, and salad. Allie had gone over to the high school auditorium that afternoon to get ready, so we hadn’t seen her since the morning. I was kind of glad she hadn’t come home. She probably would have been bouncing off the walls, as my mom says. In about half an hour, we were going to pick Hailey up and drive her to the show. I was nervous. I wasn’t sure what we were going to say to each other. I had to tell my mom what was going on. I put my fork down.
“Hailey and I kind of got into a little argument,” I said, picking up my fork again and poking at my eggs.
Mom held her fork frozen in the air between her mouth and her plate. “Uh-oh, how little?” she said, looking worried.
“Well, not so little,” I said, and stabbed a cucumber from my salad.
“Okay, how big?”
“Hailey was bugging me about something, so I told her it was bothering me. She got really upset and told me I was bugging her too, and then we decided that we needed some space, and now we haven’t talked in two days. She said I could be honest with her, and she always tells me what she thinks—a little too much sometimes. So why did she get so upset?” I said it all in one breath, then leaned back in my chair. It felt good to get it out.
“Hmm. Are you still upset with her?” Mom asked, taking our plates to the garbage pail and scraping the food off. Then she started putting them in the dishwasher.
“I don’t know, not really. I just want to work it out. She was pretty mad. But she said I should tell her the truth. That’s what best friends are for, right?”
“Well, sometimes. The truth is always good, but we have to decide what we can let go and what we can’t. Was she mad or hurt? Sometimes the truth hurts. There’s no way around it. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell it. It just may take a while for the person to get past the hurt and see the truth.”
I thought about all the times Hailey had told me something I didn’t want to hear, but after I had some distance I usually realized she was right. Hopefully, she’d feel the same way.
Mom came over to me, smoothed my hair back, and squeezed my shoulders. “Let’s just see how it goes. Hailey’s not one to hold a grudge. She adores yo
u. Sometimes friends bug each other. It’s part of the deal when you’re so close.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess so.”
We got into the car and drove over to Hailey’s. Mom gave a little beep and Hailey came running out. She had just showered, and her hair was still wet and spiky and her cheeks all rosy. She’d even dressed up a bit, which Hailey hardly ever did. She wore a pretty turquoise sweater and her good jeans. She looked great. I waved from the car and smiled, and she waved and smiled back. Good sign. She climbed into the backseat.
“How are you?” I said as Mom started to drive again.
“Good,” she said. “Mrs. Martone, thanks for the ride.”
“My pleasure,” said Mom, and we drove for a minute in silence. Then Mom asked Hailey about soccer and they got into a big conversation about how some of the away games had been going and which other schools had the best teams and so forth. I was relieved Hailey and I didn’t have to make awkward conversation the whole time. I checked and made sure I had my notebook so I could jot down some notes during the play.
When we go to the high school, lots of people were gathered outside the auditorium.
“Wow,” Mom said. “A great turnout!” The drama club plays are always a big deal, but it seemed like the entire town was here.
“Yeah!” Hailey said.
We walked in, and my mom went to stand in line and pick up the tickets she had already ordered.
I decided to just come out with it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry if I overreacted. I guess I got carried away with the Michael stuff.”
“No, never,” I said, joking.
“To tell you the truth, I’ve been a little jealous.”
“Jealous? Jealous of what? My endless crush on Michael Lawrence that never seems to go anywhere?”
“Yeah, kind of. I mean, I’ve just never felt that way about a guy.”
“What about Scott? What about Danny?” I asked, mentioning her past crushes.
“I don’t even know what those were. And I’m not really friends with them anymore—I mean, not good friends. Even if you and Michael aren’t exactly dating, you have a real friendship. Other than me, he’s practically your best friend.” She looked down. I was afraid she might even start crying.
“Hailey, why didn’t you tell me you felt this way before?”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell the truth,” she said, glancing up at me and looking guilty.
“Ah, yeah, just a little,” I said, and we both started laughing.
“Michael and I may be friends, but you’re in a class by yourself!” I said, and we hugged.
My mom walked back from the ticket line and saw us hugging.
“Wish I had my camera,” she said. “I got the tickets; let’s go.”
We walked into the auditorium. It was going to be a full house. People were everywhere, and more people kept walking in. There was so much buzz and energy. I wondered what Allie was doing right now. Hopefully, she was taking a lot of deep breaths. Even though she had been hard to take lately, I couldn’t believe she had the guts to sing and dance in front of all these people. I could never do it. When Hailey slid past me to get to her seat, Mom touched me on the shoulder and smiled. “See, you guys just needed a little time,” she whispered. I nodded.
We had great seats—third row, center. We arranged our coats and got comfortable. Then the lights went down. A hush fell over the crowd.
The director came onstage and stood in front of the curtain. “Good evening,” he said. “Welcome to our drama club’s performance of West Side Story. Please shut off all cell phones, cameras, and video devices. Most important, enjoy the show!”
The lights went down again and the curtain went up. A big number for guys was first. The dancing was great and the outfits popped against the multicolored lighting. There was a huge backdrop of a New York cityscape behind them. The dancers leaped around fake fire escapes. It was like a real Broadway show. Allie came on a little later, in a big dance number. She was fantastic. I was so proud of her. I looked at my mom and she was a little misty, like she gets when she’s really, really happy. My sister dances like nobody’s business.
In fact, Allie was a lot better than Julia Gowen, who played Maria. Julia’s first number was strong, but her second wasn’t so great. She tripped once on a fake fire escape while dancing, and her voice cracked in a song. Then, after that, she forgot her lines, it seemed to me, about three times during the show. She would suddenly became silent, and the guy who played the male lead, Tony, would whisper in her ear. It was pretty bad. Then, toward the end of the show, there was this huge crash offstage. It was hard to tell exactly where it came from, and the audience was so busy craning their necks to see what had made such a loud noise that they didn’t really pay attention to the scene. Plus there were a few weird prop problems. At one point, one of the fake fire escapes wouldn’t wheel off the stage and just sat there in the middle of the next scene. The lighting went dark on certain characters, and spotlights would show up on the ceiling.
So, needless to say, the play had some problems. The drama club is great, but I think they might have gotten in a little over their heads with this one.
“Did you like it?” I asked Hailey while we waited for Allie to emerge from backstage.
“Yeah, but it was a little rusty in places. Did you hear that crash?” she asked, her eyes wide and excited.
“Yeah. Well, at least no one got hurt. At least I hope not.” It wasn’t easy pulling off a production like this, I thought. School Play Opens, Everyone Survives. Sheesh. “How about when Maria forgot her line and Tony had to practically yell it across the stage?” I said. I hoped it was only opening-night jitters and they’d pull it together tomorrow.
“I know,” said Hailey, giggling.
Allie came out, still wearing her stage makeup and her eyelashes. Lots of people came up to her and told her she was amazing. She was. I was glad to see her getting the attention she deserved after all her hard work. I saw Julia Gowen too, but it seemed that not as many people were surrounding her. At one point she walked over to where Allie was standing and kind of took over the crowd. Allie finally left her admirers and came over to us with a sour expression on her face. I gave her a huge hug and told her she’d rocked it.
“Thanks, sis,” she said, brightening up again.
“Do you have time to come with us for ice cream before your cast party? We want to celebrate with you!” Mom said.
“Sure,” Allie said. “Let’s go.”
At the ice-cream parlor, we gave Allie lots more kudos. She beamed.
“But Julia Gowen was a bit of a disaster. Memorize your lines much?” Allie said while she took a huge spoonful from the brownie sundae Hailey and I were sharing. I waved her hand away.
“Eat your own,” I said, pointing to the dish of double chocolate chip in front of her.
“Allie,” Mom said, “that’s not nice. Maybe Julia just had an off night.”
“Well, it’s not like Julia Gowen was that nice to me. She was competing with me the whole time, giving me critiques of my numbers when that’s supposed to be, like, the director’s job. Did you see how she totally took over my moment outside after the show? During rehearsals, she waltzed around like she was a Broadway diva instead of in a local school play. I mean, seriously, who acts like that?”
“I can’t imagine,” Mom said, and gave me a secret smile.
“It’s just because she knows you should have gotten the part of Maria. She’s just insecure,” Hailey said, her mouth stuffed with ice cream and brownie.
“There’s a reason I’ve always liked you,” Allie said to Hailey with a wink. Then they high-fived. Oh boy, now I was starting to feel a little sick, and it wasn’t because of all that ice cream.
The next morning I jumped out of bed. Today was the day before the night of my almost first date with Michael Lawrence. How was I going to eat? What was I going to wear? I c
ouldn’t do this alone. I was so glad Hailey and I had figured things out, because I didn’t think I’d get through this day without her.
After breakfast I called her.
“I need outfit advice,” I cried when she answered the phone.
“I’ll be over in an hour,” she replied, and hung up.
Mom let me use her digital camera so we could take pictures of each outfit I tried on. We pulled out a bunch of choices from my closet. Long skirts, short skirts, jeans and blouses, scarves, everything I had that would possibly be almost Saturday-night dateworthy. We played music and did rounds of combinations, and Hailey took pictures of all my looks. Then we downloaded them on the computer.
We were looking at two pictures side by side on my computer screen, comparing a pink embroidered T-shirt with a long gray skirt to skinny jeans and my silky green tunic, when there was a thud at the door.
“What are you guys doing in here?” Allie said frantically when we opened the door. “I can’t hear myself sing!”
That would probably be a first.
“You don’t want to wear yourself out. You still have two more shows,” I said, in the nicest possible way I could. I really didn’t want to set Allie off now. She had two shows today, one in a couple of hours.
“I know,” Allie said, sitting down on my bed and heaving a big sigh. “Maybe you’re right.”
I’m right? Did Allie just say I’m right? I wish I could have recorded it.
“So what’s going on?” Allie demanded, getting up again and examining the clothes that were thrown everywhere, picking up the silky pale pink T-shirt with the flower embroidered in the same color on the front.
“Is this mine?” she said. Before I could answer, she went on. “Wait a minute . . . wait a minute, I know what’s going on here. You’re going to the play tonight with Michael Lawrence!” she said, and poked me in the chest.
I turned beet red. Hailey looked at me and back at Allie, opened her mouth to say something, and then seemed to think better of it.
“It’s just a . . . thing for the paper,” I said, shrugging. Now I completely regretted mentioning this to her casually the other night after dinner. Allie hadn’t teased me for it then, probably because she was so wrapped up in rehearsals, but now I had a feeling she was going to make up for lost time.
