Wendi glanced at her watch, and then, apparently satisfied, picked up my pages. “Well, let’s take a look, shall we?”
I tried not to be nervous—which was really hard, since she was reading my pages right in front of me. This was so different from posting a chapter online and waiting for the comments to start rolling in. Different and mildly terrifying. But also sort of awesome? Maybe?
I looked at the other agents, who were deep in conversation with the people who’d signed up for their pitch sessions, and I looked at the volunteer, fiddling with her tablet over by the door, and then I looked at the empty stage, where Soleil had read “I Knew You Were Trouble” to a packed room.
She’d been nervous, too.
I’d remembered that, the night after she’d kicked me out. How nervous she’d been, how well she’d hidden it. It had made me wonder, in retrospect, what else she’d been nervous about. That was the main reason why I’d picked her as the viewpoint character in my new story, instead of myself. Well, a fictionalized version of her. But still.
After approximately twelve lifetimes had passed, Wendi put my pages down. She was smiling.
“This,” she said, “is a huge improvement.”
I let out a long, long breath, and then I let myself smile, too. “Really?”
“Really,” she said. “Your workshop chapter was lovely. I told you that, and I meant it. But that felt like a slice of life, and nothing else. Two friends talking about a boy they both like. So what? Why should I care what happens next, right?”
I nodded. She’d said the same thing in the actual workshop.
“But this?” she said, pressing her index finger right into the middle of my new first paragraph. “This feels like the beginning of something. You’ve created tension in the difference between what your narrator is thinking and what she’s saying out loud to her friend. She’s got an agenda. She wants to present herself a certain way—a way that matches the online image she’s created—and she’s terrified of being found out, right?”
I nodded. Yeah, that was right—in the story, at least. In real life, I’d probably never know for sure what Soleil had been thinking when she’d first met me. But here, on paper, where I had the freedom to take what I knew, change it as I saw fit, fill in the blanks with whatever I wanted …
“And at the end of the chapter,” Wendi went on, “when her friend catches her in a lie, she completely freezes up. Her reaction seems disproportionately large, given how small her lie was—but it seems to me that you might have done that on purpose. Did you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Because it’s the tip of the iceberg, you know? First it’s that one little lie, then it’s a bigger one, then an even bigger one, and on and on and on.”
“So what’s your narrator hiding?” asked Wendi. “What’s the big secret that she doesn’t want her friend finding out?”
“I’m … um, see, I don’t think she has one.”
Wendi did that politely confused head-tilt thing again.
“Okay, no, I swear this makes sense,” I said. “See, she wants to be interesting and mysterious. She wants people to think she’s got some big secret. But she doesn’t. She’s just totally normal. She goes to school, she’s got a boyfriend, she likes shopping and clothes and books. She’s just this really average person. And she hates being average.”
Wendi pursed her lips. “Interesting. And what about her friend? Does she stay in the story long enough to figure out what’s going on?” I nodded. “What will she do?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “But I think I’ll figure it out as I go along.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” Wendi reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out a business card. “And when you have a complete manuscript, I’d love to read it.”
My cheeks blazed. I took the business card. My palms were sweating again. “Um. Sure, yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
“I think our time’s up,” Wendi said, nodding to someone behind me. The volunteer, probably. “But one more question. You never told us your narrator’s name. Was that also intentional?”
“Oh,” I said. “No, it wasn’t. But I think she lies about that, too. She doesn’t like people knowing her real name, so she uses her online name.”
“And what’s that?” asked Wendi.
I smiled. “Luna.”
The volunteer came over to get me, and I left A-21 with my heart racing and Wendi’s business card clutched in my hand. Outside, more people had joined the small crowd waiting for their pitch sessions—and right there among them, in jeans and a T-shirt that said Burdened With Glorious Purpose in neon-green letters, was Merry.
I hadn’t seen them since the interview yesterday afternoon, when they’d confessed to having a crush on me. As in, an actual crush. On me. And now there they were, sitting on the floor with one of the girls I’d met at Soleil’s panel, looking all … all cute.
“What if I suck?” said Merry’s friend. Trish? No. Tiff. That was it. “What if I totally freeze up and forget what my book’s even about?”
Merry laughed. Even their laugh was cute. “Come on, you’ve worked on that thing for two years. You won’t forget. You’ll be great.”
Cute and supportive of their friends. Arg, arg, arg.
“Can I run my pitch by you one more time?” said Tiff.
“Go for it,” said Merry.
So Tiff started talking. Part of me wanted to wait around until Tiff went inside, so I could have a few minutes alone with Merry and ask them if they’d really meant it, about crushing on me, but the very thought of it put a knot of nervousness in my stomach that, combined with the nervousness that still lingered from talking to Wendi, was way, way too much to handle. I could talk to Merry later, when I’d had a chance to calm down.
And besides, I had to get back to Callie’s room so we could finish our podcast.
After a not-so-quick stop in the IPAC exhibit hall, which seemed twice as crowded as it had the other day, I was running late to meet Brian. But it was a necessary stop. This apology was going to take more than words.
I hurried to the Starbucks, passed the long line that thankfully included no one I knew, and found Brian sitting at a small table in the back. There were two cups in front of him. Instinctively, I glanced around for Christina before taking the empty seat.
“Hi,” I said nervously.
“Hi.”
“Where’s Christina?”
Brian frowned slightly. “She didn’t come. Why?”
“Then whose …” I stared at the cup closest to me. Venti iced mocha. Dinosaurs. “Did you get this for me?”
“Of course.”
He said it like he was genuinely surprised I’d even asked. And suddenly I was crying. I was crying in a Starbucks because a boy bought me a drink, and I was trying really hard not to hate myself for it.
Brian looked truly alarmed now. He handed me a bunch of napkins and stayed silent while I blew my nose.
“Okay,” I said at last. “Here’s the thing. I’m sorry I missed your solo. I’m sorry I … I forgot about it entirely, because I was too wrapped up in my own stupid problems. I’m sorry for all that stuff I said about you and Christina, and I’m really, really sorry I called you a massive jerk, because you’re pretty much the nicest human in existence. This week has sucked because … well, for a lot of reasons, but it wasn’t right for me to take it out on you. And I hope you can forgive me. And thank you for the drink. And … and that’s all.” I grabbed the iced mocha and started draining it.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Phoebe? Hey, you’re gonna give yourself brain freeze.”
I set the empty cup down, slightly out of breath. “Sorry. I haven’t eaten yet today. It’s … okay? All that stuff I did was not okay. I suck.”
Brian smiled. “No, you don’t. Between the scalpel thing, and then your solo, and what happened with … I mean, I get why you’ve been upset.”
I felt dangerously close to tears again. “So, um … how’d your sol
o go, anyway?”
He ran his hand over his head and shrugged. “Pretty good.”
“Pretty good?” I attempted to smile. “Can’t you just brag for once?”
“Brag about what?” he asked innocently. “About winning for the second year in a row? Or about getting offered a spot for an early audition at Oberlin next fall?”
“What?” I yelped. “Are you serious?” When he nodded, I threw my arms around him, knocking my cup over and sending ice skittering across the table. He laughed and hugged me back before setting the cup upright. “Oh, hey!” I reached into my pocket and handed Brian a velvet pouch. “I got this as an apology present, but I guess it’s a good congratulations present, too. And also a, um, necessary replacement.”
Brian opened the pouch, and suddenly—probably due to the overdose of caffeine and relief—I felt so giddy, so on the verge of hysterical laughter, that I had to clamp both hands over my mouth.
Brian’s lips twitched when he pulled out the gold triangle beater. I’d even had the vendor tie a little bow on it. He studied it for a moment, eyes twinkling behind his glasses.
“Thank you.” Brian smiled at me, his expression one of polite confusion. “But are you sure this is for me? Seems like a better present for S—”
“Do not even,” I interrupted, but he’d started cracking up before he could finish the sentence. I threw my napkin wads at him. “I have to ask, even though I’m not sure I want to hear this. If I didn’t tell anyone, and Scott didn’t tell anyone … how did you all find out what happened, anyway?”
I peeked up at him, and he blinked a few times. “Seriously, you don’t know?”
“No freaking clue.”
“Ah.” Brian’s face reddened a little. “Er. Well. We were all in the room next door playing Halo, so …”
I frowned, confused. But suddenly I remembered listening to every single word of Callie’s fight with her dad through the wall. The very thin wall.
“Oh god.” I sat up straight and stared at Brian in horror. “You heard us?”
“Um …”
“Noooooooo.” I thunked my head on the table. Then I did it a few more times for good measure. “No. No. No.”
“I’m really sorry,” Brian said, and I could tell he was trying not to laugh again. “If it makes you feel any better, Christina spent the whole time trying to get Jorge and Devon away from the wall.”
“Oh yeah, that makes me feel a ton better,” I said to the table. “So what, after that, Scott came in to play Halo, and everyone started giving him grief?”
“Not exactly.” Brian cleared his throat. “We heard you leave, and then Jorge and Devon and Nick went in, and Christina followed, I think just to tell them off, so I went in, too, and, you know … the whole room smelled like cologne and there was coffee all over the wall and floor, and my … er …” He coughed again. “The bed was all messed up, with sticks and mallets all—”
“Stop.” I held up my hand, palm flat, my forehead still glued to my other arm. “I already know what it looked like. It looked like …” I waved my hand, like I could pull the perfect, most humiliating word out of the air.
“Fun?” Brian said teasingly, then snickered when I flipped him off. “Well, was it?”
“Was it what?”
“Fun.”
“Are you seriously asking me this right now?” I said into my elbow.
“I seriously am.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve had a thing for Scott for a while.”
“What?” My head shot up so fast, I felt slightly dizzy. “How did—I mean, no I haven’t.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “Okay, if you say so.”
“Why’d you think I did?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “The way you act around him sometimes. And not just around him, but … okay, remember when you found out he’d asked Amber to Homecoming first and she turned him down? And suddenly you hated her.”
“What?” I wrinkled my nose. “No, I didn’t. Why’d you think that?”
Brian’s eyes widened. “You seriously don’t remember? Amber was my lab partner in chemistry last semester. You started calling her Science Barbie.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I only called her that a few times.”
“Phoebe.” Brian gave me a stern look. “Every. Single. Day. I’d leave chemistry, get to lunch, sit down, and you’d ask, How’d it go with Science Barbie today? Did Science Barbie blow anything up? Was there a chemical accident, or is Science Barbie’s lipstick supposed to be purple?”
I winced. Those were definitely things I’d said. Only I’d never realized how often I said them. And I guess I’d never heard how mean and petty they’d sounded. I thought I was just being funny.
“And that only started after Homecoming,” Brian added. “So yeah, I figured you were jealous.”
“Ugh.” I slumped back in my chair.
Brian gave me a gentle kick under the table. “You were right about one thing you said yesterday. I should’ve warned you that everyone heard you and Scott. I kept trying to get you to tell me what happened instead, because … I don’t know. It’s frustrating sometimes, how hard it is to get you to admit when something’s bothering you. I guess I wanted you to go first for once. But that was dumb, because this time I already knew about it.”
Brian’s phone buzzed, and his brow furrowed as he read the text.
“Is that Christina?” I asked, and he hesitated before nodding. “Tell her to come over here. Or, I mean, see if she wants to.”
“Really?”
“Please. But just her,” I added hastily.
“Don’t worry, everyone went to that Mexican restaurant after the clinic.” Brian kept typing, and I made a mental note to take a different route to the crepe place. Then I glanced at the time on my phone and cringed. Callie was probably wondering what was taking us so long.
Now I felt anxious all over again. With Brian, I’d only had to apologize for being a jerk the last few days. With Christina, I’d been a jerk the last few years. What the hell could I possibly say to her in the next five minutes that would make up for everything I’d done?
“How are your hands?” Brian asked, setting his phone down.
“What? Oh.” I looked down at my palms. “Better. I took off the Band-Aids last night.”
“Good. There’s a drum set clinic in half an hour, if you want to come?”
I toyed with my straw. “I would, but I’ve got a … thing.”
“A thing?”
“Yeah, it’s …” I wrinkled my nose. “You remember the taxidermy girl from the lobby?”
“Sure.”
“We’re making a podcast. For a contest.”
Brian squinted at me. “A taxidermy podcast?”
“Ha, no. It’s sort of a storytelling podcast. We’re making it with another girl who’s here for that fan convention. Although,” I added, sitting up straighter, “I did learn some stuff about taxidermy. For example, did you know Nair can take the feathers off a turkey?”
“Um … no?” Brian rubbed his hand over his head again. “What exactly have you been doing all week?”
“Actually, so during the showcase concert the other night? Mackey brought me up to the booth and introduced me to the sound engineer—Giovanne Clark, remember?—and we ended up talking for hours, and—” I glanced up and saw Christina making her way toward us through the crowded café. “And it was really cool. I’ll tell you about it later.” I swallowed as Christina pulled a chair up to our table. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
We smiled tentatively at each other, and she glanced at Brian. “So …”
“Want me to go?” He half stood, but I grabbed his arm.
“No, I only have a minute anyway.” I took a deep breath and turned to Christina. “All that stuff you said was true.”
Her eyes narrowed for a second, like she thought I was being sarcastic. “What?”
“You were right,” I told her. “Abou
t how I … you know, why we stopped hanging out. And everything else you said, too. About me being selfish.”
Christina winced. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was mad, and—”
“It’s true, though.” I tried to smile. “And I’m sorry. And …”
What was I supposed to do now? I gotta go do a cool thing with some girls I just met, but maybe we can hang out later and pretend I haven’t been a jerk for the last few years? But I had to go—this was the last day I’d get to spend with Callie and Vanessa before heading back to Austin early tomorrow morning on the bus.
The bus. Hey.
“Maybe we could … oh, wait. Never mind.”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing, just … you guys probably want to sit together tomorrow, right? On the bus, I mean.”
Christina’s expression cleared. “Oh, you want to sit with Brian? Sure!”
“No, I was going to ask if, uh …” I made a face, annoyed with myself for being so flustered. Christina’s eyebrows shot up when she realized what I was getting at, and she crossed her arms and smiled expectantly at me.
“Yes?”
“Ughhh, this is so middle school,” I moaned, and they both laughed. “Fine. Want to sit with me on the bus?”
Christina tapped her chin and pretended to consider it. “Well … I guess that would be okay.”
“Okay. Hey, maybe we can talk about audio stuff for The Menstrual Cyclists,” I added. “I saw the mics y’all were checking out in the exhibit hall and those are all wrong for what you’re trying to do. I can help you out with that … if you want, I mean.”
“Oh yeah?” Christina tilted her head. “Nuri and Amy are coming over to my place this Friday to talk about the recording. Maybe you can come, too?”
“Sure, yeah. That’d be fun.”
We grinned at each other. Then I stood up, mostly because I had to get back to Callie and Vanessa, but a little bit because I suspected my tear ducts were about to betray me again. “I’ll see you guys later tonight, all right? Have fun at the clinic.”
“Have fun with the turkey podcast,” Brian said, and Christina’s face screwed up in confusion.
The Pros of Cons Page 23
