You in Five Acts

by Una LaMarche

  “That’s exactly it, babe,” he said excitedly. “But it’s a spur-of-the moment choice, one that she doesn’t see coming, and I want it to feel urgent and sudden. That’s why I don’t think it should be rehearsed.” He turned to me with a smug smile, and it was all I could do to keep from throttling him. Still, I nodded, slowly, like I totally understood.

  “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t practice it,” I said. And as it came out of my mouth, I realized that I meant it.

  I didn’t want our first kiss to be on a stage, in front of Ethan, or in front of anyone. I didn’t want it to be public and I didn’t want it to be planned.

  When I kissed you for the first time, I wanted it to matter. And I wanted you to know it.

  Chapter Nine

  February 2

  100 days left

  I WAS HOPING we would walk to the train together. We’d taken to splitting off while Ethan stayed behind to type up his notes for the next rehearsal, and those two blocks from campus to the 66th Street subway station had become the best part of my day. It was a perfect distance, not long enough to get into a real conversation that might lead to uncomfortable questions—like Hey, have you seen Ethan naked? or Do you live in your grandparents’ rent-controlled apartment? Because you smell a lot like Ben-Gay and a Golden Sands Yankee Candle—but just long enough for little jokes and sidelong glances, long enough for me to grab your sleeve as the traffic whizzed past on Broadway. Long enough for you to smile and push the hair out of your face and say, “Relax, I grew up here. I’m not about to get flattened into a New York Post headline.” Long enough to get me through to the next time I saw you.

  But that day, you had other plans.

  “I promised Joy I’d get coffee,” you said as we spilled out through the heavy front door onto Amsterdam Avenue, the bitter wind whipping your scarf around your face. It was less than two weeks to Valentine’s Day, and all the store windows were plastered with giant hearts and winking Cupids. As if anyone needed the reminder.

  “Cool, cool,” I said, shrugging like it didn’t make a difference.

  “I feel like I’ve barely seen her,” you said. “She’s been ghosting during lunch lately.”

  I nodded, or at least sort of wobbled my chin noncommittally. I liked Joy but hadn’t really spoken to her one-on-one since the party, when she’d saved me from the Drunk Girl Chorus. Selfishly, I mostly wanted to get to know her better so that I could get closer to you.

  “Tell her I say hey,” I said. You cocked your head and narrowed your eyes.

  “How many Y’s?” you asked.

  “What?”

  “You know.” Your lips parted slowly in a sly smile. “Just ‘hey,’ or, like—” you wiggled your eyebrows lasciviously “‘—heyyyyyy’?”

  “How about just ‘hi,’” I laughed.

  “‘Hi’ or ‘hiiiiiiiiiiiiii’?” You were cracking up, but I wasn’t sure what you were doing. You were acting like I was into Joy, which had come out of nowhere. And sure, she was cute and seemed cool, but she wasn’t the one who—as Nana would say—had her hooks in me. The expression always made me think of meat processing, but if you could get past the gross visual it made sense. You’d gotten under my skin, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. You felt—and I know this is a terrible analogy given what happened but I really don’t know how else to say it—like a drug.

  “The first one,” I said.

  “Got it,” you said, giving me a little salute before turning south on Broadway, toward Starbucks. “See you tomorrow, Rodolpho.” I watched you walk for a few seconds, shamelessly hoping you’d look back, but you just stomped ahead, your bag bouncing precariously on your shoulder, one strap hanging loose, as if everything could spill out onto the street at any second.

  Not knowing where we stood, I felt just as unstable.

  • • •

  I decided on a whim to walk home. It was only a mile or so, and I was in no hurry to get there. Besides, the weather was so beautiful: black ice on the ground, yellow snow frozen in custardy clumps on the curb, the sky a dumpy shade of pigeon gray. Every day in the New York winter felt like an eternity, but I didn’t mind; I would’ve made it stretch on and on to infinity if I could. After graduation (or “commencement,” since teachers were always bending over backward to convince us that this was just the beginning, like that was somehow comforting), my life would become a big, empty nothing, the future greeting me not with an excited heyyyyyyy or even a casual hi but with that terse, punctuated “hey.” people text when they’re mad at you and want to make you guess why.

  I doubled back down to Amsterdam, shoving my numb fingers into my pockets. I wasn’t in the mood for the crowds on Broadway. I walked fast, keeping my head low, just like at school, only now there was no one trying to talk to me, only the sharp, apathetic air that slapped at my cheeks, burned in my lungs, and came out of my mouth in short, crystallized puffs. Everything felt shaky, temporary—like Mom, like money, like my so-called career, or even my confidence lately. I thought we had a vibe, but you teasing me about Joy made me think I’d made the whole thing up. Maybe you really were into Ethan. Maybe he wasn’t the delusional one. I was debating exposing my hands to the elements so that I could dig out my headphones when I heard the dull thud of a basketball on pavement and glanced over to see Diego shooting hoops on the 70th Street playground courts.

  “Hey!” I called, grateful for an excuse to lengthen my commute. Coming home at five o’clock had turned into five thirty had turned into six. I could always blame rehearsal, not that anyone bothered asking me to explain anymore.

  Diego started, scooping the ball under one arm, but then relaxed when he saw it was me.

  “Hey, man, sorry,” he said, as I crossed the blacktop. “I’ve gotten chased out of here a few times by bored cops.”

  “Really?” I asked, dumping my bag next to his at the base of the hoop.

  Diego dribbled the ball back to center court. “Yup,” he said. “Apparently there’s a thin brown line between playing ball—” he feinted back and made a perfect three-point shot “—and loitering,” he finished.

  “Well if you’re loitering then I guess I am, too,” I said.

  Diego smiled and tossed me the ball. “You don’t want to go home, either, huh?” he asked.

  I dribbled ham-handedly, wishing I had spent more time playing sports like a normal kid instead of sitting in casting offices running lines with my mom. “My dad works late,” I lied, making a clumsy attempt at a layup that hit the underside of the hoop with a metallic clang.

  “My mom, too,” Diego said. He nodded after the ball, which had rolled meekly off into a corner as if it were embarrassed to be seen with me. “Want to go one-on-one?”

  “You need an ego boost?” I laughed.

  “Nah,” Diego said. “I want the company. How about HORSE or something? Just for fun?”

  I rubbed my hands together, feeling the tingle of blood starting to flow again. Even if I completely embarrassed myself, at least it would warm me up. “OK,” I said. The last of the light was gone from the sky, anyway, so everything was starting to look dim and pixelated, comfortingly obscure.

  “You first,” Diego said, throwing me the ball. He jogged back to the hoop and I trudged over to the free-throw line. “You probably need to blow off some steam after rehearsals with William Fakespeare.”

  I laughed, bouncing the ball once, hard, just to feel it rebound into my hands. “He’s all right,” I said. “And Liv gives him so much shit, I actually feel kind of bad for him.” I took a shot, which fell short of the basket by a good inch or two.

  “That’s H,” Diego said, deftly catching the ball before it hit the ground. We switched positions. “You can’t say he doesn’t kind of deserve it, though.” He grinned and aimed.

  “Maybe,” I said, watching the ball sail through the dark. It spun around the periphery of t
he hoop a few times before veering off to the left.

  “H for me, too,” Diego said. “See, I’m not that good.”

  “Or you’re letting me off easy,” I said.

  He laughed, brushing the hair out of his eyes as we swapped again. “Sure, I’ll let you believe that,” he said. I dribbled the ball back out to the line just as the lamp came on at the opposite side of the court, sending my shadow stretching out in front of me.

  “Must be six,” Diego said. “They’re on some kind of timer.”

  “You come here a lot, then?” My next shot miraculously made it through the net—not exactly a swisher, but good enough—and I jogged back to the hoop on a swell of pride.

  Diego shrugged. “Beats going home sometimes.”

  “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

  He leapt up and threw the ball in a perfect arc into the basket. “See? I’m not letting you win, Hollywood.”

  I winced a little at the nickname. I knew it was a joke, but I also knew that Diego, and all of you probably, thought I was rich. Outside of L.A., it was a common misconception that one movie gig meant you were living the life, even though the truth was that I hadn’t been paid that much for Saving Nathan to begin with, and the money had been siphoned from savings a few years back to start Mom’s agency. At my old school, I was one of the least rich kids, and a flat-out joke once Dad and I moved into Oakwood Apartments, the infamous housing complex in Toluca Hills where wannabes from places like Nebraska and Tennessee moved when they were just starting out with a dollar and a dream—“starting out” being the operative phrase. When you ended up in a place like Oakwood, it was a sign that something had gone horribly wrong.

  I missed the next shot, overthrowing so aggressively that the ball ricocheted back at me in a straight line.

  “Don’t try so hard,” Diego said. “If you want it too much . . .” He grabbed the ball and spun around, shooting so fast it didn’t even seem like he was aiming. It sailed through the net with a satisfying swoosh.

  “See now you’re just showing off,” I grumbled as he ran to retrieve the ball.

  “Nah, just lucky.” He smiled and tossed it back to me. “I was gonna say that if you want it too much you’ll overshoot, but that’s not always true. I mean, look at Ethan, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, dribbling a few times before taking a shot that rebounded swiftly off the hoop. My pulse raced; thinking about Liv and Ethan together gave me something akin to ’roid rage. “I don’t really know what their deal is.”

  “Seems like they’re talking,” Diego shrugged. “Anyway, I hope so. It’s inspiring to think he finally made it out of the Friend Zone.” He dribbled and took a shot that glanced off the rim.

  “I never have,” I said. That was true, mostly. I’d been friends first with a few of my girlfriends, but not real friends, just that vague in-between stage when you’re hanging out and flirting and calling it friendship. Kind of like how it felt with you. I took a deep breath and launched the ball high into the air. If it makes it in, she likes me, too, I thought—so stupid and pointless, but I couldn’t help myself. It swished through the net and I grinned like an idiot.

  “Well if you can’t, there’s no hope for me,” Diego said.

  “Wait,” I said, walking backward as we swapped positions again. “You’re a straight guy who dances. You’re telling me you can’t get girls?”

  “Some girls,” he said. “Not the girl.” He reached the line and made his shot, which bounced gently off the backboard and dropped through the hoop. Diego’s eyes lit up, and I wondered if he’d made some secret bet with himself just then, like I had.

  “So it’s someone specific,” I said.

  “Don’t jinx it,” he laughed.

  “No names,” I promised, even though it didn’t take much deduction to figure out that it could really only be one person. Every time she went anywhere, he followed her. You’d told me that she was the only reason we collectively agreed to freeze our balls off on the fountain bench every lunch period. And that night at your party, after she’d left, he’d kind of checked out, getting drunk and quiet and all but ignoring the cute girls begging him to dance. Then again, I had checked out, too. That had been right after the kiss. I grimaced and took my shot, barely making it after a few teasing rolls around the rim.

  “I’ve been in love with her forever,” Diego said, catching the ball and staring at it for a minute, as if he was trying to decode some message in its grooves. “It’s messed up. I’ve never been able to make a move. And I feel like time’s running out.” He walked back to center court and dribbled slowly. “It’s second semester, senior year. It’s now or never, man. But every time I try to tell her . . .” He threw the ball wildly, barely hitting the bottom corner of the backboard. I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not. “. . . I brick the shot,” he said.

  “But you spend a lot of time with her, right?” I chased the ball past the chain-link fence that separated the courts from the playground, grabbing it just before it disappeared underneath a slide. I walked back panting, and we stood at the base of the hoop for a minute, catching our breath.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We have a great thing going, but I literally have no idea if she would be into it or recoil in horror if I tried something.”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said, but I knew it was easier said than done. I’d wondered the same thing about you—what you would do if I grabbed on to your hand instead of your sleeve on our walk to the subway. What you would do if I pulled you in and kissed you, with all of Broadway watching. No matter how you reacted, it would change everything. We could never go back.

  “What can I do, though?” Diego asked helplessly. “Do I just ask her out? Like, hey, I know we’ve been friends for years but let’s go on an awkward date now?”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be awkward,” I said. Buoyed by hope, I walked out to the line and tried to do that thing Diego had done where he just turned and threw in one motion. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go anywhere near the basket. “H-O-R-S,” I said. “Prepare to win.”

  “Not necessarily.” Diego caught the ball and dribbled past me. “Weren’t we just discussing how I’ve got no game?” He took a balletic jump shot and sank it.

  “Fuck you,” I laughed.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No, it’s OK,” I said. “I’ve definitely got no game. I can admit it.” I looked up at the hoop, glinting silver in the floodlights.

  “Moment of truth,” Diego called. “No bricks!” I paused my dribbling to give him the finger.

  Moment of truth, I thought. If Diego was willing to risk his friendship with Joy, then I could definitely risk my friendship with you, and my nonexistent friendship with Ethan, right? It seemed like it should have been an easy choice, but it wasn’t. Diego felt a ticking clock? Well I felt the opposite: like I was floating aimlessly in a lazy river that slowed everything to half-speed and kept me from making any decision that might possibly move my life forward in any way.

  Enough stalling, I told myself. If I make this shot, I make a move.

  I held my breath and listened to the sound of the ball on the pavement, a thick, muffled smack followed by a sharp, ringing recoil. On the next bounce, I shifted my weight and palmed it into my right hand, springing up and extending my arm and pushing it off my fingertips with the tense focus of every muscle in my body.

  If I make the shot, I make a move. But if I miss, I let her go.

  The ball sailed into the hoop—and then spun right back out.

  I missed. Not a brick, but a so-close-I-could-almost-taste-it miss, which felt even worse.

  I walked back to get my stuff, the weight of the promise I’d just made to myself crushing me deeper with each step.

  “Sucks, man,” Diego said, shoving the ball into his duffel. “You were robbed.”

  I pulled my bag over
my shoulder and looked up at the floodlights. Inside the beams, tiny snowflakes were starting to fall, dancing, almost—swirling in circles so tight they were almost touching before melting invisibly into the pavement.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You were right. I wanted it too much.”

  “Forget about it,” Diego said, patting my shoulder. “It was just one shot. We’ll do a weekly scrimmage, turn you into a baller in no time.” We flipped our collars up against the cold and cut across the court back to Amsterdam, where taxi tires were already grinding the new snow to brown slush that splattered silently against the curb.

  After Diego broke off to go to the train, I kept walking, all the way home until my legs went numb. I felt more depressed than ever, but I didn’t know why. I mean, I hadn’t really needed a game of HORSE to tell me that going after you would be a bad idea; I already knew it. Which, I guess, was the problem.

  Just because you know something is wrong doesn’t mean you won’t do it anyway. I know you know that feeling. I think all of us did.

  By the end.

  Chapter Ten

  February 11

  91 days left

  I PRETTY QUICKLY ACCEPTED that not wanting you was an impossibility—or, at least, an idiotic plan that was both painful and completely futile, like that guy from Greek mythology who pushed the boulder up the hill and had to watch it roll back down, over and over. Ethan probably knew his name, not that I would have asked. With each passing day I resented him a little bit more. I couldn’t help it. He had brought me into the group, introduced me to you, and then cast us together in the fucked-up period piece fan fiction he had written about you—for you—which culminated in my sitting next to you every day for two hours, trying to make real feelings seem pretend and building to a climax that would never, and could never, happen. Wasn’t that Greek guy being punished by Zeus for something? I guess that would have made Ethan a god. Based on how hard he was power-tripping, it wasn’t such a stretch.