by Ally Condie
“Gary,” Meg said, “I think it would be nice to let her go.”
Gary frowned, thinking it over. “Okay,” he said. “Meg’s right. Shakespeare wanted everyone to see his plays. And you’re investing your money back into the Summerlost Festival, which is good. But next time you have to ask two weeks before.”
“Thank you,” I said to Meg as Gary turned toward his office.
“You work in the costume shop every day for free,” Meg said. “The least I can do is make sure you get to see one of the shows.”
24.
“Hey, Miles,” Leo said. “Looking good.”
The trumpet had sounded for people to leave the courtyard and take their seats inside the theater for the evening performance. I turned around and there was Miles, wearing a button-up shirt with his favorite jeans. He’d even combed his hair. His timing was perfect.
“Are you going to the play or something?” Leo asked.
I shifted my basket of programs to my other arm and waited. This was Miles’s part, and he knew his lines. I could see that he was having a hard time keeping from grinning.
“Yeah,” Miles said. “So are you.”
“What?”
I held out the tickets. “We’re all going to As You Like It,” I said. “I got you a ticket.”
I hadn’t been able to think of a good way to leave it on Leo’s windowsill (what if it blew away? what if he didn’t see it?) so I’d decided to do it like this.
Leo didn’t seem to understand. “We still have to help clean up,” he said.
“Not tonight,” Miles said. “Cedar talked to Gary.”
“You did?” Leo asked. “Really? And he said yes?”
“Yup,” I said. “But we have to go now. And we probably won’t have time to change out of our costumes.”
Leo’s mouth and eyebrows shot up in a smile. The sunset turned his brown hair orange and his eyelashes golden. “You are kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
I gave one ticket to Leo and one to Miles.
The sun was behind the pine trees now, winking at us. For once, we were going inside with everyone else to see the play. We’d be part of the Summerlost Festival in a different way. I put my hand on the wooden railing of the theater as we climbed up the stairs and listened to the sound of many feet walking on the old boards. A smiling usher showed us to our seats. “Enjoy the show,” she said, and I said, “I will.”
“Here we are,” Leo said. We slid down along the bench. Leo, me, Miles.
“Did you read that synopsis I gave you?” I whispered to Miles as we sat down.
“Um,” Miles said.
“He’ll catch on even if he didn’t,” Leo said. “It’s a lot easier to understand when you’re watching it instead of reading it.”
“Everyone always says that,” Miles muttered.
“We’re going to be so tired when we give the tour tomorrow,” Leo whispered in my ear. “But it’s going to be worth it.”
I don’t know what it was, but my heart started racing. Being at a play with a boy? The way the lights went down but the stars were about to come up?
Blue and green leaves hung down in ribbons from dark archways on the stage. The slightest breeze sent them moving. They were meant to be the forest of Arden, but before the actors came on, it looked like the leaves could be many other things. Seaweed, for mermaids to swim through. Strips of cloth hanging over a door, for men and women to slip past as they entered a castle, a cave, a tent. The stage was dappled with blue-and-green light, like water, like precious stone.
The actors came onstage. Miles leaned forward.
I didn’t recognize Caitlin Morrow for the first part of the play. I didn’t even think about Caitlin Morrow being the character of Rosalind. I saw Rosalind, clever, smart. I saw the other characters, and I felt like I was with them, in the forest.
And then Miles coughed next to me, and for a moment I came back out of the woods and was me.
And I wondered if Caitlin felt the way Lisette Chamberlain did before she was Lisette Chamberlain. Before everyone watched to see a movie star, a celebrity, but instead saw her as the characters.
I glanced over at Leo, who had that look on his face, the one I used to see all the time when we first met and still saw a lot now, even with the bullies and the worry about money. The look of being alive. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes had a brightness. He didn’t even notice me looking at him. He was still in the forest.
So I went back too.
25.
When intermission came, the three of us sat there for a moment after the lights came up. Then I looked over at Leo.
“Wow,” I said to him.
“Right?” he said. He looked over at Miles, who was stretching and standing up. “What do you think, Miles?”
“It’s not bad,” Miles said, “but my butt hurts from sitting.”
“We could call Mom and have her come get you,” I said. “I won’t be mad. I know it’s really long.”
“No way,” said Miles. “I’m staying for the whole thing.” And even though he’d been fidgeting a bit, I wasn’t surprised. Miles never wanted to seem like the young one. He would never back down. Once he started something, he did not quit.
“Let’s go walk around,” I said. “We have twenty minutes.”
“Eighteen, now,” Leo said.
We merged into the mass of people and went downstairs. The courtyard was dark, and the lights strung on the massive old sycamore tree glimmered. I’d forgotten that I was still wearing my costume until someone asked me where the restroom was, which made Leo and Miles laugh.
“I’ll go get us each a tart,” I said, after I’d pointed the woman in the right direction.
“No,” Leo said. “You bought the tickets, I’ll get the treats.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You need to save your money for England.”
“You can both stop arguing,” Miles said, “because look what I brought.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out four huge Atomic Fireballs.
“Oh man,” Leo said.
We all put them in our mouths. Tears came straight to my eyes, but they were really streaming down Leo’s cheeks. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “I think you’re even more sensitive to this stuff than Miles.” But it came out all garbled because of my Fireball.
“I can’t understand you,” Leo said. At least I think that’s what he said. And then he pointed at Miles, who had a Fireball in each cheek. “What does he think he’s doing?”
Right then another lady came up and asked me where the restroom was.
I tried to answer but she couldn’t understand me.
Leo snorted and then his eyes widened in pain. He spit out the Fireball into his hands. “Fire,” he gasped. “Fire went up into my nose.”
“Like a dragon,” said Miles, barely intelligible around the Fireballs in his cheeks, and the woman tsked in disgust and walked away.
The three of us stood there, helpless with laughter. The sycamore tree stretched its branches over and around us. We stayed like that until the trumpet sounded for us to go back in.
26.
I noticed how chilly it was when we went back into the theater. Desert-night cold comes fast. And all three of us were dressed in short sleeves. I noticed Miles folding his arms and hunching his shoulders. I shivered.
“Slide over,” Leo said, and so I did, and then our arms and legs were right together.
“Slide over,” I told Miles, and so he did too.
“Of course you get the middle,” he muttered. “Then you’re the only one who gets to be warm on both sides.”
On my other side, Leo shook with laughter. I could feel it.
My brother and my best friend sat next to me. My mouth was hot from the Fireball, and my hands and feet were cold from the night. On
either side, I was warm.
27.
The minute the play ended, Miles whispered to me that he had to go to the bathroom and took off. Leo and I sat there for a minute, letting the other people exit the theater.
“Thanks,” he said. “That was great.”
“And you were surprised, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I was.” He stood up and stretched and then stuck out his hand so that he could pull me up. “I love coming to the plays. I’ve really missed it this summer.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be an actor?”
“I know I couldn’t ever do what they do,” he said, pointing at the stage where the actors had been. “But I could be the one who writes the words they say.”
I started laughing.
“What?” Leo asked. “What’s so funny about that?”
“It’s funny because—” I said, and then I couldn’t stop cracking up, but Leo didn’t get mad. He raised his eyebrows at me.
“You don’t want to be an actor,” I said. “You want to be Shakespeare.”
Then Leo laughed too. “I guess if you put it that way, it sounds weird.”
“Not weird,” I said. “Just big.”
Leo had all these dreams. He had specific dreams, like seeing Barnaby Chesterfield in London. He had big dreams, like being a writer. And he trusted me so much that he told me his dreams out loud.
I’d spent the last year feeling like being alive was lucky enough. Like being alive was hard enough.
But I did have dreams.
There.
I admitted it to myself.
I had all kinds of dreams. I wanted to go skiing again and get fast and good. I wanted to go to London too someday. I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to own a bookstore or a restaurant and have people come in and say, “Hi, Cedar,” and I wanted to ride a bike down the streets in a little town in a country where people spoke a different language. Maybe my bike would have a basket and maybe the basket would have flowers in it. I wanted to live in a big city and wear lipstick and my hair up in a bun and buy groceries and carry them home in a paper bag. My high heels would click when I climbed the stairs to my apartment. I wanted to stand at the edge of a lake and listen.
Leo and I found Miles in the courtyard, and then we went to wait for my mom by the bike racks and the water fountain. Miles walked down to stick his hand in the water that cascaded from the ledge, but Leo and I stayed up by the top.
The plaque in front of the fountain said CHARLES H. JOHNSON & MARGARET G. JOHNSON MEMORIAL CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION FOUNTAIN.
“That’s a realllly long name for a fountain,” I said.
“My brothers and I call it Baby Niagara,” Leo said. “Because the part where it goes over the edge looks like Niagara Falls.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’ve been to Niagara Falls.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It was for a family vacation. My dad plans one every year. It’s always somewhere different. This year was the first year he didn’t plan a vacation. Because of the England trip.”
“He must really like England,” I said to Leo. “Because he’s been there before, and he wanted to go again, like you.”
“Yeah,” Leo said.
I sat down on the rim of the pool. The moon was full above and there were always more stars here than back at our real house, because of the light pollution in the city.
“Mom’s here!” Miles hollered up from below.
“I bet we can fit your bike in the trunk,” I told Leo. “Sorry I didn’t tell you to walk instead of ride. But I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“I don’t think it will fit,” Leo said.
I looked down at my mom’s car. He was right.
I’d been thinking of our old car, not the one we had now.
We used to have a minivan.
It got totaled in the accident.
And when it came time to buy a new car, my mom realized we didn’t need a minivan anymore. We didn’t have enough people. We could fit into a regular car.
So every time I see a minivan like our old one (which happens all the time, because a lot of people who park at grocery stores or schools or really anywhere have minivans), it’s like a tiny punch.
“Right,” I said to Leo. “Sorry.”
“It’s no problem,” Leo said. “And thanks again. This was great.”
“I’m glad. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Miles and I went down and got in the car.
“Doesn’t Leo want a ride?” my mom asked.
“He has his bike,” I said. “He’s going to ride home.”
“That’s dangerous,” Mom said. “It’s night.”
“We can’t fit his bike in the car,” I said.
“Well, we’ll follow him then,” Mom said.
“Because that’s not creepy at all,” Miles said, and I laughed.
Mom smiled and turned around to look at us. “Did you have a good time?”
“Yes,” I said. “It was great.”
“It was pretty good,” Miles said. “Even though the seats were hard and I got cold.” I slugged him in the arm.
“Thanks,” he said to me. “For the ticket.”
“You’re welcome,” I told him. “Thanks for the Fireball.”
We sat in the car waiting for Leo who didn’t know we were waiting for him.
Leo pulled his bike down the stairs next to the fountain. Bump, bump, bump. My mom rolled down her window and called out, “We’re going to follow you! To make sure you get home safe!”
I heard Leo call back, “Okay.”
He started riding down the sidewalk. Mom gave him a minute before we swung out into the street behind him. We had to make sure everyone got home safe, in our car that still seemed wrong.
I understood why Leo called the fountain Baby Niagara. Because once you see something big, you can’t help seeing it in everything small.
28.
My dad used to say that life was like turning the pages in a book. “Oh, look,” he’d say, pretending to flip the pages in the air after we’d had something bad happen to us. “Bad luck here on page ninety-seven. And on ninety-eight. But something good here on ninety-nine! All you had to do was keep reading!”
For small things it used to help, him saying that. Like if you failed a test or got a bad haircut or bonked your head on the waterslide and had to go home early from a birthday party at the pool.
Of course he never slammed the book shut, which was what had happened to him. One last bad thing and then the end, for him and for Ben. No more pages to turn, nothing to get them to a better part in the story.
It could go the other way too. Sometimes you were having a perfect day and you never ever wanted to turn the page because you knew there was no way that whatever came after would be as good.
The day after we turned the page on the play, Cory kept looking over at Leo and me and smiling. Not a nice smile. An I-know-something smile.
“Hey,” Cory said to Leo and me partway through the afternoon. “After we’re done with this shift, you guys should meet me in the forest over there.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I have to talk to you.”
“We can talk now,” Leo said.
“No,” Cory said, acting shocked. “We’re working now.”
No way was I going into the forest—our forest—with Cory the Hellfart. No way was I following his orders. “We need to hurry home,” I said. “Sorry.”
Cory shook his head. “Seriously. You guys don’t want to do that. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“We don’t have to go,” I told Leo after Cory walked off.
“I think we do,” Leo said.
“Why?”
“Because it could g
et worse if we don’t,” Leo said.
We watched Cory. The sun glinted off the chocolate wrappers in his concessions basket. The candy had probably gone all melty and gross in the sun.
• • •
“Look at what I found,” Cory said under the trees. He held out a piece of paper. It took me a minute to recognize it.
It was one of our tour flyers.
Leo reached out to grab it but Cory snatched it away. “I knew this was yours,” he said.
“It’s not,” Leo said.
“It is. I called the number this morning and you answered.” He laughed. “This is Leo Bishop, how can I help you?” Cory said, pretending to be Leo, making his voice high and weird in a way that wasn’t like Leo’s at all.
Leo clenched his hands into fists. His mouth had gone into a straight line. “So you were the person who hung up.”
“That’s right,” Cory said.
And I thought, Why? Why didn’t Cory like us? Why couldn’t he leave us alone?
Cory would have made fun of Ben. I was sure about that.
“So what,” I said. My voice sounded flat. “So what, Cory.”
“So I’m going to tell Gary,” Cory said. “And you’ll both lose your jobs.”
“Why?”
“Because Gary won’t be happy that you are giving tours and putting these flyers in the programs,” Cory said, in a tone that said You idiot.
“No,” I said. “I mean, why tell Gary?”
“So he’ll fire you.”
“Why do you care?” Leo asked. “Why do you want us fired?”
Cory grinned. “Because.”
As if that were an answer. But it was, to Cory. It was all the answer he needed.
I am different and that has nothing to do with you, I wanted to tell him. Leo is different and that has nothing to do with you. You look at us and you don’t like us and you don’t even know why. I’ve seen it before a million times with Ben.
But my knowing this didn’t change anything. Cory was still going to tell on us. He was still going to get us fired.
“So are you going to go tell Gary right now?” I asked.
