Meow or Never

by Jazz Taylor

  “Mind your own business, Jamal,” Nic says, climbing the stairs. Jamal hops in front of her playfully, mimicking her movements as she tries to go around. “Ugh! Why are you like this?”

  “Just trying to see my sister’s first friend!”

  First friend? I frown at Nic as she balls up her fists and punches Jamal while he laughs. She’s never had anyone come over before? But what about Amberleigh and Emily?

  Nic finally scrambles away from Jamal. He shakes his head, still laughing, and passes me. He inclines his chin, smiling. “Watch out for Nicki. She’s a lot.”

  “Come on, Avery,” Nic calls me from the top of the stairs. “Just ignore him.”

  I manage to wave at Jamal as he goes into the kitchen, and hurry upstairs after Nic. There’s a long hallway at the top, lined with rooms. Nic leads me to the second one on the right, a white door with a big heart decal in the middle. Below that is a handwritten sign that says ERIC, I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU GO IN MY ROOM.

  Nic opens her door, and I’m momentarily stunned. I was expecting a lot of pink and white, but Nic’s room is dark blue, the ceiling covered in stick-on stars. She has a big bed at the back, and a TV stand full of movies and games. She even has a skateboard propped up in one corner. Nic is way cooler than I thought.

  “Sorry about Jamal,” Nic says, sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed. Noodle speeds to her side and tries to lick her face. She holds Noodle at arm’s length, giggling.

  I sit next to her. I try to find something to say. Your room is so cool. But maybe she would get offended because I expected something else? You’re so cool. No, definitely not that. I wipe my hands on my pants. I’m all sweaty again.

  Noodle leaves Nic and sits beside me, panting in my face. I pet Noodle, and little by little, I feel calmer. I take a deep breath. I’ve already talked to her once. Twice, actually, if we count before my panic attack. So, I can do it again.

  “I have a brother too.”

  Nic raises her eyebrows. “Oh, so you know the pain?”

  I smile a little. “Yeah. Andrew’s a jerk.”

  “So is Jamal!” Nic sighs heavily. “Well, he’s not so bad. I can’t stand my little brother Eric. He’s eight and he’s the worst. He’s always coming into my room and grabbing my stuff. If I don’t keep an eye on my phone, he’s got it. I just wanna …” Nic boxes the air in front of her.

  I’m laughing now and not feeling so sweaty anymore. “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Three. Jamal’s thirteen, Eric’s eight, and Q is just two. I’m the only girl. Boys everywhere. Isn’t that awful?”

  “Noodle’s a girl,” I offer, and Nic laughs.

  “Yeah, true! She’s better than all my brothers combined.” Nic pauses for a moment, staring at me intently. The sweat starts up again.

  “What?”

  “I was right. It’s working.” Nic nods to herself, a satisfied expression on her face.

  “What’s working?”

  “My idea with Noodle. You’re talking to me great right now!”

  I don’t know what to say, so I pet Noodle’s head. She’s lying beside me now, her head in my lap. I do kinda feel calmer with Noodle here. But maybe I’m just getting used to Nic. We’ve talked a few times already and she’s not so scary. She’s still way too cool for me, but she’s at least nice about it.

  “I googled it,” Nic says after my silence, “and it looks like you can get an emotional support animal to help with your anxiety. Have you ever heard of that?”

  “I can’t. My brother’s allergic to cats and dogs.”

  “Ugh, right. Brothers ruin everything.” Nic crosses her arms and frowns at the floor. “Maybe we can keep your pet here and you can pick it up on the way to school?”

  I remember Nic’s mom’s glare at Noodle. “I don’t think that’ll work.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Mom’s already mad at me, so I don’t want to push it.” Nic looks back at me and leans against her bed. “This is tough. But don’t worry, Avery. We’ll figure something out.”

  Warmth spreads from my head to my fingertips. “Thanks.”

  Nic looks away from me, almost shyly. “I’m really glad you trust me enough to talk to me.”

  Oh God. My heart hammers against my ribs and I feel short of breath, but this has nothing to do with anxiety. Is she trying to kill me?

  “Girls, are you up here?” Nic’s mom opens her door, and I pray she can’t tell I’m about to have a heart attack. “Avery and her dad have to get going.”

  “Okay!” Nic jumps to her feet, and I stand too. She looks like she wants to give me a hug but stops herself. She grins at me instead. “Next time we’ll practice for the play, okay?”

  “Okay.” I return her smile, pat Noodle’s head one more time, and follow Nic’s mom downstairs. Dad’s waiting for me at the door. I think the meeting went well because he doesn’t seem so stressed anymore.

  “Ready?” he asks, and I nod. We wave goodbye to Nic’s mom and dad and go to the car. We’re halfway home before I muster the courage to speak.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Excellent. I think you’ll be fine to hang out there.” Dad loosens his tie a little, sighing. “But man, what a high-energy family.”

  I turn toward the window so he won’t see me smile. “Yeah. But I think I like that.”

  I leave for school on Monday, and Nic’s waiting by my house.

  At first, I think I’m dreaming. But even after I blink a few times and pinch myself, she’s still there. She waves, and I wave back tentatively.

  “Move out the way,” Andrew grunts behind me. Before I can move, he pushes past me. He stops for a second when he sees Nic, then smirks at me. “Aww, your friend is here to walk you to school. How sweet.”

  “Shut up,” I growl, my face burning. I hurry to Nic’s side before he has a chance to say anything else.

  “Hey!” she says when I get closer. “I hope it’s okay if we walk to school together. You do walk sometimes, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, but my tone is all wrong. I’m still irritated by Andrew. What’s it to him if Nic comes to walk to school together?

  Nic glances behind me. “Is that your brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He definitely looks like a jerk.”

  I smile, some of the irritation melting away. “He is. Why aren’t you riding the bus?”

  “I thought we could practice for the play while we walk!” Nic pulls out her script. It’s banged up and crumpled, and the back has a mysterious brown stain at the bottom. “We should get in as much practice as possible. Class practice isn’t good for you, at least not yet, and I don’t think your dad would let you come to my house every day, so this is perfect.”

  She’s really dedicated to this play. I feel a stab of regret—I haven’t thought about the play at all this weekend. I have been thinking about how much I wanted to see Nic again though, so I guess it works out.

  “Okay. Let’s do it.” I pull out my script, which is still pretty much brand-new except for my sweaty handprints. “Umm, where should we start?”

  “Let’s start at act three.” Nic flips to the back of the script. “We’ll practice act one to death in class, and then acts two and three will suck. Happens every time.”

  I flip to the back slowly, guilt eating at me. Nic loves theater. Anyone can tell. And here I am with the lead part, and I’m just goofing off. I didn’t do anything this weekend. I texted Harper about hanging out on Saturday, like she said, but she apologized and said something came up. I hope it’s not that she changed her mind … After that, I just looked for pictures of lost-pet pictures online (no Phantom so far) and daydreamed about Nic telling me she liked me. No practice at all.

  “Okay, I’ll start,” Nic says. She clears her throat, then looks intensely ahead of us. “Romeo is bad news.”

  “But I love him.” Even I can hear that my voice is flat. Thomas’s face pops into my head, and I shudder. I definitely do not love
him, in any sense of the word.

  “Love doesn’t keep your mom from shutting down her store,” Nic says. There’s a little bite to her words, as if she’s really scolding me. “Don’t you have any loyalty?”

  “That has nothing to do with me!” I try to add some feeling, and I think it’s working. I would be pretty upset if someone told me I couldn’t like Nic because of donuts or whatever. Or, er, something else, like being in the play? I don’t know, I’ve confused myself now. I think I’m mixing my metaphors.

  “That was really good!” Nic says, out of character now. “You do great when it’s just our parts.”

  Well. There’s a reason for that.

  “Maybe I can read for Romeo?” Nic suggests. “Then just picture me instead of Thomas’s dumb face.”

  That’s not gonna work, considering I have to kiss Thomas’s dumb face at the end of this play, and if I imagined kissing Nic’s much prettier face, I would have a heart attack and die.

  “I want to really nail our parts first,” I say to cover my embarrassment. “If that’s okay?”

  “Yeah!” Nic says. “Let’s keep going.”

  We run through the rest of the scene, then backtrack to a scene in act 2. I look up from the script for a second, but do a double take. Just a few feet ahead of us is a familiar pair of red Converse—Harper.

  “Wait, Nic,” I say, interrupting her. She looks up curiously. “Hang on a second.”

  I don’t wait for Nic to answer. I jog to Harper’s side. She’s wearing her headphones, so I have to wave my hands in front of her before she notices me. She jumps, then gives me a small smile. “Hey, Avery. What’s up?”

  I suddenly don’t know what to say. I just saw her and wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t think about her canceling our plans on Saturday. “Oh, uh, just wanted to say hi.”

  Harper smiles. “Hey, again. Oh, and sorry about canceling on Saturday. My mom was being a real … jerk. Anyway, sorry.”

  My anxiety fades. I bet Harper’s mom is like Dad—no new friends without parental approval. “Oh, that’s okay! I get it. My dad’s strict sometimes too.”

  A flash of discomfort lashes across Harper’s face, but it’s gone as soon as it appears. “Maybe a different day.”

  “Yeah, definitely.” I wonder why Harper looked uncomfortable. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it. Time for a subject change. “I didn’t know you walked to school.”

  Harper puts one of her hands in her pockets. She’s not wearing gloves. “Every day of my life.”

  “Oh.” How come I’ve never seen her? “We’re walking today too.” I look at Nic, and Harper follows my line of sight. Nic looks shocked, and I realize she’s never seen me talking to Harper. “Do you want to walk with us?”

  Harper hesitates but then shrugs. “Sure.”

  I motion for Nic to join us. She catches up to us, glancing between me and Harper. “Hey! You’re Harper, right?”

  “Yep.” Harper seems a little uninterested. Unease swirls in my stomach. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  Nic looks at me. Her expression is hard to read. Anxious? Annoyed? I don’t know. She’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Are you and Harper … friends?”

  I glance at Harper, nerves eating at my gut. Are we friends? We’ve only talked a few times. But I would like to be her friend, I think. She’s cool and real, and I don’t feel too bad when I talk to her, and we did exchange phone numbers—

  “Yep,” Harper says. She gives me an encouraging half smile. “We’re friends.”

  Can I hug Harper right now? Is that allowed?

  “Oh, cool.” Nic doesn’t look like it’s cool. She looks kinda mad. “Can you practice with Harper around?”

  I fiddle with my script. There’s a weird tension in the air, and I have no idea how it happened. Maybe Nic doesn’t like Harper? Or the other way around?

  “Umm, I can try.” I hold up the script. “Me and Nic are practicing our lines. I’m not very good at acting.”

  “Yet!” Nic says, some of her frostiness disappearing.

  “You gotta be halfway decent,” Harper says. We start walking again, Nic to my left, Harper to my right. “You’re Juliet, ain’t you?”

  “She’s a really good singer,” Nic says.

  Harper nods. “That makes sense. Though I never wanted it to be a musical.”

  “Really?” I ask. “Why’d you change it?”

  “Mrs. Thompson made me. She wrote all the songs. Something about musicals selling better.”

  So I have Mrs. Thompson to thank for this mess, huh? If it hadn’t been a musical, Nic would have been Juliet and I would have been in the crew like always. Curse her for doing this to me.

  “No wonder the songs are so goofy. But I like the play,” Nic says to Harper. “The characters are really good.” Her tone is a little guarded, like she’s unsure how Harper will take the compliment.

  Harper shrugs. “They’re okay. Honestly, as long as y’all have fun performing the play, I don’t care how it turns out.”

  Harper is a strange girl, but I like her. There’s an honesty in her words. She’s kinda easygoing, but tense at the same time. Way different than Nic.

  “Let’s hear those lines,” Harper says after a few seconds. “How bad of an actress are you?”

  Normally I’d be embarrassed, but the words don’t hurt from Harper. Nic and I go back and forth until we see the school in the distance.

  “Not bad,” Harper says. “I mean, not great, but you just need more practice. Think about how it feels to really be Juliet, you know? Like what does she like and how does that affect how she talks? That helps me when I write anyway.”

  Hmm. “Maybe you can tell me more about Juliet later? So I can get into character?”

  Harper smiles. For the first time, I notice she’s missing a tooth, way in the back. “You got it, friend.”

  When we reach the school, Harper waves at us and heads toward the science wing. Maybe I’ll see her at lunch.

  Nic watches her leave, that weird expression I can’t identify back in full force.

  “Umm …” I trail off, uncertain. Maybe I shouldn’t ask. “See you in English?”

  Nic looks back at me and her normal, happy expression returns. “Of course! We can practice more later too. Oh, and we gotta pick a day for you to come over!”

  The first bell rings, so I don’t get to answer. Nic has history first period, which is all the way across the school. She grimaces and takes off running, waving at me. I wave back, a funny feeling in my chest. I hope I didn’t make a mistake introducing Nic and Harper. I hope I didn’t ruin both friendships before they even started.

  Wanna come over tomorrow night to practice?

  I stare at Nic’s text. It’s almost too good to be true. The prettiest girl in school, texting me. Wanting to help me practice. Walking with me to school! Maybe I didn’t ruin everything. Who knew all I’d have to do to turn my luck around was suffer in the lead role of a play?

  “What’re you smiling at your phone for?” Andrew grunts from the couch. It’s a rare night he’s home. Dad’s not back from work yet (even though it’s seven already). I’m pretty sure Dad got onto him for not watching me, because he’s been moping around a lot lately.

  I try to channel Nic. “Mind your own business, Andrew.”

  He throws a pillow at me. Not exactly how Jamal responded.

  I throw it back, but it whizzes past his head. He gives me an arrogant smile. “That’s why you’re in theater and not softball, I guess.”

  I don’t have to take this. “I’m going to my room.”

  “Wait,” Andrew says. He sits up, his expression uncommonly serious. “I need to ask you something.”

  Oh God. I can’t even imagine what Andrew would want from me. “What? I’m not covering for you for a party or something.”

  Andrew snorts. “Like I’d need you to. No, this is about you.”

  “Me?”

  Andrew looks into my eyes. “Is that
girl who meets you before school your girlfriend?”

  All the breath leaves my body at once. I’m hot and cold, and my legs itch to run away. No one knows that I like girls, except for my uncle Denny. And I only told him because he was drunk. Dad would kill me. Well, maybe not, but I don’t know what he’d say. I can’t tell him, at least not now. How did Andrew, of all people, guess?!

  “I’m going to m-my room.” I try to walk away, but my legs won’t work all of a sudden. I’m glued to the spot.

  “I’m just asking,” Andrew says, his palms up. “I don’t care if you like girls or whatever. It’s not exactly a secret.”

  Confusion clouds my mind. “What … ? How did you know?”

  Andrew rolls his eyes. “You used to look at my girlfriend like she was a superhero.”

  Heat fills my face. “That was a long time ago!”

  “Two years ago.”

  I throw another pillow at him. This time I don’t miss, and it nails him in the face. “Leave me alone! I can’t believe this. You didn’t tell Dad, did you?”

  Andrew rubs his nose, his expression annoyed. “No, but you’re being such a brat, I might.”

  Fear seizes my heart and tears jump in my eyes. “Please don’t. Please.”

  Andrew’s eyes soften. “It’s okay, I won’t. Dad wouldn’t care though, you know.”

  I hesitate, staring at the floor. “I can’t take that chance.”

  “Fair enough.” Andrew picks up the pillows we tossed around and pats my head. His touch is heavy but warm. “Now answer your girlfriend’s text. It’s not cool to keep her waiting.”

  “Nic’s not my girlfriend,” I say, but he’s already halfway upstairs. I pick up the phone and look at her text again. I let myself imagine, just for a second, what it would be like if Andrew was right and Nic really liked me the way I like her. It’s almost too painful to bear. But I want to be close to her, if she’ll let me. Even if I can just be her friend, I’ll take it. I take a deep breath and type my response.

  I’ll be there.

  After theater, I go to Phantom’s closet.