Like he could tell the difference. I considered the skirts in the window of The Limited as we walked by. “Okay, so what goes better with indigo—black or navy blue?”
He took a few steps in silence. “I could probably tell you if I knew what indigo was.”
“I rest my case.” We passed a music and DVD store, and as I looked at the movie posters hanging in the store I thought of Jordan’s parents again. “Now, about getting your dad to visit your mom—have you ever considered pretending to have a serious illness? That works on TV.”
“And is just one more way TV is not like real life. Doctors have diagnostic equipment that tells whether you’re sick. It’s not like you can fake cancer.”
“How about you invite him down to do some outdoorsy guy thing then? It’s almost hunting season, isn’t it?”
“Neither of us hunt.”
I’m not sure why this surprised me. Maybe because his last name was hunter. Besides, I guess I just figured anybody who spent so much time wielding a gun on TV was likely to do it in real life too. “How about camping then? That’s something dads do.”
“If I told him I wanted to go camping, he’d fly me out somewhere. He wouldn’t come to Three Forks to do it.”
We passed a jewelry store and a shoe shop, but my mind didn’t let go of the problem. What could Christopher Hunter do in Three Forks, and only in Three Forks, that would require him to visit his son here?
We walked back to his car, and the conversation turned to other things; but my mind still gripped the Christopher problem, turning it around and examining all the edges. It was like being stuck on a jigsaw puzzle with only two dozen pieces left to go. I knew the right piece sat in front of me, and yet I still couldn’t find it.
We climbed into his car, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed back to the highway.
“What does your dad like to do?” I asked during a lull in the conversation. “If hunting and camping won’t work, something else will. What interests him?”
Jordan shrugged. “He likes to cook. He exercises a lot. I don’t know. He loves acting the most.”
And there it was. The piece I’d been missing. I hadn’t seen it before, because it was too obvious.
I leaned back against the seat with relief. A whole quarry of birds was about to drop to the ground with just one stone from my hand. “I know how to get your dad to not only come before Thanksgiving but to stay for a while,” I said.
He looked over at me skeptically. “How?”
“You’re going to be in our school play. And not only do you want him to come down for the performance, you want him to come down beforehand and coach you on your part. He’d do that for you, wouldn’t he?”
Jordan’s eyebrows drew together. His thumb tapped against the steering wheel. “I’ve never liked acting. I don’t know if I could do it if I tried.”
“All the more reason for your father to come down and help you.”
A slow smile spread across Jordan’s face. “You have a point. I’d need lots of practice, and who better to help me than my dad?”
He drove silently, nodding, and I knew he was working out the details, putting the rest of the pieces together. Finally, he turned back to me. “Do you think I’ll even make it past the tryouts though? What director in her right mind would choose someone who’s never acted before?”
“We always need guys, and besides, I can help you. I know how to act.”
And I did. For example, right now I was acting completely confident, when in reality I wasn’t sure the director would choose him for anything. But somehow, I just knew it had to be.
Three
Mrs. Shale, the drama teacher, says I have an expressive face. “You project emotion so well,” she told me all through the production of Oklahoma!
It may help in the theater, but it’s a pain everywhere else. I had been home from the mall for approximately five minutes before Nicki started in on me. She eyed me from her spot in the family room, where she sat perched in front of the computer. With the phone pressed against her ear, she was IMing half the freshman class. “You’re in a good mood,” she called as I walked into the kitchen. “Did you find some great deals at the mall?”
“Nope.” I rummaged around in the fridge and pulled out a peach.
“So what happened?” she asked.
“Nothing happened.” I ran the peach under the faucet, then rubbed it on a dish towel in an attempt to remove as much peach fuzz as possible.
Nicki kept staring at me. “This is the first time I’ve seen you happy since Brendan dumped you.”
“I’m not happy.”
“You’re humming, smiling, and eating something that wasn’t dipped in chocolate first.”
Okay, there may have been some Almond Joy moments after Brendan broke up with me, and admittedly I did carry around a jumbo-sized bag of Peanut M&M’s for an entire day, but that’s only because I’d been stocking candy at work. When you’ve been looking at it all day, it’s hard not to buy five or six bags.
“Maybe I am happy,” I told Nicki, “but that’s only because I have a naturally sunny disposition.”
“Oh my gosh,” Nicki said into the phone, “Jessica’s in love with the guy from the parking lot.”
“I’m not in love.” I took a bite of the peach and juice dribbled down my chin. “And his name is Jordan.”
Nicki’s finger’s tapped away at the keyboard while she spoke into the phone. “Yeah, I guess he’s kinda cute, although I don’t know what the deal with the ponytail is. I mean, that is so Willie Nelson. I’d never go out with a guy whose hair is longer than mine.” Then to me she said, “Miranda wants to know if he kissed you.”
“No, he didn’t kiss me.” When the surprise of the question wore off, I added, “And tell Miranda she shouldn’t ask such personal questions.”
“Julie wants to know if you’re going out now, or whether it was a one-time deal.”
I grabbed a napkin from the table and took another bite of my peach. “Just who are you talking to on the phone?”
“Priscilla. And she says if you don’t want the guy, can she have dibs on him? She thinks ponytails make men look brooding.”
Which meant Nicki was not only discussing Jordan and me on the telephone but also broadcasting our mall outing over the computer. I ripped the pit out of my peach, walked to the trash can, and dropped it in. “Would you please refrain from talking about my love life with every single person you know?”
“Too late.” Her fingers tapped happily on the keyboard, and into the phone she said, “Sounds like she wants him, Cilla. She got all defensive when I asked if he was up for grabs.”
I took my peach and stomped up to my room so I wouldn’t have to talk to her anymore. I didn’t want Jordan. At least not that way. I wanted him as a friend, and I certainly wanted his dad as a friend; but after all, I was suffering from a broken heart over Brendan. I wanted Brendan, and I’d even come up with my first battle plan in the war to wrench him out of Lauren’s well-manicured hands.
It had come to me as I’d held the phone this morning—when I’d hoped Brendan hadn’t called just to tell me he’d left his history book at my house.
I now realized that was the perfect thing for Brendan to tell me. If he’d left his history book at my house, he’d have to come over and get it because we had a test on Thursday and Brendan never read the chapters ahead of time. Of course, he hadn’t left his history book at my house. It probably lay in the bottom of his locker under empty Gatorade bottles and discarded English papers. But I could steal it easily enough. He’d given me his locker combination at the beginning of the year.
So I’d take the book Monday morning, then wait until Wednesday to e-mail him that I’d found his book at my house. He’d have to pick it up that night, and when he did, I’d be waiting.
As I nibbled at my peach I planned out the details. I’d wear my hair down and curled. He liked it best that way. I’d wear my black angora sweater. It was feminine, pre
tty, and drenched with mystique. I’d bake chocolate chip cookies so the smell wafted throughout the house. Brendan never met a chocolate chip cookie he could walk away from. And best of all, I’d tell him in the E-mail he needed to pick up his book before seven because I had a date after that.
Nothing is more irresistible to a guy than a girl who is dating someone else. He’d be mine again before test time on Thursday.
Which meant I could concentrate on Jordan until then, or at least concentrate on getting Jordan’s acting skills up to tryout level. During our car trip home we’d arranged to meet after school on Monday to go over the script for Romeo and Juliet.
Mrs. Shale was such a Shakespeare fan that she occasionally spent entire class periods just waxing philosophical about the intricacies of Hamlet’s character. The wall in the back of the class sported an almost life-size poster of a muscular Romeo embracing a dewy-eyed Juliet. Her long, blond, and bejeweled hair fell in loose curls around her waist. You could tell how much Mrs. Shale loved that picture by the way she’d sit at her desk and gaze at it. So I guess it was inevitable that eventually she’d try to put on the play herself.
She hadn’t told us what pages she was choosing for try-outs, so I figured Jordan ought to read over the main scenes to get a feel for it. Perhaps multiple times.
I wanted the part of Juliet. In fact, I hadn’t cut my hair since the beginning of sophomore year when Mrs. Shale mentioned she wanted to do the play this year. My blond hair was halfway down my back, and I’d already started practicing my dewy-eyed expression. My only real competition in the drama class, Mary East, had dark brown hair that didn’t even reach her shoulders. See, now that’s poor planning.
Of course, Mary’s father was school superintendent, which might cancel out my long blond hair. Teachers generally bent over backward to oblige Mary, and excuse me, I don’t think she got the part of Ado Annie in last year’s Oklahoma! because of her singing voice.
Jordan, of course, would be perfect for Romeo. He was tall, dark, handsome, and the son of a famous actor. Massive genetic talent must lie beneath his surface, just waiting to be tapped into. All I had to do was help him find it within himself.
I drove to school early on Monday morning so I wouldn’t have to worry about running into Brendan. I walked to his locker, spun the combination and opened the lock. After a few moments of digging around in the junk on the bottom, I walked away with his history book. It was so easy that for three or four minutes afterward, I seriously considered taking up a life of crime.
I tucked the book safely away in my locker, then looked for Jordan in case he was wandering around the hallways with his schedule, trying to find his classes. But I didn’t see him, not before school and not between first and second periods. By third-period break I was looking for him so intently I nearly walked right past Lauren and Brendan without my customary gut-twisting reaction.
As they walked by holding hands, Brendan looked away, awkwardly, pretending he didn’t see me. Lauren gave me a triumphant smirk. She’s obviously the type of person who as a child would push the other kids off their trikes. I wouldn’t even feel sorry for her after Thursday.
At lunch I saw Jordan across the cafeteria eating with a couple of the cross-country guys, so I guess it hadn’t taken him long to find his niche. While I ate I pointed him out to my best friend, Kate.
I’d told her about the car mix-up, although I probably shouldn’t have. She already has this totally unjustified opinion that I’m too scatterbrained, so these types of stories do nothing to boost her confidence in me. Still, I had to tell someone, and although Kate and I are night-and-day different, she’s totally loyal. I knew I could trust her to keep it a secret.
She watched him, unconcerned, over the top of her sandwich. “He’s cute, but he looks kinda arrogant.”
“You think all guys are arrogant, Kate.”
“That’s because they all are.” She took a sip of her milk. “I was right about Brendan, wasn’t I?”
I snapped my carrot in half. “Just because he broke up with me doesn’t mean he’s arrogant.”
“Yeah, but I thought he was arrogant and untrustworthy.”
It was probably useless to point out to her that she thought all guys were untrustworthy. Ever since Kate’s parents divorced three years ago, she didn’t have anything nice to say about the other half of the population. And you didn’t want to get her started talking about pay scale, the equal rights amendment, or organized sports in general. According to Kate, football is just a way for men to vicariously act out their aggressive tendencies. And society was sick—just sick—to turn them into superstars.
I decided to steer the conversation back to Jordan. “I think Jordan would make a good Romeo, don’t you?”
Kate rolled her eyes.
“I mean for the play. You know, Romeo and Juliet. We’re putting it on in drama.”
She casually took another bite of her sandwich. “Didn’t you hear? Mrs. Shale decided to do a reader’s theater this year.”
“Only if we didn’t raise enough money for sets with our next fund-raiser,” I said.
Kate shook her head. “I just got out of Mrs. Shale’s English class. She said she decided to do a reader’s theater of Hedda Gabler instead of Romeo and Juliet.”
I dropped my carrot onto the table. “No.”
Kate shrugged. “You can still try out for the musical in the spring.”
I couldn’t wait until the spring. Anything could happen before then. For all I knew, Jordan would convince his mom to move back to L.A. before the spring.
I tilted my head back against my chair. “She’s not even going to give us a chance to push magazines? How can she do this to me?”
“Look on the bright side. You won’t have to memorize pages of iambic pentameter, and you can cut your hair. No offense, Jessica, but if your hair were any longer, people would think you were trying to be either a mermaid or Amish.”
I bet Julia Roberts has more sympathetic friends. I bet not once did Arnold Schwarzenegger ever have to perform a reader’s theater. And most importantly, I bet Christopher Hunter wouldn’t fly down to see a bunch of kids sitting on a stage reading a script, even if his son was one of those doing the reading.
“I’m going to talk to Mrs. Shale after drama class,” I said. “She just has to let us do a real play. She has to.” But as I ate the rest of my lunch I felt less and less optimistic about my chances. In the history of schools, when has a teacher ever listened to what a student thinks?
I have drama sixth period. The class consists of four people who are serious about acting and two dozen who didn’t want to take band, orchestra, or shop, and needed another elective. You’d think Mrs. Shale would realize this, just concentrate on the four of us who want to act, and let everyone else do their homework or something—but no. Every day we all have to do exercises designed to expand our imaginations. Like we shut our eyes, pretend to eat a lemon, and feel—really feel—the sour, lemony taste. Today we pretended to walk in the snow and tried to show that we felt the wind in our hair and the cold rushing against our cheeks.
Mrs. Shale sat perched on her desk, roughly the same shape and in the same pose as a Buddha, and waved one hand benevolently at us. “Can you feel a shiver moving up your spine? Can you feel waves of snowflakes brushing against your lips?”
Next to me a guy named Andre snickered. “No,” he whispered. “I just feel really stupid sitting here with my eyes shut.”
Jeff and Tye, his usual partners in crime, laughed and made noises that indicated they also felt stupid—which was probably not a new experience for them. I tried to block out this trio, creating a blizzard in my mind to drown out their voices, but it’s hard to invent a chilling wind when you’re surrounded by unbelievers.
Mrs. Shale left her desk and walked around the room studying our faces. “Feel the frost on your fingers. Feel the sting against your ears. Show me you feel the winter!”
Then Andre made a big production of pre
tending to blow his nose on his sleeve, so that Mary and her string of friends all burst out laughing.
“What?” Andre asked with a smile. “My nose always runs when it’s cold.”
After that, Mrs. Shale assigned us an essay on Midsummer Night’s Dream. Thank you very much, Andre.
When class ended, I hung back, pretending to organize my books while waiting for everyone to leave.
Mary stopped by Mrs. Shale’s desk to compliment her on—of all things—her black turtleneck sweater. Mary is such a suck-up. First of all, turtleneck sweaters make people look like they have no necks. When someone is overweight to begin with, and therefore short in the neck department anyway, a turtleneck is never going to be a good choice. Plus, for some reason that the student body has never been able to discern, Mrs. Shale wears almost entirely black. Theories on this range from
(a) There’s a Thespian Society rule that states drama teachers must wear dreary colors.
(b) She’s mourning for a lost love.
(c) She made a pact with the devil.
(d) She’s color-blind, and having a completely black wardrobe makes it easier to match things.
Whatever the reason, Mrs. Shale has single-handedly put would-be Goth groupies right off the color black because anyone who wears a lot of it invites all sorts of unflattering comparisons. I mean, no one wants to hear the phrase, “Hey, you’re looking a lot like Mrs. Shale today.”
Anyway, after Mary had finished her attempt to secure a main part in the reader’s theater through flattery, I made my way up to Mrs. Shale’s desk. She shuffled through our essays and shook her head.
“Hello, Mrs. Shale, I—”
Her head cocked up when she heard my voice. “Jessica, did you read A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“Yes,” I stammered.
“Well, you’re apparently the only one in the class who did then. The other students think it’s a play about Lysol-ander, Queen Hippo, and Puke.”
Fame, Glory, and Other Things on My to Do List Page 4
