Kate in Waiting

by Becky Albertalli

  I’m just so stinking grateful for Facebook. There’s a phrase never uttered by anyone younger than forty.

  “. . . like no time had passed. It was remarkable. There’s just something about old friends. And her son, Matthew, is absolutely lovely.”

  Every cell in my body freezes. “Matthew?”

  Okay, that squeak you just heard? Was my voice jumping a full fucking octave.

  Mom’s as oblivious as always. “Such a sweetheart. Oh, he was telling me some story about—”

  Deep breath. “Is his name Matt Olsson?”

  “Oh, that’s right! I forgot he’s a senior. You and Ry might have run into him at school. He’s—”

  “Matt Olsson’s coming here?” I grip the back of my chair so hard, I can see my knuckles. “Tonight?”

  “Any minute.” Mom exhales, glancing back toward the oven. “Oy. Okay. No good.”

  “I’ll help. Sorry. Give me . . . one second.” I’ve already tapped into my text chain with Anderson.

  RED ALERT RED ALERT My mom’s friend Ellen? IS MATT’S MOM

  AND HE’S COMING OVER

  COKE-AD MATT

  IS COMING OVER

  TONIGHT

  “Kate! Can you get water on the table? And where’s your brother?”

  I set my phone down. “Ice or no ice?”

  The doorbell rings.

  “Goddammit,” Mom says. She heads straight to the door, still in her apron, still flour-faced, and by the time I catch up, she’s hugging Ellen in the doorway.

  Ellen, for what it’s worth, is like a clone of my mom. They even look alike—brown hair, big brown eyes, and they both have those hyperanimated, expressive faces. Ellen gasps when she sees me. “Is that Kate? Oh, honey. You look just like your Facebook pictures.”

  “Oh. Uh. Thank you?”

  “Look at those gorgeous cheeks. My God, Maggie. Your girl. And this is my son, Matthew. Matthew, Kate’s a junior—”

  “We’ve met.” He smiles. “Hey, Kate.”

  His voice. Saying my name.

  The moms, the house, the soufflés, everything. All of it evaporates.

  I am officially a puddle on the floor.

  Scene 12

  Mom keeps the mini soufflés and the hand-breaded chicken tenders and ditches all the other recipes—but she adds a veggie platter and a frozen pizza to the mix. It’s an absurdly un-kosher Shabbat dinner. The kitchen’s a disaster zone, with the exception of the gleaming, freshly mopped floor. And for once, the mop in question wasn’t Camilla’s tongue. Garfield family hospitality at its finest.

  Mom pops open a wine bottle Ellen brought and digs out the candles, and we’re just about to light them when the front door creaks open.

  “Helloooo?”

  “That must be the escort I hired,” Mom says, she and Ellen just start cackling.

  I catch Ryan’s eyes for the barest split second. “Mom, stop,” he says flatly.

  Whereas I’m just sitting here loving the fact that Mom said “escort.” In front of Matt. You know what’s really awesome? Your mom and your crush’s mom talking about escorts.

  Anyway, it’s not an escort. It’s Anderson.

  “Heeeyyy.” He peers into the dining room. “Am I too late?”

  “Oh, of course you’re not too late, sweetie. Ellen, this is Anderson Walker from next door. He’s Kate’s best friend. Look at you, boychick. I love that little bow tie.”

  Anderson, you absolute thirst machine. This boy literally changed into a fresh button-down and bow tie and straight up waltzed in here for dinner.

  “Got your text,” Andy says, eyeing me slyly.

  “I can see that.”

  And okay. I’m glad he’s here and everything, but can we just take a moment to recognize that he’s ditching Rapunzel and Flynn for Matt? Because he definitely wasn’t planning to ditch Rapunzel and Flynn for me. And, like, I get it. It’s just insulting.

  “So nice to meet you, Anderson,” Ellen says. “I feel like I’m in the presence of Maggie and Ellen, the next generation.”

  I almost choke on my water.

  Back up a minute. Andy and I aren’t the next Mom and Ellen. Mom and Ellen are the opposite of friendship goals. They didn’t even talk to each other for two decades. More than two decades. I’m sorry, but the thought of meeting Andy’s kid for the first time as a teenager makes me want to curl into a ball and cry. And if I ever tell Anderson’s kids they look just like their Facebook pictures, just go ahead and kill me.

  We add an extra place setting for Andy at the head of the table, and Matt’s directly to his right. So now they’re giggling together over something that happened in Senior D this morning. Apparently Noah Kaplan had to pretend to be a mime. I don’t really get what’s funny about it, but Matt and Andy seem to think it’s the height of comedy. Guess it’s one of those things where you had to be there. Of course, Ryan doesn’t even bother feigning interest—he’s just scrolling through his phone.

  Meanwhile, Ellen and Mom are basically just complaining about Matt’s dad. “He wanted to get him a BB gun. Can you believe it? Matthew was six. I said, ‘Absolutely not. Not in my house.’”

  “Oh my God. Yes. No, of course. It just makes me so angry. And those hyperrealistic toy weapons. Hate them. Oh, and paintball!” Mom’s in full rant mode now, about the eighth-grade paintball trip the athletic association sponsors every February. “It’s so dangerous. I always tell Ryan and Kate no. Absolutely never. Not at home. Not at camp—”

  “Oh, that’s right!” Ellen turns toward me in her chair. “Matthew tells me you guys all worked together at camp this summer. What a neat coincidence!”

  “I know.” I smile, but my eyes flick back to the boys. Anderson’s telling some story, tapping his fingertip to his palm. Ryan’s staring into space. But Matt’s hanging on every word.

  “Well your mom and I loved doing the plays at camp. And you know, we grew up together around here, too. Different schools, but we were in a few shows together at the rec center.”

  Out of nowhere, Andy and Matt burst out laughing. So fantastic. So glad they’re having such a fantastic fucking time together.

  But oof. I don’t like this feeling. I don’t know where that little voice in my head is coming from. It doesn’t even make sense for me to be jealous—I’m the one who invited Anderson. This morning! Literally today! And in what universe would I ever prefer his absence to his presence? I mean, it’s Anderson. So maybe I should stop beaming stink eye down the table with my mind and step up to the plate.

  “Hey, do you guys want to—”

  A burst of laughter from Andy and Matt. My words disappear.

  “You don’t even know.” Anderson shakes his head. “And he had this whole thing with Lansing. You should have seen his face when Kate thought Detroit was the capital—”

  “Wait.” I lean in. “Are you talking about Alexander from camp—”

  “Remember how you couldn’t call him Alex? Had to be Alexander,” Andy says.

  “Oh, but I liked that,” I say. “It was sweet.”

  “He was insanely hot, though,” Andy says. “I’d wife that, for sure.”

  And there it is—that tiny indentation in Andy’s cheeks. The Dimple of Self-Consciousness. I know this moment. It took me a few years to recognize it in the wild, but this is Andy coming out. He glances sideways, and I can almost feel him holding his breath, waiting for Matt to react.

  “I mean, you’d have to move to Lansing if you wifed that,” Matt says. “No question.”

  Andy grins. “I hear Lansing’s pretty amazing.”

  “According to Alexander,” I say.

  “We both know you googled the shit out of that town,” Andy says. He turns to Matt. “For the record, Kate had just as big of a crush on that dude as I did.”

  And of course—of course—Andy’s words land smack-dab in the center of one of those random conversational pauses.

  Mom turns to Andy, openly delighted. “Kate had a crush?”

&n
bsp; I shoot Andy my most violent death glare.

  He bites his lip. “Um, it wasn’t really—”

  “You know what?” I stand abruptly. “I need . . . something.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Andy practically leaps out of his chair. “Be right back,” he calls over his shoulder, already well on his way to my bedroom.

  I shut the door behind us. “What was that?”

  “Katy, I’m sorry! She was having her own conversation over there. I didn’t think—”

  “You realize she’s going to remember this forever, right? I’ll be hearing about Alexander from Michigan for the rest of my life.” I sink onto the edge of my bed.

  “Do you think maybe you’re overreacting? Just a little?” He settles in beside me, hooking his arm around my back.

  “No!” I lean my head on his shoulder and sigh. “Shut up. I just don’t like people knowing about my crushes. You know that. Come on, that’s privileged information.”

  “Katy, it’s a two-year-old crush.”

  “Yeah, well, the Code of Secrecy has no statute of limitations—”

  “Technically, it’s not a code violation unless I tell Alexander.”

  I glare at him.

  “I still think that dude was gay,” Andy says. “Remember when he touched my hair?”

  “Didn’t you say that was some racist microagressive bullshit—”

  “Oh, it one hundred percent was.” He pats the top of his Afro and sends a side-eye out into the universe. “But the way he did it so tenderly? I was like, sir, you’re gay—”

  “What? No. He was bi. He had that girlfriend!”

  “In Lansing,” says Andy. “His fake-ass girlfriend from fake-ass Lansing—”

  “Excuse me—”

  “EXCUSE ME, LANSING, MICHIGAN, IS REAL, AND IT’S THE CAPITAL.”

  I crack a smile.

  He hugs me sideways. “I love your face, Katypie.”

  “I love your stupid face, too.” I roll my eyes. “Come on, let’s go see if dessert’s ready.”

  Scene 13

  Saturday’s weather is pure liquid nonsense. I’m admittedly kind of a brat about rain. It’s essential, and that’s fine. I support its existence. I just don’t get why rain has to be so rude. It doesn’t care about your plans, your hair, anything. Rain just slides right in, like some ecological fuckboy in your DMs. No permission asked or granted, leaving you no choice but to roll with it.

  Which is why today is a don’t-leave-the-house day. A pajama day. An official squad homework accountability day. Andy’s off doing audition prep with his voice teacher, but the girls are here, and Brandie’s even doing real work. She’s sprawled on my bed, thumbing through a massive paperback—Les Misérables in its original French. Brandie’s in her own league when it comes to languages. She’s always been fluent in English and Spanish, and even though she didn’t start French until middle school, she’s fluent in that now, too. She’s too advanced even for AP, so now she’s taking an independent study in French literature. But Madame Blanche lets her pick her own books, so Brandie can pick stuff she actually likes. You’d think other teachers could be that thoughtful, but weirdly, no one’s letting me pick Les Mis as my algebra textbook.

  Raina’s got algebra due, too, so we’ve taken over my beanbag chairs in the corner. We’ve got our books in hand, but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten. I don’t mean to be a slacker. But it’s just hard to focus on math when there’s an audition to obsessively speculate about.

  “No, there’s precedent,” Raina’s saying. “Harold’s school did Once Upon a Mattress freshman year. Female Jester and Minstrel. They just transposed a few notes.”

  “And it’s all tenor, right? Brandie, you could probably sing the Jester stuff as is—”

  “Confirmed. I’ve heard her do it,” says Raina. “But Minstrel goes a little low sometimes—”

  “Okay, who do we think is gunning for the Minstrel? Probably Colin, right, but I don’t think he’ll be able to nail the dynamics—”

  “Oh, it’ll be Lana Bennett,” says Raina.

  “Ohhhhh. Yup. You’re right.”

  “And Brandie, just think!” Raina says. “If you get Jester, you and Lana are going to get to spend so much time together! Yay!”

  “Mm-hmm. That’s a lot of ifs, but okay,” Brandie says.

  “Best friends.” Raina smiles slyly. “Best, best friends. You and Lana.”

  Brandie ignores her, which is her general MO when we troll her about Lana Bennett. But trolling Brandie about Lana is the most delicious pastime on earth.

  The problem is, Brandie gives off such buttercup angel energy. She can’t help it. It’s who she is. But Lana seems to take Brandie’s fundamental essence as a specific appeal for lifelong best friendship. So she’s always inviting Brandie to hang out and sending her long, confessional texts about boys, to which Brandie mostly just replies with periodic polite emojis. It’s pretty wild, because Lana seems to vaguely hate the rest of us.

  Brandie sets down her book and covers her eyes. “We’re seeing a movie the Friday after next—”

  “Brandie, no!” Raina gasps. “How did this happen?”

  Brandie peeks through her fingers. “Well, okay. So, Emma was telling me about that movie with Kristen Wiig, and I was like, ‘Oh, I want to see that.’ And then Lana overhears that, and jumps in—”

  “The ambush,” says Raina.

  “Yeah. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just tried to be vague, like, ‘Yeah, maybe.’” Brandie bites her lip. “But then she starts suggesting specific dates—”

  “Uh-oh.” I wince.

  “And then you set polite but firm boundaries.” Raina raises her eyebrows at Brandie. “Because you don’t owe anyone your friendship.”

  “Well I said I was busy, but then she kept suggesting alternative dates, so I felt kind of trapped . . .”

  “Oh, that’s hard, B. I’m sorry.”

  “And now she’s already ordered tickets, and I’m just like, okay. So, that’s happening.” Brandie frowns. “I feel so mean.”

  “Brandie, oh my God. You’re the opposite of mean.” I shake my head.

  “I’m just saying—”

  There’s a knock on my bedroom door. “Come in!” I call out, expecting Mom.

  It’s not Mom.

  “Hey.”

  It’s Matt. In my doorway.

  “Hi!” I spring up from the beanbag chair and make a beeline for my bed, kicking approximately six pairs of underwear underneath it. And of course, my phone jumps out of my hands in the process. I don’t even just drop it like a normal person. Somehow it ends up skidding across the hardwoods like a hockey puck. I look up at Matt with my best I-meant-to-do-that smile. “Come on in!”

  “Your mom said you were here. She told me to tell you something about . . . six inches?”

  “The door,” I blurt, blushing. Why does the phrase six inches sound so . . . penile? Wow, I sure hope Matt thinks I’m speculating about his penis size. With my mom.

  Also, what on earth is Mom smoking? Raina and Brandie are here! Like, what the fuck kind of orgy is she even envisioning?

  “Anyway.” Matt’s blushing too. “I was just returning a Tupperware. What are y’all up to?” he asks.

  My phone starts buzzing—undoubtedly Anderson—but I stretch my leg out to kick it under the bed with my underwear. Andy texts are dangerous. For all I know, he’s just discussing the play, but even then, it could change on a dime. At any moment, he could switch right on over to the topic of Matt’s general gorgeousness and awesomeness and whether or not he’s single. Which would be a recipe for total disaster if Matt happened to glance at my phone.

  I plop onto the edge of my bed. Matt hovers beside me, hesitating. “Okay if I sit?”

  “Oh, of course! Here.” I scoot closer to Brandie to make room, but she slides off the bed, grabbing her phone. “Raina, we should probably head—”

  “Yup!” Raina jumps up. “You two have fun. Be good.�
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  Then she catches my eye for the barest split second and makes a big show of leaving the door six inches open.

  Scene 14

  Matt turns to me as soon as they leave. “Hey, you’re auditioning for the musical, right?”

  I choke back a laugh. “Yup.”

  I mean. I’ve only built my entire world around the school musical, last year, and the year before that, and every other year since sixth grade. I seriously wake up every single morning thinking about the best ways to deliver Winnifred’s lines. I think I’ve listened to the soundtrack from start to finish—I don’t know—thirty times.

  “Okay, cool,” Matt says, leaning back. He’s sort of halfway lying down now, legs hanging off my bed. “So, do most people end up getting cast?”

  “I think everyone gets cast. Even if you totally suck, Zhao will just stick you in the background. Not you, like you.” I blush. “I don’t mean you suck. You don’t suck. Like, at all. Ha. Yeah, no. I’ve heard you sing.”

  Kate. For the love of God. Get your shit together.

  “Anyway.” I swallow. “Are you trying out?”

  He shrugs, smiling. “It’s a requirement for Advanced Drama.”

  “Wait—really?”

  Okay, Anderson never mentioned that—which is weird, because Matt being in the play is a pretty big deal in Kate and Anderson world. I mean, yeah, I kind of thought maybe he would be. But now it’s official, which means hours of rehearsal, cozying up backstage and at set design. And it’s more than just the time together. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a certain kind of closeness that comes with working on a play. Maybe it’s the we’re-in-it-together team feeling, or the vulnerability that comes from creating something, or the slaphappy intimacy of tech week. Maybe it’s hormones. I don’t know the science behind it. I just know it’s a different, leveled-up kind of friendship. Almost like you’re siblings. Except for the part where you get caught making out in the lighting booth, cough, cough, Pierra and Colin.