All the Way (11 page)

“Oh, Jesse Jelinek needed a ride to get his license, so I took him. We cut out.”

“Jesse Jelinek?”

“He's a junior. We were in jazz band together last year.”

“I didn't know you played an instrument!” I blurted out, and a few people turned to look.

“Piano,” he said. “But I dropped out when Jelinek came along, because he's so much better than me.”

I squinted at him in the semidarkened auditorium. “So you're a quitter?” I was only partly teasing him.

“I'm a realist,” he said. “I only go after stuff I can get.”

That sounded kind of crass. I tilted my head, waiting for him to explain.

“Jelinek is one of those boy wonders—a real phenom,” Tyler said. “Once Mr. Nadar heard him play, he wasn't going to give me anything good to do. It's okay, though. Piano's not really my thing. This is.” He nodded toward the stage.

“Yeah, you were amazing at the auditions,” I said, with a note of I-wish-I-were-your-costar creeping into my voice.

“Are we still on for the
American Superstar
trip?” he asked.

“Definitely!” I'd almost forgotten about it, after that e-mail last night.

“Good. We should do something this weekend,” he said.

“Yeah.” I nodded, but Tyler was slightly distracted. Natalie was walking toward us, someone else had called his name, and now Natalie was dumping her backpack into a seat next to the one where Tyler's jacket and books were piled up.

“I've got to rehearse,” he said, reaching for his script. “Talk to you later, okay?”

“Sorry!” Natalie said in a totally phony, singsong voice, shooting me a triumphant smile. Like every time she took him away from me, she felt like she was racking up points.

She picked up her script and then linked one arm through Tyler's, dragging him away. “So, Sky,” she said, calling him by his character's name, “how are you going to seduce the pure, sweet, innocent Sarah Brown today?”

Tyler looked over his shoulder at me and shrugged helplessly. “Catch you later,” he called.

Yeah
.

I was tempted to skip out of the rest of rehearsal. There wasn't really anything for me to do, and why stick around torturing myself, watching them play a love scene? But Emily showed up right then, all excited and glowing.

“Come see the stuff I found!” she said, motioning toward the backstage area.

“What?”

“I went through my grandmother's attic, and it was amazing! She has all kinds of stuff we can use for props: a really cool old telephone, some wicked old shoes, and a 1950s vintage beach umbrella for the scene where they go to Havana.”

“Wow.” All at once, I was beginning to worry that I was slacking off. I'd been so wrapped up in the Hot Box photo and Joey's stupid rumors about me, I hadn't really been focusing on the costumes at all. “I've got to get busy,” I mumbled, deciding right then and there that I'd schedule a trip to the costume house for tomorrow.

We tiptoed up the steps to the backstage area while Natalie and Tyler were downstage left, working on the scene where they first meet. From behind the curtains backstage, we had a perfect view. I stopped to stare at them.

Natalie had her long, wavy black hair tied up on top of her head, leaving Tyler with a good view of her creamy skin and elegant, long neck. I couldn't tell whether he was taking the bait, but she was definitely working it.

Emily stared at Natalie, too.

“She's so pretty,” Emily muttered.

“You're just as pretty,” I said quietly but firmly. “You just need to juice up your look a little more. Dress a little hotter, you know?”

“You mean . . . dress more like you?” Emily asked cautiously.

I glanced down at what I had thrown on that morning: a fabulous, tight pair of kick-ass jeans with a boot cut, tall black boots that made me look like less of a shrimp than I really am, a black leather belt with silver studs, slung low around my hips, and a skimpy, midriff-exposing, swirly printed pink and orange tank top layered under a cute, short, hot-orange cardigan sweater.

Okay, I lied about throwing it together. I'd worked hard to pick out that outfit, and it totally rocked.

“Yeah,” I said, before I realized what she was really saying. “Dress a little more out there. Like me, I guess.”

“I'm not sure I want to do that,” she said honestly, meeting my eyes straight on.

Then it hit me. She didn't want to dress like someone who was the poster girl for the Hot Box Club. Someone who had the slutty rep I suddenly had.

I looked her right in the eyes. “Look, I didn't sleep with Joey. Whatever you've heard, it's just a bunch of gossip and lies he spread about me.”

She hesitated for a minute, but I guess she decided I was telling the truth because I had a no-bullshit expression pasted on my face. After a second, she smiled.

“Okay,” she said. “I should have known that.”

Yeah, you should have
.

“Well anyway, I'm just saying you could look amazing if you worked at it a little bit.”

“Do you think so?” she said.

“Definitely.”

“Okay, take me shopping!” she said with a defiant, determined look on her face. “I'm gonna dress as hot as I wanna be.”

“That's my motto,” I said. “I never let anyone dictate how I dress or act or who I go out with, you know?”

“Yeah,” Emily said, smiling at me approvingly. “I can tell.”

There was something about that moment that made me feel stronger than I had all day. Like, if Emily could believe in me and didn't think I was a slut, that's all I needed.

“You want to hit the mall on Saturday?” I asked her.

“For sure,” Emily said. “Only you have to promise one thing.”

“What?”

“Don't make me buy anything that shows off my belly button. It's an outie.” She blurted it out like a confession, and for some reason we both burst out laughing.

“I've got your back,” I said. Then I added, “And your belly button.”

Stupid, but stupid can be fun, you know?

For the next few minutes we just talked about clothes and boys and the prom.

“I'm going to make my own prom dress,” I told her. “And it's going to be hot, and I don't care what anyone says or thinks!”

“Yeah!” Emily said, beaming like somehow her I've-gotta-be-free switch had been turned on.

“The only thing is, I still don't have a date,” I whispered, glancing back toward the stage where Tyler was rehearsing. “But I'm hoping.”

We both watched Natalie cuddling up to Tyler in their scene. She had it all going on, I had to admit. She was turning on that brilliant smile of hers—the one that clearly made guys feel like they were superstud material.

He reached out and stroked her hair. I grabbed for a script and started flipping pages. Was that in there? In the stage directions?

So plan A was to hope that Tyler and I would “do something this weekend” like he said, and go to
American Superstar
like he said, and wind up going to the prom together.

And plan B? If that didn't work out? I could always go with David, I decided. He was my fallback plan. My safety.

I knew I could count on him if I had to. I just hoped I didn't have to.

 

 

 

“So who knew you could get STDs from having unprotected sex?” Tyler joked, leaning close to me during an assembly the next day.

“Yeah, I mean, wow. What a bulletin. Why didn't someone tell us sooner?”

We were sitting in what was possibly the dumbest school assembly I'd ever attended. Supposedly, the topic was “How Alcohol Ruined My Life,” or something unbearably lecturey like that. They'd brought in this deliberately punk looking twenty-year-old who had several piercings and bright orange streaks in her black hair. I mean, give me a break. She was a high school principal's idea of the hip role model teens could relate to, and meanwhile we all thought she was totally outdated and cliché. Anyway, her name was Summer, and she was there to “tell us the straight dope” about how she started drinking when she was eleven, which led to a whole long string of supposedly horrible stuff—smoking dope a few years later, driving under the influence, getting into a car wreck that messed up her boyfriend's leg so now he walks with a limp and has a pin in his shin, sleeping with guys she barely knew and getting syphilis . . . I mean, it was pathetic.

Clearly, this was the cheapo version of the substance abuse assembly. You could even see how the school system was trying to cut the budget by cramming all the hot topics into one big super-duper assembly, because as soon as she mentioned having syph, she started in on the safe sex lecture.

We'd heard it a million times, already. But I didn't care, because Tyler had made a point of finding me in the hall right before assembly and suggesting we sit together.

“Does anyone have any questions?” Summer asked.

Silence. Not one person raised a hand.

Wow. It
does
suck to be her, doesn't it?
I thought. I guess she was right; drinking really did ruin her life.

“Okay, well, thanks for listening, and I just want to leave you with one last thought,” Summer said. “Remember: when someone's trying to get you to do something you don't want to do, it doesn't hurt to say no.”

“Brilliant,” Tyler whispered sarcastically as everyone applauded weakly so she'd shut up and we could go back to class.

“I wish I'd taken notes,” I joked.

The best part of the whole assembly was that Tyler hadn't acted weird toward me when the sex stuff came up. I noticed Joey and Ryan and a few of Joey's other friends shooting me looks and then laughing when Summer mentioned syphilis. But Tyler either didn't notice or pretended he didn't.

I wanted to kiss him.

But then I'd been wanting to kiss him all year. So what else was new?

“So we should do something this weekend,” he said as we streamed out of the auditorium. “Are you busy Friday?”

“Friday's good for me,” I said. So was Thursday, Saturday, Sunday—you name it. But I tried to act cool.

“Great,” he said.

“Hold on.”

I knew that voice. It was the one that went with the thrillingly high soprano and the cascading, wavy dark hair.

I whirled around with my game face on and glared at Natalie.

“What?” I said.

“Sorry to butt in,” Natalie said. “But I overheard you guys making plans for Friday and . . . Tyler, did you forget? I mean, we have
got
to run lines on Friday after school. You promised, remember?”

I heard just a tiny little bit of air escape from his lips. Not quite a sigh, but almost.

“Oh, yeah.” He glanced at me. “Yeah, sorry. I did promise, and we're having a huge rehearsal on Saturday. We're going off book for the first time, so we'd better be ready, or Mr. Richards will kill us.”

“Oh.” I nodded, but of course I was fuming inside. How many times was she going to get away with this?

“It could take hours and hours,” Natalie said.

What a bitch.

I spotted Emily heading to lunch, so I turned and walked away from them without saying another word.

“You want to eat with me?” I asked Emily, trying to hide my grouchiness.

“She's after him, isn't she?” Emily said flatly.

“Who?”

“Natalie. She wants Tyler.”

“Yeah, and she's winning.” I was in a terrible mood.

“Well, don't let her!” Emily said as we walked down the cafeteria line.

The fighter in me wanted to say, “Right. There's no way I'll let that slut steal Tyler from me.” Not that she was really a slut . . . and not that he was mine . . . but you get the point.

“What should we do? Poison her pudding or something?” I said as we walked down the cafeteria line.

“No, no, I have a much better idea. You're in charge of her costume, right?”

I nodded. We were going to the costume rental house today after school.

“So? Duh. Make her wear something awful!” Emily said gleefully. “Something that makes her look fat.”

What a great idea! Who knew Emily was so much fun?

“You're evil!” I said, shooting her a grateful, conspiratorial smile.

“I try,” Emily said, grinning and clearly proud of herself.

I laughed at the picture: Natalie in some sort of really hideous vintage dress, all tattered, maybe, and with sweat stains in the armpits. Something that was just the wrong length, so it covered most of her legs without being the least bit sexy.

“Maybe you could find something with a bustle,” Emily suggested as she took a Greek salad from the salad section.

“Bustles aren't the right era for this play,” I said. “Besides, I could never really do anything that mean or vengeful.”

Could I?

“I know,” Emily said, biting into a carrot stick. “But
I
could. Just put
me
in charge.”

I laughed, because I knew she was kidding. Emily Pendleton was the queen of nice. I knew she'd never do anything really hateful to anyone.

After school, the whole cast carpooled to the costume place, and I wound up driving Emily, Ariel, Jacob, and some guy from the chorus. I zipped out of the parking lot and hurried to the costume house because I wanted to get there before everyone else, so I'd know what I was doing.