Bookishly Ever After (20 page)

“That night, I promised myself that someday I’d play Christine. And now,” she bounced up and down happily, enough that her curls were bouncing with her. “It’s not Broadway, but it’ll be good practice for it.”

I grinned. “So, where’s Wilhelm for your
Think of Me
debut?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “He’s got some foreign
exchange student thing, and that’s totally fine because I think he’s not a big musical fan. But,” she grabbed my hands and made me bounce with her, “I’m so glad you’re here for this. You’re probably the only person who understands why I love this musical so much.”

The student director, a senior I didn’t recognize, hopped up onto the stage and clapped his hands. “Okay, guys, let’s get started. Em, Lissa needs to get out of here early, so we’re going a little out of order to run through
Angel of Music
first, okay?”

“Got it.” Em turned and waved at me before hurrying on stage.

“Sing pretty,” I called after her, then snuggled deeper into my seat, flipping on my booklight. The last time I’d sat in on a musical theatre rehearsal, there was a lot of chatting and moving people around and directors fixing little things between takes or scenes or whatever actor-y people called it. I could dive into
Concealed
, the latest
Hidden House
novella and probably not miss a thing.

I bounced between watching rehearsal and reading, but the moment Em softly started singing the first notes of her solo, I dropped my book into my lap and focused entirely on her. She was always different on stage, transformed from my pushy best friend into whatever character she was playing. This time, her posture was straight, like she was wearing a corset. Within a few notes of the song, she morphed from timid Christine to Christine taking over the stage, her voice traveling to the furthest ends of the auditorium.

Someone slid into the row, sitting two seats down from me. I froze the second I realized it was Kris. “I didn’t know Em was such a good singer.”

Em, with a range most people in the school choir would kill for, ran through a series of notes that brought chills over me. I nodded instead of answering and breaking the spell she had put over the whole auditorium.

As soon as the song was over and the director was working on fixing something with her, I took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, she’s going to take over Hollywood and Broadway someday.”

Kris looked back up at the stage and studied Em for a second before shaking his head and turning back to me. “So, if she’s that good, why is she wasting her time here in Lambertfield instead of building a career?”

“Because her parents would kill her. And because she’s convinced ninety percent of the time, child actors end up as total train wrecks.”

“Good point.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes and I stared at my book, unable to get past the first sentence on the screen. I couldn’t remember any good Marissa moments to imitate that really fit the moment. If only I had Em’s ability to shift seamlessly into character. I tried skimming down the page, but a novella about a girl trapped in the mirrorworld who turned evil probably wasn’t the best research material.

The boy’s eyes widen as he sees me for the first time and the terror in his face is easy to read. If I don’t turn his head quickly,
convince him to trust me, he’ll likely drop the drape back onto the mirror and run away like all the others who have seen me.

“So, I’m guessing you’re here because of Em?” Kris only glanced up from his phone for a second, then went back to what looked like a long text.

I imitated him, keeping my eyes on the novella while talking. “She talked me into it. I love
Phantom
, anyway, so it wasn’t hard. You?”

“Student council let out early. Matt skipped because he had to be here and he’s my ride home.” Matt, Student Council VP and Kris’ best friend. I should have realized that was why he’d take time to be at something like this.

“Oh.” How eloquent. I scrambled to remember something that could help, but my mind was completely filled with Camilla’s story. I wished he’d go to the bathroom or
anything
so I could check my notebook for something flirty or cute to say or do.

An innocent smile curls over my lips and I drop my eyelashes oh so slightly to project the illusion of a perfectly demure young Victorian lady. “Oh, please don’t go. I need your help.” I keep my voice soft and musical. “I am an angel and I’ve been trapped in this mirror by demons. Won’t you save me?”

I hold back a grin as his hand freezes midway through covering the mirror and, instead, pulls the mourning drape back completely. Success. If there is one thing boys cannot resist, it is saving a lady in danger. Now, to get him to touch the mirror…

I jumped back to the last two paragraphs. Yes, Camilla was evil, but she was successful, at least with Victorian boys.
I hid the smile that threatened to come out, as a Camillaworthy plan formed.

Em finished her third run-through of the Lottie scene and I glanced over at Kris to make sure he wasn’t too deep into whatever he’d been doing on his phone. Taking a deep breath and channeling Camilla—
be delicate and helpless
—I stood up like I was about to applaud Em’s performance and quickly let my knees buckle, pretending to reach for anything solid around me. “Oh, no,” I said in as shaky a voice as I could manage, soft enough not to mess with rehearsal, but loud enough for Kris to hear me.

Or maybe not loud enough. Without Kris jumping to my aid and catching me like I’d expected him to, my hip slammed hard against my armrest and I stumbled, barely catching the back of one of the chairs in the row in front of me before I could hit the floor. The sharp yank ran up my bow arm to my shoulder and I prayed that I didn’t tear or pull anything.

Kris finally reached out and grabbed my arm to steady me and help me sit back in my seat. “Whoa, are you okay?”

I forced a weak laugh, sucking back pain and the temptation to rub at my sore hip or rotate my shoulder. “I guess I stood up too fast.” That had been as far from graceful and Camilla-like as possible. I dropped my eyes, not so I could be demure and Victorian, but so he couldn’t see the utter mortification that had to be written all over my face. “Thanks for asking.” I pushed my hair out of my eyes and wished I could actually disappear into a mirror.

A dandelion yellow sweater-covered arm swept into my line of sight, knocking Kris’ hand away. “C’mon, Feebs. Rehearsal’s over and we need to go before Dad decides he’s tired of waiting and that I should catch the late bus to ‘build character’ or something. Let’s go.” Em hadn’t even bothered to put on her coat and tugged so hard at my sore arm I almost cried out.

“Give me a minute.” I straightened myself out, giving Kris my best “don’t mind my crazy friend” twisted-lip smile before her grip tightened and she started dragging me up the auditorium aisle. I managed a weak wave at Kris on the way out.

Em shrugged on her coat once we were in the hallway, shaking her head at me the whole time. “I saw the whole thing while we were finishing up. You so did that on purpose.”

I rotated my arm a few times, thankful that the ache had faded away before putting on my own coat. No permanent damage, thank goodness. “No, I didn’t.”

Em narrowed her eyes, going so far as to wag a finger at me like I was a two year old caught sneaking out of time out. “Please don’t ever do that again. You’re just going to perpetuate antiquated gender stereotypes.”

“I was imitating Camilla, who was from the late eighteen hundreds, so, success?” I said, weakly.

She made a huffing sound. “I need to burn that notebook of yours. And, FYI, you need to work on your acting skills.”

Her last dig hurt. “My acting is perfectly fine.”

“Uh-huh.” Em laid the back of her hand against her forehead and swayed like she’d just come off the tilt-a-whirl. “Oh, Kris, evil leprechauns have taken away my sense of balance and I need your spaghetti-limp politician arms to catch me before I fall into a magical mirror.”

“Em…” I shot a nervous glance around the hallway, but thankfully, we were the only ones there.

“That’s what you looked like back there.” She twirled happily around me, obviously holding back a laugh from the way she was pressing her lips together.

“No, I didn’t.” At her level stare, I heaved a saintly sigh and started dragging
her
towards the front door.

“Well, at least I’m happy to see you’re moving on from moping about Dev. We just need to find someone— anyone—better than Kris for you to crush on.”

I ignored her last comment. “Changing the subject, your singing was amazing today.”

She wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked. “Thanks. I still have a lot of work to do to hit some of those notes, though. But, watch out Broadway, when I do.”

As Em chatted about octaves and stage directions, I mentally made a note to keep Camilla out of my notebook. I should have known from the world of bookish karma that nothing good would come out of imitating one of the bad guys.

“Phoebe?”

“Hmm?” I looked up from
Shanghai Summer
and sandwich to see Em frowning at me as she unpacked her own lunch.

“So, first, I swear I didn’t plan this,” she said, her words flowing together faster than usual.

“O-kay…” I said, taking a bite of my sandwich and waiting for Em to launch into an overly dramatized play-byplay of a beaker blowing up in Chemistry lab or something.

She unconsciously popped the lid of her salad Tupperware open and closed over and over in typical worried-Em fashion. “I tried to convince him we could do this right before rehearsal, but he didn’t think we’d have enough time…” Em looked over her shoulder at the lunch line, then turned back to frown at me.

I shrugged, cutting her off before she could keep apologizing for something that really wasn’t a big deal. “We can watch
Mystical
tomorrow if you need to do something with Wilhelm,” I offered. It wouldn’t be the first time one of us had to reschedule watching our favorite tv show together.

She squinted at me confusedly. “Huh? Wilhelm? No, I
was talking about Dev.”

I froze. “Dev?” Alec and Grace looked over at us on that and Grace shook her head at Em, frowning.

“We need to run our lines together before rehearsal tonight. So, he’s going to sit here today. I’m so sorry.” Em’s expression was part sympathetic, part guilt. “Really sorry.”

My heart dropped into my stomach—Dev had stopped coming regularly to our lunch table back in January, around the time I was avoiding everyone by eating in the band room. I forced a bland expression and another shrug as I looked from Em to Alec and Grace, who had stopped midconversation, too. “It’s okay. We’re in class together. I’m fine. You guys act like I’m super delicate or something.”

But, as I said that, the crowd parted like something out of a movie and Dev broke through, balancing a tray that he slid right next to my lunch bag. “Hey, Phoebe, Em, guys.”

I quickly dropped my head and focused on my book, mumbling a hi before turning the page. I started taking a mental inventory of my outfit—glasses, a sweater and skirt just like Marissa’s in the
Hidden
goodbye scene, and bright red lipstick that matched the sweater—then remembered I didn’t care how I looked around him.

“Hi, everyone.” Lexie’s voice made me look up again to see her hovering right over me. She shoved her own tray in the nonexistent space between my lunch and Dev’s and squeezed herself onto the bench between us, forcing me to scoot over so I was perilously balancing on the edge.

I don’t care how I look around Dev
, I repeated silently
to myself, dipping my nose even deeper into my book. Especially since Lexie had Velcro-ed herself to Dev since January. Next to her cute, casual model-y look, my outfit and lipstick suddenly felt like I was trying too hard. I blinked at the page and frowned when I realized I’d read the same sentence for the fifth time. Flipping back a page, I started again, but I just couldn’t concentrate on Lian’s story with the conversation around me. Lexie laughed and I held back a cringe.

I looked up just in time to see Em, Alec, and Grace share a quick series of worried looks before Grace nodded at both of them and said, “I’m going to the bathroom. Phoebe, you’re coming with me, right?” She stood up, gently reached over to close my book, and pulled me to standing.

Alec snorted. “I will never understand why you girls need company when you go to the bathroom.”

Dev stopped midline and laughed. “Right? I have a sister and I still can’t figure that out.”

“Ha, ha. You guys are cute,” Em said sarcastically. “Dev, focus. We only have ten minutes before lunch ends.”

Grace grabbed my sweater sleeve and pulled me out of the lunchroom and into the thankfully empty girl’s bathroom. As soon as we stepped inside, she turned to face me, her lips set in a frown. “Hey, are you okay?”

I opened my mouth, closed it, then started again, saying carefully, “I’m fine.” I didn’t want my friends to think I was this weak, silly girl who couldn’t handle being around a guy she had—“had” in the past-tense—crushed on.

Grace made a humming sound, then looked away from me to check her eyeliner in the mirror. “That’s good, then. I personally wanted to kick Lexie for being so rude back there,” she said casually. She studied me in the mirror, her brow furrowing as she moved her attention from my face to the rest of me. “What are you wearing?”

I tugged at my bright red sweater, loving that the wide neckline fell a little off my shoulder in a totally non-dress code appropriate but so perfectly Marissa-y way. Still, I had no problem defending my style instead of talking about Dev and Lexie. “It’s really warm. And cute, right?”

She stopped, tilted her head, and twisted her lips in a “you’ve got to be kidding me” expression. “It’s way too baggy for you. I swear, it’s amazing how you have this magical ability to knit things that are absolutely perfect for anyone and then turn around and forget everything you know the second you step in a store. For my sake, can we at least try to acknowledge basic fit rules exist?”