Damsel Distressed (14 page)

He purses his lips and wordlessly nods at me in a sarcastic, heartbreaking way. I hear him sigh as he goes.

I throw my Sharpie across the tabletop as I watch through the glass. He strides down the house left aisle, and all I can think of is how much I want him to turn around. But he doesn't. And then he's vanished into the stage right wing.

The walkie-talkie on the table squawks, and I hear Brice's bright voice.

“Imogen, can you come and help me in the costume room if you have a chance?”

In moments of sadness or frustration or anger, it always blows my mind when some small thing happens to remind me that the world hasn't stopped turning.

I scoot the chair back so I can lay my face on the cold desktop. I force myself to take five deep breaths before I reach over and grab the walkie-talkie off the table.

“Sure, B. I'll be right there.”

“There is no way this is going to fit her,” I say, gaping at the dress—or should I call it a tent?—that Brice is holding up at the sewing machine, which is perched on a craft table in the center of the room. “I mean, it's way, way too big for Charity. This dress looks like it could nearly fit me.”

Brice adjusts the hot pink dress on his machine and then steps on the pedal again. He has to shout to be heard over the hum. “Oh, the joys of period costumes. It's way easier and cheaper to make one of something and take it in over and over to fit new people.”

He pauses to check his notes on the clipboard beside him.

“That makes sense,” I say as I move another ensemble girl's dress to the “Fitted For Mics” rack.

“Of course it does.” He clamps his pencil between his teeth and then sweeps Charity's hot pink ball gown around so he can take up the hem. He mumbles around the pencil clenched in his jaw, “Will you hand me a few of those pins?”

I grab the box and pull a safety pin out to twist between my fingers before handing a few straight pins over to Brice.

“So,” I say, “I sorted out the dresses that I know will fit the packs, no problem. What else can I do? I don't want to go back out there with those idiots.”

Brice laughs to himself and then turns to me, looking around, like he's checking for spies. “Oh, I don't really need much help,” he whispers. He lowers his gaze and puts his hand up to his mouth like he's telling me a secret. “I'm pretty amazing at this, so…” He goes back to fiddling with the dress on his table. “Actually, false. Can you help me get this thing over the dress form?”

“Sure.” I reach for the dress, which we drape over the headless, armless, surprisingly creepy torso on a stand. I really look at the dress for the first time. The entire show is done in an almost cheesy neon color scheme. It's like having fluffy princess dresses, but in bright green and highlighter yellow. Charity's statement dress is hot fuchsia and made in a corseted sort of style with lacing at the back.

Brice pulls in the excess fabric at the waist and examines it from the front. He mutters something to himself about having to take it in on both sides so the front panel will stay smooth. Without missing a beat, he shifts into full-voiced and chatty mode. “So the real reason I called you in here,” he starts, “was so that I could totally spew some hot gossip and do my part to perpetuate the cultural stereotypes that I've been assigned.”

I love that about Brice. He isn't trying to do or be anything but what he is, and he seems to be genuinely unconcerned with what that makes anyone else think. I wish I had that much self-confidence. I wish I had even half of that much self-confidence.

“Fair enough, spill it.” I sit down on the floor near the bottom of the dress, and he flutters all around it, tucking and pinning and talking at breakneck speed.

“You're never going to believe this. Well, you probably will because, ugh, she's so freaking basic, but did you hear about your favorite stepsister and our leading man?”

I take a second so that my ears can catch up with my brain.

My brows furrow together. “No, what are you talking about? I mean, they're partners and library cuddle-buddies as of English class yesterday.”

“Oh, it's more than partners. She's got Andrew—or Captain Tight Pants Junior as I like to call him—all sorts of wrapped tight around her finger—even tighter than his pants, which is significant. I mean, I almost feel like I'm doing him a cruelty by not introducing him to some relaxed-fits.”

Immediately, my mind goes to last night when she was half-naked in the hallway flirting with Grant. Asking him about the Rally. Somehow, even when she was flirting with Andrew yesterday, I got the feeling she was just playing a game.

“Wow,” I say. I try to make my voice sound like his. Interested and lighthearted.

“I
know
,” Brice says.

I envy that he's able to talk about her so casually. Just a girl. A mean, attention-seeking girl, but pretty much just another girl.

I twist the safety pin I've been playing with back and forth between my fingers and soak up the feeling that is pouring out of Brice. Silliness and friendship and a little cattiness.

Four or five voices rush down the hallway, each of them speaking about some prop or light or scene. I make out one of the voices as Grant's.

They don't even look in the room, but I put my head down anyway, hoping to hide. I don't want to see Grant right now. Especially seeing as twenty minutes ago I was throwing my writing implement like a twoyear-old having a proper tantrum.

Once he's passed, I bring my attention back to Brice in progress. “…Dead serious. She apparently asked Andrew all about the Rally next month, and when he visibly swooned and panted at her like a Rottweiler, she—allegedly—” Brice holds up open palms as if to say he's
only
passing on what he heard and that he can't be held responsible for the authenticity of his words. “—batted those eyelashes, and Andrew asked for her hand faster than a guy on
The Bachelor
. Can you believe that? The first day!”

“Uh, yeah, I can believe that. And did you know that she asked out Grant first and got rejected? You should have seen her the other night. She was prancing around the house in freaking booty shorts right in front of him. And me. Seems so desperate.”

“Oh, she could be desperate,” Brice says. “And we can think she's ridiculous. But
not
because of her clothes.” He raises a finger to me playfully. “I'm afraid questioning a person's right to wear booty shorts is against my religion. Self-expression is holy.”

I smile away the wisp of embarrassment at being so masterfully called out.

Brice grins and goes back to pinning and tucking, and then he checks his clipboard.

“You know,” I say, “you're right. I shouldn't judge a girl by her hot pants. I'll try to remember that next time she leaves my pillowcase stuffed with candy bar wrappers or reminds me to bleach my handlebar mustache.”

I stick the sharp end of the pin into my mouth and pinch it between my teeth for a second. The metal makes my teeth ache almost as much as biting into a popsicle stick.

Brice turns to me with big eyes and stares while he gathers his words. “Listen to me. You let me know if this girl comes in here and starts drama with you because if she does, she's got a cooter-punch coming from me. I can tell you that right now.”

I look up at Brice with a smile just as I hear Grant march down the hall again, shouting to someone about spotlights. Guilt presses on me like a pin. It has been a
really
bad couple of days. I knew things would be weird when Carmella got here, but derail my whole life?

I was really ugly to Grant, who only wanted to check on me. And I was really unfair to Antonique who'd literally just held my hand during a panic attack. And I had an emergency session with TG after a breakdown over breakfast. I can't remember the last time I had a mood swing this extreme. It's been months for sure.

And I'm suddenly, absolutely afraid of my slipping grip.

“So, tell me. What do you think about my mister?” Brice asks, breaking my thoughts and pulling me back into the tiny room filled with the hum of his machine.

“Jonathan's really sweet. He seems like this super-quiet guy, and then he'll just randomly do something super-bold or funny or whatever. He's cool.”

“Isn't he? I love that he's never what I expect.”

I can practically see stars in Brice's eyes. It's adorable.

But it also makes me ache.

“But enough about me. You have some dishing to do, Miss Imogen. Ugh!” Brice lets out an annoyed growl, rips out all of his pins and starts again.

“Do I?”

“Well…” He speaks like he's making an apology for a toddler's hissy-fit at daycare. “As I recall, you got a little touchy on Sunday after dropping a little dollop of gossip, and I was wondering if you'd maybe taken a couple of chill-pills so that you could
finally
tell me the good stuff?” I have no idea what he's talking about. Thankfully, he continues, “You can't tell me there was an almost-kiss and not give me details. You just can't.”

He claps his hands together, preparing to beg.

I tap the tip of my finger on the point of the pin.

It's not that I don't want to tell him. The idea of telling anybody about it, talking about it at all, does have some appeal. I sure didn't tell freaking George about it, and the only other person I would have turned to after getting rejected when I thought I'd try kissing Grant is…Grant.

But if I tell Brice, I'll have told him.

And then it will be a thing. And I won't ever be able to pretend it never existed.

I'm not sure if it's his eager eyes or the fact that I feel like I've shortchanged everyone in my bubble in the past eight hours, but I make the decision to speak.

“It was around New Year's. Not, like, New Year's Eve or anything, but it was sometime right after Christmas.”

It was December 28th, sometime after 2:00 AM. My body knows the moment in the same way some people wake up just minutes or seconds before their alarm goes off.

I pull my gaze down and swallow the brick I feel lodged in my throat.

“I wasn't doing very well,” I mumble into my hands. I look at Brice, hoping he'll be nodding at me to continue, but he's waiting for me to clarify. “It was around the anniversary of when my mom died, so I was pretty sad most of the time. Christmas is always really hard.”

I check again.

He's nodding me on, thank God.

I push the pin closed and hold it between my thumb and first finger like a tiny vial.

“So, anyway, Grant was staying with me a lot during that time. Grant would make sure I ate enough or that I didn't lie in bed for days at a time. So my dad didn't mind having him around. Grant's kinda always been my one thing, you know?”

“It sounds pretty intense.” Brice sits down across from me on the floor and puts his hands on top of my knees. I'm glad he does.

“It was intense. Things got bad. Like, they were fitting-me-for-my-custom-straitjacket bad.”

“Well, obviously. Nothing off the rack.” Brice smiles gently, but continues to pry me open with his eyes.

“And on this day, my doctor had prescribed me some sedatives, just so I could get some sleep. I wake up, all groggy and crazy-drugged out of my mind, and Grant is sitting on the side of my bed. And he's sort of crying.”

“Like alligator tears or misty-eyed?”

“Misty-eyed. I look up at him, and he looks down at me and he just says, ‘I love you.' Which, isn't, like, a weird thing to say. We say that kind of thing all the time, and we've been best friends since we were, like, so young. We're family.”

I reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Oh no.” Brice leans even closer into me, and I nod my head at him and confirm his cringe-worthy hypothesis.

“Yep. I sorta sit myself up, face all tear-swollen, high as a kite on whatever they gave me, and I put my hand around the back of his head and I try to kiss him.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“I know.”

“And so he pulled away?”

“Well, yeah, Brice, can you blame him? Some mangled-up, overweight zombie wakes up and tries to eat your face, wouldn't you?”

Brice doesn't laugh. And that makes him even more awesome.

“Did he say anything?” Brice asks.

“Well, once he pulled away, he sorta pushed me back onto my pillow. And I was already about to go under again, but I remember he sorta tucked in the covers and said, ‘It's not time for you to wake up yet.'”

I pop open the pin and cross my arms as the memory washes over me like a bucket of cold water.

“Wow,” Brice says. “I mean, on one hand, it was sweet that he knew you really needed the rest. But he said he loved you. Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe he does want more, but he just didn't want to kiss you because you were all hopped up on drugs and you wouldn't have remembered it anyway…”