Dreamers Often Lie (12 page)

I stared at the framed photograph in Pierce’s hand. Five-year-old Pierce and four-year-old me stood side-by-side in the Caplans’ dining room. Pierce wore a tie and a plastic top hat. I was dressed in someone’s antique lace nightgown. Several paint-splotched tissues were pinned to my stringy brown hair.

“Ohhhh!” Hannah cooed over my shoulder. “That’s adorable!”

More people clustered around us, craning for a look. Rob didn’t move.

“That was the day we decided to get married,” said
Pierce. “I think my dog was the ring bearer. Didn’t we tie a sofa cushion to his head?”

“Oh my god.” I cupped my hands over my cheeks. My palms were as hot as my face. “Snooks. That’s right. Then he ran around smashing everything off the end tables.”

“Look at those chubby cheeks!” someone squealed in my ear.

“Is that toilet paper on your head?” asked someone else.

“Kleenex.”

“And I realized,” Pierce went on, “we’re still technically fake-married. So we should probably get fake-divorced.”

Around me, people were laughing. Someone nudged me. Someone else said something I didn’t hear. I glanced down at Rob out of the corner of my eye. He was watching all of this, his eyes cool, amused. Catching everything.

“I’ll start.” Pierce raised one hand. “I, Pierce Charles Caplan, do hereby untake you as my unlawfully wedded wife.”

The ache in my head twisted. I didn’t feel like being watched by a crowd. Not now, when I was only my bruised, messed-up self, with makeup I couldn’t remember applying and the hairstyle of someone who’d just had a frontal lobotomy. But Pierce was grinning. Pierce was as golden and glowing as a trophy.

I put on a matching smile. “I, Jaye Eden Stuart, do hereby untake you as my unlawfully wedded husband.”

“You may kick the bride!” someone shouted.

Before Pierce could move, I gave him a kick in the shin. I turned to run. Pierce dove after me, laughing. His arm locked around me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

“Let go!” I shouted, pretending to laugh too. “I’m not your wife anymore!”

Pierce lifted me off the ground. His chest was warm and solid against my back, and his arms were like metal bands. They were crushing me. Blood rushed to my head, making it pound, but I didn’t really care. Because Pierce Caplan had his arms around me.
Pierce Caplan.
Then I felt like an idiot for not caring. And then I remembered Rob, with his cool blue eyes and his wallet full of interesting memories, watching all of this. My stomach went sour.

“All right, everyone!” Mr. Hall’s voice rang through the house. He clapped his long pale hands. “Let’s finish the wrestling match, shall we? Ensemble assemble! Center stage, please!”

Pierce gave me one last squeeze before setting me on my feet. I staggered toward the group, still laughing, feeling feverish and dizzy. Rob had disappeared.

“Wrestling with the girl,” said Nikki’s voice from behind me. “Jock Flirting 101.”

“Quiet please!” Mr. Hall ordered. “I’d like to run Act Three, then go back and work a few scenes as needed. Bottom and the players, we’ll start with you. And Titania?” His eyes traveled around the circle until they caught
me. I tried to brush my hair into place. “Remember, you’re already asleep upstage at the start of the scene. Ayesha, call for places.”

I turned toward Nikki, but she had already darted off into the wings.

Tom skipped across the stage toward his mark and stopped next to me. He put a hand on my shoulder. His too-large sweater had holes in both cuffs. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You look a little shaky.”

“I’m
fine.
”

“Are you sure? You
did
just get divorced.”

“Shut up.” I smiled and gave Tom a shove. He moved into place, grinning back at me.

The platform squeaked slightly as I settled down on the fake grass again. Downstage, the other actors were milling, murmuring. I spread my hair over the fabric and rested my uninjured cheek on my palm. The lights clicked and dimmed above me.

Tom, as Bottom, and the other players began their scene. Their voices rose and fell in the distance. But it was another voice that whispered in my ear.

“Here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes this vault a feasting presence full of light.”

My eyes snapped open.

Shakespeare sat beside me on the green velvet. Stage light frosted his soft brown hair.

“I’m
onstage,
” I breathed through my teeth. “Why do you keep showing up at the worst possible times?”

Shakespeare shook his head. “Confusion’s cure lives not in these confusions.”

“So stop confusing me.” I lowered my eyelids to a squint, hoping that from offstage they would look shut.

“In the meantime, hither shall Romeo come, and he and I will watch thy waking—”

“Wrong play,”
I muttered, struggling to keep my voice and my eyelids down. “And you’re not here. You’re not here,
you’re not here,
you’re NOT here
.
”

Shakespeare’s voice breathed close to my cheek. “What thou seest when thou dost wake, do it for thy true love take.”

At least that was from the right show. I widened my eyes just a sliver. Stage lights made feathery rainbows on the tips of my eyelashes. Downstage, Tom and Adam and the others were reciting their lines; I could hear them, but I couldn’t see them from where I lay. Instead, I gazed out past the lip of the stage, into the blurry blackness. If Pierce was out there, or Rob, or anyone else, I couldn’t see them, either.

Besides, you’re
already
awake,
I reminded myself.
You’re awake. You’re awake. You’re awake.

O
h my god.” Nikki reached across my lap and grabbed Tom’s hand.

The three of us were sitting on the rolling platform, waiting for Mr. Hall to finish with notes. My mind kept wandering away from his voice, away from the stage, into the darkest corners. I hadn’t seen Rob since rehearsal began. Had he watched my scenes from the wings again? Was he still even here? I rearranged my hair and straightened my shoulders, just in case.

Nikki held Tom’s shiny purple thumbnail in front of my face. “You forgot to take off your nail polish from last weekend.”

“I didn’t forget,” Tom whispered back. “I’m out of remover, and it wouldn’t scratch off. Besides, Jonah already saw it.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“I told him I hammered my thumb in shop class. He was happy.”

Nikki blinked. “You’re not in shop class.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“I bet he doesn’t know that you’ve got a bigger nail polish collection than me, either.”

Somewhere farther off, I could hear Mr. Hall dismissing the cast, other voices breaking out. Rehearsal was over. I let myself imagine what Rob had been about to ask.
After rehearsal, would you like to . . .
Don’t flatter yourself.
After rehearsal, could I look at your anatomy notes?
That was probably it.
After rehearsal, can I hitch a ride home with you?
Or maybe:
After rehearsal, could you get me that girl Michaela’s phone number?
My eyes scanned the house, checking each shadow, each silhouette. They were still focused on the blurry darkness when a pair of blue jeans walked straight in front of me.

Nikki and Tom went silent.

I glanced up.

“Ready to go?” asked Pierce.

“Oh,” I said, feeling like he’d caught me in front of my bedroom mirror all over again. I raised my chin. Smoothed my face. “Are you driving me home? Because Nikki and Tom and some other people were going to go—”

“Your sister made me swear that I’d drive you straight home again today.” Pierce held up my coat and bag. “I got your stuff. So. Are you ready?”

“Oh,” I said again. “. . . Sure.”

“‘Sure.’” Pierce imitated my dreamy tone. “You use that word a lot, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

Pierce didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm. Slinging my book bag over his shoulder, he stepped down from the stage and headed up the aisle.

“Bye, guys,” I murmured before hurrying after him. I checked each row of seats as I went, but there was no sign of the new kid. Pierce was walking so fast, I may have missed him anyway.

Outside, a thick, fast snow was falling. The pavement of the parking lot was slick. Without speaking, Pierce grabbed my arm. I couldn’t tell if it was to keep me safe or to keep me close.

He opened the passenger door of the BMW, waiting until I’d climbed in and grasped the seat belt before closing it again. This was charming. I should have been charmed. I should have seen the waves of his lion-colored hair and the jut of his chin and the shape of his shoulders and felt fluttery and flattered and happy.

“What a piece of work he is . . .” Shakespeare’s voice sighed from the backseat. “In form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel . . .”

My concentration shattered.
“Shut up,”
I growled over my shoulder.

“What?” asked Pierce. He slid into his own seat.

“Nothing. I just—I caught my hair in the seat belt.”

Pierce shook his head. “You need to stop hurting yourself, Stuart. You’ve got little enough hair left as it is.”

I felt my face ignite. I turned aside, shaking the hair back across the scar.

Pierce streaked out of the lot. My spine pressed back against my seat, my brain knocking inside my skull. In the rearview mirror, I could see a pair of heavy-lidded blue eyes watching me.

“It’s crazy how fast this semester’s going,” said Pierce, after a silent minute.

“Yeah,” I said, still facing away from him. “It goes even faster when you miss a bunch of it.”

“You know, after the play, there are only eleven weeks until graduation. It’s crazy.”

I braced my elbow on the door as he zoomed around a corner. “You must be excited to get out of here.”

“Well, I’m just going to U of M, so it’s not like I’ll be going far.” He glanced at me. “It’s a sixteen-minute drive from my future dorm to your house. In case you know anyone who’s interested.”

Now my stomach started to flutter.

“Hey.” Pierce’s tone changed like he’d just remembered something. “Who was that guy you were with?”

“What guy?”

“On the stage. Tall. Skinny. Wearing black. Looking like some death metal reject.”

“Oh.”
Proof,
said Rob’s voice in my head. Pierce
had
seen him. The wallet, our conversation. It had all been
real. Relief and joy streamed through me. “He’s new. The counselors made him join the stage crew.”

Pierce’s profile went rigid. Of course, I realized a second too late, all he’d seen was me beaming at the memory of another boy.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“Rob, I think. Rob Mason, or something.”

The BMW was moving faster. We skidded toward a stop sign, barely decelerating before racing on to the next block.

Pierce stared straight ahead. A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched. “How did you two get to rehearsal so early?”

“Um . . . Well, I left algebra class because my head was killing me. And I guess he got lost on the way to chemistry or screwed up his schedule or something.”
Casual. Careless. Like you can barely remember.
“So we both ended up in the auditorium, like, fifteen minutes before everybody else. Maybe ten minutes.”

“So it was just a coincidence? You two being there alone?”

“Yes. Total coincidence.”

Pierce gave something so small it might not even have been a nod. “Was he bothering you or something?”

“Bothering me?”

The tires skidded around another corner. My head slammed sideways, and I let out a little gasp. Pierce didn’t look at me.

“He looks like—I don’t know,” he said. “Like a creep. Like one of those guys who think they’re a rock star even if they’re just a loser who wears jewelry and black leather. That kind of guy.”

“He’s not,” I said, too quickly. “I mean—he seems fine. We were talking about other plays we’d done. That’s it.”
Change the subject. Quick.
My mind threw itself at a question I hadn’t planned to ask. “Hey . . . did you ever smash this car? Maybe a year or two ago?”

Pierce frowned. There was a beat that stretched so long, I almost repeated the question. But then he said, “Smash it? Like in an accident?”

“No, like—with a trophy or something? Somebody told me they thought they saw you.”

The frown flickered and broke. “Oh, god. Yeah. Not too long after—uh—after your dad was gone, we placed fourth at a meet for the first time. The first time
ever.
Like, we had
never
not placed first—or maybe we placed second once, like ten years ago—but we had never gotten
fourth.
I was pissed. So, yeah, I smashed the car with that fourth-place trophy.” A smile raised the corner of his lips. “Then I had to pay to fix it, of course. But that’s what happened.”

“Oh,” I said.

It was believable. It made his anger seem fair. Almost noble.

Still, imagining Pierce’s fist swinging a heavy trophy, denting metal, shattering glass . . . My stomach twisted.

I wasn’t going to ask any more questions. Shakespeare’s eyes shifted back and forth between us in the rearview mirror.

Pierce didn’t speak again. A not-totally-uncomfortable quiet filled the car, and gradually, I let my head sag against the window. The cold glass was soothing. At that angle, the dark blue gaze from the backseat couldn’t quite reach me.

After another minute, I let my eyes slide shut. I could still sense Pierce beside me. The warmth of him. The silence that had started to feel less angry than protective.

There was a gentle bump as we turned into my driveway. The car stopped. I heard Pierce shift the gear into park. A second later, something brushed my cheekbone.

I opened my eyes.

Pierce’s face loomed over me, gigantic and golden. A strand of his wavy hair touched my skin. His eyelids were lowered. His lips were moving toward mine. It was like the sun had slid out of the sky and crashed into the car beside me.

I was so startled I almost smacked him.

Instead, I jerked backward. My head slammed against the windowpane. There was an audible
thunk.

“Jesus.” Pierce sat back. “Are you okay?”

Behind me, Shakespeare was laughing so hard, he wheezed.

“I’m fine,” I said, even though fissuring black clots were shooting back and forth in front of my eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? That sounded like it hurt.”

“No. I’m fine.” I groped for the door handle. “I just—I just need to get out.”

Before Pierce could unlatch his own door, I flung mine open. I toppled out backward, not even trying to catch myself. Shakespeare let out another hoot of laughter. My bare hands landed in icy slush. I could feel the wetness soaking through my jeans.

Pierce jogged around the front of the car. “Hang on,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Just hold on to me.” He hauled me up the walkway to the front door, one arm wrapped tight around my waist.

The door flew open in front of us.

“Oh my god.” Sadie appeared on the threshold. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I just bumped my head,” I muttered, pulling up my collar to hide my flaming face. Pierce released me, and I shuffled forward into the warmth of the living room. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. Should I call the hospital?”

“God, Sadie, no
.
I’m just a klutz.” I turned back to Pierce, waiting in the doorway, but I couldn’t force my eyes any higher than the collar of his coat. “Sorry, Pierce. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Okay.” He hesitated, glancing at both of us. “Well—I’ll see you then.”

His feet thumped away down the porch steps.

Sadie closed the door after him. Neither of us spoke for a second. Then Sadie asked, “Which part of your head did you hit?”

“The back. Not the bad part.”

“Do you want an ice pack? Or some water, or anything?”

“No. I am really, truly
okay.
I just want to go lie down for a while.”

I trudged toward the staircase, dragging the weight of Sadie’s stare behind me.

Without taking off my coat, I sank down on my unmade bed. If I turned my head sideways, there was less pressure on the bruised spot. Unfortunately, it also forced me to look straight at the dressing table, where Shakespeare had settled himself on the ledge.

“My care hath been to have her matched,” he began, as if he were talking to an invisible crowd. He picked up a nail file and began grooming his left hand, his face and voice exasperated. “Having now provided a gentleman of noble parentage, stuffed, as they say, with honorable parts . . .” He filed faster. “Proportioned as one’s thought would wish a man . . .” He pointed the file at me. “And then to have a
wretched puling fool—
”

I whipped a pillow at him. It hit the closet door instead.

Flopping over, I buried my face in the blankets, not caring that the fabric rubbed my raw skin, or that the weight of my own skull pressed the ache forward until the world turned gray.

My father’s eyes were brown.
Had been
brown. So it definitely wasn’t the color that made Shakespeare’s eyes remind me of him. It was the way they looked at me.

God, I’d seen that look so many times. Disappointed. Scornful. Faintly disbelieving, like I might be some imposter who’d snuck into Jaye Stuart’s skin. I’d seen it when I broke curfew and lied about why. I’d seen it when I claimed I couldn’t miss rehearsal, so I couldn’t come along on the family trip to watch Dad run in Chicago. I’d seen it on the awful night of the eighth-grade spring dance. I’d tried to let this memory fade, but it clung to my brain like a tooth hanging by a stringy root.

Empty stage,
I thought.
Empty stage.
But the words were just noises. I couldn’t turn the memory off.

We weren’t going to go to the dance at all, Nikki and Tom and Anders and I. We weren’t the kind of people who went to school dances. We weren’t the kind of people anyone asked. But that Saturday night, as we lounged on the swaybacked couches in Nikki’s basement,
not
going had started to seem even stupider than going.

It was Nikki who came up with the plan: We’d go to the middle school, but instead of just joining the crowd in the gym, we’d sneak into the costume shop, put on the craziest things we could find, and then make a grand entrance on the dance floor. Two of Nikki’s older cousins from North Minneapolis were with us that night—I’m still not sure why; the two of them spent most of the time talking to
each other and laughing in a way that made it impossible to tell what they were laughing at. But it was one of them who managed to pick the lock on the costume shop door.

The shop was full of clothes from last fall’s
The Wizard of Oz
and our upcoming
Alice in Wonderland,
mixed with leftovers from a bunch of thrift shops and fairy tales. Nikki dressed up as a flying monkey. Anders was a tree—one of the apple-throwing ones. Tom found a dinosaur suit somewhere. I was playing the White Rabbit in
Alice in Wonderland,
so I zipped myself into the fuzzy bodysuit, complete with hood and floppy ears
.
The cousins, who were really too cool for any of this, just put on long black robes. They looked like scrawny executioners.