Eternal (2 page)

“It wasn’t my idea.” Mom reaches to give me one of her stiff half hugs, right arm at a sharp angle, as if she’ll break if she pulls me too close. “Your father’s an imbecile, but we already knew that. I told him you were just slow to bloom. Any daughter of mine is destined to be a star!”

I pull free and take the step down into the cold, cluttered two-car garage. My Honda is a don’t-hate-me-for-leaving gift from Dad.

“After all,” Mom calls from the doorway, “I was Little Miss Bay Area.”

Starting the car, I silently mouth along with her, “And Miss San Francisco!”

“Anytime you’re ready,” Ms. Esposito says from the first row, her clipboard poised and her smile encouraging. She’s a first-year teacher, beaming with eagerness.

I shift my weight on the stage as thoughts zoom through my head.

The recently redecorated auditorium (it still has that new-car smell) is mostly empty. The first few rows of the theater are occupied by the other people auditioning — the die-hard drama geeks, plus a few out-of-our-league wannabes like me. Then there’s Denise Durant and two of her acolytes. They’re more reality-TV than Globe-Theatre material, but they love being in the spotlight.

I wish Lucy were here, but acting isn’t her thing. Besides, she’s serving an hour of detention right now for accidentally handing in a
Ginger Snaps
fan fic instead of her Government report.

I order myself to breathe. As Grandma Peggy says, life’s short, and besides, I’m almost positive that no one has ever actually died from humiliation.

“Anytime,” Ms. Esposito repeats, prompting giggles from Denise’s row.

I’m reading Juliet, act IV, scene III. We were given an option of doing a monologue (having a shot at a major role), which is how it’s always worked in past years, or this, reading with another actor (for those of us who suffer from “audition anxiety”).

The latter was the suggestion of our school counselor, who’s anxiety-phobic — if you use the words “test” and “anxiety” in the same sentence, she’ll immediately book you for a shiatsu spa treatment.

“‘What! are you busy, ho? need you my help?’”

I do a double take on the “ho” until my brain clicks that Wayne White has given up on my beginning and moved on. Wayne’s perched on a stool, his long, bony limbs bent like a hunched scarecrow. He should’ve whispered my line instead, but he’s probably embarrassed at having to read Lady Capulet.

“‘No,
madam
!’” I manage. “‘We have cull’d such necessaries / as are behoveful for our state to-morrow . . .’” The words are coming, but my body is frozen in place. “‘So please you, let me now be left alone . . .’” What I wouldn’t give to be left alone right now. “‘And let the nurse this night’” — I sound okay, but I look like an android on
pause
— “‘sit up with you.’” I take a lurching, Frankenstein-like step to the right.

Ms. Esposito looks like she’s worried something’s medically wrong with me.

“‘For, I am sure, you have your hands full all . . .’” All . . . All
what
?

I glance at Denise, who’s biting her lip to keep from laughing. Lucy says I shouldn’t let her get to me, but ever since kindergarten, whenever Denise is around, it’s like a clawed hand is squeezing the blood from my heart.

The Thespians catch my eye. They’re nodding along, rooting for me. I’ve always watched them at school, the way they joke around and color their hair and could care less what anyone thinks of them. Part of the reason I wanted to do this was to become one of them. They’re the most alive people here.

I try to relax and fall into my character. I need to be Juliet — romantic, tragic, doomed. “‘All . . . in — in — in this so sudden business!’” I fight not to cringe.

Denise isn’t trying to stop herself now, despite Ms. Esposito’s fierce,
“Shh!”
She’s cackling, her and her friends, their laughter punctuated by a snort that doubles them over.

“Oh, my God!” one exclaims. “She’s horrible!”

“‘Good-night,’” Wayne reads in a monotone, his chin on his hand. “‘Get thee . . .’”

I don’t hear the rest. Geoff Calvo has entered the auditorium. Five feet, eleven inches of soccer studly-ness, thundering down the center aisle, drawing every eye except Ms. Esposito’s. I would say it’s not his looks that I’m attracted to, except that we’ve never had a conversation. I always tell myself it’s because I haven’t come up with that great opening line yet. The one that will make him smile and see me as if for the first time and cue the swelling background music, just like in the movies. That’s the fantasy.

The reality: Geoff strolls to Denise and gives her this disgusting, half-lick kiss on the lips. It’s stupid, I decide right then, to “like” someone you don’t really know.

When did they start going out, anyway?

“‘F-farewell!’” I sputter. “‘God knows when we shall meet again.’”

“Kill me now,” I plead that evening, ducking behind the nearest DVD display as a couple of Thespians swing through the shop, returning rentals. “Or better yet, let’s go.”

“Relax, they’re already gone.” Lucy slings an arm around my shoulders, leading me away from the
CHICK FLICK
section of the brightly lit store. “Besides, they don’t like Denise’s clique any more than we do.”

This afternoon, when Lucy found me crying in the girls’ bathroom at school, she was all big hugs and “Who needs ’em?” and “Everything will be all right.”

Lucy’s never been one for wallowing, though. She’s ready to move on. “Now, now, weary traveler,” she says. “There is no shame in this journey. Among the dateless, movie night is a time-honored tradition.”

“On Valentine’s Day?” I ask, as if that hasn’t been our plan the past few years running.

We’re at Movie Magic the night before V-Day, while there’s still some selection. Or at least that’s Lucy’s theory.

I also suspect my favorite Scream Queen is here hoping to, well, check out the checkout guy. For the last few months, he’s been her third favorite topic after Neil Gaiman and whatever she’s up- or downloaded most recently on the Internet.

“Oh, woe is Miranda!” she exclaims, forcibly upbeat.

When I don’t banter back, she tilts her head, and her expression grows more serious. “You seem . . . Is anything else wrong? Anything really fatal?”

I debate telling Lucy that my dad is in Alaska (or at least floating on a boat around it) with some mysterious woman who’s forging his postcards, that my mom is in the midst of one of her trademark needy phases because of it, and that she may sign off on sending me to a shrink after I tell her about today’s audition.

“My beanbag is possessed,” I reply instead.

“Interesting.” At
HORROR
, Lucy holds up
The Grudge.
“What do you think?”

We’ve seen it before. That said, I love movies. Lucy and I have been watching films and munching popcorn — with real butter — on her L-shaped sectional almost every weekend for as long as I can remember, and last summer, my job was working concession at the mall multiplex. “I think —”

“Can I help you ladies find something spooky?” It’s Lucy’s crush, “Kurt,” a fact we deduced early on due to the helpful plastic name tag on his red polo-style shirt.

He’s tall, taller than Lucy — which, for her, is key — a sandy blond, and looks a couple of years older than us. Despite the safety pin stuck through his right nostril, he’s remarkably cute for a DVD rental guy.

Lucy decides to take their flirtation to the next level. “I’m Lucy,” she says, extending a hand, “and this is Miranda. I don’t think we’ve officially met.”

He smiles with perfect teeth, shakes her hand and mine. “I know. Your names and addresses are in the computer.”

I blink at that, but Lucy is unfazed. “What we’re looking for tonight,” she says, “is more of a real-life adventure. When do you get off?”

He laughs, my jaw drops, and even the overhead fluorescents seem to dim.

“I get off . . .” He pauses long enough to make the bad joke, but not so long that it’s crude. Almost. “At eleven. But it’s a school night, right?”

“No classes tomorrow,” Lucy explains. “District conferences.”

Kurt frowns briefly at that like he’s never heard of such a thing. “Well then, if y’all are up for it, I have a scary idea.”

Whoa. How did I get dragged into this? “Me?” I say. “I, um, I have curfew at —”

“You’re spending the night,” Lucy cuts in. She tells Kurt, “My parents trust me, and they’re sound sleepers.”

“Bitchin’,” he replies, taking the movie from her and setting it back on the shelf. “Me and this friend of mine, sometimes we kick back a few brews at that old cemetery by the high school. You know the one I mean?”

We do. Lucy has this freakish fascination with graves. She’ll walk around cemeteries with paper and colored pencils and make impressions of the border designs engraved in the tombstones. She’ll read the names and dates and try to guess how people died.

“I love the place,” she admits. “They say the dead walk there at midnight.”

I don’t know who “they” are, but that isn’t information I appreciate.

Kurt laughs again. “We’ll meet you and the dead after work.”

“KILL ME NOW,”
Miranda says at the video store.

If an invisible angel could cringe, I would. She’s upset about her parents and the audition, I get that. Normally I’d be all over trying to find a way to make her feel better.

I love Miranda. I do. But this evening, my girl’s adolescent crisis of the week means exactly jack. The last thing we need right now is to tempt Fate.

The shadow still covers her face like a veil, her hands like gloves, and trails after her like a bridal train.

Sure, I know the score. There comes a day when every GA has to let go. I understand that when the time comes, she’ll be joyfully welcomed upstairs by Grandpa Shen and everyone she knows who gets there first. But life is such a gift. Such a blessing. At only seventeen, she’s barely had a chance to breathe it in. To make whatever difference she can in this world. Her dream of becoming an actress. Growing into a woman who can command center stage. She deserves her moment in the spotlight. She deserves that and more.

Nothing is destined. Miranda’s free will can alter her future. Circumstances can change. She doesn’t have to die. Shadow or no shadow, I’m not about to give up on her.

“Can I help you ladies find something spooky?” Kurt asks.

What’s Lucy saying? What is she thinking? She’s an ongoing challenge, the X factor in Miranda’s life. I’m the one who has to field damage control.

It was Lucy who led her last summer in sneaking into an apartment complex so they could soak in the Jacuzzi. It was me who kept the residents of the three units overlooking the pool busy with overflowing bathtubs and ant infestations and toddler reading time so they didn’t happen to glance out their windows.

It was Lucy who sent a JPEG of Miranda’s sophomore-year photo to an Internet predator in Fort Worth, thinking he was a high-school varsity wrestler from Houston. It was me who infected his system with a virus and made their ISPs incompatible.

Now here’s Kurt. And what about him? He’s been a bit player in their lives for months. I’ve never paid much attention to him. Mistake?

I materialize low behind the counter, staying out of sight, and search through the stack of Movie Magic paperwork for clues. I’m quick to find the employee directory under a wadded-up McDonald’s bag and skim the short list until I see the name.

Kurt Brodecker. He lives in the West End.

“If y’all are up for it,” Kurt says. “I have a scary idea.”

Oh, I’m hating the sound of that. I look for a display to tip. A fire alarm to pull.

“Me?” Miranda chimes in. “I, um, I have curfew at —”

“You’re spending the night,” Lucy interrupts. “My parents trust me, and they’re sound sleepers.”

The cemetery? Dark. Secluded. Sprawling. Yikes.

“They say the dead walk there at midnight,” Lucy claims.

In the bright fluorescent light, the shadow shudders and darkens around my girl.

LUCY AND I DON’T SAY ANOTHER WORD
until we leave the store, get in my car, and crank the heater.

“Cemetery?” I exclaim. “I don’t do cemeteries. Not at night. Not with strange boys. Not with brews.”