Exit Stage Left (22 page)

I don’t know what to do. I almost can’t believe I heard what I actually did, but it all makes sense now. Why Amanda’s been so distracted and upset. It’s because of Trevor—and not because she has a thing for him, but because he’s been downright horrible to her. I’m determined to talk to her about it after rehearsal today, if we all survive Ms. Sharp.

“That’s better, Casey,” Ms. Sharp says after I sing bigger than I have in my entire life.

“Thanks.” At least something is going well.

“But I need you to project even more. This is a strong piece. Make it sound that way.” Seriously? If I projected any more, my lungs would explode. I stalk offstage and fall into a seat near Harrison. I don’t really feel like talking, so I take out my pre-calc homework.

I’m five problems in when I realize I’m actually doing homework during a rehearsal. This is not like me at all.

Amanda, Oliver, and Trevor are all onstage. Danielle’s giving Trevor eyes, even when she’s supposed to be in character, and it makes
me even angrier. Really, it just cements what I know I need to do.

Every time I turn around lately, Danielle’s hanging all over him, and he doesn’t do anything to make her stop. Even though I could barely stand to look at him after what I overheard yesterday, irritation at seeing him with her, again, got the better of me, and I confronted him about it right after acting class. Which went about as well as I thought it would and ended with him still denying it and me basically yelling at him in the middle of the hallway.

Harrison’s busy texting someone, so I go back to my homework. I’m working on a problem that has about a zillion parts to it when I feel someone sit in the seat next to me.

Amanda. Wait, why isn’t she onstage? She’s in, like, every scene. I glance at the stage. Ms. Sharp is flapping her arms at Trevor. Normally I’d say no one deserves the wrath of Ms. Sharp on a rampage, but I’m starting to think he actually does.

“Hey,” I say to Amanda. “How are things?” It feels like a weird thing to say, but I’m not sure how else to broach the subject of Trevor being the biggest jackass in the world.

“Okay.” She sighs. “Not okay, actually. I don’t think I can do this.”

“You can
definitely
do this.” I cross my heart and give her jazz hands, which makes her smile a little. “Seriously, Amanda. You make a great Maria. You just need to trust in yourself.”

“Thanks,” she says, although I can tell she’s leaving something unsaid. I know what it is, too.

I take a deep breath. “It’s Trevor.”

She stares straight ahead and bites her lip. “No.”

“I, um . . . I saw what happened yesterday.”

She doesn’t look at me.

“In the choir room after school. I was headed to the theater when I heard you singing. So I stopped and then . . . I heard what he said.”

Her eyes fill with tears again, and I reach over and wrap an arm around her shoulders. “It’s not okay. Nothing about it is even remotely okay. I had no idea. How long has this been going on?”

She pulls a tissue from her pocket and wipes her eyes. “A while.”

“Like, years? Or days?” God help me, if she says he’s been doing this since we were in middle school, someone’s going to have to hold me back from him.

“Not that long. A few weeks maybe.”

All those times I saw him whispering something to her onstage, or in the hallway, and the way she looked a little upset afterward? I could almost hate myself for not seeing this sooner.

“But the thing is, Case . . . I think he’s right. I
am
a disaster.”

“No.” I sit up straighter and look her right in the face. “Don’t believe that. You
earned
this role because you’re amazing.”

She shakes her head.

“This is over. I’d about had it because of Danielle, but this seals it.” I clench my fists as I watch Trevor cower under Ms. Sharp’s tirade over how he stepped upstage instead of downstage and ruined the effect of the entire scene. “Don’t let yourself be alone with him, okay? Promise me.”

She nods. “I can handle it.”

I don’t know that I really believe her.

“Casey!” Ms. Sharp bellows, and I jump a mile. “You missed your cue. It’s too late to be missing cues! What is
wrong
with you people? Get up there!”

I scramble out of my seat and sprint to the stage, passing Trevor on the way.

I don’t look at him, because I’m afraid of what I might do.

I drag myself out of bed at eight a.m. on Saturday morning and fumble around my room for my stage makeup and some bobby pins to hide my hair under that hideous nun hat. Dress rehearsal is due to start at ten o’clock sharp, and I’m sure Ms. Sharp will kill me if I’m not there on time. I mean, no one calls her Ms. Late.

I have to grab a ride with Mom. Honestly, all this riding with Mom is making me reconsider my whole anti–driver’s license stance. Before we leave, she makes me load the dishwasher and vacuum the family room as she reminds me of the “obscene advances of your allowance you asked for to try hang gliding and surfing.” She drops me off with just barely enough time to get ready. The stage crew is running around everywhere, and I find the rest of the cast in the backstage dressing room area. Trevor’s talking to Danielle near the far door. Or, actually, Danielle is talking and Trevor is staring at her.

I have to physically restrain myself when I walk past him.

Every time he caught me between classes yesterday, I feigned the need to be somewhere else right that minute. It’s been hard to spend even a second with him, now that I know what he truly is. We are
definitely over. I just need to figure out how to tell him that. And this time, it really is for good. Because of Amanda. And because I know what I want beyond a career. It’s self-respect. It’s finally figuring out that I deserve something better, even if it is terrifying and entirely out of my control.

I drop my stuff onto one of the tables in the middle of the room next to Harrison.

“You’re not going to yell at me, are you?” he says cautiously.

I wrinkle my forehead. “No, why?”

He shrugs and plays with the button on his costume jacket. “You look a little crazy right now, and you’ve been kind of bitchy all week.”

“Yeah, I know.” I can’t even get mad at him for using one of my least favorite words in the English language—because he’s right. I sit in front of one of the lighted mirrors that line the wall behind the tables. Harrison takes the spot next to me.

“Case, I’m still your friend. You can talk to me. Even about—” He shudders. “Relationships. And I’ll keep my promise and won’t call a certain King Asshat a whole list of names I think that person deserves. Except King Asshat, obviously.”

I feel like telling him everything. I need to tell
someone
everything, and if Harrison’s volunteering, I’m taking him up on it. “Three guesses what it’s about,” I say as I cover my face in foundation.

“Trevor, Trevor, or Trevor?” Harrison says with only a hint of a smirk.

“Fine. Go ahead and say it. You were right. You and Oliver and Eric. He’s already moved on to Danielle.” I gesture with a makeup
sponge at the two of them in the corner. “And that’s not even the worst part.” I fill him in on what’s been happening with Amanda.

Harrison’s face contorts into a picture of rage that I never even thought he was capable of. “There’s not even a word I can think of for him right now,” he says.

“I’m going to end it,” I say. “For good. I just need to figure out when. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

He smiles. “If you had, I would’ve thought there was something wrong with you.”

I put on the last of my makeup. Then I peer into the mirror. As expected, I look like a scary doll. Perfect. I can be a scary nun doll. Maybe my makeup will do the breaking-up for me.

“I’m going to do it after rehearsal today,” I declare.

“I’ll wait for you,” Harrison offers.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.” I stand up and look for my black sack among the costumes hanging on the rack. I flip past Amanda’s party dress, Amanda’s wedding dress, and Amanda’s frolicking-in-the-trees-with-the-children dress before I find it.

“Except I want to be there to see his asshat face when you do,” Harrison says.

“You know,” I say to Harrison. “Now that I’m done—or almost done—with all this Trevor drama, we can go back to looking for something to replace theater. We never really found anything, and I think we should keep trying. There’s got to be something out there for us. Like botany or dog walking . . . or my mom mentioned something about basket weaving. I don’t know what that is, but it might be fun.
I’m not resigning myself to a life serving eggs and coffee yet.”

“We’ll see,” he says.

I spot Oliver across the room as I head to change into my costume. I can’t hold out hope that he’d still want to be with me after this mess with Trevor. Not after everything he tried to warn me about and I ignored. And definitely not after I made it clear that I chose Trevor over him.

I close my eyes and wish I could call a redo on the past.

When Ms. Sharp finally lets us go, my stomach is growling. It’s way past lunchtime, and all I want to do is go home and eat. But first, I have to end things with Trevor.

I scrub the scary doll face from my skin and plan how to do it. I have to get him alone. I don’t want an audience, except for maybe Harrison. I’ll have to pry him apart from Danielle somehow. Maybe I’ll catch him in the theater and make small talk while everyone else leaves. Current idea of seventh circle of hell: small talk with Trevor.

I try to psych myself up by imagining his reaction to the whole thing. What if he gets super upset and starts coming by my house and yelling “Casey!” up at my window the way Marlon Brando did in
A Streetcar Named Desire
? Harrison, Amanda, and I watched that movie last year in my effort to be prepared with all classic plays, just in case there was ever an opportunity to audition for them in the future. Not that it really matters to me now.

Back to Trevor. What if he starts to cry right there next to the lighting booth?

No. He won’t cry. He probably won’t really care. After all, he’s so into Danielle, he’ll probably just latch on to her even more. Then an awful thought pops into my head.

What if he’s already
with
her behind my back? What if he’s never taken me seriously at all? Eric said something about how Trevor gets what he wants and moves on, or he doesn’t and moves on. That doesn’t explain why he’s stuck with me for long. Unless he was getting what he wanted somewhere else. The thought makes me want to throw up.

One thing’s for sure—I’m going to make it absolutely clear that I know what he’s been doing to Amanda. And that it’s going to stop.

I can’t undo the past now, but I can change the future. I take a few deep breaths and stare at my freshly scrubbed face in the mirror. I can’t change him, but I’m still in control of myself.

I pack my makeup and hair stuff, and try to decide whether I could get away with punching him in the face. Probably not. Unfortunately.

“Casey, you coming?” Oliver asks. He’s standing near the door and looking entirely different from regular Oliver. His hair waves softly against his head, and he’s in the plain white T-shirt he had on under his costume. I didn’t even know he owned a plain shirt.

My heart aches just seeing him. I close my eyes for a second. I’ll try to fix everything with Oliver later, after I deal with Trevor. I glance around the room. No one else is back here. Somehow, I missed Trevor. I grab the rest of my stuff in one swoop of my arms, dump it into my bag, and race past Oliver.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Oliver says behind me.

I don’t answer. I just sprint down the theater aisle, scanning the
rows for Trevor as I run. He’s not there. I burst through the doors into the school lobby. A few people are hanging around, waiting for rides. I drop my stuff on the floor and search for Trevor. He’s not in the lobby. I check the Alcove of Sin, poke my head down the hallways, and even look outside.

“Where’s Trevor?” I ask Harrison, who’s leaning against the brick wall of the school out front, reading something on his phone.

“Gone,” he says. “Headed to the parking lot with Danielle a few minutes ago.”

“Seriously? Dammit, I was so ready to get it over with, too.” I lean on the wall next to Harrison and sigh. “Now I’m going to have to wait until Monday.”

He wraps an arm around me and I lean my head on his shoulder, which is something of a maneuver since I’ve got a few inches on him.

“So tell me about this basket-weaving thing,” he says.

I consider a breakup-by-text, but that just feels wrong and unsatisfying. And I fight the urge to find Oliver and spill everything to him. He’s been my best listener over the past few months, but I can’t expect him to offer me advice on this situation. I have to figure it out on my own.

So I get to school early Monday morning and stake out Trevor’s locker. People trickle in. I say hi to Kelly, chat with Harrison and Chris. Things feel like they’re approaching normal again when I smile at Amanda. She gives me an almost-smile, and now I’m even more determined to get this dumping thing done and over with. I’ve made my decision on what’s most important to me, and I’m past ready to follow through on it. I clutch the strap of my backpack in my hand and check my phone. It’s two minutes until eight. Where is he?

Then I see him. “Hey, Trevor!” I wave at him with false enthusiasm. He probably thinks I’m on something, since I’ve barely talked to him in the last few days.

“I’m glad you’re finally here,” I say as he approaches. “I need to
talk to you—” I shut up the second I see Danielle appear from behind Trevor. God, it’s like they’re joined at the hip. Almost like the way I used to be with him. The thought makes my stomach regret that bagel I had this morning, and I wonder whether she’s seen the inside of the props room. She also probably has no idea how horrible he really is.

“Hi, Danielle,” I say as nicely as possible. “Don’t you need to get your books for class?”

She grins at me. The little creep. “Nope! I’m all set! I’m so glad it’s a new week! Don’t you just love starting over again every week?!”

“Not really,” I mumble. The bell rings.

“Gotta go,” Trevor says. He slams his locker door shut. “See you guys later!” And then he disappears into the crowd. Danielle trails after him. I just stand there, watching them leave.

Did u do it?
Harrison texts me during English, our last class of the day.

No. Can’t get him away from D.

Aft rehearsal. Got an idea.

I silently thank Harrison for being a better friend than I deserve. After I check in with Amanda to make sure Trevor hasn’t been after her again (he hasn’t, probably because she’s been going out of her way to avoid him), I glance over at Harrison and raise my eyebrows, trying to deduce what his idea might be. I might be pretty good at this Sherlock Holmes thing. I wonder if there’s a market for old-fashioned mystery-solvers.

Harrison just shrugs and smiles. The second the bell rings, I corner him outside the door.

“What?” I demand.

“It’s not complicated,” he says. “I’ll distract Danielle after rehearsal so you can talk to Trevor.”

“Oh,” I say. I was expecting something involving dark clothes or camouflage. I could lurk around the corner and send hand signals to Harrison as we wait for Trevor to show up.

“What’s wrong with it? I thought it was a good idea,” Harrison says.

“Nothing. It’s fine. Thanks for helping me.”

“No problem. I’m just ready to have Normal Casey back, instead of Possessed Casey.” Harrison grins and ducks out of the way as I try to smack him. “See you in a few!” he yells down the hallway.

I stop by my locker and then go to the theater. We have a few more days of rehearsal before opening night on Friday.

“I can’t wait to get this play done with,” I say to Harrison as we sit in the theater.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? I thought you hated this as much as me. Remember how Ms. Sharp put us in these completely undeserved, lowly roles? Remember the death knell for all our college plans in New York? Remember The List?” I feel like standing up and putting my hands on my hips.

Harrison shrugs. “I kind of like my part, now that I’m used to it. Mostly, I just like being onstage with everyone.”

“Are you seriously deserting our mission now?”

“Silence!” Ms. Sharp’s voice rings out and everyone immediately
shuts up. “We have four days until curtain. Four. Days. We need to be
perfect
. I will not tolerate any flubs or messing around. We run straight through, no stopping.”

“Places!” is all Hannah gets to call.

We all scurry backstage, and when Jenna calls the lights and the curtain, the old excitement at being this close to a performance flutters through me. I move through the show without missing a beat.

When rehearsal ends, Ms. Sharp gives a twenty-minute lecture complete with hand-flailing on everything that went wrong. After she runs out of air, I make sure Amanda leaves, then I grab Harrison, and we wait by the propped-open theater door.

“Here they come,” I whisper when I see Trevor and Danielle.

“Hey there, fellow thespians.” Oliver slaps Harrison on the back. Harrison stumbles and pushes his glasses back into place. “What’s going on?” He throws an arm around each of our shoulders.

“Um . . . I kind of have to do something right now,” I tell him, in the nicest way possible while trying not to think about the weight of his arm around my shoulders.

Oliver wrinkles his forehead. “Like what? Rehearsal’s over. I think Ms. Sharp is losing it. You guys weren’t lying about her.” He lets go of Harrison and pulls on the collar of his Journey T-shirt, probably remembering the way she screamed at him for standing three inches off his mark during his first scene.

“She gets really intense,” Harrison agrees.

Danielle and Trevor are only steps away. I reluctantly peel myself away from Oliver and elbow Harrison hard in the ribs.

“Ouch! Really, Casey. You don’t have to injure me.” Harrison rubs his side and looks over Oliver’s shoulder toward Danielle and Trevor. “Hey! Danielle!” he yells at the top of his lungs. He steps around Oliver and snags Danielle by the elbow. I totally owe him one.

“I need your help with something.” Harrison practically drags Danielle back down the aisle toward the stage. Danielle turns around to say something to Trevor, but doesn’t. For once, she’s silent.

“Trevor!” I say around Oliver.

“Hey, Case.” He gives me that body-melting smile.

I tear my eyes away and look at Oliver. “Um, can we have a minute?”

Oliver looks back and forth between me and Trevor. He shrugs. But instead of going out the door, though, he walks very, very slowly down one of the aisles.

“What’s going on?” Trevor says, reaching for my hand. His hair falls into his eyes, but he’s still looking right at me.

For a moment, I can’t remember why I want to break up with him.

“Casey?”

“Yeah, sorry. Um . . .” This is so much harder than it ever was before. Because I know this is really the end.

I swallow. I
need
to do this. I remember the way he’s acting with Danielle and about how they’ve probably been having their own Alcove of Sin rendezvous while I’ve been stressing about why he won’t stay focused on me. How he tried to do the same thing with Amanda. How he never took me seriously until I pretty much forced him to—and that still didn’t work. How he completely brushed off
my concerns when I confronted him about Danielle. How downright
mean
he’s been to Amanda.

And then I get mad.

“I thought you knew me so well, but really, you don’t know me at all.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I think I know you
really
well.”

I have to fight to keep from screaming. “Not like that. I mean, for real. Like, who I actually am. What I want. What I hope for. What I’m sad about. Why I’m angry.”

“God, is this going to be another episode of you yelling at me again for even looking at someone else? Because I’m kind of over that, Casey.”

Anger simmers and I let it boil out. “No, it’s not. This is going to be me, telling you exactly how things are. First, I am done with you and Danielle and you and every other girl you’ve tried to get with.”

He blinks at me with those big brown eyes. I wonder if I was ever attracted to anything beyond how he looks and the way he sings. “Danielle? Again? Now come on—”

“Yes, Danielle. Please don’t act like you have no idea what I’m talking about. The pretend-ignorance thing isn’t really attractive. And you’d brush it under the rug every single time and try to make me think I was imagining things. Before that, there was Amanda. I know we weren’t together then, but really, my best friend? Even after she tried to tell you she wasn’t interested?”

Something angry flickers across his face, and then . . . I get it.
I almost stumble backward when I figure it out. “It’s because she rejected you and you couldn’t deal with it.”

He snorts. “You’re making things up.”

I close the gap between us and look right up into his eyes. “I am not. I know exactly what you’ve been doing to her. And now I know why. You couldn’t handle her turning you down.” I know I’m right. Amanda changed right after the movie and ice cream night when she told him to back off. “Let me be clear—it will stop. I know. Harrison knows. And I swear to God that if you do anything like that again, everyone in this town will know what a snake you are.”

I back up, waiting for him to deny it. But he doesn’t. Instead, he crosses his arms and glares at me. “Are you done?”

“Almost. You’re selfish. You’re full of yourself. You never even asked why I wanted to join your so-called band so badly. You’ve treated me like crap for years. And now you’ve turned on my best friend. So here’s where this is going: I don’t really like you as a person. Not anymore. We. Are. Done. Forever.”

I start to stomp off when he calls from behind me, “You knew what we were the whole time. We’ve never been exclusive. You know that better than anyone, or are you forgetting Oliver?”

I whirl around. How in the hell does he even know about that? “That was
one
time. It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done to me over the years. And I felt so bad about it that I pushed him away so I could be with you. I’m regretting that now, thank you very much. Have a good life.” Which is exponentially nicer than what I really wanted to say.

Then I get on with my stomping, brushing past Oliver, who still hasn’t made it to the door and probably just overheard everything I said. I imagine Trevor with a blank look on his face because I like the way it makes me feel. I move past the Grimaldis, who are camped out in the lobby, right next to the open theater door.

Johnny has that sad, hopeful look on his face, while Steve-o’s slapping an unopened pack of Marlboro Reds against the palm of his hand. He gives me an appreciative smile. “Damn, Fitzgerald. Didn’t think you had that in you.”

I’m on such a roll that I stop for a second and turn back to them. “Why are you here? Like, in this school. Why?”

Steve-o blinks at me. And Johnny smiles, just a little. It’s nice, actually, his smile.

I stride up to them and wait with my hands on my hips. “What do you do exactly, besides hate me and play video games and smoke and get half the population of this school high on a regular basis? Really, I want to know. I’m in the market for a new talent for myself.”

Johnny’s smile widens. “Opera,” he says. “I’m going to Juilliard next year.”

I’m pretty sure my mouth is hanging wide open. It’s not like I’ve taken any time away from theater to bother going to one of Holland’s operas. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen Johnny with a cigarette, though his twin seems to live with one in his mouth. And that makes sense now. Sort of. And Choral Ensemble—he’s been a fixture in the tenor section for as long as I’ve been at Holland. I’m still processing the whole Johnny-Grimaldi-as-an-opera-star thing in my
head, when I notice Steve-o glaring at me.

“Judgey little thing, aren’t you?” he says.

“Maybe I am. It’s not like you aren’t the same way. And you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”

His face actually shades a little red. He doesn’t say anything.

“My brother’s a painting prodigy. He had his first gallery showing in New York when he was eight,” Johnny says. He looks . . . proud.

The blue I saw under Steve-o’s fingernails that one time. It was paint. I glance at his hands. They’re clean today, but a couple of speckles of orange decorate his otherwise black shirt.

“Shut up,” Steve-o says to his brother. He’s back to glaring at me. “It’s none of her business.”

“All right, then,” I say. “Hey, Johnny, congratulations by the way. Juilliard’s pretty amazing.”

Johnny smiles, and with that, I head for the door.

I shove it open and breathe in the chilly November air. The Grimaldis actually have artistic talent and I dumped Trevor. What a day.

I feel a little light-headed. It’s weird to be with someone for so long, only to figure out he was never who I really thought he was. I slide down the wall and sit on the pavement. The fall air seeps through my sweater. My coat is still backstage, but no way am I going back inside for it now. I close my eyes and turn my face up to the weak sun for warmth.

I hear footsteps next to me. I’m afraid to open my eyes and see Trevor or the Grimaldis there. I don’t think I can do either of those scenes again.

“Casey?” a voice says.

I open one eye to see Oliver standing over me. He sits and hugs his knees to his chest. There’s a hole beginning in the fabric over his left knee, and he immediately starts pulling one of the threads.

“Did you know Johnny Grimaldi is an aspiring opera singer?” I ask him.

“What? No. I didn’t think he did anything except lurk in the hallways with his brother.”

“Who is a world-class painter, apparently,” I say. “My world is turned upside down.”

We’re silent for a moment. I push some fallen leaves out from underneath me.

“You did the right thing,” he finally says.

“I didn’t need an audience.”

He squirms a little. “No, you didn’t. If I’d known what you were going to do, I would’ve made myself scarce.”

“I’ve never done that before,” I say.

“I thought you did. Four times, in fact,” he says with a slight smile.

I shake my head. “This was different. This was real. Those other times . . . it was like I put him on hiatus to let him know I was sick of what he was doing. And he’d date around, and then I’d get tired of
that
, and we’d just pick up right where we’d left off.”