Get Even (9 page)

EIGHTEEN

KITTY FELT A PANG OF DISAPPOINTMENT WHEN THE ALARM ON
Donté’s phone went off. “Damn,” he said, silencing it. “I can’t believe it’s already six o’clock.”

“I know.” It had been a fantastic date, the kind that Kitty had believed existed only in romantic comedies and chick-lit novels. Two hours of conversation over burgers and sodas had never flown by so quickly, and she didn’t want it to end. They’d talked about everything, and found out they had a ridiculous amount in common. They both had two younger sisters, two working parents, and had been playing team sports all their lives. Two hours flew by without any awkward pauses or weird faux pas, and she was sorry to see it end.

“I’m sorry I had to bail on the movie tonight,” Donté said after he flagged down the waitress. “But play auditions are mandatory for drama class, and I kinda need the easy A.”

“It’s okay,” Kitty said.

“Kinda weird, us going on a date today, isn’t it?” Donté said.

Weird? Had their date been weird and Kitty hadn’t even realized it?

“After what happened at school,” Donté continued.

Kitty bit her lip. Ronny. That’s right. In the midst of her amazing date with Donté, Kitty had completely forgotten that a murder had been committed that may or may not be partially her fault. “Yeah,” she managed to say, her throat dry. “Awful.”

Adele’s “One and Only” came on the PA system, and Kitty jumped at the opportunity to change the subject.

“I love this song,” she said awkwardly.

Donté stared out the window, his eyes far away. “It was our song. Olivia’s and mine.”

“Oh.” Was he trying to tell her that he was still hung up on Olivia? Was this his way of telling her they were just friends? “I guess she was pretty special?” She couldn’t hide the question mark at the end of the sentence.

Donté sucked in a breath. “Crap, I’m sorry! I totally didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I wasn’t trying to bring up my ex.”

Kitty sat utterly still. Was she supposed to say something? Ask him to explain it to her? Dammit, why was she so indecisive all of a sudden?

Donté reached across the table and touched her hand. “I wasn’t thinking about Olivia at all. I promise. We broke up. It’s over.”

Kitty snorted. “Please, everyone knows she dropped you like third-period French.”

As soon as she blurted out the words, Kitty’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God!” she squeaked, her voice muffled by her palm. What did she just do? If Donté hadn’t lost interest before, he’d hit the eject button now for sure.

But instead of getting defensive, Donté tossed his head back and laughed. “I know, I know,” he said. “That was the rumor and I didn’t correct it. I think Livvie’s friends were putting pressure on her to dump me.” He stopped laughing and leaned back against the booth, smiling. “The truth is I broke up with her.”

“But you guys were the perfect couple.”

Donté shrugged. “I guess that’s what people thought, but Olivia and I never really gelled. We were always going to parties or out with her friends. It was never just the two of us, and I felt like I was always acting, pretending to be the kind of boyfriend she wanted.”

“Oh.” Kitty couldn’t think of anything else to say. The most beautiful girl at school getting dumped by the boy who just took her on the best date of her life was a difficult concept to wrap her head around.

“But it’s not like that with you.” Donté passed his hand over his closely shaved head and leaned toward her. “I had an awesome time today.”

“Me too.” She’d half-thought she was imagining that the date was going well, especially since she jabbered away like a lunatic most of the time, and it was a relief to know that despite her lack of social experience, she wasn’t the only one who’d had a good time.

“And you won’t get in trouble with Coach Miles?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

Kitty shook her head. “We get to miss one practice each semester, no questions asked.”

Donté laughed again. “Me too! This was the best use of my free pass ever.”

The check came and Donté slapped some bills on the table, then stood up and offered Kitty his hand. “Can I walk you to your car?”

Neither of them said a word as they approached Kitty’s hand-me-down Corolla, the first time that day there had been silence between them. Kitty wasn’t sure what it meant. Was Donté bored with her? Or was he debating whether or not to ask her out again?

Please ask me out again. Please, please, please.

They reached the door, and Donté turned to face her. “So, how would you feel about doing it again? Maybe this weekend?”

“I’d like that,” she said, trying not to sound relieved.

“Good.” Donté cupped her chin with his hand and tilted her face upward to meet his. Simply gazing into his enormous brown eyes made her legs turn to jelly. He traced her lips with his thumb and they buzzed beneath his touch; then he leaned down and kissed her.

Donté touched Kitty as if she were fragile but not frail. One hand held her firmly at the small of her back, the other was behind her neck—his fingers laced into her thick hair. The effect was electric, charged like a thunderstorm rolling across her body. Her mind turned to putty and her heart skipped a beat as if it too was having a hard time keeping its mind on what it was supposed to be doing.

Donté was the first boy to kiss her since Marty Heffernan in sixth grade, who had to stand on a stepstool to reach her face, and who’d mistakenly thought that “slipping her the tongue” meant licking Kitty’s cheek. The Donté version was less sloppy and significantly sexier.

He pulled his lips away. “Damn,” he whispered.

Damn?
“Is that good?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said softly.

“Oh. Okay.”

“You’re cute.”

Kitty sighed. Well, if she was going to act like a total spaz on their first date, at least he found it adorable.

Donté leaned toward her. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

“But you do.” Kitty unlocked her car door and swung it open. “Good luck at the audition.”

“Break a leg,” Donté corrected. “That’s what the actors say.”

Kitty headed straight to her room the second she got home and flopped down on her bed, her head spinning. Donté Greene had kissed her! She’d dreamed about that moment for months, but he seemed so out of her league. Homecoming court, captain of the basketball team, member of the ’Maine Men.

Donté was a ’Maine Man.

Kitty sat straight up as her stomach dropped. She and Donté—it could never work. He was part of the ’Maine Men, specifically created to bring about the downfall of Don’t Get Mad. A group that she started. Even if he hadn’t been Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, they were on opposite sides of the net.

She needed to stop now before she got in too deep. She’d text Donté and tell him she couldn’t see him anymore. Blame it on her parents, her grades, anything. She dug through her duffel bag, searching for her cell phone, and halted abruptly. Shoved between her spiral notebook and pencil case was a large manila envelope.

It looked like the kind of envelopes that piled up in her in-box on the leadership desk, used by Mrs. Baggott to convey official administrative memos. Only those were generically addressed to “Student Leadership.” This one had Kitty’s name on it.

She broke the seal on the flap and turned it upside down.

Kitty watched a newspaper clipping flutter out of the envelope and rest faceup on her bedspread. It was a short article, simply titled “Archway Student Goes AWOL.”

Archway Military Academy. Had Margot found new information on why Ronny left Archway?

She scanned the article. Yes, an Archway student had gone AWOL.

Only it wasn’t Ronny DeStefano.

Who the hell was Christopher Beeman?

NINETEEN

ACT NORMAL
, OLIVIA REPEATED TO HERSELF AS SHE SLOWLY
walked across the quad. Peanut jabbered at her side as she’d done almost incessantly since they’d left her house. She’d asked Olivia at least a half-dozen times if she’d known Ronny. Each time Olivia had told her that she’d seen him around, and then Peanut had launched into a nervous, meandering stream of consciousness about how she had first-period English with Ronny and how she’d known the moment Father Uberti came on the PA that something had happened to him.

Olivia had listened patiently, letting Peanut ramble on, even though the mere mention of Ronny’s name was enough to make Olivia’s stomach clench up with a confusing mix of sorrow, guilt, and fear.

Meanwhile, all Olivia wanted to do was to run home, climb into bed with a king-size pack of Ho Hos, and pull the covers over her head until the horror of the day disappeared.

But Kitty’s words ran through her head on an endless loop:
We need to go about our lives like nothing’s happened
.

In the face of Ronny’s death, the fall play suddenly seemed trivial, but if she bombed her audition, it might look suspicious. And that would be disastrous.

She had to keep it together.

The theater was buzzing with excitement by the time she and Peanut arrived. It was an odd feeling, as if events outside the theater door hadn’t happened at all. Inside, it was all business.

“Everyone needs to sign up,” Mr. Cunningham directed from the stage. He pointed to a clipboard at his feet. “Then take a seat so we can get started.”

“Olivia!” Amber waved from the foot of the stage. Her light brown curls were radiant in the glow of the overhead lights, her face smiling. “I signed you up right after me.”

“What about me?” Peanut asked.

Amber pointed to the sign-up sheet, then grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Won’t it be fun to go back-to-back? Both reading for Olivia?”

Why was Amber so adamant that they both audition for Olivia? She remembered Mr. Cunningham’s cryptic warning and forced a smile. “How do you know I’m not auditioning for Viola?”

Amber laughed. “Why would you do that? She spends the whole play dressed like a boy.”

So that was it. Amber wanted to play the pretty role, the girl who got all the attention, and assumed Olivia did too.

Olivia nodded sagely. “Right.”

As everyone settled into their seats, Mr. Cunningham sat on the edge of the stage for a little tête-à-tête. “It’s been an emotional day here at Bishop DuMaine,” he began, his face sympathetic. “We’ve lost one of our own, a star whose light will never have the opportunity to shine.”

Olivia had to force the images of Ronny’s smarmy face and octopus arms from her mind.

“And though Ronald wasn’t a member of the drama program,” Mr. Cunningham continued, “we will be dedicating our opening-night performance to his memory.”

Amber placed her hand over her heart. “For Ronny,” she whispered dramatically.

Ew?

After a suitable pause, Mr. Cunningham picked up his clipboard and got back to business. “We’ll start with the gentlemen, since there are significantly fewer of you. When I call your name, please take the stage, announce yourself and the role for which you are auditioning, then you may begin.” He cleared his throat and consulted his sign-up sheet. “I’ll be posting the cast list at lunch tomorrow and we’ll be jumping into rehearsals immediately. So let’s get started. Mr. Greene, if you please?”

Olivia inched to the edge of her seat while Donté walked down the aisle. She was more nervous for his audition than she was for her own.

Needlessly nervous, it turned out. Donté wasn’t half-bad. He read from the script, but there was finesse to his performance, a spark that elevated him above the average high school student reading Shakespeare out loud in English class, as if he’d absorbed some of Olivia’s skills from watching her perform.

Olivia sighed as he exited the stage, her heart warm. Clearly she’d given Donté something during their relationship, ignited the acting bug in him. She’d gained so much from their time together: confidence, security, and a sense that she deserved to be treated well. But after he dumped her, she’d always wondered if she’d given him anything in return. Donté’s audition was proof that she had.

Shane White was next, auditioning for the clown, Feste. Then a steady flow of Sir Toby Belch monologues, probably due more to the character’s name than anything else, and several nervous auditions where Olivia swore she could see the script pages shaking in the actors’ hands. She was beginning to worry there would be no decent Orsinos, until Logan.

“I’m Logan Blaine,” he said, then paused and gazed around the stage, eyes wide with wonder. “Awesome acoustics, dude. This theater is tight.”

Laughter rippled through the house. Mr. Cunningham cleared his throat pointedly and everyone fell silent.

“I’m glad it meets your approbation, Mr. Blaine,” he said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “Will you be gracing us with an audition today?”

“Oh yeah! Sorry.” Logan ran his fingers through his long blond hair. “I’m auditioning for Orsino.”

He had no script in his hand.

“I cannot wait,” Mr. Cunningham mumbled.

Logan’s voice was strong and passionate as he gave Orsino’s desperate final speech to Olivia. Anger and spite radiated from every word, every crisp consonant and phonated vowel. He filled the stage with his presence, the house with his voice. As the monologue ended, it took all of Olivia’s self-control not to applaud.

“Wow,” Amber breathed next to her.

Wow was an understatement. The only people who commanded such an unwavering commitment to character were highly trained thespians and sociopaths, and Logan didn’t seem to be either.

“Mr. Blaine,” Mr. Cunningham said, rising to his feet. “That was astounding.”

“Thanks!” Logan said. “I watched the movie last night. The one with Gandhi and the chick that’s married to Tim Burton. It was awesome.”

“I see.” Mr. Cunningham sounded utterly confused.

The girls were next, and it took about a dozen or so auditions before Olivia realized that something weird was going on.

Every single girl was reading for Viola.

Granted there were only three actual female roles in the play, and even though Mr. Cunningham was planning some creative casting with several of the supporting male parts, there should have been at least a fair distribution of auditions for Olivia, Viola, and Maria the maid.

Nope. One after another, girls announced that they’d be auditioning for Viola, and one after another they all gave one of Viola’s main speeches.

Even Peanut and Jezebel both read the “I am the man” soliloquy, with about as much enthusiasm as if they’d been reciting Spanish verb conjugations. As Peanut sat down after her audition, she steadfastly refused to look at Olivia.

“Miss Stevens.”

Amber sprang to her feet, barely able to contain her excitement. “Here I go!” she said as she shimmied past Olivia and Peanut into the aisle.

As soon as she’d left the row, Peanut gripped Olivia’s hand. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

“What?” Olivia whispered. “Why are you sorry?”

Peanut shook her head and looked away.

Why was everyone acting so weird about this production? She remembered Mr. Cunningham’s warning, Amber’s insistence that they’d be vying for Olivia, an endless parade of Viola auditions . . .

Olivia’s hands shook so violently she had to sit on them to keep from vibrating the entire row of chairs. Suddenly it all made sense. Amber’s parents had bought her a role in this production, but they hadn’t been able to guarantee that she’d win the internship. And what was the best way to do that? Eliminate the competition.

Olivia’s stomach flip-flopped with a mix of betrayal and anger.

Amber didn’t just want the lead in the school play; she wanted to make sure that Olivia wasn’t cast at all.

“My name is Amber Stevens and I’ll be auditioning for the part of Olivia.”

Amber was cocky. Olivia could hear it in her voice, see it in the way she held her body. Olivia knew that attitude. It was the same posture Amber had copped when she waltzed into the winter formal last year wearing a thousand-dollar Badgley Mischka, or when she got “elected” prom queen in eighth grade after her dad rented out the Corinthian Ballroom for the dance. It was a cockiness that came with knowing the outcome in advance.

Amber read from the script, though her audition had been heavily coached. It wasn’t bad, per se. She used the stage, following obvious choreography with stock hand gestures. But it was lacking in any real depth, any sense of what the stakes were for the character. Still, it was better than any performance Olivia had ever seen her give. Mr. Cunningham’s private lessons were paying off.

Amber finished her short audition, curtsied, and literally bounced off the stage as Mr. Cunningham called the last audition of the day. “Miss Hayes.”

Olivia slowly rose out of her chair, her eyes fixed on Amber, seeing her for the first time in a new light.

“That was amazing,” Amber said, breezing past her. “I wasn’t nervous at all!”

Olivia didn’t respond. She needed to focus. The walk down the aisle took forever, as if the distance was elongating before her. Her ballet flats were noiseless on the thick wooden stage, and as the audience disappeared into anonymity behind the ferocious lights, Olivia suddenly felt very small and very alone.

You can’t let her win. This is your chance. Take it.

“My name is Olivia Hayes,” she said. Her bell-like voice rang out through the theater. “And I’m auditioning for Viola.”

Olivia was still on an audition high when Peanut dropped her off at home. Gone were the panic and anxiety that had oppressed her from the moment Father Uberti had broken the news of Ronny’s death. The audition had driven everything else from her mind, and as she sauntered up the stairs and into the dark apartment, she was practically drunk from the adrenaline.

She switched on the light in the hallway and leaned back against the door. One day she’d be a famous actress. Her mom would be able to quit her crappy job, and Olivia could get them a real home instead of a cluttered one-bedroom apartment bordering a sketchy neighborhood. Today’s audition was the first step toward that goal.

But now, she needed to decompress. With a heavy groan, Olivia swung the Burberry tote that doubled as her school bag onto the sofa, spilling the contents across the plush cushions.

On top of the pile of monologue anthologies and textbooks sat a plain manila envelope with Olivia’s name on it.

It must be from Mr. Cunningham. He often sent her home with Xeroxed scenes, acting worksheets, and character exercises. In the confusion of the auditions, he’d probably left the envelope near her bag and forgotten to tell her.

Eager to see if it had something to do with
Twelfth Night
, Olivia tore it open.

Inside was a newspaper article.

It was from the
San Jose Mercury News
, dated almost two years ago and detailing the Bishop DuMaine grade-fixing scandal that had rocked the school during Olivia’s freshman year.

She hadn’t paid much attention at the time. The suspensions and expulsions had only affected a handful of student athletes, no one from Olivia’s circle. All she remembered was that several coaches had bribed teachers to give members of their teams inflated grades, keeping them off academic probation. As she read through the article, Olivia learned that the authorities had been informed by an anonymous tip, and when the details of the conspiracy came to light, several students were expelled for recruiting others into the grade fixing, and a handful of faculty members—including Coach Creed’s predecessor—were fired outright.

She glanced through the list of students who had been expelled, trying to see if it had any bearing on the drama program. She recognized a few names, but the rest were unfamiliar. So why did Mr. Cunningham want her to read the article?

Research maybe? Mr. Cunningham did say that this would be an original production of
Twelfth Night
. If he was gunning to sell it to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, it would have to be an off-the-wall setting, maybe the background of a high school scandal?

Olivia smiled to herself. No one knew more about high school scandals than a member of DGM.

With a yawn, Olivia stuffed the newspaper clipping into her drama notebook and grabbed the remote from the table. She’d deal with it later.