Hold Still (18 page)

“Yeah. You know Dylan? Her—”

“Okay, fine,” Henry calls out. “I’m leaving, you can catch up.”

“I’m coming, just a sec.” Taylor rolls his eyes at me. “Clearly, I gotta go, but yes. Whatever you want to do. I’ll see you fourth period. You can tell me the specifics.”

3

I don’t know what to wear to the play, so I show up at Dylan’s house with a sackful of options. I lay them out on Dylan’s bed and she stands with her hip jutting out, her hand on her chin, deciding.

“It’s a school play, so it shouldn’t be that dressy. But it
is
in the city, and also it’s opening night, so it isn’t totally casual, either. Plus it’s a date,” she says. “Right?”

“Kind of,” I say. “At least I think so.”

She nods. “I think so, too.”

She’s wearing black as usual, but a more dressed-up version. Her pants are tight and kind of shiny and her tank top scoops down in the front and in the back, revealing her shoulder blades and the back of her neck as she leans over to examine the pattern on one of the shirt options I brought.

“This skirt,” she says. “And that sweater.” She pivots toward her closet. “And I have a belt for you.”

I grab the clothes she chose and head into the bathroom.

“Oh,” she says. “And the orange scarf. The orange scarf is adorable.”

“Okay,” I say, and shut the door.

Inside the bathroom, I look into Dylan’s mirror. I want to look the opposite of adorable. I want to walk up Eighteenth Street tonight and look like I belong walking next to Dylan, like I know my way around the city the way she does. But then I think of me in the photograph that Ingrid took, the one that won the prize. Ms. Delani was right: I did look interesting. And I was just sitting in my room, looking like myself.

I slip off my pants and step into the green skirt that Dylan chose. It doesn’t fit me the way it used to. It hangs a little. I guess I’ve been substituting Popsicles for too many meals lately. I take off my shirt, pull on a dark brown sweater that I took from my mom’s closet. It’s made out of this really soft, thin fabric. The faint outline of my bra shows through it. Last, I buckle Dylan’s wide, tan belt over the skirt. It’s covered with little bronze studs and makes the whole outfit work, makes it just the slightest bit tough like I wanted it.

“You look great,” Dylan says when I come out of the bathroom. I feel her eyes scanning my body, wonder if I can really pull this sweater off.

“Really great,” she says.

“Thanks,” I mumble, and don’t make eye contact. “But I really don’t. Look at the way this skirt bunches.”

“Fine,” Dylan says. “Be difficult. All I’m saying is Taylor’s gonna think you look gorgeous when he gets here.”

Taylor shows up five minutes early, and we climb into his yellow Datsun and head onto the main road. Before we get on the freeway, we have to stop so Dylan can get a coffee, and then after we’re over the bridge and finally find parking in the Mission, we go into the Dolores Park Café to get another one. This time Taylor and I order, too, and he insists on paying for all three of us.

“What a gentleman,” Dylan says, grinning at him.

He turns to me. “Caitlin, did you hear that? She thinks I’m a gentleman.”

The barista calls Taylor’s name. I grab my coffee and go over to the bar to add sugar, hoping that if it’s sweet enough, it won’t be as bitter as it was when I had a macchiato with Dylan and Maddy.

“Caitlin?” It’s a guy’s voice, but it isn’t Taylor’s. I turn around to look.

Davey and Amanda are filling their coffees up right beside me. Davey’s grown an Abe Lincoln beard, the kind with no mustache. Amanda’s cut her hair short. Instantly, I feel a little dizzy. My head buzzes.

“Oh my God,” Amanda gasps.
“Caitlin.”

She takes a small step toward me but stops there. They used to hug me every time we saw one another, so now the space between us feels a million times longer than it actually is.

“Hi,” I manage.

They seem just as startled as I feel. Amanda looks like she’s trying not to cry. Davey stands completely still, like he’s in shock.

“Look at you,” he finally says. “You look . . .” But he doesn’t finish.

“You look grown up,” Amanda says.

When Davey finally moves, he reaches out, touches my shoulder light and fast.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is hard, isn’t it? But, shit, it’s so good to see you. Are those your friends?” He gestures out the window, to where Dylan and Taylor are leaning against a pole, talking.

I don’t know what to say. How can I say yes without making it seem like I’ve completely moved on from Ingrid? But there’s no other way I can answer.

“Yeah.”

Neither of them looks mad.

“What are you here for?” Amanda asks.

“We’re going to a play.”

“You should come see us sometime.”

“Okay,” I say, wondering if I will.

“That would be great,” Davey says, and he seems so eager.

“Yeah, it would,” I say. “I will.”

I’m not sure how to end this conversation, and they don’t seem to know how to, either. I take a step backward, toward the door.

“I still listen to that tape you made me. Like
all the time
.”

“You do?” Davey asks.

“Yeah.”

I look at Amanda. “And I listen to the Cure CD practically every night.”

She smiles.

“Okay,” I say. “Well, my friends are waiting, so I should probably ...”

They both nod, their heads moving at the exact same time.

“Have fun,” Davey says, and I walk out to the sidewalk.

4

Dylan explains that the theater department at Dolores High is really well known throughout the city. It got a grant a few years ago from a rich retired actress in Pacific Heights and they used the money to build a brand-new theater where the old gym used to be. It’s obvious when I walk in that this isn’t your typical high school play. It’s swarming with people, all dressed nicely. A woman at the door is handing out programs. I open mine and find a picture of Maddy, looking serious and graceful, staring intently into the camera.

I show Taylor.

Dylan beams.

“She’s really cute,” Taylor says to her.

Dylan looks like she would like to smile wider, but it wouldn’t be possible.

“I know,” she says, practically crooning.

We find three seats next to one another in the third row. I sit between Dylan and Taylor. When most of the seats are taken, I see Dylan’s group of friends walk in, the kids we hung out with in the park that afternoon.

“Hey, look,” I say to her. She sees them and waves, but she doesn’t get up. She stays sitting here with Taylor and me, and that makes me really happy, and I can hardly stand how right this feels, sitting here between them, waiting for the lights to dim and the curtain to rise.

I return to the program and see I also recognize the actor playing Romeo.

“Hey,” I say to Dylan, pointing at the head shot. “This is your friend, right? The one who liked the waitress?”

“Yeah,” Dylan says. “He’s really good, too.”

Then someone chimes a bell, and the audience goes quiet, and the room turns black. There is the rustle of the curtain rising, and then a light shines on three people onstage.

They open their mouths and speak in unison: “Two households, both alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene . . .”

I settle back in my chair.

The Capulet and Montague men fight on the stage with real swords that crash when they make contact. Dylan’s friend enters.

“Is the day so young?” he asks Benvolio. He says, “Ay me, sad hours seem long.” He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, “O, teach me how I should forget to think!” I, for the first time in my life, see what the big deal is about Shakespeare.

It seems like forever before Maddy comes onstage. I can tell that Dylan’s getting impatient, but I’m content listening to Romeo talk about his sadness, even if it is just over some girl who doesn’t love him back. But then the scene changes, and the nurse and Capulet’s wife are asking for Juliet, and Maddy walks onstage, all confidence, in a long white dress with a gold sash, and asks, “How now, who calls?”

Dylan reaches over and squeezes my wrist, and points her head at Taylor like I need to let him know
right now
that this is Maddy, the one and only amazingly beautiful and talented Maddy, onstage right in front of us. So I do. I lean over to Taylor’s ear, and he tilts his face closer to mine, and I whisper, “That’s Maddy.”

He leans closer to me then, and when he says, “Yeah, I saw her picture, remember?” his lip grazes my earlobe and my body fills with light.

Romeo and Juliet meet; they fall in love. That girl Romeo was heartbroken over vanishes from his mind. All the actors are so good. They know all their lines, they really seem to feel everything. Juliet drinks the poison. We know she’s faking it, but her nurse doesn’t. She cries, “She’s dead, deceased. She’s dead, alack the day!” And Juliet’s mother doesn’t know it, either. She echoes the nurse, her voice loud and shrill, “Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!”

“Are you okay?” Dylan whispers to me. I look down and see my hands shaking.

I put them in my lap. I nod. Yes. I am okay.

When the real suicides come, I remind myself that these are actors. I gaze up at the stage lights as Romeo looks down at Juliet’s body. When he declares, “Here, here will I remain, with worms that are my chamber-maids. O, here will I set up my everlasting rest,” I think,
This is just a boy who was in love with a waitress at an all-night diner on Church Street.
“Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death!” I try not to think of Ingrid. I try not to see her arms drip blood into her bath-water, see her body stretched out in her bathtub, letting in death. Romeo drinks the poison and I try to picture him without his costume, sitting in a diner booth, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

When Juliet wakes to find Romeo dead, Maddy’s voice is so full of feeling that it’s all I can do to not listen to the words. And I realize that even though I know what’s coming, I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see a girl thrust a knife, even a fake knife, into her own body. I look over to Dylan, hoping for something. Her gaze is fixed on the stage, fixed on Maddy. She is riveted.

Taylor reaches down and squeezes my hand. I start filling my mind with words, any words; I try to remember the old biology facts but I can’t hear them, something about dominant genes? Blue eyes and brown eyes? And as I’m trying to remember, Taylor leans over and whispers, “Turn around. Look at everyone.” So I do. Mothers are dabbing their eyes with tissues; fathers are blinking hard. The girls our age are wiping their cheeks with the sleeves of their sweaters and the guys are shifting in their chairs uncomfortably.

And Taylor whispers, “I think this is a sign of a good performance,” whispers, “Do you ever go to that Shakespeare festival in Orinda? It’s outside, and whenever my mom takes me I’m always freezing my ass off by the end,” whispers, “I saw a version of
Henry the Fifth
that they made into a western. Henry, the king, wore a cowboy hat,” whispers, “Caitlin. You can look now,” whispers, “It’s over.”

After the play we wait in the theater as most people leave.

“Caitlin,” Maddy calls, coming toward me. We hug, and when we step apart she says, “I’m so glad that you came! Thank you so much for coming.”

“You were amazing,” I say. “I never really liked Shakespeare before tonight.”

Taylor shakes her hand and says, “You should have seen all the people crying. You were really good.”

We all walk outside, and Maddy and Dylan are greeted by more people, and Taylor and I just stand off to the side and wait for them. Then the crowd dies down, the rest of their friends leave, and Dylan and Maddy start kissing. A couple of random men walk by and stare at them. Taylor stares at them.
I
stare at them.

Taylor looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

“Um,” I try. “They don’t get to see each other that much.”

“No, it’s cool,” Taylor says. “They seem really into each other. I like your friends.”

“I like your friends, too,” I say. Then, to clarify, I say, “Well, at least I like Jayson.”

Taylor laughs. “Yeah, Jayson’s like a brother to me. He’s like my best friend in the world.”

It’s starting to get really cold. I pull the sleeves of my mom’s sweater down over my hands. I glance over at Dylan and Maddy. They’re still making out.

Taylor and I stand and look at each other awkwardly. I hear Maddy and Dylan murmuring. Then Taylor and I, at the same exact moment, step into each other, and kiss.

5

Taylor brings the map. I bring the notecards and the speakers for my iPod. Mr. James asks for volunteers to go first and Taylor and I both shoot up our hands. We hate public speaking; we want to get this out of the way.

“Taylor, Caitlin. I’m glad to see you’re so eager.” He takes a seat in the front row, like one of us, and looks genuinely excited.

Taylor and I shuffle up to the front. I try to ignore the cheerlead ers glaring at me.

It’s been a little over a week since Taylor and I kissed at the play. Since then, we’ve talked on the phone six times, hung out—with Dylan and Jayson, of course—during three lunches. Kissed once before first period in the parking lot, three times in the hallway after precalc, and every day after school. On Tuesday during break, Bethany, Henry’s ex, was talking to Taylor as he waited for me near the English hall, and when I walked up, he said,
Bethany do you know Caitlin?
Bethany hardly glanced at me and shook her head.
Well then,
Taylor said,
meet my girlfriend, Caitlin
. And he touched my arm, right below the elbow, and Bethany said hi, but I hardly noticed.

Now I plug the speakers into the socket below the chalkboard and attach my iPod to them. I turn to a song by a French singer, Edith Piaf. My mom is obsessed with her. The recording sounds all scratchy and old, which is perfect. It isn’t nearly as old as Jacques DeSoir, but it sets the mood.