manicpixiedreamgirl (12 page)

Even Becky showed signs of stage fright. She was freaking adorable dressed as Scout Finch in overalls and a brown newsboy cap.

“Good luck,” I said to her as we passed each other in the hallway behind the backstage area.

A dozen people froze and glared at me. Becky took my hand—oh dear god, thank you—and pulled me close.

“
Bad
luck,” she said in a low voice. “Always say ‘Break a leg’ or something. Never say ‘Good luck.’ Okay?”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry, I didn’t know.” I could barely get the words out; every nerve ending in my body had migrated to my palm.

“Now you do, Sparky,” she said. I still thought my new nickname was dumb, a constant reminder of my ineptitude.

But coming from her, it was great.

And then, as if her holding my hand wasn’t enough, Becky stood on her tiptoes and kissed my forehead. “
That’s
for luck,” she whispered. “Break a leg.”

“Likewise,” I managed to spit out.

I didn’t have to try very hard to invest her gesture with more than she probably meant. I mean, it was a
kiss
. No
matter how you looked at it, Becky Webb had kissed me. Right?

This new wrinkle in our relationship—our friendship, to be more precise—panicked me as I made my way to the booth before the play began. I could barely see the light board in front of me through my delirium.

Happily, the show went off without a hitch, unless you counted Boo Radley missing his first entrance by about ten seconds because he’d fallen asleep in the dressing room. Other than that, it was great. And when Becky came out for the curtain call with the tall kid playing Atticus, the entire house—that is, all the people in the auditorium, which was full to capacity because we only had three performances total—stood and applauded. A standing ovation.

I sat in the dimly lit booth with Ross, beneath a red glare cast by the colored film we’d put over the lights, leaning back in my chair, grinning. I was so proud of her. And a small spot on my forehead still tingled from her lips.

After the curtain closed, I waited anxiously for all the audience members to file out of the auditorium. But I had to wait until they were gone before Ross and I could shut everything down and lock up the booth.

I rushed through the house and made my way backstage, which emptied into the drama department hallway. People were all over the place; the cast included more than twenty students, and everyone’s family and friends were crammed into the hallway, holding flowers, talking,
hugging, congratulating. I didn’t see Mom, Dad, or Gabby anywhere yet, but I knew they’d make their way back.

Eagerly, I scanned the hallway for Becky, and spotted her newsboy hat a few yards away. I figured this was a great time to scam a hug from her. I mean,
everyone
was hugging everyone back there, so why not?

I almost called her name, but then figured she wouldn’t be able to hear me over all the noise. I started shoving past people to get to her.

Becky was making her way to a guy wearing a dark suit and a woman in a black strapless dress. I assumed they were her parents. They wore the clothes well, unlike my dad when he had to dress up for work or business meetings; Dad was a blue-collar guy, and you could just tell his suit wasn’t the best, and that he didn’t know how to move in it. This guy looked like he woke up wearing an Armani. I recognized the woman as the one who’d gotten out of the SUV last year to coax Becky to get in.

From where I stood, I had sort of a profile view of the couple and of Becky as she moved toward them. I tried to get to her before she got to them. Her father’s hair was jet-black, touched with distinguished gray on the sides. Her mother’s blond hair was wound around the back of her head tightly, reflecting gold beneath the fluorescent lights. Becky and her mom looked a lot alike.

Wow
, I thought.
Becky’s got her looks
.

Becky got to them before I could reach her.
Damn it
, I
thought. I didn’t want to interrupt them, at least not right away.

I was surprised to notice right then that for the money that seemed to ooze from their tanned skin, neither of her parents held flowers. You’d think they could spring for a rose or two. God knows I would have if I’d thought I could get away with it without raising Sydney’s ire. Maybe they didn’t know it was a tradition to give actors flowers. I hadn’t known until Becky told me during one of our rehearsal breaks, just like I hadn’t known to not say “Good luck.”

“Dad!” Becky said. She was smiling hopefully up at him. She lost about six years wearing her costume, still looking like nine-year-old Scout approaching civic-minded Atticus.

“Hey!” her dad said. “Where’s the kid who played Atticus? Have you seen his parents?”

Becky’s smile dropped a little. “Atticus?” she repeated. “Oh. Um … Matthew Quince?”

Her dad opened the cheap photocopied playbills we’d made earlier in the week. “Right, Matthew,” he said, and scanned the crowd. “Is he back here somewhere?”

“Um … yeah …,” Becky said. Her smile was gone now.

“There he is,” Mr. Webb said. “And there’s Don and Lydia. Let’s go.”

I tried to figure out who the hell Don and Lydia were as Mrs. Webb patted her hair and tossed a smile across her painted lips. Mr. Webb bustled through the crowd with his wife gliding beside him.

They came up behind Matthew, who was hugging a guy so tall he had to be Matthew’s dad. Mr. Webb put a hand on Matthew’s shoulder.

“Hey, here’s the star!” Mr. Webb gushed. “You were just incredible, Matthew. Didn’t you think so, Carla?”

“Oh, he was,” Becky’s mom said, putting a manicured hand on her throat. “Just wonderful!”

I turned to look at Becky. Her chin dipped, inch by inch, until she was staring at her shoes.

“Don, good to see you!” Mr. Webb said, pumping Matthew’s dad’s hand. “Lydia, looking great as always …”

I had no idea what that little exchange was all about, and at that moment, I didn’t care. I could’ve killed them both.

Becky took a few more steps until she reached a hallway wall, then leaned back against it, still staring down.

I pushed through a few more people to get to her. “What’s up with all that?” I asked her, shooting a useless glare at her parents. They were still busy gushing over Matthew, who looked uncomfortable and dismayed at the attention.

“Clients,” Becky whispered.

“What?”

“Don and Lydia Quince are Mom and Dad’s clients,” she said to the floor. “That’s why they came tonight.”

“Your parents?” I said, still totally lost. “You mean they didn’t …”

I couldn’t make myself finish the sentence.
You mean they didn’t come to see you?

“Becky … god, I’m sorry,” I said.

Becky didn’t look up. Just nodded distantly.

“You were awesome,” I told her.

She made no move. The newsboy cap shaded her eyes. I was tempted to touch her chin, get her to lift her face, but I didn’t. After a moment, Becky raised her head and shrugged.

“Thanks,” she said carelessly. “Glad you thought so.”

She sounded casual, unaffected by her parents’ attitude, but I couldn’t believe it.

“You want to get out of here?” I asked, just as my cell vibrated in my pocket.

Cursing, I checked the screen. A text from Sydney.

WE WON FIRST PLACE!!!

“Crap,” I whispered. I started typing back, and while I was doing that, Becky suddenly launched herself off the wall and tore through the crowd, making a beeline for the classroom serving as the girls’ dressing room.

“Shit!” I said as I finished my text:
Cool good job glad to hear it

Hands landed on my shoulders from behind me just as I sent the message. “Dude, that was awesome!” Gabby said into my ear.

I barely got turned around before she wrapped me in a hug. Mom and Dad appeared, waving and smiling, and grouped up on my sister and me so that we were in a standing dog pile.

“That was tremendous!” my mom said.

“Great show, Ty, great show,” Dad said.

“Thanks,” I said, still strangled. They finally let me go but blocked my path.

“You guys have a great department this year,” Gabby said. “No kidding. I thought it was just going to be like our little shows, but whoever’s running the department now really knows their stuff.”

“That’s Mrs. Goldie, yeah,” I said, trying not to keep too conspicuous an eye on the dressing rooms. “She’s great. The actors are really good, so … that helps.”

“Oh, yeah!” Gabby said. “They really tore it up!”

Mom glanced around at the crowd. “Where is Sydney?” she asked. “I thought she’d be here tonight with you.”

“Debate tournament,” I said. “It was a qualifier for State. She’ll be back later. They won, though.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Mom said.

“Not surprised,” Gabby said.

Before they could go off on how remarkable my girlfriend was, I said, “I need to start on our lockup, so I’ll see you at the car?”

“Sure thing,” Dad said, patting his pockets for his keys. He does this twelve times per minute; it’s kind of funny. “We’ll be waiting. Let’s go, everybody.”

Mom gave me another hug, and Gabby punched me rapid-fire in the ribs. Not hard. Then they shuffled through the crowd and out of the building.

Since I couldn’t very well go into the actresses’ dressing
room to see if Becky was still there, I moved back into the auditorium to start doing our final lockup. It took maybe ten, fifteen minutes, whereas during the last week of rehearsal, it had taken me twenty. I may have been rushing the tiniest bit.

When I got back to the hallway, the place had cleared out except for a couple of actors lingering with their families.

I didn’t see Becky’s parents, or Becky, anywhere.

“Hey, did Becky come out yet?” I asked Ross, who was talking with Mrs. Goldie.

“Um … couldn’t say, man. Hey, good work tonight, by the way.”

“Thanks, you too. Listen—”

“Oh, Tyler!” Mrs. Goldie said, giving me a school-district-approved side-hug. “Ross is right, you were simply marvelous. Nice job!”

“Uh, thanks, but listen—”

“Did you do an idiot check on the lobby?” Ross interrupted. “Idiot check” was a slang term for triple-checking to ensure all the doors had been locked and everything valuable put away, that kind of thing. There were plenty of students with sticky fingers wandering around during school hours.

“No, not yet,” I said, giving up my quest to ask them for more info on Becky’s whereabouts. “I’ll do it now.”

“Cool, thanks. Hey, you coming to the cast party Saturday?”

“I can’t
heeeear
this!” Mrs. Goldie sang with a laugh, and
went into her office. Cast parties, I’d been told, had nothing to do with Masque & Gavel. Only students who’d been involved with the show got invited, but the parties weren’t official in any way. I’d also heard they were way more insane than the parties held by other students. It was hard to tell facts from rumors around the department, though. Freshman year, I’d heard that all the guys were black belts in karate. And that some kid once dressed up like the Phantom of the Opera and ran around the auditorium in the dark. And that—well, you get the idea.

“I hadn’t … no, I didn’t plan … I mean, I don’t know,” I said to Ross.

“Well, you should,” he said. “It’ll be a rager. I’m gonna get wiped
out
.”

I wondered if Becky would be there. “Sure, yeah,” I said, just in case. “I’ll be there.”

“Cool.”

I headed back into the auditorium to do my idiot check on the lobby doors and the booth. The only lights left on now were work lights high above the stage. The set cast shadows in every direction. An empty auditorium, even with the house lights on, can be a creepy place, no doubt about it.

I jogged through the auditorium, checked all the doors, then made my way back toward the stage. Movement in the stage right wings—the spaces just offstage—caught my eye. Not wanting to be stuck there any longer than I had to, I started to move in that direction to tell whoever it was that we needed to vacate.

And stopped dead.

The stage manager had a tall stool to sit on during the show so he could see over everyone’s head onstage and call up cues to Ross and me in the booth. Becky was sitting on that stool. I could only see her profile. She still wore the newsboy cap and the rest of her costume.

But the straps on her overalls were undone and hanging by her hips, the bib rolled down to her waist. Her head was tilted back, her eyes closed. The off-white button-down shirt she wore under the overalls was open.

She wore nothing beneath that. I could see one small point of her star tattoo.

And Matthew Quince/Atticus Finch was in front of her, his face buried in her chest. The sounds I heard, the noises he made, grabbed my intestines and wound them around a splintered wooden spool.

I hadn’t made a sound, but Becky’s head suddenly turned toward me, her eyes open. Matthew didn’t seem to notice. Guess I didn’t blame him.

We locked eyes, Becky and me. For a thousand years.

I waited for her to push Matthew away. Or tell him to stop, at least.

She didn’t.

Just looked at me looking at them.

I took a backward step, quiet. Then another. Then turned and hurried out to the hallway. I didn’t know this for sure, but I felt like she watched me every step of the way.

By the time I got to our car a few minutes later, I was
enraged
. I knew it was stupid, but it was like, how could she do this to me? And the obvious answer was, she
wasn’t
. We weren’t together. She could do whatever she wanted. With whoever she wanted.

“All set?” Mom asked as I got into the backseat beside my sister.

“Yes,” I snapped.

“Whoa, Tyler,” Dad said, starting the engine. “Did you blow the place up by accident or something?”

“Let’s just go.”

Mom frowned, looking over her shoulder at me. Gabby’s face was surprised too.

“Hey, Dad was kidding,” Mom said. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it. Can we go?”

“Was it the show?”

“No, Mom, it wasn’t the show, the show was fine, can we leave, please?” I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, wishing for steel wool to abrade the image of Becky and Matthew from my corneas.