manicpixiedreamgirl (13 page)

“Okay,” Dad said. “We’re outta here.”

I wanted to scream, wanted to punch Matthew dead in the face. I could’ve buried that tall sucker.

“What’s up?” Gabrielle whispered.

I shook my head.

The parking lot was almost empty. Just as Dad was backing out of the parking space, I saw Becky come out of the drama department. She didn’t see me, and she didn’t know what kind of car Dad drove. She got into the driver’s seat of a
blue Jeep Liberty SUV, shiny beneath the parking lot lights. She’d changed into her regular clothes.

Briefly, through my rage, I wondered how in the world she was allowed to drive. She was fifteen too, and couldn’t have gotten more than a permit to drive with another licensed adult. I didn’t see anyone in the car with her.

When Dad drove past her, she didn’t even look up. She just put both hands on the top of the steering wheel and rested her forehead between them.

I almost told Dad to stop. To go back. That there was someone I needed to talk to.

Almost.

Dad turned on the radio as we pulled out of the lot. I guess I’d brought the whole fam down, because no one said a word. I did see Gabby getting and sending text messages for a bit, but that was all.

Gabrielle scowled at her phone. “Give me your cell,” she said.

“Why?”

“Now.”

Because older sisters always win no matter what, I tossed her my cell. Gabby began texting real fast, eyes narrow in the pale light of the screen. After a minute, she tossed it back into my lap.

“There,” she said. “I just bailed your ass out.”

I looked at my outgoing messages. The last one was to Sydney.

Hey sorry my last text was short had stuff to do. You are awesome! I knew you’d do great. Congratulations, Syd. I’ll take you out for dinner to celebrate. :)

“The hell’s this?” I said to Gabby.

“Her team won first place,” Gabby said. “And you’re all like, ‘Hidey-ho, whatever, nice job, have a neat summer.’
God
, you’re dumb sometimes.”

Oops. While I couldn’t bring myself to thank Gabby out loud—my mind was still mostly elsewhere—I did have to acknowledge that she probably just saved me a whole lot of trouble.

“What are you guys talking about?” Mom asked.

“Nothing,” we said together.

A few minutes later, about halfway home and only mildly back in my right mind, I asked everyone, “You’d tell me if I did a bad job, right?”

Mom turned. “Bad job at what, sweetie?”

“In the show. I mean, if the lights sucked, or the stage went black or something. You’d tell me, right?”

“If the stage went black, I think you’d know,” Dad said.

“Okay, what if I was an actor, and I totally sucked? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Mom winced. “No,” she said carefully. “I don’t think we could ever say you sucked.”

“Even if I did?”

“No,” she said again. “Even if you did, we’d still be proud of you, and we’d tell you so. At the absolute worst, it still
takes a lot of guts to get up in front of people and perform. And, Tyler, we
are
proud of you, being so involved like this. We both think it’s been really good for you.”

“Yep,” Dad said. “Absolutely.”

I hadn’t known that. I forgot about Becky for a nanosecond. “How so?”

“It got you away from your computer,” Mom said, glancing at me with a grin. “Not that we want you to stop writing, of course. We’re both proud of that, too. But your mood has definitely been different coming home from school after rehearsals. Lighter. More … smiley.”

Well, that was an easy one to explain. Not that I was about to try.

I wasn’t surprised by her response, either. It was nice to hear, obviously, but not a shock. Mom and Dad were pretty attentive to me and Gabrielle both. Irritating, yes. But kinda nice.

“You want to tell us what’s bothering you?” Mom asked as we stopped at the last streetlight before our neighborhood.

“A friend of mine is in the show,” I said. “And her parents didn’t even congratulate her. Just went on and on about this other guy because his parents are their clients or something.”

“What kind of clients?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

“Well, that
is
obnoxious,” Mom said. “How’d she take it, this friend of yours?”

“She seemed okay, but I think it hurt her.”

“It did,” Dad stated, moving the car through the green light. “I guarantee you it did.”

Mom nodded. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You should’ve pointed her out to us so we could give her extra lovin’s.”

I snorted at the dumb phrase.
“Extra lovin’s,” huh?

Was that what Matthew had been giving Becky?

I sit down on the short wall delineating the grass from the parking lot, switching my cell to my other ear. “Mom and Dad again, huh?” I ask Becky. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Becky says. “Just everything.”

“What can I do? Name it.”

Becky is quiet. I don’t push. I’ve learned over the last year it won’t get me anywhere. So I sit and wait, wishing for the first time in my life that I smoked so I’d have something to do.

“I don’t know where else to go,” she says finally.

“Go?”

“I mean … I don’t know.”

“Becky, if you want me there, I’m there. You know that.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Another long pause.

“You gotta talk to me,” I venture. “I’ll sit here on the phone all night if you want me to, or I’ll come over, or bring you a freaking gallon of Ben and Jerry’s, or whatever, but I can’t help if you don’t tell me how.”

“Ben and Jerry’s only comes in pints, Sparky.”

“Then I will fly to Vermont and make it happen by brute force and naked aggression.”

Becky sniffs. Such a small sound, but it hurts so much. It’s like a laugh, but not.

While I think dumbly,
I just said “naked” to Becky Webb, huh huh huh huh!
, Becky says, “Tell me about the magazine.”

I didn’t talk to Becky in the two days after opening night
of
Mockingbird
. Didn’t even look for her. Went to the
booth, did my job, went home. That Friday morning
before school, Mom asked me about “the little girl who
played Scout.” I passed on that one.

I didn’t explain that the “friend of mine” I’d talked about in the car on opening night was Becky, didn’t want to point her out as the girl who needed “extra lovin’s.” What was a cute euphemism for encouragement from my mom became an ironic dagger in my belly when I thought of what Matthew had done opening night.

On closing night, Ross asked again if I was coming to
the cast party. I hadn’t intended to, not after the Matthew thing. But when he asked, I said, “Yeah, I am. Could I get a ride?”

“I can get you there, yeah,” Ross said. “But you might want to find another way home. No way am I driving anywhere!”

I sent a text to Gabby first to see if she’d mind picking me up.

Sure
, she wrote back.
You drinking?

No
, I wrote.

Good man. Sydney coming with?

No
, I wrote.

She didn’t write anything back after that. Sydney probably could have come, but technically since she wasn’t involved in the show, she didn’t get an invite.

I managed to wait until after the curtain call to ask Ross if Becky was going to the party. Ross grunted and grinned. Beneath the red glare of the booth lights, his face looked wicked.

“I hope so,” he said.

I didn’t like the sound of that. “How come?” I asked.

Ross didn’t even glance at me. “Just … stick around,” he said.

When we’d finished our idiot check—I’d lost track entirely of Becky, which was partly on purpose because I was still fuming—Ross drove me and a couple other techies to the party. The entire cast and crew were there, and nearly everyone was drinking. Ross fetched me a beer from a
cooler, slapped it into my hand, and said, “Don’t do anyone I wouldn’t do!”

“Right, got it,” I said. “Hey, whose house is this, anyway? Is it cool that we’re here?”

“Matthew’s,” Ross said, and my stomach twisted. “Yeah, it’s cool. His parents go out of town all the time. See ya!”

With that, he abandoned me for the backyard, where most of the cast had migrated.

I opened the beer and took just enough of a sip to convince anyone looking that I was, in fact, drinking the thing. It tasted awful. I spent ten minutes kicking back against one wall, nodding and saying hi to people who passed by and congratulated me on my first tech experience. This included, of course, Neapolitan Girl.

“So where’s Syd?” she asked as she walked by with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

“Friends,” I said.

“You didn’t invite her?” she asked. She sounded surprised.

“Was I supposed to?”

The girl shrugged. “You
could’ve
,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Oh,” I said. “Um. Next time.”

“Cool!” the girl said, and wandered off.

Matthew’s house. I couldn’t have dreamed of a worse place to be. And I hadn’t even seen Becky anywhere. The only reason I’d shown up was to—I don’t know. Yell at her? Beat up Matthew? Not a clue. Just seemed like the perfect bad idea at the time to agree to come.

Restless, I moved out to the backyard. Kids were gathered in groups, mostly laughing, a few groping. When I spotted Becky, I almost dropped my beer.

She sat by herself by the swimming pool, her legs dangling in the water. She had a beanbag chair stuffed under her back and took long, practiced hits off a small blue pipe. I could tell by the way she held each inhalation what she was smoking.

I wanted to rush over and knock the pipe into the pool.
Stop!
I screamed in my head.
What are you doing, you don’t do this, stop!

Okay, so, it’s not like this was a moral issue for me. If someone wanted to get high from time to time and deal with frying their brains, more power to ’em. But not Becky.

I mean, it wasn’t that she was smoking out; it was how easily she was doing it. No hesitation, no uncertainty. Think about a fifth grader sneaking his first cigarette in the alley versus a pack-a-day addict—you can tell by body language who has been doing it longer.

This wasn’t an experiment for Becky, and it killed me. It wasn’t who she was supposed to be.

I set my beer down on a lawn table, went back inside, and texted Gabby.

Ready to go
.

I expected her to text back. Instead, my phone rang. I didn’t want to answer it, didn’t feel like dealing with Gabrielle’s big-sister bit.

I hit the button anyway. “Hello.”

“What happened?”

“Can you just … I’m just ready to go.”

Gabby paused. “On the way,” she said finally, and hung up.

Sometimes having a sibling means not having to say anything.

I went out front and waited for her. Gabby showed up in less than fifteen minutes, driving her ancient red Honda. I got in and slammed the door shut.

My sister said, “So …”

“Whatever,” I snarled.

Gabby let the car roll down the street. “Easy there, peaches,” she said. “What happened?”

“Why did you get high?”

Gabby laughed. This improved my mood not at all. She trailed off when she saw I wasn’t enthused by her reaction. “Well,” she said, “I guess because it was fun. Yeah. Final answer.”

“You did it a
lot
.”

“I wanted to have a lot of fun.”

“Have you done it since Mom and Dad busted you?”

Gabrielle shrugged. “You itching to try it out? Or have you already?”

“I tried it a couple times last year with Robby and Justin.”

“So what did you get into tonight?”

“It’s not me, it’s …”

Gabby lifted her eyebrows but didn’t take her eyes off the road.

“Okay, look,” I said, “if I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell Sydney.”

“Ohhhh-kay. Pinkie swear.”

“Okay, so, on the first day of school last year …”

I unwrapped the entire Becky saga as it existed at that point. I barely registered that when I concluded the story with what I’d seen tonight, we’d been sitting in her car in our driveway for at least half an hour.