The Reece Malcolm List (28 page)

I don’t know how to tell them how much it matters to me that they even noticed.

“Oh, hey.” Sai exits backstage into the hallway. “Figured everyone would have taken off already.”

I recognize his technique. It’s too crappy to find yourself in the midst of everyone getting hugged and congratulated when no one would be doing the same for you. Waiting it out is really the best option.

“Excellent show, Sai,” Brad tells him.

“Thanks, man,” he says. “Dev’s awesome, though, right?”

“Totally awesome,” my mother says with a smile. “And you didn’t suck.”

“Good to hear. Dev, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We’re getting Mexican,” my mother says. “If you want to join us.”

Sai nods. “If you guys are okay with that.”

“We’re okay with that,” my mother says. “Devan, go with him and we’ll meet at Mexicali.”

“I’ll mind your flowers.” Brad swoops them out of my arms and gives me no choice but to run backstage and change before leaving with Sai.

Not that it’s a problem.

“Your parents are awesome,” he says as we walk out to his Audi. “So it’s good? That you met them recently and all?”

I shrug, because it is, mostly, but sometimes it creeps into my worries that it might be like I’m looking at one tiny beautiful part of a painting, and when the rest is revealed I’ll realize it wasn’t at all what I thought. But also it’s still weird taking compliments where my mother is concerned. And it feels mean being so happy when Sai has none of it.

But our super late dinner is great, crowded around a table on the chilly patio, talking about our favorite moments from the show (both as written and as performed tonight), and laughing so much, and knowing we’re staying out way too late, and feeling secure, suddenly, about my place here. Not just L.A., but everything else, too: theatre and school and maybe even
this
.

My mother and Brad walk into the kitchen as soon as we get back to the house to unload the dishwasher and get the coffeemaker ready for the next morning and whatever else grownups do in the kitchen at night. I, on the other hand, am being weird and staring at my mother’s bag, because there’s something I caught out of the corner of my eye earlier while Brad and Sai were quoting Shakespearean sonnets (nerds). I heard the rustle of my mother reaching into her purse, saw her open a pill bottle and pop one into her mouth. Which I guess isn’t that odd? Except that it is.

And even though I know my investigation is basically over—since my Reece Malcolm List was about figuring out who she is, so that I could solve how she could have left me—I can’t deny I have a weird feeling right now. Reece Malcolm still has secrets.

So I take a big chance, because I rarely snoop when she’s home. But how else will I get a chance to look in her purse? She never leaves the house without it. I reach in, and my hand closes right around the prescription bottle. I feel dumb immediately, because there are a lot of things people take that aren’t big deals. Right? What am I going to add to the list,
Reece Malcolm is on a mild dose of antibiotics?

And, okay, actually. These are just vitamins. Except—

Oh my God.

There’s a word preceding
vitamins
. A word I never never never expected to be used in conjunction with Reece Malcolm again. I’m so sure it’s a mistake that I read it four times, but it reads the same each and every one of those times.

And I know some people take this kind of vitamin to make their hair or nails better, but this is Reece Malcolm. Reece Malcolm wears the same pair of Chuck Taylors almost every day and sometimes—I’m pretty sure—has the same barely brushed ponytail from the day before.

I shove the bottle back into her bag, walk away from it like I haven’t been riffling through its contents. Which is hard because I’m shaking like I did the day I found out I was coming here—maybe worse, because at least back in September I didn’t feel like I was expected to act normal. November Devan has a higher set of expectations upon her.

“Hey!” My mother walks into the room with a goofy smile on her face. Reece Malcolm doesn’t do goofy. Sixty seconds ago I would have found it adorable, but now I wonder if it’s because of the pills, of what the pills mean, of this huge huge huge thing she hasn’t told me. “You should probably head to bed.”

She hugs me, but I just stand there because it’s like I forgot how to hug back. I can’t even savor it, like I was served my favorite meal but have a terrible stomachache. Why hasn’t she told me? Doesn’t that mean something? Maybe she didn’t have to tell everyone, but she should have told me, of all people. Right?

“I like the boy, you know.”

I shrug. “Me, too. But it’s pointless.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.” She grins again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s a couple hours later than I usually go to bed, but it still takes forever to fall asleep.

Chapter Twenty-One

Things I know about Reece Malcolm:

38. She’s pregnant.

39. She didn’t tell me.

Our show is good, if not quite as fresh-out-of-the-gate, on Friday night. Once I’m onstage it’s easy to forget about my mother and the baby, though I’d be lying if I said they don’t take up 90 percent of my thoughts up until showtime.

I go out afterward with Travis, Mira, Brian, Liz, Jasmine, and Lissa and Elijah, who came to see the show. Nicole did, too. I saw her in the hallway waiting for Sai with a couple of her friends. And I still want to hate her (and, okay, maybe I do?) but it’s good Sai has someone who’s there only for him. I try to dwell on that instead of on how much more fun I’d be having if he were out with us, too. It’s easier to believe that lie than it is to pretend I’m not thinking about the baby Reece Malcolm is having. The baby who won’t be me. The baby she won’t run away from until the law demands otherwise.

(Pretend to myself, though, is what I mean, because I’m great at faking it with everyone else.)

Saturday night is our best show yet: no mistakes from anyone, louder laughs than ever before during
all
of the funny moments but especially all the lines I deliver like I’m drunk during “That Frank,” and practically deafening applause at curtain call. If I wasn’t so mad at my mother—wait, am I
mad
?—I’d be sad she and Brad missed it.

We go out afterward again, and this time Sai comes along, too. Travis, for some bizarre reason, suggests bowling, so we end up at the place behind Jerry’s Deli where the lanes are lit up with black lights like it’s a disco and not freaking
bowling
.

“You’re just mad because you can’t wear your cute shoes,” Travis tells me as we wait for Sai to set up the scoreboard.

“Shut up.” I feel stupid that he isn’t entirely wrong. Weird red rented shoes don’t look nearly as good with my outfit as my silver flats do. But mainly I’m annoyed that we’re doing something stupid, and I hate that I saw my mother in the morning and between shows, two good opportunities, and she still hasn’t said anything.

“Your boyfriend looks cute up there.” He nods at Sai, who’s very engrossed in keying in our names for the scoreboard. “So serious.”

“Please don’t call him that,” I say. “If he hears you I’ll die.”

“Like, literally? That would be a dramatic medical episode.”

I elbow Travis. “I hate you.”

Mira sits down on my other side. “Why do you hate him this time?”

“I can’t believe we’re
bowling
,” I say. “It’s so Midwestern.”

“It’s
Rock ’n’ Bowl
.” Mira points to the signs that pronounce it as such. “What’s lame about that?”

We laugh as Sai heads over with his arms in the air.

“Victory,” he says in a big boomy voice. “Dev, you’re up.”

“He put your name in first,” Travis whispers to me. “If that isn’t love I don’t know what is.”

I elbow him again, harder, before getting up to bowl a gutterball.

“Devvie, this is
pathetic
.” Travis runs over to me. “Come on, you need a coach.”

He demonstrates the right way to release the ball down the lane. I try again and knock one pin down, which feels pretty impressive, considering. Travis is up next, so I sit down in the seat he vacated, considering Sai is where I was sitting.

“Nice work,” he says to me with a grin. “Good knowing you aren’t perfect at everything.”

“I’m totally not perfect at
anything
,” I say. “But thanks?”

We laugh and watch as Travis bowls a strike.

“Who knew Kennedy had secret bowling talents?” Sai asks. “Man, not me.”

“Right?” I lean against him a little, because he’s there, because he smells really nice, because sometimes my brain gets carried away with itself and urges me to do things I shouldn’t, because I need badly to feel safe with someone. We’re friends, though. It’s okay to lean against friends.

(Okay, maybe it isn’t okay to lean against friends while wondering what it would be like to kiss them.)

“You want to do this the rest of your life?” Sai asks, right into my ear. Basically the whole cast is here but it’s a private conversation suddenly, just for us.

“Bowl?” I somehow manage not to jump as his hand rests on top of mine. It’s possible I just want this to be true, but it—combined with his voice soft in my ear—doesn’t feel like a friend gesture. “No, um, yeah. I’ve wanted theatre to be my whole life for a long time.”

“You’re lucky to know what you want,” he says.

I never know how to tell Sai I’m not nearly as lucky as he makes me out to be.

“You could do it your whole life, too,” I tell him. With his hand still on mine.

“Maybe. Maybe I don’t even want to. Got a lot to figure out first.” He leaps to his feet, and my hand is suddenly freezing without his covering it. “My turn up there. I’m gonna demolish Kennedy, wait for it.”

Mira leans over and raises her eyebrows with a glance in Sai’s direction. It makes me feel sane because I must not be imagining things if Mira sees them, too. But what does that actually change? So I shrug and watch as Sai bowls under the disco lights.

As much as I love basically everything about theatre, it’s always at least a little bit of a relief when days off roll around. I spend most of my free time making sure I’m caught up on homework, and then a little time studying the California Drivers Handbook. It’s a terrifying read. I don’t know how anyone keeps track of all these numbers and rules. And unlike getting a problem wrong on a math test, getting this wrong means maybe you’ll crash a car or kill someone or even die. And yet it feels like in L.A. alone billions of people drive every single day like it’s no big deal at all.

Maybe I’m as bad as my mother because I’m totally pretending I don’t know anything about the baby, either. Yeah, partly because I can’t say what I know without admitting I’ve gone through her purse, but things are
better
. We make conversation constantly and she wants nightly details of my performances and if I forget about the vitamins life is maybe the best it’s ever been.

And I should enjoy that while I still have it. That much I know. There’s no way this isn’t changing everything.

My phone beeps with a text on Wednesday night, and I sort of jump when I see that it’s from Sai. Normally he just calls.
Can I come over? Bad night. Need to talk.
“Um,” I say aloud, causing my mother to look up from her computer. “Is it okay if Sai comes over?”

“Of course,” she says, her eyes immediately back to her screen. If she still thinks something’s up with Sai and me, at least she’s shut up about it. Maybe she’s shutting up about a lot now.

Sai is there in record time. He must have texted while driving, which according to the California Driver Handbook is a huge and deadly risk. His eyes are red-rimmed and he’s quiet, which shakes through me. I hate seeing him like this.

He walks ahead of me to my room. “Sorry. Man, just a bad night.”

“It’s okay.” I wait to see where he sits down (the bed) before sitting down next to him. Safe amount of space between us, of course. “Is it Nicole?”

Why why why did I ask that?

“It’s not,” he says. “Why’d you ask that?”

“No, I just— Since you’re here. If it was something else I thought you’d—”

“Right.” He nods. His hair looks like it’s wilting. “Just—my dad and I got into it, nothing new. Well, worse than usual. Last time it was bad I called Nic, but she was kind of . . . I dunno. Freaked? Just that I was so upset. I know it’s lame.”

“It’s not lame to be upset,” I say. And the rest comes out before I can stop it. “And I don’t think I’d want to go out with anyone who couldn’t handle it if I wasn’t happy all the time. Especially since it’s not like you guys seem to have anything else in common.” Hopefully it’s fair to not include their shared hotness.

“Man, you’re
my friend
,” he says in a perfectly nice way, but no one wants to hear the F word from the person they
love
like. “I needed to talk to someone. And you don’t know her. She’s smart and funny, even if she’s not into show choir and everything else.”

“I’m
sorry
,” I say. (I’m not.) “Anyway. Do you want to talk?”

“I don’t know.” He leans forward, drops his head into his hands. “Was it bad when you lived with your dad? You guys fight a lot?”