Three Wishes (19 page)

“Yeah, Mom told me.” I couldn’t think of all the things I wanted to say. People were probably listening to us.

“I’m sorry I got you into so much trouble.”

A smiled curved my lips. “I’m not.”

“I’m transferring back to my old school, and I guess you finally get the spot in Ian’s band.”

Funny, I hadn’t thought about it in days.

“Take care of yourself, Jen.”

“You too.” I didn’t want the call to end. I was never going to see Leo again. My first real kiss. My first motorcycle ride. My first real guy friend. “I’ll miss you,” I said.

“I’ll miss you too.”

My eyes were tearing up. “Bye, Leo.”

I hung up the phone, and just sat there with my head on the counter. I had feelings for Leo. I had it bad for him, and I wasn’t allowed to see him again.

Mom left me to myself for most of the afternoon. I crawled back into bed to reminisce about my time with Leo. I emptied two boxes of tissues, only one for my nose.

At dinner, I had to listen to Ian whine about Leo quitting the band.

“I’m so sorry,” Mom said. “If only there were a way to replace him with someone who knows all your songs.”

“Not now, Mom,” Ian said.

“Jen’s the perfect answer and you know it.”

I just pushed my food around on my plate.

Two weeks later, I was completely caught up on my school work. I’d doubled my practice time on the drums.

Ian hadn’t made a decision about the band yet. I wasn’t sure I wanted the reminder of Leo.

My truce with Sean was still in effect, and I’d started helping him with his homework.

After laying out my clothes on the bed, I walked over to the framed quote from Thomas Jefferson. Well, to anyone else, the frame held a quote. I knew the truth. The writing on the note card was actually a personal thank you from Thomas Jefferson for my work in ferreting out Maximillian.

He had written, “Action will delineate and define you.” So what if he’d said it before. The point was, he’d written it to me and signed it with his unmistakable signature, the Thomas running right into the Jefferson. My parents had each assured me that he was recognizing me for having the courage to act. Not too shabby for a seventeen-year-old genie.

And tonight, me and my friends were going to see Johnny’s Metal Chicken in concert. Things were looking up.

Three hours later, the band was just finishing their second number, and Alex and I were dancing in the aisle.

They played the last note, and Alex screamed in frenzied appreciation.

Before I could let out my own appreciative woo-hoo, the guy who’d been dancing behind me, brushed against me.

I turned and started to give him a warning glance about trying to cop a feel.

And then I froze. Because the guy in the backwards baseball cap and Johnny’s Metal Chicken Concert Tour t-shirt had Leo’s eyes and five o’clock shadow. The stringy blond hair and baggy, hip hop pants almost threw me.

“Be cool,” he said softly. “Keep your eyes on the stage. They’re probably watching you.”

I faced the band. “What about monitoring?”

“Tons of technology here,” he said, and I glanced around at all the cameras, cell phones, and sound equipment.

“Aren’t they watching you?”

“Lost my tail somewhere between Lennox and Underground Atlanta, the bus, and the taxi.”

The band started the soft notes of the next song, and Leo moved closer. “Jen, I found a girl at my school who’s on your RokrGirlz loop. Baitbreath. I’ll communicate with you through her posts, using her cell.”

Baitbreath? She went to his school?

“I’ve got a few ideas about how we can see each other. I’ll let you know when we can meet.”

I turned in surprise. “Really?”

“Turn around,” he said, his familiar smile warming my heart, “and dance. I’ll be in touch.”

“Soon?” I asked. But when I glanced back over my shoulder, he had already faded back into the crowd.

The guitar solo started, and beside me, Alex threw her arms in the air.

I moved to the rhythm and gave a shout that got lost in the noise of the energetic crowd.

Maybe things were going to be okay after all.

Maybe Leo wasn’t totally out of my life.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at
Pointe of No Return
by Amanda Brice and
My Life as the Ugly Stepsister
by Juli Alexander.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Juli Alexander writes young adult romances and paranormal young adult fiction.
THE KARMA BEAT
will be followed by the sequel—
THE TECHNO ECHO
—in early 2013. Check out
STIRRING UP TROUBLE
and the sequel—
TROUBLE’S BREWING. STIRRING UP TROUBLE
and
VALENTINE’S DAY SUCKS
are available now at all retailers.
TROUBLE’S BREWING
will be released summer 2012. Look for
MY LIFE AS THE UGLY STEPSISTER
in May 2012. Don’t forget to check out the YA anthology,
ETERNAL SPRING
, featuring “CAMP CAULDRON” by Juli Alexander.

Juli’s house is overrun with dogs, dirty laundry, and teenage boys. Writing keeps her relatively sane. You can find her at
JuliAlexanderAuthor.com
or on
Twitter @Juli_Alexander
. 

A VERY SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK:

POINTE OF NO RETURN

BOOK TWO IN THE DANI SPEVAK MYSTERIES

BY

AMANDA BRICE

CHAPTER 1

Normally it would be pervy for a middle-aged man to touch a teenager’s rear. But there hasn’t been anything
normal
about my life ever since I moved to Arizona earlier this fall.

“Miss Spevak, your lines are a disgrace.”

“Point your toes!”

“Posture, Miss Spevak! Lift your carriage and lengthen your body!”

“You ladies dance like apes!”

“How many times do I have to tell you to tuck your buttocks?”

That last one might be cause for sexual harassment complaints anywhere else, but not here. I’m a student at Mountain Shadows Academy of the Arts, majoring in dance. I divide my days between ballet and Biology, tap and Trigonometry, hip hop and History, latin and Latin.

“Well, Miss Spevak?” Grigor Dmilov, the legendary principal dancer from the Phoenix Ballet, towered over my five-foot-three frame. His dark eyes bored into me as he pretended to wait for an answer that didn’t really matter since the question was rhetorical anyway – dancers aren’t allowed to talk in class. He used to intimidate me when I first came here.

Oh, who am I kidding? He still intimidates me. I just don’t cry in the shower after class anymore.

Much.

The difference now is that I know corrections are an important part of the process. We spend six hours every day in the studio, striving for perfection. Sometimes it felt like our teachers loved to torture us, but they were just trying to get us to live up to our potential and beyond. Getting corrections was a compliment because it showed that the teachers wanted to nurture your talent.

Not being noticed at all was far more damaging to your career. Nobody wanted to be invisible.

I stood straighter, lifting my rib cage and tucking my
derriere
under as I prepared to bend my knees and lower myself to the ground in a
grand plié
. I have a natural tendency to slouch, so even though I’ve been dancing for years, I still have to consciously remind myself not to. It may be more comfortable, but it definitely doesn’t look very nice. Monsieur Dmilov pushed on the back of my thigh to verify that I’d engaged my gluts, then satisfied that I had readjusted my alignment, moved on to his next victim.

The class raced through the positions – first, second, fourth, fifth – skipping third since it was useless, finally finishing with a
grand port de bras
to stretch our bodies. As I leaned forward, dropping to the ground with a graceful sweeping motion before straightening back up again, I caught the accompanist’s eye and smiled.

It was a standard
barre
exercise, just like the start of class on any other day. Only it wasn’t any other day. Today was Nutcracker audition day.

The nervous energy in the theatre was palpable. The next ninety minutes would determine how we’d spend the rest of the fall semester. What roles would we dance? A soldier or a soloist?

I looked around the stage at a sea of clones. In their black leotards, pink tights, satin toe shoes, slim physiques, and hair pulled back into a tight bun, the other girls looked almost identical to me, like a genetic experiment gone awry. At first glance, the only way to tell us all apart was by skin tone and hair color.

I wondered whether this was intentional. By tamping down our individual fashion sense in class, the underlying message was that we were not prima ballerinas. Yet. Most of us would be dancing in the
corps
, where our only responsibility was to perform choreography in a large group, nothing more. Standing out in the
corps de ballet
would mean you were doing something wrong, since the group was supposed to move as one body. The only time you wanted to be invisible.

A tall order for a group of girls who all had been the star back at home.

Would I be assigned to dance in the
corps
this year? Probably. I was just a freshman. The soloist roles were generally reserved for upperclassmen. Except for the boys, of course. Guys were lucky, because nobody really expected too much from them since they were few and far between. Girls were expected to be perfect, but as long as a guy could point his toes, jump, and make a reasonable effort at turns, everyone got excited and turned a blind eye to any deficiencies in his technique.

And if he was both cute and straight it was just a bonus.

It wasn’t fair.

But nothing in ballet was fair, so I would just have to suck it up and deal, otherwise I would spend every waking hour making rug angels of despair for the rest of my life.

Jealousy was the disco-dancing, neon pink gorilla in the middle of the stage that nobody wanted to talk about. But we all felt it, of course.

Even Hadley Taylor.

Mountain Shadows’ current star, Hadley was a junior and everyone’s prediction for this year’s Sugar Plum Fairy. She was also a certifiably unpleasant person to be around.

Look up the B-word in the dictionary and they have a picture of her right under the definition.

Or they should.

Hadley commanded the place of honor at the front of the
barre
. It wasn’t an official position or anything. She just grabbed it on the first day of class and nobody was brave enough to challenge her for it.

A sharp clap broke my reverie and brought me back to the here-and-now. “
Grands battements
. Four front, four side, four back, four side.
Á la seconde
, you will close front first. Front, back, front, back.”

Monsieur Dmilov briefly marked the pattern of the exercise, using his arms to substitute for his legs since we were supposed to understand simply from the names of the steps. “Crisp movements, ladies. At the end of each one, bring your feet back together in a tight fifth. If I try to squeeze a credit card between them, I should not succeed.” He nodded at our reigning teen queen. “Miss Taylor, please demonstrate.”

Hadley didn’t even attempt to suppress her smug smile as she effortlessly kicked her leg high in the air. She had exquisite extension, each movement fluid. She was born to dance.

And she knew it.

But so was I. And I was going to show them.

An hour later, sweaty and feeling the burn of the workout tingling in every inch of my muscles, I dropped to the floor with the rest of the girls in
grand révérance
to our instructor and accompanist. I’d done this at the end of every ballet class for years, but today the curtsy was almost a prayer. An offering sent up to hopefully ensure a role. If I knew an Indian rain dance I’d probably try that, too.

We could use the rain in Arizona.

I just had to dance a solo. Clara would be great. Or Snow Queen. Or even one of the life-sized dolls. I wasn’t picky.

Normally we would exit as quickly as possible, rushing to get back to the dorms, but today we all lingered, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cast list as soon as it was posted.

“You looked great today, Dani,” my friend Maya Sapp said as I untied the satin ribbons of my toe shoes.

“You, too.”

She laughed. “Now you’re just being nice.”

“No way. I saw that triple
pirouette
during the
adagio
. It was gorgeous. So smooth you almost hung in the air.”

“Well, I fully expect I’ll be dancing Snow again.”

“Snow Queen?”

She shook her head. “One of the snowflakes in the
corps
. I think Ana’s got that solo in the bag.”

I had to agree. Our friend Analisa San Miguel was the epitome of elegance and grace. She’d make a beautiful Snow Queen. She hadn’t come backstage yet, but had instead climbed into the orchestra pit to chat with the accompanist and practice her Spanish.

Well, that was one solo down. No, make that two. Hadley would definitely be Sugar Plum.

“Who do you think will be Clara?” I asked.

Me, me, me, me, me
, I silently chanted, as if that could actually make it come true.

Maya shrugged. “I don’t know. I think you’re probably a strong contender. Or maybe Kat?”

“But she’s a triple threat. Why would she want to be Clara?”

“Just because she wants to sing and dance on Broadway doesn’t mean she wouldn’t want a lead in a ballet.”

I wrinkled my brow. “I thought she was a senior. Isn’t that too old to dance the part of a twelve-year-old?”

“Not on stage. Kat’s short. She could pull it off. Besides, pros do it all the time in the companies, and they’re in their twenties.”