Beyond Clueless (23 page)

“Yeah, I know. But this’ll be quick. I saw you . . .” He flailed his arms. “You know, with Felix. And I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I just . . . I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.”

Oh, Lordy.

“You, too?” I asked, hand on hip. “First Xiang is all patronizing; then Jimmy gets all pissy. Jesus Christ, what is going on here? I can’t win! I’m so sick of this shit,” I said, trying to move past him. But Oliver held out an arm, blocking me.

“You deserve better, Marty. He’s an asshole.” I had never heard Oliver swear before, and it seemed really unfair that he would be criticizing Felix without really knowing him—and criticizing me, too, basically, for hooking up with him.

“Excuse me, but where do you get off telling me what the hell I should do?”

He flinched and stepped back as if I’d slapped him.

Whatever. “I’m late,” I huffed, moving past him before angry tears formed.

In the dressing room, I managed to calm down and text my mom.

All my rides fell through 2nite. You have 2 pick me up at 11
.

An unexpected benefit to having weird drama in your life? You get better at drama (like, theater drama), because it’s sooo nice to leave yourself for a while. When I was onstage that night, with all the costumes and the lighting and the scenery, I
was
Little Red Riding Hood. All the rehearsals finally clicked into place, and I easily made all my cues. Even in my one scene with Felix, I wasn’t thinking about Felix—it was just the lurid Wolf following me through the woods. And when I sang my big solo about, well, life, I was still Red. I was someone who had never heard the name Martha Sullivan—or met her totally critical, judgmental, unsupportive, so-called friends—in an enchanted forest nowhere near Nowhere, Ohio.

T
hat night I lay in bed for hours just staring at the ceiling. (If you’re wondering about the wisdom in that, you’re right: If you have a super-important event the next day—say, the opening night of a musical in which you will sing in front of hundreds of people—it’s not a good idea to add sleep deprivation to your list of concerns.)

My mom had seen the Hsus’ car in the parking lot when she had come to pick me up. On the drive back she had asked, “Are you and Xiang not getting along?”

All she got in response was “None of your business.”

And I don’t know what this says about me, but I wasn’t all torn up over my fight with Xiang, my only true friend at school. And I wasn’t even bothered about Jimmy, my onetime BFF, being all mad at me. I had a grinding, scissors-y feeling in my chest, and I just couldn’t stop picturing Oliver’s big brown eyes as I pushed past him. They were so sad. No, not sad. Disappointed. Hurt.

Jimmy and Xiang were probably jealous of me and Felix, since both of their boyfriends have the personality of a cardboard box. But what made Oliver think Felix was an asshole? Felix was vain, yes, and certainly not subtle when he wanted something. He was loud and confident and ridiculously hunky—everyone thought so.

Even if I could justify everything in my head, the churning didn’t stop in my chest. I lay awake—wide awake—rubbing a river pebble as if it were a rosary bead.

So the next day at school was exactly the nightmare you would it expect it to be. I was groggy from the lack of sleep, physically numb from nerves over the show—literally, my hands were cold and tingly—and in the pissiest mood ever because of my ex-friends. I studiously avoided speaking to or making eye contact with Xiang during math, and I ate my lunch in the parking lot. (Actually, I ate a third of my lunch. I had approximately zero appetite.) I totally failed a pop quiz during chemistry because I couldn’t think straight, and then I forgot my copy of
The Scarlet Letter
in my locker, which meant that in English I had to look on with this girl who—I’m not going to say her name, so I don’t get sued or something—totally does not understand personal hygiene. Even after class ended, I kept sniffing myself, wondering whether it was possible for BO to be transmitted to others by air currents or something. Not cool.

After classes, we still had a few hours before curtain, so Sister Mary Alice and Mrs. Murray summoned the whole cast and crew to Jerry Hall in order to address last-minute “weaknesses” in the show. They had ordered a bunch of pizzas and left them for us to graze on in the lobby, and it quickly became clear that nervous girls don’t eat, while nervous boys eat like there’s no tomorrow. Jimmy, Oliver, and Derek lingered near the food in a tight huddle, glancing
over at me every now and then. I couldn’t tell if they were pissed at me or scared of me. Anyway, I was sitting with Felix on a radiator; he was scarfing a slice with one hand, his other arm draped over my shoulders.

How did this even happen, that I went from having all these friends to . . . this? Well, at least Felix was here with me, and I tried to take comfort from his protective arm weighing down on me. It was a pretty heavy arm.

I sipped a Coke absentmindedly, but then the sugar rush made me feel nauseous, so I stopped. I had to pee, and my butt was getting hot, but I figured I’d try to hold it as long as possible so I wouldn’t have to go, like, a dozen times before the show started. (Let’s not deconstruct that logic, OK?)

During notes, Sister Mary Alice and Mrs. Murray didn’t have too much to say about me, so I sat in a middle row by myself while Foster, who played the role of Jack, redid his solo about a billion times. He kept screwing up the pacing. I looked over and saw Derek stooped over, with his head clasped in white-knuckled hands.

Even in the midst of my own turbulent hell, I could see that Derek’s was worse. Poor guy.

Felix, on the other hand, seemed totally
not
nervous. He was already wearing his shaggy gray Wolf suit, without the mask, so he looked like a hot half-Muppet. Even after my weird reaction on Wednesday, I still thought he was the most attractive person I’d ever seen.

I glanced over at Oliver farther down my row, but he just
looked straight ahead at Foster, uncharacteristically serious. Cold as ice.

Whatever. There were only forty minutes left before the show, and I had other things to focus on. Mainly, not throwing up.

In the girls’ dressing room, I found something poking out of my duffel bag. It was a folded invitation from Maria Kilkenny for the cast party at her house on Saturday night. On it she had scribbled,
And be ready for our drunken “Memory” duet!!!
Next to the invitation was a handmade card. Earlier, during the pizzas, I had seen Maria working in a back corner of the auditorium by herself, and I realized she must have made individual cards for everyone in the cast. Why didn’t I think to do something like that?

Mine featured a pressed, dried flower glued to the cover. Inside was written in silver marker:

Take extra care with strangers
,

Even flowers have their dangers
,

And though scary is exciting
,

Nice is different than good
.

Aww, so cute! The lyric was from my big song in the first act. This was such a thoughtful gesture, and it made me wonder why I hadn’t gotten to know Maria better during these past couple of months. She was funny! And theater-y! Maybe this blowup with Xiang and the guys was the best
thing that could have happened to me, you know? Opened up my eyes to the people around me.

I walked over to Maria and enveloped her in a proper hug, to the point where she seemed a bit taken aback. (People should hug more often and with gusto, so it doesn’t come as a shock.)

“The party tomorrow will be amazing,” I said. “I’m so excited.”

“Um, great! See you there,” she replied, recovering from my sudden outpouring of love.

I double-checked my makeup in the mirror, carefully laced up my red cape, and headed out to my position in the wings. Oh, wait—was there enough time for a final bathroom visit? Yeah, I could make it.

You know the sound of an audience quieting down, just before a show is supposed to start? First it’s the happy clatter of hundreds of people talking, then a slow ebb as people see the lights go down, and then just the last holdouts finishing their frantic, whispered conversations. As the ambient volume faded, I felt the pit of my stomach lift, as if I was suddenly released into free fall. And for the next two and a half hours, I would be at terminal velocity.

Curtain up.

Performances, especially opening-night performances, are totally different from even the most polished of final run-through dress rehearsals. Sister Mary Alice had recruited a bunch of seniors to sit and watch our last rehearsal, just
so we would feel the pressure of an audience and start adjusting to their laughs and applause (and hopefully not their boos and rotten tomatoes). Even so, it wasn’t quite the same thing as a
performance
. From the first words spoken, something magical happens. It’s incredible how a bit of lighting, a few costumes, and some music can really take you somewhere else—in this case, the fantasy world of fairy tales. But, really, I think it’s the audience that does it. They expect to be somewhere else, and, well, that seems to be enough. Together, we all go there.

During the first number, after I’d ordered the cakes and bread for Granny at the Baker’s and while Cinderella cast her spell on the birds, I had a few moments onstage in the dark. I looked out at the crowd, no longer blinded by the lights, and saw Jimmy’s family first. Actually, I saw Jeanie first, since she was wearing a huge, sparkly turban. And was that a
toga
she was wearing? Um, yeah, looked like it. Jimmy’s parents were seated on either side of her, and farther down the row I saw my own parents, my father’s round glasses reflecting the lit stage like headlights on a vintage car. A few rows back were Xiang’s mom and dad, and just behind them was Matt, Felix’s friend. I didn’t see Brianna with him; instead, he was sitting with a brunette. It took me a second to recognize her as Jill, Felix’s sister. She looked a lot older without her Holy Name uniform.

I caught sight of Kirby in the mass of people, and next to him was a redheaded man who must have been his dad. Next to
him
was Oliver’s dad—I could just make out his cropped
gray hair and goatee—and my smile dimmed. I had just been getting to know Oliver before all this crap blew up. He had said that he didn’t miss having his mom around, but . . . still. I wondered whether he missed her at events like these.

Would we ever be friends again?

Oops—Jack was finishing up his scene with the cow, and I was up next.

During Act Two, Felix slid up next to me backstage and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Lookin’ good out there,” he whispered, with a wink. That dimple would be the death of me.

“You, too,” I responded, tracing his jawline with my index finger. He must not have been expecting it, because he winced a bit. We were in a corner, blocked off by fake trees nailed onto rolling platforms, so we were covered in dappled shadows, like camouflage. He was wearing his Prince outfit, and he could have just walked out of a romance novel. My hand searched out his in the darkness and gave it an affectionate squeeze.

He pulled me close with one arm, and he turned and pressed against me, his other hand resting on my hip. He drew me into a kiss, his soft lips smothering the maelstrom of thoughts swirling in my head. Ohhhh, hello . . .

Then his tongue started pushing into my mouth, and I realized his left hand had migrated up from my hip to my right breast.

The room started pulsing, and the blizzard of thoughts
returned. Eesh—what was he doing? His fat tongue filled my mouth, and I could feel my throat constricting. When was my next cue onstage? His hand was mashing my boob, clenching and unclenching, and I could feel the lacing of my cape strain against my neck. This should be pleasant, right? Where was everyone else? I leaned back, but he leaned farther forward and pulled his hand harder against the small of my back. What was wrong with me? Did I smell fries?

A wave of nausea slammed into me, and I instinctively pushed Felix away. He staggered back into the branches of a fake tree.

“What the
fuck
?” he spat at me.

“I . . . just . . . bathroom . . .” I pushed past him and, clawing in the darkness, stumbled toward the dressing rooms.

I tripped, and as I pitched forward I thought I heard Felix hiss,
“Bitch.”

But just as I was about to hit the ground, I felt someone grab my arm to support me. I sank to my knees and looked up to see Jenny McCafferty standing over me. The room swayed.

“One sec,” Jenny said. Moments later a bucket materialized in front of me. My body convulsed, and I vomited.

“It’s OK. Just breathe,” Jenny whispered, rubbing my back. “It’s gonna be fine.”