Don't Touch (14 page)

It annoys me when she skirts around the words. “That you're getting divorced.”

“We're taking some space. Sometimes you need that space in a relationship. Even a very good one.”

Which theirs isn't.

“Mom. I understand how things are. It's okay. It's not your fault.”

Her eyes soften. “I appreciate that,” she says quietly. “It's not your fault either. You know that, right?”

I nod and go back to cutting, try to bottle the cry in my throat before it can grow into a full-fledged sob. I know no such thing. It's arrogant in a way to think I could have such an effect on them, but that doesn't change how it feels.

“I submitted a portfolio to the Goblet,” Mom says, changing the subject. The Goblet is a bistro with a gallery. Fancy customers wander around there with decorators in tow, sipping wine while they shop for their homes. “They're open to new artists' work.”

“That's cool.” My voice is too flat, but the hope in her voice, the enthusiasm, worries me.

On a night like this, making dinner with Mom, it's easy to act like nothing's changed. But Mom submitting to a gallery—that's very new. And she agreed to let Jordan play football. And she's certain, even though I warned her it doesn't look good, that I'm getting a part in the play. She's got all three of us doing things that Dad might describe as “frivolous.”

Maybe that's what we all need, to move on and let go. Jordan takes out his aggression on a football field. Mom gets a gallery show. I get a role in a play, a boyfriend. . . .

Peter almost touched my skin at our audition. I keep telling myself I was careful, but no amount of careful can make me feel safe because I know something new: I
want
to know what it feels like to have Peter touch me. And I want to touch him.

“Caddie.” Mom takes a long pause. “You seem awfully . . . tense.”

She's picked up on it, then.

“I want you to feel like you can talk to me, Caddie, when you need help with something.”

A few years ago, I might have seen this look on Mom's face and assumed she was getting a migraine. Now, I can look in a mirror any minute of the day and see that same expression on my own face.

Worry.

The first time we went to the doctor for my panic attacks, we went in together, and talking about my problems made Mom start to cry. I'd only ever seen her like that because someone had died.

That terrified me, I could have told Peter, that I could be messed up enough to make Mom cry. And then, in March, when Dad found out that Mom let me audition for the academy . . . that night was murder. Mom took me to the audition in secret, last January. We didn't tell Dad anything until my acceptance letter came.

That night, nobody was “emotionally contained.” Mine and Dad's tempers boiled over, and we shouted at each other until I started panicking and Mom screamed that we had to calm down, that this was hurting me.

Dad went down to the basement, got in his car, drove away, and didn't come back until late the next night. That twenty-eight hours or so felt brutal, that he would abandon us like that, not say where he was going, not let us know he was okay.

I'd been doing better before then. The panic that had gotten so bad in middle school was under control. I hadn't been to Dr. Rice in more than a year. But that night, Mom took me to the emergency room. They gave me a sedative to make me sleep. The next day when I woke up and Dad still hadn't come back and I felt so groggy, caught in some other girl's half-dreamed life, I was sure that he never would.

Later that night, when he did come back, I knew it wouldn't last. Something had broken that couldn't be mended. By June, he was gone.

Now I work to free my face of tension. That night in the hospital scared me. It took forever to convince Mom that it wasn't a relapse, just a one-night slipup, brought on by the fight. No more panic. No more doctors. If I seem all right, Mom will let this go.

I wait to see if she wants to make a thing of it, but she stares into herself and crosses her arms. “Do you want to do the dressing for the salad?” she asks, and I nod.

She's going to leave it alone, and I'm going to cooperate to thank her for it.

That night, I lie in bed waiting for sleep that won't come.

By Monday I'll know. If I'm Ophelia. If Peter is Hamlet.

The part of me that
needs
to touch is like a tiny bird I swallowed by mistake. It beats its wings against my throat, tickles my heart with its feathers, grips a rib with its claws. It tastes the inside of my skin with its little bird tongue.

When Peter looked at me—with so much need—it started chirping to get out.

Fear tugs at me and I'm falling.

I grab at the mattress, dig in with my fingers, flop onto my stomach, hold tight. Press my face into the pillow so hard it hurts. The quilt twists like it wants to smother me.

I can't scream out loud, but there has to be some release. I kick my feet against the mattress in a muffled frenzy, legs flying fast and hard enough to carry me miles away. And when it's done, nothing's changed. I'm still stuck right here.

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Mr. Kiernan reads the announcements during second-period chemistry: the cast list is up. We'll be able to check during the long break between second and third. Livia twists in her seat, eyes wide and sure, and reaches across the lab table—to squeeze hands I guess.

I wiggle my fingers in a wave.

When the bell rings, Livia's up fast. “We should all go together,” she says, but I take my time arranging and rearranging the contents of my backpack. I'd rather wait for the crowd to thin out.

Mandy pushes through the exiting students and flies to us, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Why so slow? I'm not going without you guys!” To me, she says, “Hey, you!” and there's an acknowledgment in her voice that it's the first time we've spoken since Friday. “Where were you this morning? Peter was wanting to talk flash mob.”

“I was running late,” I lie. “Hold on, I need a piece of gum.”

“I meant to tell you good job after your audition,” Mandy says. “That was pretty . . . intense, but then you ran off.”

The way Mandy says “intense” doesn't sound entirely complimentary.

“I was weird,” I say. “You did great.” I go back to rummaging.

“Forget the gum. I saw Peter and Hank in the hall.”

Mandy reaches for my shoulder, and I jerk away. “I didn't ask you to wait,” I say, and immediately regret how harsh I sound. Mandy's face falls.

“I don't want to look without you,” she says, her voice hard now too. “It's more fun if we go together.”

“Okay, sorry. I'm ready.”

Mandy's giddy again, walking backward to make sure I'm following. “You're just worried you're going to have bad breath when you're jumping up and down and screaming, ‘Hallelujah for me, I got cast!'”

“Right,” I say, letting her draw me out into the hall.

I see Drew before Mandy does. His face is alert and too tense.

Mandy sees the curiosity—the worry—in me, and she spins around to Drew.

They hold eye contact for a few solid seconds, and then Mandy breaks off with her back to us, presses her palms to the wall. “Crap,” she mutters. “Crap. Crap.” She doesn't turn around when she asks, “Did I even get a little part?”

“I told you she wasn't going to like you being pushy,” Drew says before putting his hands on Mandy's back, which is shaking. His words aren't comforting, but when Livia steps closer to Mandy, he shakes his head to say he's got it covered.

Livia turns to me. “Come on, we have to look,” and she darts ahead.

Mandy's audition was good. If she's not on the list anywhere, then who knows what Nadia wants? As anxious as I am to check for my name, it's more important to show Mandy I care. I take a step toward her, but Drew wraps his arms around her and rocks her back and forth. He shakes his head at me. “Go on, Caddie. Go look.”

“I'm so sorry, Mandy. I know you wanted it.”

Mandy waves a hand to send me away.

I walk down the hall toward the bulletin board as if pressing through something heavy and wet. The crowd hasn't dispersed, but it's spread. People give one another space as they read the list over and over, looking for something they might have missed, memorizing the names.

Livia sees me and smiles big. My heart floods. I'm in the play. I'll be one of the theater crowd. I'll be a part of things . . . but Mandy won't.

April is planted in front of the board with her arms crossed, staring at the list even though there's no way she's on it. She turns toward me and her face flinches.

“You're that new girl. The junior?”

By the time I'm done nodding, she's mastered her face. She's easy to read because she's so much like me, trying to look like she doesn't care. “Congratulations,” she says. “All the senior girls are going to hate you.”

My heart thuds harder.

Something in Drew's face made me wonder. I didn't believe it. It would be unlikely for a new girl to get cast as . . .

Ophelia.

My name's next to that name. I can't help raising my finger to the board to trace the distance between her name and mine, to make sure they line up.

“It's really you,” April says. “It's a great part. I'd be nervous to play it.”

She's saying it partly to make herself feel better, but it's the truth, too. She would be nervous. I am. And happy, and worried, and embarrassed, and a bazillion other things.

“God, don't cry,” April says.

I blink hard and take a deep breath to calm myself down. I scan the other names, looking for Hamlet.

It's Peter.

I didn't need to look. As soon as I saw my own name, I knew. If I hadn't read with him, I doubt I'd have been cast. I'm grateful he's not here with me. Whatever real feelings are there, we're going to be pretending we're in love. I feel feverish as it is—with Peter standing beside me, I'd catch fire.

All the rest of them made it, one way or another. Hank is Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius. Oscar is Laertes, Ophelia's brother who swordfights with Hamlet at the end of the play. Livia is Gertrude.

Drew will be playing my father, Polonius. It's not a flashy part, but it's a major role. I wonder if Drew's happy with it, or if he's feeling exactly what I am—worried because he got a part and Mandy didn't.

We have to sign our initials to say we accept, that we'll be at rehearsals this afternoon and every afternoon.

Signing that paper means opening up to Ophelia's tsunami of feeling. It means working with Peter, closely, and trying to keep my head. There's the fear of pissing off Mandy, the fear of becoming the new Macbeth asthma kid, the risk of disappointing Mom, and disappointing Dad for sure.

I want to tell Dad, I realize. I
want
him to be happy for me, proud, want him to reassure me that this blessing doesn't mean I'm cursed when it comes to him.

I take my phone out to the courtyard, where the leaves rustle red and orange.

“Y-ello,” he answers, “yes” and “hello” together, all business.

“Dad? It's—”

“Oh!” It takes him a second to realize. “Caddie. I didn't even look. I'm expecting a call.”

If he'd seen me on his caller ID, he wouldn't have answered.

“Can you call back and leave a message, sweetie?”

“I have some news.”

“We'll talk soon, all right, but I need to take this call.”

“Dad, I—”

“Call me right back and leave a message to remind me.”

Click.
And he's gone.

I call right back, like if I'm fast enough, he'll still be on the line.

“You have reached the cell phone of Charles Finn.”

Before it can beep, I end the call.

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I'd been building up some kind of power by not calling Dad, but now I've spent it, and he wouldn't even talk to me.

I go to lunch both hoping and dreading to see Mandy. I want to tell to her about Dad, see if she and I are okay, but she doesn't show. Neither does Drew.

“I don't understand why Nadia didn't give her some part,” I say. “It's mean.”

Hank shrugs. “I don't think she did it to be mean. Most people would be honored to do what Mandy's doing.”

“What?” I say.

“It was on the crew sheet. She's assistant director,” Hank says. “Nadia would be pissed if she saw Mandy acting disappointed about it.”

Across the lunchroom, Peter and Oscar are making their way through the line. Every time someone comes up to Peter to congratulate him, Oscar acts super interested in the haircut of the guy in front of him.

Soon, Peter's setting his tray down by mine and standing with his arms wide for a congratulatory hug. “I told you, didn't I?” he says.

“Congratulations,” I say, clapping my hands in front of my face. “Sorry I can't stand up. My foot's asleep.” The longer I play this game, the better I get at lying.

Usually Peter sits across from me, but with Mandy and Drew gone, he takes the seat at my side.

“Look at the happy couple,” says Hank.

“Until he goes crazy and she kills herself,” Livia says, and I'm grateful to her for dashing even Hank's snarky suggestion of romance.

“We get to be in love too,” says Livia, squeezing herself against Hank's shoulder.

“Famous!” Hank says, and he takes her face in his hands and gives her a giant smooch full on the lips. Livia exaggerates fanning herself.