Don't Touch (34 page)

After the beep, I should leave my message, but it's not the same talking to a machine. I consider hanging up without speaking. Consider dialing and redialing until he has to pick up and react to what I say.

After an awkwardly long silence, I say the only words left: “Are you still coming?”

I hold nothing back for dress rehearsals. They say a bad dress rehearsal means a good performance, but I don't buy it. It's just that dress rehearsals tend to go badly, and people have to tell themselves something to get up the courage to go back on stage.

It's strange to act with Peter when I feel like I'm losing him, but then again, we never see Ophelia and Hamlet happy together—they're at the end of love.

I feel it during final dress.

“I never gave you aught.”

“You know right well you did . . .”

I try to make Hamlet remember his love, and I understand something new. Ophelia has to wear her mask because others are watching, but if they weren't, she would drop the act and fight for Hamlet. Right now, I'd give anything to be able to drop the script and hash it out with Peter.

“I did love you once.” The line is more real to me than it's ever been, and I'm afraid it
is
real, afraid it's Peter saying it instead of Hamlet.

I reach for him—it's in the blocking now for me to take his arm, to try to pull him back to me, and it's safe with his long sleeves. “Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.” I let my hand slide down his arm toward his hand. What if I guide his hand to my face as Ophelia? Maybe the play will end differently. Maybe they'll make up, elope, run away from stupid Denmark, go somewhere warm.

But before Peter hand touches my cheek, he yanks away. Maybe I've conditioned Peter to avoid my touch.

The show opens tomorrow, and then we have three performances together. During those performances, Peter will make eye contact with me, hold me close, let me see his feelings. So much of the intimacy between us has been on stage. Lately, that's the only place we're connecting. Once the play is over, that connection might be gone for good.

When I get out of rehearsal, I have a text message from Dad:

Course I'm still coming. Wouldn't miss it for the world.

The OCD part of my brain tries to explain it.
You almost made Peter touch you at rehearsal, but you didn't, and that's why Dad says he's coming.

I want to cancel out that thought, think
don't touch
, but that's not healthy. I don't want to believe I have any control over whether or not Dad shows up.

Instead, I concentrate on my breath, think a mantra like Dr. Rice suggested.
I let go of control. I let go of responsibility for anyone but myself.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Thursday afternoon we get out of class for one last rehearsal, stolen minutes to tweak scenes and adjust to the set. Some people still need to run lines.

Peter finds me in the middle of the auditorium looking through my Ophelia journal, and he stands over me without speaking. There's the picture of me on the edge of the diving board, at the edge of Peter, of falling in love. My face in the picture is eager, and terrified.

Falling in love can't break bones, but falling out of it—that has the potential to break so much more.

“Are we okay?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Sometimes it's hard to tell what's real with you.” He answers the question I don't ask. “Like last night, you almost touched me.”

“I tried to.”

“But you were playing Ophelia. Would that even count, by your rules?”

“I don't know what my rules are anymore.”

He's quiet, then changes the subject. “You're going to do great tonight. I have complete faith in you.”

I smile at him. He's smiling back, and I want to close the distance between us, relax this rubber-band feeling that's always tugging between him and me.

“Wow.” He breathes out the word. “I know I said I would always be your friend, but . . .”

“But what?”

He breathes out again and turns away toward the stage. “You make it hard to keep things . . . friendly.”

“I felt that too.”

Nadia calls for Peter. “Hop onstage, pronto!”

“You have to go.”

“I have to go.”

It's like Nadia's repetition exercise. He's lingering and I want to say wait, but another thought creeps in.

Dad won't come. If you break the rules now, it's over.

“My dad's coming tonight.”

“Oh?”

“I'm more nervous about that than about the judges.”

He nods. “I don't blame you.”

Nadia's not looking at us—a papered wall on the set has started peeling, and she's chatting with one of the techies about it.

“I can't tell what makes me more nervous . . . thinking he might not show up, or thinking he will—that he'll sit in the audience and hate the whole thing and not get it.”

Peter tilts his head. “Won't he be proud anyway?”

I shake my head slowly.

“I'm not sure.”

“That makes me sad,” Peter says. “Dads are supposed to support you. It's, like, part of the job description.”

“I know.”

“Peter!” Nadia's tiny, but she's got some serious pipes. “Caddie will be there when you get back. In fact, you're going to be on stage with her in a mere half an hour. Don't make me come get you!”

“Sorry,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “No, I'm glad we're talking.”

“Me too.”

I should touch Peter. I
want
to. Now. And if I wait until after the play to find out whether or not Dad's come, it won't be as brave.

“This is the most we've talked in a while,” he says.

“Right?” I lean toward him slightly.

I would slay a dragon for Peter. I would.

He grins sideways, amused by how blatantly I'm drooling over him, I fear. He holds a hand toward me in parting as if to say,
More later
.

I take it and press it between mine.

My palm touches his palm, which is dry, but soft and warm. His pulse surprises me, how clear it is. My other palm presses into the back of his hand, the long bones and ridges, the soft grooves in between them. His fingers are longer than mine, the palm wider, and something in that sends a rush of blood to my heart, to my cheeks. My own pulse must be pounding his hand—he'll have bruises.

I let go.

The space between my hands, where Peter's was, feels charged, hot and tingly. My own hands radiate, pulse the sensation of me touching Peter into the surrounding air. I could almost believe I'm a superhero. With this energy, I could start fires, freeze lakes, read minds.

Before I can decide that this feeling's bad, tainted somehow, I press my hands to the sides of my neck, to my cheeks. I grip my forearms and run my hands down their length till I'm holding my own wrists tight.
Don't let go. Don't let this feeling go and turn into anything bad.

I've been staring at Peter, staring into his eyes. And he's frozen—his mouth slightly open, his hand still extended toward me. For a second I think maybe my touch really did something to him, stole his power, made him weak. But then he breaks into the biggest smile.

His eyes say
more—
more of this, more than friends—more and more and more and more.

I dare a look at Nadia. She's still, watching us, hands on her hips. But she's patient. Me looking away seems to unfreeze Peter. He jogs to the stage.

Most of the actors are watching us, not sure what they're seeing beyond a brazen defiance of Nadia and a little PDA. Mandy's in the front row, and she's twisted her whole body to sit on her knees. She's tugging her hair, making two super-stressy pigtails. Her mouth is a huge,
I-can't-believe-you-just-did-that
smile.

Nadia keeps her eyes on me as Peter takes the stairs and finds his place. It's hard to know what she's thinking when she stares like that, but just when I think she's mad at me, she purses her lips into a bemused smile and whirls back to the stage.

Watching Peter rehearse is easy. Rehearsing with Peter is easy.

I'm on a cloud, a tingling, floating awareness charged with the spark of that one touch—eager and dangerous and delicious.

As soon as Peter's out of my sight, though, the cloud takes on water, sinks down, and I'm swimming in stress. It's an effort to breathe, and I'm certain the pinch in my face has come back with a vengeance.

What have I done?
The thought chips away at my nerves. Nadia orders pizza for our dinner break, but my stomach's in a twist. While people eat, Mandy grabs me by the sleeve and pulls me out the stage door toward the tree line.

The flood lights give us an artificial stage that drops off into dark woods.

“You're the bravest,” she says.

“No, I'm not. I'm freaking out.”

“That. In there. That was brave.”

It feels good to hear that from her. I smile. “Thanks.”

“Tell me I can't smoke,” she says.

I shrug. “You
can.
But you shouldn't.”

“I'm quitting,” she says. “I'm quitting that, and I'm quitting Drew. Two things that aren't good for me. If you can do it, so can I.”

She takes her pack from her purse and tosses it into the woods. I almost mention litter, but this isn't the time.

“Cold turkey?” I say.

She nods like a bobblehead. “Gobble gobble.”

“I'll be really proud of you if you quit,” I say, “but, Mandy, I'm freaking out.”

“You did it,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

I walk in a wide arc, shake my hands. “It felt good. It
was
good. It was the right thing to do.”

“But?”

“You know, I made this deal with myself about touch, that things with my dad would work out. He'd come back, or . . . I don't know if I even want that now, but, at least he'd still be a part of our lives. He'd stop acting like a jerk.”

“Oh, Caddie. Can I give you a hug?”

The idea of a hug from my oldest friend sends shivers of needy fear pulsing through me. It's not allowed, or it wasn't allowed, but I want it.

“Might as well,” I say and let Mandy wrap herself around me. Her curly mess of hair presses into my cheek, and I have to blow out air to keep it out of my mouth. It's an overdue hug, and it nearly pops my lungs.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

She lets me go but keeps her hands on my arms. “I'm so proud of you,” she says. Then she has a thought, drops her hands, and looks to the tree line. “I don't even want a cigarette anymore. That's how proud of you I am!”

“Dad's supposed to come tonight. Mom bought him a ticket.”

“So he'll come.”

I catch myself chewing on the inside of my cheek. I could almost bite through.

“Or he won't,” Mandy says. “Either way, it won't have anything to do with you touching Peter's hand.”

But what if I should have waited, just until after the play? I'm pacing between the stage door and the trees, and a good part of me wants to hunt down Mandy's pack and take that cigarette for myself if she doesn't want it.

“Caddie!” Mandy's using her best director voice, and it stops me cold. “Stop torturing yourself. At least give it a rest until after the show.” I nod, but she keeps going. “You worked hard for this. You earned it. And I'm not going to let you spend what should be a happy, exciting time obsessing about how big a jerk your dad can be.”

I almost want to defend him, but she's right. I've been making a deal with myself that if I can take part of the blame onto me, I won't have to face up to how maddening he's been.

Mandy senses a moment of weakness and pounces. “March yourself down that hall, young lady. Put your hair up and get pretty. You're playing Ophelia, and every theater student at the academy will be here to watch, and the judges from Bard will be here, and some of them are professional directors who work at the best Shakespeare theaters on the planet.”

“Are you trying to stress me out more?”

“Not at all,” she says. “I'm trying to get you to stress for the right reasons. This is your thing. I won't let you wreck it by stressing about your dad. Or Peter, for that matter. Move! Do your thing!”

We're walking fast down the hall, and when I turn to look at her she gives me a playful shove—forward march. I lose my balance and stagger forward into a guy coming out of a dressing room. His chest is like a wall, and my head whips back.

It's Drew. He moves me to the side, saying, “Watch it. Mandy, I've been looking for you. Nadia says she gave you two bottles of Dippity-do, but you put them somewhere no one can—”

“We're done,” she says, and then looks to me as if my presence makes it official.

“Huh?” Drew manages.

“Done. You and me. Our relationship.”

She starts back down the hall, but Drew and I are still frozen with the shock of it. He looks to me—no help—and then calls after her, “Wait, what?”

“It's not hard to understand,” she says. “We fight all the time. I'm tired of it. I won't be making out with you anymore.” She pauses to consider something. “We have a lot of friends in common, so I figure we should try being friends. No guarantees.”

The reality of the situation seems to be sinking in for Drew. “What?!”

“The Dippity-do's in the supply cabinet in the room with the costume racks. Where it's supposed to be.” Then she turns her director stare back on me. “Caddie. Your hair.”

Drew looks to me, lost. “What is this?”

Poor guy. I want to say something to comfort Drew—“So sorry,” or “She won't be mad forever,” or “Hang in there”—but that would be fake.