Dream Chaser (9 page)

Now
that
I could do.
“May I ask you a question?”

“Sure, always,” he replied.

“What about Chloe and the other girls in the show? I can’t imagine they’ll be too happy to see me take over Jessica’s spot. Maybe it would be better if I were just in the chorus.” I really didn’t want to start with the cast hating me. That would be a big problem. Huge.

“Listen, I realize this is a youth show, however, it is also a professional production. My baby. I am the director, writer, producer and anything else you can imagine. There are a lot of people who invested a great deal of money to make this project come to fruition. There is an expectation that this show make the theatrical world sit up and take notice. I will not allow anything to jeopardize this opportunity. You are hands down technically and artistically superior to any other girl in that show. In fact, it was a blessing in disguise that Jessica left. You outshine her on the stage and are a much better match for our leading man.”

I swallowed down my shock. He thought I was better, no, superior to everyone else in the show? The cast consisted of the top kids from every dance school in the city. Was he out of his mind
?!

“Oh.”

“With that said, don’t expect to hear praise from me again. I’m a slave driver.”

I couldn’t imagine Tyson being mean, but who knows. Ms.
Klahn
could be a real bitch, but she always got results.

“So what do you think? Did I give you a good enough sell or do I have to beg?”

“No, no begging necessary. If you think I can do it, I definitely want to.” My heart pumped a Latin beat. This was really happening!

“Excellent. Then I’ll see you tomorrow after school. Be ready to work your tail off.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I will.”

Tyson clicked off, leaving me alone in the dark with a huge grin and the curly phone cord wrapped around my hand about five times. I stood, unwound the cord and opened the door to find Mom, Dad, Breezy, and Twinkie sitting on the floor. Mom stopped. She had been dabbing shaving cream on Breezy’s face.

“So?” Mom asked with a blob of shaving cream on her nose. “What happened?”

Grinning, I reached over them, knocked Breezy in the head with the cord as I hung up the phone and yelled, “He wants me to play the lead!”

“What!” They jumped to their feet and we all screamed and cheered. My dad did his happy dance; he calls it “happy feet”.

Breezy launched herself at me, wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her
foam covered
face against my belly.

“Breezy!” You just messed up my shirt!”

Mom shook her head. “Breezy, you need to be more careful.” Then Mom took my face with her foamy hands, a sneaky look in her eye. “You know how much Willow hates getting messy.” She smoothed my hair down with her sloppy hands.

“Mom!”

“You got the lead!” she squealed like only a proud mom can do.

Dad grinned, holding the can of shaving cream. He squeezed some into his hand and held it out. I swiped it. “Yes, I got the lead!” I grinned at mom, then
smooshed
the whole blob on top of her head and smeared it around. Twinkie jumped on us and barked.

From there the celebration turned into a world-class,
knock-out
, drag-out Thomas family shaving cream fight. Afterward we sprawled on the kitchen floor looking like a shampoo commercial gone wrong. The empty shaving cream can
rolled
in the corner next to Twinkie. Thank god Tyson didn’t know about my odd family. He might think twice about giving me the lead.

I had the lead! Yikes, how weird was that? I barely knew anything about the show.

“I’m hungry,” Breezy said.

Dad skimmed sloppy cream off Mom’s arm. “How about ice cream?”

“With chocolate sauce and peanuts,” Mom added.

I squeezed foam from my hair onto the floor. “And whipped topping!”

“
Eww
.” Mom said.

“Look at Twinkie. Something’s wrong.” Breezy said.

Twinkie looked stiff like a
taxidermied
dog. Her frozen body fell sideways against the cupboard door and slid onto the floor.

“What’s wrong with her?” I rushed to her side. Her body began to shake, a little like when she had dreams in her sleep, only now it was more rigid jerking and her eyes stayed open.

Dad tried to pet her, but his hand bounced off her jerking body. “I think she’s having a seizure.”

We surrounded her and watched her body twitch.

“Daddy, Mommy, make her stop,” Breezy cried.

I bit my lip and looked to Mom.

“I can’t,” she said. “Someone grab me a towel.”

I pulled the hand towel from the rack next to the sink and handed it to her. She placed it under our precious dog’s head. Twinkie’s stiff jaw froze halfway open, like she had lockjaw. The seizure continued, and Breezy started to cry. Mom hugged Breezy; her eyes met Dad’s.

Finally the seizure stopped and Twinkie lay limp. Suddenly she took a huge breath as if she’d been holding it all that time. Twinkie’s eyes moved. “Hey girl, are you okay?” I scratched behind her ears where she liked it best. She lay there another minute,
then
gave a short whine.

“That’s a good girl.”
Dad pet
her and Breezy leaned over and hugged her around the neck.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I think we’d better get her to the vet tomorrow,” Dad said.

“Poor baby,” Mom said. She got up and grabbed a spoon and the peanut butter jar. She scooped out a big dollop and held it out to Twinkie.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I didn’t want to do anything to make her worse.

“She’s scared and hurting. I don’t think a little peanut butter is going to make whatever she has worse.” Twinkie’s tail flapped against the floor as she licked the peanut butter.

Later that night, after showering off the shaving cream, I lay in bed with wet hair. My skin felt especially soft from all the cream. I couldn’t go to sleep. My mind jumbled with thoughts of Twinkie, me having the lead in
Dream Chaser
and the huge relief that cheer was now over for good. All three of those things scared me. I needed to tell Jilly my cheer life was officially over. I would have called her tonight, but Twinkie’s seizure freaked me out too much. And then I thought about performing opposite Eli in the show and that freaked me out even more.

“So?” Jilly shot at me, as I climbed into the car the next morning.

“What?” I knew darn well she wanted to know about the audition.

“Oh please, the audition! Tell me everything, don’t leave anything out.” She nearly bounced out of her seat.

I sighed. Jilly could be so intense and she wasn’t going to like what she heard.

“Were you scared? Was it really hard, did you screw up?” she asked in rapid succession.

I pulled my seatbelt across and clicked it. Jilly backed out of the driveway and toward school.

“Yes, I was scared. Terrified was more like it. Much worse than cheer tryouts.” For cheer, all you had to do was yell loud, jump high and plant a smile on your face. Then again, there were also the gymnastics, the lifts and the tricks. So maybe cheer wasn’t that easy either.

“Really, how?” she snapped her head back and forth from watching the road to watching me.

“Well, first off the director is so hot that...oh my god! You should see him!” I couldn’t believe I’d get to see him almost every day.

“I heard from Jessica that he used to model. We’ll have to Google him,” Jilly said.

“Anyway, it was so intimidating to audition in front of this great looking guy, and he’s not even that old. He looked about twenty-eight, but I’m sure he’s older.”

“So, did you bomb?”

“What?” I asked.

“Did you screw up? You haven’t danced in forever, and then they make you audition with like five minutes warning!”

She seemed anxious to know if I tanked.

“No, actually I did pretty good.”

Jilly looked disappointed.

“But then he made me sing. In front of the entire cast! I thought I’d die!” I left out the part about Eli. It was just too complicated to explain.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t say I bombed it, but it sure wasn’t good either. My voice cracked, and not in a good way.” I quivered at the memory.

Jilly bit back a smile as she turned a corner.

“Hey, it’s not funny. I was trying really hard.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just the idea of you on a stage all by yourself singing. Can’t picture it.”

Twenty-four hours ago I couldn’t picture it either, but Jilly would have to picture it soon, because that is exactly what was going to happen. Crap. Tyson’s court-appointed voice teacher better be a genius.

“So the dancing was good, the singing bad. When do you find out if you made it?” she asked as she turned into the school parking lot.

“I already did.”
Here we go
.

“What? You let me sit her and blab on and you already know.” She pulled into a spot in the third row and threw the car into park. “Well? Spill it.”

Why was I afraid to tell her? She was my best friend and would get over it.
Hopefully by lunch.
I looked her straight in the eye. “I made it.”

Her demeanor shifted right away. Not in a huge, “you’re a bitch” way, but more of a subtle “can’t see it, but can feel it” way.

“Oh.” She turned off the car and dumped her keys into her bag.

We sat there in silence. I wasn’t sure if I should keep talking, maybe tell her about Twinkie’s seizure and get a little sympathy.

 
“So are you going to do it?” Her voice sounded monotone as if she didn’t care which way I answered.

I stumbled over my words. “Well...yeah. I am.”

“What about cheer? You know we can’t get to Nationals without you,” she said through tight lips.

“Jilly, I quit cheer.”

“You said you’d think about it.” She crossed her arms.

“I did,” I said, but that was a lie. I never once thought about going back. Just about how to put more distance between
me and the high-flying team
.

“No. You didn’t. You just said that to get me off your back!” She got out of the car and slammed the door behind her.

I got out and ran after her. “I can’t do cheer any more. I’m sorry!”

“That’s not true!” She turned to face me with angry tears in her eyes. “You can do anything you want! You just don’t want to do cheer! You’d rather be in a show with all your old dance friends!”

“This has nothing to do with the my old dance friends. Would you get off my back,” I snapped.

Jilly clicked her remote at the car; the horn sounded. “Fine. Consider it done.” She stormed away and didn’t look back.

Not a great way to start the day. And it only got worse from there.

In first block, Jessica, aka pot girl, cornered me.

“I hear you got a special tryout for
Dream Chaser
.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t feel like talking about it any more than that.

“Don’t even think you’re going to steal the lead from Chloe. She’s my understudy and she gets the lead. Not you or anybody else.” If looks could kill, Jessica’s would have just struck me dead.

“Isn’t that up to the director?” Part of me wanted to tell her that he had already given me the lead, but I wasn’t ready for the world to know.

“Yes, and he’s the one who made her
my
understudy. You trashed dance freshman year. Don’t think you can barge back in and take over.”

Thankfully the bell rang, and she had to go sit down, but I felt Jessica’s eyes
lasered
at the back of my head all through class.

By lunch it seemed the whole school knew I auditioned. I never got so many nosy looks. Jilly skipped choir and wasn’t at my locker for lunch, so I guess she was
gonna
be pissed for a while. I went through the lunch line alone and got my pizza and chocolate milk. Chloe
and McKenna
from the show walked by and looked the other way. What. Ever. I took my tray to the atrium. I reached for the door and saw a note taped from the inside.

Written on notebook paper it read. “CHEER SQUAD ONLY!”

Subtle.

I spotted Jilly and the rest of the squad inside with their backs to the door. Gee thanks! A couple of them peeked at me then looked away.

Great. So where was I supposed to eat? I took my tray back into the crowded cafeteria. I didn’t notice anyone staring, but it felt like they were. I slid my milk into my book bag, grabbed my napkin and pizza and left the tray behind. I walked down the long hall at the back of the school, past the shop classes, to the girls’ bathroom no one ever used. I ate my lunch sitting on the toilet in the handicapped stall and wondered how Twinkie was doing at the vet.