Enthusiasm (16 page)

Whatever Ashleigh said, I didn’t believe Ned was the turkey giver. For one thing, he couldn’t spell—or at least, he couldn’t type. Of course, the note was handwritten; that could explain the absence of typos. Still, it didn’t sound like his style. But if not Ned, who? Chris Stevens, Mr. Igsome himself? Unappetizing thought! Seth Young? Dean Hanson, perhaps, as an apology for his turkey-faced colleague’s treatment? Surely not: my mother would never call the dean a boy; and similar reasoning ruled out Zach Liu, since she would have recognized him. Grandison Parr, then? Possibly. The reference to wattles suggested, if not the dean, then Ned or Parr. Nibbling on a bit of the tail—first-rate chocolate—I felt my heart begin to beat faster. From the sugar? Or from a powerful feeling that I would not allow myself to put into words?

But would my unspoken hopes turn out to be hollow after all—as hollow as the chocolate turkey that was vanishing before my eyes?

And whoever the kind turkey giver was, how would I express my gratitude? Obviously, I couldn’t just thank all the candidates, or the ones who hadn’t given me any chocolate would think I had left my mental marshmallows in the microwave a bit too long.

After some deliberation, I sent e-mail to Ned, Parr, and Seth, thanking them in general terms for their recent kindness, and slipping in a reference to Thanksgiving. I hoped that the innocent guys—the ones who hadn’t sent me a turkey—would conclude that the theme of the holiday had made me think grateful thoughts. As for the chocolate giver, I hoped he would interpret my message as a response to his gift.

And if the turkey had come from Chris, he could just consider me rude. He would get no thanks from me. I hadn’t asked him to shower me with turkeys. He would have to do more than ply me with chocolate to worm his way into my good graces.

I received the following answers.

From Parr:

Dear Julia, What a sweet message. But it’s the other way around—I’m the lucky one. CGP.

From Ned:

happy thangsgiving to you too julie. i am glad you and ashleigh are in the play its much more fun than any ohter year!

From Seth:

Hi, Julie. I was touched to receive your message. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving, and I look forward to seeing you when school resumes. Yours, Seth.

Inconclusive, I thought. Nobody either acknowledged or repudiated the turkey. Well, at least if it was one of them, he wouldn’t think me rude and ungrateful.

After the holiday, the pace picked up at school. Final papers and exams approached, and the deadline loomed for the winter issue of
Sailing.
Work on
Midwinter Insomnia
slowed dramatically, however, since finals were an even bigger deal at Forefield than at Byzantium High. With rehearsal time given over to review sessions, our schedule shrank to a weekly rehearsal, “the minimum we can meet and still expect to have anything left to forget by the time we get to winter break,” as Benjo put it.

My part was so small, and my partner, the dean, so rarely around during these weeks, that I had almost nothing to do but prompt the others. I spent my time watching Ashleigh (as Hermia) chase after Ravi (as Xander) and defend herself from Igsome Chris’s accusations of coldness.

As Daniel, Chris sang:

Half an hour of hanging out with Hermia
Would give a seal or walrus hypothermia.
She’s the Queen of the Ice.
She doesn’t know the meaning of nice.
Turn the thermostat up and crank it!
I need another sweater and a blanket.

Ash/Hermia responded,

Insinuating snake!
He’s a man on the make,
Out to get what he can take,
And take what he can get—
Which is nothing . . . yet.

The
yet
came as Hermia drank the tainted water and found herself falling under his spell.

Whenever Chris saw me watching him in his scenes with Ashleigh, he would give me a horrible, languid smile.

I naturally took frequent breaks from their rehearsals to torture myself by watching Parr and Yolanda quarrel passionately, then kiss and make up.

One day shortly before winter break, when Ashleigh’s dad drove us to Forefield, I noticed that Yolanda was uncharacteristically quiet. She contributed almost nothing to our discussion of the dance number leading up to the grand finale (which I found too energetic, whereas Ashleigh considered it not energetic enough).

“You okay, Landa?” I asked.

“Fine.”

“It’s just, you seem subdued.”

“Subdued? Oh, I—sorry, I was thinking about something else. What were you saying?”

“The finale. Too tame? Too wild?”

“I like it the way it is. It’s, uh, kind of energetic but not all that energetic, if you see what I’m saying. And that’s what it should be like, because it’s the finale.”

Although Yolanda does not always think through what she’s going to say before she says it, this remark seemed especially incoherent. It made me wonder.

Arriving at Forefield, however, I turned my attention to my part and forgot about the conversation until much later in the afternoon, when I went to help Yolanda and Parr. They were rehearsing alone in the Robbins Center’s dance studio upstairs, while Alcott Fish, Ashleigh, Ravi, Chris, and Erin worked on their big jealousy number on the stage. Yolanda and Parr needed me to stand in for Alcott, who had a couple of lines in their scene.

To my surprise, Yolanda seemed to be having some trouble remembering her part. Suspicious, I checked her hair. The day before, she had worn all green beads, and her sister wore all red. Today Yolanda still wore green. And the beads weren’t just at the ends of her braids, but up at her scalp as well. If this was Yvette in disguise, the twins must have gone to a great deal of trouble to make her look right.

The green beads clicked as my friend leaned her head back for the big reconciliation kiss. I flinched as usual, but forced myself to watch.

Parr kissed her.

“You’re not Yolanda, are you?” he said.

She made a gesture of surprise. “Who else would I be?”

“The famous identical twin, maybe?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Yolanda kisses differently. You can tell a lot from a kiss.”

The Gerard twin hesitated, then took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m Yvette.”

“I thought so!” I said. “You were so quiet in the car. Where’s Yolanda?”

“She got grounded.”

“Grounded! What for?”

“Dumb girl says she accidentally ordered some sexy underwear over the Internet, and my mom got the bill. Tell me, how do you
accidentally
order some sexy underwear? She’s grounded for two weeks, and she’s afraid she’ll lose the part if anybody here finds out. You won’t tell, will you?”

I shook my head. “Of course not,” I said. “Ashleigh’s going to notice, though. You should tell her—she’d never give you away.”

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you both, but Landa said to wait and see if you noticed. You won’t tell either, right?” she asked Parr.

“No, of course not. You know the part—they’d have to replace Yolanda with somebody anyway, so why not you? Why
do
you know it, anyway?”

“I learned it helping my sister practice. Thank you so much, guys. Yolanda will appreciate it.”

“I don’t get it. I thought you hated performing and things like that,” I said.

“Yeah, I do. She owes me.”

“You’re a generous sister,” said Parr. “Shall we take it from after the kiss?”

Except for Parr, Ashleigh, me, and Ned, whom Ash told but swore to secrecy, no one involved with
Insomnia
noticed the new actress playing Tanya. The substitution did have one dramatic result, however. Igsome Chris followed Yvette into the prop room, where she’d gone to put away some test tubes. He yelped and came out again quickly.

“What did you do to him, Yv—Yo?” asked Ashleigh.

“Something my sister should have done weeks ago. That girl’s too soft-hearted.”

She refused to say more.

Chapter 14

Musings about the Inscrutable Gender
~
A Date
~
Ashleigh to the rescue
~
Painful Praise.

W
hen I began tenth grade, I never imagined I would become a Belle, but when Seth Young called the third December evening in a row and Mom made a comment about boys, I began to rethink my self-image.

“It’s not
boys
, Mom—it’s just Seth. He wanted the math homework.”

“The math homework, eh? What did he want yesterday?”

“How do you know he called yesterday? Did you go snooping in my Calls Received list?”

Mom looked hurt. “You know I wouldn’t do that. But if he calls you while we’re in the car, I can’t help overhearing, can I?”

“Well, if you did overhear, you’d know he wanted to find out if I’d finished reading Mad Alex’s story for
Sailing
—the literary magazine.”

“And the day before?”

“Oh, Mom! It’s just Seth. Really—would
you
go out with him?”

“I don’t know, honeybear, I don’t think I’ve met him. Unless, is he that nice-looking young man who gave you that chocolate turkey?”

Was he? Whatever Ashleigh might believe about Ned, I hadn’t solved the chocolate-turkey mystery to my satisfaction. “I’m not sure,” I said. “There’s a bunch of people it could be. You didn’t exactly give us a good description.”

“There, what did I tell you?” said Mom triumphantly. “Boys!”

Taken one by one, I felt, Ned, Igsome Chris, Seth, and Parr added up to something less than—or at least other than—Boys. None of them seemed to be behaving like a real suitor. No matter what Ashleigh said, I couldn’t believe that Ned had feelings for me. Igsome did pursue me pointedly—he was out for conquest—but as long as he didn’t conquer me, you could say I’d won. However, my victory was nothing personal, as Yvette had shown; he chased after anything female. Nor did Seth fit the bill, I told myself. Nothing could be more natural than for a guy to call a girl with whom he shared several classes and endless literary duties.

As for Parr—well, what was there to say about Parr? I was afraid my conflicted feelings for him might be clouding my observations. The warm, teasing gallantry that marked our first meeting had given way to something more restrained. Now when we were together, I always felt a barrier between us, as if he were quietly holding me off or holding himself back. At moments I even imagined that he was aiming some intensity directly at me, but stopping, perfect swordsman that he was, with the point at my heart, a fraction of an inch from drawing blood. What this meant for Ashleigh and her dreams, I couldn’t say. I often thought he treated her with the same courtesy he gave me, but with more freedom, more warmth.

Individually, then, none of these boys seemed to justify that remark of my mother’s. Taken all together, though, there certainly were a lot of them. Was Mom right? Did they count as Boys?