Going Geek (21 page)

“Uh, normally this is a cause we'd totally get behind, but the understudy is on this weekend. It's her first chance to play Janet for an audience.” The stage manager looks torn, and I truly am sympathetic to what she's saying. Still, there's no other time to do this.

“Is there a way you can guarantee her the next performance?” I know I'm grasping at straws, but being a dream crusher isn't something I want to add to my resume.

They all shake their heads. “The lead is on a college tour this weekend,” one of the producers says. “Unless something catastrophic happens for the late winter or spring performances, there's no way she'd miss them.”

“Could we talk to the understudy?” Opal asks.

Ugh. Bad idea. I shoot her a warning look, but she doesn't pick up on it. I want to stay as far away from that as possible. But the next thing I know, they're ushering in a cute, innocent-looking girl with big green eyes and long golden waves. I feel like I'm about to rip the head off a doll.

“Hi, we're here to apologize in advance.” I look at her wide, blinking eyes and hypnotically long lashes and have trouble continuing. Opal nudges me. “We're going to call for a boycott of all campus events this weekend, and that includes your show. Please know that it's not personal—this is the weekend it has to happen, and we sincerely wish that your big break was next weekend. Or last weekend. Or any other weekend but this one.”

“We wanted to come say this in person,” Opal says, “so you know that we're not doing this without awareness of the pain and inconvenience we're causing certain individuals. But we believe we're acting for the greater good.” Opal's obviously much more eloquent than I am.

“Okay,” understudy Janet says in a shaky voice. “I mean, people can still come if they really want to, right?” She looks to the producers. “We're not canceling, are we?”

“No, and I'm sure your closest friends will still come,” I say. “Bottom line is, if it doesn't turn out to be standing room only, we wanted you to know why.” My confidence in this mission is massively undermined at the moment.

Understudy Janet nods, on the verge of tears. I feel like a monster, but the stage manager motions to us, so we make a quick exit. “Thanks for the open lines of communication,” she says as she walks us out. “What you're doing isn't going to be popular, but I give you credit for telling everyone involved to their faces.”

Bolstered by that sliver of encouragement, we approach the poets. We get a more lukewarm response than we did from the
Rocky Horror
people, but somehow we stick to our guns and hope that our profuse apologies will buy us enough goodwill that they'll forgive us for derailing their event.

But when I see the artist's name on the announcement for the Albright exhibit, my heart sinks. Declan O'Neill.

N
aturally, I'm the one assigned to talk to Declan. Even Bettina refuses to be the bearer of this news. I pace outside Thatcher one evening after dinner, trying to work up the nerve to text him.

“You looking for D?” I turn as C.J. walks up the path. “It's freezing. Come wait in the common room.” He escorts me to a room across from the foot of the stairs, then goes to find Declan. It smells like boy in here. Not quite as eye-wateringly pungent as a locker room or Leo's car when he forgets to clean it out after a few practices, but close.

“Hey, what's up?” Declan says as he plops down next to me, slouching low, his long legs wide. He looks cozy in pj pants and a hoodie.

I jump off the couch. “Oh, nothing,” I say. Declan raises his eyebrows. “I mean, I need to talk to you about something.” I stay standing and even start pacing again.

“I feel like I'm about to get a lecture,” he says, eyeing me warily.

“Why? Have you done something wrong?” I ask.

“No. Not that I'm aware of.”

“Then stop being paranoid.” I sit back down.

“You're stalling. Is this about what happened at the squash courts? Or more accurately, what didn't happen?”

“No!” I say, standing up again.

“Whatever.” Declan says it easily, but stares me down with a mischievous grin. I bite the inside of my lower lip to keep from smiling back. “And yes, even though I haven't been around, we're still friends.”

“You might not think that in a minute.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. I need to talk to you about the whole Calendar thing. Basically those assholes killed our petition for an election, so we have to use other methods to convince them to change the way they do things.”

“Okay. I'm down.”

I force myself to continue. “Well, we're organizing a boycott. We want people to focus on going to one thing that's typically on the chopping block. If the weather cooperates, we want to make it the First Snow.”

Declan shrugs, not understanding. “So? I like sledding.”

I sigh. “Your gallery exhibit opens this weekend, and we're going to ask that people not attend your reception.”

As what I'm saying becomes clear, Declan rubs the back of his neck, his mouth tight. “That's…not good.”

I sit next to him again, sideways so I can face him. “It's not personal, obviously. We just think if the campus feels like a ghost town, it'll make more of a statement.” My conviction plummets once again, and my voice shows it. The whole point of this is to make things better for people like Declan and Understudy Janet. At best, the payoff of this stunt is going to be long term, but it might not come at all. “Our first idea was less extreme, but we didn't think the Calendar would get the message.”

“No, I understand. And I think it's important.” He finally looks at me but returns his gaze to his shoes after a second. “It's not like I thought hundreds of people would show. But my advisor and some of my teachers are going to come. They're going to think it's strange if the place is empty.”

“Trust me, they'll know what's going on. The entire campus will. I promise it won't reflect badly on you.” I have no idea if I can deliver on that or not, but I know I'll do everything I can to make it happen.

Declan gives a wan smile. “But the saddest part is that I was going to ask you to go with me.”

“Oh. Really?” I search his face to see if he's serious. When I see that he most definitely is, I become preoccupied with a thread hanging off the cuff of my sleeve.

After a few long moments of my not coming up with anything else to say, Declan laughs. He reaches for the TV remote. “Yes, really. And yes, I remember what you said.”

I sit there, too flustered to respond.

Saturday morning, when I awake to flurries and inches of snow already on the ground, I leap out of bed. I still get overly excited about real winters. I'm also the only one who doesn't own ski pants, so Jess lends me a pair of hers. I don't even care that they're the most hideous shade of orange that I've ever seen.

We trudge up to the top of a giant hill, which is aptly nicknamed Heartbreak Hill, after the infamous one in the Boston Marathon. The infirmary resides at the bottom, off to the side in a small brick building. Its proximity does provide some measure of comfort.

The Physics Club is already set up, handing out plastic sleds, old-fashioned wooden sleds on runners, aluminum saucers, and rubber inner tubes. They've even thought to supply thermoses of hot chocolate and paper cups with mini marshmallows. Even though the sky is a foreboding, icy shade of gray, waves of laughter warm the air. I keep my face turned upward for long minutes, letting the fat flakes land, then melt on my skin.

People are already starting to make runs down the hill. In true physics-geek form, there's a girl at the bottom of the hill with a stopwatch and clipboard and a guy midhill with a video camera. Another guy at the top walkie-talkies with the girl in order to get the most accurate run time. They discuss the sledders' height and weight, sledding position, and, of course, vehicle of choice. Amazingly none of this nerdliness detracts from the fun.

There are only about twenty of us here to start, and failure looms as a very large, very real possibility. On the positive side, the smallish group actually makes it more enjoyable.

But by midmorning more people have arrived. Our group has probably at least doubled in size, which is respectable enough that I can completely relax. Howard, the walkie-talkie guy, has started pushing people downhill in order to keep things moving.

When it's my turn, he actually backs us up to get a running start. “You're too light,” he says. “You won't get much momentum on your own.”

“Be careful with her,” someone says. I look up to see Declan. He grins at me. “Not that she's breakable.”

I get off my sled to talk to him. “Hey. Thanks for coming. I still feel terrible about tonight. You sure you don't hate us?”

He looks down, his fists jammed into the pockets of his jacket. “I don't hate. The show is up until break. I just envisioned something different for my first big opening.”

“Well, I'm definitely going as soon as the weekend's over, and Jess said she'll write about it for the
Times.
”

“Cool.” He smiles. “So I guess we should do this.” Declan kicks a plastic sled down the hill, then runs and jumps on it, and rides it like it's a snowboard, all the way to the bottom. He's so casual about it, like he was born with a sled attached to his feet, and pumps his fists into the air as he jumps off. Everyone stops to applaud.

Howard comes back to check on me. “You going to stand there and stare?”

I close my mouth and sit down. Howard runs as fast as he possibly can while hunched over, clutching the edge of my saucer. Behind me I hear him grunt as he gives me a final shove before hitting the ground.

So that's how I find myself careening toward the bottom of Heartbreak Hill at full speed, screaming. At the last second I flip my saucer over to avoid hitting a tree, doing a full-frontal face-plant in the snow. “That was your best time yet!” the girl with the clipboard says.

I haul myself to my feet, groaning. I imagine that I look like the Abominable Snowman, with snow packed onto me from my face to my feet. In the middle of the hill, Declan grins as he gives me a thumbs-up.

“What was that?” I ask when I catch up to him.

Declan laughs. “Damn. I should've listened to my mom. She told me I'd regret quitting.” He looks at me intently through thick, dark lashes and gives a lopsided smile before taking another run.

The sun edges its way through the clouds as the sledding continues. We don't leave until the last stunt has been attempted, analyzed, and documented and the last drop of hot chocolate drunk. There's not a popular person in sight, yet this is easily one of the best times I've ever had at Winthrop.

Aside from sneaking around to scout events over the rest of the weekend, we stick to the dorms. It's beyond boring. We have Netflix marathons, study, and eat never-ending amounts of delivery food.

Remy and C.J. report that campus is dead and suggest meeting at the Study. “You should come,” Raksmey says. “You're getting stir crazy.” That's a true statement, but I stay behind, feeling guilty about the havoc we're causing.

I remind myself that this whole idea originated with other students in mind and that we're not doing it to be spiteful. As Opal said, “Coming from a place of negative energy wouldn't be good for anybody.”

When it's dark out, I take a brisk walk around the eerily quiet campus. I poke my head into the gym, which emits pulsing music just like it does every other Saturday night. The dance floor is deserted. Only a handful of people lurk along the walls, well out of the spotlights. It's still somewhat early, so this might not mean anything, but if this event and the Deadlies show stay quiet, I'm pretty sure it means we win. What we do next with that win, I have no idea. I'm realistic enough to know that we can't keep asking people to essentially ground themselves until Whitney and Lila stop being so power hungry.

I think about Declan and can't resist texting Opal to see if anyone went to his opening.
Not that I know of,
she texts back.

Going by end-of-the-night reports, we effectively closed down the school's social life. We all agree that the best possible scenario is that Marshall gets skittish and reconsiders our petition. Maybe by now he realizes that Whitney has no intention of letting him back in her life in any real way and that ignoring the entire student body isn't the kind of legacy he wants to leave.

“Even if you don't get to run for Calendar president, they're going to have to change how they handle things,” Opal says.

“You would think,” I say. It's not just that I'm skeptical about their willingness to change; I've also realized that I was getting into the idea of running the Calendar and seeing what kinds of improvements we could make before we leave Winthrop.

I keep my phone by my side all night long, but Marshall doesn't call or text. No one does.