Understudy (7 page)

Derek hops over the sidewalk and pulls open the door for me. My finger swipes across the keyboard on my phone.
Maybe. I’ll call you.
I press send. I don’t plan on calling.

Mrs. Quilts by the Bay (I don’t know her name because she’s not one of those nice old ladies who talks a lot) glares at Derek and me as I lead him into the store. He’s being skittish about entering the place, as if just his being in a place like this will somehow castrate him and his manliness, turning his name into Dereka.

“Hello,” I say, using my Talking to Grandma Voice, the voice that makes me sound innocent and like I can be trusted. Not one that gives away how all I know about sex and blow jobs.

“Can I help you?” she asks, holding her body close to the back of the counter. I wonder if she has a panic button under there that will alert the police to teenage thugs coming to rob her.

“We’re looking for your novelty fabrics for the Lawson High school play.” I can already tell where they are by the flashy colors so I walk toward the back corner of the store. Tucked between faux leopard fuzzy fabrics in all colors and fleece, is an array of shiny metallic fabrics. I go straight for the dark blue bolt, pull it out and turn to face Derek, making sure the triumphant
I Told You So
look is on my face.

He doesn’t see me right away because he’s playing with the fake fur fabrics, shoving his hand between the bolts of purple and hot pink zebra print. “This is so kick ass,” he says. My chest doesn’t feel as tight now that the tension from earlier has dissipated.

“Check out this pile of water,” I say, swooshing the blue fabric in my hands.

He grabs some of the fabric and feels it between his fingers. “Wow.”

I unroll some of it and let it flounce on the floor, rippley like water. Derek takes part of it and presses it to his cheek, which isn’t as weird as it sounds because this sort of fabric makes you do those things. It is so soft and silky it feels like you’re running your hand across a rose petal. And it shimmers in the light with a small bit of sparkle that reminds you of the sun shining on a bright blue swimming pool in the middle of summer.

“This is perfect.” Derek takes the bolt from my hands and throws it over his shoulder. It’s probably the most caveman like thing I’ve ever seen happen in the fabric store. We buy three bolts of it and charge it to Principal Walsh’s school credit card.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Derek says as we climb back in his car and drive away from Quilts by the Bay.

“It’s fine, but you should trust me next time I mention anything about fabric because I know my shit.” I smile a little, but the look on his face stops me.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant earlier, when I snapped at you. It’s not your fault I fucked up my senior year.” I can’t help but feel like he waited until he was on the road to say this so he wouldn’t have to look at me. Fine by me though. Awkward talks aren’t exactly my idea of a great pastime.

His fingers tap the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean to curse at you.”

“It’s… fine. Really, I shouldn’t have said that.” I swallow, forcing down the desire to keep talking about this subject. To peel back the layers of his personality and figure out what actually happened with him six months ago.

He shakes his head. “Like I said, it’s not your fault I fucked up. I’m sorry I spoke to you that way. It won’t happen again.”

I’m not sure if this is his way of opening up to me or not, but I seize the opportunity. “What did you do to get put in juvi?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard the stories by now.” His jaw tightens and his hands grip the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.

“Not really,” I lie. We zoom past the school. “No one tells me anything.”

“Well it’s for the best because the rumors aren’t true.” Derek slams on the brakes and makes a U-turn in the middle of the highway. “Shit, I forgot your car is at school.”

He pulls up next to Mom’s Corolla, which she lets me drive to school most days because she never goes anywhere by herself during the day. I wonder how he knows what car I drive, but I guess it’s no mystery since only about three cars remain in the school parking lot this late. The other two are monster trucks covered in mud.

“Thanks for going with me,” I say because it’s the polite thing to do. What I really want is to tell him that I think about him all day, every day. That I would have been crushed to the core if he didn’t go with me to the fabric store and I would have probably curled up in bed all night thinking about him. Who am I kidding? I will do that anyway.

I open the passenger door to get out and Derek opens his door as well. “What are you doing?” I ask slowly, my mind going into daydream mode about how he could walk around the car, press me against the hood and make out with me right here at school.

“I’m helping you put this shit-ton of fabric in your car,” he says, popping open the trunk.

I laugh. Right. Of course that’s what he’s doing.

Derek loads the bolts of heavy fabric from his trunk to mine and then he closes the trunk with one finger, commenting on how damn dirty the car is.

“Stop whining and be grateful I’m not making you carry it upstairs to my bedroom,” I say with a playful smile. “Then I have to empty all the rolls and cut it to fit the stage. That’s way more work than simply using your man muscles to move stuff around a few feet.”

He stretches his arms up and over his head, making his muscles flex. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Huh?” I must have been transfixed by heart-stopping shadows dancing off his toned arms. He didn’t just offer to come to my house, did he?

He lowers his arms and shoves his hands in his back pockets, taking away my view. “So… I’ll just follow you to your place?”

Holy crap. That’s exactly what he just offered.

Margot flashes in my mind right as we pull into my driveway. I may have told her I’d call, but I didn’t promise to hang out with her, so I’m not really blowing her off. Plus I’m sure she’d do the same to me if she had an opportunity to hang out with Ricky outside of rehearsals.

Mom sits on the porch swing, sipping a fruity colored drink from a plastic wine glass.

There are a million things wrong with this picture. My mom doesn’t drink alcohol, my mom doesn’t sit outside, and my mom never, ever, has a smile on her face. But she has one now.

Derek is at my side before I can think of a way to tell him to stay in the damn car. “Hi, Mrs. Barlow,” he says, brushing past me to shake her hand. “I’m Derek.”

Mom beams and shakes his hand with her free hand. “It’s so wonderful to meet you. Wren didn’t tell me we’d be having a guest today.”

“He’s not a guest. I just needed some help for the play, and he offered last minute,” I say, straining to make everything seem as casual as possible. The less Mom knows about Derek, the better.

“Well I am her number one stagehand,” Derek says. I could kill him. Mom nods, takes a sip of her drink and holds out her hand for the car keys. I place them in her hand, noticing that her nails have been professionally manicured. That’s also not normal for Mom.

Derek throws all the fabric bolts across his shoulder. We make a quick getaway into the house without her saying anything, but I can’t help but feel my cheeks burning as though I had just suffered through something horribly more embarrassing, like getting my period at a pool party. For once, I’m grateful that Dad works late and has no active participation in my social life. The only thing worse than having Mom meet Derek would be having Dad meet Derek.

“This is random, I know,” Derek says, leaning down to drop the bolts of fabric. “But your mom kind of looks like that lady from that Nickelodeon show about the traveling family of wizards. You know, back when we were kids.”

I wonder if he would have noticed that if Mom was dressed like her normal hobo self instead of all glamorous like she’s the Queen of the Swing Set. “That’s her,” I say.

“No way?”

I nod. “It’s her. She doesn’t like to talk about the Hollywood days though.”

Derek nods like he understands exactly what my mom means. He doesn’t say anything else about her. I wonder if trying to forget about a short time as an actress is anything like forgetting that you were in juvi for six months.

The next few hours fly by. Derek and I make good progress with cutting and organizing the fabric strips—way more progress than if I had done the work alone. Work doesn’t even feel like work with Derek.

I love everything about him, from his stupid smirk to his large masculine hands and the way they flip the fabric bolt over and over as I unwind our fake water. We make a great team.

I have to quit thinking of him like this.

“Are you gonna answer that?” he asks, nodding toward my cell phone on the bed.

I was so caught up in my idiotic fantasies of Derek that I hadn’t even noticed it was ringing. I take a look at the flashing screen: Margot. I sigh and place the phone back on the bed, letting the call go to voicemail. There’s no way I can explain what I’m doing right now. “That wasn’t anything important,” I say, my last word distorting as I yawn.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get out of your hair now.” Derek smiles from the floor as he rolls up the last piece of fabric.

It takes everything I have not to yell
No! Don’t go! I can’t bear the thought of being without you next me!

But, instead I say, “I’ll walk you to the door.” I may be delusional after all, but I’m not psychotic.

It’s Monday morning, and that’s not even the bad news. Aunt Barlow is in a mood. Her moods range from jumping around the room, so ecstatic that I think her bright orange head might pop off, to sulking in her apartment for an entire weekend without consuming anything but coffee and lamenting about what life could have been.

Today is one of the bad days. She gives everyone a pop quiz as we walk in the door. It’s not even about Shakespeare or one of the theater type things we were learning about before the auditions. It’s a quiz about LOVE & SUICIDE.

Since they are the two lead actors, Gwen and Ricky finish the ten questions first and then return to their desks with equal grins of smugness as the rest of us rack our brains to remember the answers.

I’ve only skimmed through my copy of the script, so I’m totally screwed. Question number three asks who Gretchen’s father works for. I’m pretty sure Gretchen’s father isn’t even cast as a character in the play. I take a wild guess and write K Mart.

Greg
psssts
me until I turn around and raise my eyebrow and give him this look that means “What do you want? GOD CAN’T YOU SEE I’M WORKING ON THIS QUIZ?” But of course, he doesn’t take the hint.

“I need answers,” he whispers.

“Me too,” I whisper back. Ms. Barlow jumps out of her director’s chair so fast it almost topples over. “Do I hear cheating?” she asks, glaring at Greg and me.

“Nope,” I say under my breath but loud enough for her to hear. The next question asks what day of the week it is when Jeremy threatens to jump off the bridge. I think I know the answer to this, so I write Friday and ignore the fact that my aunt is still glaring at me.

She comes over to my desk, her six foot frame towering over me as I stare at my paper and try to focus on the next question. “It certainly sounded like cheating.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” I’m totally not a smart ass to teachers, I swear. Just this one.

“Tell me, Greg.” She steps forward and puts her hand on his shoulder. “If two students are whispering to each other during a quiz, and they aren’t cheating, then what would they possibly be talking about?”

“Uh,” he says, crumpling his paper at the corners. “I don’t know.”

“Seriously, Ms. Barlow,” I say. “He wasn’t cheating. He was only trying to.” I smirk because it’s funny and I’m trying to lighten the mood and maybe pull her out of her bad day, but it totally backfires.

“Zeros for both of you.”

“What the fu-?” I say, faster than my brain can register. “FUDGE! Fudge, fudge, fudge.” Ms. Barlow slaps her hand on her head so hard it makes a few students jump. She grabs a handful of orange hair and pulls. “Say another word in this class, Wren, and you’re out of here.”