TWENTY-EIGHT
Lys has fallen in love with a girl from Birch Grove High.
Her name is Jessie and she has curly brown hair and the kind of laugh that lasts so long it gets everyone around her laughing, too.
“I just can’t believe this is finally happening to me,” Lys says, awed. She’s been walking around in a daze for half the day.
We’re in our hotel room, just a short walk from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. A pile of candy we’d gotten at the grocery store is sitting in the middle of one of the beds. My stomach already hurts, but I keep eating Red Vines.
“How glad are you the Birch Grove drama students tagged along on our trip?” I say. Initially, Lys had been a hater about it, since Birch Grove is the rich kids’ school. (Even though she’s rich, she says she’s one of the people. Whatever.) “I know, right?” Lys says. She falls on her back and practically swoons.
The next day we meet up with everyone at a local diner, squishing into five booths. Gideon is in the booth next to mine and he calls, “Canada! We totally forgot about Canada!”
I laugh when Jessie looks at him like he’s crazy.
“We’re planning a round-the-world trip,” I explain.
“Oh, he’s your boyfriend, right?” she asks.
I choke on my too-sweet coffee and Natalie grins.
Because your timing is impeccable, my phone rings and I hold it up so Jessie can see the picture I snapped of you playing guitar.
“That’s my boyfriend,” I say.
“He’s pretty hot,” she says. Then she winks at Lys. “Not my type, of course.”
“That’s just the packaging,” Nat mutters.
We only have two days in Oregon and things are planned out to the hour. After the diner it’s time for an improv class with some of the actors at the festival. They put us into two groups and we play what they call the “Yes/No” game. Two people are chosen and they stand in the middle of a circle. It happens to be me and Nat. I’m only allowed to say the word yes and she’s only allowed to say the word no. That’s it. We’re supposed to respond to each other’s cues to make it seem like a real scene.
“No,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” I say, firm.
“No,” she says.
“Yes?”
“NO.”
It’s at about this point that I realize this is the conversation she and I have been having about you for the past few months. Nat, cheating, glances in Gideon’s direction. She smiles at me.
“No?”
I am going to kill her. Because there’s only one word I’m allowed to say: “Yes,” I growl.
I grab her after, on our way to a clowning workshop.
“Dude, not cool,” I say.
“What?” She is the picture of innocence.
“Look, I know you don’t want me to be with Gavin—”
She stops me in the middle of the sidewalk and puts her hands on my shoulders.
“I love you. Let’s not talk about this. Let’s have the time of our lives.”
I glare at her for a moment, a hand on my hip. I’d been so angry, but why? Because my best friend is watching out for me? Because she’s teasing me about a cute boy?
Finally, I nod. “Okay. Challenge accepted.”
For the first time in my life I feel totally free. My parents are hundreds of miles away (in a whole other state!) and it’s just me and my friends having, as Nat said, the time of our lives.
We drink way too much coffee, filling our cups with loads of sugar and cream. We pop in and out of cute stores that sell all the theatre stuff you could ever want. We talk about method acting and read each other our favorite Shakespeare quotes from books in the bookstores. Our time is our own for the most part and we spend it helping Lys and Jessie fall in love and eating good food and laughing a lot.
You call me more than usual and I let myself ignore the calls, even though I know you’ll be pissed. It feels good to just do what I want.
“This is what college is going to feel like,” Jessie says, her hand in Lys’s. “I mean, think about it: no parents, studying theatre, hanging out with new people.”
We talk about where we’ve all applied—acceptance and rejection letters will be coming in next month.
“So how do you go to school for directing? Is it the same as acting?” Jessie asks me.
I nod. “I’ll be in acting classes and stuff, but I’ll take whatever directing classes there are, too. I’m gonna try to get some assistant-directing gigs and then—fingers crossed—I’ll study in France. There’s this school in Paris named after its founder, Jacques Lecoq—”
Lys bursts out laughing. “Le COCK? Shut the fuck up—that is not his name.”
“I swear to God!”
Jessie and Lys collapse into a pile of giggles.
“Ladies, compose yourselves,” Gideon says as he walks up to us.
We’re all sitting outside one of the town’s many theaters, waiting to go inside. He looks really good with an anime T-shirt under a long-sleeved button-down.
Nat shakes her head. She’s trying not to smile at the word cock and I love her for it.
“Fools,” she mutters.
Gideon glances at me. “Do I even want to know what’s so funny?”
“LE COCK!” Lys screeches in overly accented French.
I roll my eyes. “Ignore them.”
My phone rings—you. I’d let the last two of your calls go to voicemail, so I really need to take it.
“Be right back,” I say, hurrying over to a bench a few feet away.
“Hey, baby,” I say, answering.
“Hey.” Your voice is gruff, but I can tell you’re trying to hold your annoyance in. “Having fun?”
“Yes! There’s so much to do here. We took this improv class and—”
“I miss you so much,” you whisper.
“I miss you, too.” But I realize I’m lying. I don’t miss you at all.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“It’s just really busy here and—”
“Grace!” Natalie calls, waving her hands back and forth.
“Hey, I gotta go,” I say. “The house is open and everyone’s going inside.”
“Fine.”
“Baby, don’t be like that,” I say. “Please. I’m having such a good time—”
“All right, enjoy the show.” And you hang up.
I shove my phone into my pocket and take a deep breath. Paris, Lecoq—it’s a pipe dream. You freak out with me a few hours from you—there’s no way you’d let me go abroad. Let. As if I need your permission. But I do, Gav, don’t I?
Someone coughs quietly behind me. I look up and Gideon’s standing there, the setting sun outlining him in gold.
“I’ve been sent by Nat and Lys to escort you into the theater,” he says, holding out an arm.
I grin as I take it. “Why, thank you.”
“The boyfriend?” he says, nodding toward the phone.
“Yeah. He kinda hung up on me.”
“Whoa.”
“Not his finest hour.”
Gideon reaches into his messenger bag and produces a pack of Red Vines. “Word on the street is that you love these things.”
“I do!”
He hands them over and I happily start munching. If this were a play I was directing, I’d have the two actors walk upstage as the lights dim. Just before they enter the theater they stop and gaze into each other’s eyes as a spotlight slowly warms over them.
Then: blackout.
*