I squeeze back. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“Come on, you know there’s nobody else I’d rather spend opening night of Pacific Primary’s kindergarten musical with than you.”
I lean over to kiss him discreetly on the cheek. My kiss is innocent enough that someone might just think we’re friends who haven’t seen each other for a while. But then Evan pulls me closer and presses his mouth to mine with a little more passion. I squelch a laugh.
“We’re at a play being put on by six-year-olds. Stop.”
“Okay. Sorry.” He pulls my hand back to his lips and kisses each of my knuckles. One, two, three, four, five.
I recognize the principal when she walks down the aisle and up the steps at the side of the stage to stand in front of the microphone to thank us for coming. She’s wearing a sweater set similar to the one she wore on the day my dad showed up at Ben’s school. I wonder if she owns anything other than sweater sets. I try to picture her at the beach, and it’s impossible to imagine her in a bathing suit or eating ice cream or diving through a wave. Tonight’s cardigan has some gold zing on it, so it must be extra dressy for school plays or something. I only notice the zing because the spotlight is on her and it’s making the gold spray sparkles across the auditorium.
She talks about the play and how impressive it is that kindergartners memorized all these lines and songs. She thanks Ben’s teacher and the parents who helped make costumes and are selling cookies in the lobby. She talks about a fund-raiser and a box tops contest. Everyone applauds because they’re supposed to.
My mom scoots past my legs to take her seat. “Ben is so nervous. I hope he doesn’t barf onstage,” she says.
“I hope I don’t barf right here.”
She squeezes my shoulder, then sits down on the other side of Evan.
The curtain closes and the lights dim until the curtain reopens. And then the overhead lights tint the stage with green and gold to make it look like a forest flecked with sunlight. Out comes Ben, alone, hop, hop, hopping. He’s so cute that it makes everyone in the audience titter with laughter. The green hood of his sweatshirt hangs low over his face, and his googly eyes roll all over the place.
“One, two, three, four! Come explore the forest floor,” Ben calls, and a few more kids dressed as various forest animals skitter onto the stage.
My grin is as wide as our row of seats. I could watch this forever.
Until, behind me, there’s the sound of heavy footsteps. There’s a whispered “Excuse me” as a guy who looks close to my age settles into a seat across the aisle from me. He’s wearing a heavy coat even though it’s kind of hot in here, and he’s carrying a backpack even though it’s way past school hours. I’m almost positive I hear a metal clanging sound coming from his bag as he slowly slides it between his legs, settling it gently on the floor between his feet. It’s all a little too familiar. The rational part of me knows he’s doing things this way to be polite. To be quiet. To not interrupt the frog and the squirrel talking on the stage. But the part of me that gave Aaron Tiratore a ride to school bolts up from my chair, heart pounding and stomach churning, to race up the aisle of the auditorium. I know I’m loud and clunky because everyone in the audience turns to look at me as I go. I crash through the door to the lobby with a boom. The last thing I see before the door shuts behind me is Ben.
And I want to yell, Stop! Get off the stage!
But I can’t move. I can’t make a scene. Because it’s fine. It’s probably fine.
What if it’s not fine?
I walk back through the door, down the aisle, and right up to the boy and his backpack. I tap him on the shoulder and attempt to grab his bag at the same time.
“I need to check this,” I say louder than I should, like I’m important enough to have that right. He tries to pull it away from me.
“Morgan! Sit down!” my mom hisses.
Evan looks back and forth from me to the guy like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on. Really, everyone is looking at me. And I know what they’re thinking. Who is this crazy girl with the nerve to cause such a disruption at an adorable kindergarten play? Why don’t they realize I might be saving all of them?
It gets even worse when the kindergarten forest animals stop in the middle of their performance to watch. I can see Ben squinting at me through the rainbow-colored stage lights. And I know it’s time to take my meltdown right on out of this auditorium. I give the backpack one final tug until I have it, and when I start walking back up the aisle with it, the guy has no other choice but to follow me.
“What’re you doing? Who are you?” he asks, trying to pull his bag from me when we reach the lobby. I yank it back and unzip it.