“Yeah, but I’m her—” He winced. “I’ve been with her every day, man. I knew something was going on. I just didn’t . . . want to know. You know?”
“Yup.” I held the ball in my hands, turning it slowly, working myself into a quiet panic. I’d known Liv was in trouble and I’d all but ignored it. What if my dream wasn’t just anxiety, but a real warning? I’d known for months about your injury, and all I’d done was help you hide it. I couldn’t afford to make the same mistake twice. Not with you.
Dave looked at me wearily, expectantly, and it took a few seconds to realize he was just waiting for me to throw. I took a jump shot and banked it. “You should call her,” I said.
“Did you talk to her?” There was a weird edge to his voice; at least he was waking up.
“Yeah. I ran into her yesterday. She seemed pretty upset.” Not entirely a lie. “But Joy says she won’t pick up the phone, and I don’t think her parents are exactly keeping her under lock and key, you know?”
I walked over to get the ball, turning my back on Dave’s tortured expression.
“She texted me,” he said softly when I got back in earshot. “Yesterday. A couple of times.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was sorry.”
“So tell her you forgive her.”
Dave looked at the ground.
“Do you forgive her?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said quickly. “I mean, what’s to forgive? I should be apologizing to her.” He squinted into the sun. “I should have said something.”
“Yeah.” I paused, thought about telling him everything I knew, but didn’t. That’s another on a long list of regrets. “It’s not too late to say you’re sorry,” I said.
He looked at me, confused. “What, like right now?”
“Tomorrow’s not promised.” (Another one of Mom’s calendar quotes. I was just saying it to sound deep. I didn’t know I was predicting the future.) I threw the ball at Dave’s chest and he reflexively caught it. “No day but today.”
“Are you quoting Rent at me?” he asked, cracking a half-smile. “I know you dance, man, but I wouldn’t have pegged you for a—”
“Just shut up and call her,” I said.
I watched him while he did it. It went straight to voicemail. But then I walked him to the downtown train. If anyone could get Liv to stay still, it would be Dave. And if he could manage to find her, hold on to her, for just a little while, well—that would be a start, at least.
? ? ?
“Are you ready?”
A chill ran through me. I blinked, just to check, but nope—this time, when you asked, it was real. It was 7:45 P.M., we were standing out of sight in the stage-left wings, and I’d been relieved to note, courtesy of a packed-house snapshot my mom sent when she arrived, that almost no one in the audience was in a suit, aside from Mr. Dyshlenko, who looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, his arms practically busting the seams of his jacket. I was in black tights and a black leotard, in my wide-shouldered bolero and enough hairspray for all of New Jersey (“It’ll keep that hair out of your eyes, at least,” you’d teased), and you were nervously swishing back and forth in your ruffled red dress, practicing the fingerwork on your fan, opening and closing the paper accordion folds while you marked your solo and gingerly warmed up your ankle.
It was happening, I realized. I hadn’t stopped it. You’d shut me down with one sentence when I’d called you from Broadway, pacing back and forth in front of a newsstand full of tragic tabloid headlines.
“I didn’t come this far to quit now,” you’d said. But still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
“Are you ready?” I asked. Onstage, the second group piece was approaching its finale. In about two minutes, we’d enter on cue. We were the last act, the closers. It all came down to us.
“It’s fine,” you said, not looking up.
“Don’t lie to me now,” I said.
“Fine, it’s worse today.” You exhaled slowly, bouncing a little. Before a performance, we usually did jumping jacks to limber up, but I felt like if I jumped right then I might puke, and from the tears in your eyes I could tell you could barely tolerate any warm-up at all. “It’ll have to do,” you said with a grimace.
We’d already been at school for hours. The Drama Showcase performance had been that afternoon, so out of curiosity we’d gone to check out Ethan’s one-man revenge special (we’d looked around for Liv, hoping that she’d show up in protest, but no luck). It had been . . . talky and self-important but thankfully short, just like its author. You’d been too angry to go see Ethan afterward, but I caught him just as he was leaving to go celebrate at P.J. Clarke’s with his fifty Russian relatives. I asked him if he’d heard from Liv, but he told me “there weren’t enough rice grains in the Goya factory” to ever make her talk to him again. I didn’t get it.