Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend (11 page)

I open my laptop, but instead of checking my email, I click
my Broadway cast recording of
Anything Goes
and start trying
to blend. I have no idea if I’m doing it right or not. All I know
is I get so paranoid about sounding like myself that I’m sitting
totally still, barely moving my mouth at all and not even inhaling deeply to get a good breath, which makes my throat hurt.
Blending can’t possibly mean “hold your breath and hurt yourself.”
I stop the music and open my closet to grab a pair of sweats.
On the back of my closet door is the full-length mirror that I took
down over the summer—I put it back up when school started
for obvious reasons. It’s partially covered by old backpacks Tracy
won’t let me use anymore and jackets she says are too big for me
that are hanging from bright blue hooks my dad installed to help
me keep my room neat. But I can still see myself in the mirror,
in the middle of all the stuff hanging there.
Instead of closing the door to get away from the mirror like
I usually do, I stand there and take a good look. It’s weird. I’m
disappointed when I look in the mirror but it’s not because I
don’t like what I see. I mean, I don’t, but that’s not what bugs
me. What bugs me is that what I see in the mirror doesn’t match
what I see in my head. In my head, I’m prettier than I am in real
life, so when I look in the mirror and see what I see, I feel let
down. And also a little crazy. Where did I get that image in my
head if not from the mirror?
I think about Holly and Stephanie, who are so pretty they
cause whiplash in the halls. I think about Tracy, who is Union
High royalty—she’s more on the map with The Sharp List than
she ever was when she was just another cheerleader. I wonder
again about that question Conrad asked—which I’d been asking myself—about what Jamie saw in me.
I know he saw something—maybe he still does. I mean, he did
say that he likes me. But…the time isn’t right? I think that means
that it’s not personal. Except it’s hard not to take it that way.
Robert always said I was pretty but he clearly doesn’t think
that anymore. Either he didn’t know what he was talking about,
or he just didn’t know what pretty was until he met Holly. My
dad always said I was pretty, too. But what if he just said that to
make me feel good about myself? Isn’t that what parents do for
their kids—build them up even if they don’t deserve it?
I close my closet door and force myself to check my email.
There’s Tracy’s message—subject line: “URGENT!”—and a message with a photo attachment from Vicky.
There’s also a message alerting me to a new posting on my
dad’s site.
When I see that, I get excited—there have been no new postings on Dad’s site for a long time. But when I click on the link,
the post is just a bunch of gibberish code. That’s never happened
before. I wonder if I got hacked. I log in with my administrator
password and delete it.
It pisses me off that no one’s posting on Dad’s site. Has everyone forgotten him? One-year anniversaries are a big deal but
after that, life goes on, I guess.
When I open Vicky’s message, “Monster Mash” blasts from the
speakers and the photo pops open. It’s Vicky with a huge beehive hairdo, a fake mole above her lip and cat-eye glasses. Underneath the picture it says, Just getting ready for Halloween.
What are YOU going to be, Sugar?
I write back, Not doing Halloween this year. I already feel like
enough of a freak show. You look AWESOME though! I hit send.
Then I open Tracy’s email. The post is a big one—she’s been
building buzz about it on her site for days. It shows Tracy’s top
three favorite designers and the top three most fashionable students at Union High, rocking looks that Tracy feels have a lot in
common with her favorite designers. As I’m looking at pictures of
Kristin, Holly and a pretty freshman who I’ve never even talked
to, I realize that I haven’t ever been on The Sharp List.
Not once.
All our friends have been on it at least once if not two or three
times—and Tracy herself is on it all the time—but I haven’t
made it on. Not even when I’m wearing an outfit that she put
together herself.
Maybe the reason I haven’t made it onto The Sharp List has
more to do with my face—and my status at Union High—than
my clothes.
I double click on the PSAT program and try to concentrate on
a practice test, but there’s just too much happening in my brain.
Screw the stupid PSAT. I’m not taking the test tomorrow.
I crawl onto my bed, grab my phone and jam my headphones
into my ears. I’m listening to Adele—who has a totally
unique
voice—and I have what might be called an epiphany.
Opera singers don’t have to blend.
Rock stars don’t have to blend.
And after I finish this musical, I don’t have to, either.

“DIRK TAYLOR?” MY MOTHER EXCLAIMS, BLUSHING TO
the roots of her hair. She awkwardly tries to juggle the winter
coat draped over her arm and the bag on her shoulder as Holly’s
dad shakes her hand and gives her his million-dollar megawatt
smile. “I certainly didn’t expect to meet you at the opening night
of a high school musical.” She shakes her head a little in disbelief. “I’m such a fan of your films.”

It annoys me that everyone insists on referring to Dirk Taylor’s movies as
films.
Also, what
films
are we talking about? He doesn’t even look
familiar to me.
Well, maybe he does, a little. He’s probably one of those actors who gets small parts in everything and so while he’s totally
recognizable, no one can name a single movie he’s ever done.
“I really thought you should have won for
Rain in Spring.
Or
for
Getting Out Good.
Or actually, for any of the movies you were
nominated for,” my mother gushes.
Okay, so women my mother’s age can name his movies.
Wait—nominated? This guy is an Oscar nominee?
“Look at your mother,” Tracy whispers in my ear. “She’s totally blushing—so cute! How awesome that she’s wearing her
favorite outfit today.”
As Dirk Taylor stares appreciatively at my mother’s pencil skirt
with his camera-ready, piercing blue eyes, I wish she’d chosen
to wear something different.
“Do you live here?” my mother asks, clearly puzzled by the
presence of a movie star in Union, of all places. I notice that he
is still holding her hand and she’s not making any attempt to
get it back. Holly—who is standing next to her dad, holding the
biggest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen in my life—notices
my mother’s response, too, and she grins at me in a conspiratorial way that I find alarming.
“Dad and I moved here this summer, Mrs. Zarelli,” Holly says.
“He’s teaching at the Yale Drama School this year.”
“Well, talent certainly runs in the family, Holly. Your performance was extraordinary. What a lovely voice you have!” my
mother says.
My mother is complimenting Holly on her performance without having said a single word to me about mine. So what if Passenger #3 only had two solo lines? No small parts, only small
actors, right?
Of course, she didn’t really get a chance to say anything at all
before she was blindsided by Dork Taylor, who, by the way, is
still
holding her hand.
“Holly’s amazing, isn’t she?” Robert says as he comes out of the
boys’ dressing room, his red scarf carefully wrapped around his
throat as if he might “catch a chill” in the hallway. Tracy takes
out her iPhone and snaps a picture.
“Are you kidding?” I whisper.
She solemnly shakes her head. “That thing is three-ply cashmere.”
“Robert!” my mother exclaims. “I had no idea you were so talented! You were just magical up there!”
She’s not wrong—he is pretty amazing in the show. Robert
looks so happy I think he might burst. “Thanks, Mrs. Z.,” he
says, giving her a little bow.
I’m still waiting for her to say something to me.
“Great show, son,” Dirk says, finally letting go of my mother’s
hand to shake Robert’s. Robert’s voice drops about an octave. He
gives Holly’s dad the manliest handshake he can manage and
says, “Thanks, Dirk,” as if he’s been calling Dirk Taylor by his
first name for years. “I couldn’t have done it without my leading lady,” he adds.
Robert gives Holly a kiss on the cheek. My mother watches
for just a second too long, then looks at me.
My mother has always liked Robert, despite his history of
lying. I think she was probably hoping that someday he’d get his
life together and we’d end up dating. But I’m sure she’s thinking
now that I missed my chance. Because of course there’s no way
I could ever compete with the daughter of Dirk Taylor.
“Honey, you did a great job,” she finally says to me, giving me
a hug with one arm and squeezing me against her. “You looked
like you were really having fun.”
“A show is nothing without a good supporting cast,” Dirk
adds, nodding.
For a split second, while the charm and charisma are directed
at me, I feel all warm and gushy and…special. But I know it’s
an act and I refuse to fall for it like the group of mothers that is
now standing around us, desperate to be part of our conversation, edging in closer and closer, making me feel claustrophobic.
“Excellent dancing, Rose,” Dirk continues. “And you have a
great ear for harmony and a remarkably strong voice. I could
pick you out in every number.”
So much for blending.
Holly jumps in. “What he means is that you sounded fantastic.”
Dirk looks puzzled. “Well, of course that’s what I mean! It’s
an amazing thing to have such an unusual voice. Why would
you want to sound like everyone else?”
I don’t want to sound like everyone else, Dork. And as soon
as this musical is over, I won’t be trying to sound like everyone
else ever again.
“Mr. Taylor? A photo, please?” says a reporter from the
Union
Chronicle.
He must have been tipped off about the Taylors. I
don’t think the
Chronicle
has ever cared about an opening night
at Union High before.
“Actually, this is my daughter’s night, so I’d prefer not to,”
Dirk replies, sounding oddly proud of himself considering all
he’s doing is turning down an opportunity to be photographed
for a small-town newspaper.
“How about you and your daughter together?” the reporter
asks. He isn’t about to miss out on the biggest scoop to hit town
in, oh, probably twenty years.
“It’s okay, Dad. I don’t mind,” Holly tells him quietly.
“Are you sure, honey?” he asks, looking concerned.
“It’s fine,” she assures him with a hint of disappointment in
her eyes that her father misses because he’s too busy looking for
his spotlight.
And he’s not the only one. Robert turns toward the camera
like a heat-seeking missile, oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend
might not want to have her picture taken just because she’s Dirk
Taylor’s daughter—especially after she just performed a lead role
in a show totally brilliantly.
“Okay, then, let’s do it,” Dirk says. My mother and I step back
as the reporter moves in. Dirk puts his arm around Holly, trapping her beautiful hair. She reaches up to free it and suddenly
I remember how my dad used to tell me I was lucky I got my
mother’s hair and not his, like Peter did.
My dad would have loved seeing me play Passenger #3, no
matter how I felt about the whole thing. If everything had gone
according to his plan, he would have been back by now, and he
and my mother would probably be talking to Dirk Taylor together, in a welcome-to-the-neighborhood way.
Instead of Dirk talking to my mother in an I-like-your-pencilskirt way.
Dirk holds up a hand as the reporter gets ready to take the
picture. “Kathleen, Rose, please join us. The photo will be so
much nicer with you lovely ladies in it.”
This guy’s good—he and Holly have the same classy manners. But if you’re paying close attention, you can see just how
calculated his are.
After some more cajoling from Dirk, my mother steps into
the photo. I stay on the sidelines, though Tracy tries to shove
me forward, whispering in my ear something about a once-in-alifetime photo op. Dirk pulls my mother close and puts his arm
around her waist, making her blush again, which makes him
laugh. Robert positions himself between Holly and Dirk with
his arms around both of them. Holly smiles her picture-perfect
smile, but as the surrounding crowd gets bigger and more camera phones are pulled out of pockets and purses, her smile starts
to look fake. It’s not an expression I’m used to seeing on Holly,
who seems so comfortable all the time.
Dirk Taylor is seriously an idiot. He has no idea how Holly
feels right now. He’s too busy thinking about himself.
I back away and start toward the dressing room to get my stuff.
“Rose freakin’ Zarelli! Whatup, Sweater?”
I turn around, and even though I’d know that voice anywhere,
I barely recognize Angelo—he looks like a different person now
than he did last year.
Angelo is Jamie’s best friend. He calls me Sweater because
when I first met him in study hall at the beginning of freshman year, I was wearing a sweater even though it was still, like,
ninety degrees out.
I was actually scared of him. He looked like he was about
twenty and he had long, greasy hair, and every day he wore a
different metal-band concert T-shirt drenched in Axe. But one
day, he showed up in a Neko Case shirt—she’s only the best
singer-songwriter ever—and things changed. We started talking about music. I found out he was in a band called Fuck This
Shit—which he renamed FTS when he realized how much easier
it was to get hired without the F-word on his fliers—and Angelo
and I became friends.
Angelo and his band went on a six-month tour that they put
together themselves right after graduation, and now the long,
greasy hair is gone. There’s no concert T-shirt under his slick
black leather jacket. He’s wearing blue-black jeans, Doc Marten’s
and a gray sweater with a big industrial-size zipper down the
front. Considering that the last time I saw him, he was wearing
a tuxedo that was at least one size too small for him and his hair
probably hadn’t been washed in a week, I would say that being
a real musician agrees with Angelo.
He grabs me in a big hug and spins me around and around.
I can’t stop laughing even though I’m getting so dizzy I might
throw up. I’ve missed Angelo.
When we finally stop spinning and he puts me down, he has
to hold on to me for a few seconds so I don’t go crashing into the
wall. But I’m not so dizzy that I can’t see Jamie coming through
the door at the end of the hall near the girls’ dressing room.
Every time I see Jamie after not seeing him for a while, I feel
like I’m in seventh grade again, watching him play hockey, unable to take my eyes off him. But I feel something different now,
on top of the thrill and the attraction, and it takes me a second
to figure out what it is.
It’s fear.
Not fear of him—fear
for
him.
I’m worried about Jamie. There’s so much I don’t know about
his life, and what exactly he’s doing for the Deladdos.
“Good job, Rose,” Jamie says. Before I know it, he leans forward and kisses me on the cheek, and I can smell that cleanlaundry scent I love. I reach up to hug him but he’s already
pulling away by the time I get my arms around his neck. We
both sort of freeze, and awkwardly disengage and step back from
each other. I notice he’s got his phone in one hand, and he’s turning it over and over.
“Yeah, good job!” Angelo whacks me on the shoulder and
grins. He moves closer and whispers too loudly, “But musicals?
Come on, man! You gotta get a band!”
“Wait, really? You think I could—”
The crowd that has gathered around the Taylors laughs at
something Dirk says, and Jamie and Angelo look past me to see
what’s going on.
“Hey, that’s that guy…that guy from…that thing,” Angelo says.
“What’s he doin’ here?”
“He’s Holly’s dad,” I answer. Angelo looks at me blankly.
“Holly, with the dark hair, who was in the show?”
“Oh, yeah. She was hot,” Angelo says thoughtfully, as if he is
the first person to make this observation. “But where’s the redhead? She was, like,
smokin’
hot.”
He looks around the hallway for Stephanie, who is for sure still
in the dressing room. No one takes longer to get out of costume
than her. It’s her first starring role and already she’s learned the
art of making her public wait.
“You mean Steph?” Clearly Angelo has no idea who he was
watching during the show—I’m guessing he’s not much of a program reader. “You remember her from last year, right?”
Angelo looks blank again for a second, and then his jaw practically hits the floor.
“That
was Steph?”
More camera flashes go off.
“Your mom knows that guy?” Jamie asks.
I turn to look at Mom again. Dirk’s arm is still wrapped around
her waist. Whatever he’s saying now is just for her, and it makes
her laugh.
The truth is, I haven’t seen my mother have fun in a long time,
so part of me is happy for her, but it gets squashed by the part
that is super annoyed that she—along with every other woman
in the hallway—is buying Holly’s dad’s act.
I can’t believe that my mother is so susceptible to this cheeseball.
“No, she just met him,” I answer, turning away so I don’t have
to watch anymore. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Whaddya mean, what’re we doin’ here? We came to see
you!
”
Angelo says. “You totally rocked that one line they gave ya.”
I roll my eyes. “Two, Angelo. I had two.”
“Seriously!” Angelo insists. “You got killer cords. And you
been holdin’ out on me.”
“Angelo Martinez?” says Tracy, extracting herself from the
throng of adoring fans surrounding the Taylors. “There’s no way
you
are Angelo Martinez.”
“Yo, Trace, up high!” Angelo grins, putting his hand up for
a high five. “Hey, where’s that awesome little cheerleader outfit
you used to wear?”
“I’ve moved on from polyester-spandex blends,” Tracy says,
giving Angelo the high five he’s waiting for and then reaching
out to inspect the funky zipper pull on his sweater.
“Whoa, Trace, you gotta take me to dinner first,” Angelo says,
looking down at her with amusement as she tests the zipper,
sliding it up and down.
She doesn’t even hear him. “Can I take your picture? The Sharp
List is doing a special post on transformations. You would be
perfect, if we can find pictures of you with that crazy hair from
last year,” Tracy says.
“My hair last year was rad!” Angelo looks both offended and
confused. “What’s a Sharp List?”
“Have you been living under a rock?” Tracy scolds as she pulls
out her phone to show Angelo her website. She gives me a quick
look that means I should take advantage of the opportunity to
talk to Jamie in semiprivate.
Since the conversation a few weeks ago that left Jamie and
me in a weird limbo, I’ve been driving Tracy a little crazy. She
keeps asking why Jamie and I aren’t together, if we had as nice
a time on our date as I keep telling her we did. I tell her that
he said it’s just not the right time, and she tells me that I need
clarification—what exactly did he mean by that?
I can’t tell her that I already have clarification. Once again,
I’m in a situation in which I have to keep a secret from her, even
though we aren’t supposed to be keeping secrets from each other
anymore.
But Jamie asked me not to tell anyone about Mr. Deladdo,
and I won’t.
This past Thanksgiving, Mom and I went to Tracy’s house with
Stephanie and her mom. Before we ate at the beautiful table that
Tracy’s interior-decorator mom set with crystal and china—and
a centerpiece made of real leaves from the maple trees in their
backyard—Tracy’s dad said grace.