In the Spotlight (9 page)

Glancing over at Kevin, who had his head bowed low over his desk, face still beet red, maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw tears in his eyes. I don’t think I have ever felt worse about myself than I did in that moment. I would have to find a way to make it up to Kevin. And to myself.

****

Later that week at rehearsal, Josh caught me near the door of the auditorium. He’d been avoiding me after the whole Kevin incident, and I was too embarrassed to seek him out to talk about it.

I still wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much what Josh thought of me or my behavior. But it did.

To make matters worse, Valentine’s Day was less than three days away and Kyle had shown no more interest in me. My feelings for Kyle confused the heck out of me. On the one hand, I felt the same as I always had, seeking him out in the halls, trying to get his attention as subtly as I could. On the other hand, I didn’t get the same flutter of excitement when Kyle talked to me.

I told myself the change was simply because Kyle paid more attention to me now.

I told myself the change was because the first blush of true love was giving way to something sounder, truer.

I told myself all sorts of things, no matter how silly.

The one thing I wouldn’t let myself think about was the unidentified flutter I felt whenever Josh so much as looked at me.

So when he stopped me by the auditorium door, my stomach tightened and my breath caught. My reaction irritated me so much that when I turned to him I’m pretty sure I had a scowl on my face.

“What?” I heaved a sigh that came out a lot nastier then I’d intended.

Josh looked surprised and then frowned. “Nothing,” he said.

“It’s just that we don’t have school on Monday, and I wanted to give you this.”

I stared down at the envelope extended in Josh’s hand. A little thrill shot through me as I instinctively guessed what it was.

The thrill died as I caught sight of Kyle out of the corner of my eye, descending the stage stairs.

“No thank you,” I mumbled.

Laughing, Josh took a step closer to me. “It’s not going to bite,” he said, amusement coloring his voice.

Much as I hated to admit it, I really loved the sound of his voice when he thought something was funny.

“I said, no thank you,” I said, my voice louder than I intended.

A sudden silence followed, and I felt my face get hot as I realized that we were drawing attention.

Josh heaved out a frustrated breath. “It’s just a card,” he said flatly, shoving the envelope into my hand.

“Is something wrong here?”

Kyle.

My face got hotter. Josh didn’t look at Kyle, just kept his eyes trained steadily on mine. “It’s just a card,” he repeated softly.

I meant to say something else, but Josh turned and left the auditorium before I got the chance.

Chapter Ten

“So…” Kaylee began Tuesday at lunch while we were standing in line for fries. “Maggie tells me that Josh Larson gave you a Valentine’s Day card.”

I glanced at her and shrugged. “How does she know this stuff?”

Kaylee laughed at the question. “She has her sources. So what did it say?”

Suddenly there was a huge commotion across the cafeteria.

Kaylee and I practically jumped out of line to see what was happening. We joined the general confused push toward the noise.

Kaylee’s eyes were alight with delight. She loved this kind of drama in a way that no one else I knew did, sort of like it was her reality TV show fix. Her parents had forbidden the viewing of reality TV shows after Kaylee got hooked on that unfortunate show
Race to Be My Baby’s Daddy
.

I broke through the crowd just in time to see Josh and Kyle jump up from their chairs at the exact same moment. A flood of emotions raced through my veins; embarrassment for my friends, confusion over the intense anger evident on the boys’ faces, concern over the trouble they were going to get in when a teacher showed up, and massive amounts of frustration that I couldn’t decide who to be worried about.

“Holy cow!” Kaylee, gasped, excitedly, joining me.

Kyle picked up a container of milk sitting on a nearby table, said something that we couldn’t hear, and then poured the milk down the front of Josh’s chest. Josh stared down at the milk for a moment, seemingly dumbstruck by the action. Then Josh looked up at Kyle, let out something that sounded like a growl, and literally leapt at Kyle.

The crowd surged forward, obscuring our view, so I wasn’t really sure what was happening. I thought I heard something crunch, and my stomach turned over, as I wondered who had crunched and who had done the crunching. The noise of the crowd swelled so we couldn’t hear anything else.

Thankfully, the security guard finally hurried toward Josh and Kyle. A few moments later he came back by with Josh by one arm and Kyle by the other. Josh caught my eye as they passed. He looked defiant…and totally self-‐-satisfied. A quick glance at Kyle confirmed that he had been crunched soundly in the nose. Blood was still oozing down his chin, dripping onto his green sweater.

“What do you think they were fighting about?” Kaylee murmured.

I shook my head mutely, my stomach churning too much for me to answer. Kaylee may not have had a clue what they were fighting about, but I was pretty sure it had to be about the musical.

Why hadn’t I been more insistent that Ms. Bard go back to tradition? Why hadn’t I simply turned down my role? Maybe that would have shown her how serious I was.

“Oh, my gosh!” Maggie gasped catching up with us. “That was amazing.”

“What happened?” I asked, not sure that I really wanted to know. “Kyle said something horrible to Josh, and then he poured milk on him. Josh went to get a carton of milk off the table. I guess to pour it back on Kyle. And Kyle took a swing at him, missed, fell down, and hit his face on the table. He got a bloody nose!” Maggie shook her head.

“We saw that,” Kaylee reported.

Hmmm…Josh hadn’t hit Kyle at all, so what had that look been for?

****

The next day at lunch, Maggie and Kaylee decided to take the opportunity to speculate about my obvious grouchiness directed at Josh and his clearly chivalrous behavior aimed in my direction. The current discussion stemmed from a series of rather snarky comments I’d made about certain cheerleaders.

I prefer not to rehash the things I said, but I definitely used words like harlot and trollop, which garnered major laughter from my friends.

“Maybe you just act this way because you like him,” Kaylee suggested in an oh-‐-so-‐-not-‐-helpful-‐-nor-‐-very-‐-quiet whisper.

My eyes darted to Josh who was feigning great interest in his bologna and cheese sandwich. I glared at Kaylee pointedly. “That’s not it,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Are you sure?” Kaylee and I turned in surprise to see Josh smirking at us, at me. “Maybe you put down every girl I talk to because you
are
jealous. Yeah,” he continued. “You must be jealous because you like me.”

Little white zips of light entered my field of vision. “That’s not it.” “Then what is it?” Josh challenged.

“You really want to know?” I replied.

“I do,” Josh said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, that stupid smirk still on his face.

“I put down all the girls you talk about because all the girls you talk about are…skanks. And I don’t like you. I could never like you because you’re a conceited jerk. And you know what else? I thought that was because you were Mr. Big Man on Campus, basketball star legend of the school, but it’s not. That’s just who you are.”

I stood up so fast my chair slammed against the wall. People from several surrounding tables glanced our way, but I didn’t care.

I just wanted to get out of the cafeteria as fast as possible. As I fled, I was acutely aware of all the eyes following me. I stumbled to the choir room before collapsing into a chair.

A horrible realization hit me as buckets of ice-‐-cold air from the newly installed air conditioning system dumped on me from the vents in the ceiling. I liked Josh. But that was impossible because I clearly disliked Josh.
You can’t have it both ways
, I argued with myself. And yet, here I was, nursing both the biggest grudge and the biggest crush of all time.

Maybe even bigger than the crush I had on Kyle. And how did that fit into all of this? I still had monster feelings for Kyle. Who wouldn’t? We were getting so much closer now that musical rehearsals had started. I mean, why would he offer me private coaching sessions if he didn’t feel something for me? I had a little suspicion though, that Kyle might not be the only one with feelings for me. Why would Josh want me to be jealous of all his skanky little conquests unless he liked me? And did I want Josh to like me back? Just because he might possibly, potentially like me back, that didn’t mean that anything was going to happen between us. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to make the first move, and if that little display back in the lunch room had been Josh’s idea of a first move, the two of us would obviously get nowhere fast.

And did I even want Josh to like me? Hadn’t I spent the past three years trying to get Kyle to fall madly, deeply in love with me?

Or at least wishing that he would? How on earth could I focus on accomplishing a goal like that when another boy was taking up my time? Seriously, what was wrong with me? I felt like I was turning into Claudia. And speaking of Claudia, what was going on with her and Kyle anyway? One day they seemed to be in the throes of a heated affair, and the next day they could barely stand the sight of each other.

Harlow would tell me that was because they were sleeping together. She claimed that the second a couple started doing “the deed”, as she put it, you could tell instantly by their change in behavior. I’m not exactly sure what change in behavior that would be, though. Kyle and Claudia seemed to have this on again/off again relationship that went back a pretty long way. Claudia had confided in me in third grade that she loved Kyle. But, come on, we were in third grade. Who can take that seriously?

And why would Kyle act like he liked me if he was sleeping with Claudia? If the rumors were right anyway? Didn’t that make her his girlfriend? Was Kyle a creep?

The thought stopped me cold, no pun intended, as I shivered in the freezing choir room. I mean, I could totally see Josh as a creep when he started bragging about his latest skanky date, but I had never contemplated Kyle as a creep. This whole idea of the two guys I was crushing on being creeps totally fed into Harlow’s theory that all men are creeps, and girls need to choose between a life of being walked all over by men, or a life of empowerment. Her idea of female empowerment wasn’t exactly fun, like say the Spice Girls, but I digress.

While I was lost in thought, desperately trying to wrap my brain around the whole concept of Kyle being a creep, I didn’t notice the choir room door open. Actually, I didn’t notice anything until Kaylee opened her mouth and spoke, and even then, she scared me half out of my skin.

“You really hurt his feelings,” she said softly.

I gasped and stared at her, completely lacking comprehension. “Who?” I finally asked.

Kaylee smiled at me indulgently, like you would smile at a dog begging for one more treat, and sat down next to me. “Josh,”

she said. “You should have seen his face after you blew up at him and stormed out.”

As I absorbed this information, the choir room doors swung open and students began coming in for the next period’s class.

Kaylee pulled me to our chairs in the back row. My head was swimming from the events at lunch, but also from the cold air. I couldn’t wait for the day to be over.

“He never mentions other girls,” Kaylee persisted. “Just so you know. I mean, I sit with him at lunch, too.”

Somehow, I made it through the last three periods of the day without major incident. Choir kept us busy enough that Kaylee wasn’t able to continue what I’m sure she considered a meaningful conversation about the state of my love life. I couldn’t look over at the guys’ side of the music room the entire class period. And even though I had the last two classes of the day with Josh, too, I managed to avoid him completely.

The only sticky point came at the end of math last period when Josh and I both arrived at the door at the same time. I jumped back like I’d been tasered, but Josh smiled politely at me, and held the door until I passed. He was a lot more mature than I was, that’s for sure.

Chapter Eleven

“Why are we doing another Grandma dinner so soon?”

Hayley grumbled as she put silverware on the table.

Mom sighed, “I told you. Grandma told Dad and me that she had something very special to tell all of us.”

“Maybe she won amateur night,” Hayley snickered.

“Not funny, Hayley,” Mom ground out setting the water pitcher down on the table with a thump.

Mom went back into the kitchen looking frazzled. She was making a really traditional meal, more akin to Thanksgiving than a normal Sunday dinner. The turkey in the oven had to weigh thirty pounds easy. And Mom made not one, but two pies. Her way of dealing with Granma’s extremely nontraditional tendencies seemed to be to make things as traditional as possible.

“Leave Mom alone, Hay,” I said. “We’re going to have enough trouble with Harlow being home tonight.”

Hayley rolled her eyes but returned to putting silverware on the table. I picked up the water pitcher to finish filling the glasses for Mom. I had no idea what Grandma’s announcement would be, and I didn’t want to venture a guess. The last time Grandma had made a big announcement, it had been to tell us that she was going to Australia to become a didgeridoo player. Ultimately, she’d met a man who claimed to be the inspiration for Crocodile Dundee.

Grandma spent a month camping in the Outback.

Still another meal with Duke’s potential revelations didn’t appeal to me. Plus with Harlow here, things were sure to be melodramatic at best. She still didn’t know that I had the lead in the musical. Mom suggested time and again that I call Harlow, because then she might be able to help me. Why did everyone think I needed so much help?