manicpixiedreamgirl (5 page)

A real Oscar winner, right?

In these scripts, she was demure yet possessing a great sense of humor. She was smart, but impressed by my own
natural brilliance. That kind of thing. You know how it goes.

Luckily, I never wrote any of that down.

I don’t know if our drama department was anything outstanding or not, but the production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was pretty good. I think Becky was supposed to be a fairy or a sprite or something, named Mustardseed, but the director had gone all conceptual and reimagined the play in the 1930s, so everyone was playing old-time movie actors, like W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers.

I’m not saying the show was good just because Becky was in it. It helped, most likely, yes, but she wasn’t the only reason. I liked it because William Shakespeare definitely felt my pain.

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia; the course of true love never did run smooth
—page after page of stuff like that, things that if you said them out loud, for real, would get your ass rightly kicked, but when Shakespeare says it … I dunno, man.

Then there was Becky herself.

I didn’t know this at the time, but thanks to Ms. Hochhalter—like it or not—I found out Shakespeare used two forms of writing in his plays: prose and verse. Typically, royal characters use verse, which rhymes, and common characters use prose. The actors in
Midsummer
who spoke in verse generally got monotonous, like they were really bad rappers or something. A few were pretty good. One of those few was Becky Webb.

When she spoke the poetry, I swear her entire body lit up. Maybe it was makeup or something, but her eyes seemed to sparkle and her face to shine. I felt myself leaning forward whenever Becky danced onstage. Her first scene, opposite the main fairy, Puck, was short and sweet, but immediately added to my imaginary biography of Becky, famous star of stage and screen. I thought maybe instead of movie scripts, I should be writing plays for her.

At one point in the play, the fairies did this dance, wearing old-fashioned tuxedos. Something about the way the top hat tilted on Becky’s head, the playful smile she cast out at us in the audience—I saw the show only once, yet was sure I had the entire dance number memorized. The way she carried herself at school didn’t do her body justice. It wasn’t just the dance routine, it was the way she moved across the stage—glided, almost. I know I’m biased, but I swear she captivated the entire audience. I didn’t miss a moment of her performance from my seat in the middle of the auditorium.

Right beside Sydney Barrett. Whether she’d planned it that way, or I had, or neither of us, I couldn’t say.

When I wasn’t mentally scripting epic films starring myself and Becky Webb, I continued using Sydney as my main source for anything Becky-related. Or, as was often the case, making a complete idiot of myself.

“What did you think of ‘The Lottery’?” Sydney asked after we’d read the story in class before Thanksgiving break.

“Good,” I said. “Creepy.”

“Yeah,” Sydney said. “I thought it would be a cool reader’s theater piece.”

“What’s that?”

“Reader’s theater? It’s like a staged reading. Everyone has a script, it’s not memorized. Usually you do it black box.”

“You read it in a box?” I asked, imagining our drama club standing in empty brown shipping boxes.

Sydney laughed. When Sydney laughs, everyone notices, and I kind of liked that about her. She was fearless.

“No, ‘black box’ means you don’t wear costumes or use props, and your only furniture is black wooden boxes, like crates or something. It just means, like, stripped down.”

I’d like to see Rebecca stripped down
, I thought, and laughed at my own stellar wit.

“What’s so funny?” Sydney said.

“Nothing,” I said. “So is that something you’d, like, do for drama class?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You could ask Rebecca to help.”

Yep. Really said that. I wish I could go back in time and punch myself in the kidney. Way to go, fifteen-year-old me.

Sydney’s eyebrows pinched. “Rebecca Webb? Why?”

Caught in the open, I said, “I just mean, you know. Maybe she’d—she’d help out. Or something. Perform. Or whatever.” I could see Sydney wasn’t overly impressed with this idea, so I hurried to add, “I’d come see it if you did.”

“You mean you’d come see it if Rebecca was in it?”

“No! I mean, I’d come see it anyway. If you did it. That’s all.”

Sydney laughed again, and patted my forearm. “You’re sad, Tyler,” she said, but left her hand on my arm for a few seconds. Her fingers were cool and soft.

I tried to avoid bringing Becky up in conversation after that, with mild success. I assume Sydney didn’t pursue her black box idea with “The Lottery,” or if she did, I never heard anything about it.

On the last day of school before Christmas vacation, Sydney turned in her seat right as the bell rang ending class.

“So, have you talked to Becca yet?” she asked.

I said, “Who?” Sydney hadn’t used the nickname Becca before.

“Rebecca Webb?” Sydney said. “The girl you’ve been slobbering over since September?”

“I wasn’t slobbering!” I said. And thought,
At least, not literally
.

“Oh, okay,” Sydney said. “Sorry. Have you?”

“Well! … Not exactly.”

“You know I told her about you, right?”

I almost convulsed. “You did
what
? What did you say, what did
she
say, what—”

“I just told her you’d mentioned her,” Syd said, seeming to enjoy my freak-out. “That’s all.”

That’s
why Becky had suddenly started noticing me. I
didn’t know whether to be happy or mad about it: happy that Syd had sort of opened the door, but mad that Becky hadn’t noticed me just because of
me
.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. But what did she say?”

“Nothing. Literally. I’m not even sure she heard me.”

She did
, I thought.
Yes, she did
.

“So anyway, what’re you doing tomorrow night?” Syd asked.

My entire body lit up. This could only mean one thing: Becky had asked Sydney to ask me if I was busy, in preparation for asking me out.

“Nothing!” I said. But I sounded desperate, so I added, “I mean, writing, I guess.”

Syd made a mock-disgusted face. “
Homework?
Really? I know I’m all brainy and junk, but even I don’t do homework over Christmas.” She nudged my arm.

“Nah, no,” I said. “I mean a story.”

“Oh. Like, for fun?”

“Uh, something like that,” I said. Classes were trading places by then, and the next class was seniors. I didn’t want to get caught in there with them if I didn’t have to.

Nor did I feel like explaining my writing. Not many people knew about it back then. Robby, Justin. My parents and Gabrielle, I guess. That was it. I’d pretty much plagiarized my first short story in fifth grade, a rip-off of one of the short stories in
Night Shift
, in fact. Changed the character names and some dialogue and small parts
of the plot. It was how I learned. I didn’t think I was good enough to actually show anyone what I was writing, despite being in Honors English and getting As on my writing assignments.

Sydney stood up when I did. “Well, we should hang out tomorrow,” she said, as if out of the darkness of time and space. “See a movie or something. Wanna?”

At first I deflated, seriously bummed Syd wasn’t asking me about my plans on Becky’s behalf. But Sydney and I did have fun talking in class, even if half our conversations revolved around me trying to learn more about Becky. Sydney was confident, had that big brassy laugh … her hair was really pretty awesome …

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Sure. I guess so.”

“Great!” Syd grabbed my arm and wrote a number down on my palm.

“Call me, or text or something,” she said, like she did this sort of thing every day. My god, if I’d tried this same approach with Becky, I’d have asphyxiated from my own stupidity.

“Yeah, okay …”

“Cool. See you tomorrow, then!”

She picked up her bag and zipped out of the classroom before I could think to say anything else. Like, for instance,
What the hell did I just do?

Sydney was cute, but … 
Lily Rose
cute. However, since I lacked the testicular fortitude to make contact with Becky, I went ahead and called Sydney the next afternoon and met
her at the mall that night. We saw some dumb comedy, and I don’t even remember which one, a fact she will be happy to repeat any old time, thanks much.

After that, we got Panda Express in the food court. Syd ordered a full meal. “Know what I hate?” she asked as we found a table.

“What?” Now that the movie was over and we were moving on to the actual talking part of the evening, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep up with her.

“Girls who won’t eat,” Sydney said, which made me laugh. Syd jabbed a fork into her noodles, grinning. “Seriously! I mean girls who won’t eat in front of guys. Who’re all, ‘Just a salad and a cracker for me!’ or whatever, and then go home and binge on Zingers and Pepsi.”

Becky was partial to salads, I’d noticed. I didn’t point it out.

“Thanks for dinner, by the way,” Sydney added.

“No problem,” I said, and watched her eat while I fiddled around with my own meal. After the way she said all that, I half expected her to eat like a front loader, but she ate thoughtfully, taking her time and maybe savoring each bite.

I made sure to keep my mouth closed when I chewed. That’s about as high a bar as I could set at that point. Also, I might’ve stretched a little on the “no problem” paying for dinner part; between dinner and the movie, I was tapped for the week. But I didn’t mind.

We talked about school and parents and siblings and whatnot. We marveled that both our sets of parents were
still married, agreed Ms. Hochhalter walked on water because she assigned good stories and occasionally cussed in class, and decided that Gabrielle and Syd’s older brother would make a terrible couple.

Becky’s name did not come up. At least, not out loud. Mentally, I couldn’t help but make comparisons.

Take their styles, for instance. Becky wasn’t a slob or anything, but she did seem to trend more toward basic T-shirts, shorts, and scuffed jeans. Syd, then as now, always looked more put together. She seemed to favor fashionable sweaters—cardigans, I think they’re called—and dark jeans that looked like they’d been tailored to fit her. Her clothes were generally bright and bold, her fingernails painted brilliant colors. She came off looking like a junior or senior instead of a lowly freshman.

I couldn’t say which I liked better. They both fit.

The worst thing about freshman year was no one had a car except parents and older siblings. Mom had dropped me off, and I was supposed to call Gabby to pick me up. Which, essentially, sucked. But what was true for me was true for others: if you had no car and didn’t want to be home, there were only so many options.

So I should’ve guessed that since we were now officially on winter break and it was a Friday night, there was a good chance we’d run into someone we knew from school. Some
one
turned out to be some
ones
, namely Robby and Justin and the girls they were dating at the time.

“Hey!” Robby called in his usual boisterous voice. “Tyler! What’s up?”

“Hey,” I said as the four of them gathered around our table. The two girls, their names long since lost to history, crowded too close to the guys, texting furiously. I wondered if maybe they were texting each other so they wouldn’t actually have to speak.

Before I could say anything beyond my greeting, Robby stuck a hand in front of Sydney’s face. “I’m Robby,” he announced.

Sydney didn’t rush to finish chewing and swallowing her bite of food. “Syd Barrett,” she said, reaching across her body to shake Robby’s hand.

Robby goggled his eyes and stared at her. “
The
Syd Barrett?” he asked, shaking her hand.

Justin said, “Awwww, sweet!”

Robby said, “Wow. I was expecting someone older. And male. And British.”

“It’s short for Sydney,” she said, not the least bit put off. “With a
y
.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Robby grinned at her, and when she wasn’t looking, tossed me a backward nod, like I was supposed to get the joke. I didn’t, not then. He explained it to me later.

“What’re you guys doing?” Justin asked, directing his question mostly at me while sliding curious glances at Syd.

“Uh … just … eating,” I said.

Justin contorted his face. “Wait a sec,” he said. “She’s not the girl who you—”

“Dude!” Robby cried. “I almost forgot! We gotta get tickets for the Executives show next weekend. Right? You’re going, right?”

“Um … the who?” I said while avoiding Sydney’s smirk. Robby’s derailment of Justin was not among the most subtle.

“Never mind, we’ll fix it up later,” Robby said. “You two kiddies have a good time.”

“Yeah, see ya,” Justin said, scowling at Robby and clearly having no idea what had just happened.

Their two girls didn’t say a word, their heads still tilted down to watch their phones. They were somehow able to navigate completely blind this way, like they had echolocation apps.

“Bye,” Sydney said, waving. Robby waved back for all of them, and then they were lost in the mall shuffle.

“The Executives are a band,” Sydney told me as she turned back to her food. “You’re going to the show?”

“I guess so,” I said. The name sounded familiar, like they were a band Robby had mentioned before, but I didn’t know anything about them.

Sydney shrugged and twirled lo mein on her black plastic fork. “Well, that would be cool,” she said.

She didn’t bring up Becky. And I was glad. No—relieved.

After eating, we went outside to wait for her dad to pick her up. A low concrete wall divided the sidewalk from the
mall landscaping, and Sydney sat down on it, throwing one leg over the side like she was getting on a horse.

I couldn’t explain it then, and I don’t think I can now, but something about that simple move made me see Syd a little differently than I had the day before in English. It wasn’t a feminine thing to do, really, but she did it with a sort of grace. Or maybe it was ease; somehow, that gesture told the world she was completely at home with herself.