Understudy (13 page)

When it’s my turn to talk, I fumble over my words. Ricky sighs and folds his arms across his chest. This is the fourth time we’ve rehearsed this scene today, but it’s not the fourth time I’ve forgotten my lines.

I just pretend to.

“Sorry,” I say with a small smile as I take my script off the floor. “You know what, I should probably read over these lines by myself and everyone else can keep rehearsing.”

Ricky runs a hand through his hair. “It’s just a kiss, Wren.”

“Yeah, Wren,” a voice says from the back of the auditorium. “It’s just a kiss. What’s the big deal?” I look up to see Derek striding into the room, the door closing slowly behind him.

My cheeks burn and my chest explodes in a bundle of nerves. Why is he here? Why is he strolling into rehearsal fifteen minutes late, acting like everything is normal and like he never got arrested and we never had that fight? How can he just wear that smirk like he invented it?

I let out the breath I’d been holding. Why should I care what he thinks? He’s the one who lied to me about having a girlfriend. He’s the one who kissed me and made himself a cheater. I don’t have a boyfriend. I can kiss whomever I want.

I turn on my heel toward Ricky, dropping my script to the ground. “You gotta break the rules sometime,” I say, throwing what little acting ability I have into Mary’s line. I don’t have to act much to say my next line, especially when Derek is listening. “Tell me if that girlfriend of yours is really worth it.”

My hands slide up Ricky’s chest and grab his collar. I take a step forward and lean in, bringing his body close to mine. His breath smells like cheap cafeteria cheeseburger. I part my lips and press them to his. The real acting here is in what everyone doesn’t see: the fact that I’m kissing Ricky with fake passion and not puking up my lunch like I want to do.

Ricky kisses me back much like Derek did that day. His hands slide around my lower back and draw me closer, until my boobs squish against his chest. Every part of this makes me want to squirm, but Derek is watching so I hold it back. I kiss Ricky with all the intensity I can manage, trying not to thinking about how I’ve now kissed three guys in a row who will never be my boyfriend.

It’s not being slutty if you’re acting, right?

Someone whistles from the side of the stage, breaking my mental concentration on the fake kiss. I step away from Ricky, bending down to pick up my script to avoid the wave of awkwardness that bounces off him when our eyes meet. The whole cast is watching us now, some of the guys whistling and cat calling, but I only care about one person.

I glance toward the front of the stage. Derek is gone. Hopefully he saw enough of the kiss to get my point across. I’m not even sure what my point is, but I hope Derek got it anyhow.

My three pages of lines are over quicker than I want them to be, and before I know it my character of Mary has been rebuked by Jeremy’s character and sulks offstage, letting out a loud fake sob.

“You’ll have to cry better than that, you know,” Gwen says as I slip behind the side curtains off left stage. “Jeremy just shot her down, after all they’ve been through,” she continues, the sincerity in her face as genuine as if we are talking about actual people.

“Does it even matter?” I ask, shoving my script in my back pocket as I prepare to help Greg with the set construction. “Your character ends up with Jeremy in the end, so who cares what Mary thinks.”

Gwen rolls her eyes and flourishes her hand in the air. “And that is why you will never be an actress.”

I roll my eyes and move to the back of the side stage to survey the set equipment. The dining room furniture is too big, which I don’t want to think about right now. All the back drops have been painted and set on wheels, Jeremy’s room has been decorated thanks to all the guys in the cast pitching in random things from their own bedrooms, and the classroom set is fully furnished thanks to borrowing stuff from our school.

This leaves only about a million more things to do.

“What do you think, boss?” Greg asks, stepping over a pile of extension cords.

I shake my head. “We still have a lot to do.”

His hand presses against the small of my back. “We’ll get it. Stop worrying.”

I turn to him and smile. He can be a total asshole sometimes, but he’s still a decent guy. He hasn’t acted weird at all since that night he asked me to be his girlfriend. Part of me wonders if he just doesn’t remember it due to being drunk.

My stomach tightens as Derek walks up carrying three rolls of carpet over his shoulder. He leans them against the wall. “Floor Liquidators gave this to us for free in exchange for listing them in our play brochure.”

“Kick ass,” Greg says, running his hands over the first roll. “This is some quality shit. You rock man.”

I cross my hands over my chest and let out a deep breath of disappointment. “Yeah good job making decisions without consulting the director,” I snap. “What if I don’t want their advertisement in the brochure?”

Derek’s eyebrows draw together. “They’re a family owned business. They also have that scholarship you were talking about. I thought you’d be psyched.”

Anger rolls through my stomach. I told him that when I liked him. How dare he remember it now. Shouldn’t he be remembering things about his own girlfriend? I throw my hands in the air. “You know what? Who cares what the director thinks. Just do whatever the hell you want. Your community service hours are all you care about anyhow.”

Derek’s jaw tightens. Greg kneels and studies the pile of extension cords in the corner, as if that makes this any less awkward.

Gwen yells my name from onstage with a wardrobe crisis that she needs me to fix. For once, I’m grateful for her interference.

A few hours later, I wrap up rehearsal with some bullshit motivational speech and compliment everyone on their excellent acting. Now I know why teachers say stuff like this all the time. Just a few words of encouragement really boosts everyone’s spirit. No one needs to know that I truly don’t care if the play sucks. I just need it to be performed on opening night. I just need my recommendation letter so I can get the hell out of here and make something of my life.

Derek and I normally walk to our cars together after rehearsal. But since he got arrested three days ago, I started parking on the other side of the school. I knew that if and when he came back I would never walk with him again. He may be gorgeous and smart, but he’s bad news. And I won’t fall for liking him again.

I shove my cell phone in my back pocket after switching it from silent back to normal mode. Rehearsal went longer than usual today and I have to squint to block the setting sun as dusk falls over the parking lot.

A warm hand grabs my elbow. I stop as a sharp stab of fear shoots through me. The chances of someone hiding out in the back of a high school parking lot to kidnap me are slim.

That leaves only one other explanation.

“Wren…” Derek’s voice is soft. Unhinged.

I turn to face him, my jaw set. I will not allow his handsome face sway me. I’ve made my decision to ignore him. I will not change my mind. “What?”

He drops my elbow and scratches the back of his neck. “Why are you treating me like this?” The pain in his voice makes my heart skip a beat. “Seriously, Wren. Please talk to me.”

I walk toward my car, focusing on my shoelaces. “Why were you arrested?”

He sighs. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“So you were found innocent? And they let you go because you did nothing wrong?” My voice is all sarcasm but he nods anyway.

“Yes. Sort of.”

My lips press into a thin line and I hold on to my backpack straps like my life depends on it. “Well good. I’m sure your girlfriend will be happy to hear that.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend. I wish you would believe that.” He reaches for my arm again but I pull away.

“I wish I could believe that too,” I snap, dropping my backpack on the hood of my car. The moment our eyes meet, mine fill with tears. I am so glad I parked far away from everyone else. “I liked you, Derek. A lot.”

My words hang in the air. Silence overtakes the space between us and I clench my jaw tight to keep from crying. Derek shoves his hands in his pockets and gnaws on his bottom lip. “But you don’t anymore?”

I shake my head. “How could I? All you do is lie to me.”

He opens his mouth and then closes it, his eyes looking from my left eye to my right one. “What if all the bad you thought about me wasn’t true? What if I could prove it?”

Oh no. Cracks form in the walls of my tough, no nonsense façade. A tiny flicker of hope sparks in my chest. What if he
could
prove it? What if he could make it so that everything was okay again? I shake my head and pull open the car door, shoving my backpack in the passenger seat.

“It’s too late for that.” I put the key in the ignition and start the car. “You can live your life in an ocean of lies, but I prefer to keep mine honest.”

Derek’s hand grabs my door before I can close it, the other hand rests on the car roof. He leans in enough for me to smell his body spray. “Let me take you to dinner. I’ll explain. If you still want to hate me, then fine. But at least give me a chance to win you back.”

“Back?” I say with a laugh. “You never had me.” It feels good to say those words even if they are a total lie.

Derek smiles. He presses a hand to his chest. “You’re all I think about, Wren. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.”

My forehead drops to the steering wheel. I wasn’t going to let this happen. I was over Derek. I mean, I
am
over Derek. If I give him a chance he will just ruin it again with all his crazy little secrets. But he’s so cute. He’s smart and he works hard and he makes me laugh.

I inhale a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “Fine,” I say. “But you’re paying.”

Derek takes us to the Fisherman’s Warf, a two-point-five star restaurant right on the bay. Half the tables are outside on a dock that goes out over the water. The waitresses dress like street walkers but the food is delicious. I like how Derek didn’t ask if I was cool with it—he just took us here. Most guys ask where I want to go and when I say I don’t care, they say they don’t care and then we end up driving all over town being indecisive until the only place that’s still open is the drive thru at Jack-in-the-box.

Our hostess is hot and our waitress is even hotter, and I try not to sneak glances as we walk to our table and listen to the speech about which fish are on special tonight, because if my suspicions are true and Derek is checking her out then my ego will be flattened to the floor and I’ll feel miserable, fat and ugly for the rest of the night. So even though I keep my head down while Miss Boobs takes our orders, I still go ahead and imagine that Derek’s checking her out anyway, because that’s what guys do. They’re programmed at birth to stare at gorgeous women and boobs. Because after all, what guy doesn’t think that his mom is the best and boobs are awesome?

“A cheeseburger?” Derek lifts an eyebrow.

“Yeah, why, what did you order?”

“You were sitting right here, you didn’t hear me?”

“Guess not.” I stare out over the water, seeing a tiny little sail boat in the distance. I wonder what the man on that boat is thinking right now, being surrounded by nothing but water and the sparkling lights of Lawson on the shore. I wonder if he’s ever had nightmares that some kind of man-eating monster squid lives under the water and how it could jump up at any second and swallow him whole. I jump a little, when I realize that our table is just three feet and one rope fence away from the water.

“I wish things weren’t hella weird,” Derek says, stirring sugar into his tea. “I wish we could just go back to acting like we used to.” He pulls a beanie from his back pocket and tugs it over his head. He looks like a dufus, kind of. But it’s also really hot. I never knew I had a thing for long-haired ex-criminals.

Our waitress and her boobs bring us a basket of hot fluffy rolls that are glazed with a layer of butter on top. I grab one and tear off a piece and shove it in my mouth. I don’t groan in pleasure at how delicious it is, but I want to. Derek lifts his eyebrows like I’m supposed to say something, and then I realize I never answered his passive aggressive form of a question about going back to the way things were.

“I wish things would go back to normal, too.”

And at the outer edge of my subconscious, I know I’m being a grade A moron by thinking all of this, but I don’t even care because these are the things I think about and it hurts me deep down, rational or not.

I take another bite of my roll and it’s still delicious even though I’m a little bit upset. A lock of Derek’s bangs fall from his pony tail and he tucks it behind his ear. I realize in this moment that Derek is not like any other guy in Lawson High School.

Derek doesn’t make excuses for who he is or what he thinks. He dresses the way he wants to and he lets his hair get long and he pulls it back like a girl but he doesn’t care. He kissed me without warning on his squeaky futon and he didn’t apologize for it. He took me to Fisherman’s Warf without asking where I wanted to go, and now he’s calling me out on acting hella weird, despite the fact that when you call out a girl on her emotions, you’ve pretty much guaranteed that the rest of your night will be ruined.