Love Somebody, page 2
I return the hug. “It could have been better.”
“Oh, hush. I was emotional the whole way through. Everything was perfect.”
As a grandmother, Nana is contractually obligated to say that, but it feels good to hear. “Thanks, Nana.”
“Where’d Christian get to? I wanted to congratulate him as well.”
“He’s already heading out.”
“Too bad. You tell him for me, then.” She gives me another quick hug. “Good job again, baby. You want me to pick up ice cream on the way home as a treat?”
Ice cream after shows is a tradition between Nana and me, spanning all the way back to elementary school, when I played Dorothy in my school’s version of The Wizard of Oz. I’m still disappointed with the line screwup at the end, but Moose Tracks would definitely help with that.
“You know it,” I say.
“I’ll see you at home, then. Drive safe.”
She heads to the door, and I walk back onstage to pick up the props and costume pieces I scrounged together for the show. While I do, a few people from school stop to congratulate me as well. They seemed to like it—they came to see the show in the first place, which speaks to either my reputation or just how much they want me to like them. I’ll take either, at this point.
All things considered, this wasn’t actually a disaster. One dropped line doesn’t ruin a show, and I can guarantee that the work I put in was the best it could possibly be. But there’s always that nagging voice in the back of my head that tells me things could always be better. I could have tried harder, done a little more. Maybe then I’d be satisfied.
Or maybe not. I’ve tried my best for years, and my inner critic has never once been happy with me.
I shake my head, stuffing the props and clothing into a duffel bag. The coffee shop is going to close soon, and I need to get out of here before that happens. I throw the bag over my shoulder, hard enough that it knocks a bit of the air out of me. I’m clearly getting too in my feelings right now. I need ice cream and then sleep.
At the very least, I can satisfy myself with the fact that other people liked the show. If I can’t be happy with myself, maybe other people can.
3
ROS
Dad’s sitting on the couch when I get back, watching some TV show I can’t put a name to. Books and piles of scribbled-on papers are scattered across the coffee table and the empty seats on the couch. He turns toward me and smiles as I enter. “Hiya, kiddo. How was the play?”
“Ugh.”
“That bad?”
I toss my bag down near the coatrack. “What do you expect? A high schooler wrote it.”
“I’m not sure that’s very fair. Plenty of young people have done amazing things. Not to mention, you’re a high schooler.”
There’s a dish of now-cold lasagna on the kitchen island. I cut myself a square and plop it onto a plate, not bothering to throw it into the microwave. “Not at Northeastern, they haven’t.”
Dad laughs and shakes his head. “Well then, at least you’ve got something to write about.”
He moves aside a few stacks of paper so I can join him on the couch. Dad’s a relatively skinny guy, and aside from a few wrinkles coming in around his eyes, he doesn’t look much older than the college students he teaches. I’ve been told he was a total catch when he was younger. I’ve also been told I don’t look anything like him, which, duh. It’s hard to see a family resemblance when we share absolutely no genetic material.
“How was school?” he asks.
My mouth is full of cold lasagna, so I take a second to answer. “Fine. Mr. Travers gave us a three-page paper to write over the weekend.”
“On?”
“Heart of Darkness.”
“Ah, that … gem.” He has a hard time hiding his distaste. “Are they really still teaching that?”
“Don’t look at me, Dad. Take it up with the school board.”
“Fine, fine. But if you need help, I’m afraid I’ve completely blocked most of that book from my memory, so I won’t be much use.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ve already read it.”
The two of us fall into a comfortable silence for a few minutes. The TV keeps playing some popular reality show garbage, the kind Dad likes to turn on while he’s grading papers to have something in the background. Looking around, I can see he’s mostly given up on the grading for the night, and now he’s just watching the show. A few of the books on the coffee table are his own—textbooks about the Ottoman Empire, Genghis Khan, the rise and fall of the Romanovs, all with his name printed on the spine: Hector Shew.
Having a college professor for a dad hasn’t really helped me out with school so far. High schools mostly focus on more “popular” subjects, like American history or the ancient Greeks. Anything that’s not Dad’s particular focus, he tends to forget about completely: He couldn’t tell you when the Stamp Act was passed, but he could list all eleven of Süleyman the Magnificent’s children. It makes him really fun at parties.
“The big birthday double feature is coming up in a few months,” he says after a while. “Any ideas what we should do?”
“Besides the usual?”
My dad and his late husband—my biological dad, Charles—have birthdays only two days apart. It’s become a tradition between the two of us to celebrate both on the same day. Usually, that means cooking a big dinner together and then watching Dad’s favorite movie.
I shrug. “I’m fine with the same old thing if you are. April Thanksgiving again?”
Dad smiles. “Sounds good to me. Turkey, pie, and Cinema Paradiso it is.”
I’ve seen Cinema Paradiso enough times by now not to roll my eyes whenever Dad mentions it. It’s an old Italian movie from the eighties about a boy who befriends a cinema projectionist. It’s sentimental garbage, but Dad loves it, so I indulge him at least once a year.
Speaking of sentimental garbage.
I wolf down the last of my dinner and then stand to take my plate to the sink. “I should get started on my review. Want to get some of my thoughts down before I fully regret the last hour of my life.”
Dad laughs again. “Have fun, kiddo. Do you have support group tomorrow?”
“Yeah, same time as usual.”
“All right, then. Good night.”
“Night, Dad.”
I leave him to his papers and his reality show and head upstairs. My room has started to collect some serious clutter over the course of the school week.
That’ll probably be one of my jobs tomorrow: clean my room before I have to go to the support group for surrogacy kids—people carried by someone who wasn’t their biological parent. There aren’t many of us, at least not in the Worcester area, but I’ve been going since I was a kid. At this point, it’s more a habit than anything else. That, and I guess it’s good to know I’m not the only one.
Pulling my hair back in a scrunchie to get it out of my face, I sit down in front of my laptop and boot it up. It’s an older model, so it takes a good few minutes to actually get going. That’s okay, though, because it gives me time to pull out my notebook and sort through my thoughts about the performance. I give another quick glance over the program tucked into my notebook: So Long, Toledo! A one-act play by Sam Dickson. The title makes it sound like it should be a classic musical, like Carousel or something, but the final result was definitely less entertaining than that. And less well written, too. God, that ending line …
With the computer finally up and running, I open a Word document and start writing a basic introduction for the piece:
This Friday, January 4, at seven PM, Flannery’s Coffee Shop was the site of a student-produced and -run one-act play titled So Long, Toledo! About fifty people were in attendance, including yours truly. The play claimed to be an autobiographical work of one Sam Dickson, fellow student at Northeastern High School.
I have to snort at that one. Autobiographical. I’d say that’s about as real as the show on TV downstairs: everything working out just a little too well to be a coincidence, always tied up in a neat bow by the end of a thirty- or sixty-minute block. I did some background research on Sam before going to the show tonight, and it turns out her mom is a fairly successful actress living in LA. That checks out, I guess—it’s hard to remember what real life is like when you’re surrounded by actors. Based on the performance of Sam herself, I’d say she’s not far behind her mom. Talented, definitely, and pretty driven to be able to put together a whole show by herself. The play might have actually been good if it hadn’t done its best to be so completely predictable.
That’s the first thing I’ll mention, I decide. The predictability. I’ve never met a person whose life worked out in such convenient ways. Ask anyone, and I’m sure they’d tell you that things rarely ever go the way you expect them to. Charles Marlow in Heart of Darkness never planned on his trip down the Congo taking him where it did. I don’t think my dad expected to lose his Charles three years after starting a family with him. I certainly never anticipated I’d be sitting in my room on a Friday night, writing a review of a bad student play. Unless Sam Dickson is the luckiest person in the entire world, I highly doubt things happen for her the way she claims.
I’ve seen Sam around school a few times. She’s in the drama club, obviously, but she also runs track in the spring and served on the prom committee as a sophomore, before she was even allowed to go to the dance without an upperclassman as her date. I’ve never seen her without someone tagging along behind—either this week’s most eligible bachelor or some group of girls desperate to make a powerful friend. Always made up within an inch of her life, and always wearing something that looks ripped straight from a fashion magazine. She never gets dress-coded, either, which is just another testament to how charismatic she can be.
A girl like that always knows the right thing to say to get people on her side. She knows what makes people tick, how to make them feel however she wants them to feel. Some would call that magnetism, but personally, I think it leans more toward manipulation than anything else. If I’m going to talk to someone, I want to know I’m talking to the real them, not the person they put on because they think it’ll make people like them more.
Still, there’s a power to being that socially savvy. It’s how she’s gotten as popular as she has. Networking’s a good skill in any business. Maybe I could learn something from someone like her.
I shake my head, blinking hard so that the computer screen comes back into focus. I’m not writing an article on Sam. I’m writing a review of her terrible play. I roll my shoulders, getting ready to rip her saccharine little story to pieces. Maybe my opinion will be unpopular. But I’ve never once apologized for speaking my mind, and I don’t plan to start now. She may have the rest of Northeastern wrapped around her little finger, but she won’t get to me.
4
CHRISTIAN
Mom makes it back to the house before I do, and her car is already in the driveway by the time I pull up. Dad’s black BMW is there, too, sleek and shiny under the streetlight, exactly where it’s been since around five PM today. Dad didn’t go to the show, but I knew he wouldn’t. Theater isn’t his thing. Not that I blame him: Theater isn’t really my thing, either.
As soon as I get through the front door, I’m attacked by two blurs of motion. One wraps itself around my torso, squealing, and the other jumps up to lick my face. I have to stumble back against the door to keep from falling over.
“Yankee, down!” I shout at eighty pounds of golden retriever, and then softer, “Hi, Aimee.”
My kid sister grins up at me. She lost another tooth a few days ago, so the usual smile is a little lopsided. “Hi, Chris.”
Yankee wags his tail at me until I give him some well-earned attention, and after a minute or so, Mom shows up to observe the chaos.
“There’s the star of the show,” she says with a grin. “Good job, hon.”
I shrug, a little embarrassed. I could mention the line I messed up, but she probably didn’t notice and I don’t really feel like talking about it. “It was all Sam, Mom, I swear. She just needed somebody on the stage to talk at.”
I hear Dad’s voice from the living room. “And how’s that different from any other day of the week?”
I kick off my shoes and fight past the welcoming party to get to the rest of the house. Dad is in the living room, with his feet up on the coffee table as he watches TV. He’s out of his work clothes and wearing jeans and an old sweatshirt I recognize from when I was a little kid.
He nods at me. “How did you do?”
I shrug. “All right, I guess.”
“He was fantastic,” Mom pipes up from across the room, near the entrance to the kitchen. “Don’t let him lie to you.”
“Of course he was. He wouldn’t be Christian if he was anything less than excellent.” A grin from Dad, but he’s clearly distracted as he keeps one eye on the TV. “Does Sam have plans to drag you into anything else, or are you allowed to focus on your other activities for a while?”
Dad never really liked Sam. He always thought she was too overbearing, too “much” for every room she was in. If I ever talked about her around him, he’d make a whip-cracking sound effect and laugh at his own joke like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. I see where he’s coming from: Sam definitely isn’t for everyone. He still thinks it’s weird that we’re friends now, but for the most part he tolerates it.
“She asked me to be in the play because it would look good on my college applications,” I remind him.
He snorts. “Babson doesn’t care about school plays. You’ll be fine.”
Babson University is Dad’s alma mater. He insists that outside of Harvard, it produces some of the best students on the East Coast. He’s dead set on my going there, too.
“But it never hurts to diversify,” Mom says, rounding the corner from the kitchen. She frowns at Dad. “Bill, hon, get your feet off the coffee table.”
“Why? I’ve been at work all day; haven’t I earned it?”
I shake my head at both of them. “I’m going to start on some homework and then go to bed,” I say. “Coach is hosting some workouts early tomorrow morning, and I said I’d go.”
“No dinner?” Mom says with concern. “I saved some for you.”
“I ate on the way back. Thanks, though.”
She frowns. “Tell me that next time.”
Dad waves a hand at me. “Go on and get to your homework. Don’t forget to ask Coach tomorrow about those recommendation letters for the Babson scholarships. And you should look into some independent ones as well.”
“I will, Dad. G’night.”
Great. More homework. Both of my parents can be pretty demanding when they want to be. They have good reason, though. My older brother, Will, used to fight with them a lot, back when he still lived with us. That was four years ago, though, and none of us has heard from him since. I think they’re trying to make sure I don’t end up like him. Whatever that means.
Mom hugs me good night, and then Yankee follows me up the stairs. On the second-floor landing, Aimee stands with her hands on her hips. I stop a few steps down, mimicking her pose. “What’s that face for?”
She pouts. “I wanted to go to your show, but Mom and Dad said I couldn’t.”
“You would’ve hated it, Mee-mee. There was no singing or dancing, just a bunch of talking.”
“Still! I wanted to see you be a big star!” She leans forward and cups her hands around her mouth, whispering. “Did you and Sam have to kiss?”
I roll my eyes. Aimee’s only seven, and unlike my dad, she loves Sam. She swears that Sam’s the coolest girl she’s ever met, and she might not be wrong. “No, we didn’t. Can you move now?”
She pouts again but steps aside and lets me climb the rest of the stairs. “I still think you should ask her to be your girlfriend again!” she shouts after me, and I ignore her until the door to my room is closed behind me. Yankee managed to sneak in along with me, and he immediately plops his big golden retriever body onto my bed, taking up the space I was about to sit down on.
I head to my desk instead, where my backpack is already sitting from earlier in the day. I wasn’t lying—I do have homework due Monday, and I probably should get started on it sooner rather than later—but that isn’t the main reason I wanted to get upstairs. My head isn’t in the right place for trig assignments right now, anyway. What I’d rather think about is the girl at Flannery’s. Who was she? I know she looked familiar, definitely someone from school, but I can’t quite figure out who. One of the band or theater kids, maybe? She seemed like the artsy type. If she is a theater kid, maybe Sam knows her. I almost pull out my phone to text her, but then I remember she might still be mad at me for screwing up my line. Probably not the best idea to talk to her right now.
Something in the pocket of my jeans is digging into my leg. I reach in and fish out my lucky piece. Most of the time, I forget it’s there, because I always have it in my pocket. It’s small, white, and perfectly round—a relic from an old game of Go—and weighs practically nothing, so it’s kind of a miracle that I haven’t lost it or thrown it in with my laundry any time over the last four years or so. Maybe that’s what makes it lucky. That, or I’m really sentimental. Either way, I keep it with me at all times, especially when I feel like I need extra help: soccer games, big tests, you name it. I made sure I had it with me tonight, since I was already so far out of my depth with the whole acting thing. I turn the little token over and over in my hand. Technically speaking, I did still kind of screw up the play, even though I had this with me. But maybe that’s not what the luck was for. Maybe the lucky part was getting to see her.
My face flushes. Jesus. I haven’t felt like this since Sam and I first started dating, nearly a year ago now, all nervous and awkward and sweaty. I feel like a socially anxious twelve-year-old trying to ask a girl to a middle school dance. What was it about her? The lights were dim in Flannery’s. And the ones that were on were shining right in my face, so it’s not like I got a very good look at her. I remember long brown hair, a thick black sweater, big eyes. Other than that, she’s mostly a blur. I didn’t see her leave after the play, either, so if I don’t find out any more, I might never see her again. Just the thought makes my stomach sink a little.
