“Basically?”
“He knocked me down, and I was lying there, flat on my back, with him above me, so I swung at him with my American history textbook. I got expelled for the second time because I brought a knife to school—”
“Like, a butcher knife?”
“A little Swiss Army knife. This bigger kid said he was going to kill me, and I was a twelve-year-old moron, and I believed him. Expulsion number three . . .” Rob looked up. His face began to curve into a smile. “This was in Denver. I was fourteen. I stole a teacher’s phone—she was really mean, so I still don’t feel bad about this—and I sent a text to everyone on her contacts list.”
“What did it say?”
“It was something like, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve had intense physical feelings for you for a long time now. Please come over tonight so we can talk . . . or not talk. Your choice.’”
“Oh my god!”
Rob’s smile grew broader. “I heard about six of them showed up. Including a relative.”
I hooted with laughter.
“Expulsion number four wasn’t even really an expulsion,” Rob went on. “My parents took me out of the school before anything could officially happen.”
“What did you do that time?”
Rob hesitated. “This was in San Francisco, a couple of years ago,” he said, instead of answering the question. “I’d started hanging out with this group of guys who thought they were punks. They were into skateboarding. And tattoos. And vandalism. And drugs. And petty theft.”
“I know how well things went with you and skateboards . . .”
“Yeah, well, the other stuff went even better.” Looking almost sheepish, Rob set his forearm on the table. His hand stretched toward me, palm up.
For a second, I wondered if he was reaching for me. If I was meant to put my own hand in his. I remembered the texture of his skin, the rough-smooth of his palm, the long fingers raising my wrist to his lips—
Stop it.
Before I could make a total fool of myself, Rob shoved his sleeve up to his elbow. A skull cut in blurry blue ink grinned from the middle of his forearm.
“Alas, poor Yorick,” Hamlet’s voice whispered from somewhere close by. “I knew him, Horatio . . .”
I put both hands over my ears. Then I remembered where I was and who I was with, and pretended to be rearranging my hair. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, well, at least it’s not a nipple ring.” Rob pushed his sleeve back down. “Some of the other guys decided to tattoo and pierce themselves.”
I glanced over both shoulders. No Hamlet. I turned back to Rob, sitting up straighter. “Is that what you told your parents?”
He gave a dry smile. “Actually, they barely cared about the tattoo. They were a lot angrier about the whole breaking into the principal’s office, spray-painting his walls, and stealing a bunch of stuff part.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They pulled me out of school, had me do a ton of community service and take online classes . . .” His words slowed. “And then Dad found out he was transferring to Seattle. And Mom decided not to come with us.”
“So—what? She just stayed in San Francisco?”
Rob nodded. “She said she didn’t know how to deal with me anymore, and she thought my dad should take a more active role in my life, so . . . That was two years and three moves ago.” He met my eyes again. “I basically ended my parents’ marriage.” He gave another very small, very dry smile. “That’s worse than getting expelled for a fourth time, right?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t just about you,” I said quietly. “I mean . . . there must have been stuff going on that you didn’t even know about.”
He tipped his head to one side. “I don’t know. They always try not to blame the kids, but . . . sometimes it’s the kids.”
A little cyclone started to spin in my stomach. I could see Dad running up the sidewalk, away from home, away from us, his gray T-shirt fading out in the half-light. “Maybe,” I said.
Rob pushed back his chair. “So. Now you know my whole history. Including some things I don’t usually talk about with anyone either.” He stood up and took my empty mug. “Another French roast?”
“Sure.” I started to smile back at him. “Wait. Am I keeping you here too long? What about the other classes you’ll miss?”
He shrugged, picking up his own mug. “I’d rather keep talking with you.”
For a second, I thought he was going to say something else. But then he straightened up again, putting a friendly distance between us, and headed toward the counter.
I turned to watch him place our order. From a distance, he was striking. The lines of his profile were so interestingly carved. An arc here. A point there. Different from every angle. The tangled black hair that swept across one eyebrow made my heart beat faster.
The girl at the register twitched her shoulders in a flirtatious way. But Rob looked past her, straight at me. One side of his mouth began to curve upward. I looked down at the table, feeling something in my heart swell and fracture into a thousand tiny sparkling things.
When he set my refilled mug down in front of me, I asked, “Would you rather be really, really good at one thing, or pretty good at everything you try?”
“One thing,” said Rob, falling back into his seat. “Wait. Would I be terrible at everything else?”
I laughed. “Not terrible. Bad at some stuff, okay at other stuff.”
“Yeah.” Rob nodded. “One thing. Definitely. You?”
“One thing. Also definitely.” I took a sip of the fresh coffee. “What’s the one thing you’d want to be great at?”
Rob squinted into the distance for a second. “When I figure that out, I guess I’ll know what to do with my life. What about you?”
“Oh.” I shrugged, looking down. “You already know.” I pressed my hands around the mug’s warm sides. “I think I’m not doing a very good job at it right now, though. Rehearsals, everything . . . I just feel like I’m disappointing everyone. I’m disappointing myself. Because I know I can do better, but I just can’t—I can’t hold on to anything long enough to change it. You know? And then there are those people . . .” Pierce. “. . . those people who can do something for the first time and be perfectly good at it. Then they do something else, and they’re good at that too. They never even have to try.”
“What’s the value in that?”
I met Rob’s eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I just think anything that comes really easily doesn’t have much power.”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I like the work. I like trying. I like getting better. I even kind of like screwing up, because that means I have to figure out how to fix it. It makes it something alive, you know? Not just—something that can’t change. That’s stuck forever in its perfectly-good-ness.”
Rob was smiling at me, his head tilted to one side.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He straightened up. “I was just thinking that you’re really good at more than one thing.”
“Well, I am pretty good at drinking coffee.” I picked up the mug and took another sip. “See? Not spilling. Not burning myself.” Rob clapped, and I took a little bow. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, smiling again. “How are you with chopsticks?”
We took our time finishing our second cups of coffee. Then Rob drove us to a tiny white storefront where we ate spicy noodles from paper boxes. We spent the hour after that wandering through a giant secondhand shop, looking at creepy old toys and racks of battered, dust-scented books.
By the time either of us thought about rehearsal, we were already ten minutes late.
CHAPTER 16
The auditorium was in chaos.
The crew had been t
rying to work the scene change from Act Four to Act Five, and a set piece that should have drifted down from the flies and settled lightly into place at the back of the stage had instead plunked down on something else and crushed it. Everyone in the cast and crew was either standing around complaining or running around complaining about the ones who were standing around, and some miscommunication with the music department meant that a grand piano was still positioned center stage and eight people were trying to move it.
Because of all of this, there wasn’t a single person left over to notice Rob and me creeping in through the backstage door.
“I think we’re safe,” I whispered as we slunk through the wings. “The truancy gods have smiled on us.”
Rob grinned. “Thanks for coming out with me.”
“Thank you. It was my suggestion. And you drove. You even paid for the coffee.”
He shrugged, grin widening. “You can pay next time.”
Then he turned away, heading into the crowd surrounding the broken set.
I almost followed him. Just to get one more look. Just to make sure he was still real. But someone grabbed my arm.
“Hey, you’re here!” Ayesha squinted down into my face. “Somebody told me you were out sick today.”
“Me?” I put on my innocent/mildly surprised expression. “No. One hundred percent healthy.”
“We’re starting Act Five in three minutes. If we can get that freaking piano out of here, anyway. What?” she snapped into her headset. “No, there will be a music cue there.” She whirled away, still speaking into the microphone. “No. Not until after.”
I edged around the cyclorama. On the far side of the stage, Pierce was surrounded by a knot of fairies flitting their new tulle-and-wire wings. I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen me, or I would have thought he was ignoring me deliberately. His smile seemed too wide. His laugh was too loud. I dove back out of sight into the wings.
Focus, I told myself, pressing my temples with my fingertips. You got lucky that no one noticed you. Now you need to make them think there was nothing to notice in the first place.
Act Five. Oberon says, “And this ditty, after me, sing and dance it trippingly.” And you say, “Speak the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue—”
No. That’s Hamlet.
I pressed harder. A double pulse beat between my temples and my fingertips.
There was a cheer as someone finally got the piano’s wheel locks unlatched. With several crew members barnacled around it, the grand piano creaked off into the wings. I backed out of the way, half listening, while Mr. Hall shouted directions and Ayesha marshalled everyone into place.
Theseus and Hippolyta began Act Five’s opening scene. The lights formed pools of red and gold around their feet.
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends . . .”
Speak the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue.
Speak the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue.
The words looped in my brain. I tried to push them back, to catch the words that belonged there. I’d been feeling fine. Better than fine. Better than happy. Now something I’d been ignoring for the last several hours crept up on me in a tide of panic.
Speak the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue.
Speak the speech, I pray you—
Speak—
“Hold, please!” shouted Mr. Hall.
Devon, as Theseus, stopped mid-line.
Mr. Hall’s voice echoed through the auditorium. “Are Rob Mason and Jaye Stuart here?”
I froze.
The cast went silent, waiting.
Across the stage, I could see Rob’s tall, dark shape separating from the shadows. I inched out of the wings.
Mr. Hall and Vice Principal Carter stood side by side at the lip of the stage. Mr. Hall’s face was rigid.
“Would you two come with me?” said Mr. Carter in his quiet voice.
There were rumors that Mr. Carter had once been a Green Beret, or some other kind of military assassin. He never raised his voice. He didn’t have to.
My head began to swim. I teetered across the boards and down the steps. Rob stepped down from the stage’s other side.
Behind us, the whispering began.
We followed Mr. Carter’s broad back up the central aisle. I could feel Rob’s presence behind me, but I knew I shouldn’t turn around. Not as long as anyone—or everyone—was watching. The more distance between us, the better. I moved closer to Mr. Carter instead.
In the fluorescent brightness of the hall, the vice principal turned to face us. His perfectly bald head gleamed like marble. He seemed to loom over both of us, even though I noticed he and Rob were almost the same height. I could practically feel myself shrinking.
“The two of you left school grounds without permission after first hour,” Mr. Carter began in his low, calm voice. “You skipped your remaining classes, and returned to the building just after the final bell this afternoon. Is that correct?”
I looked down at the toes of his polished brown shoes. “Yes.”
“Yes,” said Rob, beside me.
“Mr. Mason, you’ve come to us with a long record of infractions, suspensions, and expulsions. I assume that’s a pattern you don’t want to continue here, especially when doing so could jeopardize your chances of graduating. Is that also correct?”
“Yes,” said Rob. “It is.”
“Were the two of you aware that an unexcused absence during the school day precludes you from participating in any extracurricular activities for the remainder of that day?”
I sucked in a breath.
“I wasn’t,” said Rob. “I guess I should have read the student handbook more thoroughly.”
There was a short, scary pause. Then Mr. Carter said, “That would be a good place to start. For now, you will leave school grounds immediately. Before the first bell tomorrow morning, report to the main office to receive your detention assignment. A notification regarding your unexcused absence will also be sent to your home. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Good night, Mr. Mason.”
I felt Rob hesitate next to me. Mr. Carter’s eyes were fixed on him, waiting. Finally Rob turned away. His footsteps dwindled around the corner and faded out.
“Miss Stuart.” Mr. Carter’s voice snapped my eyes upward. “We’re all aware of your situation. But as you’re not a new student here, I assume that you’re familiar with school rules and policies.”
“I am,” I said to the pin on Mr. Carter’s navy silk tie. “I just . . . forgot.”
“I hope you haven’t ‘forgotten’ our expectations for our students. Do you need a reminder of those? Maybe a conference with your mother and the school psychologist?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I know what I did wrong.”
“Did your injury have anything to do with your decision to leave school without permission?”
“No,” I said again. “Not like . . . No. I knew what I was doing. I just made the wrong choice.”
“Yes, you did. And I hate to see that happen.” Mr. Carter’s voice got even softer. “Your father had high expectations for you.”
My skin began to burn.
“All of us here at Wilson do,” Mr. Carter went on. “And because I believe what you say, that this was a bad choice made due to your situation, or to the influence of another student, I am going to waive the usual consequences.” He lowered his chin and stared into my eyes. “In this single instance. You may participate in today’s rehearsal. But I don’t want to see this kind of poor judgment from you again. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Mr. Carter nodded toward the auditorium doors. My face searing, I turned and staggered back inside, into the dimne
ss.
Rehearsal had resumed. Everyone was in the middle of Act Five, the play-within-a-play for Theseus’s court. Nobody broke the fourth wall to look back at me.
I crept down the aisle and through the stage door, up the steps where Rob had offered me the package of M&M’S, winding my way into the wings. The ache in my skull was a frozen explosion. The scene onstage was ending, but I couldn’t hear it. I could only hear Hamlet’s voice reciting, Speak the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue, louder and louder, over the rhythm of my own hammering pulse.
Pierce waited for me at our entrance. He didn’t glance up as I crept closer. When our cue came, he raised his arm. I placed my palm on the back of his hand, and we strode together into the stage lights.
Somehow, I managed to spit out my only line in the scene—“First rehearse your song by rote, to each word a warbling note . . .”—without scrambling any Hamlet into it. But my voice sounded thin and distant, as if it were coming from the other end of a long, chilly hallway.
And then it was over. We exited, my hand still hovering on top of Pierce’s warm skin. The instant we were offstage, Pierce dropped his arm. He walked away without a word.
I stood where he left me, my legs shaking.
What an idiot. What a wretched, puling fool.
I’d screwed it all up. I’d done the opposite of what I should have done, the opposite of what everyone had asked me to do, the opposite of what I’d promised my mother. The opposite of what my father would have wanted.
And now something even worse was coming. I could feel it thrumming closer, vibrating with each thump of my heart. I stood there, trembling, while Nikki recited the play’s final words.
If we shadows have offended,