Don't Touch (8 page)

I should make it a rule that accidental touching doesn't count, but my body's telling me it does. That it
might
, which is just as bad.

The girl in the mirror touches her face, presses the red places under her eyes, smoothes her brow and tries to wipe the tension from her skin.

I look crazy in the mirror. Ophelia has nothing on me.

As I'm rubbing the liquid soap into my cheeks for a second round, Mandy opens the bathroom door. Our eyes meet in the mirror and I hurry to wash the suds away. I feel her watching me, and sure enough, when I straighten to pull a couple of paper towels down to pat myself dry, she's still staring.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Your face is all red.”

“I just washed. Oscar smeared my makeup and I looked splotchy.”

Mandy nods, but I don't think she buys it. “I'm so sorry,” she says. “Oscar was totally out of line.”

“It's not your fault.”

“If you want, I can tell him to find someplace else to sit and he will. He's afraid of me.”

She smiles, and I smile back.

She says, “I think he's a little afraid of you, too.”

“I elbowed him pretty hard.”

“Well, yeah, but what you said to him . . . Oscar's used to being treated like he's famous. It turned his world upside-down that you called him out.”

“Good.”

“Caddie . . .”

Here it comes.

“Is something else wrong?”

No, of course not, nothing is wrong . . . besides the insane monster stress of trying to make a good first impression, of knowing my first acting class is still to come, my family is falling apart, and, oh right, I'm crazy.

“No, I'm good.”

Mandy waits a long time before asking again. I would brush it off, leave, but she's blocking the door, so I try to stay calm, wait her out. “You looked so upset,” she says. “I thought maybe something bad happened this morning, or, like, with your parents?”

Something bad might be happening right now because of me.

I shake my head. “The house isn't tense all the time now. It's great.”

Again, the skeptical nod.

“Look,” I say, “I'm stressed out. It's my first day here. I want these people to like me, and I completely freaked.” I let the tears come. “I have plenty to be upset about without thinking about my parents.”

This is true. It's also true that the only thing I could think about when Oscar ripped my glove was the two of them calling it quits, giving up, because I slipped.

It wasn't my fault.

I'll make sure that it won't be my fault if my family stays broken.

I turn back to the sink, wash my hands one more time.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Acting class meets in a giant room that's part classroom, part stage. An afternoon thunderstorm pounds at the windows, but heavy curtains muffle the sound. A couple of stage lamps cast a dim, honey glow on the floor. With the rain sounds and the dark, I feel swallowed. A number of students are sprawled on the floor like starfish. They hum.

I tiptoe around arms and legs to get to the risers of seats where I drop off my bag. Stepping down to the main floor, my ankle catches in one of my bag's straps. I grab at a chair, making it clatter, and barely stop myself from tumbling down on top of the nearest starfish, a tall Indian girl. She opens her eyes to check that she's safe, shoots me a quick glare, and then shuts them again fast.

I step across her, but just as I do, she draws her knees up—several starfish have their knees up and are rocking them side to side—and I jostle her. She keeps her eyes closed this time but stops humming. I tiptoe around the others to a clear spot at the back and sit down.

Peter walks in and drops his backpack on a pile by the door. Nobody else bothered creeping over all the bodies to get to the chairs, which we probably won't even use. I'm still sitting up when he sees me. He walks straight to me, timing his steps to clear the starfish knees with no problem. He smiles and stretches out flat on his back with his eyes closed.

His bare hand is inches away from my leg. Behind his glasses, his eyelids have that liquid sheen—there's the tiniest space where the upper lids meet the lower. They flutter open and he stares back at me.

I flop down on my side to talk as close to his ear as I dare. “Sorry. I didn't mean to stare. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing.”

Someone shushes me.

Peter doesn't speak, but he doesn't look away, either. He rolls up on his elbow and reaches one finger toward my shoulder like he's planning to give me a push.

And he does. Without touching me, Peter pushes the bubble of air surrounding me, so there's less space to breathe—I lie down fast. I stretch my left arm out like everybody else but keep my right hand with the torn glove safe against my chest. Peter lies down and hums with a sense of purpose meant to tell me to join in. I do, but it gives me the giggles. I keep the sound breathy, try not to laugh out loud.

I whisper, “Sorry,” but I can't stop giggling.

The shusher shushes again, and that makes Peter laugh too. He hisses it out, “Sh-sh-sh-sh,” but we're both shuddering, trying to stay silent when a click of heels and a rattle of keys make us freeze.

“Something funny?” It's Nadia.

The silence must satisfy her, because she keeps clicking into the room. I stay down but let my head fall to the side so I can see Nadia spilling the contents of a giant tapestry bag onto the teacher's desk. She sorts through the mess, pulls some books to the side, and stuffs the other things back in: a pair of bright yellow sneakers, a length of fabric like a sari, a coil of electrical cord, two cans of Diet Coke, handfuls of makeup and tampons.

“When you're ready, stand up. Roll onto your side; use as few muscles as possible. Let the movement be easy.”

All around me, bodies roll up, heads loll, knees drag. It's a room full of zombies. Some of them groan, “huh-hummmmmmmm.” I make myself a zombie, too, try to groan with the best of them.

Once we're all up, a tight circle forms. Peter stays next to me. It's my imagination, has to be, that the heat off his skin is warming me. Nadia approaches and a space opens up just for her.

People want to look at her the way I want to look at Peter. You feel it, the way they turn to face her without being asked. No one speaks.

Then she smiles. “I'm happy to see so many familiar faces.” Her eyes land on me. “And one new one. Thanks for playing along. I'll give you an outline of the warm-up we use to start class. It won't be so funny after you've done it a couple of times.”

My face goes hot, but Nadia doesn't seem mad, just . . . curious. It's like being watched by a tiger at the zoo.

My eyes meet Mandy's, and she widens hers in warning.
Keep it together, Caddie.

“Y'all know how I work,” Nadia says. “If you fall behind, this train doesn't stop. You'll notice this class has shrunk since last spring.” Tension seeps through the room as people turn their heads, counting, trying to place who is missing. “Some of you will be working on
Hamlet,
but that doesn't mean you can slide. When you're out in the world as working actors, you will be overcommitted. You will be tired. You will book your first national commercial and find out it shoots the same weekend you're under contract to a theater, and you will have to figure out how to work that out without pissing everybody off.”

The faces around me are apprehensive but hungry, too. This is what I've been wanting, a teacher who takes acting seriously, who understands that we don't just want to be in the school play, we want to spend our lives making theater.

“All right, impromptu assignment,” says Nadia. “Take a seat at the edge of the stage.”

We scramble to do as she says, sitting on the edge of the lowest platform with our feet on the floor. I sit in the middle so as not to be first on either end, and I cover the hole in my glove; it's amazing how naked I feel with that one tiny circle of skin exposed.

“One by one, you will walk to center, turn, and face us. Stand in the space. Tell us your name and then exit. That's all.”

She steps through our line and up to a chair.

It sounds too simple.

Nadia waits for us to start the exercise on our own. When Oscar, a couple spots down from me, stands to go first, I want to elbow him all over again. If we go in order, I could be going third. He takes a flying leap into the playing space, does a spin, and bows. “My name is—”

Nadia cuts him off. “That's not what I asked for. Go back.”

“Points for creativity?”

“This exercise is not about creativity. Again,” Nadia says.

Oscar stands at the edge of the space, takes a deep breath in and out.

“Again, without the breath.”

“Are we doing this because you forgot our names over the summer?” he asks.

“Again, Oscar.”

He composes himself and walks back to the edge. He starts forward with his head down, a man on a mission.

Nadia stops him again. “Now you're
acting
like a person who's walking to the center of a stage.”

“What? That's what I am. That's what I'm supposed to be.”

“No. Somebody tell Oscar what he's supposed to be.”

Mandy raises her hand, tilts her head back to see Nadia nod. “A person walking to the center of a stage.”

“That's what I just did,” Oscar says.

Mandy goes on. “Not a person
acting
like a person walking to the center of a stage.”

“Thank you, Mandy.”

Livia makes a crowing sound then says, “Sorry. Impulse.”

“No, that's good,” Nadia says.

“I've been living on impulse all summer,” Livia says.

Drew makes an audible sigh, and Nadia clears her throat.

“What? That was
my
impulse!” says Drew.

For that, she makes him go next, but eventually, Nadia calls on me.

She notices right away that my left hand's pressed over my right. “Drop your arms,” she says. “Go back.”

I do it, but I'm still too stiff.

“You're clenching your fists. Can you feel that tension?” Nadia asks. “You look like you think somebody's going to hit you.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. Stop making a fist.”

I walk to the center of the stage with my arms hanging down and my hands open wide, my face blank. I say, “I am Caddie Finn,” and Nadia says, “No, you're not.”

Maddening.

She turns to a small red-haired girl and says, “Go hit her.”

The class laughs, but the girl leaps up.

“Can I try it by myself one more time?”

Nadia shakes her head. “Try it my way.”

Peter's eyes burn me, watching to see if I'll fail.

Mandy watches too. She looks nervous for me, which is nice in one way and not in another because clearly she thinks there's a reason for nerves.

The red-haired girl might touch my neck or my face.

“Don't make it hard. Just bop her one.” The girl smiles, asks permission with her eyes; then she swings her arm sideways into my shoulder, making me wobble. I shake out my hands, trying to release tension.

“See, that wasn't so bad,” Nadia says. “Tension is self-protection. It's fear. Ask yourself what's the worst thing that can happen?”

Getting bopped by a classmate is hardly the worst thing I can think of, but I don't dare say that to Nadia.

At the end of class, she leaves us with this: “We all did some acting today. Most of you are still acting right now. Acting like you weren't disappointed if you failed the exercise. Acting like you agree with me, nodding your heads extra hard so I'll see.”

She nods her head in an exaggerated way, zeroing in on Hank, who laughs at himself.

“You're acting like students who care what their teacher is saying. So you're making yourselves sit up straight.”

Several bodies instantly slouch.

“Or you're slouching to show that you wouldn't be caught dead acting.”

The room goes still.

“Anybody can act in that sense of the word. We do it all day, every day. We
need
to do it. But to act in a play, you have to learn to strip those defenses down. It's scary to be your simple, lonely self onstage, but it is required of you.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

With my first day at the academy over, all the tiny supports that have been keeping my stress at bay crack and give, and the weight of the day crashes in. I let Mandy and the others surge ahead as we enter the stream of students flooding the hall. It's like pushing my way down a river, current dragging at my knees, feet slipping on algae and silt.

A tug on the strap of my backpack nearly sinks me. It's Peter, and my heart beats at my ribs.

“Why so sad, clown?” he says.

“What?”

“You look so sad. Look up. You're missing out. There's nothing on the floor.”

“Dust,” I say as I back away, pulling my hair forward to cover the skin near the strap, skin that he almost touched.

He smiles. “Dust's okay, but people are much more interesting.”

He's trying to be friendly, but it makes me feel lame, like he's making a thing of my weirdness.

Peter stands between me and the after-school rush and holds out a hand like he means to pull me back into the stream. Even with gloves, that hand is a dare I can't take.

Don't touch, don't touch.

All my muscles are tight, and I feel a headache threatening.

Tension is self-protection, Nadia said. Necessary.