In the Spotlight (5 page)

Third, I had to keep this a secret until Friday. That was four whole days in which I couldn’t share the biggest news of my life with anyone. Not my parents. Not my sisters. Not my best friends. This would be the longest four days of my entire life.

Chapter Five

When call backlists went up the next morning, I wasn’t surprised to see my name on a few lists. I was, however, surprised to see Claudia’s name up on three of the five female support character lists. Kaylee’s name only appeared on one. I was beginning to suspect that there was a lot more to Maggie’s band gossip than she even knew.

“Wow, great job.” I didn’t have to turn around to know who was talking to me. In all honesty, I didn’t even want to turn around.

All I could do was flinch at the sarcasm dripping from Kyle’s voice.

Taking a deep breath, I did turn around, though, and faced Kyle straight on. “Thanks,” I said, quietly, forcing a smile.

Kyle leaned an arm against the wall, casually trapping me between him and a glass window. In any other circumstances, this would have been cause for massive swooning and hyperventilation, but I could tell Kyle was mad, and something about an angry Kyle almost scared me.

“I know the truth,” he murmured close to my ear. “And you know what? I think it’s pretty crappy that she won’t tell anyone until Friday, but hey, I just wrote the script what do I know right?”

I kept my mouth shut, a million reactions warring inside of me. He sounded slightly menacing, but his words weren’t angry, and he smelled deliciously like cinnamon. Seriously, what guy smells like cinnamon on a Tuesday morning? And what girl wouldn’t have heart palpitations when she found one who did?

“Listen,” Kyle said, leaning back again and raising his voice to normal levels. “I’d love to give you some more private coaching if you’d like it. I want the best for this show.”

I nodded a mute agreement, again not quite sure how to respond. Kyle smiled at me and ambled down the hall before I could actually formulate a coherent thought. I was still standing by the call backlists when Josh happened to round the corner. Seeing me, he grinned.

“So I just chatted with Ms. Bard,” he said softly, conspiratorially. “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” I replied, absently, still staring after Kyle. “You too.”

On some level, I was aware that Josh was staring at me, probably waiting for me to say more, but my encounter with Kyle had left me sort of dizzy, and I mean, I didn’t really have that much to say to a guy like Josh Larson anyway.

Regardless, a second later, literally, I was saved by the bell.

Two bells really. The first being the homeroom bell, giving us our five minute warning. And the second being Belle Jacobs, the ditziest of all the cheerleaders in our school. The homeroom bell shook me from my reverie, just as Belle practically skipped up to Josh and grabbed his arm, her t-‐-shirt revealing just a bit too much of her assets for my taste. As she bounced around trying to get Josh to escort her to their homeroom, I had to work very hard to manage my gag reflex.

As I hurried away, Belle said, “Joshy, did you know that today is Tuesday?”

Um…yeah.

****

Somehow, I had the misfortune of being stuck in a seat in homeroom next to Claudia that morning. Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Edwards, didn’t believe in assigned seating, although the majority of the class sat in the same seats every day anyway, and she let us choose on a first come, first served basis.

Claudia tried to engage me in some sort of meaningful guesswork over who Ms. Bard would chose for Kelly as only three of us had auditioned. I kept deflecting her advances with pointed ignoring, but that only worked for a few seconds before she would try another approach.

Finally, she heaved a big sigh and said, “Kyle is so upset about the outcome of this so far.”

I gave her a wary sidelong glance, and said, “Why? What’s wrong with the musical so far?”

“He didn’t get Chad,” she whispered, leaning across the aisle, seemingly thrilled to finally have my attention. “Ms. Bard had to tell him last night because, you know, he wrote the play and all.

He called me afterward practically in tears he was so crushed. Do you know what else he told me?”

“No, what?” I whispered back. I couldn’t help it, I really did love juicy gossip, and somehow the juiciest gossip seemed to land in my lap. Besides, I was intrigued by the thought of a guy practically in tears over something he loved so much. And, if I was honest, I was insanely jealous that Kyle had chosen to confide in Claudia. That fact seriously made me wonder if they were an item and keeping things quiet until after musical auditions. How disgusting could this day get?

“He’s not even going to participate in call backs,” Claudia whispered with a horrified gasp. “Can you believe that?”

I shook my head in quiet disbelief. I felt so monumentally bad for Kyle that I almost wanted to turn down the role of Kelly simply as a matter of principle, but the selfish, self-‐-serving side of myself told me that was silly because even if I wasn’t Kelly, that didn’t give Kyle the lead role he’d written, presumably for himself.

Maybe if I went and had a heart-‐-to-‐-heart with Ms. Bard, she’d change her mind and cast Kyle instead.

Still…if I was being completely honest, Josh
had
been leaps and bounds better than any of the other guys who had auditioned, even Kyle. Honesty hurt sometimes, and sitting in homeroom, admitting that someone was better than Kyle actually did pain me, even if Kyle never knew the depth of my feelings for him.

“I think it’s a travesty,” Claudia continued in a loud whisper. “Kyle wouldn’t tell me who actually got the part, but I bet he knows. Sometimes I think Ms. Bard is on drugs. She seriously makes the worst decisions about these kinds of things.”

I gave Claudia a bemused smile. “You don’t think anyone was better than Kyle?” I ventured carefully.

Claudia’s eyes widened. “No,” she gasped again, horror evident on her face. “Do you?”

“No, no, of course not,” I said quickly. Maybe a little too quickly, but I certainly didn’t want it getting back to Kyle that I thought anyone else was a better singer/actor/songwriter than he was.

Claudia sighed with relief. “Kyle will be so relieved to hear that.”

“Why?” I asked, suddenly slightly worried that he might already know that I thought Josh had been better.

“Oh, you know Kyle’s temperament,” Claudia said breezily with a little wave of her hand. “He’s so melodramatic. He told me on the phone last night that no one in the drama club thinks he’s any good, and that’s why Ms. Bard wouldn’t give him the part.”

I frowned. “That’s stupid.”

“See, that’s totally what I told him, but he wouldn’t believe me.” Claudia fluffed her short black hair a little, reminding me of a preening peacock, or maybe just a chicken. She always did that when she thought she was right. I didn’t think her hair could be fluffed any more without falling out. Her phone began to vibrate, and she got distracted.

I settled back into my chair and wondered why homeroom always seemed to take so darn long. All the wasted time seemed almost a shame to me, mostly because I was bored out of my mind, but I wasn’t going to haul out my books and study for a few minutes before having to pack them back up. Still, studying would be the best way to avoid talking to Claudia. I’d leaned down to unzip my backpack, when I heard Claudia hiss angrily beside me.

She actually hissed.

I glanced up at her startled by the noise. She looked over at me with a glare. “What?” I asked, slightly, okay, very worried by her hostility.

“Kyle just texted me. He told me that he’s giving you private rehearsal time, too.” she glowered.

Um, where did I tread with this? Very lightly. I replied, “I guess, but um, I don’t really think I’m going to take him up on it.

The offer for help, I mean. I’m pretty sure regular rehearsals are all I can handle at this point, you know?”

Claudia exhaled audibly. “You mean, like, he actually offered to help you rehearse?”

My eyebrows shot up so far that I was afraid they were going to fly off my head. “Well, um, yeah. What else would he be offering?”

The silence that followed my question was thick with assumption on my end, and if I was reading Claudia correctly, a massive amount of debating on her end. Finally, she said, “Yeah, of course, you’re right. I guess I was just a little jealous that he was helping someone else who is directly in competition with me.”

Hmmm, she wasn’t exactly admitting to anything like a secret relationship, but she was sort of laying claim to him. I would have to be very careful where I went with this discussion. “I’m sure he was just trying to be a good Drama Club president,” I offered, hoping that it came across as soothing. “That’s part of his job, right?

He makes sure all of us drama clubites are doing the best that we can.”

Claudia nodded in agreement, the flush of anger slowly draining from her cheeks. She stared at her phone, blessedly distracted from me for the moment. “I just…” She began, but trailed off quickly as her phone began to vibrate again. I watched as she furiously texted who I could only assume to be Kyle. The red flush of anger flared in her cheeks again, but this time it seemed directed at him, via her phone, and not at me, much to my relief.

Before we had a chance to resume our conversation the bell rang, and Claudia practically sprinted out of the room. I gathered my stuff a bit more slowly, only joining the jam of students waiting to get up or down the stairs until absolutely necessary. I met Kaylee at the top of the stairs as per our usual routine, and we wandered off to gym together, neither of us in any hurry to change for our chance to sweat to bad seventies music with our Richard Simmons-‐-

esqe gym teacher, Mr. Reynolds.

I tried filling Kaylee in on my conversation with Claudia, but Kaylee kept getting distracted with her own musings about who had gotten the parts of Kelly and Chad. I kept my mouth shut and tried not to encourage her insistence that I had to have gotten the part because I was, as she put it ‘so far out of the gate better than anyone else’. I argued that Michelle had actually done a lot better than me, but Kaylee pushed friendship loyalty to a whole new level and refused to listen.

As I was pulling on my gym shirt, Kaylee let out a gasp. I hurried to shove my head through the neck hole so I could see what she was gasping about. Why were so many people in a gasping type mood today anyway? Looking around the bustling locker room, I couldn’t see anything that would elicit a gasp or a gasp worthy response anyway, so I returned to the task of getting dressed.

Kaylee decided to invade my personal space just as I was getting my arms through the sleeves of my gym uniform. “You got it, didn’t you?” She whispered, her eyes alight with excitement. “I just figured it out. I mean, why else would you be so insistent that Michelle did a better job? You totally suck at deflecting the truth.”

I sighed and closed my eyes briefly. Kaylee and I had been friends since Kindergarten, and honestly, I should have known she’d know me better than to believe I wasn’t even slightly proud of the audition. In all sincerity though, Michelle had been amazing.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I whispered back. “And I mean anyone. Ms. Bard will be so mad at me if she knows you know. I haven’t even told my parents yet.”

Kaylee was grinning so wide that her face looked like it was going to split open. I knew she wanted to start dancing around in our special victory dance, but thankfully she restrained herself.

Instead, she forced herself to sit calmly down on the bench between the rows of lockers and tie her gym shoe.

When she looked up at me again, the grin was back, and she excitedly whispered, “So do you know who got Chad?”

I rolled my eyes at her, but quickly turned back to my locker so she couldn’t see the truth on my face. Why did I have to be so easy to read? I mean, I’d never had a good poker face. “I wouldn’t tell you even if I did know, which I’m not saying I do,” I hurried to say. Kaylee giggled delightedly. “You so know!” She said. “I’ll get it out of you by the end of the day, don’t worry. And the best part will be that you won’t even be letting Ms. Bard down because you won’t be telling me, I’ll just guess and know I’m right. But, hey, can I just ask, why is your name up on the call back list for all those parts?”

Relieved for the change in topic, I shut my gym locker and continued our whispered conversation on the way down the stairs.

“To keep the façade up for the secret reveal on Friday. Ms. Bard is really all into this.”

Mr. Reynolds already had some obnoxious disco music pulsing through the gym, and he was doing his rather strange warm-‐-up routine of one jumping jack to three crunches to five seconds of running in place. He repeated this little routine about thirty or forty times before blowing his whistle for us to line up for roll call. I always felt embarrassed watching him do his warm-‐-up routine, and so I made it a habit to let my eyes scan the gym for other things to fixate on until he finished.

My eyes landed on the basketball players practicing at the other end of the gym. They always practiced during their free periods, so there were always five or six guys in the gym shooting drill after drill. I’d never noticed who they were, though, not even after a month or so of using them as my diversion from Mr.

Reynolds. As my eyes flickered over the individual players, I was shocked to recognize Josh among them. Had he really been practicing in here all that time, and I’d just never noticed him? And why was I so startled, yet pleased, with this development all at the same time? Who cared if Josh Larson was practicing basketball at the other end of the gym where I had spent the past month doing the most embarrassing aerobics routine known to man? Seriously, who cared? Not me, that’s for sure. I quickly forced my eyes toward the bleachers.

Kaylee was still prattling on about how Ms. Bard would never know she had guessed correctly, because despite what people thought, according to Kaylee of course, she was a genius actress who could act surprised in any situation.

“So, who is it?” Kaylee whispered finally.