Like It Never Happened (2 page)

A
t Bickford Park Alternative School
,
you weren
'
t allowed to go out for the plays until you were in tenth grade. The rumor was that Mr. McFadden decided instantly if he liked you or not. He would cast his favorites in every show until graduation. But if you messed up, that was it. You could still join debate team, or choir, or the international club—which was actually just a bunch of kids who liked pad Thai a lot. Honestly, if you couldn't be a thespian, you were better off joining nothing at all.

We had become the Essential Five in September that year, when we had auditioned for
The Crucible.
Mr. McFadden hadn't let us audition with material from the actual play. Having to pick our own monologues had made the whole process especially terrifying. Tim Li had gone first and read the chapter from
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
in which Margaret finally gets her period. Of course it worked. It always works when boys do things like that.

Next had been Tess Dunham, pretending very hard not to know me, even though we had spent the first half of the summer together. She delivered one of the
Vagina Monologues,
which is the kind of thing you can maybe expect to get away with at Bickford Park if you ask permission. Tess did not ask permission. Watching her pretend to have an orgasm onstage was like watching a car crash. I wanted to look away but I couldn't and I kept thinking,
I hope that never happens to me
. Mr. McFadden gave her a standing ovation before he sent her to Principal Gladstone's office.

I knew she would get in. I was trying not to think about it.

Up next were Liane Gallagher and Charlie Lamb. Like Tess and me, they had a history, only everybody knew about theirs. They had been best friends since they were little kids. Together they performed a scene between Ophelia and Hamlet. At practically six feet tall, with curly hair and a nose ring, Liane
was
Ophelia. She had clearly considered what it would feel like if your boyfriend went crazy and demanded you get yourself to a nunnery. Charlie, who was so attractive he almost wasn't, made an appealing Hamlet. It was hard to ignore his perfect bottom lip quivering as he threatened to give Liane a plague for her dowry. When they finished the scene, Mr. McFadden said, “Classic. Ambitious. You're both in.”

I was so nervous I felt like I had just stepped out of a cold shower. I tended to keep a low profile at Bickford Park on account of some unflattering rumors that had flared up in seventh grade and still hadn't been completely extinguished. As I took the stage I braced myself for whispers or a single anonymous catcall. For once, only the lights buzzed.

I performed the part from
Breakfast at Tiffany's
in which Holly Golightly explains why she doesn't have any furniture. In a way, it was a risky choice. Stage directors have a tendency to roll their eyes at the entire film industry. But I knew I made a good Holly Golightly—almost as good as Audrey Hepburn, if nowhere near as gorgeous. And onstage my nervousness vanished completely. I was fifteen in September and I had already been in twenty-three plays and one commercial. There was no way Mr. McFadden was going to deny me a part in
The Crucible.

In the final minutes of class the next day, the secretary's voice had come crackling over the intercom. “The cast list for the fall play is now posted on the bulletin board outside the auditorium.”

Charlie was in my class and he didn't wait for the bell to ring before scraping his chair across the floor and racing out of the room. Our teacher feigned an exasperated sigh, but also bit down a smile. Teachers loved Charlie. Teachers did not particularly love me, but I wasn't about to stay behind. Cramming my books into my bag, I chased after him.

“Yes!” Outside the auditorium doors, Charlie clasped his hands above his head. “Fuck yes!”

Looking over Charlie's shoulder at the cast list, I followed the dotted line from
Rebecca Rivers
to
Abigail Williams
. I felt a smile stretch across my face. Mr. McFadden had given me the female lead.

Liane came running so fast she had to grab Charlie's arm as she skidded to a stop. She peered at the list as if it required some kind of translation. “Shit,” she said finally. “I wanted to be Abigail.”

By now the bell was ringing and Tess Dunham, moving like a newborn calf in her platform flip-flops, was shouting, “Am I in?”

My eyes flew to the list and located her name, just as Charlie shouted confirmation.

The bell stopped ringing and Tim joined our huddle. He performed an awkward victory dance, moving his hips a lot and his feet not at all. Other kids approached the list, nodded or sighed before drifting away. Charlie, Tim, Tess, Liane, and me had landed the five best parts in
The Crucible
.

None of us were total strangers to one another, but now we formed a cautious circle, acknowledging that we had devoted the next few months of our lives to the same cause.

“Great audition,” said Tim to me, with a crackle of nerves. “I mean, you were really good.”

Liane raised her eyebrows and Charlie crashed his hip against hers. “Why so pissed?” he asked.

“I've already memorized half of Abigail's lines,” Liane admitted. She wore lace gloves with the fingers cut off. Heavy black curls framed her face and fell to her shoulders. She was the kind of person you wanted to stare at.

Charlie responded with a sly smile. “Well, Rebecca's had more experience than you.”

I forced myself to keep a straight face. I did, as a matter of fact, have more experience than all of them. But Charlie wasn't talking about my twenty-three plays; he was talking about my one commercial.

Tim took the bait. “I see a donkey!” He tilted his face toward the ceiling, pretending to be watching clouds.

“I see an ice-cream cone,” Liane deadpanned.

In that extra-high pitch boys use to imitate girls, Charlie delivered my infamous line: “I see overcast skies with a forty percent chance of precipitation!”

In the commercial, the camera then cut to a promotional shot of Sondra Wilson, Portland's favorite source for around-the-clock weather updates. Sondra looked approximately like I might look in thirty years, with the blessings of the Botox gods.

I splayed one hand across my face. Through the cracks between my fingers I could see Tess smiling vaguely. Months earlier she had mocked me mercilessly for that commercial, which had a tendency to appear between late-night TV programs.

“Tim's right, though.” Charlie elbowed me. “You are really good. Even in that commercial it was clear you had talent.”

I couldn't tell if he was being at all sincere.

“What?” Charlie smirked. “You don't believe me?”

“Is that what you want to do?” interrupted Liane. “Commercials?”

“No,” I said slowly. “I did that because my dad's friend owns the station. I want to do stage.”

Liane nodded kind of wistfully. “Me too.”

“Rebecca has the perfect stage name,” said Tim. He tested it out, bellowing, “
The Crucible
 . . . starring Rebecca Rivers!”

“Look,” said Liane, suddenly all business, “
The Crucible
is pretty intense. If we want this to be good, we're going to have to schedule extra rehearsal time.”

Given that Mr. McFadden had already scheduled rehearsals from three to six, Monday through Friday, this seemed excessive.

“We can start by running lines at lunch,” Liane continued.

“You mean like every day?” Tess frowned.

“Fine by me,” said Tim. “I'm not exactly the BMOC.” He rocked on the heels of his waterproof sandals.

“What?” Tess tilted her head.

“Big Man on Campus,” Tim clarified. “It's not me. At this school, I am mostly reviled.”

“That's because you wore the same pair of pants every day last year,” said Charlie.

“It was a social experiment,” said Tim.

“Yeah?” asked Charlie, intrigued. “What were you able to conclude?”

Tim paused, deep in thought. “That people don't socialize with you when you don't change your pants.”

“Groundbreaking,” said Liane. “So are we doing this?”

Charlie was quick to say, “Absolutely.” He was no stranger to overachieving. Everyone knew he wanted to go to Harvard and then law school.

Tim stuck two thumbs in the air. Tess heaved a sigh, but mumbled her consent. Her gaze fell to the floor as everyone waited for my decision.

Technically, I didn't have anything better to do with my lunch periods. Since the first day of school, I had been eating with a group of kids I had known since junior high. My makeshift friends were nice, and had never mocked me for my misspent ten seconds of fame on the local news. They were also kind of hopelessly dull. But that wasn't really why I agreed.

The moment I looked Liane Gallagher in the eye and confirmed, “I'm in,” her expression had relaxed into a look of respect. Instantly I wanted to agree with her on a hundred more things.

That was why.

T
he lavender didn
'
t exactly have the effect I was hoping for. When I entered the kitchen holding the flowers by their stems, my mother looked at me like I was a cat with a mouse between my teeth. Granted, she often looked at me that way.

“Happy birthday,” I said.

She resumed spraying the counter with disinfectant. “Did you pick those from Mrs. Almeida's yard?” she asked.

Mrs. Almeida was our ninety-year-old neighbor whose front yard sprouted weeds and stone cherubs in equal measure. I avoided her at all costs, partially because she was always wearing a nightie, and partially because she terrified me.

“No.” I blocked my nose to avoid breathing the air, humid with Lysol. “The guy at the Lucky Stars Mart might have, though.”

Mom blinked at me. She didn't know the convenience stores by name. When she needed groceries, she drove to the Whole Foods downtown.

Suddenly it dawned on her that I was trying to be nice. Flashing me a sterile smile, she grabbed a vase from the top shelf. “Put them on the table,” she said. “Your father insists on grilling chicken.”

I knew it wasn't really the chicken my mother opposed—just the idea that old age was something to celebrate. In the dining room, I centered my pathetic
FRESH CUT FLOWERS
on the table, already set with crystal water glasses and cloth napkins. My mother would most likely decide she was allergic to lavender. Cheap things always made her break out in hives: bar soap, Hondas, et cetera.

Through the window I could see my father half shrouded in grill smoke and smiling to himself. He was wearing his
KISS TH
E COOK
apron, which my sister had given him at some point in the late nineties.

For the record, I didn't hate my parents or anything, but they were exhausting.

While we ate, Dad tried to compensate for Mom's misery by looking extra-happy as he chewed. I didn't even attempt to play along. Last year, when she turned fifty-five, I had made the mistake of listing the movie theaters and fast-food establishments where she could officially claim a senior citizen discount. It was supposed to be funny—because of how obviously she did not require a twenty-five-cent hash brown from McDonald's—but actually it caused her to burst into tears. Now I knew better.

The phone rang and Mom almost knocked over her chair trying to answer it in time. Dad lowered his chin and just barely shook his head.

“Only a telemarketer,” Mom chirped, sitting back down.

My sister, Mary, lived in California and had a poor memory—at least when it came to important dates, phone numbers, and having once been born to a set of parents. Mary had been gone for most of my life, but my mother had never stopped anticipating her return.

“I don't see why they always have to bother us at dinner,” said Dad, like he would have welcomed the interruption at breakfast. Briefly, my father's eyes met mine. My gaze promptly fell to the lavender leaning in all directions against the lip of the vase.

After dinner my mother served slices of gluten-free
cake
and
Dad
and
I
sang
“Happy
Birthday
to
You”
terribly. Dad was tone-deaf. I could actually sing, but nobody performs an earnest version of “Happy Birthday” without feeling like an idiot.

My mother chewed her cake and stared glumly into the backyard, where leftover smoke distorted the view beyond the grill. With a sigh, my father let his face relax into its normal, comforting pile of wrinkles.

“How did you get home?” he asked me. Lately he had been asking all sorts of questions out of the blue. It made him seem very old. “Did you take the bus?”

My father's white eyebrows were raised in anticipation, his fork paused in midair. I sensed that telling the truth would result in more questions. Even though it hadn't felt at all wrong or daring, there was a big difference between getting into Mr. McFadden's car and telling my father about it.

“Yes,” I lied. “I took the bus.”