Phantom (6 page)

“Becca? Are you all right?” Tom’s voice was muffled and even if she had an answer, she was too short of breath to give it.

“Get that
off
of them!”

The new voice was even more strained, even more difficult to hear, because it was coming from the other side of the cloth-like prison. But she was fairly certain it was the frazzled voice of Miss King that was ordering people into action. Above her, something started to shift, but still no light appeared. Rebecca was nearing a complete and total nervous breakdown. She was sure that she could never escape, that she was going to suffocate before they reached her. Even as she thought it, the little air she had seemed to retreat from her lungs, and she heard herself gasping.

“It’s okay, Becca.” She felt Tom reach out and touch her hand. “We’re almost out of this.”

Tom’s voice was soothing in the mist of the crisis. She felt herself calm down just a little. Before long a crack of light appeared in one corner. A second later, the heavy velvet curtain was completely pulled away with a heave from a few of the stagehands. Rebecca squinted, attempting to adjust to the light after having been plunged into complete darkness.

Carmen rushed to her side. “Becca, are you okay?” She reached out to hug her, and somehow Rebecca found the strength to hug her back, even though her arms were still shaking.

“What happened?”

It was a stupid question. It was plainly obvious what had happened. The main curtain had fallen and covered them. It was still lying on the stage in a huge velvet heap. Around her, half the cast was watching with a mixture of surprise and amusement. Jay was snickering even as he helped Tom to his feet.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” Miss King asked nervously. Tom and Rebecca both shook their heads and the teacher was visibly relieved. “Thank heavens for that! Remember, bad rehearsals mean a great opening night. Besides, I’ve been trying to get the school to replace this mangy old curtain for years. Now they won’t have a choice.”

Miss King had the stage crew pull the fallen curtain to the side of the stage. And then had the nerve to expect her to act, literally act, as though nothing had happened. Rebecca wasn’t sure how she was going to go back to practice after she had nearly smothered to death. But Tom appeared unfazed by the whole fiasco, and everyone else was falling into line for the next scene, so Rebecca did her best to pull herself together. Her acting was more or less terrible, but they made it through the rest of the play without incident. When it was all over, she joined Debbie and Carmen who were dangling their legs from the corner of the stage.

“You did a great job today, Becca.” Debbie gushed.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be nice. I know I was awful.”

“Everyone was awful,” Carmen told her. “The first rehearsal is
always
awful. It will get better as we go along and get used to each other.”

Rebecca hoped she was right. She also hoped that the next rehearsal would pass without any disasters. She was nervous enough without random things crashing down on her head.

“You kids need to clear out of here so I can clean up this mess!”

Mr. Russ had come in, pushing along his cart of cleaning supplies. He gestured to the auditorium floor. It didn’t seem particularly messy, but Rebecca hardly wanted to argue with the odd, old janitor. He stood there, watching them with his one good eye, until they all climbed down off the stage and moved toward the nearest exit. He had blocked most of the aisle so they had to squeeze by him one by one. Rebecca tried to get by without disturbing his cart, but before she could shimmy past him, he roughly grabbed hold of her arm.

“Accidents aren’t always accidental.” His voice was hoarse and she could smell his stale breath in her face. Rebecca gasped and tried to pull away, but he only tightened his grip on her wrist. “You need to be careful, little girl.”

Rebecca wasn’t sure what to say. Was that a threat or a warning? Or was Mr. Russ just babbling meaningless nonsense as usual? She had always thought he was harmless. But now she wasn’t so sure.

“Leave her alone, you freak!”

It was Debbie who came to her rescue. She grabbed Rebecca’s hand firmly, and pulled her free from the janitor’s grasp. And since she was significantly larger than him, he could only glare at her for a moment before turning back to his cleaning cart and pushing it down the aisle as though nothing had happened. But he had left Rebecca trembling for the second time that day. As if things hadn’t been bad enough. The last thing she needed was to be stalked by the dusty looking janitor.

“What is
his
problem?” Carmen asked as the three of them scampered out into the hallway, trying to put as much distance between them and Mr. Russ as possible. “He is seriously brain damaged or something.”

“Don’t let him scare you, Becca,” Debbie added. “There really
is
something wrong with him. I don’t think he knows what he’s saying half the time.”

Rebecca sighed. “You’re right. I really have to stop letting things get to me. At this rate, my hair will turn gray before I graduate.”

“Hey, girls!” Tom had just rounded the corner. He spotted them and waved. “I was just going to meet some of the others across the street at Sam’s. Why don’t you come with us?”

Rebecca’s heart started to hammer again, but this time it had nothing to do with fear. It couldn’t be considered a date since he had invited all of them. But still, Tom Rittenhouse had asked her to do something with him. It was at the very least worth a diary entry.

“Sure. That sounds like fun.” She hoped she didn’t sound too anxious.

Carmen’s smile couldn’t have been any wider as they walked to the pizza shop across the street from the school. It was a small place with only about ten booths, all adorned with red and white gingham table clothes. As soon as they walked in the door, they were greeted by the scent of savory tomato sauce and grilled hamburgers. Rebecca felt her stomach rumble, and realized she was starving. But she lost most of her appetite when she saw that Wendy and Jay were already sitting in the extra-large booth in the corner. Wendy sneered at Rebecca, but with an unexpected and uncharacteristic burst of courage, Rebecca smiled broadly at the blonde girl as she slid into the edge of the booth beside Tom.

“Who invited the Amazon woman?” Jay asked. He blew the cover of his straw in Debbie’s direction. She turned red and stared at the tabletop.

Tom reached across the table to punch Jay in the arm. “Dude, don’t be a jerk, okay? We’re a team now. We have to get along for the next few weeks if want the play to be a success.”

“Not much chance of
that
when we’re dealing with a bunch of amateurs,” Wendy said, and she looked right at Rebecca.

Tom was doing his best to keep the peace. It was a heavy order with the company he was keeping. “Wendy, come on, lighten up!”

Wendy smirked. “If you’re such a great team player, Tom, why don’t you invite
him
to join us?”

She gestured to the table behind them and Rebecca couldn’t resist turning around with everyone else to see who was sitting there. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see that it was Justyn. Who else would Wendy use to get under Tom’s skin? He was sitting quietly at his booth, with a glass of water in front and him, and a book opened in his hands. It didn’t even appear that he knew any of his cast mates were there. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Tom, at first, seemed annoyed and even a little disgusted at the possibility of having Justyn join them, but then with a shrug he yelled out across the little restaurant.

“Yo,
Lord
Justyn.” Tom called. Justyn lifted one eye from his book. “Want to join us?”

After all the animosity between them, Rebecca didn’t really think he would accept the invitation. Tom obviously didn’t expect him to either, because his eyes practically bugged out of his head when Justyn closed his book, slipped wordlessly from his seat, and glided down the row of tables. He slid into the end of the booth on the other side of Rebecca, brushing her leg with his own and sending that strange electric current through her in the process. Mouths fell open all around the booth, and only Jay was able to think of something to say, however rude and inappropriate it might have been.

“Hey vampire, does this make you nervous?” He picked up the bottle of garlic salt and waved it near Justyn’s face.

Justyn smiled calmly. “Jay, if the smell of garlic could scare me away, I certainly wouldn’t be able to tolerate sitting across the table from you. Have you ever heard of breath mints?”

Carmen and Debbie both chuckled, and Rebecca couldn’t help but smile. It was the first time in his life that Jay seemed struck speechless. He apparently couldn’t think of any retaliation because he put down the garlic salt, and leaned back into the booth with a pout. He could dish it out, but Jay wasn’t quite so good at taking it.

“What are you reading, Justyn?” Debbie asked politely. It was the first light topic of conversation anyone had come up with since they walked into the restaurant.

“Tennyson,” Justyn replied flatly.

Again the diverse Gothic surprised Rebecca. By now Justyn should have ceased to amaze her with what he did and said. But their common interests still shocked her—by all outward appearances, they should have been as different as night and day.

“I love Tennyson.” Rebecca gushed. “
The Lady of Shalott”
is one of my all time favorite poems.”

“The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat—head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.”

That swooning feeling was back with a vengeance as Justyn’s fluid voice recited the verse from the poem. His voice created a magical tapestry in which Rebecca could clearly see the scene come to life before her eyes. Her cheeks burned brighter with each word, and Tom certainly noticed it because she felt him grow stiff beside her.

“Oh please,” Wendy said with a roll of her green eyes. “I can’t believe you two would actually read that dribble on purpose.”

“Just because you’re at a third grade reading level, doesn’t mean the rest of us are,” Carmen snapped, even though she wouldn’t have touched a book of poetry with a ten foot pole.

Now Wendy and Carmen were staring daggers at each other across the table. The whole evening was going poorly and Rebecca was relieved when the waitress came to take their orders. It gave her at least a ten-minute reprieve from playing referee. But the peace wasn’t destined to last long. Justyn was the last to place his order. Following a string of requests for pizza and hamburgers, his strange choice was bound to start off a whole new round of taunting.

“I’ll have the veggie burger, please.”

The young waitress smiled at Justyn as he handed her back his menu. He was the only one who said ‘please’, and his musical tone of voice apparently made other people swoon sometimes too. Rebecca felt just the slightest twinge of jealousy when his fingers brushed against the waitress’s hand. But she didn’t have time to dwell on it for very long.

“Veggie burger?” Jay snickered. “What are you, a rabbit?”

Justyn raised one pierced eyebrow. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“Poetry spouting? Salad munching?” Tom laughed, and it wasn’t at all good-natured. “Dude, you really shouldn’t try so hard to be manly.”

Justyn’s voice was not quite hostile, but was openly sarcastic when he responded. “And what makes a man, Tom? A pretty boy face and a string of basketball trophies?”

“It makes me a better man than you, vampire! And who do you think you’re calling a pretty boy?”

All pretense of friendliness was gone, and Rebecca was worried she might get caught in the middle of the crossfire if fists were thrown. “Whoa, boys,” she said, and laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “No one is questioning anyone’s manhood here. Let’s all just settle down and try to have a good time.”

If settling down translated to sitting in tense silence, then they all complied. Having a good time was a little too much to ask for. Rebecca twisted her napkin under the table nervously while she waited for her pizza to arrive. When it did, she nibbled at it gingerly, hardly hungry anymore.

The tension didn’t hinder the appetites of the teenage boys nearly as much. Both Justyn and Tom dug into their dinners heartily and Jay tore into his hamburger with reckless abandon, practically eating the whole thing in three huge bites. But the girls were only picking at their meals. Especially Wendy, who was more interested in shooting Rebecca dirty looks across the table than she was in eating. Even Carmen and Debbie looked like they felt completely out of place, making Rebecca feel even worse for having dragged them into her soap opera existence.

She was relieved when Justyn finished his veggie burger, and picked up his book to leave. He tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table.

“Thank you all for allowing me the pleasure of your company this evening.” Only Justyn could sound so overtly polite and yet at the same time have his voice drip with such obvious sarcasm.

“Freak,” Wendy mumbled under her breath.

Justyn ignored her. “Becca, I hope I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal.”

“You’ll see her all right,” Tom told him through clenched teeth. “Standing right next to
me
.”