Starry-Eyed (39 page)

Anything looked good on him.

Becca turned to see who I was staring at. “Oh,” she said. “Well, that's setting the bar pretty high.”

Yeah, he was out of my league. I was like a seven to Ryan's ten, and I knew it.

Becca shrugged again. “I bet he's gay.”

I was startled enough by this out-of-the-blue remark to stop gazing wistfully at Ryan and frown at her. “What?”

“He's one of the drama people, right?”

Yes. He was almost always the male lead in the school play. But that made perfect sense. I mean, if you could see how beautiful he was. People would pay good money just to look at him.

“And he sings and dances, right?” Becca picked up the end of her long, chestnut-colored ponytail and examined it for split ends.

“Right . . .”

He
did
sing beautifully. Last year I saw him in the musical
Oklahoma!
(wearing cowboy boots and fringe chaps, and oh yes, it looked amazing on him), and he and Alicia Walker sang a duet, something about “people will say we're in love,” that I had stuck in my head for days after. He kissed her, at the end of that show. Later that week I saw the two of them holding hands at a pep rally, and I could tell by their vibe that they were about an
eyelash away from seriously getting it on.

“He's not gay,” I said to Becca. “I think he's dating Alicia Walker.”

“Alicia Walker? Blonde, skinny, Barbie-doll Alicia Walker?”

“That's the one.”

“You could take her.”

I laughed. “Good grief, Becca, this isn't wrestling.”

Becca took a sip of milk, then nodded like the issue was settled. “So. Ryan Daughtry. Your first kiss. You should strategize on how to make this happen.”

This was what I loved about Becca—she was nothing if not brutally direct. She set goals for herself and went after them with the persistence of a guided missile. It made her a beast on the soccer field. It was also the reason I generally avoided talking about my love life with her. I couldn't just moan about how I didn't have time for guys and have her pat me on the shoulder and say she understood. She was the type to try to make me do something about it.

Like now, for instance. “Did you miss the part where I said he had a girlfriend?” I reminded her.

She took a big bite of her burrito. “Are you sure he's dating Alicia? One hundred percent certain?”

“Um, no.”

“I think you owe it to yourself to find out, at least,” she said. “Why spend your life waiting for stuff to happen, Jo? You have to go after the things you want. Otherwise life is going to keep passing you by.”

She had a point.

. . . . .

It was literally five minutes later, in English class, that the universe sent me a sign.

We were in the middle of a quiz on
Pride and Prejudice
when Alicia Walker breezed into the room. I looked up and saw her. I thought,
ridiculously, that Becca was right. I
could
take Alicia Walker in a fight. She was so willowy and delicate. Even with a last name like Walker, Alicia never seemed to just
walk
anywhere. She floated, like her feet weren't connected to the ground. She was the picture of grace. Of beauty. Of exactly the type of girl that Ryan Daughtry would naturally go for. She was president of the drama club.

And she had kissed him. She'd felt his lips on hers.

Yeah, I hated her, just a bit.

She was also, as far as I could tell, a perfectly nice girl. Which made it impossible to out-and-out hate her. Which was annoying.

Alicia glided up to Ms. Yowell's desk. And then two important things happened:

1.
She glanced over at me. Well, not at
me
,
it took me about two seconds to figure out, but at the guy sitting next to me. Jonathan Renault, basketball player. At that moment he was tapping his pencil against his desk rhythmically, chewing on his bottom lip, agonizing over why he was expected to care about that darned Mr. Darcy, but then, almost like he could feel Alicia's eyes on him, he looked up. He saw Alicia, and the tapping stopped. The lip chewing stopped. He smiled. And she smiled back. It was one of those shared smiles like a current of electricity passing between the two of them.

And then?

2.
Ms. Yowell said, “Yes, that would be fine,” to answer the question I hadn't heard Alicia ask, and Alicia looked away from Jonathan quickly and handed Ms. Yowell the stack of bright blue papers she'd been clutching to her chest, stealing one more tiny peek at Jonathan as she slipped out of the room.

Interesting, I thought. Very interesting.

The blue papers turned out to be flyers, announcing the auditions for the school play.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
, it read in big loopy letters.
SATURDAY
, 9
A.M
.–12
P.M., BHS LITTLE THEATER
. There was a bunch of clip art arranged
around the words: a rose, a sword, a crown, a heart, a cartoony illustration of two people kissing.
ACTION AND
SWORD FIGHTING! the flyer read farther down. ROMANCE!
COMEDY AND DANCING
!
EVERYONE IS WELCOME
! COME TRY OUT!

Most of the people in my class crumpled up that flyer and tossed it in the trash on their way out, or it ended in that layer of forgotten papers in the bottoms of their backpacks.

Not me, though. I folded the flyer carefully and stuck it in the front of my notebook, where later that night, after practice, in the privacy of my bedroom, I took it out again and stared at it every few minutes while I was doing my homework. I was thinking. About Alicia Walker making flirty eyes at Jonathan Renault. About what Becca had said about how life was going to keep passing me by.
Keep
passing me by, she'd said, as if life had already been speeding around me like a Winnebago in the slow lane.

Which was true, I had to admit. Because, for all my extracurriculars, there were times late at night when I stared up at my ceiling, my muscles aching, my alarm set for five in the morning for some practice, and I wished that I could just quit everything and be the type of girl who went to the mall with her friends on a Thursday afternoon. A person who had relationships. A boyfriend. A life.

I glanced at the flyer again. COME TRY OUT, it said. And another word caught my eye.

ROMANCE. Alongside the faces of a boy and girl. Kissing.

I sighed and fired up my laptop.

. . . . .

Much Ado About Nothing
, the Internet informed me, was actually about a lot of somethings.

I tried reading a copy online, which was easy to find, but I didn't understand much, because here's the thing:
Much Ado About Nothing
is Shakespeare. It was written in the year 1600 or so. When I got to this point
on the first page of the script: “
I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? For, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing,
” my eyes started to cross a little, but then I thought, life is passing you by—don't be a wuss, and kept on reading.

About fifteen minutes later I switched to Netflix and found a film version. I stayed up way too late that night watching it. The women in this film (Emma Thompson before she was Nanny McPhee and Kate Beckinsale before she was a vampire) run around all tan in floaty white dresses, eating fruit, and dancing and saying stuff like “Hey, nonny nonny!” Denzel Washington plays a prince, and Keanu Reeves plays his evil brother, which someone will still have to explain to me, but finally I started to get the gist of the story.

It's about how this woman, Beatrice, can't stand this guy, Benedick, and he can't stand her, either. Every time they're together, they bicker and mock each other and talk about how they never want to get married, because the opposite sex is dumb. But their friends play a trick on them and get them to think that they're actually in love with one another. Which they end up being, by the end.

And at the end, they kiss. It says so, right there in the script. I checked.

Benedick: Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kisses her.]
it says.

That was good enough for me. Becca said I needed to strategize on this first kiss scenario, and strategize I did: I was going to get the female lead in the school play. Ryan was going to be the male lead, because that's what he always did. And then we would kiss. Ryan and me. Kissing.

Here's how it played out in my head: Ryan would be standing in the spotlight, which would cast a halo-like glow around him, all dressed up like a prince, and he'd give me this sexy half smile as he approached. “Peace,” he'd murmur. “I will stop your mouth.” And on the word
mouth
he'd look down at my lips, then up into my eyes, and his arms would come around me and he'd lean and kiss me. There'd be sweeping music. There'd be fireworks. He'd pull me closer, and the rest of the world would fade away, leaving just him and me alone there on that stage. And finally, at
some point, he'd pull back, and he'd smile, and he wouldn't say anything but I'd be able to see in his eyes that the kiss had blown him away.

Okay, so it was a silly daydream, and trying out for the school play was a long shot. I'd never been in a play before, if you didn't count a disastrous stint in the church nativity play in third grade where I'd
dropped the baby Jesus doll
right on its head in front of everybody. I'd watched the drama crowd, which was a pretty tight clique at my school, and they always looked like they were having so much fun together. But I'd never for one second thought I could get up onstage with them. I wasn't like Alicia Walker. I was mousy-haired, my body was kind of straight up and down, and I was way more tomboy than girly girl. I wasn't the leading lady type.

But I wanted that first kiss. So I was going to try.

. . . . .

“Jolynn Dalley?” Ms. Golden called out.

The drama group, every single one of them, turned around in their seats to stare at me as I lurched to my feet at the back of the theater, where I'd been kind of hiding out since the auditions began. I made my way down the aisle and up onto the stage.

“It's Jo, actually,” I warbled when I got there, blinking against the lights.

Ms. Golden shaded her eyes with her clipboard to get a better look at me. I had a sudden understanding of what an ant under a magnifying glass must feel during its final moments of life. I had a flashback to dropping the baby Jesus, like the whole world was watching me, alone there on the stage, waiting for me to mess up. I swallowed. My stomach heaved. I always got a bit queasy right before important stuff, like the PSATs or a big soccer game, but this was hands down the most excruciatingly nervous I'd ever been. This is a mistake, I thought. I shouldn't be here. I don't know what I was thinking. I have to go. Quick, before I puke.

I opened my mouth to say all of this, or maybe to just go ahead and puke, but then Ms. Golden said, “All right, Jo. Why don't you read from
Act Four, Scene One, around line two hundred and eighty-one, with . . . Ryan, why don't you read for Benedick?”

Someone handed me a script. I flipped to the right page, my heart like a drum solo, all runs and crashing symbols, as Ryan Daughtry in the flesh loped up onto the stage to stand next to me. His brown eyes were sparkling and curious, like he'd never seen me before. He probably
hadn't
really seen me before. Out of the two thousand students who went to our school, I'd been barely a blip on his radar.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi.” I was staring at him. I needed to stop staring at him, but even now, on this bare, black-painted stage, wearing a simple gray tee and faded, holey jeans, he looked like a rock star. He was even better looking close up, all thick dark lashes and stellar cheekbones and full, perfect lips.

He glanced down at his script. “I think you have the first line.”

I scanned down the page but couldn't seem to find it. I frowned at the script. “Uh . . .”

“Here.” Ryan leaned over and pointed at the part of the page where my line began.

His breath smelled like cinnamon.

“Oh. Thanks.” Heat rushed to my face. I cleared my throat, tried to focus on the words. “
Why then, God forgive me!
”

“
What offence, sweet Beatrice
?”

“
You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you
. “

“
And do it with all thy heart
,” Ryan said.

“
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest
,” I murmured, suddenly wanting to look anywhere but right at him.

Hello, irony
, I thought. I'd been standing next to Ryan Daughtry for all of thirty seconds and I was already blurting out that I loved him. It was too much.

“Okay,” called Ms. Golden from the audience section before I could get out the next line. “Very nice, Jo. Can you try it without the British accent?”

Holy crap, was I speaking with a British accent? Suddenly I felt like an
idiot for the hours I'd spent in front of my mirror for the past two nights, watching Emma Thompson on my laptop and trying to match her performance, her facial expressions, her gestures, and the way she said the words so crisply like she was tasting them as they came out of her mouth. I must be doing some kind of horrible impression of her.