Our last week of practice flies by, and suddenly it’s one day before the musical, one week until junior year is over, and exactly three weeks until my surgery. That means my freak-out levels are at an all-time high, but I don’t even have a second to stress because it’s time for our dress rehearsal. It’s a relatively low-pressure performance, with an audience of the Brentley sixth-grade class that’s been bused over from the middle school. They’re too excited about getting out of school to heckle us, and even I’m not enough of a nervous wreck to get freaked out about eleven-year-olds watching me.
It helps that the costumes that Evelyn and the rest of the costume department made are amazing—my dress makes me look like a convincing farmer’s wife, and my space suit is surprisingly realistic.
At least I’ll look good from a distance, I tell myself. But I can’t help it—I’m getting nervous thinking about tomorrow. Performing this afternoon with only an audience of overexcited sixth graders is one thing. But tomorrow night, all of these seats will be full. This is pretty much all Brentley has going on in the spring besides prom, which only seniors are allowed to go to, anyway. My parents will be here. Abbi will be here. Everyone in the entire school will be here. And I’ll be onstage, under the spotlights, the Girl with the Incredible Growing Lower Jaw.
“Jolie!”
I turn around to see Peter staring at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Is that really how you’re wearing your hair?”
I touch my hair. “Uh, yeah?” I pretty much just have the one way to wear it.
He shakes his head. “It’s all wrong for Prudie. She would never have such a cosmopolitan bob.”
I start to explain to Peter that my wavy cut would never, ever be described as “cosmopolitan,” but he keeps going.
“The entire town of Brentley is going to be here tomorrow night. Do you know that the mayor is coming? And we need every single detail to work together.”
I freeze. The mayor? I can’t even picture the guy in my head, but this still freaks me out for some reason. The entire town of Brentley is going to be here replays in my head in Peter’s voice, and frankly, I’ve never wanted anything Peter has said to replay in my head.
My throat dries out, and my tongue suddenly feels huge. Maybe I’m having an allergic reaction. Like in seventh grade when Darren Thomas accidentally got fish instead of chicken at a buffet after our field trip to the art museum in Columbus, and they had to call the emergency squad, and after that we weren’t allowed to stop for food on field trips. Except I’m pretty sure I haven’t accidentally eaten any seafood.
Peter’s in the middle of a sentence, but I say, “I’ll be right back” and walk backstage.
“Where are you going?” he yells after me, but I don’t care. I make a beeline for my safe space, the art supply closet, and shut myself in.
I take a deep breath, then start coughing when I realize I’ve just inhaled a bunch of paint fumes.
A knock on the door. Startled, I run my tongue over my braces and stand up straight. “Uh, come in,” I say, like I have any control over who comes into the art supply closet.
It’s Noah. “Hey,” he says softly, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “Art supply closet party again?”
I smile weakly, too freaked out to even care how it looks. “Yeah. Didn’t you know? This is the place to be.”
He’s wearing his farmer outfit—overalls, a dirty white shirt, and a cowboy hat. It works for him—but then again, when you look like Noah Reed, a garbage bag with arm holes poked in it would work for you, too.
He leans against the shelf beside me. “Nerves, huh?”
I laugh a little. “Uh, yeah. You could say that. If by ‘nerves’ you mean ‘I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pass out or barf.’”
A month ago, I never would’ve thought I’d feel comfortable enough to talk about this kind of stuff with Noah Reed. But that’s what being in a musical does to you, I guess.
I roll my eyes self-consciously. “This probably seems really silly to you.”
He shakes his head. “Nope. I felt the same way when I was in the freshman musical. I sort of feel that way right now.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You do?”
He nods. “I think everyone does. You’d have to be superhuman to not feel a little bit nervous before you go onstage.”
“I bet Marla doesn’t.”
“Like I said: superhuman.”
I laugh. “So … what do you do when you feel like this? Like you’re gonna hyperventilate or wilt in front of everyone?”
He turns to face me. “Here’s what I tell myself: The audience isn’t there to make fun of me. They don’t want me to fail. They just want to watch a good show. They’re rooting for me to do well, because they don’t want to watch something that sucks.”
I nod slowly.
“Just imagine that the entire audience—”
“Is in their underwear!” I finish, eager to contribute the one piece of theater advice I know.
He shakes his head and winces. “I tried that once. It was extremely distracting, and kind of upsetting because my parents were there. No, just imagine that everyone in the audience is cheering for you. That everyone is hoping you’ll do the best job possible. Because they are.”
I breathe in and out. “That was actually pretty helpful.”
He smiles. “You’re gonna be fine, Jolie. You’re gonna be better than fine. These sixth graders are gonna love you today, and everyone else is gonna love you tomorrow.”
And then he reaches out and pulls me into a hug. I relax into it, feeling … well, grateful for us being friends. What I don’t feel is anything romantic, surprisingly. Like, I’m pressed up against Noah Reed and I’m not fantasizing about our lips touching. Maybe, I think, this is even better for our kiss. I’ll be able to get it out of the way without developing any messy feelings for him.
“Just don’t pee out there, okay?” Noah says into my ear, and I burst out laughing, which is exactly when the door swings open.
“Whoa!”
Derek tries to back out of the closet again, but runs into a shelf, knocking paintbrushes onto the floor. Noah and I break apart.
“Sorry, I—I’m just leaving,” Derek says, trying to pick up the paintbrushes and dropping them.
“Do you need help?” Noah says kindly, crossing the floor to help him.
“Nope!” Derek says, pushing all the paintbrushes under a shelf with his foot. “I’ll just see you guys later!”
He bumps into the door before scooting out of the closet.
I can’t believe this just happened again. “I have to go talk to him,” I mutter, running after him and leaving Noah behind.
“Hey!” I call when I finally reach Derek, who’s doing some touch-up work on a fake rock.
“Uh, yeah?” he says crisply, as if he’s deeply engaged in his task and unable to talk.
“We weren’t doing anything!” I hiss urgently. “He just gave me a hug because I was nervous.”
Derek turns to look at me, his calm eyes a little more frantic than usual. “Why would I care, Jolie?”
I step back as if I’ve been slapped. “What?”
“You can do whatever you want with whoever you want wherever you want. But actually, maybe stop doing it in the art supply closet because that’s where I keep my stuff, and this is getting kind of ridiculous.”
I mean, he has a point. “I just … didn’t want you to think anything was going on.”
He shrugs. “Why?”
I balk. “I … because…”
All the words fly out of my head as I look into Derek’s searching eyes. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say—because he’s right. Why do I care so much if he thinks something is going on between me and Noah?
But I know why it is—it’s because I do feel something between Derek and me, something that wasn’t there before, and I do care what he thinks about me. But he’s only started acting like this now that my surgery’s coming up, and I’m starting to wonder if he’s only doing all this—caring about who I kiss, having prying conversations while we’re both wearing swimsuits—because I’m getting fixed soon. Because I’ll be pretty enough for him once a doctor breaks my face and moves it all into place. And as much as I have been thinking about what it would be like if we were more than just friends, I don’t want him to like me just because I’m going to have a new face.
So instead I just stand there, staring at him, as he looks at me expectantly. And then Peter Turturro calls out, “Places, people!” which I’m sure he’s been waiting his entire life to say, and I take the opportunity to run out onto the stage and stop thinking about this.
* * *
Evelyn comes over after the rehearsal so she can do some last-minute alterations to my costumes. But I’m not really thinking about my costumes right now—I’m thinking about Derek, and the way he looked at me when we were swimming. I’m thinking about the way it made me feel, like I was just a normal girl and not his friend with the deformed jaw.
As Evelyn pins some fabric under my arm, I get the nerve to say what’s on my mind. The question I’ve wanted to ask someone for basically forever, the one I’ve been avoiding because I’m terrified to hear the answer.
“I need to ask you something. Am I pretty?”
Evelyn looks up at me and stares for so long that I start to think she didn’t hear me. And then I realize she’s just trying to come up with a nice way to tell me what I already know—that there’s something wrong with me, that I’m not pretty, that I never will be, that there is no way to fix my face, not even with surgery. Because Evelyn is honest, but she’s also kind, and I know she’ll want to come up with the least hurtful way of telling me the truth.
But instead, she puts down her pins and asks me a question.
“What’s ‘pretty’ to you?”
“Listen, I’m not here to get all existential, ‘what’s the meaning of life,’ okay? I just want an answer.”
“That is my answer.” She crosses her arms and leans back. “What do you think? What’s ‘pretty’?”
I sigh, frustrated. I’d like to ignore this, but it’s always easier to just play along with Evelyn’s tangents. “You know what ‘pretty’ is. We all do. ‘Pretty’ is Abbi. Symmetrical features. A jaw that’s where it’s supposed to be. Looking normal. Looking like everyone else.”
“Okay.” Evelyn nods. “Do I look like Abbi?”
“No,” I say, not understanding where she’s going with this.
“Of course not. But do you think I’m pretty?”
“Yes!” I say. “But that’s not—!”
Evelyn holds up her hands. “Okay, stop. Because that’s not the point. With all due respect, you’re my best friend, but I don’t really care if you think I’m pretty. Because I think I’m pretty.” She points to her chest.
“Not to be self-centered, but, uh … what does this have to do with me?”
“I’m just saying … there’s not, like, one universal standard of beauty. Life isn’t a Miss America pageant, as much as Abbi would probably love that. Do I think you’re pretty? Yeah, but that’s a useless question.”
“That’s really easy for you to say,” I grumble. “You know you look good and your face isn’t deformed. You’ve never felt the way I feel.”
“Jolie!” Evelyn almost yells. “Listen to yourself. Yes, I am confident. But we live in a world where a lot of jerks equate ‘fat’ with ‘ugly.’ I regularly go to clothing stores and can only buy hats because they don’t carry my size. There are people everywhere who would love to tell me that the way I look isn’t good enough, that I should change, that there’s something wrong with me. So don’t say I don’t get it, because I do.”
I drop my hands, properly chastised. “I’m sorry. I just never thought you felt this way, because…” I trail off.
“Because I carry myself like I’m worth something,” Evelyn says. “You’re right, I don’t give a single bedazzled shit what anyone else thinks of the way I look, or act, or think, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of it. You aren’t the only one who lives with self-doubt, Jolie.”
“You are really pretty, though,” I say quietly.
She smiles back at me, then laughs. “I think you’re pretty, too, babe. But it’s more important that you think you’re pretty.”
When Evelyn finishes the last minor fixes to my dresses, I ask her if she wants to hang around and Netflix something.
“Sorry, can’t,” she says, giving me an altogether unconvincing pouty face as she packs her sewing supplies into her vintage bowling bag.
I’m disappointed, because I would love to forget about tomorrow’s performance for a few episodes of literally anything, but I try to be supportive. “You’re right. You should probably study instead.”
She looks at me for a moment and purses her lips, then heads toward the door. “Yep. Good point. Try to actually get some sleep tonight, okay?”
After Evelyn leaves, I pull out my scrapbook and page through it. Logically, I know Evelyn’s right. But emotionally? Well, that’s a different story. I flip past pictures of Karlie Kloss and Zendaya and some girl in a mascara ad. I’m not delusional; I know that when my swelling goes down, I’m not going to magically look like a supermodel. But I’m starting to wonder if, even after my surgery, I’ll ever think I’m pretty.