“I knew this would happen,” I moaned, collapsing on Raven’s bedroom carpet. “Ever since we saw the Shakespeare Theatre production with my class.”
I wasn’t called for any scenes tonight, so I’d gone home with Raven after school and told her about Robin’s “idea,” and then I’d finally told her everything about my weekend, too—“All the beans,” she’d said, snapping her fingers, “spill ’em.”
“Having your first kiss on stage is not the end of the world,” she said, but the way she said it, she could’ve been pronouncing the imminent demise of mankind.
“I could say no,” I said, for the hundredth time. “Robin said to think about it and let him know if I was comfortable with it or not. He said I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to. He can re-block the scene instead. And it won’t really be kissing. He’s going to show us how to stage it so it’s just an illusion.”
“You said all that already,” Raven said. “But I still don’t understand how it works. How will the audience not notice that Zephyr’s kissing his thumb instead of your mouth?”
“He’ll have his downstage hand on the side of my head, and—”
“Okay, whatever,” Raven interrupted. “The point is, do you want to do it or not?”
“I think the scene will work a lot better if we do it,” I admitted. “As long as it’s not horribly awkward.”
“Zephyr’s been in lots of plays, I’m sure he’s done plenty of stage kisses before.”
“And it doesn’t count as my first kiss?”
“Definitely not,” Raven said.
“Okay. So why do you have that look on your face?”
“Because you went on two dates with this guy over the weekend, and you didn’t tell me about it until today.”
“They weren’t dates! I told you, he has a girlfriend. And I’m still in mourning for Farhan. Or something.”
Raven shook her head. “It’s just weird, dude. We always tell each other everything.”
“Well, I told you about the Friday night plan, dude. The Saturday night one was kind of last-minute.”
“And?”
“And … nothing. Everything’s so intense right now at home. It was nice to have a distraction.”
Raven nodded. “Okay, okay, fine, I forgive you. Now, speaking of distractions, I have to study for my history test tomorrow, my math test on Friday, and my debate tournament in two weeks. Pick one and quiz me.” She plunked a stack of notebooks down on the carpet next to me.
“Right. What’s a friend for?” I rolled my eyes at her and let out a Dramatic Groan. But I did feel a little better.
Maybe my dad had a secret past I’d never known about and my parents weren’t speaking to each other or sleeping in the same bed. Maybe my surprise sister was stealing my dad and the boy who’d been my one true love since forever. Maybe my brother was sneaking around and even more withdrawn than he’d ever been, which meant he was basically turning into a human snail. Maybe I wasn’t a senior, or a New Yorker planning to move to LA to direct movies, but Raven thought I was sophisticated enough to handle a stage kiss.
Sure. A stage kiss? No big deal.
Zephyr certainly didn’t act like it was a big deal. Robin had us come to rehearsal early Tuesday night to practice before everyone else got there, so we wouldn’t have to try it for the first time with an audience of teenagers. In my head, I flapped my arms wildly to make sure the gods were watching, so they’d reward Robin appropriately in the afterlife.
Although, Robin was the one who was making things awkward. He was describing how Zephyr should hold his hand, and the exact angle we should stand from the audience to create the illusion. But he was doing all this from the first row of seats. Ordinarily he didn’t hesitate to get up on stage with us during rehearsals, sometimes physically moving us around like chess pieces or giant dolls if we were struggling with the blocking and he got fed up with verbal instruction. Tonight, though, he was simply waving his hands in the air to explain what he meant.
Finally Zephyr said, politely, “Mind if we just try it? I remember how. I’ve done this before.”
Robin said, “Yes, yes, of course,” and waved his hands again, as if to clear away all the instructions he’d just given. “Of course you have. Take it away.” He folded his arms. I couldn’t figure out why he seemed so uncomfortable.
Zephyr placed his hand on the downstage side of my head, just like Robin had explained, slid his thumb over my mouth, and leaned in to touch his lips to his thumb.
I closed my eyes. It wasn’t a kiss. It didn’t even feel like a kiss. It felt like a boy putting his hand on the side of my head and kissing his thumb in front of my face.
But Zephyr’s hand was pleasantly cool against my warm face, and it smelled like cocoa butter and soap, and the touch of his thumb made my lips feel like they were swelling. I didn’t want it to end.
“Hold—and—yes, that’s it. That’s very good,” said Robin, clapping his hands twice, all businesslike. “Excellent. Let’s break until the others arrive.”
And that was it. My first stage kiss. Zephyr stepped away from me and picked up his script, slouched into the wings to practice his lines. I wandered into the audience seats and, with my back to Robin, touched my own thumb to my lips. It didn’t feel the same.
Rehearsal that night was glorious. We were mostly off book, at last, and the scene picked up a rhythm it hadn’t had before. It was the wedding scene—the first wedding scene, where Claudio and Hero are supposed to get married, halfway through the play. But Claudio has been tricked by Don John, the villain, aka Sam Shotwell, into thinking Hero is dillydallying with other men behind his back. At the altar, in front of everyone, Claudio accuses her of cheating. Then he storms off, Hero faints, and Beatrice and Benedick are left to figure out how to fix the whole mess, with Beatrice furious at Claudio for humiliating her beloved, innocent cousin.
Benedick finally declares his love to Beatrice and tells her he’d do anything for her. Cue stage kiss. Then she tells him if he really loves her, he should go kill Claudio.
Raven would love this part.
Tori Lopez was doing a great job as Claudio, storming around and preening like a male peacock, and Priya Pashari, playing Hero, did a very credible swoon. But our stage kiss took the cake—everyone hooted and whooped from the wings, and even Zephyr was blushing when he pulled away.
“People!” Robin yelled, clapping his hands for quiet. “All right, all right. Benedick, Beatrice, please proceed.”
We ran through the rest of the scene, on fire from all the excitement in the room. Everyone was watching us, holding their breath, it felt like, to see if we’d do it again. We didn’t—Robin had only blocked in the one stage kiss—and everyone stopped making a big deal about it by the end of the night, after we’d run the scene two more times.
“That’s a wrap for tonight,” Robin said, at last. “Go home, sleep, run your lines. Simultaneously if need be.”
“Hey,” I said to Zephyr, as we packed up our bags, “good job tonight.”
“Yeah, you too.” He smiled at me. “That wasn’t too awkward, right?”
“Nope, not at all. Hey, I was wondering if you, um, wanted to go get ice cream?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, it’s on the way to my place, if you don’t mind driving. Unless you have to be home by a certain time—”
“Oh, no, I don’t.” Zephyr seemed flustered. I’d never seen him flustered before. “It’s just—I didn’t drive tonight, and my ride is leaving—what about tomorrow night instead?”
“Sure, sounds good.” Who had he driven to rehearsal with? I didn’t remember him coming in with anyone. And we’d both gotten to rehearsal early—Micayla had agreed to drive me over early, since she had extra work to do on the costumes.
“Oh my god,” she groaned, coming up behind me at that moment.
I spun around. “Oh, hey.”
“Sorry,” she said, “was I interrupting?”
“No, it’s fine.” I turned back to Zephyr, but he’d slipped away. I scanned the room but didn’t see him. He and his ride, whoever it was, must’ve scooted right out the door.
“Anyway,” Micayla said, “I screwed up Priya’s dress and I have to start all over again. Can you help me carry some stuff out to the car? I want to take this dress home and work on it more.”
“Sure,” I said, and filed the Zephyr mystery away to think about another time.
That night, there was another giant bouquet of flowers on the table—peonies, this time. Mom’s other favorite.
So she and Dad were still fighting. Or whatever they were doing. Or not doing. They’d waited for me to have dinner, which meant that everyone was grumpy and starving when I got home. Mom and Dad sat at opposite ends of the table and bowed their heads while Elizabeth said grace. Mom was clasping her hands together so hard her knuckles went white. The peonies were perched in the middle of the table like an awkward grin. Once the meal started, Mom didn’t say anything except for asking me or Josh or Elizabeth to pass things to her. Dad tried floating a few conversation openers her way, but she managed to avoid responding directly to him. How much longer could this go on?
“So!” Dad said, in Forced Good Cheer Voice. “Elizabeth, have you and your, uh, fellow decided what you’re going to see on Friday night? I hear The Super Duper Swamp Monster Blood and Guts IV is very good.”
“That’s not a real movie, Dad,” said Josh, while my stomach churned. Elizabeth and Farhan’s date—I’d completely forgotten.
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “What fellow?”
Dad looked at Elizabeth. “Ah. Sorry, didn’t realize we were keeping this under wraps.”
“No, it’s fine.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Sorry, Melissa, I didn’t tell you yet. I asked Ross if it was okay.”
“Well, of course it’s okay,” Mom said, with a tight smile. “I’m very glad that you’re getting out and meeting people. So, who is it?”
“Just someone from school,” Elizabeth said.
“I know everyone from school,” Mom said. “Who is it?”
“It’s Farhan,” I said, “she’s going out with Farhan.”
Mom raised her eyebrows at me. “You mean, Farhan who was your—”
“My friend, right,” I said, cutting across her words. “Yeah, I set them up together. Sort of.”
Now Dad was giving Elizabeth a funny look. I wondered how much she’d told him. If she’d said anything about what happened at the Fall Ball.
Mom was still staring at me. “So you and Farhan are just friends? I thought … ?”
“Yes, we’re just friends.” It came out more aggressively than I’d meant it to. This conversation was making my stomach hurt worse. To change the subject, I said, “So, I had my first stage kiss tonight.”
Mom and Dad both froze.
Josh, to my surprise, cracked up.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, annoyed.
He kept laughing, and said, “Ewwwww. You have to kiss?”
Boys.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, looked equal parts shocked and impressed. “Wow,” she said. “Was it—weird?”
“No, not at all. Zephyr has a lot of experience on stage. He’s really good at it.”
Dad wrinkled his nose. “Cadie, I’m happy for you, but I have to say, it makes a father queasy to think about his daughter’s first kiss.”
“It’s not a real kiss, Dad, it’s just a stage kiss. He’s kissing his thumb, over my mouth, not—”
Dad waved a hand as if to clear the air, in a way that reminded me of Robin. “No, no, that’s enough detail. Great. Good for you.”
Mom actually smirked. “Yes, good for you.” Good for you for making your father uncomfortable, she meant.
The image of Elizabeth and Farhan was still swirling around in my head. And the image of Elizabeth telling Dad about her first date here in Baltimore, asking his permission. Not even bothering to tell Mom, because she wasn’t related to Mom, so why should she make an effort?
“Mom,” I said, and I heard myself use a Voice, just like Dad. Innocent Lamb Voice. “Do you have a lot of work tonight?”
Mom frowned. “No, actually. Why?”
“I know it’s late, but would you take me out for a quick driving lesson? Just us. You know, some mother-daughter time?”
It was like I got hit with three javelins to the stomach at once: Dad’s face, falling so hard you could hear it thump. Mom’s, lighting up with such a hopeful expression she looked like a golden retriever begging for treats. And Elizabeth’s, crumpling, although she looked down quickly at her plate to hide it. Because she doesn’t have any mother-daughter time anymore, you idiot. My stomach twisted with guilt. I hadn’t meant to rub salt in that wound.
I couldn’t see Josh’s face, since he was sitting right next to me, but that was fine. I didn’t need to know whether I could’ve possibly hurt him, too.
“Absolutely, mija,” Mom purred. “I’d love to see the progress you’re making.”
Uh-oh. “Well, don’t get too optimistic,” I said, trying to sound as jolly as Dad had a few minutes ago. “I’m definitely still a beginner.”
“I’ll just go grab my coat, and then we can take a spin,” said Mom, pushing her chair back from the table. Half of her tempeh Reuben was still on her plate. “I’ll save this for later,” she added, whisking her plate off to the kitchen.
So I took my half-eaten dinner to the kitchen, too, since my stomach was hurting too much to eat anyway. I pulled out two Tupperware containers—but Mom scraped her plate into the trash instead, giving me a conspiratorial smile. She hated tempeh and sauerkraut. Dad knew that. He must’ve forgotten.
It was nice, for once, to share something with Mom, to know that I’d made her happy. She was actually humming as she went to the closet for her coat. I just couldn’t believe how much both of us were willing to hurt Dad.
When we got into the car, Mom said, “I’m glad to have some time alone together. We really haven’t talked, just the two of us, since—everything happened. How are you—”
“I’m fine,” I said, cutting her off and forcing a smile. “You know what? For tonight, I’d rather not talk about it. I just want to focus on my driving.”
She smiled back at me—a warm smile, a real one. “You’re my big girl,” she said softly. “I’m proud of you.”
I’d thought it would somehow help me feel better, making Mom happy, but my stomach was tied in tighter knots than ever.
I was only called for one scene at rehearsal the next night, and Zephyr wasn’t called at all. So much for our ice cream plan. Oh well, I told myself, it didn’t seem like he really wanted to go anyway.
But when I jumped off the edge of the stage after my scene, there he was, waiting by my backpack.
“Hey,” he said, “that was fantastic.”
“Oh! Thanks!” I said, flustered. “Have you been watching this whole time?”
He nodded.
“But—you’re not called tonight.”
“I know, but I had to blow you off last night, so I owe you a rain check.”
“Nah, you don’t owe me anything. Don’t worry about it.”
Zephyr rubbed his chin, a gesture I was starting to recognize as something he did when he felt self-conscious. “I thought we had plans. That’s why I came to pick you up.”
“Oh!” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and Robin was glaring daggers at us for talking during rehearsal, so I slung my backpack over my shoulder and we ducked up the aisle.
“Still want ice cream?” Zephyr said, once we were outside the Shed. “Or … would you consider something else?”
He spun his car keys around one finger. “I haven’t had dinner yet, I’m starving. Do you like sushi?”
“Ugh. I’ve never had it. I’m a vegetarian.”
He grinned. “Oh-ho, one of those. Well, you can get avocado rolls, or soup, or noodles. Or we can go somewhere else.”
Adrenaline zinged through me. Zephyr Daniels wanted to have dinner with me? Before I could second-guess myself, I said, “No, you know what? I want to try sushi. It sounds fun.” And by fun, I meant sophisticated and New York. Aka perfect.
I called home and checked in with Mom, who said it was fine as long as I was home by 9:30. So we climbed into the orange Beetle and zoomed down St. Paul Street. Zephyr parked on 33rd and led me toward a set of stairs right off the street, next to a sign that said SUSHI BELOW. The restaurant was in a basement, apparently. I followed him down the stairs, and when he pushed open the door, I was startled by a burst of blue light. The foyer was decked out with fish ponds and colorful floodlights, rock sculptures and pink flamingos and fake palm trees. The waitresses all wore neon pink-and-green or yellow-and-blue kimonos, which clashed with their beehive hairdos and cat-eye glasses, and the soundtrack to Hairspray was playing quietly in the background.
Zephyr swept a hand out in front of us, encompassing the whole scene. “What do you think?”
“Very Baltimore,” I said, nodding in approval.
The hostess seated us in the back corner—perfect for people watching. I noticed Zephyr glancing around the room, too.
“Do you like people watching?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m incurable.” Zephyr sounded like a book sometimes. As if he hadn’t played with other kids much when he was little. Maybe he was an only child.
I decided to ask. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
He hesitated for the briefest second, then shook his head. “What about you?”
“One brother.” I hesitated, too. “And—one half sister. She just moved here. My parents didn’t even know she existed until a couple months ago. Things have been kind of rough lately.” Once I’d started talking about it, the words tumbled out. “My dad and I were always super close, but now it’s like we’re on opposite teams, because he has this giant secret I never knew about, and somehow I’m getting closer with my mom even though I can’t stand her most of the time, and she and my dad aren’t talking to each other at all.” I made myself stop before I blabbed my entire life story.
Zephyr didn’t look freaked out, though, just concerned. “Wow, ‘rough’ sounds like an understatement.”
I felt my face heating up, so I picked up a menu. “Yeah. Well. Time to drown my sorrows in sushi.”
I ordered an avocado roll and a bowl of miso soup. Zephyr ordered a spicy tuna roll, a yellowtail roll, and something called unagi sashimi.
“What’s that?” I said, after the waitress had taken our order. “That last thing you said.”
“Eel,” he said, grinning.
“Seriously? Ugh.”
“Hey, you don’t have to eat any of it. But I’m warning you, it’s possibly the most delicious thing on this planet.”
“Yeah … I’ll pass.” I looked down, fiddling with my napkin. “Sorry I spilled all that on you. About my family stuff.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. I’m sorry you’re going through it.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, sounds like great stuff to use on stage.”
I smiled. “I guess that’s a good way to think about it. It’s just all so weird. How about you? Are you close with your parents? What are they like?” I knew I was prying, but I desperately wanted to stop talking about myself. And right as I said that I remembered—he didn’t have a mother. He’d told me that on our way to Center Stage the first time. Crap.
Before I could try to dig myself out of that one, though, he cleared his throat and answered my question. “I don’t know much at all about my parents—my birth parents. I’m adopted.”
“Oh! Cool.”
“I have two dads, actually.”
“Very cool!”
“We’ve been fighting about college stuff lately, but usually we get along pretty well.”
I nodded, and then, thank Poseidon, our food arrived before I could say “cool” one more time. Zephyr didn’t seem to mind my blunders, though. Or else he was just a very good actor. Which you already know, I reminded myself. Oh well. Either way, my stomach wasn’t churning the way it usually did when I got nervous or upset.
Dealing with the food kept us busy for a while. I knew how to use chopsticks, sort of, but there was a whole thing to do with mixing the wasabi and soy sauce, which came separately on a little white dish with two compartments. Zephyr showed me how to take a smidge of wasabi on the end of one chopstick and mash it into the soy sauce compartment, taste it, then repeat until it was as hot as I wanted. I mixed in too much wasabi right away, though, and coughed until my eyes watered. Zephyr laughed at me, and I swatted him with my napkin, which knocked his teacup onto the floor. It didn’t shatter, but tea splashed everywhere.
Ordinarily, I would’ve been mortified for all that to happen in front of a boy, but he was laughing so hard that I couldn’t help laughing, too. When we finally calmed ourselves down and the waitress had brought him a new teacup, I dipped one of my avocado roll slices into the wasabi–soy sauce mixture and, mimicking Zephyr, popped it into my mouth whole.
“Tha’s de-lishoush,” I mumbled around the mouthful of spicy rice, seaweed, and avocado. He beamed as if he’d cooked it himself.
We ate for a little while in silence. Then I said, “So, you’re in the middle of college applications now?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, it’s pretty much taken over my life outside of school.”
“You’re applying to drama programs, right?”
“Nope. Astrophysics.”
I almost dropped my chopsticks. “Are you serious?”
Zephyr prodded one of his rolls toward me. “Are you sure you don’t want to try some of the real stuff?”
“Maybe just one bite. I do eat fish every once in a while. Mostly when I’m mad at my parents.”
I took a nibble of his raw tuna roll gingerly and almost spat it back out. “Ew! It’s so—fishy.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, drawling the words. “It’s, like, fish.”
This set us off into another round of laughter. What was I so giddy about? Was it something in the food?
“We’re high on wasabi,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “Clears up your nasal passages and makes you all light-headed.”
“Airheaded,” I said.
“Speak for yourself!” He jabbed his chopsticks toward me and I jabbed mine right back.
“So,” I said. “Why aren’t you applying for a theater degree? You’re the best actor in this whole school.”
“I don’t want to be, like, working at McDonald’s the rest of my life. Most theater majors don’t just waltz out of school and make it big-time on Broadway.”
“I bet you could.”
He was shaking his head.
“Well, then you could teach! Like Robin.”
He sighed. “Okay, okay. That’s not the real reason. That’s just what I tell people. It’s a long story.”
“A long story?” I remembered what he’d said at Center Stage: Cadie, that’s what people say when they don’t want to talk about something. “Does that mean I should stop asking questions?”
He smiled. “No, I don’t mind talking about it. If I’m not boring you.”
“Of course not.” I motioned toward the two sushi rolls still sitting in front of him, untouched. “And maybe I’ll get brave enough to try that eel, if you distract me.”
He narrowed his eyes at me and ate another piece of sushi. Then he set his chopsticks down. “Okay. It’s like this. Imagine this is Earth.” He picked a grain of rice off his sushi and set it on the tablecloth. Then he added ten more next to it. “Now, Jupiter is about eleven times wider than Earth—you could fit, like, thirteen hundred Earths inside the volume of Jupiter. So imagine how enormous Jupiter is.” He put another piece of rice halfway down the table. “Here’s our moon. See how huge Jupiter is? Well, you could fit Jupiter plus all the rest of the planets in our solar system into the space between Earth and our moon. So that gives you a tiny sense of how much space is out there.”
He paused to let that sink in, then gestured with his chopsticks at the space between the grains of rice. “And that distance, from us to the moon? Is only like a third of the diameter of our sun. But the sun is just a star. The largest star we know of in the Milky Way galaxy is one billion times bigger than the sun. And yet, if you shrank the sun down to the size of a human white blood cell and shrank the galaxy along with it proportionately, the whole galaxy would be the size of the United States compared to that blood cell. That’s how huge our galaxy is.”
My head was beginning to spin.
“And then … try to imagine this: in just one photo taken by the Hubble space telescope, you can see thousands of galaxies. Each with millions of stars. Each star with its own planets.”
“Wow,” I breathed. I’d forgotten I was still holding chopsticks; they quivered as my hand hovered over my plate. I set them down carefully, as if I might disrupt the universe he’d just laid out on the table.
“Yeah. And that’s just the beginning. Makes you feel less depressed about only getting the chance to live one life, right?”
I frowned. “How do you get there?”
“Well, on the one hand, if we’re really that tiny and insignificant, what does anything matter?”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Nah, it’s just the easy answer.” He smiled. “On the other hand, when I think about the universe—it gives me this colossal sense of wonder that life exists at all, that all the things that matter to us really do matter to us, somehow. That we can think and create and destroy and feel emotional about art, even though we’re smaller than specks of specks of specks. And it seems incredibly unfair that we only get to do it once. Once.” He took a deep breath. “So, that’s why I love the stage. That’s why I act—to experience something outside myself. To get to be someone besides myself.”
We sat there for a moment without speaking, letting those words hang between us.
“Why do you act?” he asked, finally.
I wasn’t sure what to say after that speech. “To escape myself, I think.” The words came out before I had time to think about them. Almost as if I were saying a line I’d memorized—as if it were my inevitable and only response to his question.
He raised an eyebrow.
“You know, to get out of my own head. To pretend I’m someone else, someone without all my problems.” Was it true? Sure, I’d originally signed up for drama because of Dad. But the rush I felt on stage, when I was speaking someone else’s words instead of my own, diving into the authentic reactions of my character—it was a relief to press pause on my own thoughts for a while, to “consciously forget” and block out everything else and focus all my energy on being Beatrice, or Elizabeth Proctor, or whoever.
“Really? You’d rather be someone else? You, Acadia Greenfield?” He was teasing, but something about the way he said it made my face warm up. As if he thought Acadia Greenfield was a pretty okay person to be. Or maybe it was just the wasabi.
While Zephyr went to the bathroom, I thought more about what he’d said. About how it wasn’t fair that we only got this one chance at life, and how acting can give you the chance to try being all kinds of other people. I loved that. And then I remembered something Robin had said to me, back at the beginning of the year: You’re interested in people, Acadia, and that’s a wonderful thing for an actor. You’re an observer of human nature; you’re thirsty for it.
Maybe that was the real reason I loved the stage. Or maybe it was okay for both reasons to be true.
Zephyr came back just as the waitress brought our check, and we pulled out our wallets to figure out who owed what.
“Oh, I never tried the eel!” I said, looking at his empty plates.
Zephyr grinned. “Part of my master plan. Now we have to come back.”
We rode home in contented quiet, our stomachs full, the car warm.
“Thanks,” I said, when he dropped me off at my door. “I’m glad you owed me a rain check. That was a lot of fun.”
All he said was, “Yeah,” but he smiled and waved as I closed the car door.