Brody Dixon sat with her on a bench outside the front of the school.
As they spoke, Eve could see their breath, billowing out in white clouds.
“How’d you think we sounded?” he asked her.
“So good!” Eve heard her voice become airy and high- pitched.
Nessa had sounded perfect. Brody hadn’t been great, but something about the way he performed the song … well, it made her feel what the song was trying to say. If that made any sense.
“It’s sort of my biggest secret that I want to be an actor. I mean, everybody probably thinks I want to do sports, right? I mean, I’ll do that, too. But I love movies. I want to be like that guy Hugh Jackman, you know? He plays Wolverine? He does action movies and stuff, but he also does really intense movies. I like that intense stuff. He even does musicals. I saw those movies, and that’s why I tried out for the show. Oh, for my biography this year I’m doing Humphrey Bogart. You know that guy?”
Eve shook her head. “No. Sorry.”
“Ah, it’s okay. He did black-and-white movies and stuff.”
“Oh, cool! Sophie is doing an old actor, too. Audrey Hepburn?”
Brody paused. “So you’re friends with Soph now?”
Eve hesitated, and began to say, “Well, we’ve hung out…,” but Brody cut her off.
“Yikes,” he mumbled. “Just don’t take her too seriously, ya know? You think the show is looking good, though?” Brody asked again.
Eve nodded.
A huge grin lit up his face. And Eve couldn’t help but think that Brody was extremely cute. His smile had this sly but sweet quality, like he knew something special about you that you didn’t know about yourself.
She tried to remember that she was supposed to find evidence that he’d written the list. Nessa had practically screeched it at her as they’d left the theater. Sophie told her that in order to get evidence, she needed to make him vulnerable. But he already seemed pretty vulnerable. He just kept talking and talking.
“My dad—you’ll see him when he picks me up—he’s not so happy about the theater thing. It’s so … what’s the word? When something happens so much it’s tired? Like when a guy in a movie races to get a girl at an airport before she flies away, or a bad guy gives away his entire plan at the end or something?”
“Oh yeah! Clichés! Oh, I hate them. They totally ruin even the best books!” As the words came out, she knew they were probably the wrong ones, but even if her hair and makeup were different, she was still Eve.
“Yeah, it’s a cliché that my dad wants me to do sports and not plays. Like, Dad—be more original!” Brody smiled that smile again and said, “You’re really easy to talk to. You know that?”
Eve pushed a strand of newly straight hair out of her eye with a gloved hand. “Nessa says that.”
“Nessa’s really cool, actually,” he said.
Yeah. Eve knew that. Why “actually”?
“I’m gonna like acting with her,” he added.
“She’s the best,” Eve said.
“Doesn’t really fit the part, but she can do it great, anyway,” he said.
Eve thought she knew what that meant, but she didn’t know what to say. Should she respond, “She fits the part perfectly”? Should she explain to him that what he said wasn’t kind?
“We have way too much homework, right?” Brody changed the subject again before she had the chance to say anything. He kept leading her in new directions in their conversation. How was she supposed to get any information out of him?
“Yeah,” she said. And she thought of what Sophie might do. Sophie had all the confidence in the world. Eve pretended to be like Nessa, who was an actress, and then act like Sophie, who was … well, tough. “Ugh, it’s hard concentrating on homework now, though,” she said.
Brody raised an eyebrow.
“Now that I’m ‘number one.’” She put on a forlorn face.
Brody just laughed. “Oh yeah, like it’s so rough to be the prettiest girl in school.”
Eve didn’t know what to say. It was rough. It wasn’t what he thought. But maybe he just thought it was a great thing, and that’s why he’d written the list. To make her feel good. And then, the thought of him really liking her that much freaked her out.
“I guess,” she said slowly, “someone put me there because they thought it was nice.”
“Oh, hey, I see my dad.” Brody jumped up and headed toward a sleek black SUV that swerved a few feet from where they were sitting. Eve watched as his dad gave him a thumbs-up and wondered if that was about her, or if that’s just how they greeted each other. Weird.
As Brody and his dad drove away, Eve texted the Choir Room Trio, He’s not going to admit anything to me.
You ready for me to call my mom for pickup? Nessa texted back right as she appeared beside Eve. “Hi.” Nessa patted her back. “Bye!” She waved to Lara Alexander.
Nessa took a seat next to Eve on the bench.
“Ooh, Brody kept it warm for me.”
“Yeah, call your mom,” Eve said.
MAJOR FAIL Sophie wrote back to the group.
We will figure it out! We have until winter break for me to find his password or see something at rehearsals! Loads of time. As Nessa texted she said to Eve, “Sophie is really losing it, huh?”
No! you think we have that much time? by then, the list will be set in stone. he will get away with it. dont you want it back to normal? eve, see you at lunch tomorrow. its your first day to sit with us. hell come in the middle after his guys are done eating.
ok ok, Nessa wrote back.
“Just be careful around him, okay?” Nessa bounced a little in the cold.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, don’t fall for whatever performance he gives you. He’s not a good guy. Don’t forget the things he’s said before.”
Eve didn’t know if Brody was good or not, but she knew that he wasn’t as bad as she’d thought before they spoke. And she also knew that all this phoniness exhausted her.
“Don’t you look nice,” Nessa’s mom said to Eve as they hopped into the car.
Eve tied her hair into a messy ponytail. “Thanks.”
“Come on, Brody is the worst, right?” Nessa turned toward Eve from the passenger’s seat.
“He’s…,” Eve began, trying to figure out what exactly he was.
“Oh no.” Nessa raised her hands to her forehead and wailed, “You’re falling for the whole handsome thing!”
“Nessa, stop the drama,” Nessa’s mom scolded as they pulled out of the parking lot, the rainbow rosary clattering against the windshield.
“It’s not the handsome thing! He’s just not as bad as I thought he’d be!” Eve insisted.
“Oh no,” Nessa repeated. “Handsomeness wins again.” After a beat she added, “And so does cluelessness.”
“What does that mean?” Eve asked her.
“Nothing.”
They drove the rest of the way home in silence.