The Truth About Fragile Things Page 4

  “Shut up,” I advised him. “He is my friend and he is an insufferable flirt so don’t think any of it means anything,” I told Charlotte.

  “I like the word insufferable,” he mumbled through his bite. “I’m going to use that in a sentence today.”

  “Make him go away,” Charlotte ordered.

  “If you knew him you’d know that I can’t. You get used to him. And besides, he’s the only one who knows. He wants to help us.”

  Charlotte shot up, her food untouched. “I’m out,” she announced. “Forget it.”

  Phillip caught her around one ankle. “Stop. Don’t go. I promise you’ll like me.”

  I gave a wry laugh in spite of Charlotte’s scowl and the heat in my stomach. “That’s what he says to every girl,” I mumbled. I rearranged my expression into something more serious. “Charlotte, please stay. He will shut up now. He’ll only help when he’s useful. He knows how to raft and backpack.”

  Charlotte kicked her foot, forcing him to let go and turned to both of us. “I can’t believe you told him. Are you laughing at me?” I saw both fear and fight in her eyes. If she thought we were mocking her she would kill us first and worry about it later.

  “I swear we’re not,” I told her. “I am so sorry. He’s my friend and he is going to behave. Didn’t you ask me where I think we should start?”

  Charlotte waffled, her weight tilting toward us and then away before she finally sat down, refusing to look at Phillip. “I want to know which one we should do first.”

  “Do you have the list?” Phillip asked and she shot him a scalding glare.

  “What?” he asked, looking to me to defend him.

  “She has it memorized,” I told him. “Could you write it down for me?” I asked her.

  “I did.” She pulled a piece of notebook paper from her pocket and I unfolded it on my lap. Phillip strained over my shoulder to study it.

  “Definitely skinny dipping. Let’s go tonight,” he said with a wicked grin that didn’t shrink under Charlotte’s withering glare.

  “I hope you dive in with piranhas,” I muttered. He mimed covering up his nether regions, but I refused to reward him with a laugh. “Phillip, if you don’t stop we’ll do everything without you.”

  “Fine,” he relented. “You can’t raft now. It’s September. The water is too low. She could try out for the play. Too bad it’s not a musical. More parts,” he offered.

  Charlotte’s eyes grew hard. “Who’d want to be in a play?”

  “It says perform…”

  “It never says in stupid play,” she interrupted me. “Are we in second grade?”

  Phillip raised his heavy eyebrows. “Plays aren’t for little kids.”

  “He was a lead role in our musical last year,” I said, not ready to admit my own place in the theater department. “And he was only a sophomore. He can coach you.”

  “That’s supposed to convince me?” She snarled at Phil. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near him.”

  Phillip pulled his lips into a dangerous smile. “Good. That way I don’t have to waste my time on a freshman. You’d never get a part no matter what I taught you.”

  “Time out. I’m getting a twitch!” I called, pressing the corner of my eye.

  “You have a big head,” Charlotte informed him.

  “Don’t we know it!” I agreed. “But he can act. And we can help you.”

  “Megan can show you how to be all hoity toity.”

  “Watch it,” I warned him. “He means I’m in the drama department, too. We can help you together. I don’t know how else you’d perform. Do you play an instrument or something? Do you sing?”

  Charlotte tried not to answer by growling a nondescript sound, but I refused to accept that. “Unless you have a better idea, the list says perform on a stage and by dumb luck, we both know how to do that, if you let us help you. Or you could do some interpretive dance for the school…”

  “I’ll think about it.” Charlotte crossed her arms, warding off the reality of what we were saying.

  “No. No thinking,” Phillip said. “Thinking too much is insufferable.” He shot me a smile. “See? I did it.”

  Charlotte met his dark eyes, refused to smile as his buttery voice. “Stop talking to me like I like you. I think you’re a jerk.”

  Phillip ripped off another bite of hotdog, his grin widening. “That doesn’t worry me at all. You, on the other hand, are kind of growing on me. You’re so sweet and all.”

  Charlotte shook her head and turned to me for help, but in her exasperated face flashed a trace of amusement. He was breaking through.

  “Meet us outside the theater doors after school,” I told her when the lunch bell rang. “It’s not as bad as you think.”

  I glanced at all the food I hadn’t eaten, grabbed some pretzels to hold me over and raced for statistics, which is ironic, because I kept trying to calculate the odds of Charlotte actually showing up. If I’d been holding a magic eight ball, the answer would have floated out of the blue-black liquid, Don’t count on it.

  CHAPTER 7

  “There she is,” Phillip said and nudged my arm. Charlotte stood alone in the short hallway, her arms folded over her stomach like it hurt. She spotted me and gave me a strange grimace.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I set my backpack at her feet.

  “I hate stages.” Her eyes nailed us. “I hate people who need the world to cheer for them to feel like they’re worth anything.”

  Phillip just smiled like he’d never heard anything so entertaining. “You won’t hate it for long,” he promised. He grabbed her backpack strap and tugged her toward the theater door.

  “What are you doing?” Charlotte and I both asked, my tone exasperated, hers anxious.

  “Immersion therapy,” Phil explained as he opened the door. It was pitch black inside. Charlotte struggled against his grasp, but he refused to let go. She crouched down, released her arms from the straps, and freed herself just before he pulled her into the darkness. Phillip looked down to the Charlotte-less bag he held and rolled his eyes. “Both of you, in there, now!” He pointed to us in the bright hallway and then shot his finger into the dark recess of backstage. “I’m not playing around.”

  I nudged Charlotte gently. “It’s empty. No one will see you. You can just have a look around.”

  The door closed behind us, leaving only a thin strip of light. “Are we allowed to be in here?” Charlotte’s worried whisper was hoarse and I felt her slip closer to the door, ready to escape.

  “I didn’t take you for a girl who was scared to break the rules,” Phil pointed out. “Just stand here a minute. Don’t move. Don’t talk. Just get used to it. Sense the stage without seeing it.”

  “We’re not on stage. We’re backstage,” she answered.

  “Sh! You’ll learn there’s hardly a difference. Half of what you do on a stage happens back here,” he whispered.

  Again, she slid backward, so close to the light I could see her silhouette. Phillip took her hand in his and braced himself so she could not run away. “Just be still,” he said in his most soothing voice. I waited for her to fight back, to coil and hiss, but after a short struggle she left her hand in his.

  Something constricted inside me, the strangeness of the situation compounded by the drama of a stage. I am standing in the dark with the girl who hates me because I killed her father and my best friend is holding her hand. My brain followed that thought through the dust of the velvet curtains, over the stack of plywood left in a heap beside the risers, and around the folding chairs resting against the wall. I can never fix this.

  We breathed together in the quiet, acclimating to the black, heavy air.

  “Better now?” Phillip asked her.

  “Maybe,” was her small answer.

  I reached out for the light panel and slid the blue lamps up until the stage was washed in a weak, watery light. It felt less intimidating than the full stage lights and made it more difficult for Charlotte to see
how many seats were lined up in front of her.

  Phil guided her past the curtains to the stage. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Charlotte,” she said, her voice thick with humiliation.

  “You’re scared of your own voice,” he told her. “Just get used to hearing it. How old are you?”

  She stomped one foot and her posture sagged. “You know how old I am.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, his voice low and coaxing.

  “Fourteen,” she answered.

  “Who’s your favorite teacher?”

  Charlotte sighed and pulled away from his touch. “I don’t like teachers. I know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?” Phil asked, amusement touching his smile.

  “I live with a freakin’ therapist. This is some kind of exercise to trick people into…”

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  “Clear,” she sneered.

  “Seriously, what is so hard about a color? Name a color you like,” he pushed.

  “Purple. Dark purple,” she muttered.

  “Why?”

  Charlotte raised her eyes from the scratched wooden floor and searched his smile, his expression, weighing his motives. “I don’t know. I just like it.”

  “Where’s your dad?” Phil asked.

  A breath of air popped out of me like something had crashed into my stomach. “Phillip?” My voice wobbled with shock and I prayed I’d imagined his question.

  “Where’s your dad?” he repeated, ignoring me.

  “He’s dead.” Her fingers trembled at the very tips, making the blue light dance up her arms. I worried for a moment that she would slap him.

  “Why?” Phillip asked.

  I froze, the room cold and forsaken and hollow. One giant coffin. The pain fell through me, began at my throat and slammed into my shins where my legs quivered under my weight.

  “He died,” she answered. Her face found me and I knew she amended the words for my sake.

  “Why?” Phillip pressed.

  Charlotte shifted her weight and Phillip reached out to take her hand again. Her fingers batted him away. “In an accident. He died saving someone’s life.”

  “Whose?”

  I closed my eyes and still saw the blue light flooding over me, burying me in shame. I was underwater. Man overboard.

  “Hers,” Charlotte whispered so softly that only the acoustics of that room could pick up the word and carry it to my burning ears.

  A script would have said: Megan drops to the floor and hides her face.

  In real life I only fell on the inside, wishing for a trap door so I could shrink lower, lower, out of sight.

  “How do you feel about that?” Phillip prodded.

  Charlotte’s deep breath shivered and broke before she found her words. “I am really mad. And really proud. And maybe I’m ticked off that I don’t hate Megan. I’m mad she’s pretty. I’m mad that her life had to cost me so much. I wish I could hate her. Maybe I do hate her.”

  Her monologue fell one word at a time, seeped into my bones and the wooden floor, and pooled in the orchestra pit where I could see her voice in the blackness below.

  “Anything else?” Phillip asked.

  Charlotte looked out across the empty auditorium and breathed in the power of the stage. I watched it happen as her shoulders relaxed and she leaned into one leg, comfortable, at home. “Maybe I don’t hate her. She’s the last thing of him that I have left. The last thing he did.”

  Phillip nodded and only then did I notice I was holding my breath. I sat down as the last strength seeped out of me. I ran my hands over the stage, willing it to lend me some of its strength. I’ve never understood how putting some oak planks four feet above the ground could change everything, but it does. I let the moment sit, soaking into us. Except Phillip. He put his hand on the back of her elbow before he said in soothing tones, “Now put on a cheesy accent and say, ‘I’ve just come for me sardines.’”

  “What?” Charlotte snarled in confusion.

  “That’s the line in the script. You just have to say, ‘I’ve come for me sardines.’”

  Charlotte looked to me in bewilderment and I finally put together what Phillip had done.

  “Nothing you ever say from a script will be as hard as what you just said,” I explained.

  Phillip handed her his script. “This is the scene you have to memorize for tryouts next week. You have to throw everything else away and pretend that the only thing you want in life is a few sardines.”

  “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she said, taking a few steps closer to the front of the stage.

  “Then you’ve a lot of stupid to make up for,” Phil retorted.

  Charlotte found a spot where the blue light was brightest and stood as it filtered over her. She inspected one hand, studying the new color of her skin. At last she looked out over the seats and shrugged her shoulders as if she just conceded some silent point. “I’ve come for me sardines,” she called to the absent audience.

  Phillip gave two echoing claps and Charlotte turned her face to me, flushed and doubtful.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Maybe diamond earrings was the easy one. At least all we’d need is money,” Charlotte said, reading over the list as if studying it one more time might make it more achievable.

  “I think we should start with a surprise party. That’s easy. Do you think you have to get a surprise party or you have to throw one for someone else?”

  “I don’t know. He only wrote ‘surprise party.’ I guess we throw one because you can’t surprise me now.”

  “Do we know anyone having a birthday?” I pulled out a water bottle and took a long swallow. It was hot for September, even in the shade of the enormous maple trees that towered over our school. I fished an acorn out from under my thigh and tossed it. Charlotte watched it bounce and come to rest in the grass.

  “Doctor Dave’s birthday is actually this weekend.” As soon as the words escaped, her face went hard. “But don’t even think about it. We’re not using my dad’s bucket list on him.”

  “I hate the word bucket. It’s an ugly word.” I pretended not to see my classmates as they crossed the courtyard toward the parking lot. A girl from third hour spotted Charlotte and me. She watched us for too long so I finally gave a quick wave, which was returned. “What do we do about them?” I asked Charlotte. “Eventually they’ll want to know what we’re doing.”

  “I tell everyone you’re my dealer,” Charlotte quipped back.

  “You what?!”

  She rolled her eyes and swore. “Megan, seriously, you’re too serious.”

  “Do you actually tell them that?” I leaned forward, restraining my finger from wagging in her face.

  “No. It’s called a joke. Maybe we should make you a bucket list. Maybe you can say a bad word before you die or do something really crazy like disorganize your notebook.” She leaned back on the grass, a few leaves crunching into her hair.

  I refused to show her that her teasing words stung. “My notebook isn’t organized.”

  She only laughed. “Tell them I’m your tutor,” Charlotte said. When I opened my mouth to protest she laughed again. “You are so easy. Just tell them you’re my tutor. Whatever.”

  I didn’t answer, just nodded as I thought through her suggestion and saw no holes or complications.

  “Hi, Megan.” The voice came from the steps behind me leading into the school. I turned around and saw Braden Zirman carrying a guitar case into the building. Our paths had crossed for years because he started on the sound and light crews until he got so good that Schatz made him the technical director of every production. I’d only seen him from afar until we ended up in the same drama class last year. Why he took the class was a mystery because he always looked like performing caused him actual pain. He loved running the spotlight far more than being in it. Maybe after all that time working around actors he just wanted to see how it felt on the stage.<
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  “Hi, Braden. I never see you anymore. Getting ready for the next play?”

  “Schatz and I are sketching out sets. Should be a fun one to light.” He smiled at me and started back up the steps. “Good luck at auditions,” he added and gave Charlotte a small wave before walking away.

  “Another admirer?” Charlotte squinted her eyes as she watched him disappear inside.

  “I don’t have admirers. He’s our technical director, that’s all.”

  “The director likes you? And you cavort with the drama teacher? No wonder you get all the big parts.”

  “I do not cavort with anyone. Where did you come up with that word anyway? And Braden is only in charge of sound and lights. He doesn’t cast the shows.” I brushed the hair off my hot neck. “Surprise party, remember? Why can’t we do Dave?”

  “Because we can’t,” she snapped. “Move on.”

  “No.”

  She gave me her trademark glare but it had lost its sting in the past few days. I didn’t move. “It’s supposed to be hard or special or different. If you don’t want to do it, maybe that means you should.”

  “I knew this wouldn’t work,” Charlotte said as she gathered up her things. “I’m going home.”

  “I thought I was driving you,” I protested.

  “I’ll walk.”

  I heaved out a sigh that came from the very pit of me. Her house was a good five miles away. “Have fun,” I told her.

  “Will do.”

  I watched her stomp off toward the road. I kept waiting for her to turn around and call her bluff. That’s the moment I learned Charlotte doesn’t bluff.

  I picked her up fifteen minutes and almost a mile later when I finally convinced her to get in the car by pulling up next to her and creeping down the street yelling things through the passenger window.

  When she finally climbed inside she crossed her arms and spat out one word.

  “Fine.”

  I only smiled on the inside. She fastened her seatbelt with unnecessary ferocity while I kept my eyes riveted to the road. “Should we do it at your house?”

  “It’s not my house. It’s his house,” she corrected me.