Beyond Clueless (24 page)

J
enny managed to steer me into the girls’ bathroom, where I was able to clean up.

“It must be nerves,” I gasped, and she just nodded. I splashed my face with cold water.

She glanced down at her watch.

“Oh!” I cried. “You’ve got to—”

“It’s OK,” she repeated. “My two assistants are handling things. I just want to be sure you’re all set.”

“Yeah, I’m OK, really. I can go back. Like I said, it was just—”

“Nerves. Right,” Jenny said.

“I’m fine. Really. Thanks for . . .” I waved my arm, indicating, well, everything.

We stood there for a moment in silence, and eventually she took a step back toward the door.

“OK, then,” she said. “I think you’ve got about one minute left before you need to be stage right.” She gave me one more concerned look before slipping out the door.

Then the door opened a second later, and she walked back in. She pulled a Twix bar from her pocket and laid it on the counter. “Not for right now, obviously, but for later. When you feel up to it.”

Then she was gone again.

I realized, too late, that I hadn’t made things right with Jenny. I really should have, after Kate’s little talk. On the other hand, it seemed kind of cruel to try to apologize for my impersonations; I mean, would it embarrass Jenny to have to acknowledge the fact that people make fun of her?

Well, it seemed Jenny had forgiven me anyway, but that only increased my guilt. I grabbed the Twix bar and twisted halfheartedly at its packaging, but then decided against opening it; I was definitely still in the nausea danger zone. I put it down on the counter and stared hard at myself in the mirror.

Marty, pull it together.

Thankfully, Little Red Riding Hood’s biggest singing moments in the show were already done, and the rest of the act passed uneventfully. I basically just had to stay onstage and listen to other people sing around me. But when the curtain went down, the whistling from the audience still buzzing in my head, I knew I had to talk to Felix. Was he pissed at me? He must have been really confused, just as I was, about how I’d reacted. Should I just make something up, tell him I had food poisoning or something?

And did he
really
call me a bitch, or did I mishear him? Maybe we both had some explaining to do.

Behind the curtain, Sister Mary Alice, weighed down by the massive bouquet the cast and crew had presented to
her at curtain call, delivered a totally heart-melting speech (“triumphant success,” “proved to the board that you can do pretty much anything,” “a pleasure and, more important, an honor, to work with you”). Soon everyone was going around giving one another celebratory hugs, and after extracting myself from Kate O’Day’s narrow arms and teary smile, I saw Felix, still dressed as a prince, ducking out of the backstage area and into the lobby. I followed, hurrying to catch up, but the audience had already started pouring in from the auditorium.

I called out his name, but he didn’t hear, and soon we were both swallowed by the crowd. A man wearing black jeans and a dark V-neck tee stopped in front of me, blocking my progress.

“Miss Sullivan,” he said. “Magnificent work. What a pleasant surprise.”

It took me a second to recognize Mr. Dartagnan, my math teacher. Without his baggy khaki pants and loud ties, he was like Dr. Jekyll to his Mr. Hyde.

“Thanks, Mr. Dartagnan,” I replied, nodding and smiling and edging past him. Then I heard someone calling my name to my left, and I turned to see my parents pushing their way toward me. My mom thrust a bunch of pink roses at me, and they both beamed.

“What a great show. You were marvelous!” she cried.

“Thanks,” I replied, gamely accepting the flowers. It was hard to be mad at them while they were so clearly delighted with me.

“Great job, kiddo,” said my dad as he squeezed my shoulder.

I went up on tiptoe, trying to spot Felix over people’s heads.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, and I dove into the stream of people making its way out the doors. I caught a brief glimpse of Felix’s royal-blue jacket just before he turned down the hallway leading to the back entrance. But just before I reached the hallway, I heard someone bellow,

“YOU!”

I turned to see Jeanie, fully decked out in her turban-and-toga garb. Both her arms were raised toward me, and she had a crazed, wide-eyed expression. I saw now that this look was exaggerated by white pancake makeup on her face and heavy black kohl applied around her eyes; she looked more stage-ready than I did.

“Jeanie, hey. Good to see you,” I mumbled uncertainly. She took an exaggerated step toward me.

“You!” she repeated, starting to wave her arms wildly. “The spirit of Ahm-al-Aknour, Vice-Sultan of Upper Phoenicia, has a message for you.”

“Jeanie, I don’t have time right—”

“
Regret!
You shall soon be plagued with great regret!” she hissed.

“Um, OK, thanks for the message. See ya.” I turned and walked away.

Weirdo.

I rounded the corner and practically sprinted down the
hallway to the back entrance, a smattering of rose petals flaking off from the poor bouquet in my hand. But just before slamming open the door, I skidded to a halt. Through its dirty windowpane, I saw Felix’s blue jacket on the other side. But that’s not all I saw: a perfectly manicured, red-nailed hand was pressed against the fabric. Another such hand emerged from his dark, curly locks.

Felix was kissing some girl.

I was frozen to the spot, but I can’t say I felt anything in particular. I mean, I guess I was in shock: Here was this guy, making out with this other girl, not even half an hour after groping me. I wasn’t angry, weirdly. I guess I was just dumbfounded, unable to wrap my brain around what I was seeing.

Then their bodies shifted, and through the grime I could make out her face.

Jill?
Like, Felix’s
sister
?

At this, my stomach started to seize up again, and I sank against the cinder-block wall to my left.

Get a grip, get a grip, get a grip.

OK, so either the Peronis had a very bizarre and probably illegal way of saying “Great show, sibling!” or I was the most gullible human being on the planet. My mind raced—what had Brianna said at Friendly’s? She said she knew lots of Jills at school, but no Jill Peroni.

Well, of course. Because Jill
Peroni
didn’t exist.

Oh, crap. I was totally gonna puke again.

My head spinning with random thoughts, I stumbled my
way back toward the lobby, lurching from pink rose petal to pink rose petal.

Pink ribbons . . . red T-shirt . . . sick grandmother . . . perfect white teeth . . . what big ears you have . . . obsessed with greens . . .

I paused, holding myself up on a wall while the floor started pitching back and forth.

Midnight curfew . . . the bean he spilled . . . you want the occasional sweet . . . stupid cow
.

In the lobby, the first thing I saw was Jimmy scolding his be-turbaned sister. “Stop it! Stop yelling at people—you nearly gave that old lady a heart attack!”

Stupid, stupid cow!

Then I saw Oliver hugging Kirby’s dad—the redheaded man in the audience—with Oliver’s dad standing right next to them, smiling.

The lights in the lobby suddenly seemed extra bright, shining hard onto the crowd, and a faint buzzing sound started to build. I saw Derek and Kirby walking toward me, but it seemed more like they were swimming.

And the last thing I remember seeing was Oliver’s dad holding hands with Kirby’s dad.

M
artha. Wake up.”

I opened my eyes. Derek’s face, full of concern, hovered above me.

“Wh-wh-what’s—” I stammered.

Derek shushed me. “It’s OK, it’s OK. You fainted.”

Kirby’s head appeared next to Derek’s.

“Where—”

“Bathroom,” said Kirby. “You dropped just outside the boys’ bathroom. No worries, we got you. You were only out for, like, three seconds.”

I breathed deeply twice. Then—

“Oh, my God—Felix!” I spat, my body jerking up. “Oliver’s dad . . .”

Kirby and Derek grabbed me by the shoulders and eased me back down on the tile floor.

“Relax!” Kirby commanded. “Relax.”

I tried to calm myself by getting lost in his amazing green eyes. Then I snorted through another few deep breaths, and a tear made its way toward my right ear.

“Felix is—”

“An asshole,” Derek said. “We know. When was the last time you ate something? Jenny told us you hurled backstage,
and we were worried.” He wiped at another tear on my left side.

When did I last eat? I couldn’t remember. Or when did I last sleep?

“Did Felix just tell you he had a girlfriend?” Kirby asked sadly.

“No, I just saw . . . kissing” was all I could come out with.

“In the boys’ dressing room, the way he talked about girls at the dress rehearsals, it was clear he was a dick,” Derek said. “But we didn’t know about the girlfriend until tonight, when she dropped by at intermission to give him flowers. He wasn’t around, though.”

Well, then. So I didn’t witness some incest at the back entrance. I should have been glad, right? In my condition, I couldn’t even tell. The ceiling tiles blurred with tears.

“Oliver actually punched him when he got back,” Derek said, grinning.

“What?”
I tried to sit up again, but they held me down, shushing me again.

“Yeah, Oliver was so pissed that Felix had played you,” said Derek. “You can still see the bruise under Felix’s makeup.”

Ah. I supposed that explained the dimple flinch. And that probably meant that our shadow-dabbled rendezvous was Felix’s last chance for hooking up with me, since I’d soon find out about the fight.

Oliver. My valiant, honor-defending Oliver.

“And the dads. Oliver’s dad . . . ,” I said, trailing off. Geez, what was
that
all about?

“Which one?” asked Kirby after a moment. “Bill or Greg?”

Uh, what?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, which of his dads?” Derek said. “Er—what were you trying to say?”

My brain was not computing. “Wait, he has two dads? Like, a dad and a stepdad?”

“Nooooo . . . he has two dads,” said Kirby. “The same way Heather has two mommies. Did you hit your head when you fell?”

Two dads.

Oliver’s parents were gay.

I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “Oh, my God. I am such an idiot.”

Kirby and Derek exchanged a puzzled glance.

“I assumed that one of Oliver’s dads,” I said to Kirby, “was
your
dad.”

Stunned silence.

“Um . . . I don’t even know where to begin with that one,” Derek finally said. “Is it because of Greg’s hair?”

Kirby laughed. “I suppose gingers all look the same to you?” he asked me.

“I’ll just shut up now,” I said groggily. But I didn’t. “Gay dads . . . gay son. That’s a lot of gay in one family.”

“Wait, did Oliver tell you his brother is gay?” Derek asked.

“No, I mean Oliver.”

“What?”
they said in unison.

Kirby laughed again. “I know I said before that everyone’s
gay, but I like to think of Oliver as the exception that proves the rule.”

At this point, I could
not
have been more disoriented. Black was white, up was down, and gay was straight. I struggled, in vain, to make sense of it.

“But he started the GSA.”

“Yeah, the Gay-
Straight
Alliance,” said Kirby. “Which is the main reason I believe Oliver when he says he’s straight. Although I’m sure his having two dads is not just a coincidence.”

Shit. On the drive to Lake Erie, Oliver had said that he had started the group because he wanted things to be more fair.
Like, for his dads
; they couldn’t get married in Ohio.

His dad was worried that Oliver wasn’t butch enough. Worried because of gay dads. How ridiculous, and his dad knows it.

Wait a minute. “But you said he dated some guy,” I shot at Derek.

Derek was clearly perplexed. “I did? When?”

“When the—you know—at the playground. You said Oliver just broke up with some guy.”

His confused expression suddenly melted into a smile. “Ohhhh, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Charlie.”

“Yes! Charlie!”

It took me a second to see that both of them were laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Charlie’s a girl!” they cried in unison.

Somehow I managed to sink lower into the floor.

“Charlie’s a girl?” I floundered. “But . . . her name’s Charlie!”

“Yeah, that’s pretty weird, huh,
Marty
?” said Kirby with a smirk.

Derek slapped his arm. “Her real name is Charleston, but everyone calls her Charlie.”

Kirby shook his head. “She is such a jerk, though. Mean.”

“Oh, Marty!” Derek clutched his own head in his hands. “I had no idea you thought Oliver was gay! He’s been so into you the whole time! I mean, why do you think Oliver is even doing this play?”

Um, good question. I
thought
it was because he had gotten Derek involved.

“Oliver’s had a huge crush on you ever since he first laid eyes on you,” he continued. “And, well, he kinda thought you were together, after the date you two went on.”