In the Spotlight (2 page)

Finally, a girl named Megan, who usually did tech things like building sets, running lights, and handling props, raised her hand. “I thought the script was really good. Um. But the sets seemed kind of sparse. Is that the point? Is this some minimalist thing?”

“Good question,” Ms. Bard said, nodding approvingly.

“Let’s ask the playwright. Kyle?”

Kyle leaned forward in his desk, a strand of his floppy blond hair falling forward over his glasses. He regarded Megan seriously.

“I wanted to leave the sets open to interpretation. My goal with this show is that after our initial performance, other schools will be able to purchase performance rights. I didn’t want to hinder the market for the play by using too narrow a definition of sets. Does that make sense?”

Megan nodded as if she was in awe of his brilliance. I waited for the sweep of jealousy that usually coursed through me when other girls made their adoration of Kyle known, but instead I only felt a cringe at Kyle’s blatant condescension. What was wrong with me? I had waited years to get noticed by Kyle. Literally. And he’d noticed me last night.

When I got home from the game, I went to bed almost immediately, leaving much of my homework undone for study hall the next morning. Even when I climbed into bed, I laid awake for hours feeling unsettled. I kept coming back to two moments in the evening. Josh Larson swatting the ball away from my head and Kyle pulling my hair.

Ms. Bard beamed at Kyle. “What a wonderful explanation.

Thank you. Now, come on class, we want to have a discussion here.

And for a discussion we must have participation.”

Adam, Kyle’s sometime best friend, raised his hand. “I did some research on the soundtrack, and I was wondering why two of the songs are from the 90s not the 80s like you originally said.”

He laid the words down in front of Kyle like a challenge.

Oops. They must have had one of their famous fights. Some people called them lover’s spats because their relationship was so volatile.

And that would be totally cool. I could handle it even with my intense feelings for Kyle, but I had it on good authority that both Adam and Kyle liked girls. Another theory about their on again off again friendship was that because their mothers had been friends forever, they encouraged their sons to compete. Either way you looked at it, the reality was that when they were best friends, Adam was almost like Kyle’s gatekeeper. You couldn’t get near Kyle without going through Adam first. But when they were on the outs, you wanted to stay away from both of them.

Kyle clenched his fists on top of his desk. “I was wondering when someone would point that out. You’ll remember, though, that I never claimed all the songs were from the 1980s. I simply said that they were all underappreciated songs from an underappreciated era of music.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Kaylee said without raising her hand. “You keep saying that these songs are all underappreciated, but I totally disagree with you. I mean, you have Michael Jackson’s

‘Billie Jean’ in there. How can you honestly say that’s an underappreciated song?”

I gaped at Kaylee. How could she humiliate Kyle like that?

She caught me staring at her, and rolled her eyes. She mouthed something like, ‘You know I’m right’.

Kyle stared at her for a moment like he couldn’t believe that she would challenge him either. He took a deep breath and said, “I would never try to make you believe that an artist like Michael Jackson or Madonna is underappreciated, but overall I think that the 80s is a very underappreciated time in music history.”

Ms. Bard’s smile broadened “Now this is the kind of discussion I love,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Differing opinions will be heard in my classroom! Kyle, I’d like to commend you once again for taking such a huge risk trying to get the performance rights to all of these songs. You have far exceeded the expectations for a senior project with this.”

“Thank you, Ms. Bard,” Kyle said. Then he added, “I can only hope that you’ll do my work justice.”

I squirmed at Kyle’s veiled rudeness to Ms. Bard. What was wrong with me? Why was I now so aware of Kyle’s not so nice traits? Thankfully I didn’t have long to ponder it because the bell rang, releasing us to lunch.

The hallway was thick with people, so waiting for Kaylee was almost out of the question. I’d just catch up with her at our table. Suddenly someone grabbed my elbow and steered me to the side of the hall. As I stopped, my heart danced because I was looking up into Kyle’s face.

Dropping his head down, Kyle said, “Let’s go down to the choir room and get that rehearsal in for the audition.”

I followed Kyle to the music wing. My brain couldn’t quite process what was happening. The choir room would be deserted until after lunch, so we’d be alone. Instead of feeling over the moon about being alone with Kyle, I felt more nervous than anything else. I wanted to run and at least tell someone so they could reassure me that it would be great.

The choir room was hot like always. On a good day, you’d leave choir with only slightly damp armpits. On bad days, you’d leave with rivulets of sweat running down your face into all the nooks and crannies that you didn’t want to think about. Not exactly the place I pictured having my first real alone encounter with Kyle, but I’d take what I could get. The band teacher kept insisting that soon they were getting an air conditioning unit in here. That would be the day.

“Now, did you think about what I said last night?” Kyle asked, leaning enticingly against the piano. I loved the way his pale blue sweater hugged his rangy frame, ending just at the waistband of his faded jeans. And what wasn’t to love about the fact that he wore loafers. Loafers. It seemed so 1950 to me for some reason. As did the horn-‐-rimmed glasses that he wore to make himself look intellectual and brooding. The only thing that ruined his brooding look was his blond hair. I’m not sure it’s entirely possible to look brooding when you’re blond, but maybe I’m just biased.

“Umm…maybe you could refresh my memory,” I said, stalling. Because, duh, of course I’d been thinking about what he’d said, and I’d decided to try out for Kelly, the lead. And that wasn’t something I was willing to tell Kyle.

Kyle gave me a smile that I’d never seen before from any guy, and I realized that he thought I was flirting with him. My breath caught. Me, flirting. Holy cow! I’d been fidgeting near a music stand, and after I made my comment, Kyle sauntered over to me, placing his hands near mine on the top of the music stand.

“You little minx,” he smiled. “I didn’t think you had it in you. Maybe you aren’t quite as wholesome as everyone thinks.”

I stared at him in confusion because I had no idea what to say, and my mouth was far too dry for me to speak. Had he just called me a minx? And what did my being wholesome have to do with anything?

Kyle reached out and ran his hands along my shoulders. The gesture felt possessive somehow, and I wanted to take a step back.

“Let me teach you,” Kyle said suggestively. I mean, the tone of his voice was suggestive, not particularly what he said, but it confused me anyway.

Needing to breathe, I took a step back and moved toward the piano. “That’s a great idea,” I said. “What song should I sing for my audition?”

“Oh, we aren’t anywhere near ready to think about that yet.”

Kyle ran a hand along my forearm. “I need to teach you technique first. Are you willing to learn at my hands?”

I squirmed at the tone of his voice again. Somehow I think he thought he sounded sexy, but he sounded creepy. Without waiting for my response, Kyle took my elbow and guided me to the piano. Placing his hand on my abdomen, dangerously close to inappropriateness, he said, “You breathe from here.”

Something in his tone ticked me off, and I stepped away from him. “I know how to breathe, Kyle. I’ve been singing since I was seven.”

“Of course you have,” Kyle said with a laugh. “But if you want lessons from me, you have to submit yourself to me completely.”

I wasn’t sure that sounded good. Suddenly I just wanted to go eat my lunch. “Listen, Kyle, thank you so much for using your free time to give me this attention, but I really need to go eat something.”

“Are you hypoglycemic?” Kyle asked. “My grandma totally is.” I think he was trying to be understanding, but it didn’t make sense to me, so I just used it as my escape. Grabbing my stuff, I practically ran to the lunchroom feeling even more unsettled than before. Kyle was finally noticing me, so why wasn’t I happier?

Chapter Three

“I want you girls to be nice to Grandma’s boyfriend tonight,” Mom said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

I glanced at Hayley as she set a water glass at each place. She returned my gaze and shrugged. Picking up a stack of plates, I said,

“Sure, Mom. Why wouldn’t we be?”

Mom came into the dining room from the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. She hesitated and then said, “It’s just that Grandma’s boyfriend is a bit younger than her.”

“So?” I asked.

“How much younger?” Hayley wanted to know.

“He’s twenty-‐-seven,” Mom admitted.

My jaw dropped. I was acutely aware of it hitting the ground as I did the math in my head. Grandma had Mom when she was seventeen. Mom was forty, so that made Grandma fifty-‐-seven.

“She’s thirty years older than him,” I gasped.

“Wow, Grandma’s a cougar,” Hayley murmured, a weird streak of awe in her voice.

Mom grimaced. “Don’t use that term, please. It sounds so crass.” I watched Mom head back into the kitchen, her shoulders slumped slightly, like she was bothered by tonight’s dinner. But it was for her mom, so what could she do? Hayley and I glanced at each other not sure what to say or how to say it. I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt about my grandmother dating a guy barely ten years older than me. On one hand, Grandma deserved to have fun and be happy. She’d raised Mom alone, sometimes working two or three jobs to give Mom the best life possible. Still…on the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy that my grandma had a hot young boyfriend and I certainly didn’t. Is it even okay to be jealous of your grandma?

Finishing setting the table came as something of a relief as I could escape to my room for a bit before dinner. The musical script lay untouched on my desk where I had tossed it the day before.

After Claudia’s little reveal at the basketball game, I’d completely forgotten to finish Ms. Bard’s assignment. Thankfully, our special assembly celebrating diversity in cafeteria choices had saved me from having to admit to being unprepared in class. Besides, everyone else’s analysis of the soundtrack had diverted most of the discussion away from the script.

Uploading the soundtrack to my iPod, I flipped through the script, trying to concentrate on the bit part of the younger sister. I barely got past the first page when I realized how insulted I should have been. In the stage directions, Kyle had written a description of Tiffany, the younger sister. It read:
Tiffany is the exact opposite of
Kelly. Where Kelly is beautiful, vivacious, and outgoing, Tiffany is
homely, awkward, and shy. She sets the stage for Kelly’s brilliance by
being a miserable presence.

First of all, what did that even mean? Secondly, hadn’t Kyle said that I would be perfect for the role of Kelly’s younger sister? I was beyond insulted, and I couldn’t believe Kyle actually thought that about me. Maybe he just thought I was a good enough actress to pull off such a difficult role. That made me feel a little better, but then the nagging doubts crept in as they tended to do. The more I read the script, the more I saw myself as Tiffany. Kelly reminded me of my older sister Harlow, without a doubt, and there I was, the less talented little sister lending my miserable existence to set up her brilliant life.

My parents had known before Harlow was even born that she would be a star. They bought her a tiny director’s chair to park her baby booty in. And they named her after Jean Harlow, the original platinum blonde.

I was still mulling over the script when Mom called us to dinner. Hayley giggled all the way down the stairs. I tried to shush her, but by the time we got to the table, we were both laughing too hard to even breathe. Our grandma was a cougar. Seriously, how could anyone not find that hilarious?

Luckily, Grandma and her boyfriend weren’t there yet, so Hayley and I had a few minutes to collect ourselves.

“Girls, I want you to remember that this is important to Mom,” Dad lectured us, mock sternly. “Be nice.”

“Daddy,” Hayley replied, opening her pretty blue eyes in wide innocence, “we’re always nice.”

Dad burst out laughing and was still chuckling as he went to open the door when the doorbell rang. Hayley and I were actually bouncing in our seats we were so excited to meet Grandma’s boyfriend. This would make for great stories tomorrow at school.

I could hear Dad using his booming guest voice, the one he thinks sounds “jovial”. Totally his word for it, not mine. Mom came into the dining room with a plate of something small that I guessed was supposed to be appetizers, or at least I hoped so because I was starving. She kept running her fingers through her hair and tugging on her blouse, and that’s when I realized that my mom, the high brow professor recently promoted to Dean of her department at the university, was nervous. Grandma and Grandpa had been divorced since Mom was two, and I couldn’t remember Grandma ever having a boyfriend for more than a week. So as funny as it all seemed, it was a big deal.

“Mom, you look great,” I said, softly. She gave me a hesitant, befuddled smile, and headed back in to the kitchen. “I think she’s nervous,” I whispered to Hayley, who nodded in agreement.

Dad led Grandma and a young man, who was, I have to be honest, super hot, to the table. “Girls, I’d like you to meet Duke, Grandma’s friend.”

“Oh, Chuck,” Grandma said, swatting Dad’s arm. “Girls, Duke is my boyfriend. Let’s get it all out in the open. We’ve been dating for five months. Why beat around the bush? We all know he’s younger than me, but I think that’s doing me a world of good.”