Kasey Screws Up the World (30 page)

I WENT BACK TO Lara’s dance class after school to make sure she didn’t come back. “Nope, she was a no show today,” Erika, the dance instructor, told me. “Thank you for getting her to see reason.”

Except the next morning she left again before the crack of dawn. No money had been withdrawn from the ATM, but she could have had a stockpile. So where was Lara going now? I wanted to make sure she was being safe, not hurting herself further. I couldn’t skip school for the third day in three weeks without administration alerting my parents, so I did the next best thing. When no one was home, I snuck into her room and turned on her laptop. Finn would be so proud of my on-the-job spy training.

Finn.

After his email reply, I ransacked my closet for the crumpled ball of paper I’d thrown there after the cruise. A whole bunch of numbers stared back at me. If I decoded the note, maybe I’d get the answer Finn was looking for. I stared at the paper for an hour, but I had no idea where to start. All I knew was I couldn’t start here. Just knowing it was beside me gave me the courage to reply to his email.

Are you OK?

Two hours later my reply had only yielded silence in response, so I tried again.

Do you hate me?

I only waited an hour this time before sending another.

Will you forgive me?

And then I got desperate.

Do you miss me?

Followed by the last one I sent:
Why haven’t you written back?

It was just one step away from begging,
please please oh my God please write me back!

I couldn’t think about that now. I focused on Lara’s laptop. It was password protected, but I knew her well enough to guess the password in only a few tries. I scrolled through Firefox’s web history. The first couple links took me to Wikipedia entries about the subjects she was supposedly studying in her college academic classes. Research for her lies. At least she wasn’t making the same mistake with the Tysh College gas leak incident. After that, I found a page detailing upcoming dance auditions throughout the city.

There was one tomorrow after school. And checking the calendar, I spotted one a few weeks ago run by a casting director named Beth.

I thought back to the day I discovered she’d lost her scholarship. Someone named Beth had called to confirm Lara’s appointment. She’d lied and said it was an appointment with Dr. Shannon.

It was an audition. Her dance classes were only half the story.

I bit my lip. I was wrong to avoid talking to her about my idea. Without another career option, she’d never stop trying to dance, no matter how many times she got kicked out or failed. I had to stop her, for good. Which meant I’d have to go to the audition.

Rows of red velvet seats cascaded toward the stage. A few heads popped out of the seats, breaking up the monotony. I spotted my sister sitting at the end of the aisle toward the front. The blond head donning an oversized bow next to her must be her friend Jules Barlow. She always used to wear those ridiculous headbands during half time performances because she thought it made her stand out. Lara only needed dancing to do that.

On stage a stick figure drawing—or maybe a girl, it was hard to tell—twirled and shimmied to an upbeat pop song. In mid twirl, someone in the front row held up a hand. The girl on stage stopped on cue and stood there her chest puffing in and out. After an uncomfortable few seconds of silence an irritated voice said, “Thank you. That’s all we need.”

She nodded, then scurried toward the edge of the stage with her head down, amping her pace with every step as if she couldn’t get away fast enough. She grabbed her bag from a chair and rushed down the aisle, fanning her face with her hand as she went.

She was off beat, I thought. Her form was all over the place, arms bent at the wrong angle instead of straight and elongated. I could have done better.

My eyelashes fluttered closed. No, I couldn’t have. Lara could have, but not me.

I was here for Lara.

As the next girl took the stage, I swallowed a breath and forced myself to approach my sister. Each step I took down the red aisle became a rhythm of its own. My body itched to dance. I wanted each face to be watching me. Instead they ignored me and practiced their routines in their seats, waving their arms in the air to mimic the steps. My sister sat in her row straight backed. She didn’t need to practice the steps. She knew them by heart. Jules on the other hand attempted to gyrate her hips in the confines of her chair.

Jules noticed me first, then tapped Lara’s shoulder. Lara swiveled her head in my direction and her eyes widened.

“I thought you were going to leave me alone,” she whispered. In her lap, her fingers trembled.

Jules eyed me up and down, focusing on the leggings I had worn to school. “You’re auditioning?” The tone of her voice suggested I’d just presented her with something as puzzling as a polynomial.

I ignored Jules and fixated on the way Lara clutched her hip to prevent it from fully sinking into the uncomfortable chair. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You.” A woman with disheveled hair and glasses too big for her face rushed over to me. “Name?” She uncapped a pen with her teeth and balanced a clipboard on her knee.

“Oh, uh.”
I should tell her I’m not here to audition.
“Kasey Fishbein.” I was being polite and answering her question, that was all, I told myself. The stage called to me and I imagined my legs carrying me forward, sweeping me into an impromptu routine, impressing this casting director like I knew I could. My heart thumped audibly in my ears.

Lara sucked in a breath behind me. I didn’t dare look at her. The casting director perused her list, clucking her tongue. “I don’t have you here. Agent? I’ll give them a call.”

“She’s not auditioning. She had to bring me something.” Lara nodded at the casting director, who then looked at me.

“Lara’s my sister.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to say this. Maybe to remind her.

The casting director’s eyes went back and forth from Lara to me. We both smiled. This was a game. We were pretending to be people we weren’t. Like Victoria Cruise.

Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. For the first time, I felt like Lara and I were on the same side. Apparently we only got along when deceiving people.

The casting director squinted at my sister beneath her bifocals. “Wait, I just figured out why your name sounds so familiar. I’ve heard about you. Bum hip, right?”

Lara’s face paled. Jules scrolled through her phone as if she had no connection to my sister.

“I’m almost healed,” Lara said.

The casting director picked at something in her teeth. “Well, let’s see about that. You’re up.”

Lara struggled to balance in her heels. She stumbled, backing against the seat and grabbing her hip.

The casting director took one look at her and sighed heavily. “Next?” She glanced down at her clipboard. “Julia Barlow.”

Jules brushed her long blond hair out of her eyes and hopped out of her chair. She shot Lara the briefest of frowns before she followed the casting director to the stage.

The room swelled like a water balloon filled to capacity. Lara held onto a smile despite the way it wavered. She gripped the top of the auditorium seat to help pull herself into the aisle. “I hate you,” she whispered to me, as if this, too, was my fault.

The other girls in the audience watched Lara’s progress while Jules took the stage, performing only for the casting director. Lara shielded her face with her hand despite the attention from the audience. She normally took her steps with care and precision, but now she sped up like she was in a race against her own composure. One would fall first.

I wouldn’t let it be her.

I wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her.

She flicked my arm. “Get off. I can do it myself.”

I squeezed tighter. “No. You can’t.”

A few snickers came from the audience. Lara shot her head in their direction before leaning most of her weight on me. I nearly gasped in shock, but she must have decided it would be more embarrassing to fall than to rely on me.

“What were you thinking, coming here? Have you not had enough sabotage for one lifetime?” she said.

“I thought you didn’t want Jules to know how bad your injury really is.”

“If I’d had a chance to audition, she wouldn’t know. I would have nailed it.”

“Stop being delusional.” My words were harsh but I softened them in a whisper.

“You’re really confusing me,” she continued. “Sometimes I think we’re on the same side and other times it seems like you’re against me.”

“I’m with you. And I can prove it. I have a way to get you back into the dance world.” I cultivated my words carefully, choosing
back into the dance world
instead of
to dance again
.

She shot me a look that said, “You’re an idiot,” then sighed and rolled her eyes.

It was as close as she would get to admitting she’d never dance again.

I held the door for her. A warm blast of air smacked my face and contrasted with the cool air-conditioning hitting one half of my body. It was as incongruous as Lara being nice to me while still hating me. “Have you thought about focusing on choreography instead of dance?”

“You’re not making sense. How can I choreograph without dancing?” She raised her arm to hail a cab, then put it down and clutched her hip. She looked at me expectantly, like I should raise my arm instead of her. And I would. But not until we had this conversation.

“What if I proved you could? Trust me on this. Come with me to the ManPrep tomorrow.” It would be Saturday, but the school remained open for students to use the facilities.

Her voice got soft and she looked away, squinting at the sun filtering through the empty space between two buildings. “Kasey, I don’t want to go back there.”

“That’s exactly where you want to be.”

She sighed and focused on the traffic zooming past us. I raised my hand to catch a cab but none were empty. Lara wiped sweat from her brow, though it hadn’t come from exertion.

The doors behind us swung open and we both turned around. Jules glanced up at us at blink-and-you-miss it speed before lowering her head and shuffling down the street. As she went, she pulled off her headband and stuffed it into her bag. The corners of Lara’s mouth twitched, and I knew I’d made the right decision about quitting dance.

We both needed to forget about the possibility.

“I miss you,” I said to break the silence.

A tear streamed down her cheek. “Kasey, I’m trying to be strong. It’s hard enough acting happy so Jules doesn’t catch on, but when you say things like that…” Her voice broke.

“Please,” I said. “Just give it a chance tomorrow.”

As a cab pulled up beside us, she buried her face in her hands, then pulled her fingers down her cheeks. “It’s the only chance I still have, isn’t it?”

A PUNGENT SMELL OF stale gym shoes filled my nose as I entered the ManPrep auxiliary gym. I kept my head down until I was sure the coast was clear of former teammates or coaches. So many memories hit me at once. Denise and I squeezing all our stuff into the same gym locker just because we were in this together. The sound of the crowd cheering during one of our halftime performances. The time Crista sprained her leg and I got to replace her in the back of the line—even though the audience didn’t notice, I felt special.

I took Lara’s purse and set it down on the bleachers. She made no effort toward them.

“Why did you bring me here?” Her face looked pained. “I’m not choreographing a dance performance for you, right?”

“For the dance team. This is just practice. I figured we could work out a routine here so when we teach it to them, we’ll have an idea of what we’re doing.”

“We?” She arched an eyebrow.

“You. I’m just here to help you teach.” I couldn’t perform. I wasn’t on the dance team anymore.

Lara eased herself onto the bleachers and stretched her legs out in front of her.

“Just because you can’t dance again doesn’t mean you can’t use your skills. Choreography’s not the same, but as long as there’s someone who can help you demonstrate the steps, you can have a career in this and you won’t have to destroy your hip to do it.”