The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney (14 page)

“The game,” Jared says, his eyes not moving from the screen.

“Great,” I say “I love the game.” What sort of game? I wonder, peering at the screen. Looks like football.

“Hey, Lexi,” Matt yells. “Can you play something good, please?”

“This
is
good!” Lexi giggles. “I want to listen to stuff you can dance to.”

“Let me find something,” Matt says. He gets up and heads over to where Lexi and Kim are.

“Nooo,” Lexi squeals, but you can tell she likes the attention.

Luke sits down on the other side of me. “So you never called me back this morning,” he says. “I was going to see if you wanted to get together for a little while and go over the script.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I say. “But I was dealing with, uh, that thing I told you about before.” Way to keep it vague.

“I understand,” he says, nodding. Suddenly I’m very aware that Luke’s hand is extremely close to mine on the couch. In fact, our hands are almost touching. Should I yank my hand back? But what if I do, and he thinks I moved it because I was nervous about touching his hand? Which isn’t a big deal. Touching hands with someone, I mean. It’s just hands. People touch the hands of strangers all the time. Like at checkouts.

“Yes!” Jared screams, jumping up off the couch. On the screen, one of the football guys slams the ball into the ground and starts doing a little dance around the end of the field.

The motion of Jared jumping up from the couch jostles my hand a little bit, and now it is touching Luke’s. I. Am. Touching. Luke’s. Hand. A current of electricity moves its way up my hand. Which makes
no sense. Because I like Jared, not Luke. Suddenly, I’m hyperaware of the way Luke smells. Exactly like the way he did that night he was at my house, when we were talking about our parents. He’s not moving his hand. Why isn’t he moving his hand? This is nuts. I like Jared, not Luke. So I’ll just move my hand and everything will be okay. La, la, la. My hand is still there. For some reason, I am incapable of moving my hand.

“All right,” Jared says, clicking off the TV “Game over. Now I’m ready to work.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, jumping up. “Great. Me too. I’m ready, I mean. To work.” Jared gives me a weird look.

“Finally,” Lexi says, coming over to where we are. “Is the stupid game over?”

“It’s not stupid,” Jared says, rolling his eyes at her.

“It kind of is,” Lexi says. She’s wearing a pink skirt that hangs low on her hips, and a white T-shirt that says
BABY DOLL
on it in sparkly letters. Her hair is in two pig-tails, her feet are bare, and her toenails painted a shell-pink color that sparkles even under the dim lighting of the basement. “All they do is tackle one another.”

“They tackle one another because it’s part of the game,” Jared says, sighing. “But you wouldn’t understand.” Wow. Guess I didn’t have to worry about
Jared and the whole playing-hard-to-get thing. Good for him.

“Whatever,” Lexi says, rolling her eyes. Jared winks at me.

Lexi looks at me for the first time since I got there. “Hi, Devi!”

“Hey,” I say warily, looking at Kim, who’s still over in the corner, manning the music. Lexi must see my nervous look, because she grabs my sleeve and pulls me a few feet away, out of the earshot of the guys. “Listen, don’t worry about the Kim thing.” She bites her lip. “She said she’s not going to say anything.”

“She said that?” Suddenly, I feel nervous, like when you’re in the dentist’s waiting room, waiting to go in. Kim must know it’s a lie. So there must be a reason she’s agreeing not to tell anyone. My stomach is dropping faster than an amusement park ride.

“Yeah.” Lexi squeezes my arm. “So don’t worry about it.”

“So, listen,” Luke says. “I was thinking that today we could just go over the script, do a run-through. And then maybe next weekend we’ll do the actual filming. We can work on getting the costumes this week.”

“Oh,” I say. “I thought we were going to do the whole thing today.”

“Well, I don’t think everyone’s memorized their lines yet,” Luke says. “And we don’t have costumes.”

“Right,” I say. Great. I’m playing John Hancock and I stayed up late last night memorizing my lines. I thought we’d be doing the whole project today, which I guess makes no sense, because like Luke said, we don’t have costumes. I wonder what they wore while signing the Declaration of Independence. Probably some kind of long black robe. And those white wigs with the curls.

“Are we doing this or not?” Kim asks, finally abandoning the iPod and coming over. I move closer to Jared, just in case Kim might actually believe the ridiculousness that he and I are together. “Because I don’t want to be hanging out here all day Some of us actually have lives.” Well, la di da. I have a life. If you count babysitting Katie as having plans.

“Yeah, let’s get started.” Agreeing with her can only get me on her good side, right? She glances at me and then looks away.

“All right,” Luke says. “Does everyone have their scripts? We’ll do a quick-run-through. And try to put some feeling in your voices so that it doesn’t sound lame.”

We spend the next two hours reading the script
through a bunch of times and working on memorizing our lines. It would have taken a lot less time except Jared keeps screwing up his lines and making us take breaks so that he can check the score of the game. (Apparently, another one started after the first one was over.) Also, Matt is taking his job as cameraman way too seriously, and keeps circling around the table, trying to set up angles for when we film. He also keeps pulling Lexi’s hair every time he passes by her chair, and she squeals and pretends she’s bothered by it.

“Hey, Devi, can I talk to you for a second?” Kim says to me as I’m gathering up my papers after we’re done with the last read-through. It’s the first time she’s said anything to me all afternoon.

“Sure,” I say, forcing a bright smile on my face. DO. NOT. PANIC. I glance nervously to where Jared’s on the couch in front of the TV, and wonder if I could start some sort of fake fight with him that would be grounds for a breakup. Something like, “All you ever do is watch football! I’m through with this!” But then I realize Jared might be like, “Um, through with what?”, which wouldn’t work.

“What’s up?” I ask Kim after she pulls me over to where the iPod is. It’s been blasting some kind of dance
mix the whole time we were working, which was kind of distracting.

“I know you told Lexi you’re dating Jared,” Kim says. She tilts her head to the side and looks at me thoughtfully.

“Oh,” I say, not sure what to do. Deny? Admit to it? Try to convince her it’s true? Run?

“I also know you told her you were friends with all of us before she got here.” She holds her hand out in front of her and studies her nails.

“Listen, Kim—”

She puts her hand up and silences me. “I’m not going to say anything,” she says. She studies me.

“But I just wanted to let you know that I know.” She leans in closer, and I can feel her breath on my cheek. “I think it’s really mean that you lied to Lexi. And I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do about it yet.”

Lovely.

Luke insists on walking me home, which is horrible, because I feel like I’m going to cry. Plus my shoes are killing my feet, and I planned on walking home barefoot if I had to, but obviously I can’t do that now.
What would I say? “Hi, can you hold my shoes while I walk home barefoot? Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s just some toilet paper I stuffed in the toes so that they would fit me.”

“Sorry about Jared screwing up all the lines,” Luke says as we walk toward my house. Or, should I say, he walks and I clomp.

“That’s okay,” I say, “It’s not your fault.” Clomp, clomp.

“I think he gets nervous around Lexi since he likes her so much.” He reaches up as we pass under a tree and lets his fingers brush the leaves. God, he’s tall.

“Jared likes Lexi?” I ask, feigning innocence.

“Oh, yeah, he’s totally into her,” Luke says. “It seems like she likes Matt, though. I keep telling him he has to stop being a jerk to her, but he just winks and tells me it’s part of his master plan.” He rolls his eyes.

Great. Not only is Jared telling everyone about his Lexi crush, now Luke is giving Jared love advice. Good love advice. “I think our project is going to be really good,” I say. It’s lame, but I’m desperate to change the subject. Besides, my head can’t take too much more stress. I’m already concentrating on walking without falling and dying. These shoes are seriously dangerous.

“Yeah, it definitely is,” Luke says. “So did your mom
calm down a little after I left the other night?”

I giggle. “Yeah. Well, as much as she can, anyway. She was still a little mad at me for getting my hair highlighted, but I got back on her good side by agreeing to babysit for my sister.”

“That was nice of you,” Luke says.

“Yeah, well, my parents are working on …” I try to think of the right word. Their marriage? Their relationship? “ … stuff, and anything I can do to make it easier for them isn’t a big deal to me.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Luke says. “When my parents got divorced, it was really hard on both of them, but I tried to make sure me and my little brothers stayed out of trouble.” He grins. “Although now that things are a little more stable …”

I giggle again. The sun is out, and it’s casting stripes of light against the sidewalk as we walk.

“I’m glad we got to be partners,” Luke says. We pass under a tree and a breeze blows through, and with it comes the scent I’m starting to associate with Luke, a boy smell that I’ve never noticed on a guy before.

“Definitely,” I say. I wonder what sort of torture Kim is going to put me through in order to keep my secret. Maybe she’ll make me do all her English homework. Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad. I actually like
English. Or maybe shell make me follow her around and carry her books or something. I rack my brain for all the movies I’ve seen that have mean girls in them, and try to think of what kind of torture could be in store for me. I’m so caught up in my brain, trying to think about what could happen, that I almost don’t realize how close Luke and I are walking to each other. In fact, I don’t realize it until he reaches out and takes my hand.

Luke. And. I. Are. Holding. Hands.

And not in a “Let me take your hand and cross the street kind of way.” It’s definitely in a “We’re boyfriend and girlfriend” kind of way. His fingers are intertwined with mine. His hand feels warm. And secure. Not sweaty or weird, the way I sometimes figured it would be to hold hands with a boy.

We don’t talk all the way back to my house. It’s like the fact that we’re now holding hands has compromised our ability to verbalize. This is not how things are supposed to happen. Luke is not supposed to be holding my hand. Jared is supposed to be holding my hand. Or at least pretending to. Does this mean Luke wants to be my boyfriend? And if he does, do I want to be his girlfriend? Do I like Luke? And if I do, what am I
supposed to do about my fake boyfriend, Jared? I can’t have two boyfriends, even if one is fake.

“Thanks for walking me home,” I say when we get in front of my house.

“No problem,” he says. He looks at me for a second, and suddenly I think maybe he’s going to kiss me. I drop his hand and turn around quickly, trying to look cool, like I have boys holding my hand every day. Then I walk quickly up the driveway and to my front door without looking back. Well, as quickly as I can in these shoes.

That night, while my parents are out, I help Katie make an Olympic podium. We take a bunch of cardboard boxes that we find in the garage and set them up so the biggest one is in the middle. Then we put newspaper down and use some of my mom’s craft paint to paint the numbers one, two, and three on them in swirly purple figures.

“Now,” Katie says when the paint’s dry “You put my gold medal on me, and give a speech.”

“The Olympic Committee is so happy to present you with this gold medal,” I say, putting it around her neck. “You deserve it.” I grab some fake flowers from
the vase on the table and hand them to her.

“Thank you so very much,” she says. “I would like to thank my mom, my dad, and my sister, Devon, for making all my dreams come true. This night wouldn’t be as special if they weren’t all here, supporting me and being proud.” I don’t think you get to make a speech at the Olympics, but whatever. I reach over and press play on the CD player we’ve set up to play the national anthem.

Katie puts her hand over her heart and stares solemnly into space. My parents walk in halfway through “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“What in the world—” my mom asks, amused.

“Shh!” Katie shushes her. “No talking during the ceremony.”

My parents are silent and put their hands over their hearts until the song is over, and then burst into applause. “Thank you, thank you,” Katie says, bowing. Not sure you really do that at the Olympics either, but again, whatever.

“You guys made this?” my dad asks, checking out our podium.

“Yup,” I say.

“You did a really great job,” he says, sounding surprised.

He and my mom exchange a look.

“Devon, we want you to know how proud of you we are lately,” my mom says. “Watching Katie has helped us a lot, and you haven’t complained once. We know she gets a little cranky when we leave, but you’ve been really amazing with handling her.”

“Thanks,” I say, feeling pleased. But in the back of my mind, I can’t help but wonder how proud my parents would be if they knew their oldest daughter was basically lying to everyone but them.