A Season for Fireflies

For Mom

For the days you sat by the fire reading Jane Austen

and showing me what it means to love a story.

You never let me forget that I am special. I love you.

“CUT! CUT! CUT!” MS. TAFT SAYS WITH A SIGH. “I
swear, you two are going to send me to an early grave.”

She means Wes and me.

“Shouldn't have cast best friends for the leads,” I hear from the front row, but before I can make a face at my other best friend, May, she sticks out her tongue at me. She's Hero in this spring's play,
Much Ado About Nothing
, and the velvet fabric of her dress spills over the armrest of the auditorium chair.

I've been standing on this stage since school ended two hours ago and I'm starving. I know it's nearly time for a dinner break but if I take my cell phone out of my pocket, Taft will confiscate it. Nearly on cue, it vibrates.

“Wes, don't reach for Penny's arm during this scene,” Ms. Taft says, and walks onto the stage from the first row of auditorium seats. “I know I sound like a broken record, but Benedick doesn't know he's in love with Beatrice yet.”

Wes takes a purposeful step back from me and sticks his hands in his pockets. Great. Nice work, Taft. He
always
sticks his hands in his pockets when someone is making him uncomfortable. The vibration against my hip bone buzzes again.
Get the hint, I am at rehearsal.
I silence it by pushing the top button without Taft seeing me.

Ms. Taft goes on. “The characters are still bickering and arguing as they always do, so it doesn't make sense for you to touch her like that, in such an affectionate way.”

“Okay, okay, I got it,” Wes says quickly.

“Ms. Taft,” I say, stepping forward and overenunciating my words. “Wes isn't doing a very good job of
acting.
”

“Oh, here we go,” Taft says with a roll of her eyes. She's always telling me I like to share my opinion a little
too
much. But I just grin and turn to Wes.

“We're
actors
!” I say it really slowly and loud. “See, acting is when you pretend you're someone else and you—”

Wes steps forward and smacks me on the arm with his script. I jump away, laughing, when my phone buzzes yet again.

“Food's here!” May calls, and everyone drops what they are doing at the same time. Taft puts down her script. “I'm starving.” She heads backstage, her curls flying behind her. I slip my phone out of my pocket.

“Penny!” Wes calls. “I have to talk to you.” I shake the phone
at him, signaling for him to wait a sec, and disappear behind the curtain. When I pick up, it's Bettie, my parents' housekeeper.

“Penny, I'm sorry to bother you,” she says quickly after I say hello. “Have you heard from your dad? He's tried to call you. He's on his way home.” I check the time. It's only 6:45 and Dad was supposed to be at the Best Of Rhode Island Gala with Mom. Her business was voted Best Event Planning and PR company in Rhode Island two weeks ago.

I step closer to the curtain so the fabric muffles my voice. I immediately think of wine bottles on the counter and the steep staircase in our house. The drinking wasn't so bad before. I barely remember her drinking when I was a kid. But the last two years, she drinks every night. “Is everyone okay?” I whisper.

“Your mom's okay, but she got into a very public screaming match with one of her client's mothers at the Gala. She
pushed
the woman. The news is planning to run a story. It's bad, honey. She's been ousted from her own company.”

Ousted. Pushed.

“I'm here now and your dad is on his way—but I wanted you to know, honey. So you wouldn't be surprised when you got home.”

She says something about “what I should expect when I get back” but she hangs up before I can hear anything in the background like voices or Mom crying.

When I step back out, May joins me but this time in her regular clothes.

“Pizza's here! Are you guys deaf?” She means Wes and me, as we are the only people left out here. It doesn't appear that Wes
heard me on the phone, which is
good
.

“I'll be right back,” Wes calls from the other side of the backstage. May loops her arm through mine. I touch her arm with my fingertips when I would really like to squeeze and have her tell me that my family hasn't been outed—that my mom is okay.

And it only occurs to me that I didn't know, right until this very second, that Mom's drinking had become a secret.

“It's pineapple pizza!” May sing-songs. “Your fave.”

I can't even imagine Mom being drunk in public, especially at the Best Of party.

“Hello? Earth to Penny?” May says.

“Sorry! Just thinking about my lines,” I lie but with a lift to my voice. I bury how I feel about Mom under the muscles, near the bones.

“What's up?” May nods to Wes. I shrug. When it comes to Wes and his love for inventing things lately, it could be anything.

“PS?” May whispers. “What was that about Wes touching you for the
third
time?” She unlatches from me and sits down on the stage. “He couldn't keep his hands off you.”

“We were just doing the scene,” I say.

I've been standing forever, and it's a relief to sit down.

“He's
always
touching you,” May says.

“Uh, he's my best friend. Since eighth grade. Will you guys give it up already?”

People have been trying to get Wes and me together since we first met. May, Karen, Panda, and Richard—the whole theater crew. Wes has always waved it off so I haven't let myself believe it could be true. I've just pushed it to the side and kept myself
in check. We're good at laughing, at acting, and at being best friends. I haven't wanted to screw it up between us.

If he didn't want me, I wouldn't be able to hide his rejection the way I hide Mom's drinking.

Bettie's voice rings through my head again.
Ousted. Public screaming match.

Wes comes back out carrying a cardboard box in his hands. He's changed back into his street clothes, so he's wearing a T-shirt and jeans. His forearms flex as he puts the box down, and when he looks up at me, he smiles with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. His eyes glint in their devilish way.

Damn it. I've let May brainwash me.

“Can you handle that, Gumby?” I say, shaking off Bettie's words ringing in my head and the yelling voices that will no doubt be filling the house when I get there. Wes's arms wrap around the box. He's not all arms and legs like he was in eighth grade when he got that nickname. It doesn't really fit anymore.

“Got it, doll,” he says, and makes sure to emphasize the word.

A flick of fire rushes through me.

“I am
no one's
doll,” I snap.

“Ooh, did I hit a nerve, toots?”

“Toots?” I should kick him.

“Honey? Babyface?” he calls from where I can't see him.

“I'll show you a baby face!” I cry back.

“Don't get her started!” May says with a cackle. “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”

“Stay right there, dollface,” Wes calls. His footsteps make loud thumps backstage because he's gotten so damn big lately.

With a sharp
click
the stage and front row of the auditorium fall into darkness. The track lighting in the aisles gives the room a frosty gray halo, but the light doesn't quite reach the whole stage.

I can see the outline of the cardboard box from where I sit. Wes bends over and pulls out some kind of contraption—a small globe on a black base. Even though Wes is large, he's gentle as he places the globe quietly onto the stage.

“Okay, okay, this is it,” he says, and even though his features are cast in shadow, I can tell that he's smiling.

“Can we hurry it up? I'd like to eat pizza sometime today,” May groans.

It's amazing that I was so hungry five minutes ago. Bettie called and I've completely lost my appetite.

“So, remember the other night. At the beach?” Wes says, and a whoosh of adrenaline sweeps through me at the memory. Of course I remember. I lied. I told them I just wanted to go to the beach when really Mom was drinking again and I just didn't want to be home.

That night, Wes, Panda, May, and Karen came to get me in Wes's minivan. We drove out to Narragansett Beach and lay out looking at the stars. We were just us. The four of us laughing and making fun of Taft, like always. I didn't bring Mom up and no one asked. It was perfect. Until now.

“On the beach,” Wes continues, “you said you wished the stars weren't so far away, that it wasn't fair.” Even in the dark, his voice sounds happy. “So I built this,” he finishes.

“Because of what I said?” I say, and my voice wavers.

With a little
click
on the globe, a swirl of purple, green, and silver stars projects against the black curtains.

Clusters of silver stars rotate in a slow trance. Galaxies shift in and out of view—blue, then pink, then silver circling again and again. The universe really could be right here on our stage. And maybe in some ways, it is.

Wes
made
me a planetarium?

“This beats the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling,” May says from the space on my left. Wes lies down on the other side of me, laughing. I'm surprised how strong his laughter is and . . . how deep.

“Unbelievable,” I whisper at the stars, careful not to look over at Wes. I'm not sure if I'm talking about the buzzing energy between us or the stars on the ceiling. Something about looking at Wes while lying down in the dark is too much for me right now. It's almost enough to make me forget about Mom and what awaits me when I get home.

“Is Penny actually speechless?” May says. I keep my eyes on the constellations.

“I got the images of the constellations to project at the highest possible resolution,” Wes explains proudly as the stars and planets circle overhead.

“Some of the stars look like little fireflies,” May says quietly.

“Guys!” Taft pokes her head around the curtain. “Come eat, we only have time for a ten-minute break. Oh
cool
!” she says, and her eyes lift to the constellations. “You know”—she motions to the stars with her pizza crust—“we could use that if we did
Midsummer Night's Dream.
”

Taft disappears and I hear snippets of chatter from backstage. My stomach growls properly. Maybe I could eat a slice. I offer May my hand and we stand up.

“What do you think, Berne?” Wes says once he's up and packing the planetarium away in a box.

Again, my eyes flick to his muscles as he picks up the box and places it on a counter backstage. He really
has
been working out. How have I never noticed it before? I wonder what it would be like to kiss him.

“What do I think?” I fall into step with him, and we make our way to the dressing room, following the laughter and the smell of pizza. I want to say how much I love the planetarium, how important it is that he
heard
me that night. I struggle to say thank you, but looking him in the eye to say something so true stops my words.

“You've got too much time on your hands,” I say instead, and punch him lightly in the shoulder. He looks a little hurt. “I'm kidding. Thank you.”

“Always, Berne,” he says. The spark that I love is back behind his eyes. May pulls on my hand, drawing me back a bit to let Wes walk ahead. Once he's out of earshot, she nudges me with her elbow.

“You better be excited,” she says.

“For what? He's getting really good at . . .” I search for a word that makes sense. “Crafts. That's all it is.”

May raises an eyebrow.

“He's just into building contraptions right now,” I insist. “He wanted to build that tree thing for
Much Ado
.”

I wink at her and skip through the doorway of the dressing room before I can hear what she says in response.

“Bonjour!” I cry out, and leap to the table of pizza like a ballerina.
“Comment allez-vous?”
I curtsy at the small smattering of applause and pull a pizza slice onto a paper plate. I sit down in a seat next to Karen and make sure to pull a chair close for May. My cell phone vibrates in my pocket again, but I ignore it. I just have to get through rehearsal. Then I can think about what's happening at home.

“Do you ever enter a room normally?” Karen laughs, and takes a bite of her pizza.

“No,” May answers for me, sitting down on my other side.

We listen to Panda describe a video game that none of us have ever heard of. Panda's boyfriend, Richard, shakes his head in mock disapproval. He has such a calming presence next to Panda's loud joking and laughter. Richard's skin is a rich brown, made even deeper by the royal blue of his shirt. Wes sits down beside Richard and leans forward to hear the conversation. As I take my first bite of pineapple pizza, May tilts her head closer so her hair lightly touches my cheek. “Blow me off
all
you want, Berne. Do your normal ‘it's no big deal' thing like you always do. But”—she lowers her voice and nods to Wes on the other side of the room—“thou knowest he did it for you.”