Bras & Broomsticks (34 page)

The music begins.

“Go, girls!”

“Looking good!”

“Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The spotlight is beaming into my eyes, and I can’t see farther than the end of the stage.

I can do this. I can so do this. I remember the moves. I lift my arm the way I’m supposed to, the way all the girls are doing, and I’m fine. Yes! I’m fine.

Sort of. They’re about a half second ahead of me. Oh, no. I’m off a beat. Why can’t I catch up? It’s like I’m the girl in the choir who’s singing just a little louder and squeakier than everyone else.

But as soon as I’m about to start panicking, our fivesecond segment is over, and the rest of the cast comes in and it doesn’t matter anymore.

Phew. No one seems to have noticed my off-key rhythm. At least, I don’t think so, since no one comments.

So far so good.

The next dance I’m in is the freshman Vegas number, the one Melissa choreographed. After I change into my pink skirt suit, I move into my Siberia position and say a little prayer to Melissa, thanking her for sticking me in the back—way,
way
in the back, away from everyone else. I don’t have any complicated moves; all I have to do is pretend to deal cards, which I manage without looking like an idiot.

So instead of worrying, I take a moment to peer into the audience. Even in the dim lighting, my reserved section isn’t hard to find, since it’s way up front, and more significant, it’s the only row with three empty chairs. The occupied seats are occupied by three of the most uncomfortable people I have ever seen. My mother is at one end, a ferociously livid expression on her face, her arms angrily crossed in front of her chest. On the other side is my dad, who can’t stop fidgeting and looks as if he’s counting the seconds to making a fast escape. Slumped between them, like droopy, week-old meat in a sandwich, is Miri.

I try telepathically to tell my sister not to worry.
I’ll be
fine. I’m Dorothy, and the magic is within me
. Yeah, right, as if that’s going to work.

I change into my all-girls “Miami” outfit—designer velour sweat shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top. (I wasn’t one of the girls asked to sport a bikini top—thank goodness.) When Will introduces the freshman and sophomore all-girls dance, it’s full steam ahead! I can do this!

The ten of us get into position. Go, Dorothy, go!

The music starts.

Five, six, seven, eight, left arm up, right arm up, twirl, groove, bend, kick ball . . . kick ball . . . kick ball what?

Oh. Kick ball change. I forgot to change.

Oh no oh no oh no. I’m on the wrong leg. Everyone’s kicking her right leg and I’m kicking my left. What do I do? I’m severely out of sync.

Time for the Harlem shake. I know the Harlem shake. So why can’t my shoulders listen to my brain? Stop wobbling, shoulders! Time for a butt groove. . . . My butt is not grooving.

I’m pretty sure I look as if I’m being electrocuted.

Beaming colored lights are swirling around me, and now I don’t even remember what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m spinning and kicking the wrong way, and people in the audience are starting to snicker. Yes, snicker. How rude. At me. Because of how bad I suck. Jewel’s eyes widen when she realizes I’m on the wrong side of the stage and not strutting down the catwalk with her like I’m supposed to.

She points her chin toward the T, trying to clue me in. Oh, no. I don’t want to go down the catwalk. While I’m doing the body wave, everyone’s gaze will be on little ol’ me. No pressure here. Argh. There is no way I should be doing the body wave in this condition, but I follow Jewel down the plank anyway. Do I have a choice? And then, there we are, each of us standing on the edge of the catwalk, doing the body wave. Except—I can’t do it. My body is just not waving. It’s spasming. Someone in the front row is wincing at the sight of me. With my luck it’s probably Raf’s mother. I won’t be invited for dinner anytime soon.

“What’s wrong with you?” London says through her teeth when, finally, the torture is over and we’re backstage.

“I told you I wasn’t feeling well,” I snarl back.

“Take a Pepto and get over it! Now go change for the formal!”

I avoid the other girls’ gazes as I put on my gorgeous Izzy dress. It can’t get much worse. Anyway, the formal is slow, and slow dancing is all about the sway. Anyone can sway, right?

Uh-oh. I realize there is another problem as soon as I step into the hallway. These wooden heels are high. Now that my rhythm isn’t quite perfect, I shudder when I think about what these stilettos will do to my balance.

I’m just about to fall flat on my face when I feel a strong arm around my waist. Raf. “You look amazing,” he says, beaming. Obviously, he
wasn’t
watching the all-girls dance. He was probably backstage changing and has yet to hear about my disastrous performance.

Oh, no. I forgot about the pimple.
He’s looking right
at the pimple
. I am a hideous, catastrophic freak.

“Ready to knock their socks off?” he says.

I’m more concerned about knocking him off the catwalk. “Yup,” I say, shielding my nose with my hand.

I wobble backstage. I can do this. It’s slow. Slow and romantic. I can do this. As long as I don’t trip over my own feet, I can do this.

When the
Moulin Rouge
song starts, the twenty of us are in proper position. Then the ten boys strut down the catwalk, and we follow. I wobble, but make it to my spot in front of Raf. Woo-hoo! I made it! He twirls me, and then we do our sexy moves. Well, he does the sexy moves, and I try to look sexy, but I guarantee I am coming across as wooden and therefore unsexy. This is confirmed when Raf whispers, “Relax,” during our dip. His lips are only an inch from my face. And then he asks, “Are you okay?”

This is not the romantic moment I’ve been waiting for my entire life.

I nod and try very hard to remain focused. Once that part of the dance is done, I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Yes! Now all I have to do is make it off the catwalk and back to the stage.

Couple by couple, we walk to the stage in two lines. We’re the last ones in line, Jewel and Sean right in front of us.

And that’s when it happens.

I step on the back of Jewel’s dress. I told her the dress was too long.

She goes down fast. And then, like dominoes, so do Melissa, Doree, Stephy, and the entire line of girls in front. One of the sophomores lands in the Eiffel Tower and beheads it.

The set designers scream from offstage.

The entire audience gasps.

Dazed, Stephy looks around, rubbing her elbow. Doree’s bun is undone and a mess. Melissa rubs the back of her head.

Omigod. Omigod. Omigod.

I send Miri a desperate look, silently begging her to make the stage swallow me up, but her head is in her hands.

Omigod. Omigod. Omigod.

The music continues playing, but no one moves. They’re all glaring at me. Eventually, the music stops and we shuffle silently offstage. Raf won’t even look at me. He’ll obviously never talk to me again. I destroyed the entire show.

As soon as we’re offstage, Melissa, Jewel, Doree, and Stephy circle me like sharks. I can hear Will making MC cracks about bringing France to its knees.

“What the hell were you doing out there?” Melissa yells. “You ruined everything.”

There’s a golf ball in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

Jewel just shakes her head.

“I’ll skip the closing,” I say. “So I won’t do any more damage.”

“No way,” Doree says, waving both her hands. “We need you in the closing. The freshman segment is only twenty seconds, and it’ll look stupid without all of us. But wear your sneakers instead of the stilettos so you don’t ruin that number too.”

“Idiot,” Melissa snorts. “Loser.”

Unfortunately, along with my talent, my designer sneakers have disappeared. So against my better judgment, I change into my all-black outfit and beaten-up black boots.

I’m sitting on the toilet seat, silently bawling my eyes out in the same bathroom stall Miri and I visited earlier. I am never coming out. Ever. Well, at least not until everyone has left the building.

Melissa was right when she called me an idiot. How much worse can it get? I thought. How could anything beat decapitating the tower and everyone laughing at me?

It got worse.

After I changed into my black pants and tank top, I got into position. But when the entire cast was supposed to be in sync, I sashayed the wrong way. I swerved at the wrong time. I turned at the wrong time. I was a total mess. But wait. That part wasn’t the horrible part.

Since the bows were right after the closing number, I had to wait onstage (while all the freshmen and sophomores gave me poisonous looks) as Will called each person’s name in alphabetical order. He called out the entire cast, and of course, the audience cheered and screamed and rushed the stage to give their loved ones bouquets. And then he announced, “Rachel Weinstein!”

No one cheered. Or maybe someone did, but I couldn’t hear because of all the laughter. I walked to the front of the catwalk like I was supposed to, only to find that no one,
nadie,
was waiting to hand me flowers. Not even my parents, although I could hardly blame them. They likely had other issues on their minds.

And then, before I could run off the stage in humiliation, Will called, “London Zeal!” the final name in the show, and she strutted down the catwalk, waving at the audience like a queen and grabbing her bouquets.

That’s when I tripped on my own two feet, fell into London, and knocked myself, her, and all her flowers off the stage.

And heard the sickening
crack.

“My leg! You walking disaster!”

That was her screaming, not me.

She shrieked again and then hit me on the head with a rose. I apologized profusely before bailing out of there like a convict on the lam.

I’ve been in this bathroom stall for forty minutes and through the door have had to endure the worst kind of berating, since no one knew I was here and they ripped into me freely. Not that I expected any mercy, after what I did. Melissa called me a loser, Doree said she would never talk to me again, and when I heard Stephy say that London was carted off in an ambulance, I fully lost it. I had to flush repeatedly so no one would hear me crying. No one’s come into the bathroom in the past ten minutes, but I’m still not ready to come out.

I’m going to have to transfer to another high school immediately. Unless the news of this disaster has spread to every school in the tristate area, in which case I might have to be home-schooled or convince my mother to move with me to Iowa. Although now she probably hates me too, so she’ll most likely ship me off to boarding school.

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to going home. If only there were somewhere else I could go. I can’t even escape to my dad’s, since I’ve just ruined his life. STB’s life, too. Prissy will have to be in therapy for the rest of hers. Tammy hates me. There is no way Raf will ever talk to me again, never mind take me to Spring Fling.

I will never again be A-list. I’ve been permanently demoted to the L-list. As in Loser.

Someone enters the bathroom and takes the stall next to mine. I try to stop crying. I recognize the pointy-toe shoes under the stall. Jewel’s shoes.

“Jewel,” I murmur. Jewel was my best friend for so long. She’ll know what I should do. She won’t dump me now in my time of need.

“Rachel?” She flushes and opens her door.

“Is anyone else out there?” I whisper.

“Just me.”

I venture out and, again, burst into tears. I’m like a broken water fountain.

She’s fingering her still-straight hair, which is starting to frizz at the tips. “Um . . . don’t cry. Everything will be okay.” I want her to pat me on the back or something, but she keeps fidgeting with her hair.

Then I get an idea. I don’t have to go home. When I used to get into fights with my mom, I would just go sleep at Jewel’s. “Do you think I could sleep over tonight? This has been, like, the worst day ever.”

She takes a step back. “Tonight? Actually, I’m going to Mercedes’ tonight. For a cast party? Maybe another time.”