Gimme a Call (16 page)

“I can’t come either. I have play tryouts,” I say to Joelle. Then I turn back to Karin and add, “Before you go, I just want to mention—you look fabo today.”

“Thanks,” she says, smiling.

“Really,” I tell her. “Your boobs look terrific in that shirt.”

She blushes and fidgets with her top. “Um, thanks?”

Joelle bursts out laughing.

“Doesn’t she?” I ask the other girls. “I wish I had her boobs.” My plan is to layer on the boob praise for the next three and a half years.

Tash is the same color as Karin.

Joelle puts her hand on her hip. “Let’s see … yes, she does have good boobs.”

“Both of you wear the same cup size as I do,” Karin says.

“Maybe,” I say. “But yours are the perfect shape.”

Joelle sticks her chest out. “Are you saying mine are shaped imperfectly?”

“You also have perfectly shaped boobs,” I say. Must be careful. I don’t want to drive her to the knife too.

“Why, thank you,” Joelle says.

“Can we get back to talking about the play?” Karin asks. “You guys are freaking me out.”

“Yes, the play,” Joelle says. “Did I tell you I’m helping with costumes and design? Maybe I’ll get to dress you as Belle.”

I laugh. “Don’t count on it. I have no talent. I’m more of a background-teacup sort of girl.”

Joelle stops dancing and turns to Tash. “Why don’t you audition too?”

Tash almost drops her books. “Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m a hundred percent serious.”

Tash shakes her head. “I’m not really a play person.”

“Neither am I,” I say. “You should do it.” As soon as I say the words, though, I try to swallow them back. Must not encourage friends to do random things that could change the course of their lives. Who knows what dangerous path the school play could lead her on? Whatever. She’s not going to audition. At the library during lunch, while she helped me with chemistry, I told her I was trying out, and she showed no interest in the play whatsoever.

Joelle squeezes Tash’s shoulder. “Don’t you want to get into a good premed program? Maybe this could help.”

You already get into Brown, I want to tell her, but I don’t. That would be weird.

“It would be good for you,” Joelle annoyingly continues. “Help you break out of your shell. Come on. If Devi can do it, so can you.”

Tash switches her schoolbag to her other shoulder. I expect her to say no way. To say she’s not interested. To say thanks but no thanks. She shrugs. “All right.”

Huh?

“Good for you!” Joelle sings, clapping her on the back.

Not good! Ivy is going to kill me! Tash’s future is fine. Her future is
great
. She’s going to Brown! She’s studying medicine! She wants to cure cancer! I can’t let her try out for the play. It could ruin everything. “No, no, no!” I wail.

They all stare at me.

Tash blinks. “You don’t want me to try out?”

“No. I mean, yes. Um, of course I do. But you don’t have the script. You know. For the audition. You should have told me at lunch if you wanted to try out and then you could have had time to study it, but at this point …” I shake my head.

“What do I have to do?” she asks.

“You have to be able to read from the script. You know. To act it out. The auditions are now. You’re not going to have time to memorize it. And also, you need to prepare a song.”

“Her memory is pretty photographic,” Joelle says. “And can’t she just sing ‘Happy Birthday’? That’s a song, right?”

“Happy Birthday”! Why didn’t I think of that? I wouldn’t have had to practice my song a million times and broken all the mirrors in my house. “You’re going to sing?” I ask her. “In public?”

Tash shrinks into herself. “I don’t know …”

“Oh, shut up,” Joelle says. “You’re doing it. I dare you. And Devi will be right next to you. And I’m coming for support. You’re doing it if I have to drag you there myself. Devi, give me that script.”

What can I do? I hand over the paper and pray I’m not about to destroy the future health of humankind.

chapter twenty-one
Wednesday, May 28
Senior Year

I see it right after I finish dinner. I see it and I squeal.

“What’s wrong?” my mom asks, opening my door. “Are you okay?”

I point to the acceptance letter on my bulletin board. “I got into Tufts! That’s top tier! It’s ranked twenty-eighth of all the universities in the country! Twenty-eighth!”

Mom looks at the letter and then back at me. “I know, honey. We’re very proud of you.”

“You know?” Of course they know. I didn’t just get in today.

This is all so amazing. I put Frosh on the right path and presto—Tufts, here we come! Sure, there was three and a half years of hard work in there, but I just can’t remember it. I call Frosh to congratulate her as soon as Mom leaves the room. “Guess what you did,” I sing.

She hesitates. “Um, I don’t know.”

“Come on, just guess.”

“It doesn’t have something to do with a certain someone auditioning for the school play, does it? Because that wasn’t my idea. It was all Joelle. And then I figured, well, if it didn’t come from me, then maybe it wasn’t a problem. But is it?”

Huh? “What are you talking about?”

She pauses. “What are
you
talking about?”

“I’m talking about Tufts. You got in.”

“Oh. Is that good?”

“Are you kidding? It rocks!”

She giggles. “Never mind, then.”

“No, I don’t think so. Tell me what
you
were talking about.” My heart races. “What did you do? Is this about Karin? Did you tell her to do something else?”

“Um, actually, I did say something to Karin, but it wasn’t a big deal at all. I swear.”

She’s seriously freaking me out. “What did you say?” I ask, and rub my left temple. This time-travel thing is going to age me prematurely.

“I’m trying to make her feel more confident. So she doesn’t get plastic surgery. So I told her she has great boobs.”

Alrighty. “And how did she react to that?”

“She thought I was being a bit weird. But I think it’s a good plan! ’Cause Karin obviously has self-esteem issues, right? No matter what she does—gymnastics, cheer, whatever—she’s insecure about her looks. What she really needs is her friends to make her feel better about herself.”

The kid has a point. “Not a terrible plan.”

“I know, right?”

I breathe out, relieved. “So Joelle told Karin to audition for the school play?”

“No, she told Tash to.”

Huh? I close my eyes. Headache getting worse. “Tash wouldn’t be in the play. She’s not a play person. She barely speaks in public.”

“That’s what I thought! But she tried out!”

I shake my head. “I don’t believe it!”

“I know, I couldn’t either!”

This could be bad. Very bad. “Well, do you think she made it?”

“I don’t know! She wasn’t terrible. I mean, she was nervous, and her voice was shaky, and she’s not very good at projecting, but most of the freshmen weren’t that great and someone has to make the chorus, right? Do you think it’s a big deal?”

Oh, God. What if she does get in? What if she’s great? What if Tash’s trying out changed her path for good? “What if she falls in love with being an actress and drops out of school to move to Hollywood?”

“That would suck,” she says. “Unless she gets fabo roles. Like in
TTYL
. Omigod, can you check? That would be so cool.”

“Not cool!” I say. “She has plans! She’s supposed to go to Brown!”

“You could always go to L.A. and bring her home.”

“The only way I’m going to Los Angeles is if I get into UCLA and
that
hasn’t happened yet. This is a problem.” I start hyperventilating. “This is bad. Very bad. Okay, calm down,” I tell myself. “I’m sure everything is fine. I better call her to check.”

“Good idea,” she chirps. “Call her from the house phone and leave me on the cell.”

My fingers can’t help trembling as I dial. The cell is pressed to my right ear, the house phone to my left. I know I look ridiculous. It rings. And rings again. Her voice mail comes on. Instead of her old message—“Hi, it’s Tash. I can’t come to the phone”—music blasts in my ear.

“You are the dancing queen

Young and sweet

Only seventeen!”

Houston—or, uh, Hollywood—I think we have a problem. “I’m going to call you back,” I tell Frosh.

“But—”

I hang up, grab my purse, stuff my feet into my shoes, and hurry downstairs. “Mom, can I borrow the car?”

“Sure, honey,” she says. I kiss her on the cheek and then run outside, slide behind the wheel, and hightail it to Tash’s house.

At a red light, I let my mind wander. Tash fell in love with drama and then dropped out of school to move to Holly wood. Or Broadway. She is no longer going to Brown. She is no longer studying medicine. She will no longer find the cure for cancer.

That seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?

So she had the chorus of
Mamma Mia!
on her cell phone. She could just like musicals in this new reality. I floor the gas when the light turns green.

I pull into her driveway about five minutes later, get out of the car, lock the doors, run up the stairs, and ring the doorbell. Once, twice. Three times.

Tash’s stepmom, a petite brunette, answers the door.

“Hi,” I say breathlessly. “Mrs. Havens, is Tash home? I really need to speak to her.”

She shakes her head. “We haven’t seen Tash in a while.”

Oh, God. Oh, no. She’s dropped out of school. She moved to the city to be a struggling actor. All cancer-curing dreams forgotten. I knew it. “How long has she been gone?” I ask, clenching my fists. I’m going to kill Frosh.

“Since this morning,” Mrs. Havens says. “She said they were ordering dinner at school. Devi, aren’t you in the scenes they’re practicing tonight? You’re in
Mamma Mia!
too, aren’t you?”

The play. The school play.
Mamma Mia!
is this year’s school play. Right. I knew that. And I’m in it. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Do you want to wait for her?”

“No, no, I need to get home. Just tell her I was in the neighborhood.”

“Will do,” she says, and closes the door behind her.

I laugh to myself. Hello, overreaction. Tash is still a student at Florence West. She just happens to be in the play. Too bad I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if she’s still going to be premed. I reach into my purse for the car keys. No car keys? I peek through the car window and see them still in the ignition. Now what?

I’d call my mom or dad to get me, but we only have the one car. And my cell phone doesn’t work.

I flip open my phone and hit send. “Frosh,” I tell her, “write this down in your notebook in big letters, okay?”

“Okay,” she says nervously. “Hit me.”

“When you drive over to Tash’s house on Wednesday, May twenty-eighth, senior year, do not—I repeat, do not—”

“Do not what?” she asks, sounding panicked. “What did I do?”

“Do not leave your keys locked inside the car.”

She giggles. “Got it.”

chapter twenty-two
Wednesday, September 14
Freshman Year

“I think you should forget theater and do a sport instead,” Ivy tells me later that night. “How do you feel about soccer?”

Not that I’m opposed to dropping the play, but with yearbook and trying to get As in all my classes, it sounds like I’m going to be pretty busy without taking on a new sport. But I guess I should listen to her. It’s not like she’s going to tell me what to do forever. Just until she gets into the school she wants. I mean, I’m guessing we’ll keep talking forever. Why wouldn’t we? But she’s not always going to be this bossy. Right? I open my notebook to a blank page, find a pen on the living room table, and write down
SOCCER
. But then I imagine myself running after a ball. And tripping over the ball. Not sure if I’d be able to focus on running and kicking at the same time. “That sounds too hard.”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” she scoffs.

I roll over on the couch. Easy for her to say. “Excuse me, but how many teams are you on?”