We Awaken (9 page)

“Now find me your leotard and shoes.”

My brain finally caught on, and I reached into the back of the closet to grab my outfit, tights and all.

“I need my résumé.”

If we were going to do this, it had to be done properly. Mother was going to kill me if she figured out I went to the city alone with two teenagers, but she would find out only if I was accepted, which would undoubtedly ease the sting. I grabbed the folder I had prepared last week, grateful I hadn’t lit it on fire or anything in my rage. As I packed this into a bag, making sure to grab my keys, Ashlinn walked over to the window, probably watching for Ellie’s arrival.

“This isn’t something you’ll regret,” she told me.

“I hope not. How am I going to explain you to Ellie?”

“Just tell her the truth. I’m sorry you believe I require such a massive explanation. You told me she thrives on social justice and defending minorities. I imagine finding out her friend is in an interracial same-sex relationship would make her life.” She looked back at me over her shoulder with quirked lips.

“It’s going to be so awkward. We barely speak anymore.”

“And whose fault is that? She has a lot of happy memories with you. Maybe it’s time to let her back in.”

I opened my mouth to retort but realized there wasn’t any counterargument. Shame was officially mixed into my cocktail of emotions. Thankfully, a crappy realization struck and replaced it with a different emotion.

“We’re going to the city! I need money. Did you think this through at all?”

I ran over to my elephant-shaped bank, a relic from my youth, and opened it up. There was a twenty from my last birthday and some quarters.

“This is not enough. Mother will definitely notice if I pinch some cash from her too.”

“Ellie likes you. I’m sure she’ll chip in.”

“If she remembered to bring money. It’s not even eight in the morning yet. This is crazy.”

Before I could fret any more and truly work myself into a nervous state, the doorbell began ringing out a discordant tune. I screamed in surprise.

“Our carriage awaits,” said Ashlinn, ignoring my mania, and we walked downstairs with my bag.

It sounded as if Ellie was pressing the bell over and over again without pausing. When I meekly opened the door, she still had her hand on the button but quickly forgot about it in favor of pushing inside, saying “Where is she?” as her only greeting.

Ellie wore a cardigan—God knows why in early July—that had the words Cherry Bomb embroidered on the back in scarlet thread, the same shade as her lipstick. Judging by how her makeup was smeared on one side, she had slept in the stuff. It didn’t take her a second to spot Ashlinn. You could easily pick that girl out in a crowd of millions, and Ellie ran over to pull her into a hug. Ashlinn reciprocated gently, giving me an unsure look over my friend’s shoulder.

“Oh my God, I thought I was hearing things when you used the term girlfriend. Or that Victoria grew a new sense of humor and some deeper vocal chords.”

She turned to glare at me, although I could tell there was no true fire in it.

“I can’t believe you got a girlfriend and didn’t tell me. I should have been the first to know. Hell, you should have told me before you even knew.”

Like that worked out in the past.

“You actually are the first to know.”

She lifted her eyebrows and seemed to mull these words over appreciatively for a few moments, nodding.

“Sorry, are you keeping this a secret or something? It’s not like your mom would freak over you being a lesbian, right?”

I could see Ashlinn’s eyes narrow at the word, and fearing she would feel the need to correct Ellie, I held up my hand and gave her a look to indicate we’d discuss the matter later. There was too much to deal with already, I didn’t feel like explaining and defending asexuality on top of that. Not that I was sure if I could at that point. Ashlinn eased up a bit, and I gave Ellie an answer.

“My mother would probably be too shocked by my finding anyone to even notice their gender, but that hardly matters considering she isn’t here. Which is why my
girlfriend
”—I put unnecessary emphasis on that word in particular, pleased with how it felt on my tongue—“thought it necessary to call you.”

“I get it. I’m your backup. Don’t worry, I’m not bitter. Just wish you could’ve given me a bit of a warning. We should be getting a move on now, though. What time is your audition?”

“Nine thirty.”

Suddenly Ellie’s cool demeanor slipped away, and she looked the most panicked out of us all. “Shit we really do gotta go. Shake a leg. I’m going to question you two about this the whole way there, so start preparing your stories.”

She pushed the door open wider and made her way to The Hovercraft, leaving us in the house. Ashlinn gave me a hug so quick it barely happened.

“Sorry,” she muttered, unrepentantly and with pride, and I repeated the word back to her. We walked out the door and toward my future, hand in hand, with my bag over my shoulder. An old Dodge had never looked so hopeful.

Ellie was already shouting out the window to hurry up. We both started to climb into the backseat when she took a break from her attempts at rushing.

“Not happening, your hot date sits in the front, or I’m not driving you. We have things to discuss, and I’m not in the mood to shout everything behind me.”

Shrugging, Ashlinn closed the door and sat shotgun. I took my place in the back on the uncomfortable middle spot that wasn’t really a seat, and we headed off. Ellie was drumming her fingers nervously on the wheel.

“What’s freaking you out so much? I’m not even that worried about the time.”

“It appears that I have neglected to mention how this particular piece of crap you are being taxied around in can’t reach speeds higher than sixty-five miles an hour without giving up on life.”

“What?” I screeched. “We’ll never make it.”

“You should have been quicker. First you call me at eight in the morning in the freaking summer after hiding the love of your life from me, and now I get abused for it. You’re so damn lucky I woke up early today. With any luck we’ll get there the moment your audition starts. It’ll be great, like a scene from a movie. You can burst in victorious—hopefully there’ll be two great big doors to fling open and march through—and kill the audition, then become a celebrity. It’ll look great in the film adaptation of your life, I promise.”

“Great, yeah,” I muttered, staring out the front window. We weren’t even out of town yet. Ellie rolled up the sleeves on her cardigan when we hit a red light, and reached over Ashlinn to get her sunglasses. Before returning her hands to the wheel, she poked her in the arm.

“Explain from the start. I want to know everything. You must be something special to have won this girl over,” she said, nudging her head back to indicate I was the girl being referred to, as if it could be anyone else.

I was worried about what the response would be. In my mind any variation of the truth sounded like enough to get us delivered to the closest madhouse instead of the city, but Ashlinn performed yet another miracle.

“We met through family actually. I was a friend of her brother’s. I always heard such wonderful things about Victoria and was pleased to learn they pale in comparison to the truth. After our initial meeting, I couldn’t stop seeing her and just kept visiting. I’m not even sure if I was wanted.”

“Well, I’d say you were, judging by the result,” Ellie replied, laughing. “How long has this been going on for anyway? It seems like more than a two-day fling.”

I piped up for this one.

“Oh she’s been getting into my head for quite some time now.”

Ashlinn choked back a snicker in the front seat and started looking out the side window.

“We started talking a bit before the end of the school year.”

Ellie gasped. “You bastard. I’ve seen you since then, and you’ve said nothing.”

She groped around next to her and grabbed a tube of lip gloss—the closest thing that could be utilized as a projectile—and lobbed it back at me. Thankfully, her eyes were on the road, so the aim was poor.

We were on the parkway at this point and no longer had to worry about children or small animals running out into the road in front of us. There was also a distinct lack of stop signs, which helped. The car had fallen into an amiable silence, although I suspected Ellie wanted desperately to ask more questions, and I willed the trees we passed to become blurrier. Instead, we puttered on at sixty as the other cars whizzed by. I imagined every other one held an applicant just like me except they’d be on time and confident. There was less than an hour left to get to the school.

The air began to turn heavy with anxiety. Every exhalation seemed like the ticking of a clock, and I didn’t want this silence any longer.

“Can’t you put on some music or something?” I asked.

Ellie reached over and turned on the CD player, which then proceeded to bless us with the discordant melodies of “Green Tambourine.” Letting out a sigh of defeat, I face-planted into the seat to my right, the belt pulling uncomfortably in my lap.

“I can’t do this audition.”

“Of course you can. Stop being ridiculous,” Ashlinn began. “You’ve wanted nothing more your entire life, and I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you of this. The state of your feet should be reminder enough. If they don’t like your dancing, they’re fools.”

“Fools with degrees and careers.”

“You could stand there in one of your ballet positions just breathing and anyone with an ounce of sense would be enthralled. You’re allowed to be nervous, but stop being discouraged. If we didn’t think you could do it, we wouldn’t be in this car right now. You were always going to audition. Now you’ve got a cheering section to make it that much better.”

She delivered this little speech calmly, staring out the windshield the whole time except for at the end, when she turned around in the seat and looked at me where I lay flopped across the faux leather. Ellie seemed seconds away from taking her hands off the wheel to start slow clapping. She restrained herself to merely giving a low whistle of appreciation.

I righted myself, managing to kick the back of the driver’s seat in the process of sitting up, while Ashlinn was still turned toward me. Her feelings for me seemed to be growing by the second, and I wondered if they were nearing mine for her. I wanted badly to say something profound, to worship the confidence she placed in me and try to will it to not be intimidating, but instead I just said “Thank you.”

Ellie sensed that we were in an intimate moment and decided to have an outburst, probably to avoid feeling like the third wheel.

So, as Ashlinn gazed adoringly into my eyes and I looked lovingly into hers, Ellie blurted out “Got any entertaining kinks you wanna share?” Her tone was oddly nonchalant for the words and came without any preamble. Ashlinn wheezed like she might start choking.

“Ellie!”

“What? I’m trying to start a conversation. I can tell the girl my butter knife story.”

I poked my head up between the seats.

“Oh no, not that one again.”

Ashlinn seemed intrigued now.

“Butter knife story? How did you get from invasive questions to cutlery?”

Ellie grinned, preparing herself to relay one of her many ex-boyfriend tales, as I leaned back and tried to distract myself with the roof of her car. My desire to hear about anyone’s sex life was less than zero.

“It’s related, I promise. So once this boyfriend of mine had wanted to mix things up while we were having sexytimes. I, being a wonderful girlfriend, wanted to oblige him but, well, he had this thing for knives. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, but I wasn’t too keen on hurting him and thought I’d end up doing damage. Also bloodstains and we were only fifteen. I had a brilliant idea, though. Once when we were getting all sexy together and I was lying across his chest, I pulled out a butter knife I had stashed in the bed and started running it over his abs. I tried to look all hot and everything, but when I looked up he seemed so confused. It must’ve seemed ridiculous, but the point is I tried. Okay, I’ve told you an embarrassing sex story. Spill yours.”

This conversation was getting out of control. If this was my payment for getting to the audition, it wasn’t worth it.

“You can’t possibly be that embarrassed by it. You’ve told everyone with ears in a ten-mile radius.”

She shushed me from the front seat, and Ashlinn spoke up, sounding much less uncomfortable and embarrassed than me. “Actually, I’m asexual.”

Ellie let out a single laugh before realizing she wasn’t joking.

“Wait, like the plant thing?”

“Nope. No. Definitely not,” I interjected, recalling having said the same offensive thing. “It’s a lack of sexual attraction.”

Ellie looked at Ashlinn out of the corner of her eye.

“Then how are you guys in a relationship? I mean, masturbation’s great, but I never took Victoria to be the type.”

I covered my face with my hands and groaned. This was a disaster, a national tragedy.

“Goddammit, I’m asexual too,” I blurted out before my brain could catch up to my lips.

“You mean you lied to me,” Ellie responded, noticeably upset. “I thought you were a lesbian. You’re in a gay relationship. Without sex aren’t you guys just glorified friends?”

Ashlinn was silent and hadn’t reacted to my accidental coming out, but now her voice was fiery as she turned to Ellie, who I feared was starting to get distracted from the road.

“Love is about more than sex. I know you know that. Look, I don’t need you to approve or understand, but it’d be helpful if you tried. For Victoria’s sake.”

An expression of guilt colored Ellie’s face after that particular jab. She just nodded. I had almost forgotten Ashlinn had been in her head as well and would know what strings to pull.

“I don’t get it, and I can’t say that I like it, but whatever charges your batteries. At least you don’t have to worry about butter knives getting involved.”

I had a few choice words for that, but we were running out of time to argue or apologize; the city neared.