chapter six

“...so then while I’m pretending to change, you take my place, we drop the curtain, and voila! You’re me! But then I’m me again a minute later. That’s the impressive part.”

For the past five minutes my head has been swiveling back and forth like I’m watching a ping-pong match, following Crosbie as he paces across his small dorm room. He grows increasingly animated the more he describes the illusion he wants to perform at Open Mic Night next weekend. I don’t really understand anything, I just know that my part involves wearing a skin tight black body suit and stocking mask, like a male ballerina/thief, and that I don’t want to do it.

“Do you really think people will be fooled?” I ask, avoiding his suspicious stare. This is easier said than done because the room is approximately ten feet by eight feet, with very few places to look.

“Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Because we don’t look the same?”

Crosbie is shorter and stockier, like a wrestler; I’m tall and lean, like a, well, runner. Even with my face covered by black fabric, I don’t think anyone would mistake us for each other.

“It’ll be fine,” he says dismissively. “The whole stage will be black, the background will be black, and there’ll be a box at your feet to help mask the slight height difference.”

It’s actually a four-inch height difference, but I won’t point that out. I know he’s sensitive about it.

“If you want to wear some padding to bulk up your slim frame...” he continues sweetly.

“Stop calling me slim!” I toss a pillow at him.

He catches it and laughs as he straddles the desk chair. “So what do you think? You’ll help, right?”

Crosbie’s my best friend, so I nod with as much enthusiasm as I can muster for a black bodysuit. “Definitely.”

“Awesome. We’ll work on your enthusiasm later.”

I’m about to retort when a shrill clanging suddenly starts, making us both jump. “Oh, fuck,” Crosbie groans. “Fire drill.”

“Or fire alarm,” I say, peering out the window at the wisps of smoke rising up from one of the lower floors. It’s Monday afternoon, sunny but cool, so we scoop up our jackets, Crosbie gathers his phone and laptop, and we exit into the crowded hallway to squeeze into the even more crowded stairwell with a hundred other students. Floor monitors shout ignored instructions, the bell keeps clanging, and no one seems particularly concerned as we shuffle down the stairs.

The smell of smoke grows stronger as we reach the second floor and the sharp blast of sirens fills the stairwell as a door bangs open at ground level. We’re pinned to the walls as yellow-suited firefighters jog up the steps, so many I lose count. The air is smoky but the only heat is generated by the exhausted bodies slogging down sixteen flights of stairs, so everyone remains calm until we stagger out the fire door at the side of the building.

“Damn,” Crosbie says, backing onto the grass and craning his neck to peer up at the corner windows on the second floor. Acrid black smoke pours out, but no flames.

“That’s the common room,” someone in the group says. “I heard the microwave exploded.”

“I heard someone set the couch on fire,” another voice chimes in.

“I heard...”

As the rumor mill warms up, Crosbie and I shift until we’re at the perimeter of the crowd. A hundred yards away is a small basketball court and a pond, both deserted despite the nice weather.

The all-too-familiar opening notes of Destiny’s Child’s “Bootylicious” come from Crosbie’s phone, and I grimace as I hear Nora’s personalized ringtone.

“Hey,” Crosbie says as he answers. “Yeah, we’re outside. I don’t know, there’s lots of smoke. Of course he agreed. You know he loves tight pants.” I kick him in the shin and he yelps and hops away. “We’re by the basketball court,” he continues. “Sure. See you in a bit.” He hangs up and turns to me, rubbing his leg. “Nora’s at work but they heard about the fire. They’re wrapping up and should be here in half an hour. We can grab dinner if you want.”

“Who’s they?”

“Nora and Marcela.”

“I’ll pass. Marcela’s gotten the idea that we should resume our fake dating so she can get Nate to ask her out or something. I don’t want a girlfriend, real or imagined, and I definitely don’t want to fake things anymore.”

“But it was so convincing.”

Crosbie’s gaze snags on something over my shoulder and I turn to see what he’s looking at, then immediately wish I hadn’t when I see Andi and Crick approaching the court. Andi’s wearing red track pants and a gray hoodie, Crick’s in shorts and a Burnham jacket, a basketball tucked under his arm. He has his head ducked to listen to whatever Andi’s saying, and that same tightness that squeezed my chest while we were baking makes an unwelcome return appearance.

Andi spots me watching, and Crick notices as well. Crosbie waves and they come over.

“What’s going on?” Andi asks, squinting at the smoky building.

“Not too sure,” Crosbie answers. “But I think it started on one of the lower levels. Someone mentioned the common room.”

“Which floor are you on?” Crick asks her.

Pleasure and disappointment war for top billing. Pleasure that he doesn’t already know the answer, and disappointed that I don’t. We grew up three feet away from each other; for most of my life I’ve known exactly where Andi was. Now she’s here and somehow feels very far away.

“Two,” she answers, knocking the ball from his arm and dribbling it across the court. She makes the basket and Crick watches appreciatively. Andi and I have been competing with each other since before we even knew what competition was, and every cell in my body urges me to run over there, steal the ball, and sink my shot. But Crick beats me to it. He laughs and circles, one hand hovering near her waist as he looms over her. Andi feints to the left then darts right, tossing the ball into the net again. Crick snags it, dribbling around the court before charging the basket, flying through the air like a gazelle and dunking with both hands. The cheap metal rings against the backboard and spectators applaud. I do not.

“First to five,” he tells Andi, tossing her the ball. He slings his jacket to the ground and as he does so, she scores a point. Then she takes off her hoodie to reveal the plain white tank top underneath. This is Andi’s standard outfit; I’ve seen it a million times. I’ve seen the careless hair and the sports bra and all the normal pieces of her, I’ve just never seen them through the lens of a guy who wants her. I’m talking about Crick, of course. The way he pauses, just for a second, taking in her bare arms, her flat stomach, the long line of her back. Then he steals the ball again and dunks.

She smiles and they fight for the ball. He dribbles it between his legs, fakes left and left again, then tosses the ball in a high arc toward the net. It bounces off the backboard. Andi jumps and catches it on the rebound, using both hands to make her shot before she’s even touched ground again.

The crowd goes wild.

Crick grins at her.

I grit my teeth.

“What are you doing?” Crosbie asks, elbowing me in the ribs.

I jerk out of my trance. “What? Nothing. Just...watching.”

“Why do you look murderous?”

“I do not look murderous.” It takes everything I’ve got to keep my eyes on Crosbie and not glare murderously at Crick.

“I thought you said she was your friend.”

“Yeah, she is. That’s all. Sort of. I mean, she’s sort of my friend, not that’s sort of all there is. That’s definitely all there is.”

Crosbie looks at me strangely. “Okay, pal.”

After I returned from the bake sale last week, I’d given him the brief rundown on my history with Andi, minus the sex and not speaking for two years. I should have been relieved when he didn’t appear remotely suspicious or even interested in our involvement, but instead I felt oddly offended. It wasn’t that he assumed I couldn’t be attracted to Andi; he figured she would never be attracted to me. It took everything I had to stifle the petty urge to tell him that everyone in Avilla knows she’s always had a crush on me; it takes even more to pretend I’m totally fine with the fact that she’s clearly gotten over it.

He nods toward the front of the building. “Nora and Marcela are here.”

I look around for an excuse to escape, spotting one in the form of a perfectly perky cheerleader who notices me at the same moment.

“There’s Jackie,” I say far too eagerly.

“Who?”

“A...friend,” I hedge, using Lin’s term. “I’m going to say hi. Bye.”

I hustle over to Jackie, who leaves her cluster of friends to meet me. In jeans and a T-shirt and puffy jacket, she looks cute and safe, a much better option than anyone else.

She smiles up at me. “Hey, Kellan! Did you hear about the fire?”

Well...obviously. “Ah, yes. I hope you’re not on that floor.”

“I am.” She shudders. “It’s so dramatic. All that smoke. What are you doing here?”

“Crosbie lives upstairs. We’re preparing for Open Mic Night.”

Behind me there’s another round of applause for the basketball stars, but I force myself to focus on Jackie and try to think of something flirtatious to say. It shouldn’t be hard; it’s not like I don’t have tons of practice. But all I can hear is that stupid clapping and it’s taking everything I have not to turn around.

“Guess who,” a voice whispers in my ear as chilly fingers cover my eyes.

I should have turned around. At least then I could have gotten a head start.

Jackie giggles and I groan.

“Hi, Marcela.”

“Hello, lover.” She drops her voice an octave and I glare at her over my shoulder, wincing at the neon yellow of her skin-tight velour jumpsuit.

“I told you I’m not doing that again.” I look at Jackie. “Nothing’s happening here. We’re not lovers.”

Marcela gives Jackie an exaggerated wink. “We’re not, but don’t tell. I need to make somebody jealous.”

“Ooh, who?”

“Nobody,” I interject. “Because if he was worth it, he would have made his move already.”

“He’s not worth it,” Marcela counters. “But he needs to know I would have been worth it, if he weren’t such a judgmental coward.”

Jackie’s frowning. “What?”

“You missed the show,” Crosbie says, interrupting the conversation, Nora at his side.

“Did I?” I ask, eyeballing Marcela. “Because I feel like I didn’t.”

She pouts. “Just play along, Kellan. You were all for it last year when it served your purpose.”

“It served both our purposes. Now it doesn’t.”

“What do you care if someone thinks you have a girlfriend?” She nods at Jackie. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t.”

“Fire’s out,” a deep voice announces, and I know before I look that it’s Crick. We turn to see him and Andi approaching and I wished I’d stayed in the burning building.

I look at McKinley and see the firefighters retreating, one of two trucks already pulling away from the curb. There’s no more smoke coming from the second floor, and someone in the crowd is shouting that it’s okay to go inside, but stay out of the common room and don’t put metal in the microwave, for fuck’s sake.

“This is Cri—ah, Julian,” Crosbie says, introducing him to the group.

“I know,” Jackie says. “We cheer for the basketball team. Hey.”

“Hey,” he says.

“I know too,” Marcela adds. “Decaf latte, skim milk, and a cranberry orange muffin.”

Crick looks both embarrassed and flattered.

“You’re creepy,” I mutter out the corner of my mouth.

“It’s called customer service,” she whispers back. “Lover.”

“Stop that.”

“This is Andi,” Crick says, putting a hand on her shoulder. I watch the way his tan fingers contrast with her paler skin and the white of her tank top. Again I get that weird feeling in my chest.

“I know,” Marcela says again. “We have a class together.”

“And we met,” Crosbie says. “At Kellan’s place.”

Several eyebrows shoot up in surprise, Crick’s among them. “You two know each other?”

“Oh. Ah...” Andi stammers.

“We grew up together,” I offer. “Next door neighbors.”

Marcela looks delighted at this bit of intel. “Childhood friends, reunited. How...sweet.”

I glower at her. I know this will not be the last I hear of it.

Nora frowns. “I thought you still had the no-girls-allowed policy at the apartment.”

“I do,” I say, without thinking. “She doesn’t—”

“Count,” Andi finishes flatly, cheeks turning pink.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Everyone’s going back in,” Jackie announces. “I’m going to check on my stuff. Are we still on for Saturday?”

“Yeah,” I say absently, watching Andi pull on her hoodie. She knocks her hair loose and it tumbles around her shoulders, briefly softening the severity of her angry expression. Softening everything, really, if Crick’s approving stare is any indication.

“We’ll train first thing tomorrow,” Crosbie tells me, backing toward the residence with Nora and Marcela. “Then we’ll come back here to practice for the show.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Stay away from carbs,” he calls, patting his stomach. “You know they make you swell up.”

I flip him off and he laughs before disappearing into the crowd.

“I guess I’ll get going,” Crick says, passing the basketball awkwardly from hand to hand. “We’re still on for Saturday too?”

Andi doesn’t miss the way he watches me, like he’s questioning our relationship.

“Of course,” she says, flashing him her fake smile. To anyone who doesn’t know her, it’ll look genuine enough, but if you can’t see the chipped tooth, it’s not real. Crick buys it.

“Cool,” he says. “I’ll call you.” He turns and blends into the dissipating throng, as much as a seven-foot giant can blend into anything other than a forest.

Andi reaches up to fix her hair and I catch a whiff of shampoo. I don’t know why the hell I’m noticing these things. It’s Andi. I’ve noticed them all before. Nothing is different.

I turn away and clear my throat. “You should leave your hair down.”

“What?”

“You wanted my advice on how to get Crick to like you, right? Leave your hair down and the hoodies at home.”

“I hate wearing my hair down and I love this hoodie.”

I know both of those things, but I shrug. “Your call.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

For a second we just stare at each other. “And you should work on your left hand lay-up.”

She bristles. “There’s nothing wrong with my lay-up.”

“It’s weak. Weaker than your shots from the foul line.”

“My foul shots are not weak, and what would you know? You weren’t even watching.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I saw—” She cuts off, but not before saying enough to let me know she was watching me too. That we were both trying not to watch each other. She scowls and hoists her bag up on her shoulder. “My lay-up is fine. My foul shots are fine. My hair is fine. Everything is fine.”

“You know, the more you say it, the more convincing it is.”

She scowls and stomps away.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Bertrand waits outside my apartment on Wednesday morning, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts despite the drizzly weather. His hair is slicked back in a stubby ponytail and he pulls on a pair of gloves as he paces on the sidewalk.

“What are you doing here?” I pull up the hood of my jacket as I lock the front door. “I’m going to class.”

“My route took me this way,” he replies unconvincingly. “I thought we could walk back together. My office is near the Klein Building.”

“Bullshit.”

“What would you know? You never come to our meetings.”

“I don’t need our meetings.”

“No? Have you declared a major?”

“You know, a lot of people graduate with a general arts degree. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“It’s a waste of time and money,” Bertrand says. “And I know your tuition is covered as long as you’re on the cross country team, but if you haven’t decided what you want—what you might want—by now, maybe you’re doing something wrong.”

Rain drips down from the trees, thudding onto my hood as though punctuating Bertrand’s statement. “I don’t want to have this conversation,” I say. “I don’t want your advice. I don’t want to be Crosbie’s assistant at the Open Mic show on Saturday. I don’t want to pretend I’m dating Marcela. I don’t want to watch another boring movie. How’s that?”

“The complete opposite of what I asked you,” he says cheerfully. “It’s easy to say what you don’t want. Why don’t you tell me what you do want?”

“I’m young. I don’t have to know what I want.”

“No?” he asks, cocking his head thoughtfully.

I stride into the building, shaking rain off my coat and feeling my sneakers slip on the tile floors. I buy a green juice at a kiosk and arrive at the auditorium with five minutes to spare. The room is half-full and I spot Andi in the same seat as last time, the familiar mass of her hair, the neck of her yellow sweater bunched up beneath it. I start to walk down, telling myself to sit in any row but hers, but of course I don’t. “Hey,” I say, tossing my bag into one seat and taking the one beside her.

She raises a brow. “Hey.” She sniffs and frowns at my cup. “What’s in that thing? Parsley?”

“Among other non-delicious things. Want to try?”

“No.”

“Good call.”

“Did you submit your application?”

It takes me a second to figure out she’s talking about the She Shoots, She Scores job. In a pique of petty rage I’d filled in the online form and hit send less than an hour after returning home from the bake sale. And an hour after that I’d gotten a personal email from Ivanka Ling thanking me for my submission and promising to give it a very close look.

“Kellan?”

“Ah... Yeah,” I say. I feel guilty, though I’ve only done what thousands of other students have done. “Did you?”

“Yes. I hope I hear back.”

I look at her from the corner of my eye. “What photo did you use?” The application required a photo, so I’d hunted around on Facebook until I found one in which I was both fully clothed and not holding an alcoholic beverage.

“One of the girls on my floor took it,” Andi answers. “It was okay, I guess.”

“Be honest. Were you, or were you not, wearing the Oakland A’s T-shirt?”

Her mouth twitches. “No comment.”

“Good morning,” Ms. Shaw says from the front of the room. She’s figured out how to turn the microphone on and off so we don’t hear her mumbling to herself. The screen overhead is paused on the title credits for Citizen Kane. I don’t know anything about the plot, but at least I’ve heard of it before. And it’s in English.

“As you can see, we’ll be watching Citizen Kane. Unlike last week, there will be an assignment after this film. By now you should all have a copy of Introduction to Film Theory, and you’ll see on page sixteen there are a number of questions. Your assignment, due by nine a.m. next Wednesday, is a thousand-word essay answering—or debating—any one of those questions.”

After a bit more lecturing, she dims the lights and starts the movie. I do my best to pay attention, but almost instantly my mind wanders. I pull out the text book and flip to page sixteen, squinting at the questions. Describe how deep focus was used to... There is only one word spoken in the film’s opening sequence. What can we discern from the imagery? Describe how Bernstein and Leland's flashbacks represent the two men’s different relationships with Kane.

I give up and close the book, gulping down half of my juice and praying for mental alertness. Maybe the questions will percolate in the back of my brain and the answers will come to me by the end of the movie.

“Psst. Wake up. Hey. Loverboy!”

I jerk awake, wincing in the too-bright light of the auditorium. Marcela has dumped my bag on the floor and kneels on the seat beside me, shaking my shoulder. On my other side Andi finishes sending a text, shoves her phone in her pocket, and stands.

“Move,” she orders, kicking my knee.

“Why are all women so wretched?”

Marcela grins at Andi and I feel only horror when I see Andi smile back.

“Don’t be friends with each other,” I order, straightening so Andi can pass without kicking me again.

“But she’s your childhood friend,” Marcela says. “And your friends are my friends.” 

“That’s not true at all.”

“Come to Beans for lunch,” she continues. “I’ll give you a discount.”

“I want no part of your scheme. Besides, I’m...hanging out with Andi.”

“No, you’re not,” Andi says promptly.

“I hate you.” I finish my drink, zip up my jacket and stand.

“Ditto,” Marcela says brightly, standing up too. She’s wearing skin-tight turquoise pants, white rain boots, and a red coat. She looks like a comic book character. “Come on, boyfriend.”

“That’s not an improvement.”

“Free brownies,” she whispers.

“No.”

Andi laughs and leaves. I watch her go, belatedly realizing that maybe she’s not the worst person in my life.

“I’m not pretending to be your boyfriend,” I say firmly.

“Two brownies,” she counters.

“No!”

“Two brownies and I’ll help you with your homework.”

“I need to pass this class. I don’t think trusting you is the way to do it.”

“Nate’s a hipster. He owns this movie and made me watch it like, three hundred times.”

“Remind me why you like him?”

“I don’t, remember? But come to the shop, sit at one of the tables, and I’ll help you with the essay.”

I sigh. “Are you lying about the movie?”

“I was lying about the two brownies. You can only have one.”

“Marcela.”

“And it’s just a fifteen percent discount, it’s not free.”

I look past her helplessly, but Bertrand is standing at the door, chatting with Ms. Shaw. With her Audrey Hepburn dress and flats, she looks dainty and miniature next to Bertrand’s wrestler’s build. But they way they’re looking at each other says that opposites are most definitely attracting and explains why Bertrand insists on walking me to class. While I’m happy to have at least one of life’s mysteries solved, seeing Bertrand flirt is almost worse than being threatened by him. Then he catches my eye and waves.

“Let’s go,” I say to Marcela.

***

Half an hour later we’re stationed at a corner table at Beans, a quirky independent coffee shop in the heart of downtown Burnham. The owner supports lots of local artists and the walls are filled with paintings, sculptures and various types of art that are available for purchase. It’s warm and colorful and half-full on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.

Steaming cups of tea sit in front of us, and I have a sandwich and cinnamon bun I had to pay for. Marcela is steadily working her way through the outer layer of the cinnamon bun, taking the pieces with the most frosting. She may have lied about the food, but from what she’s said so far, it seems she was telling the truth about Citizen Kane. My essay will address question one, discussing the use of deep focus.

She digs out her phone, finds a specific clip from the film online, and we watch an interminable scene in which we look out through a window at young Kane playing in the snow, while inside his mother and father argue about sending him away somewhere.

“Okay,” she says, when it’s over. “What did you get from that?”

“The mother wants to send the kid away. The father’s not okay with it until he hears there’s money involved. The boy just wants to play outside.”

“How does the boy feel about it?”

“Um...fine, because he doesn’t know what’s happening?”

“Why not?”

“Is this a trick question?” I sip my tea and nearly burn off my tongue. I shoot a glare at Nate, who’s manning the counter and pretending not to spy on us. I haven’t agreed to do anything more than come here, but apparently that’s enough to irk him. I have no idea what’s up between these two, I’m just glad it’s not me. Well, mostly not me. Sort of.

“No, dumbass. Why doesn’t he know what’s happening?”

“Because he’s outside and his parents are inside?”

“Yes!”

“You’re messing with me. That can’t be the answer.”

Marcela puts down her phone and pulls the text book from her bag. The spine cracks when she opens it, leaving little doubt that this is the first time these pages are seeing the light of day. Marcela’s family is very wealthy and she couldn’t possibly care less about her education, she’s just here because they’ll cut her out of the will if she doesn’t get a degree.

“What’s your major?” I ask.

She licks a flinger and flips through the pages, not looking up at me as she answers. “Psych.”

“You want to be a psychologist? Psychiatrist? What’s the word?”

“They’re both words. And no, I don’t want to be either one. I just needed a degree and that seemed popular. Okay, here it is.”

“Do you have a course advisor?”

“Yeah. I take her advice every year and she leaves me alone. If you look at this—”

“And that’s fine? She doesn’t like, come to your house or anything?”

She looks up, brows drawn together like a disapproving arrow. “What? No. Why?”

“Just asking.”

“Just randomly asking if my course advisor stalks me?”

“Uh-huh.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Look at this picture. Page fifteen.” She turns the book and I look at a still taken from the same scene we just watched. In the foreground Kane’s parents huddle around the table looking at paperwork with a lawyer; in the background, out the window, is a little boy playing in the snow.

“Okay. I see it.”

“This is an example of deep focus.” She taps the parents. “They’re in focus.” She taps the kid. “He’s in focus. The foreground, the middle ground, and the background are in focus. This is because you’re meant to be aware of everything, even as the subject—Kane—is not.”

I stare at her. “Say that again?”

She sighs. “The characters’ dialogue is just a fraction of the story. Welles—that’s the writer, director, actor—didn’t just slap the scenes together. He thought about them.”

I study the picture. “Huh. Maybe you’re not so bad at this.”

“That’s why I’m taking the class. I’ve already watched half the movies on the syllabus, so I don’t have to do much more than show up.”

I eat the last of my sandwich and put away my things. Marcela has eaten the entire cinnamon bun. “Thanks for explaining.”

“You’re welcome. Now do your part.”

“This is my part. I show up, look good, and make you look good.”

“Just kiss me.”

“On the cheek.”

“That’ll do.”

Nate works at the counter, polishing silverware. He’s wearing a beanie, a carefully trimmed hipster beard, and a fitted plaid shirt with skinny jeans. I don’t know what Marcela sees in him.

I lean over the table and peck her on the cheek, throwing in a heartfelt smile for good measure. I don’t need to look at Nate to know he’s watching; I can feel the imaginary blow darts piercing my neck. Jealousy and petty revenge resonate in the foreground, middle ground and background of this little scene.