Understudy

He lowers his arms and shoves his hands in his back pockets, taking away my view. “So… I’ll just follow you to your place?”

Holy crap. That’s exactly what he just offered.

Margot flashes in my mind right as we pull into my driveway. I may have told her I’d call, but I didn’t promise to hang out with her, so I’m not really blowing her off. Plus I’m sure she’d do the same to me if she had an opportunity to hang out with Ricky outside of rehearsals.

Mom sits on the porch swing, sipping a fruity colored drink from a plastic wine glass.

There are a million things wrong with this picture. My mom doesn’t drink alcohol, my mom doesn’t sit outside, and my mom never, ever, has a smile on her face. But she has one now.

Derek is at my side before I can think of a way to tell him to stay in the damn car. “Hi, Mrs. Barlow,” he says, brushing past me to shake her hand. “I’m Derek.”

Mom beams and shakes his hand with her free hand. “It’s so wonderful to meet you. Wren didn’t tell me we’d be having a guest today.”

“He’s not a guest. I just needed some help for the play, and he offered last minute,” I say, straining to make everything seem as casual as possible. The less Mom knows about Derek, the better.

“Well I am her number one stagehand,” Derek says. I could kill him. Mom nods, takes a sip of her drink and holds out her hand for the car keys. I place them in her hand, noticing that her nails have been professionally manicured. That’s also not normal for Mom.

Derek throws all the fabric bolts across his shoulder. We make a quick getaway into the house without her saying anything, but I can’t help but feel my cheeks burning as though I had just suffered through something horribly more embarrassing, like getting my period at a pool party. For once, I’m grateful that Dad works late and has no active participation in my social life. The only thing worse than having Mom meet Derek would be having Dad meet Derek.

“This is random, I know,” Derek says, leaning down to drop the bolts of fabric. “But your mom kind of looks like that lady from that Nickelodeon show about the traveling family of wizards. You know, back when we were kids.”

I wonder if he would have noticed that if Mom was dressed like her normal hobo self instead of all glamorous like she’s the Queen of the Swing Set. “That’s her,” I say.

“No way?”

I nod. “It’s her. She doesn’t like to talk about the Hollywood days though.”

Derek nods like he understands exactly what my mom means. He doesn’t say anything else about her. I wonder if trying to forget about a short time as an actress is anything like forgetting that you were in juvi for six months.

The next few hours fly by. Derek and I make good progress with cutting and organizing the fabric strips—way more progress than if I had done the work alone. Work doesn’t even feel like work with Derek.

I love everything about him, from his stupid smirk to his large masculine hands and the way they flip the fabric bolt over and over as I unwind our fake water. We make a great team.

I have to quit thinking of him like this.

“Are you gonna answer that?” he asks, nodding toward my cell phone on the bed.

I was so caught up in my idiotic fantasies of Derek that I hadn’t even noticed it was ringing. I take a look at the flashing screen: Margot. I sigh and place the phone back on the bed, letting the call go to voicemail. There’s no way I can explain what I’m doing right now. “That wasn’t anything important,” I say, my last word distorting as I yawn.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get out of your hair now.” Derek smiles from the floor as he rolls up the last piece of fabric.

It takes everything I have not to yell No! Don’t go! I can’t bear the thought of being without you next me!

But, instead I say, “I’ll walk you to the door.” I may be delusional after all, but I’m not psychotic.

It’s Monday morning, and that’s not even the bad news. Aunt Barlow is in a mood. Her moods range from jumping around the room, so ecstatic that I think her bright orange head might pop off, to sulking in her apartment for an entire weekend without consuming anything but coffee and lamenting about what life could have been.

Today is one of the bad days. She gives everyone a pop quiz as we walk in the door. It’s not even about Shakespeare or one of the theater type things we were learning about before the auditions. It’s a quiz about LOVE & SUICIDE.

Since they are the two lead actors, Gwen and Ricky finish the ten questions first and then return to their desks with equal grins of smugness as the rest of us rack our brains to remember the answers.

I’ve only skimmed through my copy of the script, so I’m totally screwed. Question number three asks who Gretchen’s father works for. I’m pretty sure Gretchen’s father isn’t even cast as a character in the play. I take a wild guess and write K Mart.

Greg psssts me until I turn around and raise my eyebrow and give him this look that means “What do you want? GOD CAN’T YOU SEE I’M WORKING ON THIS QUIZ?” But of course, he doesn’t take the hint.

“I need answers,” he whispers.

“Me too,” I whisper back. Ms. Barlow jumps out of her director’s chair so fast it almost topples over. “Do I hear cheating?” she asks, glaring at Greg and me.