Page 10

Chapter Ten

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. When I get home from school, I change into a sweater dress, tights, and boots and work on my homework until it’s time to meet Carlton and Zayne.

I send Carlton a text before I leave the house.

Me

Want to ride together?

I know I’m probably pushing my luck, but maybe his willingness to run lines with me and Zayne isn’t the only concession he’ll offer me today.

Carlton

No. I’ll meet you there. Have some errands to run first.

Errands? What could he possibly have to do right now?

It doesn’t matter, Dot , I remind myself. You’re not his keeper, or even his girlfriend. I throw my script in my bag, along with a water bottle, and try to push my annoyance away as I open the front door.

Beau frowns from the kitchen table. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.”

“You’re going on a date, aren’t you?” He takes in my outfit, which is perhaps a bit more formal than necessary.

I tug on the hem in discomfort. “No. I’m just going to meet Carlton. And Zayne.” When his expression shifts from mild curiosity to bafflement, I add, “We have to rehearse.”

“Uh huh.”

“Shut up, Beau.” I glare at him before storming out the door.

Boston Public Garden isn’t too far from my house, but then again, nothing in the Boston metro-area is. Everything seems to be highly walkable, which is a nice change from the vastness of Stockbridge.

The park is nestled on the edge of the Charles River, but on the opposite side from my house. As I walk to the entrance, I’m awed by the garden, basked in a glow of soft, afternoon light and surrounding a glittering pond topped with ducks. The colorful green, orange, and yellow trees sprinkled throughout the grass sway in the crisp wind.

I look around, trying to determine if it would be best to sit at one of the picnic tables to rehearse or find a spot under a tree when I hear my name.

“Over here, Dot.”

I follow the voice and spot Zayne sitting on the grass by the shallow pond at the center of the park.

“Great,” I mutter. “Of course, he would get here before Carlton.” I’d been secretly hoping Zayne would arrive last so I’d have a moment to talk to Carlton alone, but that’s out of the question now.

“Hey.” I set my bag down beside him and take a seat on the blanket he’s provided, sprawled out beneath us. “You made it.”

“No need to sound so excited.” The corner of his mouth lifts.

I toss my braids. “Yeah, well, it’s not like homework is exciting.”

“Homework?” The way he says it makes it sound stupid. “You know, for some of us, running lines is fun.”

I take my script out of my bag. There’s no way I’m going to tell him how fun it’s becoming for me, too. Admitting it would feel like straying from the plan my parents are working so hard to help me accomplish.

“Not for me,” I lie, and then add a small truth to my statement. “So far, this play has done nothing but cause me trouble.” I flip through the pages, pretending to read, when really I’m just trying not to retreat back into despair. I need to stay positive. This outing will somehow be my ticket to winning a spot back into Carlton’s good graces. After all, this was for him. I’m doing all this—the play, rehearsal, and being mean to Zayne—for him. I am.

“Cake?”

I blink away my thoughts. “Excuse me?”

“Do you want some cake?” Zayne holds out a slice of baked goodness wrapped in paper.

I take it gingerly and peel back the parchment paper, salivating as soon as I smell it.

Strawberry.

My favorite.

I hold the base of it by the plastic and take a bite. Zayne studies me, his head tilted sideways. “Why didn’t you and your boyfriend come together?”

“Again, he’s not my boyfriend,” I say around a mouthful. “And he had to run an errand first, so he told me to meet him here.”

“An errand? ” He grins, like the concept is ridiculous. “What is he, forty? What kind of errand?”

Irritation bites me like a bug. “I don’t know. An errand. What does it matter?”

He shrugs and looks away. I watch him while he’s not looking, study the sharp angles of his face, the fullness of his smooth lips. The graceful way his dreads fall around his forehead.

He glances at me and my gaze jumps back to my cake. I scramble for a way to fill the silence that begins to stretch out. “This is delicious, by the way.”

“Thanks.” He half-grins. “It’s from my family’s restaurant. My grandma, Mimi does all the cooking, and Mom does everything else.”

“Do you like working there?”

“No. I really don’t. And once I get into Underwood Academy, I’ll get to move out and never work there again. Lenny on the other hand is stuck till he’s a senior.”

“How old is Lenny exactly?” It’s something I’ve been wondering since I met him.

“He’s fourteen. Young for a sophomore, I know. He skipped first grade around the same time my mom realized he was on the spectrum.”

“Oh.” I blink. “He’s autistic?”

“He has Asperger’s, actually. Ever since he was little, he’s had a fascination with learning. It’s an obsession, really. But he has trouble with social situations sometimes. Like, stuff is often very black and white to him. He doesn’t really understand sarcasm or when certain things he says are inappropriate.”

“I think he does just fine.” A bud of fondness for Lenny blossoms in my chest. “And he likes working at the restaurant?”

Zayne simultaneously scoffs and laughs. “Oh, he loves it. Pretty sure he’ll be running the place before Mom and Mimi are even ready to stop working.” Zayne’s eyes are far away as he stares at the water, the remnants of his earlier smile still lingering on his lips.

He has a really nice smile. Looking at it makes me feel light and airy inside, like nothing can go wrong. Funny, considering Zayne tends to be serious more often than not.

He looks at me then, catching me watching him for the second time now, and I blush furiously.

“You have cake on your mouth,” he tells me. He reaches over and wipes at my cheek with his thumb in careful strokes. Zayne squints at my face as he works, as if it’s very important the cake be wiped away. It makes me smile. “Hold still,” he reprimands.

I do as he says, frozen by his proximity. I notice again how he smells. Like coffee and… cake . Now it makes sense why.

When he seems satisfied, he pulls his hand away. Neither of us says anything. I pretend to study the still, glistening pond, and then watch the wind lift and shuffle the leaves of the trees surrounding us and the manicured lawn.

Finally, I can’t take the silence anymore. “Have you always liked acting?”

“Yeah. Ever since I was a kid.” But I can tell there’s more to it than his short statement, so I wait, hoping he’ll elaborate, and he does. “There were times I used to wish I could be someone else, especially when I was younger. It wasn’t easy going to private school, having this huge expectation for greatness to meet and being unable to read.”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “You couldn’t read ?”

He shakes his head. “Not for a long time, no. It was a huge problem. It wasn’t until I was in, like, fourth grade that I got diagnosed with dyslexia. The other kids in class used to make fun of me during group reading. You know, when the teacher makes everyone take turns reading a story to the class. When it got to my turn, I would just sit in silence, afraid to embarrass myself.”

I stare at him. “Honestly, I never would have guessed. The way you read lines now…”

“That took practice.” He smiles faintly. “When I was younger, I used to pretend to be different superheroes, because for some reason I thought they didn’t need to read.” He chuckles. “I totally mastered each different personality, and I’d stay in character for, like, ridiculously long periods of time. It entertained the heck out of Lenny, and it made me feel better about myself. Like I could be anyone else if I wanted to. Like not being able to read well didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t until I got serious about acting that the desire to read better became something I strived toward consistently.”

I shake my head. Zayne, who has never, not once fumbled during reading lines…dyslexic? “How did you get better?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Eventually, I learned to manage my disability. It’s still a challenge sometimes. It takes me longer to read than most people, probably.”

“Well, now I feel like crap. I can’t read lines even half as well as you.”

“Maybe you should try harder.” His teasing tone is back, shattering the serious bubble time just captured us in. I can’t help but roll my eyes.

Zayne’s laughter cuts off and he stiffens. I follow his line of sight to a stray goose wandering toward us from the pond. “What’s wrong?”

He glances at me for half a second before returning his attention to the goose. “What? Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” As it gets closer, though, Zayne reaches for his backpack, holding it out in front of him like a shield.

“Are you…?” I can’t believe it. It seems too good to be true. The serious, condescending Zayne, afraid? “Do geese scare you?” There’s a laugh in my voice, impossible to hide now, and Zayne glares at me.

“I’m not scared ,” he mutters. “But it never hurts to be cautious. Geese can get aggressive.”

I lose it at that, hysterical laughter exploding from my mouth. Especially as the goose gets closer and closer, almost as if it can sense his resistance, and he stands up and backs away. “Zayne,” I wheeze, “when have you ever in your life encountered an aggressive goose?” Just the thought of it, the imaginary scenario playing out in my head makes me laugh even harder. I fall back against the blanket, holding my stomach to offset the soreness that accompanies my amusement.

As he backs away, still shielding himself from the apparent bloodthirsty monster, some loose papers fall out of his backpack. “Come on,” he scowls. “Back away, you—” he shoos the giant bird away, finally dissuading it from pursuing him further.

I take deep breaths to force the smile from my lips, cheeks now burning from laughter, and help Zayne collect his scattered papers. It’s the least I can do. I fetch a few, stopping when I grab one that’s covered in black sharpie marks. I squint, noticing the way tons of lines have been crossed out in the black marker, while others have been subtly changed with thinner pen strokes. “What is this?” I flip the page over.

“That is nothing.” Zayne plucks it from my hand, stuffing it back inside his bag. All traces of humor have vanished between us, and with a dawning horror, I realize what it is.

It’s our audition script…and it’s ruined.

Although ruined would be putting it lightly. That script would be impossible to read for someone like me, let alone someone with dyslexia. It doesn’t make sense why Zayne would do that to his script, not to something that would determine his role in the play. Unless…

“You didn’t do that to your script, did you?” It doesn’t sound like a question, but a statement, as it leaves my mouth.

“Dot…” He flexes his jaw and stares at the ground. He looks like he’s at a complete loss for words.

So, I say the words that we both know are true, that I was too blind to realize from the start when it’s been right in front of me all along. “Carlton is the one who sabotaged your audition, not the other way around.”

“Just leave it alone, Dot. I had it memorized anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

“No. It does matter. It’s…it’s the principle of the situation. I can’t believe this.” How could I have been so stupid? Of course, Carlton would be the one to try to cheat his way into the lead role. With all the pressure he’s under from his parents, with his desperation to get into Underwood, and knowing Zayne is the better actor between the two of them.

“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Saltzman right then and there?”

Zayne frowns. “And given Carlton the satisfaction? No way.”

I can’t believe how similar his reasoning is to Carlton’s when I asked him the same thing.

“Well…why didn’t you tell me sooner?” My voice is heavy with accusation. Anger. At Zayne, for not telling me. At Carlton, for making me believe the lie in the first place.

Zayne’s mouth opens and then closes, like he’s searching for the right thing to say. After a long moment, he asks, “Would you have believed me?”

And I’m silent. Because there’s no way I would have believed Zayne’s word over Carlton’s, until now.

I shake my head, not in an answer to Zayne’s question, but in disbelief to this entire situation. I just stand there, feeling like a complete idiot for believing his lie. For altering so much of my life, my mind around him.

And it’s at that moment that Carlton chooses to arrive. Zayne and I are still stuck in our face-off when he waltzes up to us, his backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. “Sorry I’m late. What’d I miss?”

I turn to face him. My mind is still in the moment I’m having with Zayne, so I’m caught completely off guard when Carlton places a very sloppy, very unnecessary kiss on my lips.

Um…what?

I peek over at Zayne, but he’s frowning at the grass. I untangle myself from Carlton, cheeks set aflame, and open my mouth to say something. What I plan to say, I’m not sure. I could interrogate him on where he’s been all this time. I could ask him why he just kissed me right in front of Zayne when I haven’t been able to get him to utter anything more than a few short and reluctant sentences to me the past few days.

But most of all, I want to ask him if it’s true. If he really lied to me about what happened at his audition with Zayne. If he was the one who tried to sabotage Zayne’s audition so he could get the lead role. Why he would even feel the need to do such a thing in the first place. Carlton knows that lying is a sore spot for me. He knows I was wrecked when Mom lied to me before she went to live with Aunt Lucille.

But I don’t say anything to him or ask any questions because I’m too tongue-tied. The opportunity passes when Carlton says, “Are we gonna do this or not?”

Zayne gives me a stern look that says, don’t bring it up yet, and I know he’s probably right. It’s not the time.

Zayne picks up his script and he and Carlton start reading a scene together. I’m left open-mouthed, watching dumbly as they rehearse. Watching as Carlton reads his lines, very well, to Zayne. And watching as Zayne reads back, even better.

As I watch them act out the scene, I realize that even after Carlton crossed out as many lines as he could on Zayne’s audition script, changed as many phrases as he did, gave his absolute best efforts to sabotage Zayne, it didn’t matter. Dyslexia or not, Zayne didn’t let Carlton get the best of him. He still got the lead role. And it’s very clear why. He’s still more talented than his rival.

And perhaps the most jarring revelation of all is not that Carlton isn’t the person I thought he was, but that Zayne isn’t either.