“What?”
“It’s fine,” she said hurriedly. “I think maybe they put three shots of espresso in, not two. But it comes with three, so maybe they got confused. It’s okay—”
I shook my head and took the drink from her, walking back to the place where you pick up drinks. “Hi again,” I said, smiling at the barista, who raised an eyebrow at me. “This was just supposed to have just two shots in it?”
“It’s fine,” Stevie whispered, coming to join me. “We don’t need to make a thing. I can just ask for more soy milk.”
“I’ve seen three-shot Stevie,” I reminded her. “Three-shot Stevie is not a good idea.”
“I’ll remake it,” the barista said with a sigh. I took off Stevie’s lid and straw, and she took the cup from me.
“Thank you!” I called, and took a sip of my mocha. There were three Starbucks in Stanwich, in addition to Stubbs Coffee, one town over in Putnam, and Flask’s Coffee, which Stevie preferred. But since my ex Glenn preferred it too, we’d switched to Starbucks after running into him three days straight—the last thing I wanted was for him to think that I was going there hoping to see him. It was bad enough that our relationship had landed me with bangs.
Because we hadn’t had our first Lear meeting after school, Stevie and I had found ourselves at loose ends once the final bell rang. We’d hung out in the lobby with Teri for a while, until she had to get home to get ready for her phone date, which was when we both realized that we could use some bux.
“What are you going to wear tonight?” I asked as the barista started to pull two more shots, the espresso machine hissing steam. “I feel like you want to look good, but not like you’re trying too hard. You want to look…” I searched for the words and finally just waved my hand expansively. “New York.”
She laughed. “That’s very helpful.”
“Want to get ready at mine? You can borrow anything you want.”
“Could I? That would be great, actually.”
“Of course.” Since I wouldn’t be at Josephine’s tonight, if Stevie was wearing something of mine or if I helped her get ready, it would feel a little more like I was there with her.
“Iced double soy latte with sugar-free vanilla,” the barista called, sliding the drink across the counter.
“Thank you,” we chorused together.
“So,” I said, taking another sip of my drink, ready to get back to the only thing I’d been thinking about since we’d left school. “What do you think Mr. Campbell meant when he was talking about loyalty? He meant Dara, right?”
“Probably,” Stevie said with a barely audible sigh and a shrug as she snapped her lid back on with a little too much force and headed over to the sweetener station. I beat her there and handed her some napkins. “Thanks,” she said, wiping off her cup.
I tipped my head to the side, studying her. “What’s going on with you?”
Stevie turned to me, sweeping back her hair and frowning. “What do you mean?”
“Do you not care about this? About what Mr. Campbell is thinking? About the Lear casting?”
“Of course I do,” she said, maybe too fast. “Of course. I care. I just…” She looked down and dropped her napkins into the trash. “Kat, I actually should—”
The door to the Starbucks opened and my eyes widened. “Look,” I said quietly, grabbing Stevie’s arm and nodding toward the door. “Speaking of.”
Dara Chapman was walking up to the counter, pulling off her beanie as she went. She turned her head and our eyes met across the bux. Both Stevie and I gave her hey nods—tipping your chin up first rather than down. Dara raised a hand in an awkward wave, then turned back to the counter, looking up intently, like she was studying the board of drinks. Stevie and I exchanged a glance, and I knew right away we were thinking the same thing: let’s go. When we’d stepped out into the chilly afternoon, I turned to my best friend. “Weird.”
“So weird.”
Until the start of the school year, Dara had been one of the stars of the theater program—and she and I found ourselves up for the same parts more often than not. I’d assumed this fall’s auditions for Arcadia would be no different. I really wanted Thomasina, but I was worried Dara would get it, and I was prepared for a marathon of callbacks, both of us duking it out. But Dara didn’t show up. We were all worried about her that first day, thinking that something awful must have happened. You weren’t supposed to be eligible for callbacks if you didn’t make the first day of auditions, but everyone knew that Mr. Campbell would make an exception for one of us if something had gone wrong. But the next day, at callbacks, we found out the truth—Dara was fine. Nothing had happened. She just hadn’t auditioned. She’d essentially left the theater program for no reason whatsoever, just in time for senior year, right when you get to the mountaintop.
When we’d asked Dara why she hadn’t auditioned, she’d just shrugged and said she wanted to try something else, which nobody believed. And as we started working on Arcadia, it became clear to all of us how hard it was to reconcile hanging out with the theater kids when you weren’t in the play. Dara didn’t know any of the inside jokes, she couldn’t chime in when we talked about rehearsals, and with every week, we all just seemed to have less to say to each other. Dara stopped sitting at the theater table at lunch as much. I’d heard she’d even joined mock trial as an alternate, and I saw her hanging out in the halls with people I didn’t know.
She came to the opening night of Arcadia, and I remembered looking out to the audience and feeling a jolt as I saw her there. And the whole performance, in the back of my mind I was wondering what it felt like for her to be sitting out there, not onstage with the rest of us. What it must have been like to see me playing Thomasina, wearing the costume and saying the lines that at one point, she must have thought were going to be hers.
None of us had known what would happen with Lear. I didn’t think she would even audition—but she’d shown up at general auditions on Monday with the rest of us, her monologue prepared, just like nothing had happened.
But she didn’t get a callback.
On one hand it was shocking—Dara Chapman, a former star of the department, not even making it to the second round! But on the other hand, it was completely understandable. You didn’t get to pick and choose when you were going to be part of this department, like you went to one of those TV high schools. And Dara should have known that.
I was thinking about this, and what Mr. Campbell had said, as Stevie and I crossed the bux parking lot to Nikola, her electric car. Of course it was about Dara—but what did that mean for us? How were we supposed to prove that we were nothing like her? Was he worried about our loyalty to the department? About my loyalty?
I was almost to Stevie’s car when I passed a truly adorable dog tied up outside. “Hi, buddy,” I said, bending down, trying to see if he’d be okay with me petting him. He looked like a yellow Lab, round and happy. He thumped his tail on the ground, and I gave him a scratch behind the ears. I looked over to see that Stevie had walked a few steps away and was looking fixedly down at her phone. “He’s friendly,” I called to her, and she nodded, but didn’t make any move to come closer.