“You guys, I’m having a brain fart,” said Amy, twirling a strand of shoulder-length blond hair. “Are cheerleading tryouts today or tomorrow?”
“Today.” Sasha cracked her knuckles one at a time. “I can’t believe Emily and Ellie moved to Wisconsin. What the hell’s in Wisconsin?”
“Potatoes?” Maria popped a bite of a muffin in her mouth and flicked a crumb from her periwinkle lace dress.
“That’s Idaho, idiot.” Amy looked down her sharp nose at Maria. “Wisconsin has cheese or whatever.”
Robbie rolled his eyes at them. “Either of you cheer?” he asked us.
Priya shook her head automatically, but I said, “Priya does.” Her eyes widened, the cords in her neck bulging. “Well, she wants to. She took gymnastics lessons for years.” I nodded at her encouragingly, but she seemed to be willing herself out of existence.
“Hey, so did Sasha,” said Amy, suddenly interested in us. “That gives you a leg up.”
“But Sasha qualified for the Olympics when she was twelve,” Maria chimed in, her brunette ringlets bobbing. She always starred in our school musicals, and once even made it to the final casting round of some singing reality TV show.
“Guys, stop it,” Sasha said bashfully, but her smile faltered. “You have to be sixteen to qualify; I just scored high enough to be able to.”
“Wow!” I said. “Will you compete?”
Sasha shifted in her seat and clenched her jaw. “No.”
“Why not? Seems like an amazing opportunity—”
“I can’t.” The words left her lips as a whisper. “I broke my leg in a car accident. Needed surgery.” Lines creased her forehead as she cringed at the memory. Suddenly it was like the girl who had everything had nothing at all. The transformation was staggering. I had no idea about her accident. By the time high school started, Sasha seemed on top of the world.
“It’s fine now”—she waved off my concerned look—“but it took a while to recover. I can do stunts and stuff again, but . . . it’s not the same.”
“Still . . . I’m so sorry—”
Zane suddenly tossed his phone onto the table. “Good news. My folks are outta town this weekend.” He pointed at himself with both hands. “Party at my place on Friday.”
“Nice.” Robbie bumped fists with him.
Sasha perked up, the glimmer returning to her eyes. “Do you have any booze? I thought your parents locked up their stash after last time.”
“Yeah, they did. We’ll have to get some.”
I cleared my throat, eager to sidle into their conversation again. “If you can’t, you could always have a game night or something. You know what’s hilarious?” I was about to say Apples to Apples, my favorite game, but thought better of it. “Cards Against Humanity. You can borrow my deck.”
“When’s the last time we had a game night?” said Sasha. “What were we, like, twelve?” Was she mocking me or reminiscing?
“I love Cards Against Humanity.” Robbie grinned at me, dimples creasing his cheeks. “I’d be down for that.” His smile was infectious, and I found myself beaming back.
Zane punched Robbie’s arm. “Lame!”
“Whatever, man.” Robbie shook him off. “Better than sitting around staring at each other.” Zane shrugged and fiddled with his phone again. Robbie scooted his chair closer to me and wagged a finger between me and Priya. “You two should join. Bring over that deck yourself.”
Oh. My. God. Robbie Nelson just invited us to a party. My heart skipped about twenty beats. I should probably be dead. “Sure! We’re free,” I managed to say.
“Nice.”
“I guess we shouldn’t get too wasted, anyway.” Sasha snapped her fingers at Amy and Maria. “Don’t forget, my mom’s taking us to see Phantom of the Opera on Saturday.”
“On Broadway?” I asked. “I love that musical. It’s so sad.”
“Her sister dropped out of college to be one of the ballerinas,” Amy said to me, pointing at Sasha, “and now she’s understudy for the lead—”
“Can we not talk about my perfect sister right now?” Sasha rolled her eyes. “Bad enough we’ll have to fawn over her this weekend.”
“At least we have backstage passes,” said Maria.
Sasha nodded. “True. The guy who plays the Phantom is so hot.” She scrolled through her phone and leaned over to show me a picture of the dark, brooding Phantom.
“Oh my God, I’m so jealous,” I said. “Oh, and . . . speaking of plays . . .” My heart thrummed wildly, but this was a perfect segue. “I have a question for you. It’s about the school play. You know, in the spring. I was wondering if you’d considered putting on a play with original music.”
“Why would we do that?” Maria asked a little defensively. As the drama club’s perpetual prima donna, she’d probably hate this idea. But Sasha was the one I had to convince. As director, she got to help the drama club supervisor, Mr. Norris, choose the play.
I swallowed hard. “I’d love to score the spring play. An entirely original score.”
“Whoa, seriously?” said Sasha. “That’d be so much work . . .”
“Please, hear me out.” I licked my lips. Sasha had to be stuffing her résumé to get into some Ivy League college. I knew what angle to take. “Directing a play with an original score and a live orchestra would be way more impressive on your transcript than putting on some Broadway play.”
“Maybe . . .” Sasha groaned. “But the sheer amount of coordination that would take—”
“Sasha, chill,” said Robbie. “Let her finish.” He threw me a reassuring smile. Was it weird that I wanted to throw myself in his lap? Probably.
But I was on a mission here. I took a deep breath and focused on Sasha. “I’d compose all of the music myself based on your stage direction, and I’d coordinate with the orchestra. Mr. Torrente already agreed to this.”
“What, you think you could compose an entire musical?” Maria crossed her arms and scrunched her brow. “Like, yourself?”
“Not a musical. It’d be a play, with an orchestral score—”
“Oh, hell no,” said Maria.
But Sasha sat silent, arms crossed, glancing between me and Maria.
“We don’t even have to do something completely original,” I went on. “We could pick something like A Streetcar Named Desire, or Romeo and Juliet, and set it to new music.”
“No way,” said Maria.
“It’s a great idea. Truly, it is.” Sasha shook her head. “It’d just be too much work.”
Frustrated, I huffed. “But now that you’re the director, don’t you want to do something unique?”
“I’m sorry,” said Sasha, her tone uncertain. “But we can’t.” She watched Maria slump back in her chair, relieved.
“But—”
“She said no!” said Maria.
“Well, who the hell made her queen of the universe?” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.