She grabs my hand. “Will you do it for me?”
My breath catches. I should be on my way to my afternoon poetry class right now, but Allison begged me to come for the cast list unveiling. She’s been a nervous wreck all day. She changed her outfit about six times this morning, and at lunchtime, after claiming she was too nervous to eat anything, she proceeded to polish off most of Wes’s Cool Ranch Doritos. He’s here too, standing on her other side, but it’s me she wants with her at the moment of truth.
It feels like we’ve been friends for much longer than a day and a half. After the rooftop movie night, she dragged me to brunch with Wes and a bunch of their theater friends. Someone smuggled a tray full of doughnuts out of the cafeteria, and we laid out on the grass in the Oak Grove and gorged until the ants got into them.
Even when we were with all of Allison’s friends, somehow it still felt like it was just the two of us. And not just because Allison was the only one who really talked to me. She kept touching me too, playing with my hair, tracing her fingers over my wrist like she was trying to draw something.
She takes ahold of my wrist again now and digs her teeth into her bottom lip. “Please?”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll look.”
The initial crowd around the cast list has started to thin out, but I still have to push through a clump of bodies to get close enough to read the tiny print. Some of the people we pass look positively ecstatic; others are doing a poor job of hiding the tears brimming in their eyes. I don’t quite understand why they care so much—but if Allison cares, I care too.
Allison slides her hand down to clasp mine. She has her head bowed and her eyes shut, waiting for me to tell her her fate.
I give her hand a comforting squeeze. Then I look at the list.
Her name is right at the top. “ ‘Allison Hadley,’ ” I read. “ ‘Sally Bowles.’ ”
Allison tenses, clenching my hand so hard it almost hurts. “Are you serious? Don’t fuck with me.”
“She’s not,” Wes says over my shoulder, crunching on another bag of chips. I hadn’t even noticed he followed us. “Look.”
He points at the list. Allison opens her eyes and reads it for herself.
“Oh my God.” She squeals and claps. “Oh my God!”
She’s jumping up and down now, yanking on my arm—which does actually hurt, but I don’t want to dampen her excitement by complaining.
“Congratulations!” I say.
She flings her arms around my neck and kisses me on the cheek. It takes a second for me to hug her back, and by then she’s already letting go of me, turning to Wes to do the exact same thing. When she grabs another girl passing by—a petite redhead wearing a Little Shop of Horrors T-shirt—and plants a celebratory peck on her too, my excitement starts to seep away.
Wes gives Allison a friendly little jab on the shoulder. “You’re gonna be great, Allie.”
I know a little more about the show since Allison’s been talking my ear off about it, but she still loses me when she starts chattering about dance numbers she can’t wait to do, who’s playing the other characters, and which Broadway revival cast was better. I stand silent and watch her, the effervescent pop of her gestures, and suddenly realize my cheeks are sore. I’ve been grinning like an idiot, witnessing how happy she is.
A tall boy with dark hair saunters down the hallway, and as soon as she sees him, Allison’s whole posture changes, drawing up taller, shoulders back so her chest sticks out.
“Hey, Bash.” There’s a syrupy sweetness in her voice I’ve never heard before. It makes my stomach turn.
“Hey,” the boy says. He clearly isn’t sure enough of Allison’s name to use it.
“Congratulations!” Allison points at his name below hers on the cast list. Sebastian Waller, the Emcee.
He smiles—kind of blankly, though. Just being polite. Or maybe his eyes are always blank like that, distant and half asleep. Allison grins back, tilting her head coquettishly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Wes doesn’t acknowledge him at all, too busy sifting through the remnants in the bottom of his Doritos bag.
As soon as Bash has meandered out of earshot, Allison sighs dramatically. “Isn’t he so fucking gorgeous?”
He’s good-looking, I guess. But skinny, all sharp angles, and his hair is too long, the curls falling sloppily over his forehead. Everything about him seems affected, from the loping way he walks to the leather cord wound around his wrist to the artfully ripped jeans that look tight enough to cut off his circulation.
Wes shakes his head, crushing the empty bag in his fist. “I will never understand what all of you see in that guy.”
Allison playfully bumps Wes’s glasses higher on his nose. “You need your vision checked, babe.”
Wes tosses the bag into the nearest trash can, then cleans off his glasses where Allison smudged them. I can’t tell if he’s mad or not. I’m just feeling stupid. Of course Allison would have a crush on a guy like that. Of course.
I look over at her with what I hope is a teasing smile. “I thought you said you were over dating boys.”
Allison and Wes are both silent. Shit, did I go too far? I was trying to make a joke. But maybe it was supposed to be a secret between us, and now I’ve broken her trust, and—
“I am.” Allison leans in, right next to my ear, dropping her voice into a sultrier register. “But Bash is a man. This is going to be my year, I know it.”
“Your year for what?” I ask.
Wes is shaking his head again, exasperated. He must have heard this all before.
“The year he finally notices me,” Allison says. “No way he can keep ignoring me when we’re dancing together in our underwear.”
Since I’ve never seen Cabaret, the image playing in my head now is of Allison onstage in the underwear she wears every day: black cotton panties and a lace bra sheer enough to show her nipples. I lower my head, hoping the frizzy curtain of my hair will hide my blush.
But there’s no hiding from Allison. She giggles and brushes my hair back. “You’re so cute when you’re scandalized.”
I pick up my backpack off the floor, ignoring the prickling of heat spreading across my chest. “I should get to class.”
“Or…” A sly smile spreads across Allison’s face. “We could ditch and go hang out down by the river.”
“I shouldn’t.” I’m already behind on my classwork after spending most of the weekend with Allison.
“Come on, it’s a gorgeous day!” She tugs on my backpack strap, her fingertips brushing the bare skin at my neckline. “Who knows how many of these we have left before winter?”
I’ve never ditched class before in my life. But I’m already learning that it’s basically impossible to say no to Allison.
“Okay,” I say. “Just this once.”
Allison squeals with delight. For a second I think she’s going to hug me again, but she just claps her hands together, a wicked grin lighting up her face.
“I have an hour until stagecraft,” Wes says, “so I could—”
“No.” Allison slips her arm through mine. “Girls only.”