Home > Kate in Waiting(3)

Kate in Waiting(3)
Author: Becky Albertalli

My heart’s lodged high in my throat.

Because Matt. Dreamboat Matt. Coke-Ad Matt.

Is here.

“You guys okay?” Brandie looks concerned. “Do we know him?”

“Shh!”

“He sees us.” Anderson’s voice is choked. “Oh God. What’s he doing here? What—hiiiii.”

He’s walking toward us. THE Coke-Ad Matt is walking toward us, blue eyes flicking between Andy and me. And holy shit. The thirst did not end there. It did not end. It did not, it did not. “Um. Hey.”

His faint Alabama accent.

“Are you . . .” I trail off.

“I just moved here.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“You . . .” I blink. “You go here?”

“I’m a senior.”

“Look at them. Look at their faces,” Raina murmurs to Brandie.

“Love at first sight,” Brandie whispers.

“Or some fucked up communal crush at first sight.”

Wow, guys. Love that subtlety. And that judgment! Raina doesn’t get it. Neither of them do, and I doubt they ever will.

Here’s the truth: crushes are pointless without Andy. More than pointless, they’re painful. Crushing alone is like running lines without a scene partner. No one to play off of, and your voice sounds fake and loud.

But neither my voice nor my brain are even functioning now. The conversation only partially registers. I’m too focused on the fact that Matt just shook Brandie’s hand and introduced himself with his full name. Like a grandfather. It’s adorable.

Matt Olsson.

I can’t believe he’s here.

I was heartbroken to leave him. It’s so dumb, because it’s not like we were even really friends with him. It’s not like we were staying up late with him, swapping secrets in bunk beds. We literally learned this boy’s last name five seconds ago.

But it felt like we knew him. And not just the correctly pronounced Aeschylus name-drop that got Andy so bonered. I don’t care about Aeschylus. I just feel so—I don’t even know. Discombobulated. That’s the word.

Because here’s Matt Olsson, looking like he stepped out of an Archie comic. Sandy-haired and straightforwardly beautiful, standing right in front of us. He’s a senior in high school. MY high school. In my Roswell. Roswell, Georgia, twenty miles north of Atlanta, home of an impressively well-stocked Super Target, infinite Waffle Houses and a staggering number of f-boys.

He meets my eyes. “Your hair looks different.”

“This is so weird,” I say, barely out loud.

Matt laughs. “Yeah, I know. I was just coming down here for first period.” He gestures vaguely at the theater room. “I didn’t think—”

“You have Ms. Zhao for first period?” Anderson’s eyes widen. “Advanced Drama?”

Advanced Drama, better known as Senior D. No idea why, other than the fact that the class is for seniors, and people like saying, “Seen yer D.” It’s the class of legends, though. Zhao won’t even consider you unless you’re serious about drama. And apparently the first two months are strictly about trust building, because stuff gets pretty intense, and it only works if you’re vulnerable. Everyone says you basically come out of Senior D with an acting MFA. I don’t know if I buy that, but I do know that class bonds people for life. Andy and I have been aching to enroll since we were freshmen.

“Anyway,” Matt says. “I’m supposed to bring a form up to Mr. Merced’s office.”

“Right now?” Brandie nods toward the door. “But Ms. Zhao’s about to announce the musical. Like. Any minute.”

“Is it a secret?”

Raina whirls around to face him, eyes narrowed. “She told you, didn’t she?”

Matt smiles the cutest, tiniest guilty smile I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Tell us.” Anderson clasps his hands. “Please tell us.”

Matt tilts his head. “Should I?”

Okay, how is he already teasing us? How is he this cool? I’m still trying to get my brain to stop spinning, and here’s Matt, gently trolling the squad like he’s known us for years.

“So you’re saying if the musical was Once Upon a Mattress, you’d want to know that?”

“Motherfucker.” Raina looks as gobsmacked as I feel. Zhao told Matt the musical. Wow. So much for tradition. So much for pomp and circumstance and secrecy. She just . . . told him. She told Matt.

Coke-Ad Matt. Who goes here now.

Okay, help me out here, yoga warm-up exercises. Let’s do a subtle inhale. Hold for ten. Subtle exhale. Kate Garfield, you are cool as a cucumber. Totally not freaking out. Nope. No overload in this brain.

Matt looks at me and smiles.

Okay, yeah, now I can’t think straight, can’t even breathe straight, can’t even hold my head up, can’t even—

“I have to pee,” Andy whispers.

I nod slowly, finally catching my breath.

I have to pee.

It’s our magic escape code.

 

 

Scene 3


Okay, it’s not much of a code.

It means private meeting in the bathroom. Specifically, the men’s bathroom at the end of the theater hallway, also known as the Bathroom Time Forgot. The BTF. We’re the only ones who ever use it. All things considered, though, it’s a decent bathroom. Minimal wall graffiti, and the stuff that’s there is pleasantly vintage—mostly Sharpied penises and pointy stylized iterations of the letter S. We head straight for our favorite stalls, side by side, using the toilets as chairs. I don’t even remember how we settled on this arrangement. I just know it’s strangely intimate, sitting like this—side by side in a pair of bathroom stalls, talking through the partial wall that divides them. I’m Jewish, but maybe this is what confession feels like. When we’re in here, I always say a little more than I think I’ll say.

“What. The. Fuck. Is happening?” Anderson says. Even though I can’t see him, I can picture him perfectly—awkwardly straddling the toilet seat, like he’s riding a donkey.

“Wait, are we freaking out about the play or about—”

“Coke-Ad Matt. I didn’t just dream that, right? He’s here? At our fucking school?”

“Coke-Ad Matt is at our fucking school,” I confirm.

“But why?”

“Because he moved here?”

Andy exhales. “Why would he move here?”

“Maybe he followed us?” I slide my feet forward on the tiles.

“Oh my God. He fell in love with us and followed us home from camp.”

“WAIT—”

“I mean, he had to have known, right?” Andy says.

“Right, no. Definitely. That’s just too big of a—”

“But,” Andy points out. “But, but, but. He was clearly surprised to see us.”

“He could have been acting.”

“He is taking Advanced Drama.”

“This is so weird,” I say, for what feels like the millionth time this morning.

“SO weird.”

“How are we even—”

But my voice evaporates, because out of nowhere, the bathroom door creaks open. And then, a moment later, there’s the sound of someone peeing in a urinal.

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