JO MARCH: Kat Garrett.
She lets out a tiny breath of relief. She did it. She beat everyone; she was the very best.
“Oh,” Pen says, her voice tinged with surprise. Kat keeps reading.
MEG MARCH: Penelope Lawton. Yes! Plays are always more fun when they’re both cast.
BETH MARCH: Hannah Adler. Hannah was in Bea’s class. She’s fine. Nice enough. Plain. Nonthreatening.
AMY MARCH: Jillian Crawford.
Well. That won’t be much of a stretch, acting-wise; Amy March is notoriously blond and bratty, just like Jillian.
But Kat’s still the star. Jo is the lead role, not Amy.
Kat keeps reading:
JOHN BROOKE: Adam Warren.
THEODORE “LAURIE” LAWRENCE: Mason Kim.
Oh. Hell. No.
She whirls around, her blue eyes narrowed. Pen grabs her elbow and drags her down the hall, away from the chorus of congratulations, before she can erupt.
“What?!” Kat’s voice rises. “What is Ms. Randall thinking? Adam would’ve been perfect as Laurie!”
Pen hesitates. “It wasn’t his best audition. He was distracted.”
By Jillian. That girl ruins everything. She and Adam read together, and she was so nervous, stumbling over her lines—giggle giggle!—that he kept screwing around to make her laugh. Ms. Randall had to tell him to knock it off and take this seriously—that maybe that kind of behavior was okay at school, but this wasn’t a high school production, and she expected him to behave more professionally. Kat had been mortified for him. She never in a million years would have let him mess around like that if he’d auditioned with her.
“Jillian cost him that part. Maybe now he’ll see—”
“He cost himself that part,” Pen corrects.
Kat wants to argue, to blame it all on Jillian, but she knows that Pen’s right. And she appreciates it when Pen stands up to her. Not many girls do. Kat blows out a big sigh and tucks one long leg behind her, up against the tiled wall. Her flamingo pose, Pen calls it. Kat’s bendy from her years of ballet. Before she got hips and realized that she was never going to be the best at it, she loved dance. The year she was twelve, she stopped eating almost entirely in an attempt to erase the new curves her teacher had pointed out, humiliatingly, in front of everyone. Pen had worried and bargained and tried to shove food at her every chance she got. Eventually, she told Gram that Kat wasn’t eating all day, and then Kat had to quit ballet and see a therapist. She didn’t speak to Pen for six months, till they were both cast in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
“Better that he marry me onstage than Jillian, right? You know I’m not going to flirt with him.” Pen runs a hand over her bleached-blond hair, which is chin length on the left and newly buzzed on the right.
Kat nods. They have been best friends since kindergarten, aside from those six months in seventh grade, and Pen has made it crystal clear that she thinks Adam is a lying, cheating snake. She is basically the only girl Kat trusts not to fall for his stupid storm-cloud eyes and his adorable dimples.
Kat’s jealousy is legendary. She isn’t proud of it. It’s as if the whole year she and Adam were together, she was just waiting for him to cheat on her. Once a cheater, always a cheater, right? She should have known that. He and Kat had started flirting during Into the Woods, while he was still dating Bailey. When he and Jillian were cast opposite each other the following spring, Kat knew it was only a matter of time. When she caught them kissing backstage, she wasn’t even surprised. Furious, absolutely. But it was almost a relief, knowing that her jealousy hadn’t been unfounded.
So, yeah, Adam was fickle as hell.
Kat planned to take advantage of that.
“I’ll talk you up,” Pen offers. “I don’t think he’s worthy of you, but I’ll do it.”
Kat frowns. No one should need to talk her up. Adam should see her onstage, being fierce and passionate and freaking unstoppable, and remember that he loves her. Her, not bland, blond Jillian. She refuses to believe that she has lost him forever.
“Come on.” Pen reaches in her Kate Spade bag. “Let’s do this.”
They go back to the cast list and take turns writing their initials next to their names—the ritual acceptance of the role. Even though things aren’t going entirely according to her script, Kat can’t help feeling a glow of satisfaction. Jo is unquestionably the lead. A lot of other girls auditioned for this part, and she beat them all. She was the very best.
Then Pen elbows her. “Ouch!” Kat yelps. Her glow fades as she turns and sees Adam strutting down the hall, hand in hand with Jillian. He has the same brown curls, light-brown skin, stormy gray eyes, adorable dimples, and all. It’s not fair that he hasn’t turned hideous.
Jillian’s steps falter when she sees Kat and Pen. She’s scared of them, but not as scared as Kat wants her to be. Not scared enough to keep her from kissing Kat’s boyfriend and breaking Kat’s stupid, traitorous heart.
Kat flips her long, flat-ironed hair over her shoulder. She’s wearing high-waisted white shorts and Vi’s black boatneck The Future Is Female T-shirt, which shows off her collarbones. She suddenly remembers Adam pressing his mouth there, kissing his way up to her ear. Her pale skin flushes.
She’s glad now that she didn’t have sex with him, even though he made it pretty clear that he wanted to. On her sixteenth birthday, back in April, his parents had gone out, and he’d made dinner—homemade pizza and chocolate mousse—and given her a necklace with a star on it. A star because she was going to be a star, he said, which was cheesy but sweet. Only all through dinner, he kept texting someone. He said it was his friend Carter, but he wouldn’t let Kat see his phone, and he kept it with him all night so she couldn’t snoop. He also said he wanted it to be a special night for them, and when he went to the bathroom, she found a new box of condoms in his nightstand. Kat was not about to have sex with someone who was texting another girl, though. Adam claimed she was being ridiculous. But a month later, she caught him kissing Jillian backstage. It was almost as vindicating as it was awful.
Would he have stayed with Kat if she’d had sex with him? Would it have been worth it?
“Congratulations,” she says, syrupy sweet, before Adam and Jillian can reach the list. “You both got cast. Adam, you’re John Brooke.”
Adam frowns. He wanted Laurie. He expected Laurie, despite his crap audition. He always got the lead in school musicals.
“You’re Amy.” Kat gives Jillian a sharky smile. “Pen is Meg, and I’m Jo. We’re all going to have so much fun.”
“Kat,” Adam says.
Kat doesn’t like the way he says her name anymore. It’s like he’s said it a thousand times and he’s tired of it now. Like she exhausts him.