You turn away from them, about to leave, when you catch sight of someone lurking in the back of the auditorium. It’s her. The new girl. She’s not paying attention to the meeting. Instead, she’s reading.
You’re a few weeks into the school year, but this is the first time she’s appeared in the auditorium. Curious, you stroll over, sliding into a nearby seat, leaving the one between you empty. She’s reading a comic book. That takes you by surprise. Around Fulton Edge, you sort of expect to see copies of Atlas Shrugged.
“Haven’t seen you in here before,” you say. “Hastings recruit you so he has enough people for his annual Shakespearean wank?”
She laughs, looking at you. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times you’ve seen the girl smile. Laughter has been even more rare. She shows up every day, keeps her head down, and she does whatever is necessary, always the first one here and the last one gone. But you can tell she’s not happy, maybe even unhappier than you are, when you hate being here so much that if there’s a chance for you not to be here, you take it and run.
You’ve already missed six days of school in a little over a month. They fine your father for your truancy, but otherwise, they let you slide.
“I’ve tried all the others,” she says. “I suck at chess. Debate team was a disaster, book club was reading something written by a fascist, and it turns out ‘writing club’ is writing letters to Congress, so…”
“So here you are.”
“Here I am,” she says, holding up her comic. “Making my own club.”
“Ah, the good old ‘fuck your clubs’ club,” you say. “I’m tempted to start that one every year when these idiots start bickering.”
“You’re welcome to join me,” she says. “Might not be much fun, but it can’t really be any worse, can it?”
“No, it can’t,” you say, motioning to the stage. “If this whole acting thing doesn’t work out, I might take you up on that. Always need a fallback plan.”
The Drama Club settles on Julius Caesar… for the fourth year in a row… and the argument shifts to who gets which role. Hastings, the self-appointed leader of the club, insists on being Caesar. He’s a typical rich kid, the dark-haired, blue-eyed grandson of a Watergate attorney. He wants to be the hero. He scowls as some of the others disagree, instead suggesting you do it.
“You’re awfully popular with the drama crowd,” she says, pausing when Hastings calls you, ‘at best, an amateur’. “Well, with most of them.”
“I played Caesar three years in a row,” you say. “Besides, I’m the only one here with an IMDb page.”
Her eyes are glued to your face. “You’re a real actor?”
“At best, an amateur,” you joke. “I’ve had a few minor roles. Played a dead kid once on Law & Order.”
“Wow,” she says. “Remind me to get your autograph later.”
You laugh at her deadpan. “Mostly, I’ve done local theater. Started taking acting classes as soon as I was old enough. Haven’t done anything lately, though, unless this counts.”
The words seem to be just falling from your lips, like talking to her comes natural.
“It counts,” she says.
“Does it?” you ask, and you’re serious about that. “Am I still an actor if I don’t have an audience?”
“Is a writer still a writer if nobody reads what they wrote?”
You consider that. The arguing on stage is growing louder, almost to the point of coming to blows. It amuses you, on one hand, but mostly it fills you with a sense of sadness that this is what you look forward to. Your art is belittled down to a fight over who gets to be the hero in a high school production. Your dreams were always much bigger than that.
“I should intervene,” you say, standing up, “before somebody does something stupid and gets us shut down.”
“Well, if that happens, the ‘eff your clubs’ club is here.”
“Make sure you hold my spot,” you tell her before heading up on stage to say, “You know, I’d much rather be Brutus this year.”
“Is that right?” Hastings asks.
“Absolutely.” You poke him dead center of the chest with your pointer finger, hard enough that he takes a step back. “It would be my pleasure to be the one who takes you down.”
The others divide up the rest of the parts. They took so long making decisions that there’s no time to get the scripts today. You have the entire thing memorized, though. So does Hastings. The two of you spit lines back and forth for a bit, things growing heated.
The girl remains seated in the back of the auditorium, no longer reading her comic book. She watches your every move, absorbing every syllable. You have an audience today, as you act your heart out, and she’s captivated.
When the day ends, people leave, but you’re in no hurry. You stroll down the aisle to where the girl still sits. She watches you approach and says, “If what I just witnessed is any indication, you might've been the best dead kid Law & Order has ever seen.”
You sit down with her, laughing. There’s no space between the two of you now. “It was a ‘parents are monsters behind closed doors’ storyline. I had a handful of lines. I was five.”
“Wow,” she says. “When I was five, I couldn’t even remember how to spell my own name, and you were already memorizing dialogue.”
“Ah, well, I have a good memory,” you say. “Besides, it’s easier when things are relatable.”
You don’t elaborate.
She doesn’t ask you what you mean by that.
She’s fidgeting with her comic book, thumbing through pages. Silence surrounds you but it isn’t awkward. She’s nervous, though—nervous sitting so close to you.
“So, you like comic books?” You pluck the one from her hand. “Breezeo.”
Breezeo: Ghosted
Issue #4 of 5
“Have you read it?” she asks.
“Never heard of it,” you say, flipping through the thing. “Looks shitty.”
She snatches the comic right back. “How dare you! Blasphemous.”
“Okay, fine, I retract that.” Laughing, you grab the comic book again. She reluctantly releases it. “So, what, he’s some kind of superhero?”
“Something like that,” she says. “He was a normal guy, but he caught an experimental virus that’s making him disappear.”
“Like a ghost,” you say, glancing at the pictures.
“Yeah, so he’s just doing what he can to save the girl he loves while he has the chance.”
“Huh, let me guess—they find a cure and live happily ever after?”
“It’s not over yet. There’s still one more issue left.”
“But you have the others?”
“Yes.”
“Bring them to me,” you say. “Let me read them.”
She gives you a horrified look. “Why in the world would I do that?”
“Because we’re in ‘fuck your clubs’ club together.”
“You didn’t join.”
“I still might.”
She rolls her eyes as she gets up to leave. You walk her to the front of the school. Nearly everyone is gone, just a handful of students remaining. A maroon-colored Honda is parked along the right-hand side of the circular driveway, a man approaching the building.
She tenses, feet stalling, when she notices him. “Dad! You’re early.”
“Figured you’d appreciate not having to hang out here on a Friday,” the man says, smiling until his gaze shifts to you, standing awfully close to his daughter. His eyes narrow as he holds his hand out to introduce himself. “Michael Garfield.”
“Jonathan,” you say, shaking his hand, leaving it at that, but it’s a pointless omission.
“Cunningham,” her dad says. “I know who you are. I work for your father. Wasn’t aware you knew my daughter, though. She hasn’t mentioned it.”
Disapproval is evident in every syllable of those words. You have a reputation with the people who work for your father, and it’s not a good one.