Inevitable and Only(47)

That night, I found everyone still eating dinner when Micayla dropped me off.

“Mushroom-kale casserole,” Dad said, handing me a plate. “Took longer than I thought, so you get it fresh from the oven tonight.”

“Lucky me,” I muttered.

Mom looked at me sharply, but didn’t say anything.

“So!” Dad said. “How was rehearsal?”

“Fine. Hey, by the way, you weren’t planning on going to Center Stage this weekend to see Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, right?”

Dad blinked.

I barreled on. “I figured, since we only have two tickets, it wouldn’t really be fair if I stole you for the whole evening. And I didn’t think you’d want to leave everyone else out.”

By everyone else, of course, I meant Elizabeth. Mom had never expressed any interest in joining our father-daughter theater outings, and Josh wasn’t allowed to stay out late unless it was for a concert—Mom worried that a late night would interfere with his practicing schedule.

“So,” I continued, “I invited someone from the play to go with me. As long as it’s okay if he uses your ticket?”

Dad cleared his throat.

Say no. Say I’m wrong. Say you’d love nothing more than to spend an evening at Center Stage with your daughter just like old times. Your first daughter—well, technically your second daughter, but your real daughter.

But all he said was, “Okay, then, if that’s what you want to do.”

“He?” Mom said.

I raised my eyebrows.

“You said ‘he.’ You asked if it was okay if ‘he’ used Dad’s ticket. Who’s ‘he’?”

“Oh, just a guy from the play. He’s Benedick.”

Mom looked shocked. “Then why are you asking him out?”

“What? I’m not asking him out!”

“It sounds like you are, and you just said he’d been a dick. By the way, I don’t appreciate that kind of language at the dinner table.”

Dad and I burst out laughing at the same time. I hated how this felt like we were somehow on the same team again, as if I hadn’t just wounded him. I didn’t want to be on Dad’s team anymore.

“Benedick,” I said to Mom. “It’s the name of the main character in Much Ado About Nothing.”

“Beatrice’s, aka Cadie’s, love interest,” Dad added, winking. He was pretending that I hadn’t just hurt him by asking for his ticket. Or maybe he wasn’t hurt. Did he care? I wanted him to care.

“Only in the play,” I said, pushing my chair back. “Which reminds me, I have to go work on my lines. Can I bring my plate upstairs?”

“Cadie, we need to talk more about this!” Mom called after me. “What night are you going? How will you get there? Will anyone else be with—”

I slammed my door to cut off the rest.

No one came up to try to talk to me until Elizabeth came in a while later to do her homework.

I ignored her, too.



The next morning, I dodged the hordes of students moving far too slowly, trying to make my way to Raven’s locker. I had to catch her before first period and tell her what had happened.

Then I turned the corner and saw Farhan. Leaning against Elizabeth’s locker, an idiotic smile splitting his stupid face. He noticed me before I could look away and pretend I hadn’t seen them. Elizabeth turned and smiled at me, too, a hesitant smile. Farhan wiggled his eyebrows and gave me a quick thumbs-up while Elizabeth was still turned, looking at me. Both of them looking at me. I waved, then ducked my head and kept going.

Forget about Farhan, he’s an infant, I told myself. Zephyr’s a senior. You asked out a senior. Did you ask him out? I think you asked him out. He said yes. I think you’re going on a date with a senior.

I had to find Raven, or I was going to progress to full-scale endless looping arguments with myself in my head. I scanned the wall of lockers and spotted her curly red head. Pushed my way through the crowd.

“Raven! You’ll never guess what happened.”

She looked up at me, her arms full of books and her eyes brimming with concern. “I know. I saw.”

“Wait—what?”

“Farhan. Fart-on. And—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. And you don’t have to call him that. I’m fine, really.”

“No, you’re not,” she said sensibly, slamming her locker door. “You’re very good at pretending you’re fine. We both know it’s one of your best skills. But that’s not the same as being fine. And you don’t have to pretend with me.”

“Okay, maybe I’m not fine with it, but I’m distracted right now. Listen.” I told her about the Much Ado rehearsal last night, about asking Zephyr to the play.

“But—I don’t get it, how did you have an extra ticket? I thought you had season tickets with your dad, so wasn’t that your dad’s ticket?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t know, my mouth just moved faster than my brain and made up things, and then I couldn’t exactly go back and tell him I didn’t have an extra ticket after all. What was I supposed to say?”

“You could say you thought your dad couldn’t go, but it turns out now he can.”