I Kissed Shara Wheeler(49)

Even if Chloe doesn’t want Shara back, she does want to be a sharp-beaked little bird making a nest in that pretty head. If the next note is anything like the last, she needs it. Like, for entertainment purposes.

At least she has an idea of how to get it.

“The theater end-of-year party is tonight,” Chloe says on Monday when she catches Smith at his locker. She doesn’t remember when she learned Smith Parker’s locker number by heart, but she adds it to the list of ways Shara has derailed her life in a matter of weeks.

“Okay,” Smith says.

“Brooklyn’s coming, and she’s supposed to be taking pictures for the yearbook, so she’ll have her camera there, and we can check the memory card for the club photos,” Chloe goes on. “Everyone who did Phantom is invited, including Ace, so all you have to do is convince him he should actually show up—”

“He’s going.”

“That’s the spirit. Show him who’s boss.”

“No, I mean he already told me he’s going.”

Chloe blinks. “What?”

“Yeah, I think he’s looking forward to it. He bought a new shirt.”

“I—uh, okay. Well, then, you can just figure out an excuse to come with him. And then when Brooklyn’s doing the senior number, you can get to her camera.”

Smith sighs.

“We’re close, Smith,” Chloe reminds him. “You deserve answers. We all do.”

Smith chews on his thumbnail. “Okay. I’ll be there.”



* * *



“Let’s go, let’s go, the seven-layer dip ain’t gettin’ any fresher,” Mr. Truman says as he waves students into the gym like the emcee at the Kit Kat Club. “No, Taelynn, it’s fine that your mom didn’t put lime juice on the avocados like I told her last time and now they’re already brown— Hi, Chloe, you have a fire in your eyes tonight and I hope it’s for theater.”

“It’s definitely for something,” she says.

“Great, no further questions.”

Chloe has been looking forward to her senior theater party since freshman year, when she sat wide-eyed on the floor of the gym watching the senior leads from that year’s spring musical (who were basically celebrities to her at fourteen). The self-appointed keeper of tradition, Mr. Truman invented an iconic Willowgrove theater ritual when he played Conrad in Bye Bye Birdie in ’96 and performed the entire closing number as Rosie at the end-of-year party. It’s evolved over the years; now, as custom dictates, it’s Chloe and Benjy’s turn to swap roles and lead the seniors in an over-the-top, genderbent performance of the titular number.

Benjy, who takes nothing more seriously than an opportunity to commit to a bit, waylays her by the folding table of two-liter sodas and snacks.

“You’re like, thirty minutes late,” he says. “Did you get the blocking notes I sent you? Do you know your lyrics?”

“Benjy, I have known the words to this song since I was in utero,” she says. She mentally flips through the contents of her emails—she’s sure she skimmed Benjy’s plan for the number, but it’s been mostly overwritten in her mind by Shara in her Google Docs.

She wants to be here, in this moment, doing this thing she’s been dreaming of her whole high school career. But she’s also here because she needs to know where to follow Shara next.

She forces her hands to reach for a cupcake instead of her phone. “Did you bake these?”

“Please,” he says. “As if I have time. I— Wait. What is Ace doing here?”

He’s looking over her shoulder at the entrance to the gym, where Ace has appeared in all his lumbering glory.

“He was Phantom,” Chloe reminds him. “He got an invite.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t supposed to come. He’s not supposed to act like any of us exist,” Benjy says, his expression going pointy and sour. “I planned our entire number around him not coming. What, are we gonna have two Christines? Like a bunch of idiots? And he’s going to screw it up because this whole thing is a joke to him.”

Chloe touches his shoulder in what she hopes is a calming way. She’s usually the one getting calmed down, so she’s not quite sure she’s doing it right. Hand goes like this?

“Okay, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but it turns out Ace Torres is like … actually really into musical theater.”

“What are you talking about?” Benjy snaps. “He was messing up his lines all the way up to tech week. I don’t know if he ever even read the script or just memorized the movie.”

“I know,” Chloe says. Even she can’t believe she’s saying this. “But I think that was because he was nervous. He practiced for weeks before tryouts.”

“He told you this? Since you’re friends with Smith Parker now, for some reason? Who is…” He frowns as Smith materializes behind Ace, looking decidedly awkward. “… Also here?”

“It’s a long story,” Chloe says. “But … please don’t kill me … I think Ace may have actually…” She retracts into her shoulders like a turtle. “Deserved the part?”

Benjy looks at her like she’s been replaced with a clone. “Chloe.”