Look Both Ways(44)

Our directors and shop heads let us out early so we have time to get ready for the party. When I get back to our room, Zoe’s blowing her hair dry in front of the mirror. She has on a tight white dress with a low back, which showcases the delicate branches and flowers inked onto her skin. I’ve never actually seen her whole tattoo, and I suddenly have an intense desire to know how far down it goes.

Zoe clicks the blow-dryer off and spins around. The front of the dress is cut much higher, but somehow that makes it even sexier. “Hey!” she says. “I was wondering when they were going to let you out. Jessa and Livvy are coming to get us in half an hour.”

I have no desire to go to the party with Jessa and Livvy, but I can’t very well say that; Zoe still doesn’t know I overheard their conversation in the bathroom. “You look really great,” I tell her instead.



“Thanks; you’re sweet. What are you wearing?”

I pull my favorite little black dress out of my closet and hold it up. It’s the only appropriate thing I own, so I hope Zoe likes it; it’s short and flirty and shows more leg than I’m used to. “Perfect,” she says. “That’s going to look gorgeous on you.” She offers to curl my hair, and I sit very still in her desk chair, soaking up the feeling of her cool, quick fingers brushing my neck and shoulders. She lines my eyes in gold pencil, leaning so close, I can feel her breath on my cheek, and lends me the bright red lipstick she’s wearing. When I’m thoroughly primped, painted, and dressed, and she pulls me over to the mirror.

“Look at us,” she says. “We look spectacular.”

“We really do.” I’m not used to wearing this much makeup, and I look like a stranger to myself. It’s weirdly freeing. I feel like I could do anything tonight and it would be totally fine, because it wouldn’t really be me doing it. I stare at our reflections and try to fix them in my mind. Even if I can’t be as brave as I’m hoping, I want to remember this moment, when we were sparkly and bright and alone together.

Livvy and Jessa burst into our room without knocking, and I start feeling awkward all over again; I’ve barely spoken to either of them since my mom’s master class. They’re both giggling and tottering in their heels, and when Livvy reaches into the red corset she’s wearing and pulls out a flask, I see why. “You want?” she asks.

“Sure,” Zoe says. She drinks, grimaces, and hands it to me. Based on the face she made, I’m not sure I want what’s inside, but I do want the courage that comes with it, so I take a swig. It tastes like lighter fluid that’s been touched with a match, and fire flies up my nose and down my throat as I cough and sputter. Everyone laughs, and Zoe rubs my back.



“What is that?” I gasp when I can speak again.

“Whiskey,” Jessa says. She’s wearing this slinky silver thing that’s more like a large handkerchief than a dress. “Little sips, Shepard.”

I take another tiny sip to prove that I can, and it goes down better this time. “Good girl,” Jessa says, and her smile looks pretty genuine as she takes the flask from me. I wonder for a second if she’s gotten over all the stuff she said the other day, but I’m pretty sure she and Livvy are just caught up in the tipsy anticipation of the party. I smile back anyway. I’ll take what I can get.

Pandemonium is already in full swing when we get there. The Dreamgirls set has been moved into the wings, and the stage and loading dock of Haydu Hall look like a New York City club. Rows of moving lights swoop around in a synchronized dance and shoot their colorful beams through the haze produced by a bank of fog machines. In the center of the stage, raised up on a platform, is an eight-foot-tall cage with a girl and two guys inside. All three of them are dancing like they’re possessed, and for a second I think Allerdale has hired burlesque performers. But when the door swings open and the three of them spill out, laughing and whooping, I recognize them as non-eq company members. The music is so loud, I can feel the bass thundering through my chest.



Zoe grabs my hand and screams something. I have no idea what she said, but her eyes are bright and she’s smiling at me like I’m the only person in the room, so I hold on tight and let her lead me. We snake through the writhing, sweaty crowd, dodging flailing limbs and flying hair, until we’re right in the middle of the stage. When we reach the base of the cage, Zoe throws her head back, closes her eyes, and starts to dance. Normally it takes me a couple of minutes to fall into the rhythm of a dance floor, but here, everyone is so caught up in their own ecstatic motion that it feels like nobody’s watching. I’m warm all the way through from the whiskey and the heat of the crowd. As the beat speeds up, I snake both arms up above my head, raise my face to the neon lights, and spin around and around. I feel free and fizzy and dangerous and lit up from the inside.

One song fades into another and another, and I lose track of time completely. Somewhere in this crowd is Livvy in her corset and Jessa in her handkerchief and Kenji and Todd and Pandora and Russell, but all that exists for me is Zoe. The crowd presses her closer and closer to me as we dance, and I don’t back up to make room. Pretty soon she’s got her hands on my hips and her body right up against mine, and everything in me goes, Yes. My arms have nowhere else to go, so I loop them around her neck. Our knees scissor together, and for a minute it’s awkward, the movements of our bodies fumbling and unsynchronized. But Zoe looks straight into my eyes and smiles, and I find her rhythm and sink into it. I’ve seen girls dance like this before, rocking their hips back and forth like they’re one eight-limbed, two-hearted animal, and I know it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But I’m sure I’ve never felt this kind of connection to another person, even when Jason used to push me up against a wall and kiss me until I lost my breath.