The Pretty One(35)

“Good night,” I say.

“Good night,” Lucy says softly, just like always.

But I still don’t feel any better. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening as Lucy’s breathing becomes more and more regular. I find myself a tiny bit annoyed by the way Lucy so easily drifts off to sleep. She doesn’t really seem to be anxious or nervous about the cast lists at all.

I twist around in my bed, push myself up on my elbows, and peek over my white iron headboard at Lucy. She is wearing her pink tank and boxer set pajamas and her long silky hair is splayed out over the pillow. Even when she’s sound asleep, she looks like a doll.

I puff up my pillow and flop back down, my arms crossed over my face as I try and breathe through the stent in my right nostril while feeling sorry for myself. Before my accident, I couldn’t sleep if my nose felt the least bit stuffy, and now I have to go to bed with what feels like a piece of macaroni jammed up my nose every night.

I spend the next five minutes keeping pace with my sister’s long, even breaths, but it doesn’t help one bit. I can’t compete, not even in the breathing department.

I get out of bed and walk into the bathroom. As I turn on the light, the sight of my reflection in the mirror catches me off guard. The doctor had told me it would take me awhile to get used to it, but it’s been nearly two months and I still feel like I stole someone else’s face. I raise my head, getting a bird’s-eye view of my nostril as I pull the stent out of my nose. I set it on the edge of the sink and lean over it so I can be closer to the mirror. I touch my fingers to my forehead, trailing them down my cheeks to my chin. I look straight into my own eyes and think: Who are you?

What would my old face say if it could see me now: wracked with nerves and unable to sleep? It would probably say something smart-alecky like, Boo hoo, cry me a river. But my new face knows something my old face doesn’t. So I consider my equally smart-alecky reply as I stick the macaroni back up my nose. Cry you a river? I say to my old face, but before I can make my snappy reply, I burst into tears.

And then the stent shoots out of my nose.



The cast list goes up at the end of the school day. I’m on way to the auditorium to see Lucy’s name on Drew’s cast list when I pass Lucy’s friend Jane Hitchens in the hall. “Congratulations,” she says politely.

“For what?”

“Drew’s play,” she says.

Suddenly, I’m running as fast as I can. I get to the auditorium and elbow my way through the small crowd gathered around the cast lists, frantically searching for Drew’s list. And there it is. Right smack in the middle.



THE END.

GUY: DREW REYNOLDS

GIRL: MEGAN FLETCHER



My heart catches in my throat as I turn, glancing across the hall toward the production studio, looking for someone with whom to share my excitement. I did it! I finally did it!

“Hey, Megan,” Marybeth says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I say. I got the part! I got the part! I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before. I feel so full of love, happiness, and joy that I want to scream from the rooftops, draw hearts and flowers on all my notebooks, and throw my money up to the sky.

“Um…,” Marybeth says, motioning toward my nose.

I grab a tissue out of my pocket (I always keep a stash, just in case) and swipe it across my nose. I’m so happy, I’m crying through my nose.

“Does your sister know yet?” Marybeth asks.

And just like that, my nose dries up.

I remember how content Lucy looked last night in her sleep. How peaceful. “I don’t know,” I say to Marybeth.

“She’s going to be bummed,” she says, half under her breath.

“She saw it,” says Maria, another one of Lucy’s close friends.

“How’d she take it?” Marybeth says, wrinkling up her nose like she just smelled something stinky.

“She got cast in Russell’s play. But she’s still pretty upset.”

“Have you seen her?” I ask.

“I think she said she needed to get something from her locker.”

I hurry back upstairs and toward Lucy’s locker. I’m not sure what I’m going to say to her, but I’m hoping it will come to me when I see her. One thing I’m sure of: I have upset the natural order of the world and I’m about to pay penance.

I turn the corner and stop. At the far end of the hall is Lucy. In spite of what I have just heard, she doesn’t look upset. In fact, she’s smiling. But she has a reason to smile. Drew is with her and she is resting her head on his shoulder.

I quickly turn and head in the opposite direction. How could I think for one minute that I could win in a duel with my sister? Even now with my new face, there’s no way I can compete with Lucy’s charm and effortless grace. I may have won the part, but she would win the guy.



I’m halfway home when my phone rings.

“Hey, kiddo,” my dad says casually when I answer, as if he always calls me that. “Mom said congratulations are in order. It didn’t take you long to spring to the top of the heap, did it?”

I’m sure this is meant as a compliment, but this whole my-dad-likes-me-now-that-I’m-pretty thing is very annoying.

“It’s not like a big, huge deal. It’s for the senior playwriting independent study. There are going to be five productions.”