The Pretty One(5)

By the time Lucy is finished with her salad, she’s on to me. “You’re awfully quiet,” she says.

Lucy and I are eating dinner alone. This isn’t unusual because our dad travels a lot for his job (he’s regional manager for Lucky Lou’s Burgers), and our mom is a lawyer and doesn’t get home until eight or nine at night. Lucy and I have our own little domestic routine, independent of Mom and Dad. Every day we take turns making dinner and eat it at the table together.

“I’m eating,” I say. “It’s really good. I love the…” I stab a piece of salad and hold it up to the Tiffany (looking) lamp Mom found at a garage sale and is convinced is worth a million dollars.

“The lettuce. What kind is it?”

“That look on your face is not due to radicchio,” she says.

I put down my fork. It’s obvious I have no choice but to confess. “I can’t stop thinking about what Drew said.”

“About trying out for a play?” Lucy asks.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I mean, I know he was just being nice and all.”

“Drew’s not that nice,” Lucy says. “You have talent. I’ve told you that a million times.”

I sit up straight and smile at her. I’m still not a hundred percent certain she is telling me the truth because, quite frankly, Lucy is too nice to tell me if she thinks Drew is full of crap, but still. “Really?” I ask.

“Really,” she says with determination. “Let’s see,” she says, thinking. “Allan Silberstein is producing a play in December. He talked to me about doing it. There might be a part in there for you. It would be fun if we could be in a play together.”


I think about the last play my sister got me into. I should have known something was up when I heard the name of my character was Arse McDoody. Unfortunately, by the time I found out I had been cast as the backside of a horse, it was too late to bow out.

“No thanks. Besides, Simon said he’ll never do that again.” Simon had been cast as the front, so I’m not sure what he was still complaining about.

“No,” Lucy objects. “I’m talking about you having a role. A real role.”

“Like a person?”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll talk to him.”

“Remember the way he used to tousle his hair?” I bark out suddenly, attempting to impress Lucy with my ability to get in the moment just like (finger snap). “The way he would run his fingers through it when he was tired or upset? Alas no! You don’t! You’ve forgotten!” I slam my hand down on the table for emphasis, smack into the tub of butter.

“Oh…,” she says calmly, totally unfazed by my melodrama.

“Speaking of Drew, guess who he asked to the fall festival?”

Drew asked someone to the fall festival? Not that I ever expected him to ask me, but I still feel a little winded, as if I just found out my beloved boyfriend of the past two years has been cheating on me.

“Who?” I manage. I pick up my napkin and begin wiping off my hand.

“Lindsey McKenna,” she says.

Good grief. Lindsey McKenna? He was cheating on me with a giant, bubbleheaded, Barbie doll? A girl who drew smiley faces and hearts on all her notebooks and once passed out cards giving people a “free smile”?

“Apparently she’s liked him a long time,” Lucy continues, oblivious to my discomfort.

Drew is the first and only secret I have ever kept from my sister. I haven’t told Lucy about my crush because I know what she would do if she found out. Lucy is extremely protective of me and she would hate the thought that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of hooking up with the guy of my dreams, and so she would go to great lengths to reassure me that I actually have a chance at going out with him. And then any time anyone ever mentioned his name she would turn to me with a look of pity mingled with outright grief that broadcast her sentiment to the world: poor, ugly, lonely Megan.

“I guess they hooked up a couple of times over the summer, but Drew wasn’t interested in anything serious. So now Lindsey is totally psyched.”

“They hooked up?” The thought of Drew, my intellectual hero, in the arms of the vacuous (one of my and Simon’s favorite words) girl I once caught walking out of a bathroom stall with Mac Gerard (she must have given him one of her cards because he had a big smile on his face) makes me want to woof up my radicchio.

“Yeah,” Lucy continues. “He’s got a little bit of a rep. Like, he doesn’t let anyone get too close to him and keeps to himself. Some people think he’s kind of stuck up.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say.

Lucy puts down her fork and looks at me.

I shift my eyes away. “I always thought he seemed kind of sweet.”

She sighs long and deep. “It seems like everyone has a date for the fall festival except for me.”

I don’t, of course. And of course, my sister is aware of this little fact. Normally I would point this out in a not so nice fashion. But not now. Due to the whole twisting Allan Silberstein’s arm to get me a part thing, I’m trying to stay on her good side. And so I say, “What about Tommy?”

Although Lucy would never admit to it, she loves guys with power. Two of her past three boyfriends have been the director of the spring musical, the most sought-after assignment in the entire school. The director of this year’s spring musical was announced several weeks ago: Tommy Calvino. Coincidentally, only days after the announcement, my sister fell deeply in love.