Getting REVENGE on Lauren Wood (14 page)

“So what does your voice coach say about the audition?” Kyla asked, sticking to safe topics, which included anything focused on Lauren.

“She thinks I’m ready. We’ve practiced the song since last spring.” Lauren stabbed another piece of lettuce. I noticed that the skin around her fingernails was ragged, like she had stuck them in a garbage disposal. Plus, despite a heavy smear of concealer, I could see a flock of small red pimples clustered around her forehead. It looked like my daily sabotages were starting to get to her. I took another satisfied slurp on my milkshake.

“You’re going to be great,” Bailey said.

“Grrrrrrreat!” I roared in a Tony the Tiger voice. Lauren’s eyes narrowed. Bailey and Kyla laughed.

“All I can say is nothing better go wrong,” Lauren said, tossing her fork down on her plate to indicate that the five calories she’d consumed had rendered her full.

“Nothing will go wrong,” Bailey soothed.

“What could go wrong?” I asked.

“Lately, everything is going wrong.”

“Everyone has their ups and downs,” I said, as I dragged another fry through my river of ketchup.

“I don’t.”

That pretty much killed the conversation for a few minutes until Bailey resurrected the thrill-a-minute discussion of how great Lauren’s hair looked. I managed to refrain from pointing out that the olive oil had perhaps done some good.

Bailey excused herself to go to the bathroom and Kyla tagged along, leaving Lauren and me sitting across from each other in the booth.

“I don’t know what your story is, but I don’t trust you,” Lauren said.

“What are you talking about?” I managed to meet her eyes, but just barely. After years backing down from Lauren, it was ingrained.

“Ever since you started school here, I’ve had nothing but bad luck.”

“What, you think I have it out for you? Why?” I tried to sound casual, but there was a part of me that almost hoped everything would come to a head, that she would realize who I was and realize just what she had done. I felt a slick of sweat sprout up in my armpits.

Lauren looked around the restaurant, her nostrils flaring
in and out. She really needed to do something about that facial tic.

“This is my senior year and I worked really hard to be where I am,” Lauren said, as if that explained anything.

“It’s my senior year too. Come to think of it, it’s also Bailey’s and Kyla’s and, oh, give or take a few hundred other people’s senior year.”

“Whatever.” Lauren managed to avoid saying out loud what I was sure she was thinking, which was that our hopes and dreams for our senior year paled in comparison to her own.

“I’m sorry that you don’t like me, but for what it’s worth, I hope you get the senior year that you deserve,” I said with a smile on my face. I popped another fry dripping bloodred ketchup into my mouth.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Auditions were held in the school auditorium. I sat with a clipboard and my grandma’s cat’s-eye reading glasses, trying to look official. I was supposed to keep track of everyone who tried out, what song they sang, and what scene they performed. Ms. Herbaut would make all the casting decisions, but she said she wanted to get my input as her official assistant director. There were about forty people ready to try out, a small core group of drama nerds who were busy doing scales and murmuring lines under their breath and everyone else who was trying out either for a lark or as a joke.

“Okay, we’re ready to hear from …”—Ms. Herbaut looked down at the sign-in sheet—“Brenda Bauer.”

For a second no one moved and I was afraid I would have to go over and drag Brenda up onto the stage, but then she stood and marched up, reverting to her lumbering, trademarked Frankenstein walk. She stopped in the center of the
stage and blinked from the bright lights. I shot her a thumbs-up gesture and prayed she would get through the song without bolting from the stage. I was counting on her NASA dreams overpowering any nerves she had. If she wasn’t afraid to be shot into space, then she ought to be able to handle this.

“Go ahead,” Ms. Herbaut prodded as Brenda continued to just stand there. Brenda swallowed hard and then handed her music to the pianist at the side of the stage. When the music started she shut her eyes.

After much debate we had picked the song “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from the musical
Jesus Christ Superstar
. It had a sort of tragic-dreamy quality that worked well with Brenda’s voice and had the added bonus of being a song I didn’t think anyone else would pick. Brenda’s voice wavered a bit when she started, but soon she hit her stride. I saw the pianist look up in surprise, and even the other students in the auditorium stopped goofing around and listened. When Brenda finished everyone fell silent. I could see her fidget on the stage.

“Who was that?” Ms. Herbaut said, shuffling the papers in her lap.

“Her name is Brenda Bauer.” I paused, wanting to brag that I had been the one to convince her to try out, but I couldn’t. As far as the rest of the school knew, we were nothing more than lab partners.

“Where has she been hiding for the past four years?” Ms. Herbaut whispered to me. “Brenda? That was lovely. Very lovely.
Would you mind doing another song for me, one from the show? I’d like to hear you do a duet with one of the other actors. Brian? Would you please join Brenda?”

Brian, one of the long-term drama nerds, gave a gallant nod and hopped up on the stage. It was then that I saw Christopher slouched down in a seat toward the back making notes. Ms. Herbaut had forbidden him to film any of the auditions as she thought it would make people too nervous. My stomach did a light flip when he looked up and met my eyes. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and tried to look official.

“I’d like to hear you two do ‘On the Street Where You Live,’” Ms. Herbaut said to Brenda and Brian.

“I don’t know the words to that one,” Brenda said.

“I know them,” Lauren said, standing up. “I’ve memorized the whole score. If you want to hear a duet, I can do it with Brian.”

“Thanks, Lauren, but I want to hear Brenda right now. Brenda, why don’t you and Brian go out into the hall and run through it, then come back when you’re ready.”

“No problem.” Brian gave Brenda a reassuring smile and directed her through the wings, his hand on her elbow.

“I could do the song now,” Lauren said again. I tried not to smirk when I heard Ms. Herbaut give a tired-sounding sigh.

“Okay, Lauren, how about you do your song while we wait for them to return?”

Lauren scampered up the steps and presented the music to
the pianist as if it were a royal decree. She took center stage, cleared her throat a few times, and then gave a solemn nod to the pianist to indicate she was ready.

Lauren sang well, but she should have waited. She should have gone after someone else who was merely mediocre so that she would stand out. Going right after Brenda only highlighted that her voice lacked something. Technically it was fine, she didn’t miss a note, but it had no spark, no vitality. Partway through the song, you could see that she knew she was falling short so she sang louder and resorted to grand sweeping gestures with her arms when she felt it was needed. She bowed low when the song was over, and the group of devoted drama students gave her a quick smatter of applause even though they weren’t supposed to.

“Thanks, Lauren,” Ms. Herbaut said.

“I can do something else if you like,” Lauren offered. “If you want to see my range, I can do one of the songs from the beginning. I’ve been working on a cockney accent too.”

“We’ve got a lot of people to go,” I reminded Ms. Herbaut. She surveyed the auditorium, calculating just how many renditions she was going to hear of “The Rain in Spain” before the afternoon was over.

“You’re right. We’re going to move along for right now, Lauren. I’ll let you know if I need to hear another song.”

Lauren pressed her lips together and her horse nostrils flared in annoyance. Not her best look. She caught me smiling and glared. I held my hands up and gave a silent clap. I’d let her take
that any way she liked. I went back to riffling through my stack of papers to find who was supposed to go next. Ms. Herbaut called out for an Erin Legualt. One of the freshman girls jumped up and squealed as if she had been called as a contestant on
The Price Is Right
. As she ran for the stage she tripped over her own feet and fell. She popped right back up as if she were made from rubber. Ms. Herbaut massaged her temples. I’m guessing teaching drama at the high school level wasn’t all Ms. Herbaut hoped it would be.

“Claire, can you take a bottle of water down to the pianist? It’s going to be a long afternoon.”

I gave her an “aye-aye, captain” salute and wove my way down the far aisle. I saw Brenda in the wings of the auditorium and I tried to give her a secret thumbs-up.

“HELEN!” Someone yelled out.

I spun around at the same time as another girl, both of us answering at the same time.

“What?”

The other Helen looked at me annoyed. Shit. I wasn’t supposed to be Helen anymore. I could feel my face flushing red. Brenda looked at me strangely.

“I thought she said my name,” I said to no one in particular. The girl next to me gave me an odd look, no doubt wondering how hard it was to tell the difference between the names Helen and Claire.

I practically tossed the water bottle at the pianist, fled for
the safety of my seat, and smacked directly into Lauren. She was looking at me closely. I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. Had she overheard the whole Helen thing?

“Excuse me,” I said, as I moved past her. I could feel her eyes following me up the aisle. Shit. Shit. Shit. This is how things fall apart, stupid mistakes. Once I sat down I could see Lauren talking to one of the other drama kids, and the girl passed over a Tupperware container. Lauren marched back down the aisle and stood at the end of my row. I clutched my hands together so she couldn’t tell they were shaking.

The Tupperware container was full of fruit diced into bite-size pieces, squares of cantaloupe and pineapple tossed with quartered frozen strawberries. Lauren thrust out the container in front of me.

“Have a piece of fruit,” she said, her voice stern.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“You should have some.” Lauren pushed the Tupperware forward again so that it bounced against my chest. “Claire.” I could feel my heart beating a thousand times faster. I was allergic to strawberries. Well, my Helen self was allergic and Lauren knew that. She had been with me when I had one of my worst allergic reactions as a kid. In fact, she caused it.

When we were nine or ten Lauren had the idea to do a science experiment where I tried strawberry-flavored gum to see if I would have a reaction, and then when I didn’t, we tried a strawberry Fruit Roll-Up. The Roll-Up did me in, and I ended
up throwing up with all the force of a fire hose. My mother had been livid. She couldn’t believe I ate the Roll-Up just because Lauren asked me to when I knew I was allergic. She had no idea that at the time I would have done anything Lauren asked me. What’s a little vomit between good friends?

I reached out and tentatively picked up a cantaloupe square.

“Have a strawberry,” Lauren insisted with an impatient shake of the container.

Shit. She knows, or she thinks she knows.

“I actually love cantaloupe, it’s my favorite,” I tried.

“The cantaloupe isn’t ripe. Have a strawberry. They’re the best.”

My fingers hovered over the berry and then before I could think about it too much I popped it into my mouth and swallowed it whole without chewing. Maybe chewing releases the allergic stuff; maybe if I swallowed it my stomach acid could kill it.

“Mmm, you’re right. Those are great,” I said.

Lauren’s face fell. I could tell she thought she had me, but now she wasn’t sure. I gave her a small salute with my clipboard and then made a vague motion indicating that she should head back to her seat. She walked back with her shoulders slumped. Once she sat down, she turned around every few moments and looked at me as if waiting to see what would happen. Christopher looked back and forth between us. I wondered what type of notes he was taking about us.

I pulled my purse up on my lap and started to rummage
through my stuff, hoping I might have some Benadryl in there. Nothing. I wondered if my throat would start to swell and if Brenda had covered enough in her science classes that she could do a trache on me using only a ballpoint pen if I needed one. I rubbed my fingers together, noticing that the tips that had touched the berry felt a bit hot and the skin tight. My stomach did a slow rollover. Uh-oh. I stood to make a run for the bathroom, and Lauren spun around again to look at me. I sat back down. If I went to the bathroom she would follow me—I knew it. She would know I’m allergic to the strawberry and she would know I’m not really Claire. The jig would be up, and I wasn’t even close to reaching my goal of complete and utter Lauren destruction.

“Claire? Are you okay?” Ms. Herbaut touched my shoulder.

“Mmm-hmm.” I smiled with my lips pressed together. I had the very real fear that if I opened my mouth to say anything that strawberry was going to come flying right out.

“I’ll get us a couple of Diet Cokes. These auditions can be exhausting.” She slid out of the row and down toward the cooler that was at the front. She motioned to the stage for things to continue.

Shit. Shit. Shit. The music started up for someone’s tryout. The pianist was loud. My stomach rolled over again. I swallowed hard, trying to push the berry back into place. I broke into a cold, sticky sweat all over. My body was clearly planning to evict the berry and, from the way it felt, at a high rate of speed. I
looked around for a solution. I gripped the handles of my purse. Then I glanced down. No way. I couldn’t. I looked up again and saw the back of Lauren’s head. I couldn’t give up now.

Desperate times, desperate measures
, I chanted to myself. I thought about how sometimes you need to sacrifice for what you really want. I dumped the contents of my handbag in my lap and then threw up in the purse. The piano drowned out the sound of my yakking. I sat back and wiped my mouth with a tissue. I even managed to smile at Lauren when she turned around for the millionth time.