Free Now You See Her by Jacquelyn Mitchard Page A

of the shows. But she’s sort of my understudy... .”
    “Oh, Hopie! I never would have believed this was possible!”
    “Well, believe it!”
    “You’ll have to get your hair streaked again!”
    “Mom, Juliet didn’t have highlights! He likes it black—Brook Emerson!”
    “Oh my God! Mark! It’s Brook Emerson. From Feast of Fools ! That’s the guest director. When do you start rehearsals? Now remember, no white food between now and then. No bread. No milk . . .”
    “Mom! I know how to do this,” I said. I wanted to get
    off the phone. My beautiful dream was fading. I had to think about it, feel it, let it come back to life. “I have to get to sleep, Mom,” I began.
    Then she asked, “Did you tell your friend, Levon . . .” “Logan . . .”
    “Or your advisor, or whatever she is? About the guy on the road?”
    I was actually relieved. She was totally off the track. If I had been older, or if we had been closer, I could have told her that I just had the most totally emotional time of my life. I could never tell her. Not now or two years from now. She’d have pulled me out of Starwood so fast, I wouldn’t have had time to grab my toothbrush. Or maybe not. If she thought it was somebody who could get me someplace, maybe she would have been almost okay with it. Knowing my mom, she’d have sent me a care package with chocolate chip cookies and condoms.

    VI ‌

    L

    OGAN AND ME .
    That was my whole world. Logan and me.
    See my journal heading up there, for today? I haven’t actually written anything for two weeks because I’ve been too tired and busy with homework crap. But there it is. The arrow that pierced my heart and me. Side by side, always.
    Logan. And me.
    It was a week until rehearsal began. I hadn’t seen Logan. Not that we were avoiding each other, or any- thing. When I did see him, for the first read-through, I sort of blushed. But once rehearsals began, it was as if we had been together for our whole lives. As if there were nothing we couldn’t tell each other. And we were
    together constantly, every moment that we weren’t in class or in public.
    By “in public,” I mean we didn’t eat lunch together or dinner or anything, because people would have started talking. That was my idea. I didn’t want to be gossiped about. People were jealous enough.
    When the casting was announced, a couple of the senior girls actually started to cry and ran out of the hall. This big, mean blond girl who’d played Rizzo in Grease the year before said, “Bite me on the leg and call me Rover. That little shit! I can’t believe it!” As if they were going to cast some big fat chick as Juliet. I’m so sure. She was lucky to get in at all, as Juliet’s mother. That’s not a bad role.
    I did what my mother said and kept my head low. “People are going to be jealous of you your whole
    life,” she said when I called to tell her she needed to send me a bunch of new rehearsal clothes. I was using Brook’s cell and I put Logan on. He was a little shy, but he said, “Uh, hi, Mrs. Romano.”
    I could hear my mom. “‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo’?” she asked, like she didn’t even know that “wherefore” meant “why.”
    Later Logan told me his mom was mostly the same way. “It must be genetic,” he said. “You know, like those pillows that say anyone can be a father, but it takes
    someone special to be a dad? Well, anyone can be a good mom, but it takes someone special to be a stage mother.” I laughed so hard I had to stop running and catch my breath.
    We went running together a lot, and then afterward we made love outside. Or else we would go to this little broken-down hunter’s cabin where the seniors went to drink. There were blankets there and a bathroom with running water. It was cold, but there was a woodstove, and once we started it and stayed for hours.
    Logan wasn’t allowed to come into my dorm room.
    And I wasn’t allowed in the guys’ dorm, either.
    It was hard for