Free manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen Page A

laughing.
“ ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the mooooooon!’ ”
    I’m jealous of his condition. At least
he’s
having a good time. I should be too. It’s why we came here.
    It’s too risky
, Sydney writes.
I won’t be able to sleep if I
    My phone rings while I’m in the middle of reading her text.
    Becky.
    don’t know you got home in 1 piece so which park?
    I hit the green button and put the phone up to my ear.
    “Becky?”
    “Hey,” she says. Her voice is heavy and soft, her nose vaguely plugged.
    I don’t want to talk to her with the guys looming, so I head toward the parking lot.
    “Excuse me, sir?” Robby calls.
    Right. I throw my car keys at him and walk quickly toward the parking lot. Robby, clearly understanding I want to be alone and that I’m not going to try to drive off, lets me go. God bless ’im.
    “You don’t sound so good, Mustardseed,” I say, once I’m far enough away that they can’t overhear me. “What’s going on?”
    “Oh, the
usual
,” Becky says. Spite draws out the last word and hones it to a sharp point. “I’m reconsidering your offer to come by in a couple hours. What’re you up to tonight, exactly? I didn’t figure you for a drinking man.”
    “Just hanging at the park with Robby and Justin. Celebrating, I guess.”
    “Yeah? Celebrating what?”
    “It’s nothing, just this magazine thing.”
    “What magazine thing?”
    I take a deep breath. I have to tread carefully here.
    “I got this thing published in a magazine,” I say.
    “Really? That’s great, Tyler. That’s awesome. Congrats, man.”
    I hate it—
hate it
—when she calls me “man” like that. Something about the word or her delivery seems to cement my place in her world. That of Good Buddy. BFF. Like she’s just another guy.
    Still. She’s happy for me. As happy as Becky is capable of being, anyway.

After being bullied into it by her drama friends, Sydney ended up auditioning for
Mockingbird
, but she didn’t get the part she wanted. She got no part at all, in fact.
    “I’m sorry,” I told her at lunch the day the cast was announced.
    “Thanks, but it’s not a big deal. I’ve got a tournament on opening night anyway.”
    “You’ll probably take State,” I said.
    “Yeah?” Syd asked, eyeing me curiously, as if my encouraging her was a bad thing. “Why’s that?”
    “You’re smart,” I said. “And you don’t get nervous in front of people. You think fast. It’s a great fit.”
    Sydney smiled and gave me a kiss.
    Secretly I was relieved about Syd not being in the play. Because Becky
did
get cast. Scout Finch. Pretty much the female lead.
    Which, honestly, I didn’t understand. Even after her bouncy performance last year in
Midsummer
, I was having trouble reconciling the quiet girl who ate lunch by herself with the energetic performer I’d seen onstage. In my stories, my Becky character typically became a world-renowned actress. And now at least—at
last
—since I was on the tech crew for the show, I’d get a chance to watch her more closely, see how she was around other people. Maybe make sure she wasn’t actually dating someone from the drama department.
    The first day of rehearsal scared me to death. I’d been elected to run the light board, and everyone involved in the show, from the director, Mrs. Goldie, to the makeup crew kids and technicians—or “techies”—like me had to be there for the first read-through.
    I’d be in an after-school activity with Becky Webb. Exposed to a side of her I’d never gotten to see before. And vice versa. I just hoped I didn’t say or do something galactically stupid when she was around.
    Turned out I didn’t have to say much of anything besides my name at the first rehearsal. We met in Mrs. Goldie’s classroom, where she’d moved all the desks into a big circle. She made everyone say their name and role or backstage position. So I said, “Tyler Darcy, lights,” and that was it.
    Someone had to nudge Becky when