Chris.

I looked at Lydia, as she stopped at the poster at the end of the cafeteria buffet line. The poster had a picture of a couple dancing in front of the skyline of Paris. She lingered on it instead of moving toward a table, reading it:  

Homecoming Dance:

Next Friday at 7:00 PM:

School Gym: $7 individuals, $12 couples;

Music by “Psycho Boyfriend.”

I knew she wanted me to ask her to the dance. We were best friends; in fact, we were “Best Friends Forever,” which was what we kept repeating to each other. But did going to the dance mean we were going out? The posters had been up over a week now, and every time I saw my best friend Lydia Jamison stopping at them, my stomach turned upside down. 

“Lydia,” I called to her. She said nothing. Someone nudged me from behind and glared at me. I moved from the end of the line to right beside her.

“Lydia,” I called more loudly. She turned to me, her wavy black hair turning with her. “Let’s…uh…go sit down,’ I stammered.

She turned back to the poster. “Sure…” she said as if she was lost in thought. But I knew she did it in on purpose.

Lydia suddenly turned and walked quickly away from me, as if she was mad for me not figuring it out.

I sighed and followed her, second-guessing myself. Throughout middle school, we never went to any of the dances together. I felt conflicted because of what going to the dance might imply about our relationship. If we started now, would it imply something?  And would I be okay with what it might imply? 

We sat down at an empty table like we normally did. No one came near us or asked to sit with us, just like always.

I caught Lydia staring at me from across the table. She looked down at her mashed potatoes, picking at it. She finally brought some up to her mouth.

She dropped her fork and opened her mouth to speak:

“Chris…uh…

I knew what she was going to ask. I could either ask what or ignore her or change the subject.

“Are we still going to the audition this afternoon?” I blurted at her. I was talking about the audition for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was directly after school ended.

She looked up and her mouth fell open as if I had suggested us jumping off a bridge or something. And that made no sense. She was the theater girl; she had done plays since the age of eight. I’d only started doing plays in middle school with her.

“Yeah,” she said, sounding almost aggravated. “We said we would.  But it’s the last day.”

“Great,” I said and smiled. Doing plays was what we did together. Why wouldn’t she be excited? Granted, things were weird after we played Romeo and Juliet last summer for theater camp, but shouldn’t we be past that now?

She looked away from me, staring at the wall behind me…which probably conveniently had another poster about the Homecoming Dance.

I knew she was mad for cutting her off. But I played dumb. I knew I shouldn’t, but the words slowly started coming out, “Don’t…you want to audition? I thought you liked us doing plays together.”

She smiled, but I could see it wasn’t a sincere smile. “No, I do. I do. I’m just nervous. It’s just…this is a high school play. Wouldn’t most of the seniors and juniors take all the parts?”

That seemed like a silly reason to me. “Well, maybe, but we don’t know how we do unless we try. And today’s the last day too. There’s not another theater production until the spring. Come on, we can do this. Best Friends Forever.” Our mantra sounded forced but I didn’t care.

“Uh, yeah, Best Friends Forever,” she repeated. If mine sounded forced, hers sounded dead. She sighed. “All right,” she finally said. “Let’s do it.”

She kept looking off to her right, at that poster for the Homecoming Dance. What was the big deal? Okay, I could tell it meant a lot to her to go to the dance. Shouldn’t I say yes and go with her, even if I didn’t want to because she was my best friend?

The bell rang for the end of lunch. We had a few short minutes to get back to class. I looked down at my lunch and then at hers. We had barely touched them.

The rest of the afternoon seemed to stretch on forever, an endless parade of teachers telling us their class and their assignments were the most important, that we need to put a priority on their work. The minutes ticked down till the end of school, dragging the day down.

Finally, the last bell rang and I slowly made my way out the door. Lydia came up beside me and smiled. I forced a smile and we walked toward the auditorium. We got to the big double doors, which had a sign: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Auditions Inside.  Underneath that was a post-it note that said, Last Day!

I put down his backpack and got out a copy of the play. I turned to the first page in Act 1 and mumbled some of the lines. Lydia also pulled the play script out of her backpack. We walked down the side of the auditorium and made our way backstage, where an auditioning line was forming for the play.

I looked over at Lydia and tried not to be nervous. Lydia pushed back her black hair behind her ear and out of her face, except for the single strand which always fell over her forehead. It was one of those things that made Lydia, Lydia. Like her brown eyes and the fact she was eye level with me, not taller or shorter.

Lydia was right; most of the people auditioning with us were juniors and seniors. We were both among some of the shorter people in school, standing only five feet two inches. We felt out of our league with everyone else so much bigger than us. We waited while those “oh so mature” older guys and girls auditioned for a role in the play. Maybe Lydia was right. Maybe there wasn’t a chance for freshmen like us.

The big black curtain rose up beside me almost to the ceiling backstage. No matter how many times I did a play, I felt safe behind the curtain, instead of out onstage.

“Next!” the stage director, Mrs. Rubins, called out.

But still, I had Lydia beside me. Only this time, she looked more nervous than I did. She paced around and bit her lip, her eyes darting from the middle of the stage back to us. What was up with that?

“You okay?” I asked her. I saw the nervousness on her face.

 “I don’t know,” She told me. “I don’t know if I want to do this.”

 “Lydia, I don’t get it,” I said to her, “You’re great at this. You always have been. We can do this. Best Friends Forever, remember?”

Lydia started to smile. I was her biggest fan when it came to her plays and made a point of attending each one. And then, when I started doing plays with her in middle school, it was even better. We went home and rehearsed together.

I glanced over at the blond-haired guy flubbing his lines. It was only a few seconds now. I’d done this many times before, but it was a totally new theater director, and I had no idea how Mrs. Rubins would be. “Next!” This was it. We couldn’t put the audition off any longer. I forced myself to walk out.

Lydia and I took our spot at down center stage. From the first row, Mrs. Rubins stared at us behind her wild frizzy red hair and death glare, and the two student directors sat beside her. “And you two are?”

I looked over at Lydia, because she usually did introductions, being the theater veteran, and she blurted, “Lydia Jamison and Chris Howard.”

“And which parts are you reading for?”

“Hermia and Lysander.”

We had practiced the scene for our audition several times, just like we did with Romeo and Juliet and other plays. My line was first. I turned slightly to Lydia. “All right, let’s see what you got,” she said.  She motioned her arms for us to get started.

I gulped.  Something about how now was how it started, right?  I opened my mouth and hoped that it would turn into something from the play.

“How now, my love?  Why is your cheek so pale?  How chance the roses there do fade…so fast?”  I tried to project my voice toward the stage while I faced Lydia.

Lydia still looked around like she didn’t want to be there, but then sighed and spoke up, like she had no choice. “Belike for want of rain, which I could well beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.” 

Finally, the lines came back to me.  “Ay me!” I half yelled as I walked toward her.  “For aught that I could ever read, ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth; But either it was different in blood—”

Lydia as Hermia turned away from me.  “O Cross! Too High to be enthrall’d to low.”

I reached my hand and touched Lydia’s cheek, and pulled her to me.  She looked away.  “Or else misgraffed in respect of years—”

She swatted my hand away.  “O Spite!  Too old to be engaged to young.”

I walked closer, concern in my novice.  “Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—“

Lydia turned her eyes to look at mine, and I saw a desperate longing in them, which I wondered might not even be from the play.  “Oh hell!  To choose love by another’s eyes.”

I opened my mouth to say the next line - but before I did, Mrs. Rubins blurted, “Stop!”

We both jumped and turned toward her.  “We are out of time.  I do already have a couple in the running for Lysander and Hermia, and they did excellent in last year’s Twelfth Night.  However, you two did very well.  Callbacks are next Thursday afternoon after school.  Please be there.  If you are not, I’m going to give the parts to them.  Have a good day, Mr. Howard and Ms. Jamison.”

She got up and walked up the aisle, and the two student directors followed closely behind her. 

I grinned at Lydia on stage.  “We did it!” I said to her.

She smiled back and gave me a hug.  “You’re right.  That wasn’t so bad.  I can feel it now.  I want to do the play.”

“Great, I’m so glad to hear that,” I said.

We walked to our lockers. I found my locker, near the beginning of the hall. Three doors down was Lydia’s locker, nearer to the door. She opened it, and a paper fell out advertising the dance. Just great! I couldn’t get away from it. 

There was a paper in my locker too.  I looked at the Homecoming Dance paper that fell out of my locker. “Psycho Girlfriend” was playing. I heard of them. It was an all-girl punk band from the school that sung mostly angry songs about boys. I felt sorry for whoever their actual boyfriends might be.

I picked up my books and put them and the paper in my backpack. Well, I’m glad that Lydia wouldn’t ask me to this dance. I observed many relationships crash and burn, as these high schoolers tried to navigate the world of romance.  Together one day, fighting or with someone else the next day. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. 

But wait a second, why should I just push it aside because of other failed relationships?  Our friendship is different from other peoples’ relationship. It seemed like a stupid reason when I thought about the situation that way. 

Why are you really avoiding this, Chris?  What would be so bad if we went to the dance?  You know she wanted this.  Stop being so worried that bad things were going to happen.  I wanted that knot in my stomach to stop twisting.  This was not as bad as I had made it out to be.

The paper was still in Lydia’s hand as I walked up to her. I gulped.  She moved to put the paper away, but something in her stopped.  She turned to me.

My heart was beating out of my chest as she held it up and said, “Would you like to go?”

I closed my eyes as I searched to find an answer.