Read Online Almost Final Curtain by Tate Hallaway - Free Book Online Page A

at the mere thought. I’d never missed a show.
    “What?” Bea couldn’t have sounded more offended. “Ana Parker, you are going to the ball! No boy is going to keep you from the audition!”
    “Yes,” Taylor agreed, taking up the cause with enthusiasm. “The show must go on!”
    “Besides,” Bea said, quite seriously, when we’d come to my classroom, “you know you’re the best singer of any of us”—which meant a lot coming from Queen Bea, who always considered herself a diva and the best of everything theatrical.
    “Wow, Bea. You mean it?”
    She flipped a wave of her dyed black and pink hair over her shoulder and said, “Of course. Besides, you can’t let down Stassen High just because some stupid boy hasn’t the sense to hold on to a good thing. Us theater freaks have to band together, you know.”
    I smiled at her. “Great pep talk, BB. Can you give it to me again the day before auditions?”
    “Silly goose, auditions are tonight!”
     
     
    That news threw a wrench into the rest of my day.
    I hadn’t planned on concentrating terribly hard during classes, since I’d expected to wallow over the breakup for at least a few days, but now my mind raced. What should I sing? Should I really go? Had Mom washed my lucky audition shirt?
    The good news was I didn’t think about Nik at all; the bad news was that I was so distracted that I missed Mr. Feirria’s explanation of a really critical function in precalculus, and I completely botched a pop quiz in biology.
    But by lunch I’d figured out that I was going to sing the “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” song, since I mostly knew the words already. I hated musical tryouts, actually. I thought of myself more as an actor than a singer. I tended to get stage fright when asked to sing, especially solo.
    I was chewing on my sandwich, and my thoughts, when Bea pulled up the chair. “Hey,” she said with a sympathetic pat on my shoulder.
    Suddenly, looking up into her big, brown, pity-filled eyes, all my Nik emotions came rushing back. Bread and cheese stuck in my throat. “Hey,” I managed to choke in return.
    “He said it was your idea,” she said without preamble.
    My milk came out with a spat . “You texted Nik already? Damn, Bea! Let the body cool before you pounce!”
    Bea laughed like I wasn’t seriously pissed. “I thought you’d want to know he’s depressed about it.”
    That was something at least; misery loves company. Still, I shot Bea a warning stare.
    She neatly unfolded her bento box. “So—was it? Your idea, that is?”
    “I guess I sort of suggested it, but, for the record, I expected him to protest and not agree right away.” I leaned closer and dropped my voice. “I meant what I said to Taylor. His dad is pressuring him to, you know . . .”
    “Ah,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t as horrified by the prospect as I. I suspected that Bea and Nik shared a similar attitude about vampires. Bea, at least, had contact with only one—well, half a one: me. And we’d agreed not to really discuss that stuff. “I suppose it’s star-crossed-lover stuff, you and him.”
    Her reference to Romeo and Juliet only further served to depress me. I munched dejectedly on my cheddar cheese sandwich. Finally, I asked what I’d wanted to all along, “Did he say anything else?”
    “Not really,” she said in a way that made me think perhaps he had. I glanced up at her, trying to read her expression. She seemed unaccountably fascinated by the contents of her box, and wouldn’t look up at me. Then, I saw it: the hint of a blush! That cheat!
    “You have a date or something, don’t you?”
    She blushed harder, and looked around nervously at everything but me. “It’s not a date. He’s not ready for that.”
    “But you’re going out.”
    “Just to talk,” she said. Finally, her eyes met mine, with an expression that begged forgiveness. “He said the breakup was your idea, Ana. I thought it would be okay with you.”
    “Bullshit!”