Read Online Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle - Free Book Online Page B

out of Mom’s closet, for Homecoming, and which ended up stained with red wine by the end of the night. Legendary family story. And Heidi had to bring it back to my mom, sobbing, apologizing.
    And that’s how she’s looking at me. Like I’m that dress, stained and irretrievable.
    “Aunt Heidi, I’m so sorry,” I say. She reaches to touch my arm. And you know how when you’ve just pulled it together but then somebody gives you the slightest touch, not even a hug, but shows you the littlest kindness? And you just lose it again? “Don’t,” I say, “please, don’t. Please.”
    “Come on,” she says, looking at her watch, “we need to get you on the next bus. Like, now .” I pick up my bookbag and slot Libby’s emergency manila envelope back in.
    “Are those . . . lozenges?” Aunt Heidi says.
    “What?” I say, wiping my horrible zitty nose against my horrible plaid shirt, the shirt of a pirate out to prove that he doesn’t care what people think of him. Except I do. I do terribly.
    “Did you pack lozenges for your trip?”
    “Yes.” (And I even thought of it before Libby did.)
    “Because that’s what Broadway people—what— carry on them?” Heidi says, smiling or something.
    “I dunno, yes. Yes?”
    “And you’ve got your water bottle, and”—she pulls back the zipper of my bookbag—“twenty-four Entenmann’s Donuts?”
    “Twenty.” I’d had four on the bus ride. “Actually, sixteen.” I had several today, and one at the rest stop after I thought the guy was going to kill me in the bathroom; when he was only handing me Libby’s brilliant escape note.
    “That sounds about right,” Heidi says. “Most of my actor friends eat donuts all day and drink water.” She clears her throat and brushes the hair off her shoulders. “When they’re not doing yoga,” I think she says, quietly.
    “I guess we ought to really scram, huh,” I say, composing my voice, “if I want to swing by Applebee’s before the bus?”
    Even though I’ll hate myself if I don’t audition. Even though Libby fell on her sword for me, and I didn’t even earn it.
    Heidi doesn’t say anything, pausing like my head might be on fire. “Come on,” she finally says, “let’s get out of here,” and she leads me to the bank of elevators.
    And when the elevator dings, another round of children get out; one relevant boy in particular holds a stack of music and a beautiful, professional color headshot, topped only by his audition song: “Bigger Isn’t Better.” Same as mine but probably sung like areal boy, with friends. Just as all of this happens, the blonde casting assistant woman yells out, “Anthony Foster? Number ninety-one, are you here or not?”
    Her voice is ragged, the ripped chords of an Eat’n Park hostess back home. Of somebody who has been calling my number for the last ten minutes, I can hear, and is as ready to give up on me as I am.
    I look at Aunt Heidi.
    “Anthony?” she says.
    “I”—I fight back tears, my face a leaking boat in a storm—“I lied. And I used Anthony’s fake ID.”
    The boy with my song and the nice headshot passes us and snickers, and finally there’s something here that I can relate to: being laughed at. I would give anything to be like him. He’s probably a whole three years younger than me. Back when nobody at school had gotten the growth spurt that could give them the strength and confidence to steal your lunch, to bury it in the playground sand, to not even eat your turkey sandwich with too much mayonnaise that you had to wake up and make for yourself that morning.
    “Just a second,” Heidi calls down the hall, leaving my side, pushing past the snickering boy. “Just a second, please.” The hallway stops squirming and looks at her. “Anthony Foster is here. Anthony Foster is going to audition.”
    I swallow and blink, and pop a lozenge, uncappingmy water bottle and spilling half the contents down my shirt in a hasty chug. Heidi walks up to the casting