Because that was Rule #7 of lying to your parents: Everything had to go exactly right.
And if it didn’t, you were screwed. If anything went wrong, and you needed help or to call home, you would now be in twice the trouble, because you’d have to admit to all the lies and subterfuge that came before. I’d never had to do this, but I’d heard the stories, and they were always awful. Like, I imagined it was bad enough to have to call home and wake your parents up and tell them that you crashed the car. But to have to do it while admitting that you’d lied about where you were going that night, that there was no study group, and that you were, in fact, in New Jersey (just to take an example from Emery’s life) was so much worse.
But it would all be okay! Because Stevie was coming back. Any second now.
Any second.
My feet started to hurt. I felt the cold whoosh of air that accompanied the trains through my long coat.
Well aware that I was grasping at straws, I wondered if there was any chance I’d misread this. Was it possible that Stevie was somewhere waiting for me, getting upset that I wasn’t finding her? But even as I thought this, I dismissed it. She’d been the one with the directions. Stevie wouldn’t have expected me to find her.
And the more time that went by and the longer I stood there, as trains departed and arrived, and as people came and went all around me, the louder a terrible thought in my mind became.
Stevie wasn’t coming back.
She’d left me on purpose.
Too much time had passed. She could have easily changed trains and come back by now. And she hadn’t. Which meant she’d chosen not to.
All of a sudden, it seemed painfully obvious that I’d been waiting for someone who wasn’t going to show up. Her unreadable expression through the train window was haunting me. Had she been saying I was on my own? That she didn’t care what happened to me? She’d told me she was going home, after all. She’d told me she was done and she was going back to Connecticut. She’d taken the subway straight to Columbia to get the keys, and was probably halfway to Mallory’s by now, without a single thought for me, standing alone on the cold platform and trying not to cry.
Had she been that mad about our fight? Mad enough to go off and leave me alone? Mad enough to abandon me?
Clearly, she had been. Which meant I was on my own.
The enormity of this situation was hitting me in waves that just kept on getting bigger, like a terrible version of that old car game about going to grandma’s house.
I was alone in New York City. I was alone in New York City and my best friend had abandoned me. I was alone in New York City and my best friend had abandoned me and I didn’t have a phone.
I looked around, like there was someone who could tell me what to do, suddenly feeling like my fancy dress and curled hair looked like a bad costume, fine onstage but tacky and gaudy in the light of day. I was all too aware of how much younger I was than everyone around me, and how much I wasn’t up to this. Why had I thought I could do this? I felt a sob catch somewhere in my throat.
I needed to talk to my parents. I wanted to go home.
I didn’t care if I would get in trouble, or that this was admitting I couldn’t hack it in the big bad city, even for a couple of hours. Everything in me was on high alert, telling me that I needed to touch base, go back to where it was safe, get out of this situation. But how was I supposed to do that? I turned in a circle on the platform, my hands shaking—and then saw, back by the benches, the pay phone.
I practically ran over to it. Would it even still work? It looked like it had seen better days—the phone was battered and scratched, and covered in what looked like decades’ worth of graffiti and scrawls. I picked up the receiver hesitantly.
A dial tone sounded in my ear—so this phone was working, which was a huge relief. But now what? At the bottom, under the keypad, was a series of instructions, white letters on a bright blue background. Since I was outside the calling area, I had to press one, then our home number. Luckily, I could do that—our landline was one of the very few numbers I had memorized.
I dialed, and an automated operator voice rang through, very loud, making me jump, telling me the call I was trying to complete cost seventy-five cents. I reached in my pocket for my change and slid three quarters through the coin slot. “Thank you,” the automated voice said, and I gripped the receiver, willing the phone to hurry up.
The phone rang twice, and at the start of the third ring, I got nervous. This was the last of my change—what if my parents didn’t answer? What was I supposed to do then?
“Hello?” a girl’s voice, one I didn’t recognize, answered. I frowned, wondering what was happening. Had the phone somehow connected me to whoever lived in my house back when there were pay phones? Or, more realistically, had I dialed the number wrong?
“Hi,” I said. “Um—I was calling for the Steinberger-Thompson house?”
“This is it,” the voice on the other end said cheerfully. “Can I help you?” I narrowed my eyes. Were we being robbed? By someone very polite?
“This is Kat Thompson,” I said. “I live there and I need to talk to my parents. Who is this?”
“Oh, gotcha,” the voice said. “This is Willa, I go to the high school? I’m babysitting for Grady tonight, you want to talk to him?”
“No,” I said quickly, since I was on the clock here and Grady would probably just tell me the day the first pay phone had been invented. Why had my parents gotten a babysitter? When I’d left them, everyone had been talking about getting pizza and staying in for the night. “I need to talk to—” I started, but Willa was talking over me, her words coming out in a rush.
“I’m actually—I don’t know if you remember me? I auditioned last year for Noises Off? I actually read with you in a scene? I didn’t get cast, but I ended up helping out with concessions during the show. You guys all did such a good job.”
“Oh. Okay. Um—”
“And I auditioned for Lear, too, and I’m hoping to just get ensemble. But I’m sure you’ll get a big part. You’re one of the stars—you’re Kat Thompson!” I couldn’t help but notice she said my name the way I said Amy Curry’s. “Anyway, I guess we’ll find out on Monday?”
All at once, it was like my fog of panic vanished and I could suddenly see myself clearly. What was I doing? If I told my parents where I was—and what I had done—I wouldn’t be allowed to be in Lear, even if I did get Cordelia. And I’d have to tell Mr. Campbell the reason why. And he’d be so disappointed in me.…
My mind was racing, now that I’d moved beyond run to my parents for help. Maybe I could still make this work. Yes, I’d panicked, but finding out that your best friend has just abandoned you in a subway station can do that to a person.
“So, want me to tell them that you called?”
I blinked, trying to focus. “Oh—um. No. Where are they, anyway? Did they go get dinner?”
“No, they went into New York for the night,” Willa said cheerfully, clearly not realizing that she’d just given me terrible news on multiple fronts, like it was suddenly the Napoleonic war over here.
“They—what?”
“I think they said they were going to an engagement party? They gave me the address where they’ll be… just hold on a second.” There was a pause, then three beeps sounded through the phone. What did that mean? Was the phone about to explode or something? Or, even worse, was I running out of time?