“Brad?” Beckett’s eyebrows flew up, and there was a touch of jealousy in his voice.
“Mallory’s Pomeranian,” I explained, but judging by the expression on Beckett’s face, this hadn’t cleared anything up.
“God.” Beckett shook his head, his eyes wide. “You’ve been having quite a night.”
“You can say that again.”
“You’ve been having quite a night.” He said it with the exact same intonation, and even though I didn’t want to, I smiled. This was the kind of dorky humor I remembered. Before everything had changed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking around. “I thought you were going to your parents’ play.”
He lifted up the pizzas in his arms. “Just picking some dinner up for the crew. It’ll be intermission by the time I’m back. Best pies around.”
“Sure,” I said. “Well, see you.” I gave him a nod and a tight smile and then started to walk away, being as curt with him as I always was. I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps, though, before I flashed back to what Stevie had said on the subway—the revelation that the truth of their breakup was not what I’d thought it was, that there was more than an outside chance I’d been a jerk to Beckett for no reason all school year.
I tried to remember the details of when Stevie had shown up at my door in floods of tears. Had she ever actually told me that Beckett had dumped her? I didn’t think so now—but she’d let me believe it, and let me go on believing it. If that was the case, it was the biggest lie of omission ever.
I turned around and walked back—Beckett was still standing there with his pizzas. “I—actually,” I started, then shook my head. I knew I had to be getting to Mr. Campbell’s play, but I also didn’t want to let any more time go by before fixing this, if I really was in the wrong, like I was afraid I was. “Stevie said something to me earlier. About how you weren’t actually to blame for your breakup?” Beckett looked down at the stack of boxes in his arms, not meeting my eye. “I guess I just assumed…”
“You know Stevie,” Beckett said with a shrug and a sad smile. “She doesn’t like to have the hard conversations.”
“Yeah,” I said, my head spinning. I knew that about Stevie—of course I knew it—but I hadn’t thought that this had extended to me, to not telling me basic truths. “But I’m really sorry.” I winced, thinking back to the last few months, how cold I’d been to him, how dismissive. “I thought I was defending my friend. What actually happened?”
Beckett took a breath, like he was going to say something, then shook his head. “If Stevie hasn’t told you, I don’t think it’s my place to.”
I nodded. That was fair. And that, I realized, was what Beckett had always been. He was a good guy—he hadn’t even called me on the fact that I’d been an asshole to him for months when he wasn’t in the wrong. “I should really get going,” I said, knowing that I should probably have already been inside the theater by now. I started to walk down the street, and Beckett fell into step next to me.
“Where are you going?”
“Mr. Campbell wrote and directed a play and it’s premiering tonight. On Fifty-First.”
“But what about Stevie’s dinner?”
“What about it?” I asked, turning to him, surprised by the question. “I mean, I don’t think she’s going to be there. Before we got separated, she said she was going home.”
Beckett shook his head. “She wouldn’t have left you there. Something must have happened.”
For the first time, I let myself consider this possibility, and all its ramifications. “I waited for her,” I said, but with less conviction now. “I waited for a really long time.…”
“She wouldn’t have just left you behind,” Beckett insisted. He stopped walking and I stopped too. “This is Stevie we’re talking about.”
“But…” I tried to get my head around this. What if something had happened and she had gone back and found that I wasn’t there? It was all a lot to try and process, at the very moment I had no time to process it. “I’m supposed to go see this play,” I said faintly.
“You know she might be waiting for you at Josephine’s. She might be sitting there all alone,” Beckett said, his eyebrows furrowing.
I swallowed hard at the thought of it. But I’d come too far and gone through too much to back down now. And if this could do it—if I could guarantee I’d get Cordelia—I had to do it.
Didn’t I?
For just a moment, I thought about it—about changing direction, going down to the Village instead, being there at Josephine’s for Stevie. And we could have dinner together after all, and…
I shook my head, trying to stop this fantasy scene from playing out. The probability was, even if she hadn’t gone right away, by now she was probably back in Stanwich. And then I’d just be alone at a restaurant I couldn’t afford, having missed my chance to impress Mr. Campbell. And then all of this would have been for nothing.
“I have to go,” I said again, trying to sound sure about this but utterly failing.
“Okay,” he said. He nodded down to his pizzas. “I should go too.”
I gave him a small smile. I hoped that maybe—when we were both back in our regular lives—things might be a little better between us now. “I’ll see you back home?”
He gave me a half smile. “See you there.”
I turned my back on him and started walking fast down Fifty-First Street, my thoughts in a jumble. Had I totally messed up everything tonight? Wrecked it like I’d wrecked my friendship with Beckett? I tried to see tonight from Stevie’s perspective. I break her phone—and don’t even apologize—and then when she comes back, I’m gone. Was that what had happened? Or was it something else, some other possibility I wasn’t considering?
I looked around and saw the Echo Theater up ahead. There wasn’t a brightly lit marquee like Broadway. The sign out front was small, and the theater was down a set of steps, in a basement. I knew I should go in—knew that I was already cutting this much too close. But the thought of Stevie, sitting alone at her birthday dinner and hoping I’d be there, was too much for me to take. Could I actually sit through this play, knowing she might be there?
I suddenly remembered the original plan for tonight, and that there was a way to do both.
I could see the play—I was here, after all—but I’d leave at intermission. It would give me enough time to get to Josephine’s in case Stevie was waiting there. Because if there was a chance she was there, I couldn’t leave her there alone. I couldn’t do that to her. And I didn’t want to.
I’d leave a note for Mr. Campbell telling him how much I liked it—because of course I would—and then I’d go. And I might not get as much credit as I would have if I’d gotten to stay afterward and talk to him, but it was better than nothing, and it had to help somewhat.
Buoyed by this plan, I took the steps to the theater two at a time. Outside the door was a framed poster I’d seen on the website, and I thrilled a little as I saw the words A new play by Brett Campbell in orange type across the bottom.