manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen

said. I thought, at the time, I saw anger flash in her eyes when she said it. I didn’t dare ask why.
    “Becky. Got it. Cool.” I cleared my throat again. “I saw you in
Midsummer
last year,” I added. “You were great.”
    Becky covered her mouth, as if she wasn’t allowed to smile. “Thanks,” she said. “It was fun.”
    “This is a big part,” I went on, trying not to let myself babble. “Scout, I mean.”
    She shrugged but kept the shy little smile on. “I guess.”
    At which point I hit a complete and total brick wall. I had absolutely nothing else to say. Nothing that wouldn’t have sent her screaming from the auditorium, anyway. I tried leafing through all the make-believe scripts I’d been working on since that first day of freshman year in the cafeteria, before remembering they’d self-deleted from my head when Becky first talked to me in the hall a month or so ago. I had nothing to fall back on.
    “So, you’re still dating Syd,” Becky said.
    I knew this made me a dick, but I could feel my face fall as I said, “Yeah … I guess.”
    Becky turned her head a bit, so her chin rested near her shoulder. Her eyelids were at half-mast. “You guess, huh?”
    Was it that this gesture was
universally
sexy, or that
any
move she made was sexy to me? Couldn’t tell ya.
    “… I guess,” I said.
    And she laughed.
    I’d never heard her laugh before. Okay, I’d barely heard her
speak
before, at least “out of character.” Invisible fingers tickled up my vertebrae and pulled me straight up, shoulders back, head afloat.
    “Well, your secret’s safe with me,” Becky said.
    “She’s really nice,” I said, knowing I sounded like a total dork. I would add that to my list right under “splendid abdominals.”
    “Most people are, when you finally see them,” Becky replied.
    It took a second for me to pick up on the fact that she was quoting from the play. Before I could form a response, she dug into her bag, pulled out her script, flipped it open, and started reading.
    I didn’t know if that meant we were done or what. It didn’t matter, though, because I heard the backstage doors opening and voices spilling in from the back hallway. I suddenly didn’t want to be caught talking to her, like we were doing something wrong. Which we weren’t, of course. But I couldn’t shake the feeling.
    “Got any pot, Mistah Dahcie?” Becky asked, without looking up from her script.
    I remember reacting physically to the question. Like I’d been jolted by the current from one of the lighting instruments. Which, it would turn out, was an omen of things to come.
    “Uh … no,” I said.
    “Eh,” Becky said. “Bummer. See you around?”
    “Y-yeah,” I stuttered. “I—I’ll be around.”
    The rest of the cast slowly filtered into the stage space. I expected all of them to stop and stare at us, but no one did. No one except maybe Neapolitan. I still didn’t know her real name. She darted quick glances at Becky, then me, before waving. At me.
    “See ya,” I said to Becky, semi-waving back at the neon ice-cream cone.
    Becky said nothing, her forehead wrinkled in concentration.
    I walked quickly through the auditorium seats to the booth, forgetting to finish plugging in the lighting instrument I’d been working on.
    Got any pot?
What the hell was up with that?
    I watched the rehearsal from the relative privacy of the booth, struggling with Becky’s question. I was not then and am not now exactly stupid when it comes to, shall we say, illicit substances. But Becky wasn’t supposed to use them. Or even know about them. My Becky, my story Becky, was above that kind of thing. There wasn’t room in my head for this revelation.
    So by the time rehearsal had ended for the day, I’d managed to force it out of my head.
Maybe
, I told myself,
she was testing me. Maybe she doesn’t want to date anyone who gets high
.
    That had to be it.

    “What about you?” I ask Becky, kicking at the base of a light