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A girl did a double take at us and said to her friend, “Is that Coco freaking Swift?”
“Yeah,” her friend scoffed. “I’m sure Coco Swift is at our school play.”
Coco smiled blankly. She moved differently here, in a way that drew less attention to her, but at the girls’ comments I saw her shoulders tighten, muscles braced against the unpredictable. I recognized it well.
Ten seconds later, the unpredictable arrived, just as Coco had predicted.
“Wait, that’s Coco Swift,” a guy said. He snapped a picture with his phone. “Coco Swift!” he yelled, though she was only five feet away from him.
She took a deep breath and said hello to him with that same absent smile she’d given Lucas in the Raineys’ kitchen. But before he could say anything else to her, a few more teenagers took pictures with their phones. Then a few more. Then they were holding their phones up, taking video of Coco and Sofia where they stood at the back of the auditorium.
Sofia waved politely and tried to inch past the throng.
“Hey, guys,” she said, smiling, “we’re just gonna grab some seats.”
But the kids didn’t stop filming; the crowd just got larger. Heads turned and seats were abandoned. Tweets and posts were announced and from a phone to my left, a Riven track started to play.
“You’re the new singer?” a blond girl asked Sofia.
“Yup.”
Sofia smiled at her, but the girl just held her phone up, recording.
It felt like a scene out of an old Twilight Zone episode: zombified teenagers confronting people with screens plastered to their hands like weapons, the mediat ion working only one way.
The crowd started to press closer, and Sofia and Coco exchanged glances. Sofia looked confused and nervous. Young. Coco just raised her eyebrows. I could practically see the “I told you so” form in the air between them.
When a boy reached out a hand and touched Coco’s shoulder, I pushed through the ten or so people that separated us and said to Coco and Sofia, “Maybe sticking around isn’t the best idea.”
Coco nodded immediately, but Sofia seemed like she was going to protest. Then she looked around and nodded.
“Shit,” she said. “Shit.”
I put an arm around each of them and walked through the crowd, bouncer expression firmly in place. The few kids who didn’t immediately move took one look at my glare and gave way.
Maya ran outside after us and pressed her car keys into Sofia’s hand.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said, eyes wide. “I really didn’t think this would…Shit. Will you tell Lucas I’m really sorry?”
She looked close to tears.
Maya hugged her and promised to relay the message. I walked them the rest of the way to the car. Ten or twelve kids had followed us outside too, and I didn’t want them getting the license plate or anything.
Since when had school plays gotten so well-attended, anyway?
“Thanks, Dane,” Sofia said at the car. She was looking at the ground. “I really didn’t…think that would happen.”
* * *
—
Back inside, I found the Raineys in the back row, like they were prepared to beat a hasty exit if Sofia needed them.
“Are they—” Maya started to ask, but then she looked around, as if seeing the crowd in a new light, and didn’t say anything more.
“They’re fine.”
I sat down next to Felix in what was clearly the smallest chair ever designed, and he twined his fingers through mine as the lights dimmed. Suddenly, I found myself in a situation I’d never imagined, holding hands with my boyfriend while sitting at a high school play, his family surrounding us.
At gunpoint I couldn’t have said what the play was about or whether Lucas was a good actor. In the half-privacy of darkness, with occasional eyes turning toward us, I was solely aware of Felix’s hand in mine, the scent of his hair, and the way he’d bounce his knee and then still himself.
When intermission came, Felix said, “We’ll be back,” and led me out of the auditorium and down a dark hallway.
“Where are we going?”
Felix just smiled and jogged up the stairs.
I followed him into the dark.
In the middle of the hallway, he paused, and scanned the row of lockers, then tugged me past a few more.
“This was my locker.” He ran his fingers over the metal surface like it was a genie’s lamp. “I spent all of high school watching kids make out at their lockers, or turn around and have their boyfriends or girlfriends kiss them good morning or goodbye or happy birthday. But never me.”
He turned and put his back to the metal. His expression was the deliberately flirty one that was a little self-conscious and a lot irresistible.
“If you’d been my boyfriend in high school, would you have kissed me at my locker?” he asked me.
I imagined Felix as he might have been in high school. Even smaller than he was now, even younger. Less sure of himself. I pictured my pimply, selfish high school self. The one who only cared about playing football so I could get a scholarship that would get me away from my father and his terrible, poisonous sadness.
