The Gorgeous One.

EXTRA (noun):

A member of the cast with no speaking role who provides background interest in a crowd scene.

By the time Georgina is finished with her salad, she’s on to me.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she says.

Georgina and I are eating dinner alone. This isn’t unusual because our Dad travels a lot for his job (he’s regional manager for Lucky Lou’s Burgers), and our mom is a lawyer and doesn’t get home until eight or nine at night. Georgina and I have our own little domestic routine, independent of Mom and Dad. Every day we take turns making dinner and eat it at the table together.

“I’m eating,” I say. “It’s really good. I love the…” I stab a piece of salad and hold it up to the Tiffany (looking) lamp Mom found at a garage sale and is convinced is worth a million dollars. “The lettuce. What kind is it?”

“The look on your face is not due to radicchio,” she says.

I put down my fork. It’s obvious I have no choice but to confess.

“I can stop thinking about what Joe said.”

“About trying out for a play?” Georgina asks.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I mean, I know he was just being nice and all.”

“Joe’s not that nice,” Georgina says. “You have talent. I’ve told you that a million times.”

I sit up straight and smile at her. I’m still not a hundred percent certain she is telling me the truth because, quite frankly, Georgina is too nice to tell me if she thinks Joe is full of crap, but still.

“Really?” I ask.

“Really,” she says with determination. “Let’s see,” she says, thinking. “Allan Silberstein is producing a play in December. He talked to me about doing it. There might be a part in there for you. It would be fun if we could be in a play together.”

I think about the last play my sister got me into. I should have known something was up when I heard the name of my character was Arse McDoody. Unfortunately, by the time I found out I had been cast as the backside of a horse, it was too late to bow out.

“No thanks. Besides, Nick said he’ll never do that again.” Nick had been cast as the front, so I’m not sure what he was still complaining about.

“No,” Georgina objects. “I’m talking about you having a role, a real role.”

“Like a person?”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll talk to him.”

“Remember the way he used to tousle his hair?” I bark out suddenly, attempting to impress Georgina with my ability to get in the moment just like (finger snap)>.“The way he would run his fingers through it when he was tired or upset? Alas no! You don’t! You’ve forgotten!” I slam my hand down on the table for emphasis, smack into the tub of butter.

“Oh…,” she says calmly, totally unfazed by my melodrama.

“Speaking of Joe, guess who he asked to the fall festival?”

Joe asked someone to the fall festival? Not that I ever expected him to ask me, but I still feel a little winded, as if I just found out my beloved boyfriend of the past two years has been cheating on me.

“Who?” I manage. I pick up my napkin and begin wiping off my hand.

“KC Parkinson,” she says.

Good grief. KC Parkinson? He was cheating on me with a giant, bubble headed, Barbie Doll? A girl who drew smiley faces and hearts on all her notebooks and once passed out cards giving people a “free smile”?

“Apparently she’s liked him a long time,” Georgina continues, oblivious to my discomfort.

Joe is the first and only secret I have ever kept from my sister. I haven’t told Georgina about my crush because I know what she would do if she found out. Georgina is extremely protective of me and she would hate the thought that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of hooking up with the guy of my dreams, and so she would go to great lengths to reassure me that I actually have a chance at going out with him. And then any time anyone ever mentioned his name she would turn to me with a look of pity mingled with outright grief that broadcast her sentiment to the world: poor, ugly, lonely Abby.

“I guess they hooked up a couple of times over the summer but Joe wasn’t interested in anything serious. So now KC is totally psyched.”

How come I didn’t know this? Nick my best friend is Joe’s brother! Good lord!

“They hooked up?” the thought of Joe, my intellectual hero, in the arms of the vacuous (one of my and Nick’s favorite words) girl I once caught walking out of a bathroom stall with Mico Gerard (she must have been given him one of her cards because he had a big smile on his face) makes me want to woof up my radicchio.

“Yeah,” Georgina continues. “He’s got a little bit of a rep. Like, he doesn’t let anyone get too close to him and keeps to himself. Some people think he’s kind of stuck up.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say.

Georgina puts down her fork and looks at me.

I shift my eyes away. “I always thought he seemed kind of sweet.”

She sighs long and deep. “It seems like everyone has a date for the fall festival except for me.”

I don’t, of course. And of course, my sister is aware of this little fact. Normally I would point this out in a not so nice fashion. But not now. Due to the whole twisting Allan Silberstein’s arm to get me a part thing, I’m trying to stay on her good side. And so I say, “What about Nate?”

Although Georgina would never admit to it, she loves guys with power. Two of her past three boyfriends have been the director of the spring musical, the most sought-after assignment in the entire school. The director of this year’s spring musical was announced several weeks ago: Nate Weislocker. Coincidentally, only days after the announcement, my sister fell deeply in love.

She rolls her eyes and flips back her long, silky hair. “Who knows?” she says, pushing her plate away even though she has only eaten half of her chicken.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to go with me.”

I know Georgina doesn’t actually believe that. After all, the whole school knows she’s interested in him. And no boy in his right mind can resist Georgina. Georgina reaches across the table and pulls my thumb.

“Look at your nail. You’ve bitten it down to the quick. And your cuticles are all chewed up. Are you wearing that polish I got you?”

In an attempt to break me of my disgusting habit, Georgina bought me some polish that tasted like puke and was guaranteed to squash my nail-biting habit in two days. Apparently none of the test subjects had been quite as determined or addicted as I am, since I wore it for a week and all I got was a headache from consuming all those gross chemicals.

“It doesn’t work,” I say, pulling my hand away from her and snagging the untouched chicken leg off her plate. And out of the blue I get the visual: Joe with an inflatable Barbie doll, lip-locked and making out.

I put the chicken down as my thumb drifts back to my mouth.

“What’s wrong with you tonight?” Georgina asks, looking at me suspiciously. I rarely leave food behind.

“I got a stomachache from all the vegetables in the salad,” I say quickly, thus achieving the impossible. Blaming her for my misery and changing the subject.

“Oh,” Georgina says. “Sorry.”

Oh great. Now, in addition to being nauseous, I feel like I just washed her favorite white shirt with my indigo Levis. “You know I don’t like carrots.” There. That’s better.

After stacking the dishes in the sink and rinsing them, I’m hoping by the time I get upstairs, Georgina will have forgotten all about the fall festival and moved on to more exciting things, like what’s on TV. But as soon as I get upstairs she starts yammering away again. And since our house is only fourteen feet wide and only two floors, there’s really no place to escape.

“Look at this,” Georgina says. She’s in front of the computer in our newly renovated bedroom, sitting at the blond-wood desk I designed especially for our room. I walked towards the computer and peer over Georgina’s shoulder so I can get a better look at the computer screen.

From: Tom Strout

Subject: fall festival

Hi, Georgina.

Do you want to go to the fall festival with me? It would be fun.

Tom

“Ugh,” she says. “I hate this.”

Tom Strout is a senior. He’s tall, cute, and a drama major.

“Hate what?” I ask, rereading the note.

“Well, I can’t go with him. Have you seen his hands? They’re kind of long and slender, like the hands of a woman.”

“What?” I ask, annoyed. “Who cares about his hands? He’s totally sweet. And he kind of looks like John Lloyd Young.”

Georgina had her favorite actors. They were all guys in Broadway, Tony award-winning stars: Kevin Kline, Matthew Broderick, Michael Cerveris, and her favorite, the guy I knew she was totally head over heels in love with and had seen not once, not twice, but thirteen times: John Lloyd Young, the Tony award-winning star of Jersey Boys. So I made a huge bulletin board to hang over her bed.

“John Lloyd Young?” she gasps, as though she can’t believe would dare to make such a comparison. “Hardly!”

“Well, more than Nate does, that’s for sure. Nate has blond hair!” and an upturned schnoz. Not that I’m in any position to point fingers. Especially when it comes to noses.

“Tom’s fine. It’s just that there’s no…no spark,” she says, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

“So tell him no.”

“It’s so awkward,” Georgina groans melodramatically. “And what do I say: No, I don’t have a date but I’m holding out, hoping someone better might ask?”

“Tell him it’s nothing personal but you only date directors.” I flop down on my bed, across my chest, close my eyes, and brace myself for Georgina’s reaction.

But she doesn’t get mad. “What’s wrong?” she asks softly.

“I don’t understand what’s so awful.” I cover my face with my hands even though my eyes are still shut.

“A really cute guy asked you to the dance and you don’t want to go with him because another really cute guy will ask you the minute he finds out you want to go with him.”

I can hear Georgina start typing her response. For some reason, I’m finding her seeming nonchalance about this whole thing extremely annoying. I open my eyes and swing my legs off the bed as I perch myself on the edge.

“I hope you’re telling the poor guy no so he can ask someone else. Do you know how many girls out there would love to go out with Tom? Who would kill just to have someone, anyone at all, ask them to the dance? Huh? Huh?”

Georgina spins around in her chair so she’s facing me. She gives me a gentle smile.

“You know, you could go to a dance, too. You’ve just never wanted to.”

I roll my eyes in disagreement as I begin to nibble on my thumb cuticle, fighting back a tsunami-sized wave of self-pity.

“What about Nick?” Georgina asks.

“He doesn’t want to go. He hates these things.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know that it’s important to you.”

Be brave, I tell myself.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“And so what if he doesn’t want to go? You’ll go with someone else.”

“Yeah, right,” I say sarcastically. Just to demonstrate that the conversation is truly over, I walk to the closet and pulled out my pajamas.

Georgina faced and smiled at me appreciatively. “You know what,” she says, walking to me and taking my hand. “I’m thinking this whole going to the dance with a guy thing is pretty stupid. Friends go with friends, right? Why not sisters? Let’s just you and me go together.”

Georgina and me? Of course!

I imagine myself entering the dance, basking in the arm and bright glow of my sister’s magnificent aura. And then I imagine my sister looking at me with the same tight, miserable smile she had when Mom made her take me to the Eighteen-and-under club. And who can blame her? Friends only went with friends and big sisters only took their little sisters when their little sisters were too loser-ish to be asked by anyone else. And as tempted as I might be to drag my sister down to my level, can I really do that to her?

Why yes! Yes, I can!

Georgina’s phone rings. She looks at the caller ID and mouths, “Nate.”

Oh crap.

“Tell him yes,” I say, as gently as I can.

“You sure?” she asks, wrinkling her nose in a cute little girl sort of way.

“I’m sure.”

I wrap my beefy arms around her size-two body and give her a quick squeeze before she answers the phone. And then I sit on the bed and chew on my thumbnail as I listen to her accept Nate’s invitation to the fall festival.

At lunch the next day, Nick is staring at me. Not that this is unusual, since Nick and I always sit by ourselves at lunch, so there’s really no one else to look at.

“Is everything okay?” he asks. “You really seem distracted or something.”

I haven’t told Nick I am obsessing about this whole Joe thing, but I’m pretty sure he knows anyway. (He’s his brother for crying out loud! They live in the same house!) He can read me like a book. He and I have been inseparable ever since I developed some deep affection with Joe. We met at the first day of High School when we were both in the nurse’s office, both using the same lame excuse to escape the scene in the cafeteria: a stomach ache. We immediately launched into a conversation about the difference between Ding Dongs and Ho Ho’s and my stomach ache miraculously disappeared. By the time the nurse informed Nick that his mother is not answering her phone, it no longer mattered. We have sat across from each other at lunch every school day since.

“I’m thinking about what Joe said yesterday,” I say, putting down my sandwich. I can’t stand the awful-tasting glop they serve in the cafeteria, so I always bring my lunch. “About trying out for a play.”

“And?” he asks.

“I was thinking it might be more fun if you tried out, too. I mean, Joe could get you in, I’m sure.”

Nick laughs. “Not this again.”

I play with the strings on my hoodie as I look behind Nick, toward the corner of the cafeteria where Joe is eating lunch. He never eats lunch in the cafeteria. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in here. He’s sitting next to KC and has his arm draped casually around her shoulders.

“I just think it might be fun,” I say.

“No thanks, Arse,” he says. “Or do you prefer Mr. McDoody?”

The thing about Nick is that he really possesses an amazing sense of self. Unlike me, Nick has a life completely separate from school. Every summer he attends a band camp, where, according to his stories of all the girls he has made out with, he is the campus stud.

“Miss McDoody, if you please,” I say mechanically, as I continue to stare at Joe.

“What are you looking at?” Nick asks. He twists around in his seat, following the direction of my gaze. “Oh,” he says. “My brother,” he laughs. “Dream boy.”

Dream boy. Ha-ha. I get it. Like it’s just a dream that I’ll ever be able to go out with him. How hilarious. Slap my knee and hold me back.

I know Nick isn’t trying to be mean, because although he’s ornery he’s actually very sweet (in a kind of bitter, cranky, grandpa sort of way), but I still feel like I stepped on a jellyfish.

“I’m just thinking about what he said about the dance.”

“Refresh,” Nick says, turning back to face me. “What did he say about the dance?”

“Just that we should go.”

“And that’s why you want to go? Just because of some offhand comment Joe made?”

“No,” I say, as the jellyfish becomes a piranha. “I want to go to the dance because…because I think it’ll be fun. And also…because…because I’m tired of sitting home alone.”

“Alone? Excuuuuse me! I thought were going to watch Star Wars, with Portuguese subtitles this time. In fact, I bought you a Princess Leia costume online. I was going to surprise you.”

I do my best to crack a smile as I keep my eyes focused on Joe.

“I told you I want to be Luke.”

Nick tucks the rest of his cheese and guava jam (I know, Ew right.) sandwich into his bag.

“All right. If it means that much to you, fine.”

“Fine what? I can be Luke?”

“Fine, we can go to the fall festival.”

“You’ll go?” I ask excitedly. I suddenly see myself making the grand entrance, complete with new eyebrows and physique-shrinking dress.

“Thank you,” I say.

“On one condition,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “I get to be Luke.”

That’s the thing about Nick: He always knows the perfect thing to say.