Chapter 39

"Are you in trouble?"

I'd been nuzzling Tami's neck as we walked. I kissed it and said, "Don't think so. Why?"

"Look."

I lifted my head, Tami was pointing toward my house. Robbie's little Rodrigo was parked in front, and Robbie was sitting on the hood.

"Should I make a break for it?"

Tami smiled evilly. "Nope, she's faster than you." I made a face. "And tackles harder."

For a few seconds I contemplated replacing Tami. A nice dumb blond. Judy Saunders was major cute. And she was smart enough to dress herself, but not much more. Life would be so much simpler. But I knew what Tami would say if I brought it up I'd be bored in ten minutes and unfortunately, Tami would be right.

Robbie hopped off her car as we approached. Watching her stand there waiting for us, I couldn't tell if I was in trouble or not. I reviewed the day and couldn't think of anything, aside from a crack about the number one student.

"Hi, Rob..."

In a heartbeat, Robbie was in my arms her lips mashed against mine.

"I guess you're not in trouble," I heard Tami say in an amused voice next to me as Robbie's tongue pushed deep into my mouth.

"It was so good," Robbie said when she finally came up for air.

Dress rehearsal had been a disaster. Peter stepped on Susie's toes three times, and at one point was reciting dialog from act three while the rest of us were rehearsing act one. I wasn't much better, though I didn't step on anyone's toes.

Mr. Reed had arranged for us to have the stage all day, so we were able to get a full run though before lunch, then work the scenes that Robbie was most worried about, then another full run though. The only catch had been springing some of our troop from the middle school, but Mr. Hallowell helped with that.

We finished at three-thirty. Tami and I drove Traci and Susie back to the middle school for gymnastics, Robbie headed for football, and Darlene for cheerleading. By five-thirty we were all back and getting the final preparations done. At least Mom dropped off a pizza to keep us from starving. I think Robbie forgot food existed.

The auditorium started to fill up about six-thirty and was SRO, standing-room-only, by seven, though we didn't start for another half an hour. It was almost like winning right there, since Romeo and George had only filled about three-quarters of the seats and The Accidental Detective about half.

"It's traditional that Tony says something," Robbie announced a couple minutes before curtain.

Traditional? Then I remembered last year when I'd threatened to have Ricky gag her.

I motioned everyone to circle around me. "Okay, I think most of you know that I don't think we can win. So, we're just doing this for us. Let's have fun, hit our marks, give the audience a good show, then wait to lose." Okay, not the most inspirational speech ever, but Robbie was nodding.

"One more thing," Tami added. "We're not just doing it for us." Her eyes flicked toward the ceiling, and all of us knew that Zoe was watching too.

I'd called the play Zoe's Song, but it wasn't about Zoe, not really. The Zoe in the play was thirteen and had a death sentence hanging over her head, but the resemblance ended there. The play's Zoe was an eighth grader, she hadn't skipped ahead, and she didn't go to school. She home schooled on her computer as her mom tried to protect her from the world.

David was a freshman who lived three houses away. He was a bit of a geek, not popular but not unpopular. Kind of an every-kid.

In act one, they met in a chat room on the internet, not knowing they lived in the same town, let alone on the same block. We'd made a set that had two bedrooms, Zoe's and David's, separated by a big machine with flashing lights that was supposed to represent a server or the internet in general. We'd set it up so that we could light one or both bedrooms, depending on who the scene focused on. It was kind of amateurish, but hey, we were amateurs.