Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli (ereader with android txt) 📕

Scene 5

It’s long past dismissal. But Andy and I, world-class suck-ups, end up taping Ms. Zhao’s audition flyers around the school for almost an hour. You know how there’s always that one teacher you’d do anything for? The one you swear would be your ride-or-die BFF in any other context?

Ms. Zhao. No joke. The whole squad seriously worships her. She’s in her forties or so, with a wife and kids and everything, but she’s always up-to-date on the news and pop culture and basically all our dumb memes. And not in a try-hard way. You can just tell she thinks her students are cool and interesting people. Which shouldn’t be a revolutionary stance for a teacher, but it kind of is.

By the time we get home, Mom’s car is in the garage, with Ryan taking up the whole driveway behind her. Doesn’t matter. Andy always just pulls into his own driveway next door, and we cut straight through our adjacent front yards, back to my house. We’re given a hero’s welcome by the dogs as soon as we walk through the door. Charles and Camilla, pupper and doggo, respectively.

Mom’s at the counter, working on a snack plate, and her face lights up when we walk in. “Oh, hey! Katy, you just missed your brother. He’s out on a run.”

Of course he is. I swear, Ryan’s a couch potato by nature, but you’d never know it these days, especially during baseball season. Full-on jock mode.

“Are you doing Goldfish cracker art?” Anderson asks.

I take a closer look at Mom’s plate, and sure enough: multicolored Goldfish splayed in spiraling rainbow order. Normally, Ryan and I are kind of latchkey kids. Same with Andy—his parents are doctors, so they’re usually seeing patients until dinner. And Mom’s a middle school music teacher, which means she’s on the hook for after-school choir and the variety show. But when Mom’s home early, she likes to be as extra as possible.

She carries her Goldfish masterpiece over but sneaks in a round of cheek kisses first. “My boychick. Mwah.”

It’s funny—when it comes to me and Ryan, Mom’s obsessed with not playing favorites. Everything’s painstakingly equal—equal allowance, equal-sized bowls of cereal in the morning. I’m half convinced she named us Ryan and Kate so she could spend the exact same amount of money on each set of custom wooden letters she ordered for the door signs outside our bedrooms. I mean, I technically own half of Ryan’s car, and I don’t even drive.

But all that goes out the window when it comes to Anderson, her true favorite. She goes full Jewish mom when he’s here. It’s slightly terrifying.

“So? What’s the musical?” she asks, setting the Goldfish spiral between us. Anderson sinks into a chair, swipes a layer of red ones off the outer edge, and stuffs them into his mouth like they’re popcorn. Followed by lots of vigorous chewing. All of this just to keep my mom in suspense for a minute, because this boy lives for dramatic pauses.

Anderson finally swallows, smiling grandly up at her. “Once Upon a Mattress.”

“Oh, no way!” Mom presses both palms to her chest. “I was in that at camp. I played Winnifred!”

Anderson’s eyes widen. “Shut up.”

“For real.” Mom beams. “One of my favorite roles ever.”

So here’s the thing: I can kind of sing. But Mom can really sing. When she was my age, she was the lead in every single play she tried out for. Not just the school plays—she did community theater at the rec center, too. And of course, she was basically famous at Camp Wolf Lake in the summers. I think she pretty much ran their whole theater program from fourth grade on.

“Once Upon a Mattress. How exciting! I’ll have to tell Ellen. Katy, you remember my friend Ellen, right?” Mom says. And just like that, she’s off and running. “ . . . grew up together, and we were absolute best friends at camp, but we fell out of touch for—oy. Twenty-five years?” Mom shakes her head sadly. “We had one of those ridiculous fights, you know? She was seeing this terrible boy, and you know me. I’m not going to hold my tongue. What a schmuck. Thank God that finally ended. Ellen’s an absolute doll, though. You remember.”

“Yup. Ellen from camp who dated a schmuckboy.”

“Even worse, she married that schmuckboy,” Mom says. “Oy gevalt. Thankfully, the divorce is almost finalized, and she’s back in Roswell . . .”

My mind starts to drift. I love my mom, but she’s a Talker, capital T. She can keep herself going for hours. When we were younger, Ryan and I used to quietly time her. Of course, Andy’s nodding along politely like the perfect boychick he is.

“Shabbat dinner,” Mom concludes. “Anyway, look at me keeping you here, when I bet you guys are dying to sneak off and listen to that soundtrack.”

“Oh no—” Andy starts to say, but I cut him off.

“Yup. YUP. Gotta go work on the play. Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”

Listen. When my mom shows you an escape hatch, you take it.

Scene 6

Unfortunately, AP US History is already putting a serious damper on my daydream schedule. I just think it’s disrespectful of teachers to expect us to focus on Puritans when we’re eight days out from auditions.

There are so many things I need to think about by then. Things like audition songs and breath support and how much Zhao’s going to cast based on seniority this year. Every few years, Ms. Zhao gets it in her head that all the good parts should go to seniors. Which would be an excellent mindset down the line—like, Zhao, feel free to lean right the fuck into that next year. But if Ms. Zhao goes the seniority route this time, I don’t even have a shot.

The thing is, I kind of have my hopes up again. Classic me, dreaming of spotlights. My name at the top of the cast list. My voice, soaring on the wings