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  Paige Davis, the five-foot junior videographer, was tiptoe on a stool as usual. She looked away from the viewfinder long enough to frown at me from under the rim of her baseball cap. She snapped a grape-sized gum bubble, then looked away.

  Like Yesterly’s screw up was my fault, somehow.

  In a way I could see Paige’s point. After all, I was the news director, the one who was supposed to be sitting in the empty canvas chair beside her. I earned my title fair and square. Problem was, if you were director, you were supposed to show up for the gig fifteen minutes early, minimum. Not five minutes late.

  The daily news report was over after the newest installment of Vice Principal Skagg’s thirty-second PSA series. This time it was Skagg’s “friendly reminder” about time management and how it’s a shame nobody wears wristwatches anymore.

  After that, Savannah Lark signed off with a flip of her bangs.

  Golden tresses, sharp arched eyebrows, and ripe pink lips that spoke every word of news like retelling a mind-blowing dream she had the night before. Girls like her could make smart guys do dumbass things.

  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I’m your typical sad sack, out of my league, pining after the homecoming queen. But Savannah wasn’t that. She was on the modern dance team instead of the cheerleading squad, and she sewed her own clothes—fabrics culled from secondhand drapes and upholstery. I even heard a rumor she read books, for entertainment.

  Plus she had a legit talent agent who landed her a national zit cream commercial when she was only fourteen—and, even crazier, nobody at school made fun of her about it. Last season, she did a walk-on role in Cape Twilight Blues, Joe Malone’s squeeze-of-the-week. Her only line was, “I love it when you diss her like that, Joey Baby.”

  She was already holding her proverbial one-way ticket to Hollywood. And I was gunning to reserve the seat beside her, all too eager. I was going to be her muse, even if she didn’t know it yet. Heck, I even hammered out my own original episode of Cape Twilight just to see if I could write outside my comfort zone. I write a lot of things, but this one was a spec script, which means some nobody dude like me types up a plot for free, hoping it’ll help me break into the business someday.

  The script was only to see if I could build a sturdy plot, maybe impress Savannah. I outlined it for weeks, rushed a draft in a few days. Seriously, once you’ve got the story, the lame-ass dialog just writes itself. The script was mostly a joke. I made two copies, gave one to Connie and put the other in a drawer, then flaked on the follow-through revisions.

  “Lights,” somebody barked. Even though the spotlight darkened, I could swear Savannah still glowed for a few seconds longer.

  I sucked up my nerves and headed her way.

  She stood up and started unbuttoning her blouse. Don’t get excited: the blouse was a costume for the news broadcast, but when she slipped it off her shoulders, man, even though I knew her regular striped V-neck tee was underneath, I couldn’t help but stumble over the snake pit of wires and cords in my path.

  Luckily, being three or four notches below a girl like Savannah, I didn’t have to fret about how I was coming off. I could trip over myself, almost do a face-plant, and it would be no biggie.

  That was the advantage I had over all the jocks and slick pretty boys. Nobody at Port City Academy had the gall to step up to Savannah Lark but me. It was part of my job description. I was the behind-the-scenes guy, the wind beneath her wings, so to speak.

  “Great show, Savannah. Your timing was impeccable,” I said. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, you know the Young Auteur competition Mr. Yesterly’s been talking about the last couple months?”

  “Sure, the short film contest,” she said, hooking her purse strap over her shoulder.

  “I’ve been working on a script,” I explained. “I really think I got something special. I’d love you to read it, obviously with an eye on the female lead. It’s something juicy that you could definitely put on your demo reel. Seriously get noticed if you put the right spin on it, you know?”

  She had her phone in both hands, thumbing through text messages.

  “You could get it done in like a matter of hours,” I said, urging her copy of the script toward her. All her lines were highlighted in pink. “I’ve broken down the shots so you wouldn’t even have to memorize the script all at once.”

  “‘Take the Leap?’” she asked, reading the title aloud.

  “It’s just a place-holder title right now. We’d shoot this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?”

  “Total short notice, but I had to be sure every line sung. You’ll see.”

  “But I thought the submission deadline was today,” she said.

  “Monday afternoon. I’ll edit it this weekend.”

  She smiled like you do at a kid who’s done a totally obvious magic trick. “I appreciate this, Russ. I’ll have to see how my day goes from here…”

  “We’re going to shoot at the Silver Bullet diner. You wouldn’t even have to change what you’re wearing. You’d be so perfect, Savannah, I really can’t imagine anyone else for the role.”

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Give me your number, and I’ll text you before school’s over if I’m good to go.”

  Score. I mean, tentative score. Conditionally, if all went according to plan. But, score.

  She pressed the digits into her touchscreen while I recited them.

  Her mixed berry-scented perfume smelled of sweet promise. That afternoon, I’d capture her starlight on digital video. I’d win myself a summer internship behind the gates of Silver Screen Studios, and spend the next three months proving my creative genius to the big wigs.

  I didn’t want to plan any further than that, limit my options.

  I got a little distracted watching Savannah walk away, so Paige Davis had to punch my shoulder to get my attention. Then she had to hike up her chin to see me over the brim of her 2011 pink ribbon 5K walk-a-thon baseball cap.

  She said, “I thought the director was the one who did the don’t text me, I’ll text you routine, not the other way around.”

  “You’re a walking spycam,” I said.

  She plucked Savannah’s wireless mic from the desktop and showed it to me. “Guilty. I recorded the whole thing, so y’all could keep it as a memento of whatever.”

  “You recorded our conversation?”

  “You mean your monologue?” Paige asked. “No, I didn’t. I was kidding.”

  “You watch. She’ll fall in love with the script. She’ll do the shoot.”

  “I’m positive you’re right,” Paige said. Sarcasm so light you could never call her out on it. It went like this with Paige and me. Years ago we were on the same community little league team. Then, after I enrolled at Port City Academy, we wound up together in just about every extracurricular club. Friends was maybe too strong a word, but we crossed paths and partnered up for projects more times than I could count. She was like a yappy little dog—too cute and predictable to really annoy me much.

  Truth is, I looked forward to our bickering. Paige’s quips kept me honest. I loved to see her trying so hard to win against me in everything, even if she succeeded more than half the time. Most kids at Port City Academy weren’t worth her scathing critiques, is what I told myself. Noble adversaries made your wins more delicious and seasoned your losses with just the right bitter flavor.

  There was also the other reason you couldn’t really dislike Paige. Like Connie, she was a survivor of Cape Fear’s dark dragging undertow. Two years back, her older brother killed himself just before his high school graduation. Pills. It wasn’t anything she talked about, but everybody knew.

  I remembered her brother at our baseball games, cheering her on from the bleachers. A knee injury kept him out of varsity so Paige was his backup plan. I didn’t hear the news until summer was over, until the gossip and funeral and the earliest stages of grief had already passed.

  At school, Paige came back with a vengeance, like his
suicide was totally wiped from her memory. She seemed the same, not post-traumatic neurotic. Maybe even more focused than before, but there was this cloud in her life, this thing that was her identity—The Girl Whose Brother Killed Himself—even if she totally rejected that label with everything she did.

  But you can’t catch a person’s pain from just brushing against her in a crowd. Most people in our class, even the teachers, handled Paige like her latent family illness could relapse with the slightest exposure, like one unkind word could kill her. Only a few of us knew she needed worthy frenemies to thrive.

  Paige’s dead brother, Conrad’s dead dad. I didn’t know exactly why I got caught up with these tragic family histories. Maybe because I’d gotten mostly a free ride in life and I felt the pang of privilege. Or maybe I wanted to appreciate their pain because it could help the intensity and authenticity of my scriptwriting, and of living life in general. It helped me prep for whatever twists might come my way.

  Isn’t that what great art is? A test drive for living? Play it out till you get it right? And if I managed to catch a clean stretch of truth, my movies could help somebody’s suffering. Maybe even my friends’.

  I don’t know.

  “I need to ask a big favor, Paige,” I said.

  “You want me to run camera for you this afternoon,” she guessed.

  “I’d like you to be my cinematographer, yes.”

  “Ooooh, fancy. I’ll have to see how my day goes from here.”

  “Very funny.”

  “She didn’t even trade you her number, dude. That’s a bad sign.”

  “I’ll call you if she sets a time. When she sets a time.”

  “That’s the spirit,” she said, smacking my arm again. “Oh, and by the way, Savannah was right.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  With her gotcha grin, Paige delivered the news: “The deadline for the film project is today, Hitchcock.”

  Today. I got the stupid deadline wrong, even after hearing it from Savannah’s own lips three times a week during the morning broadcasts. I thought it was on Monday. I even wrote it wrong on my mom’s kitchen white board. You get a date fixed, you just can’t shake it. The perfect scheme starts to topple, and I’m scrambling to get a hold of it, thinking this is the worst of what could possibly go wrong.

  I had to plead my case with Mr. Yesterly. His office was only a few steps away, a fish-bowl cubicle inside the media studio. Just as I came in, he dribbled hot tea from a mug onto his hand and hissed at the pain.

  “Guess I won’t be drinking that for a while,” he said. He uncapped a bottle of aspirin with his thumb and tossed a few in his mouth.

  “You all right, Mr. Yes?”

  “Under the weather.” He rubbed his left shoulder and scrunched his face.

  “You shouldn’t pump iron so much.”

  “Ha—that’ll be the day.”

  George Yesterly was a nice enough guy, but it was crazy to think he used to be actual on-air broadcasting talent back in his prime. He did time at WCPF, the local NBC affiliate, then got promoted to Atlanta and spent three years doing roaming street reportage there. But then, for whatever reason, he jumped ship and came back to Cape Fear to teach.

  Nervous breakdown was the rumor.

  Even more bizarre was knowing this chubby dude with the fishing vest and the low-tide hairline grew up with my mom. Asked her to the prom, in fact, although she turned him down. Awkward. Sort of a stalker scenario before there was a word for it. Hang-up phone calls, freaky anonymous love poems slipped into her locker, way back in the day.

  Mom could laugh about it now, seeing Yesterly’s name on my report card. Not that he ever once let on that he knew I was her kid, even though he had to know, and I bet the dude still carried the torch for Madeline Belmont. I figured maybe he’d even cut me some slack, considering.

  Use whatever advantages you’ve got, as Mom herself would say.

  “I wanted to ask you about the deadline on the Young Auteurs project,” I said. “For some reason I had it in my head that it was Monday. I’m just finishing up the final edits on the footage…”

  Yesterly flashed his crossing-guard stop hand. “I can’t, Russ. It’s for your own good, and I’m sure you’ll agree if you reflect on it. Firm deadlines are an indispensable part of this profession.”

  “Honestly, Mr. Yes? I don’t want to be a news director. I want to do movies, and I truly believe this internship with Silver Screens is going to put me right where I need to be.”

  “Well, you haven’t won it, yet,” he warned. “You’ve got to put yourself where you need to be. And please understand, this morning was your third tardy. If you’re late once more, I’m going to be forced to transfer your director status to another student I can trust to get the job done.”

  He didn’t need to say who he meant. A certain snarky redhead who just loved to win.

  “I’ll be on time from now on,” I promised. “Twenty minutes early.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Get yourself organized, and you’ll be unstoppable.”

  “But about the film competition?” Thirty seconds to plead my case before the first period bell rang. I didn’t want to have to mention the distant past: Yesterly’s own junior year, when he stole my mother’s beach towel while she was taking a dip in the ocean. Allegedly. Going over those reruns would be awkward for both of us.

  “Aw, Russ—” he groaned.

  “Please, Mr. Yes, hear me out. I wasn’t sure if you set the deadline yourself, to provide like a buffer, or if it was studio-imposed, because if there’s any wiggle room at all, first thing Monday morning, or, if you want, I could even bring it around your house this weekend.”

  “I’m sorry, Russ. The deadline is four-thirty. That’s when I’m leaving with the entries I have. There are other area high schools, and all of them are adhering to the deadline. I’ve got my own responsibilities to uphold.”

  He did look genuinely sick to his stomach about it. The poor guy knew I was a shoe-in.

  “If I brought it by the studio myself, on Monday, do you think they’d—”

  The bell cut me off, time up.

  “See, this is what I’m talking about, Russ,” he said. “You can’t go calling in favors all the time. You’ve got the talent. You’ve got the ambition. I’m sorry to have to be straight with you.”

  I put my face in my hands and said, “I get it. No favoritism.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, wincing a little. “I know you’ll learn from this for next time.”

  “Mr. Yes?” I asked, showing him my best tortured, defeated look. “Could I have a tardy slip? I’m late for math.”

  TIME WAS never on my side. All the work I did convincing Savannah, corralling Conrad and Paige for this film shoot of mine? It didn’t mean squat now. If I had a way to contact Savannah, I’d have called the whole deal off. But our line of communication ran in only one direction.

  So instead, every chance I got, I checked my cell for a text from her.

  Those chances were few, since most teachers had a phone confiscation policy. The phone had to stay in my locker until lunch break, and all I did was think about getting back to it. Hooked on the hope of that little blinking signal: new message.

  All through lunch I kept the cell on the table, right by my hand. Across from me, Conrad couldn’t start eating till all his green beans were leveled flat in one compartment of his divider tray. His conversation fixation this week was interplanetary colonization, and he was asking me, “So would you do it? Would you volunteer to take the interstellar Mayflower to a habitable planet?”

  I played along. “Sounds like fun. Why not?”

  “Because it’ll take light years. You’d live the rest of your life on a spaceship, and so would your kids. It would take, like ten generations to get there. By then you’d be ancient history.”

  “Does the ship have a movie theater? Would Savannah be there, because making ancestors with her…”

  Conrad frowned at his
lunch tray. “This isn’t about girls and movies,” he said.

  “You’re only thinking about this because of that stupid Uncharted Cosmos show. Your zero-gravity sex dreams with that Manic Pixie Dream Girl in space spandex. You know, I think you’re actually happy my video shoot fell through.”

  “No,” he said. “I wanted to see you win the internship.”

  “Did you even read the script?”

  He nodded inconclusively, and then went back to his musing. “Warp speed isn’t so much moving as it is shrinking space,” he said, slowly crushing his empty milk carton as if to demonstrate. I wasn’t even sure he was talking to me.

  Sometimes he’d fall into these hypnotic states. He’d answer your questions, but only on autopilot. I was used to this behavior from my dad, who did what he called thought experiments for a living, at least before he got canned. Government contract stuff, supposedly. Maybe even military.

  Connie was on Dad’s wavelength. He liked to think my dad secretly knew the status of every nuclear warhead in China and could safely wrangle us all into an underground bunker while the world above was blasted to ash and permanent shadows. Seriously doubtful. Connie probably wanted to think of my father as heroic like his was, but Kasper Vale only worked in his slippers, gawking at the harmless glow of his computer monitor.

  “Savannah’s probably not even going to call,” I said. “You’re off the hook.”

  “I would’ve done your video shoot,” Connie said.

  “Maybe it’s time to revisit the radio tower idea I had?”

  Connie grabbed the edges of the lunch table. “No freaking way,” he said.

  Just the thought of heights could set him off, even if he wasn’t the one in danger. My first video brainstorm before I came up with the diner scene was to climb the WCPF radio tower down by the river, all the way to the top, recording the whole event on a camera mounted to a bike helmet I’d be wearing.

  Why? I don’t know. It was the next logical step in a series of stunts that started with the AFV trampoline thing, a chance to redeem myself, even if it was more of a performance art piece than a story. But Connie vetoed the idea every time I mentioned it. Listening to him moan about the iffy legality and the threat of death took almost all the thrill away.