Sellout Read Free Page B

motioned at my hair and waved frantically for Heather to stop spinning. But she couldn’t see me.
    Luckily, Heather’s turn was off balance so she missed the scarves by a few inches. I thought we were in the clear until Stephanie completed the perfect twirl right on top of the scarves, like a dreidel. She slipped and fell hard.
    A hush fell over the crowd. Stephanie was sprawled out on the stage, holding the scarves in one hand and her anklein the other. The curtain closed swiftly without any applause from the audience, just the sound of hushed whispering.
    I ran to Stephanie along with the others as quickly as I could. “Stephanie, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” I wanted to patch her back together and rewind time to undo the mess.
    “You should be sorry,” Stephanie yelled through her tears. Everyone, including Marcia, turned to look at me. I wondered if the audience could hear what was going on. Tilly had probably left the building by this point. I hovered over Stephanie, not knowing what else to do or say.
    One of the dancers bent down to inspect Stephanie’s ankle. I bent down, too. Stephanie leaned in toward me, so her face was just inches from my own.
    “What did you think? That no one would notice your fake bun ?” She mouthed it roughly, like the words were fighting to stay inside her mouth. “You’re more stupid than I thought, NaTasha Jennings,” she said before throwing the scarves at my feet.
    Marcia and a few of the girls gently moved Stephanie offstage and waved around frantically for the curtain call. One of Stephanie’s peons ran to get her parents.
    I was pretty sure no one in the audience wanted to see me back up there, not even my own family. So, when the curtain went up and Heather reached for my hand, I shook her off and ran backstage. I left the scarves right there on the stage floor.

CHAPTER THREE
    I BEAT MY family out to the car. When they finally caught up to me, my heart was still racing as if I had never left the stage. As far as I was concerned, I was never going back onstage again.
    No one said a word. Tilly and my parents quickly strapped themselves in and my dad couldn’t have started the engine fast enough. I wanted to bury my head deep in a sandpit somewhere far from home. I was relieved that I was going to be leaving town for a while. In Tilly’s neighborhood I could hide, take a deep breath, and relax again. No one there would know what happened tonight. I certainly wouldn’t be the one to bring it up. I wasn’t so sure about Tilly, though.
    Other families were starting to trickle out of the building as we drove out of the parking lot. I slid far down in my seat to avoid making any eye contact. I turned toward Tilly in the seat next to me and searched her face for a sign as to what she was thinking. She shook her head back and forth.
    “Something like this happened to me a long time ago,” Tilly said. I was glad she finally broke the ice. I raised myeyebrows and waited. When I could tell we’d pulled out onto Main Street, I pulled myself back into a seated position. “I, too, was trying to be someone I wasn’t and got caught.”
    The story that followed was a familiar one. Tilly used to nanny for a white family. She was invited to a party in their home as a guest and as the story goes, she got too comfortable. “Some of the other guests assumed I was the hired help and decided I should clean up after them instead of join them for dinner.”
    Tilly had gotten mad when the other guests treated her like a servant.
    “How’d you get over the humiliation?” I asked. My dad glanced at me in his rearview mirror.
    “I ran and hid for a while,” Tilly said, “but I came back to face them again when I was able to, just like you’ll have to one day.”
    The idea of facing Stephanie and Marcia made me nauseous. Good thing we were pulling into our driveway, because everything in my stomach felt like it was about to come out. As soon as we were parked, I ran in to the