It looked as though Jessica Frietag’s first official decision as cast manager was to let Rita Benson pick out her own intermediate drama buddy. Jeff gave her the job of matching the E.B. White students with a Seb person to ‘show them ropes’. In truth, Mr. Rome suggested the buddy program to keep the seventh graders out of people’s hair, but Jeff thought calling the idea a mentor program sounded more diplomatic.

"C’mon Jess, I’m the lead and you’re cast manager, there’s perks, you know?" Rita had began pestering her best friend to let have a suitable buddy since their fourth period drama class. It was now after school and Jess was showing signs of wearing down.

"Rita...if I let you pick, Jeff’s going to ream me for favoritism, I don’t need the hassle. Besides, you told me what you want a hundred times." Jess pulled out and unfolded a note Rita gave her after fifth period. "Girl, acted before, not whiny, not boy crazy," Jess read. She shook her head. "Like I can tell that by looking at them."

"Sure you can," Rita said. "I can pick one out easy."

"I see, better than I could?" Jess mumbled, looking back at her list.

Rita looked over at her. "No hon, I meant I just know what I’m looking for, you know?" She nudged Jess.

"Okay, okay," sighed Jess, "pick one. Just don’t tell Jeff."

"I won’t. Let’s see..." Rita looked over the group of intermediate students bunched in a corner of the stage. Her eyes flicked over the boys; the last thing she wanted was some hormonal thirteen year old boy following her around. As if high school guys weren’t bad enough!

There was a group of three girls sitting together, laughing and talking. Rita had seen them together ever since they walked in. She figured if she picked one, she’d always have to deal with the other two. They seemed sweet, but she’d only agreed to sign up for one buddy. There was another girl standing in between two boys, who looked as though they wanted to talk to each other. Boy crazy, no deal.

"I don’t see anyone." Rita pulled on Jess’ sleeve.

Jess lifted an eyebrow. "May I make a suggestion?"

Rita nodded. "Somebody good."

Jess pointed with her pen. "What about her?"

Rita looked over at a black girl she hadn’t noticed before sitting a little apart from the others. She didn’t look miserable or unpopular; she was casually leaning back on her hands, swinging her legs off of the end of the stage. There was a script in her lap.

"Who is she?"

"Jeff Jr’s sister, Yolanda Coppenhagen."

"That little guy over there?" Rita squinted in Troy’s direction. "Oh! Duh, I guess I should have figured."

"Well, just because they’re both black doesn’t mean they’re related," Jess said.

"I know," answered Rita, "but they both just happened to named Coppenhagen?"

"True," Jess said.

"She’s cute. I’ll take that one," Rita said, tapping her finger on the list Jess was writing on.

Jess snickered. "They’re not puppies, Rita."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, what’s her name again?"

"Yolanda."

"Yo whata? Yikes." Rita crinkled her nose.

"Yolanda. Get it right or you can’t have her."

"Yes ma’am." Rita saluted.

"She’d be good for you anyway because she’s Alice," Jess said, writing their names down together.

Rita watched Jess write their names down together. "Perfect," she said.

Yolanda didn’t deliberately set herself apart from the others, it just worked out that way. She liked three of the other seventh grade girls, but Michele, Kelly and Linda hung out so much that half the time Yolanda couldn’t tell what they were talking about because they had so many inside jokes.

Kathey Templeman was another story. While she had never said anything about Yolanda personally--at least anything Yolanda could prove, there were rumors; Yolanda knew that basically the only reason Kathey was nice to her was because she liked Troy. Kathey sometimes hung around Michelle and Kelly, and they stopped talking when Yolanda came into the classroom. Someone told her once that Kathey used to like David Sumner....but of course that was pointless. Yolanda finished that thought with a little smile that sold Rita, who was still watching her, completely.

"What are you smiling about?" Jeff asked as he passed by.

"Oh, nothing," Yolanda said.

"Oh boy, sounds dangerous." Jeff winked and went on. He spoke to Linda, Kelly and Michelle, who whispered and laughed before and after his approach.

"Oooo...Jeff said hi," Troy said in a high-pitched voice. He and David had managed to get away from Kathey. They sat down onstage on either side of Yolanda, making fun of the girls, who Mr. Rome had already started calling the Three Degrees, after some old singing group.

"He...talked to us....he-he-he." David nudged Yolanda.

"I think I wet myself," added Troy, which cracked David up.

Yolanda shook her head. They did act so ridiculous whenever Jeff came near them. She was the one he personally called (twice) and she was the only one who could act normal around him.

Jeff called to Troy, who jumped up, saying "I’ll be back."

Yolanda was hoping that wouldn’t happen. She knew why David had come over.

Sure enough, he asked her a question right away. "So Yolanda, have you thought about, umm, the other day?"

"Um-hmm..." Yolanda answered slowly, stalling for time.

"And what did you decide?"

Yolanda looked over at him. David was staring straight ahead. His cheeks were flushed and he was nervously driving his fingers on the stage. Yolanda thought his nervousness was cute. She had to say something.

"I meant to tell you." David looked up at her. "I have a note for you, but I can’t give it to you right now," Yolanda said, rolling her eyes towards the Three Degrees. She touched his arm. "Okay?"

"Yeah." He nodded rapidly.

Just then Jeff stood up and announced that they were ready to group people with their drama buddies. Then Jess stood up with a look at Jeff and said she would read from the list. Yolanda and David exchanged a last smile and turned to listen.

Jeff had called Troy over to explain why he wasn’t his high school buddy. Troy had hoped that he would be assigned to Jeff. Jeff had had him doing errands since Mr. Rome’s jump speech at the callbacks. Jeff, who was notorious for nicknames had already given him one that was beginning to stick.

"I thought a nickname was supposed to be shorter. T-roy takes two syllables to say," Troy said when Jeff first started using it.

"G’way kid, you bother me," Jeff had said, flicking Troy with a pencil without looking up from the cast list.

"I didn’t want you to think I was blowing you off or anything T-roy," Jeff was saying quietly to Troy, "but I can’t have an intermediate buddy as stage manager because everyone’s supposed to help me, you know?"

"Hmm-mmm." Troy nodded.

"But," Jeff lowered his voice, bending towards Troy so Jess couldn’t hear him, "stick around for when these guys will drive me crazy."

"Sure."

Jeff straightened up again and lead Troy over to Jess. "I might need to borrow T-roy sometimes. Who’s got him?"

Jess ran her finger down the list. "Leaha Simpson."

Jeff groaned. "Ah come on, Jess can’t you give him someone else? What about Suzanne? Don’t make me deal with Leaha right now."

Jess calmly continued to write on her clipboard. "Forget it Jeff, you have no control over this, Mr. Rome says."

"I don’t want control over this. I got enough things to do. I just asked."

"You made your bed, now lie in it." Jessica said with a smirk.

"Oh Christ," Jeff muttered. He clapped Troy on the shoulder. "Don’t worry T-roy, I’ll save you sometimes."

"Ignore him, Troy, Leaha’s a nice girl," Jess said after he left.

"What’s going on?" Troy asked.

"I’d tell you if I had three hours," Jess said. He was about to ask something else when Jess looked away and stared at Jeff, who was making the announcement about the intermediate buddy list.

"I was going to read the list Jeff."

"Okay, go ahead Jess."

"Thank you."

Troy looked back and forth between them all. As far as he was concerned he was just fine with Jeff. He discovered he liked being a part of all the things for the play that Jeff had to do. It was almost more fun than being on stage.

And for a high school guy Jeff was pretty nice. Troy would take him over Brian any day. He realized that he had been in Brian’s school for two weeks now and hadn’t had to talk about him yet. No one talked about school sports at all. Besides, Jeff wouldn’t talk to him like he was a little kid, the way a girl would.

Jess led Troy by the shoulder towards a girl sitting a few rows up from the stage. "Your buddy," she said to the girl.

"Hi, I’m Leaha. And whatever Jeff Kealy told you about me wasn’t true."

"Oh, I don’t listen to him," Troy answered, smiled. Leaha’s wide blue eyes looked anxious, a crinkle had formed on her freckled brow despite the casual tone in her voice.

The crinkle deepened. "What’d he say about me?"

Troy sat next to her in a seat on her row. "Nothing, everyone said you were nice."

Troy saw a little dimple. "Well, just don’t listen to Jeff," she said.

"Why, did you like him or something?"

"Oh," sighed Leaha, "it goes a little deeper than that. We kind of...went out."

"So he asked you to go with him or something?" Troy decided to get straight to the point. What was the big deal anyway?

Leaha suddenly laughed. "I haven’t heard that in forever." The way she said that annoyed Troy. He knew high school people said that too. How else were you supposed to say it, going steady? That sounded like a Happy Days re-run. He wasn’t wild about being someone’s boyfriend either. That was a word his stupid cousin Andie always used when she was getting in Brian’s business. "Are you her boyfriend?" she always asked about Maria.

"Hey, you guys getting to know each other?" Jeff came over and leaned on a seat in front of them.

"Hey Jeff!" said Troy.

Leaha stiffened. "Do you need something Jeff?"

"No, just hope you don’t mind if I borrow T-roy sometimes," Jeff said with a smile.

"And I hope you didn’t pair him up with me because you though I would just hand him over whenever you wanted," Leaha snapped her fingers, "whenever."

Jeff held up his hands. "I didn’t pair him with anyone Leaha, Jess is doing this, so you can lay off. He was helping me before, okay?"

"Excuse me." Leaha folded her arms and crossed her legs.

"Don’t worry, I can do both," he said, looking back and forth. He still wanted to help Jeff, but didn’t feel like being in between the two of them.

Leaha gave him a little smile and patted his arm. "Yes you will, if Herr Stage Director has anything to do with it."

"Okay, I’m outta here. Catch you later T-roy." Jeff turned and left.

Leaha sat for a minute and watched him, her arms and legs still crossed. She was swinging her top leg and hitting the seat in front of her. Jeff, oblivious, had walked over to talk to Suzanne Corley, the costume and prop manager.

"I heard Suzanne Corley say that she was going to be mad if she didn’t get you or your sister."

"Who?" said Troy, looking around.

"That one. The black girl," Leaha answered, as if Troy should have known. "I guess sometimes she gets tired of being the only one around, huh?"

Troy shrugged. Leaha was getting on his nerves, how was he supposed to know what some girl he’d never met was tired of? "How would I know?"

"Oh I guess you wouldn’t...I mean, well anyway, maybe it would’ve been nice." Leaha looked sideways at Troy.

"Look, I’ll probably meet her anyway, you know? Don’t worry about it," Troy said, feeling as though he were talking to Melissa. "Yolanda and I see enough black people at home anyway, we’ve got two parents, two aunts, a brother, two sisters and five cousins."

"Coppenhagen. Hey Brian’s your brother, right?"

"Well...yeah," Troy faltered. He was amazed at how Leaha could so completely miss his point. "You know him?"

"Not really, he’s in my fifth period class and then from basketball of course."

"Of course," said Troy.

Leaha didn’t hear him. "All of us sophomores think it’s really cool about him and Richard. Hey, maybe sometime you could introduce me!"

"Slight problem with that, he doesn’t talk to me," Troy said. "Didn’t you say he was in one of your classes? Talk to him there."

"I can’t, I sit too far away and he’s always talking to people."

"Oh well, too bad," Troy said.

"Oh c’mon Troy, you’re supposed to be my little seventh grade buddy..." Leaha put an arm around Troy’s shoulders and squeezed his cheeks with her free hand.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Troy batted her hand away, "keep calling me little and I’ll tell Brian you have a huge crush on him."

"Oh God! Don’t you dare! I’d kill you!" Leaha answered, wide-eyed.

"So are you going to tell me what you do for this play or what?"

"Oh! Yeah, that’s right," Leaha said with a little giggle. She began to chat about her duties as house manager.

Troy let his eyes roam around the theater while he listened with one ear. He saw Yolanda, who was still sitting expectantly on the stage, waiting to be paired. She waved at Troy, who crossed his eyes and nodded towards Leaha.