"Yolanda Coppenhagen?" Jess looked down at Yolanda. Yolanda nodded.

"This is Rita Benson." Jess pulled Rita out from behind her.

"Hi!" Yolanda said.

"Hi," answered Rita with a small smile.

"Well, I’ll let you guys get to know each other." Jess turned to go. Rita took her arm.

"Aren’t you going to be with us?" she asked. "You can be Yolanda’s unofficial buddy. Right?" They looked at Yolanda, who nodded.

Jess shrugged. "Okay, let me give this to Jeff and I’ll be right back." She patted Rita’s arm and said to Yolanda, "She’s shy."

Rita smacked Jess’s arm. "Be quiet; I am not."

Yolanda wondered at the idea of a senior girl being afraid to talk to her. Rita seemed flustered, but that was ridiculous, she was the one in high school.

A black girl came up and tapped Jess on the shoulder during this exchange. Yolanda smiled and nodded at her like she saw her parents and aunts do to other blacks they saw. When she was little she though all black people knew each other and was surprised to discover that her parents and aunts were saying hello to perfect strangers. Yolanda wanted to try it for herself. So far, it hadn’t worked on anyone her own age, so she tried her luck on the older girl. Sure enough, she said hello to Yolanda before answering Jess and Rita’s "Hey Suzanne!"

"Jess, could I talk to you a second?" Suzanne asked.

"Sure. Be right back," Jess said to Rita and Yolanda.

Rita faced Yolanda. "Do you want to sit up there?" She pointed to a row of chairs away from the stage.

"Sure," As Yolanda slid off the stage to follow Rita, she noticed Jess and Suzanne looking at her and talking. Suzanne gestured towards Yolanda, then at the clipboard Jess held.

"Here we go, much better." Rita slipped in a seat and patted the one next to her. Yolanda sat.

"So what do you want to know?" Rita asked.

Yolanda looked around at the bustle of the theater; Jess and Suzanne talking, at Roy Escobar and his prop team measuring the stage as the lights overhead turned on and off as the lighting crew tested the lights on different parts of the stage. They were being directed by Mr. Rome and Jeff, who were standing on opposite sides of the stage looking up at the lighting booth, hands over eyebrows. Mr. Rome said something to Jeff and Jeff wrote on his clipboard. Her classmates with their high school buddies were scattered around. At that moment there wasn’t anywhere Yolanda would have rather been.

"I want to know about everything and everybody," Yolanda said. At first she thought her enthusiasm made her sound babyish, but it produced the first relaxed smile from Rita.

"Cool," she said. Rita lost no time in filling her in on the cast and crew.

Rita herself was in the lead role, a teacher named Sylvia Barrett. Yolanda’s co-star of sorts was named Chris Beck. He was playing the male teacher Yolanda’s character, Alice, had a crush on. Jeff and Jess understudied them. The four of them ended up doing a lot of plays together, but Jeff and Jess were going to be too busy to act in this play. Rita paid Yolanda and her classmates a complement; she said Mr. Rome doesn’t cast people just to be nice, so if the intermediates all have good parts there was a reason.

"You think so?" Yolanda beamed.

Rita nodded seriously. "Yeah, that kid David’s and your brother have decent roles, too. And you as Alice." Rita nudged Yolanda. "Some people are pissed off, but I think it’s good. I mean, it’s a play about students and teachers, it would be dumb if we all looked the same age, right?"

Yolanda nodded.

"See that girl over there with your brother? Don’t look long."

Yolanda casually rested her chin on her hand, appearing to look around the theater. She glanced at the small red-head talking to her brother.

"That’s Leaha," Rita said when Yolanda turned around." She was up for Alice, then Rome and Jeff decided to go with one of you guys. Now she’s like oh, Jeff did it on purpose."

"Why would he do that?" Yolanda said.

"That’s just the thing; he wouldn’t. Jeff told Jess that Rome thought nobody seemed young or innocent enough or whatever. So that’s why he suggested having you guys read--he didn’t really think Rome was going to go for it at first anyway. But it had nothing to do with Leaha, Miss The World Revolves Around Me. See, they sort of used to go out, then after they broke up and she thinks he has it out for her or something. He’s dreading having to deal with her because she’s such a spaze. But I say he asked for it, what can you expect when you go out with a sophomore?"

Yolanda nodded wisely.

"She’ll probably be kind of cold to you, don’t take it the wrong way," Rita said.

"Oh well," Yolanda said, flapping a hand, "I can’t help it if Rome choose me."

Rita smiled. "Exactly."

"It’s just like Kathey Templeman, that girl over there?" Yolanda pointed and Rita looked. "She hates me too for that same reason. And also because I wont let her use me to get to my brother."

"Oh, she likes him?" Rita asked.

"I guess. But she can talk to him herself if she wants instead of pretending to be my friend, you know? Don’t you hate when people try to use you like that?"

Rita nodded.

By this time Jess had escaped from Suzanne and began looking around for them. She was stopped by someone else. Rita filled Yolanda in on more about Jeff and Leaha’s on again off again romance and her views on the power struggle between Jeff and Jess.

"Attraction with a capital A, if you know what I mean,"

"Hmm-mmm," Yolanda said, even though that didn’t quite make sense. Why would fighting mean attraction? Troy and Kathey argued a lot, but he didn’t like her. She started to ask Rita about that when Jess come back up to them and plopped down in the row in front of them. She pointed at Yolanda.

"It seems you and little Jeff are in demand," she said.

"Who?" said Yolanda.

"Your brother. Suzanne’s mad because I didn’t give either of you to her." Jess shrugged. "I guess it’s a black thing."

"Is that what she said?" Rita asked.

"Well, she said that since they were the only black seventh graders and she was the only black drama student she should have gotten one of them."

"Well, what does that have to do with it?" Rita said.

"I know, I know..." Jess held up a hand. "I offered to switch Troy from Leaha, but then she goes, ‘nevermind.’"

"Well then, what’d she bring it up for?" Rita huffed.

"You know how she gets."

"What do you think?" Rita suddenly asked Yolanda, who was beginning to feel very conspicuous. She knew black people had to stick together and all that--her parents and Aunt Julia had told her that a hundred times--but she hated when people made a big deal over everything. That was the one thing all of the Coppenhagen kids could agree on; they all hated being singled out in school in special programs and groups. As if they didn’t stand out already!

"Well, she’s probably just trying to be nice to me and Troy. But I like meeting different people anyway...you know?" Yolanda said slowly, trying to think of the easiest way to get out of having to explain the whole thing without making Rita and Jess think she didn’t want to be with them.

"Exactly," said Jess.

"And besides," Rita put in, "Jess put us together because we’re both leads; it makes sense."

"Right," Yolanda said, not even trying to hold back her pleasure at being called a lead--put in the same category as Rita Benson, the star of the show.

The three of them nodded at each other.

"Oh and you know what?" Yolanda said.

"What?" Rita and Jess said together.

"That girl that Suzanne’s with, Linda? She likes costume stuff anyway, isn’t that what Suzanne is?"

"Hey yeah!" Rita said.

Jess nodded. "That’s probably why I put them together in the beginning. I can’t remember now."

Yolanda patted her arm. "See, you know what you’re doing."

"Thank you. I’m glad somebody can see that," Jess said, with a pointed look in Jeff’s direction.

"So what were you going say before?" Rita turned to Yolanda.

"Um...I was talking about Kathey...oh yeah and then there’s David."

"Which one’s David?" Rita asked, looking around. Jess lifted her head.

"Don’t look, he’s looking up here!"

"Sorry." Rita jerked her head back.

Jess snickered, eyes on her clipboard. "She’s as bad as you with that look-don’t look thing."

Rita and Yolanda ignored her.

"He’s that blond guy over there sitting on the piano bench," Yolanda hissed as though David could overhear their conversation from the front of the theater.

"What about him?" Rita asked, also in a whisper.

"Well, we were friends right, then I found out he liked me and I guess I liked him, so he asked me to go with him."

"Ohhh," breathed Rita. Jess made her eyebrows go up and down.

"Yeah," said Yolanda.

"So what did you say? Did you say yes?" asked Rita.

"Um, well I hadn’t answered him, really yet." Yolanda said quietly.

"Why?" Rita asked.

"Well, my mom..." Yolanda trailed off, not wanting to continue. How could she tell these two white girls that she was afraid her parents wouldn’t like David as her boyfriend because he wasn’t black? She couldn’t very well say she liked to meet all kinds of people then tell them that, could she?

"...And well I just didn’t want it to be around all these people, you know? Like Kathey."

"Good point," Jess said.

"Oh so, does your mom think you’re too young to have a boyfriend or something?" Rita asked.

Yolanda jumped on that. "Yeah, she does. You know how like when you grandmother goes, ‘so do you have a boyfriend yet?’ my mom goes "No!" before I can even answer the question myself."

Rita nodded. "Sounds familiar. So write him a note, why does your mom have to know?"

"Rita..."

"What Jess? It’s not like they’re going to run off and get married." Rita turned to Yolanda. "Right?"

Yolanda shook her head, giggling.

"I’m outta this," Jess said.

"Yolanda, all you have to do is like invite him over for dinner or something, oh or have a party! And get your mom to meet him. She’ll see how nice he is, and you can tell her then. It’s easy, that’s what I did when I had a boyfriend in seventh grade."

Yolanda thought this out. She didn’t have to say no to David and she could sort of ease her mother into the idea. She opened her notebook to a fresh sheet of paper. She looked up eagerly at Rita. "Tell me what to say to him."