Kathey was mostly asking David about being in the theater with his parents. David had parts in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Oliver! in his parents' theater company. As they talked, Yolanda felt kind of stupid listening. What if they had walked up and found her? No, it was better that she found them first. She walked around the corner again and up to the cafeteria door. The soda machine was right inside.

"Oh, here you are," Yolanda said, trying to keep her voice light and unconcerned.

"Here we are," said David, "you want a soda?"

She didn't, but she wanted David to do something for her in front of Kathey. "I don't have any money."

"I got some," he said, motioning her towards the machine, "what kind do you want?" Yolanda neatly stepped past Kathey and stood next to David at the machine. "Grape," she said.

"Comin' up," David said. As he put in the change in, he gave her a sideways glance that made her smile. He reached out and took her hand as her soda rumbled down into the bottom spot.

"You guys, I'm going to go to see if rehearsal's started yet," Kathey said from the doorway.

David looked up, startled. "Oh, right. We'll be back in a sec."

When Kathey left, Yolanda gently let go of David's hand and opened her soda. "She likes you, you know," she mumbled over the hiss of the can opening.

David looked towards the door, where Kathey had been. "Na-uh, she's trying to get to Troy."

Yolanda swallowed, shaking her head. "She doesn't talk to Troy anymore. Not that he cares," she added, not wanting to sound as though Troy was jealous.

"I don't know why you guys don't like Kathey, she's okay," David said.

"Well, you didn't before either," said Yolanda. She turned towards the door, but David took her arm.

"What you think I like her? Is that why you're mad?" he said.

Yolanda stopped and looked at him. "Me? You're the one who joined her group before I could even talk to you."

"Talk to me? You weren't even looking at me after Rita called you over. I talked to you for like five seconds and then you disappeared with them after for the rest of rehearsal."

"You didn't even check and see if I wanted to be in your group," Yolanda said.

"How do you know what I was doing, you were across the room!"

Yolanda traced the rim of her soda with her index finger. "Well you didn't know what I was doing either."

"Yeah, cause you wouldn't talk to me when I got over there."

"Well, what was the point, you had already decided to be in their group."

"Oh, there was no point in talking to me? Thanks a lot," David said. He started towards the door the cafeteria, throwing his soda into the trash with an angry twist of his arm.

"David wait!" Yolanda said, her anger fading. She didn't want David to leave mad. Kathey was no doubt practically crawling down the hall so she could keep up with them. He stopped, but didn't turn around.

"I just thought you didn't want to be in the group with me, that's all. Rita called me over so she could get me and you in their group because she knew that...that I wanted us to be in the same group. But by the time I knew what was going on it was too late."

David turned a little towards her, leaning his back against the doorjamb. "So why didn't you talk to me after that?"

"How could I, you were with Kathey the whole time."

David sighed. "I don't like her."

Yolanda didn't answer. She traced the rim on the soda can again.

"Yolanda, I don't." David came closer to her.

"Okay," she said.

David stood in front of her, tilting her head to make her look up at him. "Did I get mad about Chris?"

Yolanda rolled her eyes. "That's just a stupid rumor, that's different. Chris doesn't like me at all, and Kathey," she stopped talking because David no longer seemed to be listening.

"I like you," he said when she was quiet. He leaned in to kiss her. This time Yolanda didn't lean back, but leaned in towards him, putting the hand that wasn't holding the soda on his shoulder. When their lips met David put both arms around her waist and pulled her towards him. Yolanda felt a little strange kissing him in the middle of an empty school cafeteria, but she decided it felt too good to care. Every slight movement of his hands on her back left a trail of delicious little chills.

Finally, she had to come up for air, and pulled her mouth away from his reluctantly. "We have to get back to rehearsal," she breathed, "I'm probably going to get it for disappearing again."

David didn't say anything, he just kept looking at her.

"What?" Yolanda asked.

David shook his head. "Nothing," he said. Yolanda looked closer at him and he blushed. It was so cute she had to kiss him again, on the cheek. Then she let him off the hook. Untangling herself and grabbing his hand, she led him towards the door.

"C'mon, we really should go."

When they got back to the theater, rehearsal had started. When she saw Mr. Rome working with Rita and Laura, the girl who played another teacher, Yolanda sighed with relief.

"Oh good, he's not working with the students," she whispered to David.

They walked quietly down the aisle of seats and slipped into where Yolanda's improv group was sitting. Yolanda looked sideways at David to see if he looked back at Kathey. He didn't.

Linda slipped in the seat next to Yolanda. "You guys missed it," she said, "Rome was pissed."

"Why?" asked Yolanda.

"Because nobody could find you guys."

"Kathey knew where we were," hissed Yolanda.

"Oh she was all Miss Innocent. 'Gee Mr. Rome, I came straight back from getting the chairs.I don't know where they went," Linda said.

"Oh God," Yolanda said. She turned to David. "You see what I mean?" He shrugged.

Yolanda turned back to Linda. "What happened then, am I in trouble again?"

Linda shook her head. "No actually, Jess covered for you."

"What'd she say?"

"She said she sent you to look for something. She told me later that it was some costumes or something that everyone in drama was looking for but can never find, that way if you came back without anything she could just say you didn't find it either. Pretty smart, huh?"

"Hmm, did he believe her?" asked Yolanda, looking anxiously up onstage at Jess, who was listening to Mr. Rome talk about a scene.

When Mr. Rome broke up rehearsal Rita came down off the stage and stood in front of Yolanda's row, hands on her hips.

"Andee," she said, "where have you been? We looked everywhere."

"Didn't Jess tell you?" asked Yolanda. David snickered and Linda kicked her foot.

Rita lifted an eyebrow. "Very funny. I think you have something to say to Jess."

Yolanda was getting annoyed at Rita's tone of voice. It was the one people used to say "Bad dog!" For the first time in their acquaintance she spoke to Rita in a tone less than her usual near-reverence. "Tell me something I don't know," she snapped, getting up.

"That's better," Yolanda heard Rita say she started walking towards Jeff. Oh shutup, Yolanda thought.

She headed over towards Jess, but Jeff beat her there.

"What are you doing sending my cast on errands during rehearsal?"

"Lay off, Jeff, I made a mistake, I thought Rome was working with just the facility cast today," Jess said. She turned to her clipboard and began flipping papers and writing.

Jeff leaned in closer. "Genius, if we weren't going to work with the seventh graders, why would Rome have them here? We could work on facility scenes without them."

"For your information, genius, Michele Lynch and Kelly Baker are in many faculity scenes and they are seventh graders."

"Just try to keep track with what's going on. " Jeff said. "Please?"

"Yes sir." Jess smirked at him and he walked away.

"Thanks Jess. I'm sorry about that," Yolanda said.

Jess looked back down at her clipboard. "You owe me, kiddo. Big time."

"I know, thanks," said Yolanda.

Jess looked down at her. "For the last time, stay put. Got it?"

Yolanda nodded and Jess walked away.

In the car on the way home, things weren't much better. Yolanda got into the back, hoping Jeff would forget about her and talk to Troy the way he did before, but the first thing he said as he pulled out of his parking space was, "You know Andee, I seem to remember that we talked about you not disappearing on me all ready. Did you forget?"

Yolanda sighed. This again. Yolanda was beginning to think people were taking this whole thing a little too seriously. "Jess gave me the lecture, okay?"

"What's with the attitude?" Jeff asked.

Attitude? "And what about you? If you knew that I really left, why did you yell at Jess?"

"I did not yell at Jess," Jeff snapped. He was quiet for a minute, the said in calmer tone, "Look, I thought I made it clear that everything you guys do is on my butt; Rome wasn't going to put you guys in the show at all, and a lot of people think you get special treatment anyway, I don't need this shi..crap, Andee. And neither do you."

Yolanda wanted to tell him to go ahead and say "shit" if it would make him feel better. But she just folded her arms and looked out of the window. "I thought Mr. Rome liked us," she said after awhile.

"He does, he offered to help out when your guys' teacher got sick. But the county's hassling him, people in our school are hassling him, plus, he's not big on little kids, I just don't want to get him anymore pissed off with the situation."

"Little kids? Thanks a lot." Yolanda said.

"Look, no offense, he just thinks of anyone younger than fourteen as little kids. And he's not very good with people under high school age. You'll see when you come to Seb, he's totally different. Some people can only deal with certain age groups, Rome's cut-off is high school."

They were at the Coppenhagen's house. Jeff pulled up in the driveway, turned off the car and faced the twins, the defensive Yolanda in the back, the quiet Troy up front.

"You guys, I don't want to be a hardass, okay? I like you guys; I want us to be friends. But you've gotta help me out here."

Troy nodded and opened the door. "We'll see you next time. Sorry man."

"Nothing to be sorry for, T-roy. You okay? We didn't to finish talking about the other stuff."

Troy nodded again. "Yeah. Don't worry about it."

"I meant what I said about being friends," Jeff said.

"Right, I know. We can talk about it later. Brian's not going to change anytime soon, trust me," Troy said.

Jeff smiled. "Okay." Troy started walking towards the house.

Yolanda paused on her way out the door. "Jeff. I didn't mean to, really. I'll chain myself to the chair if that's want you want."

"I just want you all to be in the play, okay?"

"Could you give this to Jess and Rita in school tomorrow please?" she said, handing Jeff a meticulously folded piece of notebook paper. While she waited for Jeff and Troy to get ready to leave, Yolanda wrote a note to Jess and Rita to say she was sorry. She figured if they thought it was so funny to hang around seventh graders they would love a real live seventh grade note.

Jeff took the note. "Sure will."

"See you."

"Bye Andee."

Yolanda turned and walked towards the house. Troy looked up from the coat closet as she walked in.

"Good job, starlet. Why don't you just get us thrown off the play?"

Yolanda stalked past him. She definitely didn't have to take this from Troy. "Leave me alone," she said.

"I hope your little meeting with David was worth it!" He followed her into the living room.

Heather and George looked up from the couch. "How was rehearsal?"

"Don't ask," the twins said together.