Leah's Song

by Daphne James Huff

  “Well, I’ll be there,” he said with a smile. “I hope you are, too.”

  I frowned. What did that mean? I took a deep breath to steady myself and looked at him closely, trying to interpret his smile. Was he just being friendly? Did he mean something else?

  I opened my mouth to say something - I wasn’t sure what, exactly, but something very funny and interesting, of course - when Lilly walked back in. I sighed. Whatever the brief moment had been, it was gone now.

  Keeping things fair was starting to feel really unfair.

  Chapter Five

  What am I doing here?

  I looked around the room. I recognized a few of the girls from lunch; some of the choir kids were friends with people in band. Lilly would know more of them. Their lockers were all in the same hallway.

  I wasn’t sure where to stand or what to do. Everyone was doing different warm ups, and I tried to imitate them. I felt ridiculous. I had no place being here. It was insane that I’d let some guy - ok, a really hot guy - convince me to do something I had never done before. Why couldn’t he have asked me to jump off a mountain or something? At least that would have been in private. No public humiliation.

  Just then, that same hot guy walked in the door. A few heads turned, then a few more. The girls were eyeing him with interest, and the guys were sizing him up. Most were the typical musical theater kind of guy - not the studly, muscled version of teen heartthrob that Josh was.

  I gloated inwardly as he smiled at me and came right over. At least, I had one thing the other girls didn’t. With a week left until school started, there wasn’t much information on him yet. The first thing most people would hear now was that he was my friend.

  “Hey,” he said, brushing the hair out of his eyes. His t-shirt today was a funny Homestar Runner one that I had the female version of at home. I was glad I hadn’t thought to wear it. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to dress like him or be really weird about the one thing we had in common. I was in more of a Lilly outfit (which made sense since she had picked it out for me). I wore a floaty top with bell sleeves and flared jeans - what she called “audition appropriate.” Mostly I just fiddled with my sleeves.

  “Hi,” I said, unsure where to look. I realized that this was the first time I’d talked to him without Lilly anywhere nearby. It was a chance to talk to him, on my own, despite all the rules we’d established for keeping things fair. In her eagerness to get me excited about choir, she hadn’t thought about how it would mean I’d see a lot of him without her. If I got in, that is.

  “You all warmed up?” he said, looking around at the others in the room. It was noisy with the chatter and the random notes flying around. I had to take a step closer to him to hear him properly.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t really know how to do all that,” I said. “I just sing.”

  “Here, try a few things like this,” he said and started to sing “red lolly yellow lolly” up and down a scale. At least I think it was a scale.

  I imitated him the best I could, conscious that a few of the girls were still staring at us. I think it was Melissa Monroe and Katie Higgins. They were kind of interchangeable in the same way teachers thought Lilly and I were. Except they looked a lot more like each other than Lilly and I did. Which is to say, very pretty and, judging by their own warm-ups, very talented.

  Josh smiled as I finished repeating the different exercises he went through. He really had a great voice.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I really don’t know anything about music.”

  “You never had lessons or anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I went along to some of my sister’s before she switched to soccer,” I said. “My parents didn’t have time to have us in different classes, so I did soccer too for a few years until the coach finally told my parents it was a waste of time.”

  He laughed.

  “Sometimes, I wish one of my coaches had told my parents that,” he said. “But my dad really wants me to play. So I do it for him. I know, and my coaches know, there’s no way I’ll play past high school, but it makes my parents happy to see me out there.”

  “Do they know you’re here?”

  “Yeah, but I already tried out for football so I know I’m in,” he said. “This was kind of a back-up, in case I wasn’t, but I want to see if I could get in anyway. Maybe for the spring after football is over.”

  I nodded, not sure what else to say without Lilly there to alternate with. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to keep things fair if all I could manage was small talk during our time in choir together. I was saved from having to think of anything else to say by the choir director, Mr. Price, coming in the door and clapping his hands.

  “Okay! Let’s get started. Who picked On My Own to sing for the audition?”

  My hand and a half dozen others went up into the air.

  “Great! Into the next room please.”

  “Good luck,” Josh said with a wide smile. I gave him a very weak one of my own as I followed Mr. Price out the door.

  I was glad I wouldn’t be singing in front of the whole group. But this was kind of worse because I’d be hearing the other girls sing the same song as me.

  Luckily, I was only the second to go. I was nervous, my heart beating incredibly fast, and it felt like the notes that had come so easily the previous week got stuck on their way out. It was only about halfway through that I finally began to relax and get into it. I closed my eyes, which helped block out the stares.

  When I was done, I opened my eyes to see Mr. Price frowning and the other girls glowering.

  “Leah, right?” he said, checking his list. I nodded. “You’re a junior?” I nodded again and tugged at my sleeves.

  “Why haven’t you auditioned before this year?”

  I shrugged.

  “I didn’t really think about it,” I said honestly.

  “Hmmm,” was all he said. He looked at me intently another minute before calling the next girl.

  I sat down in the back row of chairs, crossing my legs and wringing my hands, while the girl who had gone before me started whispering to her friend sitting next to her. They spent the next few minutes casting glances back at me; quick little bursts of unfriendly stares that made my stomach clench with unease.

  The next three girls were okay. I couldn’t really concentrate. I was worried about what the “Hmm” from Mr. Price meant.

  When everyone had finished, he passed out some sheet music.

  “Okay, let’s sight read a few things.”

  I blanched. I had a vague idea what that meant. Singing music we’d never seen before.

  “Leah, can you read music?” he asked, moving to the front of the room along with the other girls. They tittered at his question, smug smiles on their upturned faces. I stayed in my chair, clutching the music and staring at it, willing it to make sense to me.

  I shook my head very slowly, looking down at my shoes.

  “How did you practice the audition piece then?”

  “I showed it to my friend, Lilly, who’s in band,” I said quietly. “And she found a CD that had an arrangement like it, and I listened to it.” About a thousand times, but he didn’t need to know that.

  His eyebrows popped up. The other girls were glaring again. He didn’t say anything else to me directly but continued to stare at me, his mouth was turned down and brow furrowed.

  He went to the piano in the corner and said he’d play along with us as we sang. We went through it twice and by halfway through the first time, I had gotten the hang of it.

  “Thank you, ladies, for your singing,” he said and walked to the door to open it. We all filed out, the others whispering to each other. About me?

  It looked like people just left once they were done, but I took my time gathering my things, waiting to see if Josh would come back over.

  He bounced over almost immediately, looking the complete opposite of the nervous I still felt.

&
nbsp; “So, how’d you do?” His eyes were wide and hopeful.

  I shrugged and played with the zipper on my bag.

  “I can’t really read music,” I said in a low voice. “I think that means I won’t get in.”

  He waved a hand dismissively.

  “Details,” he said with a smile. My heart fluttered a little. He was being so encouraging to someone he didn’t really know that well. It was very sweet. “What matters is having a good ear, and you definitely do.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile. Lilly had said the same thing, actually, and hadn’t seemed that worried about reading music. She said it would be easy to learn. I pulled the strap of my messenger bag over my head. “Well, I’ll see you around. Good luck.”

  I tried to ignore my shaking legs at the wide smile he gave me as I walked out.

  When the lists went up two days before school started, Lilly went with me to check. Josh was at football practice. We told him we’d head over to the field to let him know.

  My heart was pounding as we approached the doors to school. Lilly was practically jumping with eager anticipation.

  “I’m so excited!” she said as we opened the doors.

  “Why are you excited?” I said, trying not to sound too annoyed. “You already know that you’re in band.”

  “Yes, but I’m excited you’ll be in choir down the hall now,” she said. “And you can ask for a locker in our hallway, too.”

  “Lilly, I don’t even know if I got in,” I said, slowing my pace as we got closer and closer to the choir room. A few other people passed us on their way there. Band lists had gone up the day before for those that had missed the end of year try-outs.

  “Of course you did,” she said taking my hand and urging me forward. “You sing really well. I always told you that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know.” I was pulling back slightly on her hand, trying to get her to slow down. She could be quite pushy when she needed to be.

  “I just don’t know why you never listened to me when I told you to audition, yet you jumped at the chance when Josh suggested it.” I raised an eyebrow at her. She blushed. “Okay, yeah, I get why you did it. I’d have done it, too.”

  We giggled as we turned into the musical arts hallway. The band room was on one side, the choir room on the other, with the auditorium and the theater rooms all the way at the end.

  I took a deep breath and walked up to the choir room. There were two other people there looking at the lists, so we didn’t have to wait very long to take our turn to peruse the names.

  I looked for Josh’s first, not surprised to see him in the Choir I list under baritones. My eyes moved to the Choir II list, figuring if I had gotten in, it wouldn’t have been in the main ensemble.

  I didn’t see it. I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. There was a tight pressure in my chest and my nose started to feel a bit stuffy as the few tears that had pooled in the corner of my eyes threatened to escape. It wasn’t even something that I’d really wanted, right? So why am I so upset?

  “Leah, why are you crying?” said Lilly, turning to me with a huge smile. “You’re in the Choir I sopranos! That’s great!”

  My eyes shifted to the left and looked at the columns I had skipped over just a few seconds earlier. There it was, my name, Leah Cooper. Along with Melissa and Katie, I noticed, and with a few I recognized from other classes.

  The tightness in my chest didn’t seem to lessen, however, and the tears of disappointment quickly turned into tears of fear.

  “Oh, no, Leah!” said Lilly. Recognizing my look of terror she’d seen frequently throughout the years, she threw her arms around me. Usually I was terrified about a horror movie she’d made me watch, never about something in real life. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be great!”

  I took a few deep breaths and hugged her back.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it mattered that much to me,” I said, managing a small smile while wiping my nose. Now that I knew I was in, I realized I was happy. Really, really happy. “I never would have made it without your help. Thank you so much.”

  Lilly beamed. My heart lifted at seeing how excited she was for me. I hadn’t told my family yet that I’d even auditioned, and I had a feeling none of them would be anywhere near this happy for me.

  “Let’s go tell Josh he’s in, too,” she said, pulling out of the hug and grabbing my arm again. We started to run down the hall, giggling excitedly, until I realized something.

  “Wait, Lilly,” I said, pulling her to a stop. “This means I’ll be in class with him. I’ll see him every day. I don’t want things to get weird with us.”

  She stopped and thought about this.

  “We don’t know our full schedules yet. We could have other classes with him,” she said. But she sounded doubtful and worried.

  “And what if we don’t? What if I get to see him every day and you don’t? We both like him.”

  We’d never said as much to each other but, between our ferocious planning over the past few weeks to coordinate our contact with him and our mutual sighs of contentment whenever he would take his nightly run past our houses without a shirt, I could say with complete confidence that we felt the same way about him.

  “Well, what if we just agree neither of us should go after him?” she suggested after a few minutes of reflection. “I mean, he’s on the football team, so he’ll be hanging with them more than the music geeks like us once school starts.”

  This was probably true, and I might be getting worried for nothing. Still, I looked at Lilly, my eyebrows drawn together, and she squirmed a little under my inquisitive gaze. She wasn’t usually one to back off. You didn’t become the youngest first chair in Band I by not going after what you wanted.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” I said finally. She nodded. “Okay, so we’ll both just be friends with him, right?”

  “Right. No flirting and no one-on-one invites.”

  I nodded. We had our plan.

  We made our way out to the football field to tell him – together -- that he got into choir. As I went back and forth between the excitement and fear of what choir would mean for me, there was a thread of sadness running through me as well.

  When we got to the football field, I realized what was making me sad. Even if we’d only hung out a few times, and I knew he wasn’t going to fall madly in love with me just because we were in a class together, I still had a tiny bit of hope.

  He ran over to us, the sweaty hair plastered to his face making him somehow more attractive, not less. As Lilly told him that he’d gotten into choir, I started to regret the agreement I’d just made with her.

  To keep my best and oldest friend, I had to make sure I only saw him as a friend.

  Then he flashed me the biggest smile, the one that lit up his whole body, as he congratulated me on getting in as well.

  Oh man, this is going to be a long year.

  Chapter Six

  The most important part of the first day of school is not getting your schedule but getting your locker assignment. There were ways to request certain ones in certain hallways, but the rest were randomly assigned. When I saw how far I would be from the music wing, I considered doing as Lilly suggested and asking for one closer. Then I saw that Josh was in the same hallway as me, and I made a split second decision to not move. And to not tell Lilly.

  I was still kind of unsure about our agreement. Neither of us really had a chance with him, not once he saw the kind of Victoria’s Secret Angels Rosemark had on its cheerleading team. The more I thought about it, I realized having choir practice with him wouldn’t really be that big of a deal. It’s not like it was another class where we would be talking a lot or working on a lab project together. We’d be on opposite sides of the room and singing the entire time.

  It was my own fault, really. I’d been the one to worry about Lilly. She was so confident and so pretty but so nervous around guys. That’s why she did that stupid Anna Nicole voice. It was like
she didn’t want to be herself around guys she actually liked. Even at the cookouts all summer, she was playing the hostess instead of being her normal self like when it was just the two of us.

  I didn’t want some stupid guy to get between us. If he did end up liking her - and I was sure he would no matter how much time I had with him in choir - then I could be the gracious one and allow her to break our promise. She probably wouldn’t be the same with me. Only children were used to getting what they wanted, Lilly in particular. But I’d gotten used to it over the years.

  In the end, I decided not to tell her about the lockers until we knew if either of us had any classes with him. That seemed fair. No need to upset her if everything would work out.

  My morning passed Josh-less though I did catch a glimpse of him at his locker in between second and third period. He gave me a wave and a smile, and I nearly dropped all my books on the floor, my face burning a lovely shade of red. They were huge books, too. I was taking three Advanced Placement courses, which had seemed like a good idea until I joined choir. I wasn’t sure how much of my time it would take. I could always drop it if I didn’t like it, I reassured myself.

  At lunch, Lilly reported on her similar Josh-free morning. We lamented that what had been the beginning of a nice summer friendship would probably drift away now that school was in session and he had football. It had been nice while it lasted. My worry and our promise to each other seemed so silly now. We’d barely see him.

  Then he walked in the door to the cafeteria and my heart leapt. I felt Lilly still beside me. His eyes darted around the room, not betraying any hint of nerves, which I’m sure he must have been feeling. Even hot guys must get nervous in new schools, right?

  More than a few heads turned his way as he made his way down the central aisle, glancing around, looking for someone he knew. I could tell that Lilly wanted to call out to him as much as I did. But we both hesitated. What if he ignored us? Instead, we watched him wave to a guy - a senior on the football team - and go sit at their table. I don’t even think he noticed us.