Out of Tune

by Beth Reekles

  ‘ . . . and Coach reckons there are going to be some college scouts at this game,’ he says. ‘It’s the first game of the season, but he seemed pretty sure of it. And you know what he said to me after practice? He pulled me and Craig aside and said to us, “Now, boys, you listen here, you’re going to play the best damn game you’ve played yet next week on that field, in case there’s a scout there.” He knows we’re two of the best players on the team, really thinks we’ve got a good shot at a scholarship.’

  I don’t bother pointing out that he’s only playing in the game because one of the guys is off sick with mono, and Josh has been temporarily promoted from reserve. He’d be on the actual team if he could keep his grades up (but he never seems to hear me when I point that out). And the college scout is more likely to be looking for someone who gets good grades alongside being good at football.

  ‘I thought you weren’t bothered about a scholarship?’ I say. It’s not like he can’t afford college anyway; his grandfather left him a pretty big inheritance he’ll have access to when he’s twenty-one, and his parents have a more than comfortable lifestyle. His dad’s always saying (loudly and brashly) that they’ll pay for Josh to go to a good college and still have money left over to build that extension on the house they want.

  ‘But if I can get one, Ashley, then—’

  ‘What about your grades?’ I say then, looking up at him. ‘When you said about the scholarship before, you said they wanted straight A grades, and—’

  ‘Ashley. C’mon. I can pull my grades up for that. Or are you trying to say you don’t think I’m smart enough to get into college?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ I repress a sigh as I say the words, and refrain from rolling my eyes. ‘I didn’t say you weren’t smart enough for college, I just meant that you might need to, you know, study a little more if you really want the scholarship.’

  ‘You don’t think I know that?’ He sighs loudly, aggravated with me. ‘Jesus, Ashley, give me some credit.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.’ I let out a long breath through my nose and smile. It’s no use getting angry and raising my voice: if I ever get really mad over something, Josh just finds it funny. Well, ‘adorable’ is the word he uses. So I know he won’t take me seriously if I get short with him over this. ‘You’ll be brilliant at the game, I know you will. A college scout would have to be crazy not to look at you.’

  It’s just the grades that might affect you, I add silently. Last year he got mostly B’s and C’s, not quite meeting the baseball team’s A/B grade requirements. This year, I know, he isn’t exactly putting all that much effort into studying. He spends his free time playing football or hanging out with the guys, or with me instead.

  But what’s he going to say if I tell him to study more, to work harder, to stop wasting his time? I’m only thinking about the long-term and what’s best for him, but he won’t even listen to me, not about this. He’ll realize without me soon enough that he can’t keep handing in assignments knocked together the night before they’re due and putting off homework to play video games.

  So I don’t say anything. Let him figure it out the hard way.

  God, I think with a moment of horror, I sound like my mother.

  ‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘Thought any more about college?’

  I shrug, one shoulder and then the other. ‘I’m thinking about maybe doing a degree in French now. I looked at some courses and I’d get to spend a year studying in France as part of the degree . . .’

  ‘I thought you were going to do English and history?’ he says. ‘Where’s this coming from?’

  ‘I just like the thought of doing French. I could work as an interpreter, or abroad, or something. I hear there’s always a demand for that kind of thing. It’d be interesting. I could meet all kinds of people.’

  Josh shakes his head slowly, patiently.

  ‘Do you want to watch a movie?’ I ask, before he can make some comment and put me down about it. He’s always thought that studying languages is stupid, and I’ve never been able to talk him around to it. ‘My dad bought that new Will Smith film on the weekend, we could watch that? You know, that one with him and his son coming back to Earth?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  As we lie side by side on my bed watching the movie, Josh plays with my hair, and I can’t focus on the movie. I hate that he doesn’t listen to me sometimes, when I talk about colleges and school. It’s not like he ignores me, it’s just that he doesn’t seem to really understand that what I have to say might be important, that he should actually pay attention to what I’m saying.

  When I was dating Josh at first, it changed my whole high school experience. It’s not like I’m just dating him as a way into the more popular crowd – I love him, after all – but now, when I quietly seethe about him not listening to me, I think about how different my life would be without him in it.

  And I don’t really like the thought of being that lonely.

  I think a little more about colleges, running over in my mind where I might apply for a French degree. My parents have taken me on holiday to France twice, and both times I loved it over there.

  But I’ve still got a year left of high school, and I might change my mind by then.

  The more I think about college, and leaving high school, the scarier it all becomes, and I start to think that we’re all growing up way too fast.

  Josh stays over that night – but in the spare room, of course – since his parents are away for the night (the funeral of some uncle Josh hadn’t known well a bit further upstate). They didn’t want him staying home alone. It wasn’t that they felt bad about leaving him on his own, I don’t think – the opportunity for him to throw a party was probably their main concern. That’s why they’d spoken to my parents before consulting either me or Josh about him staying over, I guess.

  Getting dressed for school, I mull over what to wear today. It’s bleak and gray outside, the threat of rain looming within those clouds. So I opt for a pair of red skinny jeans and a black sweater over a plain white T-shirt. I run a brush through my hair and tie it up into a ponytail. There’s no point in doing anything with it – if it does rain, it’s only going to get frizzy, no matter how much product I use.

  I throw my drapes open and roll up the shutters, and see Todd moving about in his room. He’s pulling on black jeans over a pair of—

  I clap a hand to my mouth and stifle a giggle. No way. No freaking way.

  I bite hard on my lip and blink, but when I open my eyes, he’s just pulling the jeans over his butt – and over a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants underpants.

  I shake my head and turn away before I start laughing again. He will not hear the end of this . . .

  Josh walks in then, dressed and with his hair spiked up just the way it always is. ‘What’re you smiling about?’

  ‘Just in a good mood,’ I say brightly, bouncing over to kiss him. He wraps his arms around me and kisses me back.

  ‘Want some breakfast?’ I ask. We’ve easily got twenty minutes before we need to leave. ‘I fancy some pancakes.’

  He kisses my nose. ‘Sounds good to me.’

  Then he looks past me, out of my window, and I see a frown slip onto his face. ‘You didn’t tell me that his room was that one.’

  I step back, rolling my eyes and letting Josh’s arms drop back to his sides. ‘Does it matter? It’s just Todd.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’m going to go make pancakes, Josh, but if you want to stand here and make irrational and irrelevant arguments to thin air, then be my guest.’

  He grunts, not quite admitting I’m right and he’s being stupid, but close enough. I decide it’s probably best not to mention the hilarious sight of Todd in SpongeBob underpants. We go downstairs and I start making pancakes, and he starts talking about the football game again, but sounding much more upbeat today.

  When it’s time to leave, we both grab our schoolbags and get into my
car. I picked Josh up from his place yesterday, since it made it easier for driving to school. Although I have to admit, I didn’t think that plan through, and now I’m not so sure about Josh and Todd in the car together.

  But, as per usual, I pull off the drive and stop in front of Todd’s house, giving the horn two quick beeps. Josh shifts in his seat.

  He’s out of the house in a minute, and pauses at the passenger door before climbing into the back seat. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey. Todd, you know Josh, right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘We have gym together,’ Josh says.

  ‘And math,’ Todd adds.

  I never knew that. Neither of them had ever mentioned it to me. I don’t know why it seems like such a shock to me; they’re in the same grade, after all, so it’s not unusual that they might have classes together.

  ‘Okay, then,’ I say, and I drive off without thinking up any end or substance to that sentence. A while later I say, ‘I hope it doesn’t rain today.’

  God. I’ve resorted to talking about the weather. Help.

  They both reply at the same time. Their voices overlap.

  Josh says, ‘Wouldn’t want your hair frizzing up, huh?’

  Todd says in a conspiratorial tone, ‘Sure you’ve got your house key, then?’

  Josh twists in his seat to look at Todd for the first time. I fleetingly glance in my rear-view mirror at Todd, sitting up straight in his seat, not at all intimidated by Josh, who’s doing a great job of looking like a jealous boyfriend right now.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Josh,’ I sigh, because he sounds like he’s accusing Todd of something.

  ‘Last week it rained and Ashley forgot her key. She was locked out for a while. We’ve got a spare key I had to lend her,’ Todd carries on before I can say anything. ‘I couldn’t leave her out there in the rain. Catch pneumonia or something.’

  Josh squirms, obviously put out by the innocent answer. ‘Oh, right.’

  I steal another look at Todd in the mirror. He looks right back at me.

  I don’t know why he covered for me.

  I didn’t tell Josh about it because I didn’t want him to take it the wrong way. He’s the jealous type, and saying ‘I took a shower at Todd’s house and wore his clothes and hung with him for a while’ sounded worse than it really was, and it wasn’t like I’d had anything to feel guilty about – so I didn’t tell him.

  But . . . why did Todd lie for me?

  We don’t talk again the rest of the way. Josh reaches over to put his hand on my knee, squeezing it lightly, and I smile at him, squeezing his hand back before I reach for the gear stick.

  Later, at school, I say to Josh when we’re hanging out by my locker between classes, ‘You never thought to mention you had classes with Todd?’

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t associate with the kid. We just happen to be in the same class. We don’t talk or anything.’ I wait a second or so, because he seems to want to carry on – his mouth twists up to the side, and he takes a hand from where it’s sitting on my waist to rub the back of his neck. ‘What he said about giving you the spare key so you weren’t out in the rain. He’s not all that bad. I guess.’

  He’s reluctant to admit it, and it’s not much, but it’s enough. I smile and reach up on my toes to kiss him. ‘See, what did I tell you?’

  The bell rings then, and Josh leans down to give me a lingering kiss. ‘I’ll see you at lunch.’

  ‘Yep. See you then.’

  I don’t know why it’s made me so . . . happy? No, relieved – that Josh has stopped thinking Todd is some sort of heinous person. I mean, okay, so maybe he did get expelled from his last school, and cut class, but he isn’t a bad person. ‘Troubled’ is maybe the word I’d use.

  But it grates on me every time Josh calls him ‘kid’ – like he’s so much better and wiser and more mature than Todd. They’re the same age, for God’s sake! It’s little things like that that really frustrate me about Josh sometimes. And if I tried to talk to him, I bet he wouldn’t understand why calling Todd ‘kid’ all the time was so bad anyway.

  I like Todd. I like the way he’s sarcastic and blunt and quiet. I like his company, like how he enjoys similar music to me and doesn’t think I’m silly to waste my time reading books.

  Part of me that knows Josh should come before any other guy in my life – but I know that doesn’t mean I can’t have guy friends, like Todd. I’ve already lost a best friend because of my relationship with Josh. Maybe it’s time I found a new one.

  Allie and I used to do everything together, back when she was my best friend. We learned to ride a bike at the same time. We used to have sleepovers and paint each other’s nails and gossip about the boys we had crushes on all the time. And when we got older, we used to go to Denny’s for milkshakes after school on a Friday. She was my other half.

  People use that phrase a lot: ‘other half’. Like they’re incomplete without someone to kiss them and hold their hand, or something. Usually, they’re talking about a boyfriend or girlfriend.

  But losing my best friend was like losing half of myself.

  We’d argued over stuff before, like all friends do, but we’d never stopped talking or hanging out because of it. We’d patch things up almost immediately. The conflict over my relationship with Josh was so different – so final.

  It’s not that I don’t like the people I hang out with now. It’s not that at all. They’re pretty nice people, and they’re funny, and all-right company. But they’re Josh’s friends, they were never really mine.

  I’d been with Josh about five or six weeks when Allie and I had the fight. She got mad because I spent so much – apparently, too much – time with him, and didn’t make time for her or anyone else any more. I’d snapped in reply that she was just jealous because now I got to hang out with some of the cool kids, and she was still a nobody.

  And then we just didn’t talk again.

  She didn’t text me, and I didn’t go up to her in school. We’ve had classes together since, but there’s barely even any acknowledgement between us: just a wall of resentment, at least from her side. We’ve both moved on, and that’s okay, really, because people change, and grow apart.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway. But it never made me feel any better about it.

  After that, I sort of just integrated into Josh’s group of friends permanently.

  It doesn’t surprise me that I don’t really click with them, that we don’t have all that much in common, because frankly, Josh and I don’t have a hell of a lot in common. But they say opposites attract, right?

  I don’t know how things have worked out so well between us, but I love him. And he loves me. We’re happy. And we don’t need to have everything in common or similar tastes because being happy and in love is more than enough and we appreciate each other’s differences.

  I don’t know why I’m reminiscing about all this as I walk to class and take my seat in biology. I begin to feel nostalgic, thinking about how easy my friendship with Allie used to be – we’d known each other since middle school and had been all but joined at the hip for years.

  Then my mind drifts away from nostalgia and the presentation on mitosis and meiosis, and I think of Todd.

  Todd O’Connor, with his mess of floppy brown hair that always looks ruffled and wild, and those eyes that can penetrate right through you. The way his head cocks to the side and his forehead crinkles and he bites on the inside of his cheek when he’s thinking hard. The way he’s always fiddling with his guitar pick; the sound of his voice and the guitar, barely there if both our windows are shut, but soft and clear if both windows are open; the careful, cautious manner in which he drives.

  I shake myself. I shouldn’t be thinking about Todd. If I am daydreaming about any boy when I’m in class, it should be Josh, my boyfriend, not the guy next door.

  ‘Ashley?’ the teacher calls for me, and I look up to answer his question.

  ‘Mito
sis leads to growth or cell replacement. The four daughter cells are all clones of each other and identical to the original cell. Meiosis is used in the production of gametes and there are only two new cells produced from the single mother cell, each with half the required chromosomes to create an embryo.’

  ‘Good.’ The teacher carries on talking and has successfully distracted me from my thoughts, and I slump forward on my elbow, listening carefully to him even though I know I look mildly uninterested.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘His conference got pushed back a day,’ Mom tells me with a small, kind of sad, smile. ‘He’ll be back tomorrow night. There were flight delays from the people getting in from New York and they couldn’t start without them, so they had to push the whole thing back.’

  ‘Oh, that sucks.’

  ‘I know. But your dad says the catering at the hotel’s great. And the company’s paying for it all, so they’re not having too bad a time waiting.’

  I laugh with Mom and offer, ‘Do you want any help? I’ll peel the carrots, if you want.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to ask,’ she laughs, and points toward the bag of carrots she bought earlier. ‘I’ve got too much now that your father won’t be here, but we’ll cook it all anyway. One of us can reheat it tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll want a good home-cooked meal when he gets in late.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I pick up the peeler and start working. ‘What time are they coming around?’

  ‘Seven thirty.’

  I glance at the clock on the wall to my right, near the door. We have an hour and a half, but dinner won’t take that long to cook. The lamb is already in the oven and Mom is preparing the broccoli and potatoes. Oh, and there’s the red wine sauce to do, but Mom’s a pro at sauces, it’ll take no time. Or so she assures me.

  I take over the vegetables while she turns to the sauce.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask Josh if he wanted to join us?’ Mom asks. She’d told me I could, but I’d decided against it.