Summer of Brave

by Amy Noelle Parks

  “And yet, here I am.”

  She smiles. “It’s not a perfect system.”

  The theater quiets when the lights go down. A girl from one of the other middle schools plays the flute, and she is definitely wearing a dress that looks like mine. She seems good, but not as good as Abby, a girl from our school who knew she’d never make the test score cutoff. The whole system makes no sense.

  When the flute girl finishes, the audience claps politely. Except for her parents, who shout, “Brava, brava.” I’m so glad I never took up an instrument.

  Next come a cellist, a couple of violin players, and a trumpeter. And then a pause while a kid fusses with his drums.

  “I don’t really get music,” Vivi says while we wait.

  “What’s to get?” I ask.

  “The point? What are they trying to get done?”

  Colby and I look at each other, trying to figure out if she’s serious. I say, “You made a computer program where the goal is to defeat evil goats.”

  “So?” she says.

  “What’s the point of that?”

  “To defeat evil goats,” she answers.

  “Obviously.” Colby laughs and picks up her hand from the armrest.

  When the drum solo starts, Vivi leans her head on his shoulder. I watch her out of the corner of my eye. (In part because, although I will never admit this to Vivi, I don’t see the point of drum solos. Unless it’s volume. In that case, mission accomplished.)

  Is Vivi Colby’s girlfriend now? She didn’t come out and say that in our emails. But he didn’t seem nervous when he reached for her hand. Vivi tilts her face up toward his and whispers something. He shakes his head, telling her to stop.

  Like I would when she’s pushing limits.

  I get Vivi’s jealousy about Prisha. It hurts to see someone else filling my role with her and knowing she wants to be with him instead of me. At least some of the time. I wonder if she was a little relieved I was grounded these last few days. So she didn’t feel guilty about spending time with Colby.

  We get four piano acts in a row. During the last one, a girl sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while she plays. The applause afterward is much louder than for anything yet.

  “I like it better when there are words,” Vivi says.

  I’m enough of my father’s daughter to want to defend high art, but since I liked it better, too, I keep quiet.

  There are two more acts before Knox comes out, carrying his guitar in one hand and a stool in the other. He sits by the mic, waiting for the judges’ signal, and looks out over the audience. I wave wildly, and he grins when he sees me.

  But when one of the judges raises her hand, his face gets serious, and his eyes drop to his hands. Something about the way he cradles the guitar makes my breath catch. I’ve never heard his song. It’s quiet and sweet, but complicated enough to impress the judges. And his voice is perfect. He didn’t need to worry.

  Knox looks right at me when he gets to a part about wanting to lend a girl his coat. This brings an ache to my chest that I don’t know what to do with. Tears pool in my eyes, even though I’m not sad—at least I don’t think I am.

  The applause when he finishes is even louder than for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Vivi and Colby holler and stand. But I don’t even clap. Instead, I press my hands to my mouth, trying to hold myself together.

  Vivi sits back down and wraps her arms around me. From his seat, Colby peeks around her shoulder, looking baffled. He has to be worried I’m unhinged at this point.

  Someone else is playing the guitar—electric this time—and singing a much louder song, so Vivi puts her mouth right against my ear. “What is it?”

  I shake my head, but she pulls back to give me a look.

  I don’t have the right words, but I put my mouth against her ear and whisper, “I really liked that song and the way he held his guitar and how his hair almost covers his eyes, and I think, maybe, he was singing to me. Only I don’t know what to say to him and what if we never speak again and we stop being friends because it’s all too weird. And I don’t know how to do any of this.”

  She says, “You are ridiculous. A boy you like who you have been friends with forever sang you a song. This is not a tragedy.” She opens her bag, digs around in it for a while, closes it again, reaches for my bag, does the same, and pulls out my sweater.

  I look at her blankly.

  “Wipe your face,” she says. “If you’d carry tissues, you’d be a lot less hard on clothes.”

  I wipe my face all over my white sweater. Mascara must be for people who cry less than I do. Vivi shakes her head a little, takes it from me, and stuffs it back in my bag.

  “You knew he was going to do this,” I say.

  “Better up your Summer Wish game. Knox won this round.”

  This hardly seems fair, since I’m using my showcase to go after one of the judges, but there’s no point arguing with Vivi’s rulings. She won’t change them.

  After a few more acts, a teacher comes out onstage and says there will be a break before the vocalists. He asks two kids to go to the math classroom and then says, “And if Lydia Baxter-Willoughby is here, will you please report to the studio?”

  My anxiety makes me leap up. Vivi and Colby follow. When we get out into the hall, Knox is waiting, holding his guitar. His face, uncertain but hopeful, makes me forget all the panic triggered by the announcement.

  “That was…wow,” I say.

  “Thanks.” He smiles and looks at the ground. Amusement rolls off Vivi and Colby, who have been going out for forty-eight hours and are now relationship experts, apparently. Knox, thank goodness, says, “Let’s put off the postgame. You should go see what they want.”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “Lilla,” Vivi says, “we’re coming.”

  Colby’s confused again.

  “You remember that night you walked me home?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “Come find out what happened.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Knox and Vivi text their parents while they follow me. They decide that Vivi’s mom, who’s here on her own, will wait and take everyone home. I’m not sure how much she knows. But probably everything.

  I put my finger on my neck when we get to the art hall. My pulse is going wild. The therapist I saw after the divorce taught me some tricks for settling my body down, but none of them work right now. I have no idea what’s waiting for me.

  The woman in the silver top is standing outside the closed studio door.

  “Hello again, Lydia,” she says. “I didn’t introduce myself earlier, but I’m Ms. Kornely. I teach drawing.”

  “I go by Lilla, actually,” I say. She leans in to hear, and I force myself to speak up. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No,” Ms. Kornely says. Her eyes travel over my shoulder to everyone else. “But maybe your friends want to wait in the main hall?”

  “I want them here. Vivi helped with the map, and Knox and Colby…I want them here.”

  She nods. “Okay. There are some people in there who’d like to talk to you, but you’re under no obligation to speak to anyone. Except your parents. We pretty much have to send you home with them.”

  “No wiggle room on that at all?” I ask. “Maybe a boarding-school option?”

  She laughs. “Here’s the situation. You’ve got four judges, including me, who are split on whether you should be admitted. It’s an effectiveness of message versus quality of technique debate, and we’ve got no tiebreaker because the one thing we all agree on is that Kate can’t be impartial about this work.”

  “I can’t believe she let him keep working there,” Knox says behind me. “She’s a grown-up. Isn’t she supposed to know better?”

  “Oh good,” Ms. Kornely says. “I was afraid we might be at the end of the drama for the evening. Kate says she thought you were okay with the way she handled the situation and that your project is not appropriate. Your parents say this incident traum
atized you, and you should be allowed to exhibit additional artwork. Your father keeps offering to drive home and get other pieces. Your mother is asking the assistant principal to reverse our decision.”

  “You’ve made a decision?” I say, trying to keep up.

  “No, she’s thinking ahead.”

  Sounds about right. “What do you need from me?”

  “I need to know what you want.”

  That’s easy. Go home with Vivi. Get into her mom’s car and sleep at her house and pretend none of this happened. Not Matt or my parents’ divorce or Kate or the magnet school or even Knox and his song. I want my old life, where I was good and quiet and everyone was happy.

  But that, as Vivi would say, is not on the menu.

  I look at Vivi. “I get the trophy.”

  “Locked up,” she says.

  “Open that door and it’s no contest,” Knox agrees.

  CHAPTER 31

  Summer of Brave

  Every person in the room stops talking when I open the door.

  Mom wraps me in her arms as soon as she can. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You weren’t here when it happened.” I’m not saying this to hurt her, but it’s true. If she’d been home that night, the whole story would have poured out. Since she wasn’t, I turned to other people. I can’t stop her from moving away, but she has to understand my life—good and bad—is going to keep going while she’s gone.

  She squeezes her eyes shut. “Is that what this is about? Punishing me?”

  I take a deep breath. “No. This is about Matt and Kate thinking what he did was no big deal, and me deciding it was.”

  I turn to face the rest of the room. It’s only the five judges and Mom and Dad. Dad’s lips are pressed together, and his arms are crossed. From him, this is shouting. But I can’t tell if he’s upset at me or everyone else.

  Kate’s by herself in the corner. She looks teary, which doesn’t feel fair. Tonight isn’t supposed to be about comforting her.

  A man I don’t know crosses to me, “I’m Mr. Lyons, director of the arts program here.”

  I look over my shoulder at Ms. Kornely. “I teach at Morningside. I’m just helping with the judging.” She teaches at Morningside!

  Mr. Lyons says, “Is your collage an accurate representation of what happened?”

  Kate starts to speak, but Ms. Kornely lifts her hand like a crossing guard, and Kate closes her mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “You said it was a misunderstanding,” Mr. Lyons says to Kate.

  “He said he thought she was older,” Kate says quietly.

  The disgust on Ms. Kornely’s face feels weirdly good. Because she’s taking my side and because she agrees that Kate didn’t treat this seriously enough. Mom squeezes my shoulder.

  In the quiet that follows, Vivi walks over to my exhibit. Everyone watches while her eyes wander over it. I told her what I was doing, but this is the first time she’s seen it.

  When she’s done taking it in, she reaches for the pad of sticky notes, writes something, and adds it to a dozen others now up around my work. Watching her, Colby and Knox both look sick.

  “We’re still making a decision, but your work obviously generates emotional response,” Mr. Lyons says when Vivi returns to my side. “And your test scores are very high. I can’t promise you’ll be admitted, but you’ve got a good chance.”

  Dad smiles, just a little. He’s relieved my work seems to be good enough. I look over my shoulder at Mom. She gives me a little nod, encouraging. Even Knox looks hopeful, as if I might have changed my mind about what I wanted from just minutes ago when we were talking in the hallway. Do I really want to make all of them unhappy? Is it worth it?

  But then Vivi clears her throat, and I meet her eyes. The look she gives me is fierce, and even though she doesn’t say it out loud, I hear her command: be brave.

  “This school isn’t what I want. It never was,” I say. “I don’t want to come here.”

  “No,” Mom gasps.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Dad says.

  “I think Lilla is going through a difficult time,” Kate says, looking between Mom and Dad. As if what I’m doing here tonight is some kind of divorced-kid-acting-out thing.

  Every adult in the room looks at me. Standing in my old-fashioned pink dress, with my bun, and my flower, I open my eyes very, very wide and don’t argue because I can talk back to Kate without saying a word.

  Vivi’s Summer Wish taught me this. Being brave isn’t the same as being loud.

  I turn away from Mr. Lyons and focus on Mom and Dad. “I came tonight because you made me. And I thought if I did, you might actually listen to me about school.” I look over at Kate. “And I thought you might listen to me about Matt.”

  “Oh, Lilla,” Mom says.

  “This school isn’t something children should be pushed into,” Mr. Lyons says. “Maybe this isn’t the right choice for Lilla.”

  “Let’s just take a moment,” Dad says. “She’s understandably emotional. You can’t hold her to this.”

  “Will,” Mom says. She turns my shoulders so I’m facing her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t listening. It must have been really scary to feel so on your own. I lost my head for a little while, but I’m back now.”

  I lean into her, and all the tension inside me unspools. It’s going to be okay.

  Dad comes over and awkwardly pats my back. Before he would have wrapped his arms around both of us. I remember what he said about my family not being destroyed, just being different, and I pull away from Mom so I can stand between them and hold both of their hands.

  Dad squeezes my hand and looks at Kate.

  “I don’t understand what you were thinking. We work together. She’s my daughter. And the kid you put in charge of her harassed her.”

  “I didn’t want you to cause problems for the museum,” Kate says. “I thought you might overreact.”

  “I’m going to call this,” Ms. Kornely says. She’s my new favorite person. “Lilla, you’re sure you don’t want in?”

  I nod.

  “Kate?” Kate looks at her. “I think you’re done judging for the night. You might want to go home and think about what you want to say to Lilla tomorrow after you’ve had some time to consider her project. And I think you need to come up with some office work for Matt the rest of the summer. I’m not sure he needs to be supervising teen girls.”

  “I love that woman,” Vivi says loudly. “I’m going to learn to draw and go to school with Lilla.” Colby puts his hand over her mouth.

  Kate looks at Ms. Kornely and Mr. Lyons and Dad. On her way out, she stops in front of me. “I was twelve the first time,” she says. “On the bus. My mom said it was because my skirt was too short. I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously.”

  I almost say it’s okay. But it’s not, so instead, I say, “Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Hold Your Hand

  After getting a teary goodbye and a promise not to stay out too late, Mom lets me leave with everyone else. Vivi’s mom drops us off downtown for ice cream, but after we get our cones, we end up on the sidewalk, looking at each other in awkward silence.

  On the way back in the car—much to the delight of Vivi’s mother—we’d rehashed everything that happened in the art room, so now we’ve said everything there is to say.

  Almost everything.

  Colby takes Vivi’s hand. “Want me to walk you home?”

  “Yes, please, but let’s go the long way.”

  Colby exchanges some kind of look with Knox and then says to me, “Good night, troublemaker.”

  Vivi pouts. “I thought that was me.”

  He shakes his head. “Lilla took the title tonight.”

  The silence when Knox and I are alone hits all new levels of awkward. It expands with every second. Like some kind of awkwardness fractal. It’s a huge relief when he says, “River rock?” Both because it’s something to do and something familiar.
>
  Mostly to have something to say, I tell him, “I can’t stay out too late. My parents want to talk to me.”

  “I can imagine. I need to get back too. I’m headed to my dad’s for a couple days.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Okay, I guess. My mom talked to him, and he’s trying harder. He was there tonight.”

  “I saw him.” And my cheeks heat because I’m thinking about Knox onstage again. “When’s he picking you up?” I ask before the silence gets too long again.

  “I’ll text him. He can get me at your house after I walk you back.”

  This is one of those things we do but never talk about—Knox’s habit of walking me home after twilight.

  “I wish I felt comfortable walking back on my own.”

  He smiles. “I like walking you home.”

  I sort through the tangle of feelings caused by that sentence—and lately, by Knox. I’m glad he likes being with me, and if I’m honest, I like that he wants to look out for me. But I’m angry about it too. That it’s necessary.

  Knox reads the confusion on my face. He skims his hand over his head. “That was me and your point, huh? You just want to be able to walk home on your own. Like I do.”

  “Yeah. All those things that make you feel strong—opening doors and walking me home and growling about Matt—make me feel weak.”

  He huffs, making his hair fly up in the air, which is real cute, so I add, “But also protected.”

  “Girls are confusing.”

  “Only when we’re confused.”

  We’re quiet then, and we watch the stone he’s kicking along the sidewalk. When we get to the little path that leads to our rock ledge, he reaches in front of me to lift branches out of the way. Then he freezes, panicked.

  I grin. “Thank you.”

  Making a big show of it, he wipes his forehead.

  Even though the sun’s setting, the rock’s still warm. I lay back, deciding not worry about whether my pink dress gets dirty. My eyes are closed, but I feel Knox lie down, a little ways away.

  “It’s confusing now,” I say, going back to what we were talking about. “But it might be better in the long run than it was for our parents.”