“You’re disgusting.” Quinn shifted her backpack on her shoulder. “I don’t know why I even came here.”
“Because you like me.” Puck stepped closer, so close she could see how long his eyelashes were. “You can’t say no to me.”
“How’s this for no?” she asked, zipping up her white hooded sweater. It was warm in the closet, but she felt that she needed another layer of protection between her and Puck. “Whatever this was between us, it’s over. For real.”
Before he could say anything else, she opened the door. The hallway was completely empty, and she quickly walked away from the broom closet, hoping Puck would have enough sense to stay inside until she was gone, at least. Besides, she didn’t really want to see him again. Not now. She paused, realizing exactly how late she was to English class, and then ducked into the girls’ bathroom. She still needed a minute to collect herself.
Back in English class, Mr. Horn perched on the corner of his desk and started telling the class about his trip to the south of France four years ago. They had just read—or pretended to read—the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel Tender Is the Night, which takes place on the French Riviera, so it was ostensibly relevant. The class was used to this sort of “educational digression” from their teacher, and they all leaned back in their chairs and managed to carry on their own conversations without his ever noticing.
Santana glanced at the giant clock above the blackboard. What had happened to Quinn? She kept disappearing! The other day she’d been ten minutes late for Celibacy Club, which Santana had joined only at Quinn’s insistence. And now she was way late for class. It was unlike her. Besides, Santana had brought her copy of Lucky magazine, covered in little sticky notes to mark the pages, and wanted advice on a dress for the homecoming dance. Mr. Horn was babbling on about the farmers’ markets in France, and it was the perfect opportunity for Quinn to help her decide on red, to make her pop, or dark green, to highlight her olive skin tone.
Bored, Santana scanned the room. Puck wasn’t in class, either, which was much less surprising. He didn’t always make it to class, and when he didn’t, Santana found herself untethered. Who was she supposed to stare at now? He always sat one row over and two seats up, and Santana had the perfect angle to contemplate how sexy she found the back of his ears.
The door to the classroom opened a crack. Santana watched...
“What took you so long?” Santana whispered over her shoulder. Her eyes scanned Quinn’s face, which seemed unnaturally flushed.
Quinn didn’t answer. Instead, she stretched forward and pointed at Santana’s magazine. “Ooh, is that the new issue? I saw this one dress that would look awesome on you. Let me find it.”
Santana handed over the magazine, already forgetting about the strange look in Quinn’s eyes. And her smudged lip gloss.
thirteen
Choir room, Thursday after school
On Thursday after school, the windows to the choir room were open, and the sounds of whistle-blowing at practices and the faint hum of a lawn mower spilled into the room. Kurt was perched on the piano bench, his fingers absentmindedly playing the tune of “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” from one of his favorite musicals, The Sound of Music, on the shiny black grand piano. He used to dream of being one of the Von Trapp kids—it seemed like a perfect existence to live in a house where songs were sung every night at bedtime. (In fact, one of the beautiful blond children in the movie had been named Kurt—although it was the older brother, Friedrich, on whom Kurt had always had a crush.) Perfect, that is, until the Nazis came and ruined everything.
Artie glanced at the clock on the wall. Mercedes and Rachel were running late, and the jazz band practiced in the choir room after Glee. A couple of guitars were already set up. “Man, where are they?” His palms started to sweat every time he thought about the upcoming show. It was their last day of practice before D-day, and of course Artie was nervous. Terrified, actually. Did he really want to go onstage in front of the entire school? Everyone already hated him. Even the people who didn’t think he was a total nerd treated him as if he were some kind of leper, as if being in a wheelchair was somehow contagious. But that’s what made him want to do this, too. He wanted to get up there onstage and show them all that there was something he was good at. Maybe he was permanently excused from gym class because he could never kick a ball or jump a rope, but he could sing.
“Did you hear Rachel on the announcements this morning?” Tina asked. She was wearing a metal-studded headband and a T-shirt with Hello Kitty on it. Her eyelids were colored a glittery electric blue. She was drawing something on the inside of her arm with a green Sharpie. “Either I’m becoming desensitized to her, or she’s getting less annoying.” She lifted the tip of the marker.
“Desensitized.” Kurt paused his piano playing briefly. “Definitely.”
“Hey, that’s really good.” Artie wheeled closer to Tina’s chair. The drawing that covered her arm was a picture of a phoenix, its wings spread triumphantly. He looked around for a magazine picture or something that she could have copied it from. “Did you jd cl. “covered hust, you know, invent that? Like, draw it out of the air?”
“Yeah.” Tina blushed. She’d always been good at copying pictures she’d seen, even once they were no longer in front of her. When she was a kid, she would fill sketchbooks with doodles of things she’d seen that day—animals, people, litter, whatever. Even now her notebooks were filled with sketches. It gave her something to do when she was trying not to be noticed.
“You’re an amazing artist. I had no idea.”
“Th-th-thank you,” Tina mumbled. Artie was so nice. She wondered if maybe he’d had the time to change his mind about going to the dance. She twirled a piece of hair around her forefinger. Maybe she should just ask him. Even if he didn’t think of her like that, he wouldn’t say no. He was too sweet for that. And then, who knew? Maybe they’d have fun.
“That is not going to work, princess.” The three of them stopped what they were doing and looked up. Mercedes, with a sour look on her face, stomped through the doorway, followed quickly by Rachel. It was clear they’d been arguing.
“Why not? It would be perfect.” Rachel tossed her pink JanSport backpack onto a chair. Kurt got up from the piano and walked over to Mercedes, automatically standing beside her. Rachel planted her hands on her hips in an I’m-not-backing-down pose. “Mercedes and I were discussing costumes for tomorrow’s performance, and I think we should go with a fifties theme.”
“Like, poodle skirts?” Tina asked, skeptical.
“Exactly!” Rachel smiled. “One of my dads is an active participant in Lima’s community theater and, as you probably remember, the summer production was Grease. I’m sure we could borrow their poodle skirts.”
“And for the gentlemen?” Kurt asked. Even he wouldn’t be caught dead in a poodle skirt.
“Something simple and James Dean–ish. Slim black jeans, white T-shirts.” She glanced at Artie and Kurt. “Greased hair. You don’t happen to have leather jackets, do you?”
“Look, we’re not getting up onstage looking like rejects from your gramma’s performance of Grease. That’s just lame.” Mercedes waved her arms. “Poodle skirts and saddle shoes. That’s so middle school.”
“And what do you suggest?” Rachel asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. Out of everyone in Glee Club, she was the only one with any training in performing arts. She’d been in a series of pageants as a child—always excelling at the talent portion—and she only stopped when one of her dads spotted one of the other seven-year-olds forcing herself to vomit in the greenroom. But Rachel knew that appearances were very important, and it was essential to present a unified front. And who didn’t smile at the sight of a poodle skirt?
“Something classier, maybe a little flashy.” Mercedes closed her eyes. When she thought of a great performer, she always pictured Madonna. Not that she thought they should all go out there dressed in catsuits and pointy bras, but they needed t
o do something dramatic.
“The theater department has some rhinestoned vests from last spring’s musical.” Kurt’s face lit up at the thought.
“Maybe with black T-shirts?” Tina suggested. “And slim black pants, like Rachel said.”
Rachel sniffed. She knew Tina was just trying to placate her. Of course they were going against her fifties-theme idea. She had suggested it, after all, and they resented her. Maybe because she was late to join their group or because they were jealous of her talent. Either way, they were all determined to stand in the way of her career. “Fine.”
Mercedes glanced at Rachel. She was glad she’d won their argument, but she didn’t want to completely piss off Rachel and make her quit. “I don’t think I could rock a poodle skirt with this bod, anyway.”
Rachel forced a smile. “Let’s just practice,” she said...
Kurt gave her a brief salute. “Yes, Captain.”
Rachel sighed and then cued them to take it from the top. There was no point in getting upset about this. She probably wasn’t going to be at McKinley much longer. And while it would be satisfying to tell them all that, she wanted to make sure they would still listen to her directions for the performance.
She needed this performance to rock the house—she wanted to go out with a bang.
fourteen
McKinley High hallway, Thursday after school
Do you think Rachel really knows every single word in West Side Story?” Tina asked Artie as the two of them, both exhausted, left Glee Club practice. While Rachel was whipping them into fighting shape, as she called it, she claimed that in the second grade she’d memorized the complete lyrics to her favorite musical.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Artie said. “She strikes me as the obsessive type.”
Tina giggled. She untied her black hoodie from around her waist and slid her arms into the sleeves. “It’s a really long musical.”
“It still wouldn’t surprise me.” Artie smiled and stopped. “I’ve got to go this way.” He tilted his head toward the back entrance of the school, the one that let out behind the cafeteria. “My dad’s picking me up.”
“Why does he pick you up out there?” Tina asked, wrinkling her nose. “Isn’t that where all the grease Dumpsters are?” It always smelled like burned fish sticks in the hallway behind the cafeteria, even when they weren’t on that day’s menu. Her mother was picking her up at the circular driveway near the front entrance of the school. Tina usually took the bus home after school, but when she stayed later for Glee, she managed to escape that humiliation.
Artie laughed ruefully. “It’s also the only exit with a handicap ramp.” He shrugged. “It’s how I always come and go.”
Tina flushed bright red. “I’m s-s-sorry,” she stuttered. She wondered if Artie thought she wasfor ughe and go. a total idiot. She was always saying stupid things around him because she was so used to his being in a wheelchair that she didn’t even think about it anymore. “I didn’t realize.”
“No worries.” Artie waved his hand to show it was no big deal. He was so accustomed to going out the back entrance of the school that the smell of fish sticks didn’t even bother him. He’d actually never used the front entrance, as it was accessible only by a set of five wide concrete steps that someone would have had to carry him up. But he was used to seeing things from different angles than everyone else. “Rest your vocal cords tonight. We’ve got a show tomorrow.”
Tina watched Artie wheel away. When she turned around, she was facing a bright yellow sign hanging on the wall: CALLING ALL ARTISTS! HOMECOMING DECORATIONS COMMITTEE NEEDS YOUR HELP. MEETING IN THE GYM TO DISCUSS CREATIVE IDEAS: FRIDAY, DURING LUNCH.
Tina stared at the poster, which was surprisingly lame. The only decoration on it was a clip-art paintbrush glued onto the poster board. If the decorations committee was really that unskilled, it definitely could use as many artists as it could get. Maybe because Artie had just called her an amazing artist during Glee Club, she was starting to think she had something artistic to offer.
Besides, even though Rachel was annoying, what she had said the other day was stuck in Tina’s head. Why shouldn’t people like her be allowed to get involved in extracurricular activities? The popular kids shouldn’t have a monopoly on everything. She had just as much right as anyone else to work on the decorations.
“Move it, Goth girl.” A couple of guys on the swim team brushed past her, their gym bags bumping into her. They reeked of chlorine, and the smell stung Tina’s eyes.
Usually, she shied away from doing anything that required interaction with other students. That was why, way back in sixth grade, she’d first faked a stutter. It was her turn to give a presentation on something—the Missouri Compromise—and she hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. It was the first time someone had asked her to stand in front of the class and talk—for five minutes, which seemed like an eternity—and it terrified her. When she got to the front of the classroom, she pulled aside Mrs. Marcy and told her, tearfully, that she couldn’t do the presentation because… she was t-t-too ashamed of her s-s-stutter. If Mrs. Marcy hadn’t noticed the stutter until that point, it wasn’t really her fault—Tina was already inclined toward silence, and the class had more than thirty-five kids in it.
But the results were phenomenal. Tina had just wanted to get out of one stupid presentation; instead, she was given a virtual free pass for all future presentations. When she had to work on group projects, she’d always be the one to do the research while the others presented the results. She started to rely on the stutter as a shield—no one expected her to be socially active with a speech impediment, so she was allowed to become the loner she’d always been, preferring to doodle and sketch instead of talk to other kids. And she’d been fine with that, most of the time. It was easier and safer that way.
Recently, though, she felt like a hermit crab that was slowly realizing it was time to come out of its shell and stretch its arms out to see what it could do. (Did hermit crabs have arms? Or were they just claws?)
Maybe it was that Glee Club was finally starting to show a...
And maybe, in the back of her mind, she was hoping that this would be the thing that would make Artie want to go to the homecoming dance. Would he be so curious about her decorations that he’d be willing to attend a potentially lame school function? A girl could hope.
fifteen
Rachel’s house, Thursday night
Rachel Berry loaded the family’s lime-green dishes into the dishwasher. She and her two dads alternated dinner chores, which mostly consisted of ordering out and cleaning up. Tonight had been Rachel’s turn to cook. She’d made—from a recipe in their well-used Martha Stewart cookbook—a scrumptious tuna tartare over mesclun greens, with a side of grilled asparagus and roasted red potatoes. Cooking was just mundane enough to take the edge off—and Rachel knew she needed to relax tonight to get ready for the big performance tomorrow.
Usually, whoever had cooked escaped doing the dishes, but Thursday night happened to coincide with the nineteen-year anniversary of the day her dads first met, and they had plans to head to the old revival theater downtown for a one-night-only screening of Some Like It Hot.
“You sure you don’t want to come?” her dad Leroy asked, peeping his head into the kitchen as Rachel washed the table with a soapy sponge. He was African-American, which Rachel felt entitled her to join the Minority Students Coalition at school. She loved beefing up her résumé with extracurriculars.
“You guys go out and have a fun date night.” Rachel plucked a white petal that had fallen from the vase of two dozen roses she’d given her dads that morning. “I have a lot of homework, and I need to do my relaxation exercises to prepare for the recital tomorrow.”
“You’re going to be so great.” Rachel’s other dad, Hiram, breezed into the kitchen and grabbed his black leather wallet from the counter. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Don’t work too hard.”
Soon Rachel heard
the sound of the Subaru pulling out of the garage. It was nice to have the house to herself, although it made her wish she had a boyfriend whom she could text to come over for an impromptu make-out session. She’d only kissed a couple of boys, at performing arts camp, and one of them had decided he was gay after kissing Rachel. She knew she was an attractive, talented young woman with an excellent sense of humor and perfectly straight white teeth—in other words, a real catch. Unfortunately, the only boys at McKinley who might have agreed with her were the ones she couldn’t ever imagine kissing.
Rachel sighed and plunked herself down at her white wood desk. Later she would take a lavender-scented bubble bath and do her visualizations. She’d taken a workshop at the community college with a motiv§€ with a m vation therapist, and now Rachel was devoted to visualizing future events exactly as she wanted them to play out. The auditorium tomorrow, dimly lit. The audience members, holding their breath. Then a light shines on Rachel—and, she guesses, the other Glee kids, although they’re more in the background. She opens her mouth, and her voice fills the room. Thunderous applause.
Maybe visualization was silly, but it couldn’t hurt. But before she could visualize, she had to update her MySpace page. She was addicted. It was an excellent tool for marketing her musical talents. All sorts of singers and bands had got record deals because they started building a fan base from the ground up, and Rachel was devoted to posting a new video or sound clip every day.
She clicked her remote, and her iPod docking station turned on. She selected her Powerful Ladies playlist, and Gwen Stefani’s voice flooded the room. Rachel’s room, with its sunshine-yellow walls, tailored bedspread, and giant beanbag chair in the corner, never failed to cheer her up. This was where she did her best work—she’d just filmed herself singing Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love” that afternoon, and the video was good.
Glee_ The Beginning_ An Original Novel (Glee Original Novels) - Sophia Lowell.mobi Page 8
