She stops and hands some flyers, along with a handful of bubble gum, to some Goth girls who are standing around an open locker. “Nothing to be sorry about. We’ll just do it after school.”
Ugh.
“I can’t after school. I’ve got a voice lesson.”
She’s wearing her you’re not telling me this face. She takes another handful of gum and shoves it at a freshman who’s dumb enough to stumble in front of her. “Vote for Brooke!” she tells him.
“Hey, Chloe…” I reach out for the bag of gum, trying to at least look like I might reconsider and do the afterschool thing. She stops walking and yanks it away.
“No, Brooke!” Her voice is too sharp. A couple of people look over and she speaks more quietly. “Some people would kill to be where you are right now, but you obviously don’t give a crap about this. And I don’t know if it’s a good thing or just incredibly sad that you’d probably win even if they took your name off the ballot.”
“Chloe…” I can tell she’s hurt, and I want to be a good friend. Really. But there’s no way I’m skipping my voice lesson. Not with all the work I still have to do for the Blackmore.
“I’m going to class,” she says, tossing a piece of bubble gum at my chest. “And hey, since you’re probably the only person on earth who has to be reminded, vote for Brooke!”
My voice lesson did not go well. Hildy asked me which pieces I wanted to perform for the Blackmore, and I told her I hadn’t made a final decision yet. I told her about my dad working in San Francisco. How I wanted to get his opinion before I nailed anything down, and she went off on me. She told me I don’t have any new “showpieces” in my repertoire. And without one of those I might as well kiss first place good-bye. She gave me five songs to look at. I told her I’d work on all of them and have two picked out by my lesson next week.
Now I’m home, trying to reach my mom, who’s AWOL, too. For the past few weeks she’s been working late every night. In meetings, where she can’t even use her cell phone. I’m typing her an email when all of a sudden she shows up on IM.
MDEMPSEY: Interview w/10 p.m. news—did you need me?
BROOKLYN_11: I need to go to NYC
MDEMPSEY: When?
BROOKLYN_11: Soon—next wk
MDEMPSEY: Will your dad be there?
I want to type “yes.” But I know I have to tell the truth because she’ll find out either way.
BROOKLYN_11: No but I’ll stay in the apt. I’m going to sing
MDEMPSEY: Not alone and I can’t take you
I smack my hand on top of my desk. She acts like I’ve never been to New York before. Like I didn’t practically grow up there. Did she not get it when I said I was going there to sing?
BROOKLYN_11: Blackmore = most imp contest of my life—why RU giving me shit?
Her next message contains nothing but a link. I click on it. It’s a story from the local paper. The name of her bank is there in the headline, next to the word “merger.”
MDEMPSEY: Other people have important things going on too
BROOKLYN_11: I’m going
MDEMPSEY: With what $?
BROOKLYN_11: Dad & Jake will help
MDEMPSEY: Don’t count on it
Tears of frustration burn my eyes. I’m surprised, and dead set on keeping them back. My mom would love it if I never did anything else but go to parties and hang around Lake Champion. She missed out on the whole high school thing because she was building herself up as a singer, meeting guys like my dad who worked in Broadway theaters. She got to live that life, but she doesn’t want me to—and it’s totally, completely not fair.
BROOKLYN_11: Ur ruining my life—i hate you
It takes her forever to reply. When she finally does, it’s a whole paragraph typed out with perfect grammar. Which means she’s really mad.
MDEMPSEY: I am not going to defend myself to you after I’ve worked so hard to keep some security in your life, and not while you’re sitting at home enjoying the computer and the house that I pay for with virtually no help from your father considering how well off he is these days. If you want understanding, I suggest you try understanding a few things yourself. Good night.
I log off IM. Pull up the internet and start checking travel sites. There’s a cheap flight to LaGuardia that leaves Saturday morning. I start to click on the reservation, then stop. I’d have to ask Dad for the money, and how can I guarantee I’d even get hold of him in time?
Downstairs, someone is knocking on the front door. I’m not in the mood to entertain somebody from school who just decided to drop by. But the knocking keeps up, so I sneak down and peek through the front-door window.
It’s Chloe.
“Let me in,” she says through the glass. “We’ve got work to do.”
I undo the dead bolt, and she pushes by with a stack of magazines in her arms. She’s halfway up the stairs before I’ve gotten the door closed. Up in my room, she flips on the overhead light. “We have to find you a Homecoming gown. Unless you’d rather shop off the rack.”
She drops the magazines on my desk, flops onto her stomach on my bed, and starts surfing on my laptop while I stand in the doorway. I could tell her to go home. That I want to be alone. But I feel bad about earlier.
“I thought you were mad at me,” I say.
“I am mad. But I know you, Brooke. If I didn’t force you to pay attention to this stuff, you’d spend all your time on music and show up to Homecoming in a feed sack.” She Googles the designer who just won Project Runway, then surfs over to the site and starts clicking through the dresses. “Now, if it was me, I’d wear…”
I sit next to her. Look over her shoulder and watch the totally focused and determined way she sorts through all the possibilities. Say what you like about Chloe, but she’s scary good at getting what she wants, even if she has to get it some roundabout way that nobody expects. Like in sixth grade. I don’t remember actually meeting or choosing her. She was just always there—like she’d chosen me and had made up her mind that we were going to be best friends.
What I do remember is the way she talked about her family. She told anybody who would listen that her mom had married a rich guy. That he was a big deal at his job and was probably going to be famous someday. She loved talking about all the stuff he bought for her and bragging about the cool places they went on vacations. I never thought to question it because Chloe made the stories so believable.
One day Mom made me go with her on one of her PR projects. The bank wanted to do a profile on someone they’d helped, and Mom was supposed to interview single parents at Baldwin who were getting by with loans. She dragged me through the student apartments, in and out of these tiny places where young couples and their kids were living on practically nothing while the parents went to class and worked extra jobs to make ends meet. By the time we got to the last one, I was so tired and depressed I wanted to keel over. The lady who answered the door looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, and the only things I could see inside her apartment were a futon, a television, and a laptop with a stack of books on the kitchenette island.
“Let me get my daughter,” the woman said to me. “She’s just about your age.”
She went down a little hallway and knocked on a door. It opened, and a girl poked her head out. The girl looked at my mom and me. Her eyes got big. She shook her head at the woman and shut the door again while I stood there, quietly freaking out.
It was Chloe.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” the woman said as she came back to the living room. “She probably isn’t feeling well.”
Chloe never talked about that day, and I was too weirded out to bring it up. She also never changed her story. Because eventually? It all came true. Her mom did marry a rich guy, and he did get famous—at least as far as politics go. By eighth grade, Chloe really was jetting off to incredible vacation spots, and she had a clothes allowance that made even me jealous. It was almost like she’d made it all happen, just by wanting
it.
And now, she’s trying to make it happen for me, even though I know she’s imagining herself in the sash and tiara.
“Why aren’t you on the court?” I ask her. “You’re the one who really cares about Homecoming.”
“Because I’m just not, okay?” She flips another page and, for a second, I see that big-eyed little girl again. “I’m happier behind the scenes, Brooke,” she tells me. “But I can’t do anything if you don’t help out a little. You’re never around anymore. What’s the deal?”
“The Blackmore,” I remind her. “It’s next month.”
She rolls onto her back and looks at me, very serious. “Why is this contest thing so important anyway? You’ve always been weird about singing, but you’re really freaking out this year.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Oh my God, you are so freaking out. Why? You’re going to get the big first-place star part or whatever it is you want. You always do.”
I lie down, grab one of her magazines, and start flipping. But it’s just something to do with my hands while I come out and say what’s really bothering me. “Maybe not always,” I say.
Chloe snorts. “What? Who else is going to get it?”
“This contest has some of the best singers in the country,” I explain. “You can’t assume anything at the Blackmore. The competition is really fierce.”
She waves her hand like she’s swatting pesky flies, and any hope I might have had of her understanding starts to fade. I guess I’ve known all along that she’s not the person to talk to about stuff like this. But I can’t just drop the subject. I need to talk with somebody. “And then,” I say, “there’s Kathryn.”
“Don’t worry about Kathryn.”
She says it like it’s simple. Like I can just snap my fingers and make Kathryn disappear.
“It’s not that easy,” I tell her.
Chloe wrinkles her nose. “Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, I see her every day in choir.”
“So? Ignore her.”
“I try to. But…”
“But what?” Chloe’s eyes are mean little slits now. “You’re you and she’s nobody.”
“She’s getting solos and I’m not.”
“So let her have them. Is she up for Homecoming Queen? Is she even going to Homecoming?”
“I don’t think she cares about stuff like that.”
“Of course she cares. Believe me, Brooke. Homecoming is way more interesting than some singing contest.”
That finally shuts me up. Because Chloe doesn’t get it, and she never will. It’s best to just let her deal with the things she does get, so I flip another page and point at the first dress I see.
“Too old lady-ish,” she says. “How about this one?” She points to a pink, floor-length gown with sparkles all over it.
“What am I, Glinda the Good Witch? It’s going to be, like, ten below out. And we’ll be on a muddy football field.”
“Oh yeah,” she says. “Right. What about vintage?”
I perk up, picturing movie stars on a red carpet. “But vintage always runs small. I’ll never find something that fits.”
I flip some more and finally find a black sheath dress that has a little bow just underneath the breastline. It comes with a deep red cashmere shrug, so it’s got long sleeves if you need them. Best of all, it won’t look too bad if it gets wet or muddy. “What about this?” I say.
Chloe moves my finger away from the picture so she can see it better. “John Moorehouse will love it.”
My heart ka-thumps in my chest. I shove her almost all the way off the bed.
“Shut up!”
“Why?” She giggles. “It’s obvious you like him.”
“Obvious to who?” Now I’ve got visions of the whole school talking about me and my huge, stupid crush. And what if John knows? I will die. Unless he’s happy because he likes me, too. In which case I will really die. But in a good way.
“I’m the only one who’s noticed,” Chloe says. “And that’s just because nothing gets past the amazing, all-seeing Chloe. Now relax!”
I can’t, though. Because John Moorehouse is pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to think about lately. Well, besides the Blackmore. And Kathryn. And my dad.
“Keep it to yourself,” I warn her.
“That won’t be easy when the whole school sees you together at Homecoming.”
And now we’re there, where I secretly wanted to go but have been too afraid to admit. I can’t talk to Chloe about music, but I can talk to her about this. So I say what’s been on my mind for days now.
“He hasn’t asked me.”
“He will.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me,” she says. “He’s busy with football right now. He’ll ask you.”
I put my chin in my hand, trying to imagine what that will be like. Will he call? Or will he grab me in the hallway at school? Will he come right out and ask? Or will he do something romantic, like bring roses?
“Whatever he’s planning, he’d better do it soon,” I say.
“Don’t worry.” Chloe finds the black dress online and pulls up a form for a shop in Minneapolis that carries it. “You guys are the two most popular people in school. It’s perfect. Exactly the way I would have done it.”
KATHRYN
“ANYBODY CAN WRITE.”
Ms. Amos, my AP English teacher, is stalking back and forth in front of the classroom, her stiletto heels clicking on the old tile floor. Our last few papers have not been up to par, and she is laying out her expectations while my classmates and I scribble furiously in our notebooks.
“English is about more than just words,” she tells us. “It’s about finding new ways to illuminate and make sense of the mysteries and minutiae of daily existence. Yes, I want you to write flawlessly, but I also want you to be original; otherwise, why bother?”
I write down the word “flawless” and underline it twice; I write the word “original” and highlight it with a star. Then I look down into my backpack, at the folder where I keep the music for my voice lessons; tucked inside it are six new pieces that Mr. Lieb gave me yesterday.
“Learn them all, and we’ll see which ones fit best,” he’d said. “You’re in good shape for the first two rounds, especially with the coloratura we’ve been working on, but you’ll need a showstopper for the finals. I’ve always been partial to this one.” He pointed to the aria on top of the stack, titled “The Jewel Song” from the opera Faust. It’s an acting piece—about a peasant girl who receives an enchanted box of diamonds and laughs at her reflection as she tries them on before a mirror.
Plus, the song is in French.
“It’s…” My throat suddenly felt very dry. “It’s really advanced.”
“Well, you aren’t going to win this with ‘Caro Mio Ben.’”
“I know,” I murmured. Though I could tell he didn’t mean to hurt me, the remark still stung; I could only imagine the vocal fireworks Brooke has planned. Mr. Lieb reached up from the piano and put his hand on my music, coaxing it down so his eyes could meet mine.
“If I didn’t think you could do this I wouldn’t have given it to you,” he said. “You’re going to be wonderful. I have nothing but faith in you.”
Faith, I think now as I stare at the music in my backpack. I’m going to need a lot of that.
Especially if I don’t find some time to practice. Between AP English, the Picayune, Human Anatomy, and all of my other classes, I’ve been staying up late, spending afternoons at the library and carving out a half hour here, forty-five minutes there for singing. That’s no way to prepare for a competition like the Blackmore, but I can’t seem to figure out a way to get everything done. Today, for example, I should go home and spend a good couple of hours on the new pieces Mr. Lieb gave me; instead, I head to the library to do some research for Ms. Amos and use their internet connection, which is a lot faster than the one we have at home.
On my
way in I bump into Laura Lindner, who stands alone by the magazine racks. I venture a “hello,” only to be answered with a glare as Laura turns and stalks off to the back corner, where a group has laid claim to the tables. The schedule at the checkout desk says the Spirit Committee is meeting today, and sure enough, there is Chloe Romelli talking to Tyrone Marshall, the new Douglas mascot. Chloe’s voice, which has always been loud, gets louder as she talks about which florist she’s planning to hire for bouquets. “I want everyone to look beautiful,” she says. “I don’t care if Homecoming is some philanthropy thing now, I’m not going to stick my friends with tacky blue carnations.”
I duck into a computer station, log in to the online card catalog, and type in “Theater of the Absurd.” A little clock appears on the screen, its hands spinning while the computer processes my request. The hands spin and spin; I try to get another window so I can start the search again, but nothing happens. I slide over to the next station and try again. More spinning. I glance around at the other computers and realize that I’m the only one trying to use them; they must all be down, which means I am either going to have to search the old-fashioned way or ask for help.
Leaving my things at my seat, I hurry over to the librarian’s desk. Her computer has crashed, too, so I wait while she flips through the yellowed card catalog, and then make my way to the shelves where the books I want are located. I return to my computer with three, open my bag to put them in, and there, tucked between my music and my English notes, is a slip of paper that wasn’t there before.
I pull it out and unfold it; it’s a print of the famous painting of a drowned Ophelia with my face Photoshopped where hers should be. In the picture, my eyes stare creepily at the sky, hair billowing in the water, palms turned upward. I look around and immediately my eye goes to the Spirit Committee. They’re deep into their meeting now, with Chloe recording minutes in an official-looking notebook.
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