by Amy Spalding
“It’s weird, huh?” Vaughn says to Kate once he gets a drink for my mother and a Diet Coke for me.
“Be nice,” my mother snaps.
“It’s just that she’s a total mini-Reece,” he says. “That’s all I’m saying. You looked just like this at sixteen, didn’t you?”
Very slowly, my mother nods. “Yeah.”
“Bad news, kid,” Vaughn says. “That’s definitely you at thirty-two.”
Thirty-two? Holy crap. I don’t like that math at all. It’s one thing knowing she’s young; it’s another to actually pin this number onto it.
“Bad news? Reece looks amazing,” Kate says, which I guess is true, not that I know exactly what a thirty-two-year-old should look like. I only know that a thirty-two-year-old is not what I expected to get as a mother. “Devan’s very lucky with those genes. And Reece’s mom looks amazing for her age.”
“Please, my mom’s had a lot of work done,” my mother says. “There’s nothing we can gauge from her except a different set of priorities.”
I wonder what this plastic surgery–getting person is like. My grandmother. Dad’s parents lived far away, on the other side of the state, so we didn’t see them very often, only once a year at Christmas. Dad clearly inherited his ways from them because I could never figure out how to get close to them, either.
Kate, Vaughn, my mother, and I eat dinner in a huge dining room off fancy square plates with heavy brushed-silver forks and knives. The longer I’m here, the less ridiculous it seems. Where and how else would Kate and Vaughn eat? Afterward, my mother and Vaughn promise to clean up, so Kate and I are free to head to the music room. I’m not sure what I’m expecting, considering the rest of the house, but this is just a simple room holding a piano and a shelf’s worth of sheet music.
“I’m good at warm-ups.” Kate sits down at the piano. “Actual music, less so. Isn’t that unfair? Five years of piano lessons, but I finally had to accept the truth.”
“I’m not any good at it, either,” I say. “But doing scales is totally all I need.”
So she launches right into some, and my voice just sort of flies out of me, like it always does. I feel the past days’ events rise off of me like steam on a cold day. Nothing feels wrong or bad or hopeless when I’m singing. The whole world is just music.
“Oh my God,” Kate kind of squeals when we’ve gone through a few different warm-ups. “Your range. I’d kill for it.”
“Yours is amazing, though,” I say, my first acknowledgment that I know who she is. “Mine’s no better.”
“Oh, sweetie, trust me, it is. Maybe not better than when I was your age, but now, yes. It’s hard maintaining it, since I can’t even remember the last musical I did.”
I can, but decide it would be creepy to mention.
“So.” She grins up at me from the piano bench. “You must have nosy questions for me about Reece, right?”
“Um.” I find myself grinning against my will. (Okay, my will isn’t that strong.) “Um, I don’t know. Not really.”
Kate snorts. “Devan. You either need to think harder or stop being so restrained.”
Obviously I have a lot of questions, but they aren’t for Kate. And I’m not sure how much I want to hear the answers anyway.
But I guess I have to ask something. “Is it weird I’m here?”
“Oh, Devan, I’ve lived through a lot weirder stuff.”
It’s a yes, but a nice one at least.
“She’s as tough as you think,” Kate tells me. “But a person can be so many things at once. You know?”
I don’t, not really. It sounds encouraging, though.
She pats the piano bench, and I sit down next to her. Three inches from a fairly famous person. “I’m here if there’s more you want to talk about later, okay? So if you need anything at all, you just have to let me know.”
“Um, thanks.” I can’t exactly imagine dialing up Kate Logan for random advice. Still, celebrity or not, it’s a nice thing to hear.
My mother and I go home not long after, since my audition is early and all. It’s another quiet drive, but obviously I’m already used to it. And the weird thing is—okay, I’m still terrified of Reece Malcolm, but this silence doesn’t feel the same as sitting in a silent car with Dad or Tracie.
And because of that, I feel safe enough to speak up as she pulls the car into the garage. “Thanks for taking me tonight. I think I’m way more ready for my audition now.”
“Good,” she says.
A lot of things are flooding my brain, but for the moment, I make myself smile at her before I head inside.
Chapter Five
Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
13. She’s thirty-two.
14. Therefore, she was sixteen when I was born.
15. Her friends are also nicer than she is.
My first “real” audition was in seventh grade for Bye Bye Birdie, which is one of those shows I think everyone has to perform in school at some point. Teachers had been telling me I had a beautiful voice in any class where singing was involved (like up to and including dumb stuff like “The Star-Spangled Banner”) so I didn’t even realize I should be nervous. And even though (like every girl there) I tried out for Kim (the lead role), I got cast as Rosie. And like every girl who didn’t get cast as Kim, I started off a little disappointed. But I realized how much of a better fit Rosie was for my voice, and I started thinking about that, who I’d be best at, not who’d get the most songs to sing. After that I always landed the role I went in for.
Of course, I’ve never stood near the cutest guy on the planet pre-audition before.
“Hey!” He jumps up from his chair as I walk into the music department waiting room at New City School. His hair is nearly black and kind of swooped forward, somewhere between really preppy and a little punk. It is Very Serious Hair. I think about how it would feel to run my fingers through it. (Good, obviously.) “You’re auditioning too? Not just me?”
Now I’m face-to-face with his chest, since 1) the room is pretty small and 2) he’s several inches taller than me. (When you’re 5’3” a lot of people are several inches taller than you.) It’s a nice chest. He’s wearing a totally normal T-shirt from the mall or whatever, but it hangs on him like the shirt has fulfilled its sole mission in life.
The guy is staring expectantly with his dark blue eyes, and I realize he’s probably not a hallucination and definitely talking to me. And it’s possible likely true I’m just staring at him.
“Oh, um, yeah, auditioning, I am.” To be fair, it’s more than I’ve ever said to a cute boy in my entire life, so I’m not entirely disappointed in my performance.
“You go here yet?” he asks. “I just started this morning. It’s crazy, compared to my old school. Maybe not in California, I don’t know. What about you?”
“I, um, no. I don’t.” I sit down in one of the folding chairs and hope he’ll stop talking soon. That’s right, I wish silence and lack of communication on Hot Boy. When a hot boy has never even spoken to me before, much less with so much enthusiasm. Auditions are that serious.
“Anyway, I’m Sai, S-A-I, it’s an Indian name, if you didn’t know. My mom’s half Indian and half Chinese. She named me after her great uncle, for some reason.” He pauses. “My mom’s weird.”
I nod until I realize I’m probably supposed to say something back to S-A-I Sai. “Devan.” I think about spelling my name, too, but I’m afraid it won’t sound cute, just weird. If Justine were here she’d tell me how to be cute on purpose, but she’s not.
“Awesome to meet you.” He’s pacing the length of the room, which doesn’t exactly help me maintain my usual pre-audition cool, but does at least give me a chance to watch him from multiple angles. “When do you start?”
“I don’t know yet for sure,” I say. “I just moved.”
“Me, too. St. Louis,” he says, blowing my freaking mind.
“Seriously? Me, too,” I say, then feel dumb because Pacific is not exactly S
t. Louis, and also maybe I’m talking too much and the laws of nature will do something dramatic to maintain the world where hot boys and Devan do not mix.
“No way.” He pauses from pacing and rocks back on his heels. “Where’d you go to school?”
A woman leans into the room with a clipboard. “Say Lawrence?”
“It’s Sai,” he says with a smile. He probably corrects it a lot. “Hey, Devan from St. Louis, let’s talk later, okay?”
“Sure!” I say wayyyy too enthusiastically, and watch him leave the room. My heart pounds and I feel vaguely crazy, and I guess lots of people go through this pre-auditions all the time. If only I had such a good reason.
Sai is back only a few minutes later. “Fastest audition ever. No clue what to think. Anyway, here’s my email. I have to get back to class, but we should talk.”
“Um, yeah.” I take the scrap of paper from him. If it still exists later I can prove he does, too. “I’ll—”
“Devan Malcolm?” The lady is back, and now my heart is racing and my breath is all shallow and I feel cold sweat on the back of my neck. Because in addition to this cute boy handing over his email address, New City School has mangled my name in a horrible, amazing way. New City School doesn’t know who Devan Mitchell is. New City School thinks I’m a Malcolm.
“See ya, Devan Malcolm,” Sai says before heading out of the room. (Does that count as flirting?) I follow the woman down the hallway to a choir room. A man probably no older than my mother, wearing a button-down shirt, sweater vest, jeans, and Adidas, sits at the piano. I had no idea teachers could dress like that.
“Hi, Devan,” he says, and directs me to a spot next to the piano. He goes through my range first, then hands me a piece of music to sight-read a cappella, and finally lets me choose from a few pieces of music to sing four bars of. (I pick some weird folk song just because I’ve sang it in a previous class, I figure no one else would go for it, and there’s this section I can belt the heck out of.) The teacher doesn’t give any indication of how I did and dismisses me without a positive or negative word.
I make my way back to the admin building, pausing for a moment at the little pond where goldfish are swimming. In Missouri my school was one big brick building, but New City School is broken up into lots of little white buildings, bright against the blue sky, with lots of tiled walkways connecting everything. What a weird school. What a weird day, and it’s only nine thirty in the morning.
My mother’s waiting in the hallway when I get back, reading a big promotional New City booklet. “How’d it go?”
“No idea. Do we need to do anything else?”
“Not yet. They’ll let us know if you’re accepted into any choir classes by this evening, and they’ll schedule you for classes according to that.”
We walk outside to the parking lot. Sunshine and blue skies. Again. I open my mouth to let her know about the name mistake, except that I really like the thought of being Devan Malcolm. And if I tell her, she’ll call up New City, get it fixed, and I’ll have to go back to being Devan Mitchell.
And suddenly she’s the last person I want to be.
When I get the call from New City letting me know I’ve been placed in Honors Choir, Women’s Choir, and the New City Nation (most pretentious name for a show choir ever?), I feel good enough to get up the nerve to take out that piece of paper from my purse.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Choir Auditions
Hi Sai,
I’m the one who auditioned right after you today. Did you find out where you’re placed yet?
I type in the list of choirs I’ll be in but then delete them, considering it feels a lot like bragging. And, anyway, what are the chances Sai is gorgeous, from St. Louis, and an amazing singer on top of that? So I just sign my name and hit send. Whatever.
(Not whatever at all, really. I check my email a lot after that.)
According to school policy, I have to start the next morning so I won’t delay the choir classes any more, which is fine. Being new is so normal to me that I can’t get too worked up over it. At least here I have a ton of clothes that Missouri Me would have killed for, and—when I check first thing after I get up in the morning—an email from a cute boy letting me know he’s in Honors, Men’s, and Show choirs. He even sounds excited about all of that as well as about talking to me. If it were a musical we would totally be kissing soon, but I’ll probably find out that, despite my instincts, he’s gay.
Brad drives me to school because, as he puts it, seven a.m. seems a bit dangerous to let Reece out into the world, which is okay because he has a muffin and cocoa waiting for me, and he chatters on all the way to school in a manner that’s somehow distracting in a good way, not an annoying one. I wave good-bye when he pulls up to New City and walk inside like I have any idea at all what I’m doing. First day survival strategy.
It’s probably dumb to hope Sai will find me, but I do—and he doesn’t—so I head off from the Junior Cottage (seriously, that’s what my locker assignment sheet calls it) to the Music Hall for Women’s Choir.
Women’s Choir has never been my favorite of choir classes, since it’s just tons of girls, and I prefer the variety of having more of a mix of voices. (Also, not to sound snotty, but since it’s usually such a large group, it’s not as competitive as the other choirs and therefore not everyone is as skilled as in my other choir classes.) Plus Women’s Choir generally only sings pretty traditional songs. Honors Choir is much better, since there are boys, and it’s way more selective. Still, in Honors Choir we generally sing pretty standard and classical songs in precise arrangements. But they’re good for my voice, great for learning to sing well with others, and it isn’t as if I mind any time spent singing, period.
In show choir, though, at least there is a performance aspect, too, since the whole point is performing showier numbers with movement and choreography. I actually think it’s kind of a little pretty cheesy. People say the same thing about musical theatre, but I don’t think that’s true at all. It’s one thing to burst into song in character because there’s such an overflow of emotion it can’t be contained. It’s another entirely to randomly sing and dance, apropos of nothing. I mean, I love it, but I can’t deny its cheesiness. (Musical theatre, on the other hand, I’ll defend to its—and my—death.) Still, show choir is a small group of talented people, and you occasionally even get to sing songs from this century. It’s the best of all of them.
I make my way through the crowd of girls to the piano, where the man from yesterday sits. “Devan, hi,” he says. “Killer audition yesterday.”
“Oh, thanks.” I look down at my schedule because I’m pretty sure that Deans comma M is listed for all three of my choirs. “Do you teach every choir class here?”
“Just the advanced ones.” He hands over a folder of music. “Here’s everything you need for this period. We’ll take care of the others when you get to them. There’s one other person beginning today in the Nation and Honors, too, so you won’t be the only newbie.”
I don’t tell him that I know that last bit already.
“So you’ll be in good company,” he says. “If you don’t mind waiting off to the side, once everyone’s seated we’ll find you a spot. Cool?”
“Cool,” I say, and step back to survey the room. It’s a lot less like being out in Hollywood this weekend and way more like most choir classes I’ve had before. (Though to be fair, being out in Hollywood isn’t actually scary; people are just dressed either super nice or super casual or somehow both.)
Once I’m seated with the altos, things feel even more familiar, and of course once I’m singing I couldn’t be convinced my life is weird in the least.
Plus here I’m definitely not Missouri Me. My schedule is for Devan Malcolm, and that’s how Mr. Deans introduces me to the class. It sounds really good, and I like how it looks in my handwriting, and when I practice my autograph during second-period chemistr
y class it definitely improves upon my standard one. Here at New City, I’ll be Devan Malcolm. I’m not some girl missing part of who she is with a weird secret unknown mom. Maybe here I can try being normal.
On my way from the Science Building (no fancy name for this one) back to the Music Hall, I spot Sai and force myself not to wave until he does. But at last he does.
“Hey.” He stops walking until I catch up with him. “Did you get my email?”
“Yeah, this morning.” Is it weird that I check my email in the morning? “We have two choirs together.”
“That’s awesome. Also awesome I got to transfer out of sociology to take this class. My dad made me start right away instead of waiting to see what choirs I got into. Let me see your schedule.”
I hand it over, and hope that people walking by take note that the mousy new girl is in the presence of the hot new guy.
“We have English lit together, too,” he says. “Best class after choir for sure. And Acting I.”
I feel like I owe New City School a thank-you letter.
Obviously, the New City Nation is a small class, only sixteen people, eight girls and eight boys. It’s usually kind of weird being the new person in a show choir class, especially in schools where it’s pretty competitive, but then again I’ve done this more than once. At least this time I’m new with someone else.
“Hey, Devan, Sai,” Mr. Deans says. “Go ahead and take a seat. We’ll introduce you once everyone’s here.”
That’s the other thing about show choir: it’s a lot closer-knit group than other classes. It’s not like I ever had good friends in any of them, besides Justine of course, but you still know everyone by name.
The kids next to Sai and me do not exactly look thrilled to see us, which happens sometimes. I guess it can seem unfair if it takes you years to get into a class, and some new kids make it their first day. I just don’t think you earn spots by waiting it out. The good stuff should be earned by being the right one, period. This part of my life comes so naturally to me—unlike pretty much the rest of it, besides knowing how to scour the clearance racks and vintage shops for the best pieces—that it’s easy to know this is what I should be doing.
