by Amy Spalding
I think about that and then about the hypothetical boys still to be kissed. But mostly I think about how it’s a relief to spend a few moments more worried about anything other than my mother for once.
Chapter Eleven
Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
24. She is a wild squirrel.
25. Her boy advice isn’t so bad.
Even though I am wearing new and kind of expensive jeans picked out for me by the very choosy Travis, I am terrified a little nervous walking into school on Monday morning.
And not because the callbacks list will be up.
Elijah is waiting at my locker. He’s just leaning there, all casual. “Hey.”
“Oh, um, hi. Good morning.” Good morning? Why am I so weird?
“I was going to text you yesterday,” he says, “but I didn’t have your number.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay. Do you want it?”
He laughs, and his laugh is somehow really hot. I didn’t know guys could have hot laughs. “Yeah, I want it.”
I give him my number, and he texts me right away so I have his. Is this just how it happens? You get randomly kissed, and then you find yourself wanting to be around that person? For some reason I expected way more complications than that.
(I mean, besides that there’s Lissa. And that there’s Sai. Not that Sai counts. Lissa is something real to Elijah, obviously, whereas Sai might as well be someone whose poster I tore out of a magazine.)
“Are you doing anything after school?” he asks.
“Well, um, maybe,” I say, because that much is true. If I get a callback, Kate said I could come over and work with her. But if I don’t—which, okay, I don’t think is very likely but is possible, especially since I’m so new to New City—I’m completely free and could totally use that free time for kissing Elijah more.
Wait, I should find out if I have a callback.
“Sorry, I—” I try to gesture in a way that will explain everything but I probably look crazy as I dash off from my locker and toward the Music Hall. There’s a swarm of people in there, and I have no idea how I’ll make my way to the sacred piece of paper and still get to Women’s Choir on time. Also, oh my God, I was so rude to Elijah, and do boys stop being interested in you if you’re weird and rude in the span of, like, two minutes?
I text him while trying to squeeze my way to the sheet. Sorry, I forgot callbacks were up. I didn’t mean to be rude. My phone beeps almost right away: no prob. good luck!
Mira appears out of nowhere and tugs me by the arm down the hallway toward Women’s Choir. “I’ll save you the trip.”
“I’m not on it?”
“Devan, shut up,” she says. “Your whole shtick is getting annoying. Can you drop it?”
“I, um, I don’t have a shtick.”
“Right. The Little Miss Timid thing is just you.”
All I can think to say is that I’m working on not being a wild squirrel, but that isn’t going to help my cause.
“Of course you’re on the callback sheet,” she says. “You didn’t actually doubt that, did you?”
I shrug. “It’s my first audition here. I didn’t know.”
“Trust me, you’re the only one feeling any surprise over it.” She glances around us, and pulls me all the way into the choir room. “Just so you’re aware? Everyone knows what happened Saturday night. Liss and I do, at least.”
Crap crap crap.
“It’s fine,” she says, like suddenly Mira’s in charge of banishing my worries. “Lissa’s freaked, but it’s fine.”
“I don’t think you get to say it’s fine.” I didn’t mean to say something so honest and borderline bitchy to her, but once it’s out I feel brave. Accidentally brave, at least.
“Okay, I don’t get to say it’s fine.” Mira sighs. “And Liss doesn’t get to say it’s not fine, either. She’s rejected Elijah enough times by now to lose whatever claim she has over him.”
I don’t know why suddenly Mira’s so nice, but I’m not going to question it. I take my seat before Lissa walks in and keep my eyes to the front of the room, which hopefully makes me seem innocent and not like a boyfriend-stealer. I’m not a boyfriend-stealer, right?
I get the weird sensation someone’s looking at me, so I glance at Mira (who isn’t) and then to Lissa. She’s watching me, but she doesn’t give me a dirty look or anything. We just kind of hold each other’s gazes for a second. Then Mr. Deans is there and we’re on our feet for warm-ups, and I tell myself to dwell on the callback and the potential for kissing later. And maybe everyone will be okay with things.
Travis is somehow already outside the Women’s Choir room when class lets out. He grabs my hand and yanks me down the hallway. I feel like I’m getting pulled around a lot today.
“So?” he greets me.
“So what?” I ask, as if I’m any good at playing it cool.
“Oh my God, Devvie, so something significant happened on Saturday night and you didn’t tell me any of it on Sunday when we spent our whole day together?”
“I—”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Elijah’s so hot in that whole rock and roll way. I didn’t even know you liked him, and—”
“Stop talking so loudly,” I say, and not just because we’re walking by Sai and Nicole. His arm is wrapped tight around her shoulders, but he still looks over to smile and wave at us. How can I hate him for being with her when he’s so nice? (Also when I’m maybe with someone, too? But that’s just a technicality. Wait, a technicality? Do I think of Elijah as a technicality? The situation, yeah, but not Elijah at all.)
“Who told you?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. It does, but I don’t point that out. “How did this happen? You have to tell me everything.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. He’s . . . he’s nice. It just did. And I know I suck because of Lissa and everything—”
“You do not,” he says. “Lissa and Eli are like this big complicated mess, but one thing they’re not is a couple. He’s fully available. So is he, like, the best kisser in the world? Musicians are so hot.”
“You’re so nosy.” Though maybe he isn’t nosy, and I’m just too closed-off or something. I really don’t know how to share a little when I can never share everything. “Can we not talk about this at school?”
“Ooh, choice details for later? Okay.”
I roll my eyes but find myself kind of leaning in and giving Travis a hug. “Thanks for not hating me.”
“You’re too adorable to hate. See you in Nation.”
By lunchtime, even though honestly no one’s being weird to me, I feel weird walking outside like things are normal. Things are the opposite of normal, and my brain can’t even handle the entirety of the situation. Like that maybe I, no matter what people are saying, am a bad person to Lissa. And maybe I’m not a good friend to Justine, considering how easy it is for me to ignore her now. And maybe I’m not even a good friend to Travis, because he clearly wants me to pony up every detail about whatever is going on, and all I want to do is hold them closely against my chest with my arms wrapped tight.
So I sit with my usual sandwich at an inside table and text Kate to see if it’s still okay to come over later. My phone buzzes in my hand, but it’s not Kate responding at lightning speed; it’s Elijah.
where r u?
I respond, and before long he’s inside sharing my table and stealing part of my sandwich. (It’s okay because he shares his Cheetos with me.) It’s sweet of him to be in here, but also maybe it draws more attention to us. (Still, it’s not like I tell him to leave or anything.) I wonder if this makes me the kind of girl who picks a boy over her friends. Except I didn’t, really—the boy picked me.
Since Kate eventually texts back that of course we’re still on for tonight, I let Elijah know I can’t hang out. He offers to drive me home, and I take him up on it. My mother will know something’s up if we’re really late, but he still parks at the other end of my street and tur
ns off the car.
I unfasten my seat belt, which suddenly feels like this big bold move, and lean in toward him. This means I’m technically the one who’s kissing him, which I like. (Also it’s not like Elijah isn’t returning the kiss immediately.) He pulls me as close as possible—which isn’t very close thanks to his car’s design—but it still feels romantic. I’m not sure what to do with my hands, so I put them on his shoulders. We’re kissing softly at first, and it’s slow and warm, and then before I know it the kisses are blending together. Elijah leans away a little and I’m afraid he’s going to say he should take me home—even though he should—but it’s to kiss my earlobe and then my neck, which makes me shiver. I thought when people said things like that they were exaggerating, but I literally do shiver.
“Are you sure you have to go home?” he asks in his low husky voice. It’s just how he talks but I still like it, like it’s just for me.
I want to lie but I don’t. “Yeah, I’m sorry, just, callbacks tomorrow, and my mother’s friend is going to work with me, and—”
“I know,” he says. “Callbacks are a big deal.”
I shift around so I’m sitting properly in the seat again, and buckle my seat belt even though we’re all but at my house already. “Thanks for understanding.”
“It’s no problem,” he says as he pulls the car down the street and into the driveway. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you.” I wave and walk inside, where my mother is—as usual—typing on her laptop. “Hi.”
She looks up at me. “Hi yourself.”
“Um, I think I mentioned something about this the other day, but in case you forgot, Kate said I could come over tonight and work on some vocal stuff. She’s going to pick me up and everything. Is it still, like, okay?”
“Like, completely.”
Whenever she mocks something I say, it’s done so lightly I can’t bring myself to get offended anymore. Also I’ve realized maybe it’s just her, having witnessed her repeating back to Brad his Britishisms, as if there isn’t a whole country where people talk like him. He always bursts into laughter, though, mocking right back because while her impression is good, her fake accent is like something out of a bad high school play.
Kate picks me up about an hour later. It would have been enough time to finish my homework if I’d done that instead of spending my time picking out a perfectly casual singing outfit (I switch out my jeans for yoga pants and my flats for my gray and blue sneakers) and looking at pictures of Elijah and Sai on Facebook.
“Hi, sweetie,” Kate greets me as I get into her car. “So I hear there’s a boy.” Her eyebrows rise conspiratorially, and then: “Already!” like the entire word is the exclamation point.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, not sure if that’s a lie or not.
“I hear he wears guyliner.”
I don’t know how to tell Kate Logan not to call it that so I just kind of shrug.
At her house in her piano room, I sing through “Like It Was,” wishing I could have used it for my initial audition instead of “Now You Know,” which is bigger and faster and showier. I’m not sure how I can blow anyone’s mind with this one.
“So here’s the thing, sweetie,” Kate says when I’ve completed the song to her very barebones accompaniment. “You, of all people, should stop worrying so much about hitting the right notes. Of course you’re going to! Try to feel the song more.”
Normally it’s like I can’t stop feeling things to my very core. Real life things, at least. It’s hard to wrap my brain around needing the opposite for music.
“I feel like you’ve got the sadness down,” she says. “But there’s more in there, you see that when you think about it, right? Anger? And also a sense of humor about it?”
I nod as my brain catches up with that.
“Also, you don’t need to”—she flings her hands into the air—“attack each note with such gusto! This phrase here . . .”
I lean over her shoulder to follow along in the sheet music.
“What if you let that be a quiet moment? Trust me, I used to be scared of those, too, and I probably would have forsaken them even more if I’d had your pipes.”
“Yours are—”
“Oh, please! You have such the gift. But we won’t forget that if sometimes you dial it back a notch.”
I’m not sure about that, but I try again, keeping all of what she said in mind. Afterward we both laugh because it’s seriously so so so terrible. I’ve never sung so badly in my life—and in front of Kate Logan. You’d never think I could just laugh, but I guess Kate is right about a lot. I know I have something, and one bad rendition isn’t going to disprove anything.
“You are thinking way too hard,” she says. “Just absorb it all, and let it go.”
I raise an eyebrow at that.
“My God, you look exactly like your mom when you do that. Come on, let’s walk around the house, get your mind off of this for a minute.”
I follow her out of the room and down the hallway. By the time we’re back in the piano room, I don’t feel any more ready to tackle the song again, but I don’t really have a choice. This time, though, I start actually understanding what Kate means. This time I do feel it all.
“That was amazing,” she tells me. “Okay, let’s do it again.”
“But—” I feel weird that it’s supposedly amazing but I have to sing it another time.
“If this is how good you are after a few tries, imagine how you’ll be when it’s effortless,” she says. “Just because you’re brilliant doesn’t mean you can’t be better.”
This might be kind of dumb, but it’s a revelation to hear. Obviously practice isn’t just for people who aren’t that great, but I generally sail through songs so easily on my first attempt. Of course there are levels of greatness, of nailing it. For caring so much, maybe I’ve been kind of complacent.
So I go through “Like It Was” at least five more times with Kate, and then “Now You Know,” even though I don’t need it for tomorrow. My head feels hollowed out, between the complacency revelation and working my voice harder than ever before. But who knew utterly drained and lightheaded could feel so good?
Kate drives me back home, where Brad is putting dinner on the table and my mother has her MacBook on top of her empty dinner plate.
“You’re just in time,” Brad says to me, which is a nice way to be greeted. My mother doesn’t look up but she does wave. “I’m relieved someone will talk to me during dinner.”
“I’m almost finished with this scene,” my mother says. “Thanks for cooking. And putting up with me.”
Brad laughs. “Devan, how was school?”
I think about telling them I got a callback, but I don’t know if it sounds like a very big deal to a TV writer and a Pulitzer Prize winner. So I just say it was fine, which I guess it was. My mother eventually does close her computer and let Brad serve her spinach quiche and salad, and Brad tells us a story about getting really great sandwiches for lunch but makes it sound way more exciting than sandwiches should be. They let me do the dishes—completely on my own—after we eat, which feels like a big step in helping them out, and then I head up to my room to do my homework.
When I check my phone there’s a missed text from Elijah. u have time to talk? I don’t, but it’s enough that he wants to. (I have another text, too, from Justine, about The Tenor, but it doesn’t feel like a response is required.) I text back an apology to Elijah, and he gets it, because he’s nice, and so I concentrate on my English lit.
My phone rings a couple minutes later, and I wonder if Elijah didn’t actually get it, but it’s not him. It’s Sai.
I answer right away.
“Hey!” he says. “You aren’t nervous about tomorrow, right? You’re gonna nail callbacks. You’re the best singer in Nation.”
We’ve never talked on the phone before, but I love how you’d never know that from how normal Sai makes it. I’m sure he’s never been awkward one day in his lif
e.
“Thanks,” I say. “And, no, I’m not really nervous. Are you?”
“Probably more than you. Not used to being in the chorus; afraid that’s what I’ll get stuck with. But it’s all good. Character-building? That’s what people say?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say.
“Heard something about you and Cross,” he says.
Who would have told him? Travis? (Probably.) I wish Sai didn’t know. Is that bad? “Oh, um. Yeah.”
“Yeah? Didn’t know you were—”
“It just kind of happened,” I say, which is—well, as my mother would say—a-ma-zing. When Justine arrived home from choir camp and told me about the first night she made out with The Tenor, that’s how she put it. And I listened faux-enthusiastically when all I could think was, How does anything like that just happen?
“Yeah, I know how that goes,” Sai says.
Of course he does.
“I know it’s kind of weird,” I say so he knows that I don’t think it isn’t. “Especially because of Lissa or whatever. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
“Him and Lissa aren’t official or anything, far as I know. I don’t think you did anything wrong. Not sure you could do anything wrong if you tried, Dev.”
It’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. And Sai isn’t just anyone. I never felt the way I feel about Sai with anyone else. I know it’s bad, but to be fair I never felt the way I do about Elijah with anyone else, either. Sai might be gorgeous and confident and talented and a not-so-secret nerd, but I know I could never just lean in and kiss Sai. Elijah has a lot going for him, too.
Still, it’s amazing Sai thinks such kind things about me.
“Man,” Sai says. “Bad night.”
“Are you . . .”
“Am I what?” he asks after I fade out. Somehow Sai can smile with his voice.
“Are you okay?”
“My dad just, ya know . . .” Now it’s Sai who fades out. “Spent a lot of tonight yelling at me. It sucks because you’d think the one tradeoff for it happening all the time is I’d get used to it.”
