Not Another Love Song

by Olivia Wildenstein

  But I don’t want it either. Instead of bringing it up again—I’ll just give it back to him, and that’ll be that—I shoot out of my chair and stride out of the classroom. I’m so concentrated on putting distance between Ten and myself that I smack into a hard chest. Hands come around my biceps to steady me.

  I lift my eyes and meet bright-blue ones.

  “Hey there, Conrad.” Jasper’s breaths hit my forehead in bursts, as though he’s been sprinting through the hallway to reach me.

  “Hi.”

  “I was coming to find you.” His jaw’s a little flushed, which reinforces my suspicion that he ran.

  “Yeah?”

  He lets me go, then rubs his neck. My bag slides down my arm, so I hoist it back up.

  “Want to hang sometime this week?” He sends the words flying at me as fast as one of his footballs.

  “Um.”

  People shuffle past, knocking me into Jasper. I’m so close I can see his pupils pulse in anticipation.

  “We could go to a movie or something,” he says.

  “Um. Sure?” He breaks out into a grin that freezes when I add, “Let me ask Rae—”

  “Rae?” His smile falls. “I meant you and me.”

  Oh. Oh … “Like a date?”

  He rubs his neck so hard I wonder if he has a crick in it. “Yeah.”

  Whoa. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mel likes you,” I blurt out. “She’s my friend. I can’t do that to her.”

  Jasper doesn’t question that Mel and I are friends, which strengthens my resolve not to get involved with him. If he really liked me, he’d know who my friends are—is—and see right through my lie.

  “Anyway, I need to get to class.” As I sidestep away from Jasper, I bump into another male body. I look up and find Ten staring down at me. “Sorry,” I mumble, before hurrying to my next class, alert so as not to knock into yet another person.

  I want to tell Rae about Jasper asking me out, but she’s too busy discussing homecoming with the committee she’s invited to have lunch at our table.

  After school, although I planned to go straight to Lynn’s house to ask her for input on my song, Rae coerces me into grabbing frozen yogurt. Since I can never say no to food or to Rae, I end up at the Dairy Fairy with an extra-large serving of rocky road.

  “RaeRae!” Melody waves at us from the line of customers.

  Rae gestures her over, which leads me to guess they made up. From the way Laney, who’s standing next to Mel, glares at the refrigerated display, I’m deducing she and Rae didn’t.

  “I’ll grab two more seats,” Rae says, which gets Laney’s attention. Rae hooks her foot around the leg of an unoccupied chair and drags it over. “Can you grab that one, Angie?” She tips her head to the empty chair behind me.

  I grab it and spin it around just as the girls make their way over to our table.

  “Who wants to go dress shopping for homecoming with me this weekend?” Rae asks.

  Laney’s black eyes taper on Rae. Unlike Mel, she doesn’t sit.

  “I’m real sorry about the Brad thing, Laney,” Rae says. “I hope he didn’t retaliate or anything.”

  Laney’s lids hike up in surprise at Rae’s concern. Or maybe it’s the apology that has her baffled. “He didn’t.”

  I find Brad’s nonretaliation surprising. Maybe he’s not as big a jerk as he seems to be.

  “So, shopping?” Rae repeats.

  “I’m in. I saw this gray dress at the mall that I’m dying to try on,” Mel says.

  “Laney?” Rae asks.

  As she sits, Laney bobs her head. And just like that, the hatchet is buried.

  Laney’s only been in Reedwood for a year, so I don’t know her well, but I assumed she was the type to hold grudges because of how reserved she is. Which is silly, of course. Personality isn’t determined by how vocal you are.

  Rae glances at me. “Angie?”

  “I do need a dress.”

  Rae rolls her eyes. “Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” she says, which makes Mel snort and Laney sort of smile.

  Mel sucks on her spoon, then points it at me. “Did you ask Ten to homecoming, Angie?”

  “Ten? No.” I shake my head. “Why?”

  “I was just curious. You two seem close.”

  “What?” I sound like someone’s strangling me.

  Rae’s cheeks grow as fluorescent pink as her nails. “Why don’t we all go dateless?”

  “Cool with me.” Mel scrapes the bottom of her frozen yogurt cup. “Laney?”

  Laney sighs. “Sure.”

  As we discuss hairstyles and makeup, Rae’s skin tone settles back to its normal hue.

  After we part ways, I bike over to Lynn’s house, rehearsing my lyrics softly. The more I ruminate on them, the more ambivalent I feel. I desperately need Lynn’s opinion. By the time I reach my coach’s house, my stomach is as knotted as my windblown hair.

  I roll my bike down the paved pathway and hook it to the porch rail, then pull off my helmet and finger-comb my locks as I ring the doorbell.

  What if Lynn hates the lyrics? Would she even tell me?

  Finally, the door opens. “Hey, Angie,” Lynn says. “Did we have a lesson today?”

  “I wrote the song. I mean, a song. I wanted to run it past you and maybe work on it. If you have time.” I was so intent on getting her opinion I didn’t stop to consider if she was busy.

  “Um. I’m free in a half hour. Can you come back then?”

  I’m taken aback. Come back? “Can’t I wait inside?”

  Her left eye spasms. “Um.” She glances behind her, at the door of the piano parlor.

  “Or I can wait out here?” I say.

  She releases a breath. “Okay.”

  After she closes the door, I flop down on the porch swing. My history notebook peeks out from my bag, which I take as a sign. I grab it, along with my notebook, and read about the Vietnam War, jotting down important facts, but soon wisps of the piano lesson inside distract me. Like drifts of pollen, the voice trickles through the drywall and coils in front of me.

  I sit up straighter, as though adjusting my posture will somehow make the voice clearer. It doesn’t. I need to get closer. I find myself creeping around the house, toward the window of the piano parlor.

  Like the rumble of thunder, the voice grows louder, deeper, strengthening until it overpowers the birds chirping in the magnolia tree. I stand with my back against the wall, my fingers tapping the rhythm against the rough surface. When Lynn plays the treble clef, hitting higher notes, the voice splinters, and the music stops.

  My fingers still. I hold my breath, afraid Lynn and her student will hear me breathing.

  Lynn starts up again, this time on the bass clef, and the voice takes on a roundness, a depth, a raspiness that pitches me into a velvet chasm of sound. I hope the singer doesn’t smoke, because it would damage her throat. Vocal folds like hers shouldn’t be exposed to nicotine. They should be sealed off from any pollutant. I close my eyes, hanging on every note. The voice morphs into a tangible, fluid thing that undulates and bends and bursts with deep colors. Scarlet, violet, navy.

  Lynn reaches the next low octave, and still the voice throbs and sways, braiding with the instrument until they fuse and become indistinguishable. A part of me is jealous, but another part is awestruck.

  Lynn once told me to treat singing like a sport: to become good at it requires building muscle; to stay good at it requires practice. Yes, some people have musicality and can match pitch, but most lack power and texture. Those two elements separate the greats from the goods. The voice I’m hearing right now is definitely a great.

  I finally peek through the window. The haunting, eddying tune halts so suddenly my body feels as though it’s been spit out of a vortex. I stare at the girl—who’s really only a child—and she stares back. Her mouth rounds, and then she tilts her head down, and her face vanishes behind the bill of a pink baseball cap.


  Lynn leaps off the piano bench and marches toward the window, livid. I jump backward, half expecting her to fling the window open and throttle me. Instead, she pulls the heavy drapes closed.

  I dash back to the front porch. All I did was look, so why do I feel like I’ve just murdered someone? My fingers scrabble over my history notebook just as Lynn bursts through the front door.

  “What were you thinking?” she hisses.

  “I’m … I’m sorry.”

  Loose sheets of paper flutter like feathers on the gray floorboards. I bend over to retrieve them and try to line them up, crumpling the sides. They don’t line up. I sandwich them into my history book and stuff everything in my bag.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Leaving.” I crouch, and after several attempts, manage to get my U-lock open. My fingers tremble as I toss my bag into the basket.

  “I’m sorry I yelled, Angie.” Her voice has lost some of its sternness.

  Without turning, I jerk my head in a nod.

  “She’s just shy,” Lynn adds.

  “I understand,” I say, even though I don’t. I don’t understand much of anything right now. I don’t understand why I’m fleeing, or why Lynn hissed at me, or why I feel so wicked.

  How could someone with such an extraordinary voice be shy?

  “She has an incredible voice, doesn’t she?” Lynn calls out as I begin pedaling away.

  Something edges her voice. Sadness? Why would she feel sad about her student being gifted? Does she think I’m jealous?

  I turn a corner and almost ram into a big black car. The car honks, brakes screeching. I swerve to miss it and end up on the wrong side of the road. I pedal quickly back to the right side, wheels grazing the raised curb, then I brake. My pulse is all over the place. Pressing one hand against my heart, I wait for it to even out.

  Once the punching in my rib cage lessens, I look over my shoulder, itching to go back, but I don’t want to seem like some psycho stalker, so I make my way back home.

  11

  Long, Boring Conversations

  Soft rain pelts the windows of the classroom while the steel-gray light of the rain clouds turns the manicured quad silver. The weather matches my mood to perfection. Ever since Monday, I’ve been feeling down, and nothing and no one has been able to bring me back up. I should’ve just phoned Lynn and nipped whatever happened back at her house in the bud, but pride kept my lips sealed shut.

  Rae’s out sick, so at lunchtime I grab a turkey wrap, walk past the wall of yellow lockers, and push through the school doors. It’s probably not the best day to eat outside, but I crave fresh air and space to think. I round the brick walls toward the track where students are running in spite of the ceaseless drizzle.

  I unroll my denim jacket from my bag and poke my arms inside the sleeves, then untangle my pink earbuds and press PLAY on my father’s last album. The Derelicts made one more album after he died, but it wasn’t successful. Not that their other albums were all that successful. They never went platinum or anything, even though I think they deserved more attention than they got.

  The air’s warm and sticky, alive with a million mosquitoes. I climb up the bleachers to the highest row and watch the bodies looping around the field, kicking up globs of red dirt. It’s strangely calming, almost hypnotic. The rain pricks my bare thighs like falling needles. I stuff my hands inside my pockets and close my eyes.

  The strum of my father’s guitar rumbles through me, smoothing out my anxiety. Earthen tones detonate behind my closed lids—amber, khaki, garnet. Like a balm, his playing soothes me.

  If only he were still alive.

  If only the roads hadn’t been icy.

  If only the fourteen-wheeler hadn’t skidded and rammed into him.

  I sigh just as something grazes my elbow. I imagine it’s an insect and swipe it off.

  It’s not an insect, though; it’s a hand.

  I push my stringy hair off my forehead and pivot toward the body attached to it.

  Ten’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

  I pluck one earbud out. “What?”

  “Do you have a bicycle license?”

  My head jerks back a little.

  “You’re a menace on that thing.”

  “Um, okay.” Criticism. Just what I need. “If you’re done doling out gratuitous advice, I’d like to get back to my music.”

  He rests his forearms on his thighs, laces his fingers together, and lets them hang between his knees. I pop the earbud back in, hoping he gets the message I want him to leave, but he doesn’t move. Well, actually, he does move. He extends his arm, seizes one of my earbuds, and sticks it into his ear. He wraps his palms around the edge of the metal bench and stretches his long legs out.

  His head bobs.

  “I thought you hated music,” I say.

  “Garage bands are okay.”

  “The Derelicts aren’t a garage band.”

  His gym shirt with the school crest—a stylized tree of knowledge—sticks to his chest. “The Derelicts, huh? Your father’s band?”

  “Yeah. He was their guitar player.”

  “Do you play the guitar?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Do you play an instrument?”

  “Who’s the nosy one now?”

  “I never called you nosy.” He takes the earbud out and hands it back to me. “I said you asked a lot of questions.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Why are you sitting up here by yourself?”

  “Because…” I loop the pink plastic cord around my index finger. “Why do you even care?”

  His golden eyes darken. “You’ve been sitting with your back to me in class all week.”

  I didn’t think he’d noticed.

  He sticks his hand out.

  I frown at it.

  “I’m Tennessee Dylan, but I go by Ten. What’s your name?”

  I look down at his suspended hand, then look around in case this is a prank one of his track buddies is filming. No one’s holding up any phones. No one’s even around. How long have I been out here?

  I check my watch. When I see the time, I spring up. Ten winces, mistaking my rush to head back inside for a dismissal. He stands, rubs his palms against his gym shorts, then starts down the bleachers.

  “Hey, new kid,” I call out.

  He turns around.

  “My name’s Angela Conrad, but everyone calls me Angie.”

  His lips twitch.

  I catch up to him. “I plan on being a legendary musician. What about you, Ten? What do you dream of being when you grow up?” I’m standing on the step above him, yet he’s still taller than I am.

  His smile turns brash. “What do you think I dream of being when I grow up?”

  I tilt my head to the side. “I’m thinking it’s a toss-up between talk show host and astronaut. Am I close?”

  He laughs, a deep laugh that slaloms past the raindrops and sneaks into my chest.

  I draw a look of mock surprise over my face. “What? Am I not even close?”

  “Not even.”

  I skip off the step and go down a couple more. Ten follows me. I hop off the bleachers onto the squishy, sodden grass and wait for him.

  “So what do you want to do, Ten?”

  “I don’t actually know.”

  “You don’t?”

  He shakes his head. “No clue.”

  “How can you not have a clue? Don’t you have a passion?”

  “Not really.”

  “How can you live without passion?”

  “Most people don’t have passions; most people enjoy certain things more than others, but that’s it.”

  “What do you enjoy, then?” I ask as we head toward the doors that lead to the locker rooms.

  “I like driving around. Running clears my mind. And I love to cook.”

  I stop walking so suddenly that he stops too. “So basically, you’re a stay-at-home mom locked inside the b
ody of a teenage boy?”

  He kicks a stone with his mud-soaked sneakers. “That’s what playing substitute for an absentee mother will do to you.”

  I’ve gone too far with my teasing. I touch his forearm. “I’m sorry, Ten. I didn’t mean to … to make you think of her.”

  He looks at my hand. I snatch it back, return it to the strap of my tote bag.

  “Try not to tell your friends about my very masculine ambitions, or I’ll be turned down when I ask one of them to homecoming.”

  It feels as though he’s just flicked my heart. Which is stupid because I don’t even like Ten. I mean, I like him more than I liked him this morning, but I don’t like him like him.

  He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Want to go to homecoming with me?”

  “Me?”

  “My first choice was Mrs. Dabbs, but she was taken.” He delivers his comment so seriously I blink. “That was a joke.” A blush stains his jaw. “Not a funny one,” he mumbles.

  I’m way too shocked … thrilled … dazed to give him an answer.

  He rubs the back of his neck. “You’re probably already going with someone.”

  “Actually, I am.”

  He flinches.

  “I’m going with Rae, Mel, and Laney. We decided to go dateless.”

  “Is that a thing here? Going as a group instead of as a couple?”

  “Not usually.” I bite my lip. “We’re going to be so late for class,” I say, although what I really want to say is, Will you ask someone else? I don’t want him to go with someone else, which is all shades of selfish and strange since I have no claim on him.

  Finally, he shrugs. “I didn’t really want to go anyway.”

  “I’ll save you a dance if you come.” Could I sound any lamer?

  “I don’t dance.”

  “What? I assumed all good stay-at-home moms were avid ballroom dancers.”

  He chuckles.

  I heave a theatrical sigh. “If you’re really against dancing, then I’ll save you a”—I push more wet hair off my face—“long, boring conversation off the dance floor. We can discuss sauce-making.”

  A soft grin settles over his face.

  And that smile undoes me way more than it should.

  12