“Yeah. My name’s Lucas.” He held out his hand as we reached the first landing. “Lucas Osei.”
I extended my hand, secretly hoping my palm wasn’t too sweaty. He shook my hand softly.
“I’m Mia Chambers.”
“Thanks for the escort, Mia.” He smiled with appreciation. I could tell Lucas prided himself on being a clean-cut guy with good manners to match. His low-cut hair seemed freshly shorn. He probably had to shave it often to keep his hairline as tight as it looked today. Meeting Mount Yeager’s strict grooming policy was obviously not a problem for Lucas. His oxford shirt was still tucked neatly into his belted pants. The only thing he’d ditched was his tie.
“Oh, I’m just paying it forward. On my first day here, I couldn’t find the annex either and someone helped me.”
“What a coincidence.” He liked my story. “Did you ever run into this escort again?”
“She’s now one of my closest friends here,” I told him.
“Really?” he teased. “I wonder what that means for me and you.”
We arrived at the music room just in time. Another minute with Lucas and he would’ve read the crush-orrific realization on my face. I was used to admiring crushes from a distance—like the cutie on that United Negro College Fund commercial, or that smooth-looking forward on City High’s varsity basketball team. But this was just too close for comfort.
Lucas held the music-room door open for me and I walked in and pulled a seat in front of one of the vacant keyboards. Fortunately, the string section was on the other side of the room.
“Thanks again, Mia.” Lucas smiled at me one last time before making his way over there.
Lin, the prodigy piano player, walked in and chose a keyboard a second later. We smiled at each other, both grateful to have made the short list.
“Your audition was amazing,” I said.
“Yours too,” she said admiringly.
With all the musicians warming up and chatting with each other, the music room was a cacophony of sounds.
“Can I get everyone to settle down?” an adult male voice rose above the noise. The one male member of the audition’s panel of judges walked to the front of the room, arms raised like a traffic cop at a busy intersection.
“I’m Mr. Stewart, and I will be your musical director for this grand production.” He looked around the room. “I know some of you from the music classes I teach over at the Mount. I am glad to get to meet the rest of you during this rehearsal period.”
Mr. Stewart wore one of those suede jackets with the patched elbows. From the front, he appeared to have a full head of dark hair. But when Mr. Stewart’s elbow patches faced the class, so did the round patch of skin at the crown of his head.
“Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t much time to perfect our sound as a unit,” he continued as he adjusted the pole on the music stand and lowered it to meet his vertically challenged stature. “But I plan to make the most of every minute we have together.”
I don’t know why, but Mr. Stewart’s last words made me steal a peek at Lucas. To my surprise, he was looking straight back at me.
CHAPTER 8
“Ba-da-da-da,” Mr. Stewart waved his conductor’s stick like Harry Potter would his wand. But instead of the young wizard’s jumble of unintelligible words, Mr. Stewart uttered Italian musical directives. “Adagio,” he’d call out when our timing was too fast. “Staccato,” he’d direct us when we were holding notes too long. Under his guidance, the mini-orchestra was sounding better and better.
After rehearsal, I grabbed the pile of music books under my seat and headed for the door. I had to meet Allie and Bonita downstairs in the auditorium where they were rehearsing. Because practice was over so late tonight, Bonita and I were going to sleep over at Allie’s home, which was nearby.
“You need help with that?” Lucas caught up to me and asked.
We had been exchanging glances for the past few rehearsals but hadn’t spoken since the day we’d met two weeks ago. Mr. Stewart thought it was important to keep the different music sections separate until everyone was ready to play together.
“Um…” I was caught off guard. “I’m not carrying these far—just to the auditorium.” I realized I hadn’t really answered his question.
“Not a problem.” Lucas wrapped his guitar strap around his back and then took the slippery music books from me. “I can do that for you.”
“Thanks,” I said. I waved goodbye to Lin before Lucas followed me into the hallway.
“What’s with all these music books?” he asked.
“I volunteered to play a few extra numbers,” I said, feeling a bit shy. When I’d volunteered a week ago, Mr. Stewart had asked me if I was sure I could handle the extra assignments. It was important that I prove to myself, to him, and to everyone else that I could handle it.
“I never get a chance to speak to you,” he said when we were out of Mr. Stewart’s earshot.
I looked down at my black ballet flats, not knowing what to do with my hands.
“How’ve you been?” he asked.
“Okay,” I finally said. “And you?”
“The same,” he said cautiously. “But to be honest, I’m wondering how I’m gonna manage all these rehearsals, plus the mounting schoolwork I have.”
I appreciated his honesty.
“Me, too,” I confessed.
“I mean, I love this and all, but my parents ain’t tryin’ to hear me slipping behind in any class. Not with all the tuition money they’re shelling out.”
Lucas’s parents sounded a lot like mine.
“I know exactly what you mean.” I looked him in the eyes for the first time since we’d stepped out of the music room.
“And what my parents mean by slippin’ is getting anything lower than a B or B-plus.” He nodded.
“By any chance do your parents know the Chambers family from East Orange, ’cause, um—I think they must’ve gotten trained at the same parenting school,” I said.
He chuckled.
“They probably all aced Guilt 101 together.” I was on a roll.
“You know, Mia, I wouldn’t figure you’d be here crackin’ jokes,” Lucas admitted. “I mean, I see how tense you seem during rehearsals, and—”
“I’ve been dealing with new-transfer-student issues.” I felt comfortable explaining to him.
“Ah.” Lucas gave a knowing look. “The ol’ fish-out-of-water feeling. I still struggle with that off and on, and I was born and raised in the next town.”
“Well, East Orange feels like a long way from here,” I told him.
“Well, the West African nation where my parents come from is even farther away than that!” he said, causing me to smile.
Lucas made it so easy to talk to him. By the time we got to the auditorium, I was wishing we’d walked slower to get there.
“Where can I put these down for you?” he asked me once we’d walked through the double doors. I looked at the sea of movie-theater-style fold-up seats.
“Mia!” I heard Allie’s loud whisper before I spotted her waving arms. “Over here!” She was a few rows back from the stage, watching Bonita rehearse.
“There’s my friend Allie,” I told Lucas. “I’ll go sit with her.”
He followed me down the aisle to where Allie was seated with another girl.
“Allie, this is Lucas.” I did the introductions.
“Hey, Lucas.” Allie waved. “Guys, this is Clara Lopez, fellow stage artist extraordinaire.”
“How ya doin’?,” Lucas and I said at the same time.
“Hello.” Clara waved. “Join us—it’s a great show.”
“Actually, Lucas has to—”
“Chill for a minute, Lucas,” Allie said. The fold-up seat next to Allie looked like a pair of lips sloppily dining on a pile of jackets. Allie grabbed the jackets to make room. “Enjoy the free show.”
He was happy to grab the seat next to mine. I was happy he was sticking around for a while. I s
at between Allie and Lucas. On one side, she nudged me with her elbow as if to say, “Go, girl.”
“You sure you don’t mind if I hang out with you guys?” Lucas wanted to make sure his change of plans was okay with me.
“Not at all.” I tried to sound nonchalant. “This is cool.”
“Sshh,” Allie threw at us. “Here comes Bonita again.”
Bonita walked onto the stage to perform her scene. I could immediately tell she was in character. Her usual sweet expression was replaced with a stern, stony face.
“What ever happened to the idea that people make the world go round?” she shouted in frustration as she stormed toward the center of the stage. “Money seems like the only force at work in this town.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Ms. Lawrence, but we can’t change our policy,” Jennifer Octavian said vindictively from her seat behind a large desk planted stage left. Jennifer was in character, too, but her face looked the same as always.
“You may think this ends here.” Bonita walked closer to the desk and looked straight into Jennifer’s eyes. “But I know we’ll cross paths again—sooner than you think.”
We sat mesmerized by Bonita’s performance. Her stage presence was charged with energy. Her character became three-dimensional to the point that I forgot that Ms. Lawrence was really Bonita.
“And…scene,” the director in the front row called out. “Nice job, ladies.”
The few of us watching in the audience all began applauding. Someone whistled and yelped, “Bonita—wooo!”
Jennifer caught on that everyone was cheering Bonita’s performance rather than her own and she stormed off the stage.
“Keep that up and you guys are gonna have that girl hate me.” Bonita looked a bit worried by Jennifer’s temper tantrum when she came to join us.
“Never mind her, you deserved that ovation.” I gave her a hug. “You were great!”
“Let’s go celebrate with my mom’s famous homemade milk shakes,” Allie said.
When we all walked outside, Lucas’s ride was waiting for him.
“There’s my brother,” he told me. “Nice hanging with you and your friends. We should do this again. Can I call you?”
I tried my hardest not to make eye contact with Bonita, Clara, and Allie as Lucas and I programmed each other’s numbers into our cell phones. His back was to them, so they were doing all sorts of crazy gesturing to try to grab my attention.
“Bye, Lucas,” they chimed in chorus as he went to meet his ride.
“Oooo!” they teased, giggling. “Tell us everything! Spill it!” Bonita urged.
I paused, looking at her. “Would I be telling this to Bonita or Ms. Lawrence?”
We all laughed. Then I filled them in on how Lucas and I had met.
“Mmm.” Allie’s imagination started running wild. “Maybe he’ll strum a romantic tune for you outside your window one day.”
“No, not unless he’s taking requests,” Clara joked along before heading home.
While Bonita and Allie chatted, I watched a woman with fiery red-orange hair get out of a sedan and wave her arms in the air. That gesture looked familiar.
“Allie, is that your mom?” I asked.
“Yup, there she is,” Allie perked up. “Let’s go, ladies.”
“In this moonlight, your house looks like it’s purple,” I said when Allie’s mother pulled her hybrid car into the long driveway.
“The house is purple,” Allie said.
“Seriously, Mrs. Snierson?” Bonita asked.
“Call me Lake,” Allie’s mom responded. “Yes, it is of an eggplant hue. And let me tell ya, the neighbors love me for it.”
I could easily see where Allie got her carefree, carpe diem spirit.
“Oh, my mom’s a regular rabble rouser in this town,” Allie said.
“Honey, if you say it like that, you’ll make the girls think I’m a troublemaker,” Lake corrected her. “Let’s just say I try to keep the folks around here grounded.”
The interior of the Snierson home matched the exterior. There were framed paintings Allie had created in practically her infancy. It seemed like her mom had accepted the person Allie was from the start.
That’s amazing, I thought. Instead of forcing people to act a certain way, like my mom did, Lake encouraged Allie’s self-expression, no matter what part of herself she wanted to express.
“Make yourselves at home, ladies.” Lake dropped her hobo purse on the kitchen island. “I’ll be back in a few to whip up those milk shakes.”
“Did I say I was just staying here for one night?” I teased Allie. “I meant to tell you I’ll be here for the rest of the week.”
“Me too, gurl,” Bonita chimed in.
The three of us bust out in giggles and headed up to Allie’s room to change out of our uniforms.
The next day at school, the opening-night date for the winter musical was finally posted on the board outside the auditorium.
“December fourth has a good-luck ring to it,” I told Bonita and Allie.
“It’s as good a date as any,” Allie said. “We’ll be ready.”
I was still daydreaming about having a successful opening night when I walked into Ms. Veltz’s humanities class. After the bell rang, Ms. V handed back our tests without saying a word. My heart sank when I saw my grade written and circled in cruel red ink: 65. This grade would send my already-low average in this class plummeting. I felt like I was on the verge of panicking.
Ms. V had laryngitis, so she spent half the class writing assignments on the board and the other half showing a history documentary on TV. She wore a printed silk scarf around her neck, as if to protect her damaged voice box. Today was no day to wait after class to talk to her about a solution for me.
How do I fix this? I asked myself over and over.
As if hearing my thoughts, Ms. V handed out a detailed assignment for an oral presentation. “Worth forty percent of your marking period grade” was written in bold letters along the top of the page. I read the paper, hoping it was the key to digging myself out of the hole I was chin-deep in. The sheet read that the class was assigned a critical oral presentation about people who shared philosophies with literary figures we had studied. This was Ms. V’s way of allowing us to introduce our personal favorites to the class. If this didn’t boost my standings before the marking period ended, nothing else could.
On my bus ride home, my phone’s text message signal interrupted my thoughts.
“Call me as SOON as U get home,” Stacie’s message read. Oh, now she wants to catch up, I thought. Not the best timing. Still, I was curious to hear what she had to say, so I dialed her number as soon as I got to my bedroom.
“I got the admissions letter!” Stacie answered the phone shouting. She was so wound up she sounded out of breath.
“You got an early admissions letter to college?” I was confused.
“No, no, no!” She took a deep breath to slow herself down. “We, Rope-a-Dope double-Dutch squad of East Orange, New Jersey, are invited to compete for a spot in the state championships!”
I jumped up and down so hard, my cell phone’s earpiece popped out. Good thing Bibi wasn’t home or else my scream would’ve startled her into a heart attack. I plugged the earpiece back in.
“Stacie? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.” She was still panting.
This was the moment we’d dreamed of when we’d started up the squad. I couldn’t believe that everything had paid off.
“We did it!” My voice cracked. I felt emotional. Just when I thought the day had been built for bad news, this turn of events was spectacular enough to melt my academic worries away.
“We have a lot of time to choreograph a kick-ass routine, but we should start rehearsing this weekend.” I could see Stacie scribbling in her Ideas notebook as she spoke. Suddenly the background noise on her end quieted down and Stacie’s voice sobered up. “I know we haven’t been hanging out like usual, but for this, g
url, let me be the first to say we need you. So for you, we’ll hold one weekend practice a week.”
I was so touched that I couldn’t think of what to say. After a long shutout, I finally felt like I was being invited back into the fold.
“I’ll be there,” I said. “What day is the competition going down?”
I heard Stacie flipping through the pages of the admissions package mailed to her.
“Oh, it’s right here,” she announced proudly. “It’s all going down on the evening of December fourth!”
Stacie’s words rang in my ear long after I’d hung up with her. I felt numb. Of all the dates on the calendar, the night of the competition of our double-Dutch dreams was the same night as the winter musical.
CHAPTER 9
Stress robbed me of any real rest that night. After tossing and turning for hours, I gave up on getting sleep around three a.m. After that, I waited on the sun to rise.
That had always been the case with me. The last time I’d had insomnia, I was worried that Bibi would be moving out to live with my uncle Lenny. He had been complaining that it was unfair for my mom to keep Bibi to herself. Uncle Lenny thought it was time Bibi made a change and flew down to North Carolina to live with him. The thought of living without Bibi was so distressing to me that I couldn’t sleep for days. Good thing Uncle Lenny’s wife was against the whole idea. Once that crisis was over, I hibernated for hours on end, happy to be back to my old self.
But that night, for what felt like forever, I lay on my back staring at the ceiling. Even though I lay awake for hours, I didn’t get out of bed until six a.m. At that point I showered, dressed, and made my way down to the kitchen. I ran into my dad at the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey, sweetie.” He was obviously happy to see me.
“Good morning, Dad.” I avoided eye contact as I walked by.
“Hold on there,” he said. “It’s still early—no need to rush off. Besides, I was thinking I could drive you to school this morning. How would you like that?”
That’s right—today is Friday, I thought. My dad’s work schedule was more flexible on Friday mornings. Plus, since my mom was out of town on business for a few days, he didn’t have to drive her to the train station.
Hallway Diaries Page 16
