Hallway Diaries

by Felicia Pride

  Of course, this meant I was giving up some of my freedom. My mom said she’d be monitoring my assignments a lot more closely, because I obviously needed help keeping my academic schedule balanced until the musical was over. It was a small price to pay to get my life back on track.

  I was worried that my dad would be disappointed in me. Instead, he was proactive and practical. The practice math quizzes he began giving me almost daily improved my comprehension of the subject. My teacher noticed the difference within just a week and even commented on it. My tutoring also did wonders for my confidence during class. Instead of worrying about what my classmates thought, I began to ask more questions without wondering if the answer was obvious to everyone else.

  Even Lucas chipped in to help me catch up. We’d meet up at the bookstore café, and he’d listen to how my oral presentation was shaping up. Lucas also helped me come up with the best way to talk to the show’s musical director. Mr. Stewart had started requesting that musicians with extra pieces report to more rehearsals than the rest of the mini-orchestra members. There was no way I could fit in extra rehearsal time.

  “How did he take it?” Lucas was waiting for me in the hallway outside the music room after I had my chat with Mr. Stewart.

  “Not as bad as I thought he would.” I was relieved.

  “So you won’t have to perform that night with a bag over your head?” Lucas took my hand and we began heading out of the building.

  “No, corny.” I nudged him in the rib. “He said that I could be the understudy to Lin, who will be taking the pieces on. Thank goodness she was happy to do it.”

  “That’s great.” Lucas was happy for me.

  “No, I think you’re great.” I stopped walking and faced Lucas. “Thanks for being so supportive throughout everything. I really appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  He wrapped me up in a bear hug.

  Suddenly I felt horrible about being ashamed to tell Stacie about Lucas. Not that Stacie would care. It had been two weeks since she’d hung up on me and I hadn’t heard from her. I’d sent her a lengthy e-mail apologizing, but I guess she was still too angry to talk to me.

  “That’s enough, lovebirds,” a paint-covered Allie said as she sauntered toward us with Bonita. Lucas and I shyly stepped away from each other.

  “You’re supposed to paint the set, not your clothes,” I told Allie.

  “Whatchu talking about?” Bonita looked Allie up and down. “She bought those like that.”

  It was great to see Bonita slowly getting back to her old self. She had to endure whispers in the hallways and sympathetic stares for about a week, but just like yesterday’s paper, the news lost its novelty over time, and people moved on. It was finally looking like she and I were taking on our challenges in ways we never thought we could.

  My last order of academic business was humanities class.

  Bibi was an attentive audience when I practiced my humanities speech in front of her. If anyone would know whether the presentation worked or not, it was Bibi, because she actually remembered marching with Dr. King as a young girl.

  Ms. Veltz said we could shape our presentation in any way we wanted to. I chose to pretend that I was a speaker at a civil rights organizers’ meeting. The humanities class would become the civil rights leaders and planners. I figured we all took for granted the fruits of past labor—opportunities and freedoms we had. I wanted to transport everyone to a golden time when that seed was planted.

  Bibi listened as I continued to act like a speaker addressing the organizers. My speech illustrated what obstacles people of the Jim Crow South were up against. During my speech, I pointed out a young newcomer named Dr. King, who would be chosen to lead what would become a historical bus boycott.

  As I spoke, I saw Bibi’s eyes look in the distance, focusing on the memory. Her chin jutted out with deep, quiet pride.

  The next day when Ms. Veltz summoned me to the front of the class to make my speech, my throat felt dry. When I reached the lectern and attempted to speak, my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. To buy myself the extra time I needed to regain my composure, I shuffled my index cards and pretended to be preparing.

  I started the speech looking down and reading my index cards, even though I had it memorized by heart.

  Eventually, my nerves calmed as I made eye contact with my classmates. I realized that they were into my speech. They looked impressed. Inspired, even. That fueled me even more. I began dramatizing my words with gestures and facial expressions that conveyed anguish and hope. At the end of my lecture, the class was silent even after I sat down in my desk. Then Mrs. Veltz broke through the quiet and said, “Now, that’s what I consider an A-plus presentation.”

  With that, I had officially made it out of that humanities hole.

  Either I’d started understanding Greek or I finally realized my teachers had been speaking English all along. Whatever the case, my smarts were back. And with them my confidence. I was on top of my academic game again. It felt good to see the results of my late-night and early-morning study sessions. Don’t get me wrong—it was hard work. But that was what it took to get back on track. I found myself looking ahead to the future and wanting to prepare for it.

  I wanted to be just as qualified as everyone around me. Sure, my classmates lived in bigger, fancier houses and they shopped at the same supermarkets as our teachers. But my dedication to my academics leveled the playing field. And each time I aced an exam or a pawp quiz, I felt that it was a score for me and for urban kids like me.

  CHAPTER 11

  On the opening night of the musical, Bibi, my parents, and my piano teacher, Nadine, all sat in the sold-out school theater waiting for the performance to start.

  “It’s here,” a bow-tie clad Mr. Stewart said, standing in front of all of us musicians assembled in the music room. “The night we’ve been preparing for. And I can say with all confidence that that audience is going to experience the most polished, talented junior orchestra they have ever heard.”

  Everyone erupted in applause and woop-wooping calls. Lucas and I hooked fingers for a soul-brotha handshake that ended with two loud snaps. He looked extra smart tonight in the slim black tie and white shirt all the male musicians wore. I had on a knee-length black skirt and white blouse like all the other female musicians. A shiny silver-studded barrette held my bangs back to one side.

  “Let’s go take our places,” Mr. Stewart said, and led us out of the room to the theater.

  We lined up right outside the double doors that led to the front of the theater.

  “We’d like to present to you—” I heard the muffled words of a female MC announce to the audience “—our fabulous mini-orchestra led by musical director Mr. Dennis Stewart.”

  When the double doors opened, the loud applause was unleashed into the hallway where we stood. Butterflies tickled my stomach as I followed the line of musicians and marched into the buzzing theater. Once I was seated at the piano, I peeked into the audience to see if I could find my family. The tap-tap of Mr. Stewart’s baton snapped my attention back to the piano.

  He lifted both arms in the air and froze in that position for a few beats. The lights dimmed and the crowd quieted down. When every musician was at attention, he gave us that now-familiar cue and the string section played a long, slow note. I held my hands over the piano keys. When Mr. Stewart nodded sharply in my direction, I pressed down on my first few notes. At the next flick of his baton the brass section joined in. With that, the curtains pulled back to reveal the setting of a family living room, where Bonita was seen sitting legs crossed, reading the paper. The show had begun.

  It was an amazing night, made greater by Bonita’s outstanding performance. She was hands down the audience favorite. The applause was deafening every time she sang. The crowd cracked up every time she nailed a punch line. Even Jennifer’s sidekicks sitting in the front row were cheering for Bonita! Unfortunately for Jennifer, Bonita was the night’s shining star. And oddly enou
gh, thanks to Jennifer, students in the audience congratulated a proud Mr. Rick. He sat beaming as he watched his daughter from the front row. Her performance inspired me to give my double-Dutch dream a shot.

  It was tough keeping my mind from wandering. I couldn’t stop thinking about what the Rope-a-Dope team must be experiencing.

  By intermission, I felt relieved that my job as pianist was almost done. I just had the third act left to play. The orchestra was having a great night, and I was happy I’d made it this far without messing up once. Scaling back my numbers meant that Lin would be playing all the pieces in the final act. Lucas was packing up his guitar when I walked over to him. He didn’t have to play in the whole second act.

  “This is gonna sound crazy,” I told him. “But after the third act, I may still have time to make it to the Performing Arts Center in Newark, where the double-Dutch tournament is going down.”

  “How are you gonna manage that?”

  I didn’t have a clue.

  “Hey—my brother’s here tonight. Maybe he could drive us down.”

  “You think he’d do that for us?” I asked.

  “He might if we promise to introduce him to Bonita.” Lucas had a twinkle in his eye. He might have been the kid brother by one year, but Lucas knew how to push his older brother’s buttons.

  “Honey, you are doing so great,” I heard my mother’s voice. She had come over to pay her compliments to the pianist, the same way she had to Nadine on Broadway. I felt touched by that.

  “Hi, Mom.” I beamed.

  “Hello, Mrs. Chambers.” Lucas looked charming as he reached out to shake her hand.

  “Beautiful performance,” she said, genuinely approving. “We’re all enjoying it so much. And that Miss Bonita is just stealing the show!”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling. “Mom?”

  My mom looked at me sideways. “Whatchu got cookin’ up in that brain of yours, Mia?”

  “Uh—I was just thinking about making my way down to the arts center after the third act. Lucas is gonna get his brother to drive us. His brother is a senior at Mount Yeager and has had his license for over a year.”

  “Your dad and I figured you were gonna pull something like this.” She sounded upset. But when she saw how anxious I looked, her face softened. “Okay, Mia,” she said with a nod. “In the past few months, you’ve worked harder than I’ve ever seen. You’ve earned an opportunity to go to the tournament.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mom!”

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, laying on the sass. “We’ll pick you up from there when the tournament’s over.”

  During the third act, Lucas set out to find his brother. He asked me to meet him outside the front doors as soon as the act was over. When I stepped through the doors, he was waiting for me with his brother Kofi and Allie. With no time to waste, we rushed to the crowded parking lot. My heart was pumping with anticipation. I figured we had enough time to make the second round of the three-round competition. But when we got to Kofi’s car, it was blocked in by another car.

  “Oh no!” I was crushed.

  I thought this was a sign. Maybe I should just give up my old life and forget my old friends, I thought. They think I’m a sellout anyway. I mean, it’s not possible to be both urban and suburban at the same time. I should just choose a side and move on. Besides, my old friends could never accept me anymore.

  “I’m sorry, Mia.” Allie put her arm around me to try to console me. Lucas and Kofi stared at me sympathetically.

  “I can go in and have them make an announcement,” Lucas offered.

  “It’s no use,” I said. “They’re not gonna interrupt the final act.”

  In my anguish, I leaned on the minivan that was blocking Kofi’s car and set its alarm off.

  “Great,” I said. “More drama.”

  A minute later, know-it-all Emma Bishop arrived on the scene with her older sister to shut the alarm off.

  “Hey, Mia,” she said. “Are we blocking you in?”

  Ever since my oral presentation, Emma had started talking to me more.

  “Yes.” Allie sounded hopeful. “Maybe we can still make the double-Dutch tournament!”

  “Cool! You guys going to the double-Dutch tournament at the arts center?” Emma asked surprisingly. How in the world did she know about that? I wondered. “Our older sister books talent there,” she explained.

  “Well, Mia is supposed to be competing with her squad, but had to miss most of it because of her commitment here,” Allie explained.

  Another girl I recognized from humanities class joined Emma and her sister and they all started buzzing about my situation.

  “We’ll be out of your way right away.” Emma’s sister got behind the wheel. They not only moved the van, but after hearing about our mission, they decided to follow us to the competition!

  Emma turned out to be the most unexpected lifesaver ever. On our drive to Newark, Emma called her older sister, who granted a few of us access to the backstage area. As I led Allie and Lucas to meet my Rope-a-Dope teammates, it felt strange to have both my worlds collide.

  The sparkly red outfits the squad was wearing was easy to find in a crowd.

  “Stacie!” I called out when I saw her.

  “You came!” Stacie got excited despite herself. She forgot she wasn’t talking to me for that split second she saw me. Then it was back to her grudge match.

  “You missed the whole competition,” she said.

  For a moment, things were very tense. The team was upset that I hadn’t jumped with them. When I realized that I wouldn’t get to jump, I had to fight back my tears. Stacie noticed how hurt I was. She hadn’t expected me to show up at the competition, but she was glad I did.

  “I’m sorry I was so harsh with you,” she admitted, and reached out to hug me. “I was so wrapped up in my own life that I didn’t realize you were having a tough time.”

  “No, I was trying to be superwoman, so I made everyone empty promises.”

  “Oh, look at how pitiful we are, gurl,” she said, laughing at our blubbering.

  “Hey.” I remembered that I wasn’t alone. “I want you to meet my good friend Allie and my boyfriend, Lucas.”

  “Boyfriend?” Stacie squealed as she greeted them both with a hug. Throughout all the hugging going on Kendra didn’t budge.

  “They’re about to announce the winners!” Yolanda interrupted us.

  We all quieted down and the squad held hands.

  “In third place, out of Englewood, NJ—the Jumpin’ Janes.”

  The crowd roared with applause. The squad next to us started jumping up and down, and then they ran onto the stage to pick up their trophy. When they returned backstage, they looked drunk with happiness.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie for first place,” the announcer said. “The following two teams will have to perform a tiebreaking routine—and they are Nonstop Steppers from Camden and East Orange’s Rope-a-Dope.”

  Reflexively, Kendra jumped up and hugged me. She had the widest smile I’d ever seen on her face. Suddenly I understood her. She had dreams she was afraid wouldn’t come true, just like me. Only she masked her fears by acting like she didn’t care about anything or anyone. Tonight, she showed how much she did deeply care.

  “For a sometimes out-of-touch girl, you can choreograph your butt off,” she said, smiling.

  “Now, that’s a joke that won’t get old,” I told her.

  Stacie and I had a routine choreographed specifically in case of a tiebreaker.

  Stacie reached into her large gym bag and handed me a red sparkly uniform. I was glad she’d thought to bring it.

  “Do you have the tiebreaker music?” she asked me.

  I bit my bottom lip. I hadn’t thought to bring it. I’d thought I’d miss the entire competition. I tried not to panic.

  “The music is right here,” Lucas said holding up his guitar.

  Stacie and I looked at him, wondering if he was sure he knew what he was doing.


  “Don’t go out there playing us some ol’ wack, bleeding-heart ballad, Romeo,” Kendra told him.

  “Don’t worry—just worry about doing your thing.” Lucas handled Kendra’s snide remarks well.

  As we prepared to hit the stage a few minutes later, Lucas sat on a stool on stage with a mic pointed at his guitar. He nodded at me before I shouted, “Ready the ropes!”

  I could see Allie beaming offstage as Lucas began strumming on his guitar like he was on MTV Unplugged. The Wyclef-esque rhythm that he worked up had the audience clapping to the beat he tapped on the body of the guitar between chords. I joined the Rope-a-Dope jumpers and we skillfully jumped, flipped, and danced gingerly within the two mismatched yet perfectly in-sync egg-beating ropes.

  When our routine ended, we all hurried offstage feeling like we were walking on air. It didn’t matter if we won. Nothing could bring us down from our high. It felt so amazing to perform at this level. It was a dream come true.

  Everyone patted Lucas on the back, complimenting him on his incredible skills.

  “Yo, nobody tonight performed to a live musician,” Stacie boasted. “We had that down on lock.”

  I gave Lucas a hug.

  “You were kicking butt out there.” Allie was enjoying being there.

  A few minutes later, the MC got back on the microphone.

  “The judges have made their decision,” he announced. “Our second-place team is the Nonstop Steppers, and in first place—”

  We were screaming so loud we couldn’t make out anything else the announcer said.

  “We did it!” I said to Stacie.

  “We did it, gurl,” she said.

  When we went onstage to receive our award, I saw the crowd of St. Claire girls leap out of their seats cheering. I couldn’t believe the support they had for us.