Between the Notes (13 page)

M
olly slouched on a metal chair near the entrance, arms folded across her chest. Reesa paced next to the piano. The doors were locked. All I had to do was sit myself down and play something, sing a few bars. Complete the lie.

I wiped the sweat from my palms onto the sides of my dress. It didn’t matter if I was performing in front of two people or two thousand. My heart still raced, my chest still got tight, my breath still rasped as if someone had been chasing me. I could barely feel my fingers as they hovered over the keys.

“Just pretend we’re not here,” said Reesa, tiptoeing away.

I closed my eyes and imagined the twins there, just the two of them, waiting for a lullaby. I started to play, and my voice, when it came time to sing the melody, sounded like fingernails on a blackboard.

I kept going, eyes pinched tight, feeling my way across the keys. When I finished, I held my breath until Reesa broke the silence.

“That was amazing,” she said.

I didn’t believe her, but Molly had shifted from slouching to perching on the edge of her seat. “Really beautiful,” she said.

“But you have to sing something receptiony,” said Reesa.

“Receptiony? Like, what . . . the Macarena?” The only thing worse than embarrassing myself in a performance would be doing it in the process of singing cheesy wedding songs. “This is a really bad idea.”

Reesa started rattling off names of soft-rock pop tunes that made my teeth ache. Molly didn’t say anything, but I saw her cringe a few times.

“You want elevator music,” I said.

“No!” Reesa sashayed across the room like she was walking a runway while holding a wineglass. “Think, like, classy cocktail party.”

Classy cocktail parties were about as far away from my reality as I could get. I fiddled around on the keyboard. Freddie Mercury found his way into my head again, with the song I fell asleep to the other night: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” But nobody could sing it the way he did, so I decided to go for a bluesy-baroque version. Billie Holiday meets Bach, which sounds weird, but I loved mixing styles. It was part of what made me nervous to perform in front of other people, though, because they might not get it. Kaya and Brady didn’t know any better, after all. They’d grown up with my crazy songs.

“Ready?” Reesa waggled her fingers, prompting me to get started.

I nodded and closed my eyes, this time pretending to be in the cemetery with James. And out there, over the top of my piano, nothing but a sea of tombstones. Listening quietly. Not judging.

My fingers danced over the piano keys. I sang. It wasn’t too terrible. When I finished, Reesa was smiling like a total goof. “How do you do that?”

“What?”

“This.” She held her cell phone out for me to see the video she’d just recorded.

“What did you do? Delete that!” I grabbed the phone from her, and with my thumb hovering over the trashcan icon, I looked and I
heard
myself singing and . . . I couldn’t believe it was me.

“See what I mean?” Reesa snatched her phone from my grasp before I could delete it. “You’re amazing.”

I turned to Molly for her opinion, but she was gone. “Where’s Molly?”

She shrugged. “I guess her ride came.”

I don’t know why her opinion meant so much to me. But now I worried that she hadn’t liked what she’d heard and skipped out so she wouldn’t have to tell me.

Reesa’s phone bleeped as a text came in. “Shit. Mom’s outside. I have to go, too.” She gathered up her stuff and headed for the door. “You rode your bike, right?”

I shook my head, pointed to the windows. “Too wet.”

“Oh.” Her face went blank for a minute, clearly trying to figure out a graceful way to not offer me a ride.

“Don’t worry. My mom’s coming,” I lied.

The relief on Reesa’s face was easily visible from outer space. “Oh, good. My mom’s already pissed that I didn’t get the bus home. She’d probably kill me if I made her drive to hell and back.”

Whoa. Way to twist that knife, Rees.

“Okay, that came out wrong,” she said. “Sorry.”

I waved off her apology. “‘Hell’ is about right.”

She rushed over and hugged me tight but didn’t linger. “I’ll call you.”

“Mm-hmm.” I closed the lid on the piano keys and reached for my bag. There had to be a pay phone in the school somewhere. They didn’t expect everyone to have their own phone, did they? One or two of those old coin-operated thingies must still be hooked up somewhere for the few pathetic students with no other options.

Just as I was about to leave, I heard the clatter of something falling to the floor. It came from the door next to the band director’s office. A door that was slightly ajar. A door I assumed to be a closet.

“Is someone there?” I asked. “Molly, is that you?”

Then the door opened and I yelped.

James walked into the band room. “Sorry. It’s only me.”

“Oh!” I backed away as he stepped slowly toward me.

“I know this looks weird,” he said.

Yes. Very weird.

“I was in the library. I heard music coming from a closet. So I
followed it.” He held open the door so I could see that the closet opened into the library on the other side. Our school was apparently a maze of secret passageways. “Was that you?”

“You heard me? You were listening?” I bumped into a music stand, knocking it over.

He came closer, reaching out to help.

I held my hands up to stop him. “Don’t.”

“Ivy.” He let his arms drop to his sides. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just . . . I didn’t think anyone was listening. We locked the doors and I . . . I . . .” I sounded completely ridiculous and paranoid.

“I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. But it wasn’t. If he heard me sing, then he must’ve heard my conversation with Reesa afterward. He knew I lived in a place even my best friend was afraid to visit. “I have to go.”

“Whoa. Wait up,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

I forced a smile. “Nothing.”
Everything.

He held out a hand but I didn’t take it.

“Let me drive you.”

“No, that’s okay.” I kept backing toward the door.

“Look, I’m sorry I heard you singing. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“No, it’s not that.” I shook my head. I couldn’t explain why I was so upset. I hardly understood it myself. I just didn’t want him there, where I lived. I didn’t want him to know. He was an escape from my reality. I didn’t want him to
see
my reality.

“I just . . . I have to go.” I made it to the door and pushed it open.

“Talk to you tomorrow?” he called after me.

I turned back, gave a quick nod, and rushed out.

It was still raining. The entire planet was pretty much conspiring against me. I headed toward home, my umbrella keeping little more than my face dry. I made no effort to avoid the puddles. My boots were already soaked through. Anyway, it was water.

Water couldn’t hurt me.

After about twenty minutes, I heard the familiar
meep-meep
of the red Jeep before I saw him approach. Lennie rolled to a stop beside me, and the passenger door swung open. He surveyed my soggy state from top to bottom but said nothing.

I silently climbed in.

He made a U-turn. “Kaya said you hadn’t come home. I thought you might need a ride.”

“Thanks.” I couldn’t figure out why he was being nice to me.

“’S okay.”

We drove the few miles to our neighborhood in silence, but he didn’t turn down our street. “You mind if we stop at Save-a-Cent? I gotta pick up my paycheck.”

“Okay.”

Lennie found a spot near the front and hopped out. The rain had let up to a light drizzle, at least for the moment. He walked toward the entrance holding his fingers to his temple, trying to hide the black eye from view. At least the swelling had gone down.

The minutes ticked by. I thought back to James, what he’d said, how crazy I must have seemed. How had things gotten so complicated in such a short time? Mom was always saying things had a way of working themselves out. But they were
not
working themselves out this time. They were working themselves into knots—really tight ones that I would never be able to untie.

Lennie finally came back out, still scratching his forehead so the palm of his hand shielded his eye. He was halfway across the lot when he stopped to talk to someone approaching the store. As he moved to the side, I gasped and dived to the floor of the Jeep.

It was James.

Please don’t tell him I’m here please don’t please.
I waited, tucked under the dash. After another minute, I heard the slap of feet approaching on the wet asphalt. I peeked up from my hiding spot and saw Lennie staring at me through the driver’s-side window. He yanked the door open and got in. I steeled myself for whatever wiseass remark he was preparing to make, but he didn’t say a thing.

And his silence made me feel small.

I climbed back onto the seat as he pulled out of the shopping center. “Sorry, I didn’t want him to see me.”

“With me,” Lennie said.

“No, it’s . . . he . . .”

“Look. You either like me or you don’t. You want to be friends, or you want to pretend I don’t exist.” Lennie stopped at the light and turned to face me with the full force of his bruised eye. “If
you could decide which one it is and stick with it, that would be great. Because I really hate being jerked around.”

He floored the gas when the light turned green. I fell back against the seat and was tossed to the side when he turned sharply onto our street. I braced against the dashboard as he slammed to a stop in front of my place.

“Len, I . . .”

He reached across my lap for the handle of my door and shoved it open. “Good-bye, Ivy.”

I sat rigid for a moment, then slowly collected my backpack and umbrella and got out. I pushed the door closed and watched him drive in reverse the short distance from our house to his. He stayed in the Jeep for a while. I could see him sitting there, leaning on the steering wheel. Finally, his door swung open. I don’t know why I kept watching, why I couldn’t seem to move. He turned and looked at me looking at him.

Then he spat on the ground, like he was spitting at
me,
and walked into his house.

“I
’m going to invite him to Willow’s party,” said Reesa on the way to AP English. “I mean, everyone will be there. We don’t want him to feel left out or anything. And if he wants to go, I could ask him for a ride!”

I stayed silent. It was a no-win conversation I didn’t want to have.

“Or maybe I should just give him my number,” she said. “Do you think that’s too forward?”

“I think he’ll ask you for your number if he wants it,” I said.

She huffed. “Why should I wait for the boy to make the first move?”

“Then ask him for
his
number,” I suggested.

“Maybe I will.” Her mouth twisted side to side while she pondered her strategy. “Maybe instead of waiting for Willow’s party, I could tell him I’m getting some friends together. We could all go to the movies, or that Little Invisibles concert.”

“Or maybe we could all fly to Paris for the weekend.” I
mimicked her breathless excitement.

“Sorry.” She cringed. “I forgot.”

“You go ahead,” I said. “Just because I can’t afford anything doesn’t mean you have to take a vow of poverty.”

She looped her arm around mine. “Once you get that job at the country club, everything will be back to normal.”

“Yeah, normal,” I mumbled. I slipped my arm out of hers as we approached Mr. Eli’s room. James was standing outside. His eyes followed me through the crowded hallway.

“Now’s my chance,” Reesa whispered. She bopped ahead of me to talk to James. When I slipped past them, she was saying, “I’m getting some people together this weekend . . .”

They followed me into the classroom. “We might just hang out and watch movies,” said Reesa. “You want to join us?”

I sat at my desk and buried my head in my backpack, as if I was having a hard time finding my ginormous Shakespeare textbook.

“I . . . uh . . . have plans Saturday,” said James.

“Oh! Oh, well,” Reesa chirped. “Maybe next time.”

I glanced up at James, but Reesa was blocking my view. Then Mr. Eli called him up to his desk, and while they were talking, Reesa leaned halfway across the aisle between our seats. “Screw him,” she whispered. “Saturday is girls’ night. My house. Just you and me. ’Kay?”

I couldn’t say no. After complaining that I didn’t have the money to do anything, I couldn’t exactly claim to have other plans. Besides, I missed her. I missed lying on her bed and staring
at the glow-in-the-dark stars, talking about everything. Maybe everything would feel normal again at her house.

I smiled. “You and me.”

James didn’t look at me again during class, but on the way out he shoved a note into my hand. I went to the bathroom and closed myself in a stall to read it.

I shoved the note into my pocket. At least he’d figured out that I wanted to keep him a secret. But now I had to choose between my best friend and the guy my best friend claimed to be falling in love with. My subconscious must’ve sensed my need for some piano therapy, because I was pushing the band room doors open before I even realized where I was headed. Molly sat in her usual corner near the drums, putting her clarinet together.

“You want me to leave?” I said.

“No way,” she said. “I was hoping you’d show up. Join me?” She nodded toward the piano.

I hesitated. I’d never played with anyone before. “If you want,” I said.

She picked up her stuff and came to the piano, scooting a chair next to the bench. I sat down and arched my fingers over the keys.

“Warm up a bit?” she said.

I nodded, and started playing scales. Molly jumped right in, easily transposing from her B-flat instrument to the piano’s C. I tried harder and harder keys, with four and five flats or sharps, and she stuck right with me.

“You’re good,” I said. “How about this?” I made something up then. A few measures of what I was feeling. The crazy of James asking me to be his secret girlfriend. The guilt of it all with Reesa and the weirdness that was now our friendship.

She closed her eyes and played it back for me, adding a couple of trills.

It was like the old movies when one guy would tap-dance something really complicated, a challenge, and the other would tap it back but with extra flourish. We went back and forth for a while.

Molly was winded when we stopped. “That,” she said, “was ridiculous.”

I swept my fingers from the very top C on the piano to the bottom one, a final glissando. “I didn’t get stage-frighty at all,” I said. “Weird.”

“It’s because you’re not worried about what I think,” said Molly.

“That’s not true,” I said. “I care what you think.”

“Yeah, but you’re not
worried
about it. Because nobody else cares what I think.” She grinned as if this didn’t bother her in the least. “My opinion means very little at this school.”

I couldn’t argue with the truth of the statement. But it wasn’t right. “It means a lot to me.”

She twisted around to look at the clock above the door and started putting her clarinet away. “We should do this again. Maybe work on a piece for open mic night. They have one tomorrow, if you want to go.” She must have noticed my body stiffen because she quickly added, “Just to listen?”

I knew of the King Theatre but had never been there. The place was supposed to be huge, with a big stage for major concerts and some smaller ones for local acts. Concerts were usually pretty expensive. “I don’t know. . . .”

“It’s only five bucks.” Molly tore a corner of paper out of her notebook and wrote down a phone number. “Friday at eight. Call me if you need a ride.”

An idea came to me then, one that would save me from choosing between James and Reesa. I took the stairs to the second floor, and sidled up to the supply closet door. The hall was still full of students getting to their next classes. I waited a moment, made sure nobody was paying attention to me, and slipped inside. The books were still stacked on the shelf in the secret room. I opened
The Outsiders
and found a new note:

I knew he was referring to the character Dallas Winston, a friend of Ponyboy’s and the toughest of the greasers. In the movie, he was played by a young, dark-haired Matt Dillon. But in the book, he had blond hair and icy-blue eyes, just like James.
That’s about where the similarities ended. Dally was dangerous. And rude. But, yeah . . .

I wrote the word down hoping James would know I was referring to him as much as Dally. Then I added:

I closed the book and laid it back on top of the stack. We were just going to listen, not perform. I could handle that, though the prospect of getting close to a stage still made me nervous. It sprang from a completely unreasonable fear that someone might pull me up there. But practicing with Molly was giving me confidence. With her at my side, and James, too, maybe I could stop caring what anybody else thought.

I laughed to myself.
Yeah, right.