Rival (4 page)

“I swear. I had no idea.” Chloe looked seriously sorry. “I'll go talk to her.”

“No, I'll do it,” I said. With Chloe's big mouth, she'd probably do more harm than good.

“Hey,” I called through the bathroom door. “Dina, it's okay. We'll do pay-per-view tonight. Or we don't even need videos. We're supposed to be meeting people, not watching movies, right?” I heard sniffling, then the faucet. Dina opened the door. Her eyes were still red, but she didn't look so miserable. “Don't think about it for the rest of the night,” I told her. “At least you're here partying and he's stuck at work.”

She smiled, nodded, and let me lead her back into
the kitchen. Jenna offered Dina her knife. “Wanna help cut the cauliflower?”

Dina took the knife and started cutting neat little flowerettes while Violet smashed avocados, Madison kept an eye on her cookies, and Angela watched Chloe stir the chili.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.

“Okay. This is it!” said Chloe. She whipped off her apron. “Whoever you talk to, remember as much as you can so you can report back afterward!”

Everybody showed up at once, it seemed like. All of a sudden my foyer was filled with girls we barely knew, all of them looking overdressed and nervous. Chloe raised her eyebrow at me as she took purses and overnight bags. She was enjoying it all way too much. I'd just started to get claustrophobic when I saw a brown ponytail through the crowd. It was Kathryn, getting cornered by Angela with Twenty Questions.

I went over to rescue her.

“Sorry about this,” I said as I helped stick a name tag onto her baby blue sweater. The sweater had a little pearl flower on the chest and looked like it came from a vintage shop. “Some people suck at remembering names.”

“That's okay.” Her eyes had little gold specks that flickered when she looked at me. “I could use some help, too.”

“Listen up, please!” Chloe reappeared on the stairs, clinking a water glass with a knife. “Thanks so much for coming tonight, everyone. We've got dinner and refreshments in the kitchen, if you'd like to follow me in there.”

We wound up standing around the table trying to ignore the rumbling in our stomachs. The chili on the stove smelled great, but nobody ate anything. I could see the rest of our friends sending ESP messages back and forth across the table:
What do you think about this one? Is she good enough? Is she too good?
Meanwhile, the new girls were talking over one another, trying too hard. Kathryn caught me watching and smiled.

Finally, Chloe made everybody go up to my room. We sat in a circle on the floor and passed the schnapps around, the new girls trying not to make faces as they took huge gulps. The alcohol did what it was supposed to do. Before long, people were talking, laughing, and dancing around the room to old Madonna songs.

I went downstairs to bring up the chili. When I got back, Kathryn was standing off by herself, flipping through my CDs.

“Having fun?” I said. I hoped she'd say no so I could launch a rant about how fake the whole evening was. Something about Kathryn made me think she'd understand.

“I'm having a great time,” she said. “Your friends are nice.”

I put the chili down on my desk. Who was I kidding? Nobody was going to eat it.

“Tell me you're just saying that.”

“Okay, I'm just saying that.” Kathryn laughed a quiet little laugh and held up a collection of French art songs. “Dawn Upshaw. I love her.”

“Me too. My dad took me to see her in
The Great Gatsby
at the Met. It was amazing.”

Kathryn's eyes got wide. “You've been to the Met?”

“Sure. Haven't you?”

“I've never been to New York. My mom and I were saving up to go over spring break but it's so expensive. I listen to the operas every Saturday on the radio, though.”

I couldn't believe it. I'd thought I was the only person who did that.

“So what did you think about the new
Turandot
?” I'd been dying to talk about it ever since the broadcast.

“The new aria was great, but I couldn't handle that it didn't end with ‘Nessun Dorma.' I guess I'm traditional that way.”

“Totally.” I couldn't stop staring at her. Nobody I knew knew anything about music, let alone a famous melody from a Puccini opera.

Chloe had opened my closet and the other girls
were trying on my clothes. Kathryn laughed as Violet flounced around in my old Halloween flapper boa. “Mr. Lieb, my voice teacher at Baldwin, says not listening to the Met is like wasting a free ticket.”

“That's what Hildy says, too. Lieb has his studio off the courtyard, right? Hildy Schultz is right down the hall.”

Kathryn nodded and flipped some more. “You have a really good collection.”

“Dawn Upshaw is my only soprano. I'm all about the mezzos and contraltos. Listen to this.”

I took Madonna out of the CD player and popped in Bizet's
Carmen
. Denyce Graves singing “Down Near the Walls of Sevilla” came blaring out of the speakers. Kathryn tipped her head and nodded along with the music. “Denyce Graves is awesome,” she said. “Did you see her in
Aida
in St. Paul?”

“Hey!” Chloe's voice came at us from across the room. “Turn that crap off!” She grabbed a couple of the new girls, whirled them around to face me, and announced, “Brooke here wants to be an opera singer when she grows up. Which is fine and all, as long as the rest of us don't have to hear it.”

Kathryn ejected the CD and handed it to me. “Maybe we can listen some other time,” she said.

I took the CD and smiled a smile that said,
See, Chloe?
Somebody else cares about this stuff, too.

“Fine,” I said. “But one of these days you'll wish you were nicer to us music freaks.”

Chloe waved a
whatever
hand as she turned away.

“I highly doubt that,” she said.

TWO HOURS. THAT'S HOW MUCH
sleep I got the night of the slumber party, just two hours somewhere between four in the morning and ten a.m., when I stumbled back through my own front door, headachy, stale-mouthed, and utterly exhilarated. All of the years that I'd kept to myself with Matt, I'd convinced myself I wasn't missing anything; Matt was comfortable and familiar, just like the best guy friends in the old movies we liked to watch, and that was good enough for me. I didn't need girlfriends.

After Brooke's, however, I knew it wasn't true. There was something special about being around other girls, a sense of belonging I'd never experienced before. And I
did
belong—at least that's how it felt, because everybody seemed to be going out of their way to make it easy. Dina, Chloe, Angela…I could recall faces and voices, but I couldn't remember all of their names. The only
person who stood out as a clear, fully formed person was Brooke, mostly because I'd already noticed her in choir—it was impossible not to, with her deep voice and her easy confidence. Even when we were freshmen and technically supposed to be keeping our heads down and paying our dues, she talked and joked around with the upperclassmen like she'd known them forever.

I soon found out that she probably had.

“Do you know who her brothers are?” Matt asked me when I showed him the pink slumber party invitation. “Bill and Brice Dempsey.”

“Really?” I hadn't been completely under a rock for the past two years; I knew about the golden twins who'd practically ruled the school before graduating the previous spring.

“People are still talking about them,” Matt told me. “And it looks like Brooke is going to inherit all of it.”

I reread the invitation as if the words were a new language to learn. “So why does she want me, I wonder?”

“Because you're amazing.” He pulled a face of mock terror. “Oh noes! What if you become insanely popular? I'll be so lonely!”

“Don't worry,” I said, folding the pink paper and tucking it inside my aria book. “I somehow doubt I'll be deemed worthy.”

But the amazing thing about that night was the feel
ing that I
was
worthy. Riding home from Brooke's party in my father's car, I switched the radio from the morning news to a pop station, and as we rounded the corner onto our street a song came on that I had danced to just hours earlier. Dad let me listen in the driveway until it was over, even though he needed to leave for a job fair.

“Wish me luck, Sweetpea?” he'd said as I gathered up my things. He wore his business suit, which made me sad every time I saw it. At his last job he only ever wore short sleeves and khakis; nerdy, but I preferred nerdy to formal. Formal meant résumés and waiting for interview callbacks and Mom working longer hours, clipping coupons, and staying up all night worrying.

“Good luck,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek.

Inside the house, Mom sat on the living room couch with her coffee and her morning crossword puzzle spread out across her lap.

“There you are!” she said. “I didn't know when to expect you.”

“It's not that late.” I ran my tongue over my teeth, hoping my breath didn't smell like peach schnapps.

“Not late at all. It's just you have your first English paper due this week. I thought you'd want to get started on it.”

“I'm going to work on it now,” I told her. My eyes were sandy and my brain felt sluggish from lack of sleep.

“Great!” she said. “Do you want some coffee to help you stay awake?”

She loaded me down with an old French press, a mug, and a plate of buttered toast, then she sent me upstairs, but instead of going to the guest room where we keep the computer, I went to my own room across the hall and lay down on the bed. I closed my eyes and let my mind fill with images—Brooke's elegant house, her brothers coming home at three a.m. and entertaining us with stories about the party they'd just attended, the other girls in their pajamas, dancing around Brooke's room like actors in a TV commercial. We'd polished one another's nails. We'd chatted online with some sophomore guys, giggling when they mooned the webcam. We'd seen one another in our underwear, retainers, and zit cream; I fell asleep with these things in my mind.

Three hours later, I woke up to the phone ringing.

“Kathryn!” my mom shouted from downstairs. “It's for you!”

I stumbled into the computer room, grateful she hadn't seen me sleeping, and groped around for the cordless. I thought it would be Matt but it wasn't; my face flushed as I listened to Brooke's voice on the other end of the line.

“I've got tickets to the operettas at Baldwin tonight,” she said. “It's Vaughan Williams and Gilbert and Sulli
van.
Riders to the Sea
and
Trial by Jury.
Want to go?”

“Really?” I checked the caller ID window to make sure it wasn't a prank.

“Yeah, really. The lead in
Trial
is one of Lieb's prize sopranos. Don't you want to hear what your teacher's other students sound like?”

“Uh-huh…” I smacked myself on the forehead, hoping it would knock out something more intelligent.

“Cool,” said Brooke. “We'll pick you up at six thirty. Give me your address. I'll get directions online.”

“Who was that?” Mom asked as I hung up. She'd come to take my dishes back downstairs and looked puzzled to find them on my bedroom dresser, untouched.

“Brooke Dempsey,” I told her. “The girl whose house I went to last night. She invited me to see some operas.”

Mom looked worried. “You're going out again? Tonight? What about your paper?”

“I'll get up early tomorrow and write it. I'll have a draft done before church. Promise.”

She looked at the cold coffee and toast, then at the computer, which, I realized with a silent groan, hadn't even been turned on. “I want you home by eleven,” she said. “And no going out tomorrow, even if it's with Matt.”

“I don't have plans for tomorrow, and I don't have any plans to make plans.” I was starting to get antsy; I had a lot to do before Brooke came to pick me up. “You don't
have to worry, Mom. I'll get the paper done.”

One last look of concern, and she headed back downstairs. I listened for her footfalls on the first-floor landing, then I ran back into my room and threw open the closet door. With all that had happened in the past twelve hours I guess I expected my wardrobe to be transformed, too, but what I found in there depressed me completely. I don't have a lot of money for clothes; most of what I have I either buy from thrift shops or my mom makes. She gets fabric from vintage stores when it's not too expensive, and from the craft shop where she works. She's good enough to copy what we see on TV and in magazines without needing a pattern, still it's never quite the same as what the other kids are wearing.

After trying on everything even remotely appropriate, I settled on a black skirt with a sweater that she'd knitted for my birthday the year before. I took a shower and did my hair and makeup. Then, partly to keep Mom happy and mostly to keep my mind off the waiting, I hammered out an outline for my English paper, eating dinner in front of the computer. I kept checking the little clock in the corner of the screen, watching the minutes tick down to six thirty and past.
She meant to ask somebody else,
I told myself, trying not to be disappointed as I watched the clock creep toward six forty-five.
It's nothing personal.

Then I heard a car in the driveway. I looked out the guest room window to see Brooke's mom behind the wheel of a new SUV with Brooke in the passenger seat.

“Going now! Back by eleven!” I shouted as I ran down the stairs and out the front door.

“Nice sweater,” said Brooke as I slid into the backseat. Immediately, I wished I'd picked something else. The yarn was lumpy, the sweater smelled musty—it was all wrong and Brooke had noticed. But then she turned around and said, “That's really cool. It's like ten times more sophisticated than the crap at the mall.”

With Brooke in front of me, I had a good view of her outfit as well: a suede skirt, wrap sweater, and powerful-looking knee-high boots; when we got to Baldwin, she blended right in with the college kids. Around her neck she wore a silver star pendant that sparkled against her tanned skin. She even smelled nice—like green tea and cucumber. Sitting next to her in the small theater at the university arts center, I felt almost as if I were on a date.

The operettas ended and we left campus for a coffee shop down the street. “Just for some herbal tea,” Brooke told me. “Caffeine's terrible for your voice.”

We sat with our mugs at a table near the window and watched the college kids wander in and out. After a while the silence made me nervous, and I started searching for conversation topics.

“So…what did you think of the operas?” I asked.

She bobbed the tea bag in her cup, thinking. “I liked the baritone and I'm not usually a fan. But overall I think the conservatory is getting overrated.”

“My teacher says the singers were a lot better when he first started working here.”

“That's what Hildy says, too. She doesn't even get mad anymore when I go back to New York for lessons.”

I couldn't believe how confident she was—the way she talked about New York, like it was someplace people jetted off to on any ordinary day.

“So does that mean you're not going to college at Baldwin?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? The second I'm done at Douglas I'm out of here. The only reason I'm not in a rubber room right now is because we've got the Blackmore next year.”

“Mr. Lieb…” I cleared my throat. Brooke called her voice teacher by her first name, and I didn't want to sound like a baby. “I mean, David—he's already talking about repertoire and competition strategies.”

“You have to start thinking about it early,” she said. “You went last year, right?”

I nodded, remembering. “Cameron Bell.” The name came out like a sigh.

Brooke sighed, too. “He showed up from some tiny
town nobody ever heard of and just blew everybody away.”

“And now he's singing at Chicago Lyric.”

“Exactly.” Brooke played with the star around her neck, twirling it between her fingers. “My dad has an apartment on the Upper West Side. If I don't get in at Juilliard, I'll live with him. Take a year to train and then start the audition circuit.”

“You're serious about singing for a career.”

“Totally. Aren't you?”

I gazed into my teacup and thought about my parents. Out of all my activities, music probably offered the best shot at a scholarship, but none of us had given much thought to what might come after that.

“I don't know,” I said. “I think I'll be happy just to get away, you know? There's too much pressure here to be something I'm not even sure I want to be.”

Brooke nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”

We were quiet again, me sipping my tea while Brooke hummed part of the Gilbert and Sullivan to herself. When some of the operetta singers came in and started to gossip, she and I had the same idea at the same time; we grabbed magazines and pretended to read them while we eavesdropped, grinning at each other over the glossy pages.

“This is really cool,” Brooke whispered. “None of my
other friends will do this kind of stuff with me.”

I didn't know what to say; I ducked my head behind my magazine to hide my reddening cheeks. Those words had put a twinge in my chest—a new feeling, like happiness mingled with fear:

Brooke Dempsey, the most popular girl in my class, had called me her friend.