Rival (5 page)

“
EARTH TO BROOKE. COME IN
, Brooke….”

Chloe's voice snapped me back to the commons. Back to the bench by the window where all our friends used to hang out. “Sorry,” I said. “What were we talking about?”

“I'm on a mission,” said Chloe.

“A new one?”

“Yep.” She leaned in so the rest of us would have to lean in, too. “Two words: Senior Keg.”

“But only seniors go to Senior Keg,” said Dina.

“I've been doing my research. Last year Claire Dennison went because she was going out with Skip Miller. And the year before that, the JV cheer squad got to go because they'd worked up some stupid routine to do around the bonfire.” Chloe paused for dramatic effect. “None of those people have what we have.”

“What is that?” said Madison.

“Brooke's brothers. I bet they'd totally come back
for Senior Keg—especially if Brooke asks really, really nicely.” Chloe sat back, looking very satisfied with herself.

Everybody looked at me like it was a total no-brainer, and why hadn't I thought of it myself?

“I don't think so,” I said. “I'm probably going to have other plans.”

Chloe shook her head. “You're not telling me this, Brooke. Do not mess with my mission.”

“Then ask them yourself. You don't always have to have me with you.”

Chloe opened a container of yogurt and stabbed her spoon into it. “You always have other plans these days. What's she like?”

“Who?”

“That girl from the party. Kristen.”

“Kathryn.”

“Right. You're constantly hanging out with her.”

“Not really,” I said. But it was stupid to try and lie. Kathryn and I had been hanging out almost every day. She'd come to my house after school and we'd listen to CDs or sing duets from my mom's old sheet music collection. Or we'd head over to Baldwin. Sneak into recitals, then go spend the evening at the coffee shop. Kathryn wasn't like other people at school who glommed onto me from the minute I walked in the building
until the minute I went to bed at night. She never came over without being invited. She didn't kiss my brothers' butts. Plus, she knew how to keep secrets instead of putting everything out there like everybody else. It made it cooler when she did share. Like one day, when she showed me some stories she'd written in her journal. One was about an opera singer who loses her voice to throat cancer but still manages to get famous by swimming Lake Superior. She said the story was inspired by me, because “you never let anything hold you back.” But all I could think of was that I'd been holding back for years, downplaying my music—downplaying who I really was—so the rest of my friends wouldn't give me grief about it.

“Speaking of Kathryn,” said Chloe, “there she is!” Chloe jumped up so fast she almost tipped the rest of us off the bench. Kathryn was standing across the commons, in line at the Coke machines. “Let's get her over here.”

“No!” I jumped up, too. Chloe and I wound up chest-to-chest. She raised an eyebrow. “It's just that we have choir,” I explained. “We're supposed to get there early for warm-ups.”

I picked up my bag and broke away. Never mind that we actually had choir fifth period—Chloe wouldn't remember something like that.

At least I hoped she wouldn't.

“Hey!” Kathryn said when I grabbed her arm. She'd barely finished paying for her bottled water.

“Bring that to the music wing,” I told her. “I want you to hear the new
Traviata
I just downloaded.”

“Okay…” She trotted along as we sped around the corner and pushed through the music wing doors. “I actually wanted to ask you something,” she said. “Can you come over on Saturday for dinner? My mom's making a roast.”

I slowed down and let go of her arm.

“Your mom cooks?”

“Yes,” said Kathryn. “Doesn't yours?”

“I guess, if you call heating up a burrito cooking. She thinks anything where you have to boil water is a big deal.”

“Well, Saturday is a special occasion. Usually we're not so fancy, but this is for my birthday.”

My shoulders went all tight, the way they always do when I've forgotten something. “You never told me it was your birthday.”

“I don't make a big deal about it,” she said. “I guess I get scared nobody will care and then I'll be disappointed—or maybe they will care and then I won't know how to handle the attention. Is that weird?”

I wanted to tell her that yes, it was weird, but the
truth is that I liked being the only person she'd told. Kathryn was the kind of person who was alone a lot. Nobody ever left me alone.

Hanging out with her, we could be alone together.

 

Kathryn lives across town in a neighborhood that was built back in the seventies. The houses are mostly split-levels with tiny yards and trees that are all the same height. Kathryn's house is on one of the nicer streets, and it looks like it was built to look old. It has two stories, shutters on the windows, and a little porch on the front.

When Mom dropped me off a man was in the front yard, running a Weed Eater around a little flower bed.

“Hey, there!” he said as he turned off the machine. “You must be Kathryn's friend. Is it Brooke?”

He had dark hair like hers and the same sort of surprised-looking eyes. I said, “Yeah,” and went to shake hands, because my mom would have given me crap later on for being rude, but also because he just looked like the kind of guy you'd want to shake hands with. He was all sweaty and dusty with grass stains on his white socks. Earlier that day, my own dad had sent me an email. He told me he and Jake were going on vacation before Jake's next movie. Someplace tropical. I'd been thinking maybe he'd come to Lake Champion to see me.

“I hear you're a singer, too,” said Kathryn's dad. “And a swimmer. What do you swim?”

“Two hundred–yard freestyle.” He let go of my hand, and I made myself quit obsessing about Dad and Jake—if I couldn't control it, then I needed to let it go. “Relay, too.”

“I did relay back in college.” He put his fingers on his tricep and squeezed the puny muscles. “Not that you'd know it now.”

“Hey, Dad.” Kathryn came out on the porch. “Mom says we're eating in a half hour. She wants you cleaned up.”

“Thanks, Sweetpea.” He winked at me and restarted the Weed Eater.

“Sorry if he tried to talk your head off,” Kathryn said as we stepped into her living room. It led right into the dining room, which led straight back to the kitchen. The house felt lived in. Used and homey. I liked it.

“Come upstairs,” she said. “It's nicer in my room.”

She led me up the staircase to a room that barely held the bed and a dresser. I waited for her to close the door. Then I handed her the package I'd brought. She unwrapped one end and gasped as she pulled out a long shoe box. Inside was a pair of knee-high black boots.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“Do you like them? I tried to get something that would
go with everything.”

“I can't accept these.”

“Sure you can. We can exchange them if they don't fit.”

“But they're so nice,” she said, running her fingertips along the leather. “I needed something like this. Was it obvious?”

“Well…” I hesitated. Chloe thought Kathryn had inner style, but I knew it was probably because she couldn't afford much else. “Don't think I'm trying to make you feel bad. Because your clothes are really awesome. But shoes are like the one thing you can't fake.”

“I know.” She buried her face in her hands. “I must look like an idiot.”

I sighed. “Where in ‘your clothes are really awesome' did you hear ‘looks like an idiot'?”

“Okay,” she said, and blushed. “I'm sorry.”

“I'd kill for some of the stuff you've got.”

“Really?”

“Totally. The shoes are just the finishing touch—my way of putting the icing on the birthday cake.”

She put the boots on and admired herself in the closet mirror. Downstairs, I could hear pots and pans banging. The house was starting to smell great, like slow-cooked meat and fresh bread. Through the window over Kathryn's bed, I could see her father cutting the grass. Just
like any normal dad on a Saturday afternoon. My dad had never mowed a lawn in his life.

“What does he do?” I asked.

“He's an engineer. A surveyor, but he got laid off a few weeks ago.”

“Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. He's thinking maybe he'll get another job soon.”

“He seems nice.”

She pulled a skirt from her closet and held it up to herself, seeing how it looked with the boots. “He's okay, I guess.”

“You don't get along?”

“We get along fine, he's just…” She sat on the bed and started to unzip the boots. “All of the firms in town get slow and then they have layoffs, and it always seems to be him they're letting go. I feel bad when it happens, but then he's around a lot more than other dads would be, and he and my mom focus so much on my school stuff already that it's just hard. It's like I dread when he's out of work, because then it puts even more pressure on me, you know?”

I wanted to sympathize, but all I could think of was that she was crazy. Having my dad around all of the time was one of my biggest dreams.

“Plus, he's a little corny,” she added. “I mean, he still
calls me Sweetpea, like he thinks I'm four years old or something.”

“But that's cute,” I said. “Hold on.” My BlackBerry had started to vibrate. I slid it out of my pocket and checked the screen.

 

C.Romelli: Where r u, B?

 

I hit delete. Two seconds later it buzzed again. This time I ignored it.

“Don't you want to get that?” Kathryn asked.

“Nah,” I said. “It's nobody.” Chloe had been chasing me around ever since Monday morning, when she'd hatched her Senior Keg plan. So far I'd managed to stay a few steps ahead, but every day there were more messages.

On the phone: “Brooke, it's Chloe. Where've you been? Call me.”

In my email: OK, avoid me if you want. But you just don't want to admit our party was a success. We won't bite your new friend, you know. See you tomorrow? I better!!! -C-

On IM:

CHLOECAT: Brooke?

CHLOECAT: B?

CHLOECAT: U there?

CHLOECAT: This hiding out crap? Getting old.

CHLOECAT: GROW UP!!!

CHLOECAT: Call me.

 

And in texts, which by that point were getting pretty pissy. Another one came through while I was helping Kathryn put the tissue paper back inside the boots.

 

C.Romelli: Traitor!!!

 

I shut off the phone and stuffed it in the bottom of my purse, then I went back to spying on Kathryn's dad. I knew why Chloe wanted to reach me. She couldn't stand that I had a new best friend. But I didn't want to share Kathryn. Chloe would never appreciate her the way I did.

Peeking around the curtains, I watched Mr. Pease finish the curbs. He turned off the mower and rolled it away toward the garage. A few minutes later, the front door slammed. Footsteps came up the stairs and went into the bathroom at the end of the hall. The shower started.

“Don't you ever help him out?” I asked. “You could run the leaf blower or something.”

Kathryn looked like the idea had never occurred to her. Before she could answer, her mom yelled up from
the bottom of the stairs. “Kathryn, Brooke, come help me set the table!”

 

Kathryn's mom made an amazing dinner. And no matter what Kathryn said, her dad wasn't corny. It was just obvious he really loved his family, the way he gave her nicknames and wanted to hear about our school stuff. Kathryn blushed all through the meal, and once she told him, “Please, Dad! Let Brooke eat!” But mostly, the three of them looked really comfortable in their cozy dining room.

When she walked me to the door later on, I asked what she was doing for the rest of the evening.

“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe Matt will come over and watch TV if this online thing he's hosting ever ends.”

“Of course he will.”

Her face went bright red. “He's just a friend.”

“Whatever. He's totally in love with you.” As if she hadn't noticed. It was obvious to anybody with eyes. But Kathryn just shook her head.

“And
I'm
totally changing the subject,” she said. “What are
you
doing tonight?”

“Practicing.”

She sighed. “That's what I should be doing.”

“So do it.”

“But there's TV! And Matt coming over! Why don't
you stay here and hang out with us?”

“I've gotta get my hour in. Two if I'm on a roll.”

“Fine, Miss Dedicated.” She handed me my purse and opened the door just as my mom was pulling up. “Go home and practice.”