Rival (7 page)

I turned away and stuck my finger in my mouth. I was terrified.

“Don't be shy,” Dad said. “Show them what you can do.”

He turned me back around and knelt in front of me with this big smile on his face. I couldn't let him down. So I started singing, extraloud. I even made up some dance steps. When I finished, the whole room exploded with applause.

“That's my girl!” Dad said. He picked me up and put a big kiss on my cheek.

After that, my singing was a Dempsey party tradition. Right before my bedtime, people would gather around the piano and make tinkling noises on their wineglasses. That was my cue. Dad would smile proudly while I sang show tunes or jazz classics. When I got older he started taking me to operas, and then I'd do easier versions of the arias we saw at Wolf Trap or Lincoln Center. When it was over, he would lift me up on his shoulders and carry me around so everybody could tell me what a great job I'd done.

“That's my girl,” he always said. “My Little Star.”

The piano is upstairs now, in my studio. On the back of it there's a picture of me and my dad. I'm wearing a dirndl and yellow braids from a
Sound of Music
parody my mom wrote. Dad's wearing a red sweater. He's holding me tight, smashing my cheek into his chin. I look at the picture as I begin my warm-up, remembering how stubby his beard felt. How much I loved it when he hugged me like that. Instead of practicing the songs for my next lesson, I reach into the piano bench and pull out a book of old Sondheim songs. I can hear Dad's voice as I start to sing through them. It's almost enough to drown out thoughts about Kathryn. Let her have the solo in choir. Let her be beautiful and tiny and all of the things I'm not. It doesn't matter because I'm going to go to Homecom
ing with John Moorehouse. And then, I'm going to win the Blackmore.

I can just hear Dad now. He'll come backstage and put his arms around me. “My Little Star,” he'll say. Then he'll take me back to New York, and I'll start a whole new life—the one I was supposed to have all along.

“
IT'S GOOD,” I TELL MATT
. He holds my arm and steers me through the morning hallway traffic while I read his first piece for the
Douglas Picayune
. Launching the “Geek God” column was my first order of business when I took the job of features editor; since Matt barely passes English every year, I figured it would help him focus if he could write about topics that really interest him.

“You don't think it sucks?” He maneuvers me away from a teacher pushing an A/V cart while I use my red pen to delete a couple of errant commas.

“Not at all. You actually make fan fiction sound cool. Just watch—the A-listers will be reading slash by the end of the week.”

“It is my goal in life to get the cheerleaders hot over some Jack/Sawyer action. Or Harry/Ron.” He chuckles. “I always thought Dina Mendoza seemed like a closet
Potterslash fan.”

“Genius.” I hand him back his paper and let my eyes readjust to the path ahead of me. “So what's your next one going to be about? Cosplay? RPGs?”

“I thought I'd focus closer to home. Talk about people who live out their passions IRL. Like you and how you're getting ready to do the Blackmore on top of the paper and choir and everything else.”

I shake my head, suddenly uncomfortable. “Nobody wants to read about me.”

“But you're the big soloist!”

“Actually, I think I'm going to turn that down. Regionals are for large ensembles, not solos. And the only people who really care about the Blackmore are the other singers.”

“More people care about the Blackmore than care about fanfic,” he says. “Methinks there's a bigger reason you're shunning the spotlight.”

Before I can stop him he's grabbed my backpack and thrust his hand inside.

“I knew it!” He snatches out the yellow Blackmore entry and holds it over his head. “You haven't sent it in yet!”

“No.” I blush. “Because if you must know, I'm thinking maybe I won't do the Blackmore. I have too much going on anyway with school and stuff, plus I applied
for a lot of scholarships. I'm sure one of those will come through, and then I won't have to be distracted from my schoolwork by getting ready for a music competition.”

I stand on tiptoe and grab the entry form away. Matt lets it slide from his fingers, humming softly. I groan. “Not the bushel song again.”

He bumps me with his shoulder and pseudoshouts, “No!” I'm about to smack him with the yellow envelope when he says, “Hey, what's that?”

Up ahead, near the big double doors leading to the front courtyard, a poster is taped to the wall. As we get closer, I can see the word “Dempsey” in big red letters. A few feet away, on the same wall, is a piece of white paper with two rows of names on it.

“Homecoming nominations,” Matt says. “They must've just posted them.”

We go over to look at the list, and then I look closer at Brooke's campaign poster.
DRESS A NEEDY CHOIRGIRL
, it says, above a line about how she wants to raise money for people who can't afford their Honors Choir gowns.

“Oh my God.”

“What's wrong?” Matt says.

I point to the bit about the dresses, and Matt reads more closely.

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? Last week she tries to drown
me and now this? This is tailor-made to freak me out.”

He shakes his head. “But why now? She hasn't done anything this blatant in months.”

I hold up the yellow application. “This is why. The Blackmore is less than three months away. It's the one place where she can't just say the word and smack me down.”

I look around for other campaign posters and see none. There's only one way to explain how Brooke was able to get hers out so early: She must have known in advance that she was nominated; it's just the kind of thing her friends would do for her, and it's not fair to anybody else, but nobody will say anything about it. They never do. Brooke is the kind of girl people make exceptions for.

The warning bell rings. Matt offers to walk me to Anatomy, but I tell him no, I'm fine.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” I lie. “You're going to be late for Chem.”

He squeezes my shoulder, and then he's off. I, on the other hand, am stuck in front of Brooke's sign, fighting feelings I thought I'd conquered months ago: anger, dread, and a trapped sort of sensation that is worse than the incident at Brooke's pool, because it's clear now that this is just the beginning. I haven't even turned in my registration and the competition has already started.

All around me, people are rushing to class. I tear myself away and follow, trying to fight back the suspicion that they're all staring at me, just like they did after Homecoming last year.

Outside of the Anatomy lab, a cheerleader pinches her nose. “Oh, gross!” she says to her friend. “Smell that!”

I pull my arms in close; of course I assume they're talking about me. But then I smell it, too—an odor like wet rubber and rancid syrup. It's coming from inside the lab. I step into the classroom and find the source: Every other table holds a pallet on which rests the ghostly pale body of a fetal pig. I never thought I'd be grateful to see dead animals, but I am beyond happy that there really is a smell, and it's coming from them.

Ms. Burke, our new science teacher, claps her hands as the last bell rings.

“All right, everyone,” she calls. “There aren't enough specimens to go around, so partner up. You'll be using the same one all semester, so don't start cutting until you've studied the directions carefully.”

I watch as people start to pair off, dreading the idea of having to ask someone to work with me. I'm working up the nerve to approach a new guy sitting in the back row when a voice comes over my shoulder.

“I used to hunt wild hogs back in Iowa. If you cook 'em just right, they make a good pork roast.”

I look up, into a pair of green eyes belonging to John Moorehouse, a transfer from last spring and probably the most amazing-looking guy at school.

I stand frozen, trying not to appear surprised.

“I guess what I'm trying to say,” he continues, “is if you need someone to help you butcher little Porky, then I'm your man.”

In the movies that Matt and I watch there's always a star football player, the guy who all the others look up to and the girls want to end up with. John is like that. I've seen him in the halls but never thought much about him—mostly because he's an A-lister, which means he's part of Brooke's world.

“We don't have to be partners,” he says. “I can ask somebody else.”

“No,” I say, forcing myself to snap out of it. “That's okay. I mean, we can work together. If you want to.”

“Great.” He smiles. Then he motions for me to join him at a table by the window, where an unclaimed pig lies, looking pearly and almost translucent from the preserving fluid. After listening to Ms. Burke lecture about the proper way to begin the dissection, we get out scissors and scalpels and, following the diagrams she's posted at the front of the room, we start cutting into the pig. It isn't as disgusting as I'd thought it would be; the most disturbing thing is the odor. It sticks in your
nostrils and makes everything smell chemically sweet.

After we've made the initial incisions, we have a lot of delicate work to do separating the connective tissue that holds the skin to the muscles. John starts slicing through the filmy white tissue, concentrating hard.

“I just saw the Homecoming nominations,” I say. “You're up for King. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” John checks Ms. Burke's PowerPoint, then starts to tackle the area around the pig's thigh. “It's not that big a deal, though.”

“It is to everybody else,” I tell him. “Homecoming is huge here at Douglas.”

He smiles. “Well, then it's huge to me, too, I guess. At least as far as football goes. But the King stuff? Not so much.”

“I would think you'd like getting picked out of the crowd like that. It means people like you.”

“All it really means is that they get to see me make a fool out of myself in a stupid cape and crown.”

I giggle at the image. “Now I hope you win it.”

“You'd better not be laughing like that if I do.” His voice sounds serious even though his words are a joke. “Who are you going with, anyway?”

“I don't know.” I hadn't planned on going to Homecoming at all, but I don't want John to think I'm a loser, so I tell him I'll probably go with Matt.

“Is Matt your boyfriend?”

I stop, my scalpel hovering. This isn't the first time I've been asked the question, and I guess I'd be lying if I said I never thought about it; in those old movies, the best guy friend usually ends up having feelings for the heroine. But every time I do think about it, the idea of changing what we are—what we've been for so long—is just too much.

“It's purely platonic,” I tell John.

He nods. “I wonder if Matt would say the same thing.” The bell starts to ring, and he pulls a piece of plastic over the pig. “Well, that's that. See you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” I murmur. “Okay…”

He stacks our pallet on a tall metal cart, along with the pigs belonging to the others in our class, and then, before I can say anything else, he is out of the room.

For the rest of the day I can't get his comment out of my mind.
Would
Matt say the same thing? How ridiculous—of course he would. Mixed up in the muddle is the memory of the way John smiled when he asked me to be his partner. Driving home, I replay the encounter, trying to decipher every nuance.

Is Matt your boyfriend?

When I pull into my driveway, my mother is sitting alone on the front porch. She waves as I'm parking, and when I start up the walk I can see that she has a
stack of papers in her lap.

“These came in the mail today,” she says, fanning them out hopefully. I see the college crests on the envelopes and walk slower; I had no idea they'd be getting back to me so quickly.

I drag myself up the steps and sit beside her.

“How was school?” she asks. She wears the khakis and white polo shirt that go under her work smock; a glint of gray threads through her thick, dark hair.

Brooke, the Homecoming poster, John…if I were to try and tell her everything we would be out on the steps all evening, so I just say, “Busy. Those came back fast.”

“Yes.” She pushes the envelopes into my hands. “I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. I guess we'll find out, right?”

There are three of them. First I open the one for the school I sent writing samples to….
A surplus of outstanding candidates…limited funds…
I didn't get the scholarship.

“It's okay.” Mom smoothes the front of her shirt. “It's only the first one.”

The other two are for music programs, and I feel better about my chances there. Both of the letters are good news—just not enough.

“Fifteen hundred a semester,” says Mom, reading over my shoulder. “What's the tuition?”

“Ten thousand a year.”

Her face drops. “What does the other letter say?”

“Three thousand plus free housing in the honors hall for musicians.” She brightens again, until I tell her that tuition at that school is even more than at the first one.

She gathers up the papers, stacking them neatly because I know she's thinking we shouldn't trash an offer of money, no matter how puny it is.

“It's only the first three,” she says. “These aren't even very prestigious schools, and they obviously don't know what they're doing if they can't reward talent like yours.”

“I'm not worried,” I tell her as I get to my feet, although inside I've started to get that trapped feeling again—the sensation of something unseen and ominous bearing down on me. “Something will come through.”

“Of course it will,” she answers. “With your grades and your voice, how could it not?”

I can think of dozens of ways it could not, actually. All this time I've been afraid that the scary something at the end of the tunnel was a competition, but now I see that competing might just be my only way out. Winning means escaping the pressure of standing apart from thousands of other scholarship seekers. Winning means going to college without having to drain my parents' bank account.

It also means getting back at Brooke. She may be the
Queen B, but I'm the one who got a solo in choir. I'm also the one who really needs the money.

This needy choirgirl is about to shine.

Mom and I go inside, she to the kitchen and me to the guest room upstairs, where the computer waits with its screen saver of musical notes marching across a bloodred background. I take the Blackmore letter from my backpack, wake up the computer, and call up the special link for competitors. I fill out the registration form quickly, stopping only when I get to the part where they request payment information, and then I call Matt.

“You can't see the Matt Melter™ over the phone,” I say. “But I have a favor to ask that will put me forever in your debt.”

“Forever is a long time,” he replies. “But the Matt Melter™ is powerful. So shoot.”

I take a deep breath, grab a Post-it, and uncap my ink pen.

“Remember how you told me I could borrow your credit card number for the Blackmore? Well, I'm ready. What is it?”