Among Friends (4 page)

Jennie, the outsider. Boy, that must be a new experience for her. I mutter this to Jared and he mutters back, “Don’t gloat.” Jared and I kiss in the dark. Jared is wearing a jacket and tie and looks like a future Wall Street wizard. I don’t tell him I love him, I’ve been saying that too much lately and it’s his turn. But I decide that for our Janiversary I’ll get him a shirt that uses cufflinks instead of winter camping junk. If you’re preppy, you should go all the way and really prep their socks off, right?

“But if A is a boy,” Hillary says darkly, “and B is a
girl, then I want to know what went wrong between them.”

Emily is giggling. I’ve always liked Emily’s giggle. It’s one of her redeeming features. “It’s probably A’s fault,” said Emily. “He was rotten and rude and she won’t associate with him any more.”

“Then I demand to know why they are headed for Chicago,” says Hillary. “I see no reason to continue with this algebra assignment until I have all the facts.”

It’s funny; we’re all laughing. But it’s horrible, too, because it’s a little skit they’ve made up in order to keep Jennie out. For the first time in our lives I see Jennie scared. Jennie Quint, afraid? And of her two best friends? Nice way to launch a Christmas pageant.

“So, Jennie, what is the answer to this algebra problem?” says Emily. Math is Jennie’s only weakness. Now, when Jennie is shining like a star in the east, her best friends are going to throw her only failure at her.

Jared gets involved. “Now, now, girls. Forty-five minutes since school ended, five minutes before her own dress rehearsal, and you think Jennie’s had time to do her algebra?”

See why I like Jared? He’s not strong on emotion, but he can be a nice guy if he wants. (Yeah, and who’s he being nice to? Jennie Quint, of course. Would he step in for anybody else?)

Paul Classified says softly, “Break a leg, Jennie.”

We’re all startled. Paul Classified doesn’t usually talk unless pressure is applied. But of course, we’re talking Jennie here. A person forgets that Jennie Quint is the exception to every rule.

Jennie tells Miss Clinton she wants to sit in the audience and watch this time instead of directing herself. So it’s Miss Clinton who lifts the baton, and nobody
thinks anything of it—except us; we know Jennie is trying to make friends with her friends. Some task.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the first king leads the procession, his gift held high in front of him. His robe of midnight velvet is flecked with silver, and the second king wears crimson satin and glittering brocade.

“Jennie!” I gasp. “Those kings are stupendous! Where on earth did you rent those costumes?”

“I didn’t.” Jennie is bursting with pride. “I designed them this summer and I just finished sewing them last week.” I am mega-impressed. New York, get ready. Jennie Quint is coming to fashion.

“In your spare time, I suppose?” Emily says resentfully.

“We don’t even need a star in the sky for this pageant,” mutters Hill.

“You’re right,” says Emily. “We could just hang Jennie here in the east and let her blaze.”

Jared is laughing. “We get two plays for the price of one,” he whispers in my ear. I’m sort of enjoying it too, but I’m feeling sorry for Jennie. I mean, a person usually has a team she can count on to root for her. Jennie’s team just walked.

“Uh. Wait just a minute here,” says Emily. “Jennie, a fourth king just came on stage.”

Jennie nods.

“And a fifth king!” cries Hill. “Jennie! Don’t you know that—”

“No,” says Jennie. “I looked it up. Matthew doesn’t tell how many wise men there were. He just says there were three gifts. I guess people have always decided there was one king per gift.” A person should never argue with Jennie Quint. Jennie always has more facts than the rest of us.

“So how many kings do you have?” says Hill.

“Seven.”

Emily and Hillary roll their eyes at each other. “Trust Jennie to do something to excess,” says Hill.

“Honestly, those costumes,” mutters Emily. “I’d have to take ten years of sewing classes, rip out each seam twice and still my costumes would look like old sheets. Why seven?”

“I had so much fabric. Plus this way there’s such a great selection of kings. We’ve got our black king, our Laotian King, our Swedish king, our—”

“Three of your kings are queens,” observes Paul Classified, his voice soft in the darkness.

And all seven, like Jennie, are breathtaking.

The orchestra plays a march cold and frightening, full of power and splendor.

I tremble, forgetting the so-called Awesome Threesome.

The kings draw near the stable and now the music becomes fragile. We will break just listening. Jennie, drawn by her own music, takes the baton after all. The music slides into a lullaby that moves us all to tears.

Jennie, Jennie, how do you do it?

Christmas means presents.

Listing, buying, wrapping, giving.

My mother is not going to make it.

Scarlet stockings and a tree, twinkling lights and
letters to Santa? History. This year I’ll get her a box of Kleenex and we’ll listen to carols on the radio.

I wonder if I’ll hear from Dad.

Does he think about us?

And Candy, does she think at all, let alone about us? Does she know that Mom hurts so much it’s going to kill her?

I am sitting in this auditorium for the peace of it, the quiet, hoping the pageant will make me feel better. And it does. I don’t know if it’s the idea of Christmas, or the sound of Jennie’s music, or just not going straight home. But I could sit here for hours in the dark, not thinking.

Jennie is like a candle; she lights a room all by herself. Listen to Jennie’s music. Stare at Jennie’s costumes.

I touch the cuff of my wool shirt, and the frayed wrist of the only sweater I have left that fits me. When everybody else was abandoning ship, I was busy growing four inches.

Seven kings.

I wish Jennie had asked me to be a king. In those clothes, you would feel like somebody.

What have I written here?

Nothing I could ever pass in.

I’ll have to keep two journals. Like laundering money. Keeping two sets of books. One for Miss MacBeth, one for me.

Who could have guessed that at the moment The Awesome Threesome ended, there would also be three truly awesome kings on the stage?

My wrist was lifted to bring in the saxophones, my eyes fixed on the drummers who would join after six bars. But my soul watched my best friends, leaving without a word.

The hand that held the baton trembled.

Mary sang the lullaby I worked on all of August. Sad, sad music, because Mary knew her baby was born to die in agony.

When I composed the lullaby, I was only guessing. Now I’ve tasted it.

Agony is being alone: agony is the death of a friendship.

I was actually crying when the lullaby finished. The first violin, a nice boy whose only friendship appears to be with his instrument, touched me with the bow. “Good music,” he said softly. “You aren’t the only one crying.”

I don’t want some violin player to poke me with his bow! I want Hillary and Emily! I want them to be celebrating with me. Weeping with me. But to the violinist, I said, “Thank you.”

(I should learn to be silent, like Paul Classified. Then Em and Hill wouldn’t be mad at me.)

How little I share with Hill and Emily now!

They don’t know how lyrics come: in the night, with a jolt that wakes me up gasping. I have a booklight with batteries that I pull under the covers with me, and write in the tent of my sheets: my rhyming dictionary on one side and my stage notes on the other. I get cramps in my elbows from leaning so long on them.

They don’t know how the music comes either: rushing in my skull: fierce, pounding, demanding to be played. How I have to stumble away from other things—class or supper—find the piano and quick, quick, play it out loud, get it out from behind the barrier of my bones, past my fingers and onto the keys. The relief of hearing the chords the way I heard them in my head, and then the frantic effort to write them on staff paper before they’re lost.

Emily and Hill don’t know about Paul Classified, either.

A crush on Paul Classified is mandatory for junior girls, but I don’t do the things everyone else does and they would not expect me to have a crush on Paul. But I do, and it’s strong, and it rules more of my life than even music, or my parents. I have written six love songs. I turned one into the shepherds’ ballad for the Christ Child, but it was really for Paul Classified. The other ones are tucked away in my music notebooks. I’ve never used his name, although “Paul” rhymes with a thousand words and dances in my head all the day long.

(So many secrets. I will not die of disease, but of the weight of my secrets.)

I conducted the pageant while Emily and Hillary walked away.

The star in the eastern sky lowered.

My
star isn’t going to come softly.

My
star won’t creep across a quiet sky.

It’ll come with a crash.

Truth hits you. Truth isn’t a chorus or a carol. If you ever understand at all, it will be to a drum roll.

The pageant ended.

My pageant.

My drum roll.

And the audience sighed, all together, as if their lungs were one.

And they stood up to applaud.

The stage crew, the light crew, the costume crew, the teacher advisers. The orchestra, Miss Clinton, who taught me how to orchestrate, Mr. Grant, who helped with the lyrics—they gave me a standing ovation.

Beauty.

Not a star in the sky nor a babe in the manger. Beauty is applause.

“Awesome,” whispered someone.

Awesome: a slang word for anything from a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to the Grand Canyon.

But this pageant was mine and it really and truly was awesome.

Oh, applause, applause! Is it sick, to adore applause so much? To love so dearly being the center of attention?

It stopped. It rang in my ears, carrying me, but the ringing faded, the applause was over.

The infant’s hay was stuffed back into the manger. The saxophones went back into their cases. The costumes went into the drama room closets. And quickly, oh so quickly, everybody was gone. Gone to other things: supper, homework, girlfriends, home.

The auditorium was empty.

I was alone.

Applause takes a crowd. And joy—joy takes a friend.

I want to be Awesome! I want to be the Awesomest of all!

But I don’t want to be awesome alone
.

I never even knew she was making those costumes.

She had to go into New York for that material. There’s no fabric shop around here that would carry that stuff.

Jennie—going into the city without us?

Jennie—finding those kings, rehearsing that sax trio, without us?

Jennie—never phoning to say, “Come look at what I’m sewing”?

Emily and I just abandoned the dress rehearsal. We walked slowly to the parking lot. I’m the one with a car. Emily’s not quite sixteen yet and Jennie’s mother will never let her have a car, because having to drive Jennie places means Mrs. Quint can be in on all Jennie’s action. If Jennie gets a car, Mrs. Quint stays home. I don’t like Mrs. Quint.