Rival (2 page)

“
A WHOLE HALF HOUR YOU'VE
been out in the sun and it hasn't burned a hole in you yet. Guess the rumors aren't true.”

Matt lies back in a lawn chair, folds his arms behind his head, and sighs contentedly. We've claimed a spot near the fence that separates Brooke's yard from her neighbors', a perfect place for watching the pool party while remaining fairly inconspicuous. From here, it looks like one of the movies Matt and I rent every Saturday night. Pretty girls lounge alongside the pool, paying just enough attention to the guys in the water to let the guys know it's worth the effort of showing off, while the less attractive people huddle around the food table. Meanwhile, the serious sun worshippers are using this opportunity to catch the last of the day's rays.

But while Matt's basking, I'm stewing. The word “rumor” has set off a loop in my brain—a buzzing blip
that repeats, over and over:
Brooke. What is she saying about me now?

“What rumors?” I say.

“That you're a vampire. Everybody's talking about it.” The joke is only partly funny, and he seems to sense that because he follows up with, “Well, not everybody. Just me, myself, and I. We'd do anything to get your nose out of those books.”

He looks pointedly at my hands, which clutch a dog-eared copy of
Waiting for Godot
. I look down and realize I've been rolling the pages back as I read them; the cover is streaked with creases and will probably never lie flat again.

“I know. This is a study-free zone.” I close the book and roll it even tighter. “But I already have a paper due in AP English. And Sunday I'm singing for that scholarship committee from Cincinnati, which is a long shot because they don't have a lot of money this year, but my mom set it up, which means I have to do it, and that means I'm going to lose prep time for Human Anatomy….”

“Whoa there, Glaurung!” Matt thrusts out his arms, making a cross like a knight warding off a dragon. “Now you're stressing
me
out.”

“Ugh,” I moan. “I'm sorry.” I unroll the book, stash it under my thigh, and try to push aside the feeling that
I should be doing something productive all of the time.

“See? I knew you needed a break.” He sits up and reaches around to pat himself on the back. “Good on me for forcing you out today. Ow!”

Wincing, he pulls back his T-shirt to reveal a burn blooming along his neckline. I laugh. “Who's the vampire now? Without me to drag around, you'd be holed up in World of Warfare.”

“So we're both pathetic.” He drapes a towel gingerly over his shoulders. “I vote we change that. Come with me to the pool?”

I freeze. Just coming to the party was a big step. I haven't seen Brooke yet, but I can just imagine her finding and following me with that superstrong radar.

“I'm fine right here,” I say. “Thanks.”

Another pointed look. After ten years, I can almost read Matt's mind. The trouble is that he can read mine, too, and whereas I've had to learn my skill, he's had his from the start—ever since the first day of second-grade Sunday school, when he came to where I'd huddled into a corner, sat down next to me, and didn't say a word. He biked over to our house the next afternoon, and though I told my mom I didn't want to play, secretly I was glad somebody wanted to be my friend. We rode our bikes up and down the sidewalk, Matt chattering question after question whether I answered or not. He
would just pretend that I had, and most of the time his pretend answers were exactly what I would have said anyway.

Eventually I started to open up and we've been best friends ever since. I helped him keep up his grades when ADHD combined with a raging sci-fi and fantasy obsession put him in the principal's office more hours than he ever spent in class, and he helped me bear the infinitely awkward contradiction of being an overachiever who loathes the spotlight. One Sunday, the teacher taught us the song about letting your little light shine. Everybody loved the part where you sing “hide it under a bushel,” and then shout “NO!” Especially Matt, who would get right in my face and scream “NO!” as loud as he could. After that, whenever he caught me being reclusive he would sing the bushel song. It was his way of pulling me out, telling me not to take myself too seriously.

These days he just gets right to the point.

“You've got to get over this thing with Brooke, Kath. It's been a year.”

“But it's Brooke.” I study his face, trying to read whether he senses something about her that I've missed. Matt is a scarily accurate judge of character, especially after years of refereeing online fandoms and meeting total strangers at sci-fi conventions. “You remember how bad it got.”

He smiles. Those comforting brown eyes crinkle at the edges, one of them nearly hidden under a flop of long hair.

“Time has passed and people change,” he says. “We'll all be going to college anyway. I seriously doubt she's still thinking about what happened last year.”

I want to believe he's right, but I'm not so sure. I don't feel like
I've
changed all that much.

“Obviously you weren't watching in choir today,” I say. “And then there's this.” I pull my book out and hold up the yellow envelope I've been using to mark my place. Peeking out of the frayed opening is a pamphlet I've read three times now, six if you count all of the times I went over the section on prize money. A twenty-five-thousand-dollar check for first place; my jaw clenches when I think about my parents and how worried they've been about my college savings.

“You made it to the Blackmore?” He leans over and wraps a sunburned arm around my shoulder. “That's awesome! Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't tell anybody.”

“Not even your mom and dad? They're going to freak.”

“Exactly.” I put the envelope back into the book. “Once they know I'm in, they're going to put all their hopes on it. The prize money is more than any of the scholarships I've applied for. Plus, it's one hundred and fifty dollars
just for the entry. I don't have that kind of money.”

“You can scrape up fifty bucks, right?”

“Yes…”

“Then I'll tell my parents it's an emergency and we'll put the rest on my credit card. Now, what's your real reason?”

“Well…” I hesitate. Lately I've harbored this fantasy of not competing—of finding the money I need someplace else and avoiding what is bound to turn into a musical showdown between Brooke and me.

“So we're back to
her
again,” says Matt. He squeezes my shoulder and then stands. “I really think you'd be surprised, Kath. Brooke probably doesn't even care anymore.”

He holds out his hand, yet I can't seem to get up. I lower my eyes, tilt my head, and let the right corner of my mouth creep into a half smile. We call this the Matt Melter™, and it can be used for many purposes, such as convincing him to let me have the last of the onion soup dip during our weekend movie nights. Usually I only use the Matt Melter™ for good, but today calls for desperate measures.

“Studious cat iz studious,” I say. “I can haz hall pass?”

“Don't try to lolspeak your way out of this one,” he laughs. “And turn off the Matt Melter. It won't work, either.”

“You forgot the tee em,” I pout.

“And you forgot about my superatomic powers of persuasion. Seriously. I'll sic my
Doctor Who
fanboys on you, and you'll never be able to go online again.”

For my birthday last year, Matt gave my email address and IM to his Tolkien message board, and for weeks my in-box was clogged with birthday greetings in Elvish and Numenorian. But beyond my fear of spamming space opera fans is the recognition that Matt is right: We've been loners for too long.

Maybe he's right about Brooke, too; maybe this entire rivalry is all in my head, kept alive because I've been afraid to move on. After all the time that's passed, maybe it's time we did.

I let him lead me to the side of the pool and we sit, dangling our feet in the water.

“Nice?” says Matt.

I adjust the straps of my tank top and have to admit that it
is
nice. The heat is beginning to break, and the breeze has just a hint of chill in it. Locusts are whirring in the big old trees. The sun has started to set, giving the sky an orange and lavender petticoat—

Splash!

Water sloshes into my lap, and I look down to see a Marvin the Martian tattoo disappear under the waves beneath my feet. Marvin is attached to Tim McNamara,
the only other A-lister in Honors, besides Brooke. Tim probably would never have even thought about choir if Mr. Anderson hadn't heard about his super-humanly deep baritone and begged him to join.

He comes up and aims another splash in my direction. I try to sound light as I hold up my hands to catch the spray.

“Quit it!” I laugh.

“You're too dry,” Tim says. “Got to fix that.”

“I'm fine. Really. I don't want to get wet.”

“Which is exactly why you need to.”

He grabs my ankles and panic shoots through me. I feel him tug, feel the concrete pool deck scrape my thighs, see the water lurch closer as my wet shorts start to slide on the drain tiles.

“No!” I shout, wrenching out of his grasp and scooting away from the edge. I pull my knees to my chest so he can't grab me again.

“Hey, man,” Matt says before Tim can process what just happened. “You know who'd really be fun to haul in there? Leslie Sauer. She's been hanging out by the stairs trying to pretend like that swimsuit isn't see-through.”

Tim looks over at Leslie, who adjusts and readjusts a sarong over her butter yellow one-piece, then he gives a wicked laugh and swims off in her direction. I hear a splash, hear her scream, and feel bad that my rescue
has to come at her expense.

“Kathryn?” Matt says. “You okay?”

“Yes.” I untangle my legs from my arms. “I'm sorry. I'm an idiot.”

He puts his hands on my knees, gently pushing so that my toes touch the pool deck. “You're not an idiot.” He pats the spot next to him and I scoot forward. “Want to wait here for a second?” he asks. “I'm going to get a soda.”

I nod and he stands, heading for the cooler by the kitchen door. When he passes the gazebo, one of the basses calls out and pulls him into their group. Matt may be a loner, but most of the time it's by choice. I've always sort of admired the way he can fit in when he wants to.

The gazebo basses point out a tenor in a Speedo who's doing swan dives off the diving board. Matt laughs and the other guys laugh, and when I look around it seems as if everybody is laughing. They're hopping in and out of the water like penguins, cheering one another on as they leap off the diving board, splashing the surface and cutting through the deep water like it's the easiest thing in the world.

Meanwhile, I am sitting here alone—probably the only seventeen-year-old anywhere who still doesn't know how to swim.

“
SO I TOLD JACK HE
could do the shareholders meeting without me. I need a break, and I'm taking one.” Mom is standing at the kitchen sink, cutting cantaloupe into a big melon bowl. She looks out the window and lets out a deep breath. “God, it's nice to get away from those tightasses on the board. Young people are so refreshing.”

I want to retch. She's got her back to me, so she doesn't see me making a face while I pile soda cans into a bucketful of ice. Mom gets like this whenever I have people over. She likes to pretend she's part of the group, not the PR director for the biggest bank in town. Today she took off her business suit and put on hot pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and kitten heels with fake fur on the toes that I remember from back when she used to sing cabaret. Considering what she usually wears when my friends are here, this is pretty tame. But that doesn't mean I trust her. Even though people are showing up left
and right, I'm stuck in the kitchen making sure she and my twin brothers don't soak the watermelon in vodka. This isn't like the parties they're used to, where kids run around getting wasted and doing whatever they want. The crowd today is totally different.

“Okay, I'm lost.” The screen door slides open and Bill Jr. flip-flops in wearing a tank top with his fraternity letters on it. He goes to the fridge and takes out a bottle of beer. “Call me senile, but I don't recognize anybody. Who are these people again?”

“They're from Honors Choir,” I say.

“I remember some of them,” comes a voice from the breakfast nook. Brice has been holed up in there playing computer games since lunch. He was the school mascot his senior year, which means he got to dress up like a pirate and travel with the marching band. He and Bill go to the University of Minnesota now.

Brice comes out with an empty scotch glass in his hand. He refills it. Then he goes to the fridge and starts pulling out packages of hamburger and hot dogs. Mom does a little dance to the music coming in through the window while she adds grapes to the fruit salad.

“Where's Chloe?” Brice asks me. “I thought you two were inseparable.”

“Chloe's not here,” I say. Out on the patio, I see Isabelle Jovet pick up my iPod and start surfing. “His Name
Is Lancelot” starts to blare over the speakers. “This isn't exactly her crowd.”

“It's not exactly your crowd, either,” says Bill Jr.

“It's totally my crowd.”

“Oh yes. Brookehilde is a serious musician!” Brice balances his scotch on top of the meat while he reaches for a pair of tongs. “Take care, O plebes, lest ye drag her down into the uncultured masses.”

I shoot him a look. “I'm just saying. Not every party has to be about getting wasted. I have other friends, you know.”

“And they're nice kids,” says Mom. “It's wonderful Brooke is so popular.”

“A miracle, too,” Brice adds as he heads out the back door. “Considering she's so cranky all the time.”

“Hello!” I shout, lunging for his drink. “Did you not hear me? Not that kind of party. My choir teacher is here. Do you want to get me kicked out?”

Mom stops dancing and puts on her serious face. “Yes, good point. This is a school-sanctioned activity. Let's be on our best behavior, okay?”

Brice and Bill bitch about having to stay sober. I figured they would. But after a few minutes, when it's obvious I'm not giving in, they go outside and leave Mom and me alone in the kitchen. I need to get to the party, but there's something I've been wanting to talk to
her about. She's in a good mood. I figure now's as good a time as any.

“I made it into the Blackmore,” I tell her.

“You did? That's fantastic.” No congratulations. No hug. She cuts up a strawberry, arranges it in a fan shape on top of her fruit salad, then sucks the juice off her fingers.

“So I think I'm going to New York in the next week or so. I want to see if Dad can set me up with some coaching.”

As soon as I mention him, her face gets all pinched.

“You have coaching here,” she tells me.

“Those are just my regular lessons. I need a more professional opinion.”

“I don't think it's a good idea.”

“Why?”

“You have school.”

“I can miss a few days. All I'm taking is electives.”

Mom puts down her knife. “I said I don't think it's a good idea. If your father wants to bring himself here that's one thing, but I'm not allowing you to interrupt your last year of high school just so you can chase him all over New York City. Besides, who knows if he'll even be in New York? He might be on a new project. Or Jake could be on location somewhere.”

“I'll stay in their apartment, then. I've done it before.”

“No.”

She looks ridiculous in her loud shirt and fuzzy shoes, talking to me like I'm twelve. She can talk all she wants
about the tightasses at her office, but the truth is, when it comes to me and singing, she's the biggest tightass of all. A long time ago she was daring. Back when she sang, when we lived in Manhattan and Dad was working as a Broadway set designer. But then Dad met Jake and everything changed.

Jake Jaspers is a movie star. So huge that nobody's supposed to talk about him and Dad being together—not even me or Mom or the twins. When Dad met him Jake was a semifamous stage actor who was just starting to get some Hollywood interest. I guess it was love at first sight because within three months Dad was moving out of our apartment. Mom freaked. She really had no idea he was gay. And all of a sudden she got obsessed with security. She decided she'd never be able to raise the twins and me on what she made as a singer, so when a friend in the Financial District told her one of their bank branches needed somebody in PR, she packed us up for Minnesota as soon as the offer was official.

I was eleven then. Now I'm almost eighteen. And next year I
will
be going back. The last girl from our school who won the Blackmore got a part in a new Broadway musical. The girl who won two years ago went straight to Juilliard.

“This contest is ten times more important than school,” I tell Mom.

“Brooke.” She gives me her “responsible parent” look. “I understand—”

“Good,” I interrupt. “Then I won't have to go behind your back or anything.” I reach past her for the watermelon boat. Then I bump open the back door and step out onto the patio.

 

Almost immediately, I feel better. I've got show tunes on the stereo. Fruit salad, which does look tasty even if my mom made it. Plus the entire Honors Choir hanging out in my backyard. There aren't any cheerleaders prancing around refusing to get their hair wet. There isn't a keg in the corner, so there aren't any drunks making fools out of themselves. The tenors are sunning on the deck chairs like they're in Saint-Tropez. A few feet away some girls are popping up and down in the shallow end, trying to sing our new Palestrina chorale underwater. When I walk through the crowd, nobody tries to pull me into some “she said/she said” drama. The choir people are cool, which is what I've always loved about them. They seem happy to just be themselves.

“Hey, Brooke,” they say. “Hey.”

I can tell from their voices and the way they step back as I go by that they think it's a big deal to be at my house. Which makes me feel crappy that I haven't done a party like this sooner.

“There you are, Brooke.” Anderson takes my elbow and leads me over to the diving board. “I was just get
ting ready to do the welcome. Any chance of turning down Tim Curry?”

“Sure!” I run over to the stereo and put
Spamalot
on pause. He gets everybody's attention and then launches into the speech he gives every year, pumping us up for the hard work ahead.

“Special thanks, of course, go to Brooke for hosting tonight,” he says, motioning me over. I stand next to him looking out over the pool. Everybody applauds, and it gets to me again—they're acting like it's an honor to hang out here when the truth is that, if I had to choose between these guys and my other friends, I'd probably pick the singers any day.

Anderson turns to me. “You're a senior, Brooke. Anything you want to say?”

I'm totally not big on sappy speeches. I'd rather do something fun. Over everybody's heads I catch Bill Jr. looking at me, and I can hear his voice from back in the kitchen:
This isn't exactly your crowd
.

Like hell it isn't.

“Um…well, first off thanks for coming. I'm totally proud of everything we've done together so far, and I know this is going to be the best year yet.” As I talk, I start nudging Anderson. Nudge, nudge, nudge…until he has to step away so I can get onto the diving board. “For all you new people, here's a warning. Anderson is
going to make us do a bunch of really hard stuff. You know, serious. So I say we at least start off the season with something fun. Right? Okay! Folders up!”

People start giggling. I give the first two notes:
“Once more
…” And they know exactly where I'm going:
“
…
Gondolieri both skillful and wary, free from this quandary contented are we!”

Right away, no matter where they are, people fall into their parts, swaying in time. It's
The Gondoliers
, our finale number from State last year—the one where we got the highest score of any ensemble in the history of the contest. It's a fast song and it's cheesy and it's impossible not to have a blast singing it.

It's also totally cool. Where else can people just start singing opera and have it sound awesome?

The end is coming. I grab a water noodle for a baton and give the signal for people to slow down and get quiet.

“Once more…”

They start the build:
“Ga-haaaaaan-doooooooh-lieri, Gondolieri, Gondolieri contented are we!”

The sopranos in the shallow end are bobbing up and down.
“Ah-ah, ah-ah!”

The tenors on the lawn chairs start waving their towels.
“Ah-ah, ah-ah!”

And then we all go, superfast, to the last, superhigh note at the end.

Everybody whoops and cheers. Over the fence, the Madigans, who are having a family grillout, start to clap, too. I rip off my T-shirt so I'm in my swimsuit. Then I charge down the diving board. Anderson covers his head like he's afraid I'll pull him in with me. I run past him and do a cannonball, right into the middle of the deep end.

 

By the time I dry off, the party has kicked into high gear. A bunch of people are hanging out under the gazebo, so I head over there, too. On the way, I pass Bill at the grill. I smile a smile that says,
See? Totally my crowd
just as Brice comes over with a plate full of corn on the cob.

“So is that one guy coming?” he asks me. “Newish guy. I talked to him when those football players were over the other day. John Something-house. Where's he at?”

I get a chill, and it's not just from being wet. John Moorehouse is probably the hottest guy at school. He moved here from Iowa in the spring, and it didn't take him long to get established. Now he's a big deal on the football team. He's also a big deal to me.

“It's not that kind of party,” I remind Brice, although
this is the one instance where I wish it was. If I could switch worlds and pick just one thing from my other life to take with me, John Moorehouse would definitely be it.

“Too bad,” Brice says. “He was telling me how to crack the last level of Space Squirrels 2, but I forgot which nuts give you the superbig teeth of perpetual immunity.”

I leave the twins to discuss the finer points of their video game and grab a chair under the gazebo. Beach balls haven't been blown up yet, so I grab a package just as Laura Lindner plops down next to me.

“Your brothers are adorable,” she says. “It's so cool they came back for your party, Brooke.”

Her mousy hair is in a too-tight ponytail, and she's wearing surf jams that might have been in style two years ago but are totally out now. I guess she's decided we're best friends, since I talked to her in that quintet this afternoon.

“College hasn't actually started,” I tell her. “They go back on Sunday.”

“Well, it's still cool they're
here
. I mean, it's like they still know everybody.”

I look over at the twins, who are trying to socialize and run the grill at the same time. They really are good actors. Every person who goes up to them is like some long-lost friend they're ecstatic to see.

On the table, my cell phone starts ringing. I lean over,
check the caller ID, and then go back to my beach ball.

“Don't you need to get that?” Laura says.

“It's just Chloe.”

“Oh!” Laura pushes the phone toward me. “You should totally take it.” She turns her chair around to let me talk in private.

“So how's the freak show?” Chloe asks.

I pretend I didn't hear her. “You're breaking up. Where are you?” I can hear music and crowd noise in the background.

“Pomodori's!” she shouts. “Spirit Committee meeting! I told them to pick someplace else 'cause the pizza here sucks, and of course I was right!”

“We have plenty of food here. You should come over.”

“No thanks, music freaks give me hives.”

I pretend I didn't hear that, too. “What are you doing later on?”

“Maybe a movie, want to go?”

“Can't. I need to practice once everybody gets out of here. Voice lesson tomorrow.”

“Skip a night.”

“Can't.”

She sighs, long and loud. I know I'm going to get shit from her later. But with the Blackmore coming up, I can tell I'm going to have to do a better job juggling my social life and music.