The Trouble With Destiny (2 page)

All six porters nod, and the luggage carts, which were previously moving in a slow and slightly circuitous path, suddenly pick up speed and move in a straight line toward the cargo loading area. I mentally place a big red check mark next to “instruments on board” on the giant to-do list that lives in my brain.

“Liza, I don't think I can do this.”

The quaver in the breathy, high-pitched voice is unmistakable. I whirl around to face the tiny person that goes with the tiny voice. Never in my life have I met a human being more aptly named than our first-chair flute player, Nicole Mauser. To say that Nicole is slight would be like saying the Incredible Hulk is large. At five foot nothing, she looks like a stiff breeze could snap her in half. She has a narrow face and small features that appear to be continuously twitching. Nicole is also the best flute player in the Southeast, and if she can manage to convince herself that she won't be murdered on the subway, she'll be off to Juilliard in the fall.

While most of my classmates are dying to get on board for sun, fun, and all-you-can-eat buffets (oh, and to compete against nine other groups for a $25,000 prize in a high school performing arts competition), Nicole sees the trip as one giant opportunity for premature death. When I find out who showed her
Titanic,
I swear, I will make that person's life very,
very
unpleasant.

I grab Nicole by the shoulders, rubbing them like my mom used to do when she was trying to get me to go to bed at night. “Nicole, it's going to be fine. We talked about this. The ship is perfectly safe.”

Her eyes grow wide, the wrinkle in her forehead deepening so much that you could use it to hold a pencil. “But—”

“But nothing,” I say, keeping my voice cheerful but firm. “Why don't you get in line and practice those relaxation breathing techniques I gave you. Deep, cleansing breaths, remember?”

Nicole nods, her eyes still as wide as silver dollars, and takes a practice breath so deep her nostrils collapse. But her quivering slows, and something that might be in the neighborhood of calm comes over her.

“Oh my God, what would I do without you?” she asks, between yoga breaths.

“Pass out from hyperventilation?” I say, and she actually cracks a smile. “See? You're golden. It's going to be fine.”

Once again I reach into my bag, this time for the blue file folder I prepared a week ago. It's nestled between a red one, which contains copies of every band member's insurance cards, health forms, and emergency contact information, and a green one, which holds room assignments and a flash drive of all our sheet music. I raided my mom's classroom supplies to ensure that I've left nothing—not a single thing—to chance. I double-check the schedule provided by the cruise line alongside the schedule I prepared for every member of the band, then unclip my ticket and passport from the back cover.

It's all going to be fine,
I tell myself.
Everything is going according to plan.

I hang on tight to that plan (win the $25,000 prize money) and try to push aside thoughts of what will happen if the plan goes awry (too horrible to imagine).

“Uh, Liza?”

A light tap on my shoulder sends a shiver up my back.

“Huck, I thought I told you—” I start to say. But as I turn I see that it's not Huck at all.

The guy behind me is tall and lanky, a few inches taller than my own five-foot-ten frame, and is wearing a vintage T-shirt and scuffed-up jeans. His hair is short, like he shaved his head a month ago and it's only now starting to grow back. What's there is a sandy, almost strawberry-blond that contrasts with stormy gray eyes and a slightly overgrown five o'clock shadow.

He looks infuriatingly familiar.

While I'm looking him over, trying to figure out where I know him from, the corner of his mouth turns up, his nose wrinkles slightly, and in a flash I'm twelve years old and standing on the warped wooden stage of Centreville Community College dressed as a bird, while the boy in front of me skips around onstage and sings the opening number of the
Stuart Little
musical, wearing mouse ears and whiskers. His hair was much longer then, falling down over his ears and eyes and requiring a near-constant head shake to maintain his vision, but no doubt, it's the same kid from Rising Stars Theater Camp.

I feel my heart pick up speed from moderato to allegro. It
can't
be him. Can it?

“Lenny?” I squeal.

“Liza!” The guy who I now realize I have definitely correctly identified as Lenny throws his arms around me in a hug, and though the big fancy camera around his neck smashes painfully into my chest, I can't help noticing that my twelve-year-old friend has grown into a lean, well-muscled seventeen-year-old. His T-shirt is well worn and super soft, and he smells woodsy, almost like a campfire. When he pulls away, I see that the freckles that used to dance across his nose have faded, and some primo orthodontia must have straightened his incisors, which used to look like they were trying to stage an escape from his mouth.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, suddenly all too aware that my denim cutoffs and blue Holland High Style Marchers T-shirt must be awfully rumpled from the red-eye bus ride from Tennessee to Florida. I reach up to my messy bun and hope there aren't too many bumps or flyaways. “Are you competing? Is your school here?”

I'm talking way too fast.
Zip it, Liza.

But Lenny just shakes his head and laughs. “Nah, I don't really perform anymore. I'm more into behind-the-scenes stuff these days.” He lifts his camera from around his neck. “I'm actually just tagging along with my dad this week. My mom's on a business trip, and he thought we could use some father-son bonding time.” He rolls his eyes, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at an older, taller, skinnier, and
way
less hot version of Lenny. The man currently wearing his everyday uniform of khaki pants and a black polo with the Holland High School crest embroidered on the chest.

I can see only the top of his head, since his face is buried in his phone, but it doesn't matter. I'd know him anywhere. I've only been staring up at him from my seat in the first row of flutes for the past three years.

“Your dad is Mr. Curtis?” I practically shriek, pointing at our band director. My jaw drops so low I worry Lenny can count my fillings. I force my mouth closed.
“Seriously?”

Lenny nods the nod of someone who's more than a little embarrassed to have to claim a teacher for a parent, a feeling I know all too well since my mom teaches third grade and has more than her fair share of those awful apple- and pencil-themed teacher coffee mugs.

“I normally live with my mom in Brentwood,” he explains, a fact I remember from our summer at performing arts camp. We'd bonded over our divorced parents, swapping stories about split holidays and tales of awkward parental dating disasters. I didn't go back the following year because Dad insisted I spend those weeks in Hawaii with him and Shannon, the boring redheaded CPA he was dating at the time, and so I lost track of Lenny. And looking at him now, with his Ray-Bans perched on top of his head and his eyes that seemed to have lightened with his smile, I'm sorry that I didn't give that camp another try. “This is so crazy. I had no idea you were the conductor in my dad's band.”

“Drum major,” I reply, out of habit. The distinction is important, at least to me. The drum major doesn't just wave her arms to the music. She's a drill sergeant. She's a leader. She's the go-to girl for every single member of the band. She's responsible for everything from marching to music to instrument maintenance to the personal and mental health of everyone on the field. She's the person everyone else relies on.

“Oh, right,” Lenny says, though I suspect he doesn't quite get the difference. “Anyway, my dad sent me over here to lend you a hand.”

“With what?” I ask, and Lenny laughs again, pointing to my luggage: two brand-new, high-tech rolling suitcases my dad got for me, my duffel bag, and a cardboard box. I've had to pack my own stuff (suitcase #1); contingency supplies like first aid, extra sunscreen, sewing kits, and seasick patches (suitcase #2); my flute, instrument maintenance supplies and extra mutes, cleaning cloths, reeds, tuning forks, and slide grease (duffel bag); and two extra copies of every piece of sheet music for every instrument for shipboard performance (cardboard box).

“Looks like you're planning to move in,” he says, eyes sparkling.

I meant to toss most of it on one of the luggage carts, but with Nicole's near meltdown and Huck and the Mechanicals, I forgot. “They're not all mine,” I say quickly. “I mean, they
are.
I mean, they're the band's. Which I'm in charge of, so I'm in charge of those by proxy, I guess.”

I have to bite the tip of my tongue to keep myself from further babbling. In just ten minutes, I've gone from leadership to loserdom.

Lenny bends down, and in one swift, effortless movement he has the duffel bag over his left arm, the box cradled in his right, and is pulling one of the suitcases behind him.

“Ready?” He smiles at me, and it's all I can do to keep my knees from turning to the type of Jell-O they probably serve for dessert on this boat.

I hand my passport to the girl in the sailor hat, who scans it and mutters something about my destiny through a clenched-teeth smile. I drag my suitcase up the covered gangplank as Lenny walks next to me, the rest of my luggage hanging all over him, his camera bouncing on his chest, which I can see is taut and muscled through the tissue-thin fabric of his faded red V-neck, which—
Oh my God, stop it, Liza.

As I step through the rounded opening at the end of the gangplank and onto the ship—which, with its beige carpeting, narrow hallways, and fluorescent lighting, looks like I'm stepping onto a floating Holiday Inn—I'm struck by another memory from our shared childhood.

It's the last night of theater camp, and we're performing the musical for our parents—or in Lenny's and my case, for our single mothers—who have come to collect us at the end of the two weeks. I'm standing just off stage left, waiting for my entrance. Lenny comes bounding into the wings, having just finished one of his big solo numbers. His crooked smile widens as soon as he sees me, and when he's out of the spotlight he grabs my arm and pulls me into the deep folds of the heavy red velvet curtain just offstage. The dust and must from the curtain nearly sends me into a sneezing fit. Then Lenny leans in and plants my very first kiss right on my lips, lightly smearing the bright red stage lipstick onto my chin.

It was thoroughly closed-mouth but still soft and sweet, and the memory turns my knees back to Jell-O and sends me stumbling down the hall, my rolling suitcase tipping off its wheels and crashing into the back of my legs, then the wall.

“You all right?” Lenny asks as I struggle to right my suitcase. It's so overstuffed with every possible contingency for the week that it keeps flopping over from one side to the other.

I quickly look away and place my hand on the smooth white wallpaper with a jaunty nautical pattern of blue anchors and steady myself before continuing. At least my stumble hid the fact that I'd been staring at him so hard I wouldn't be surprised if there were two laser-beam-burned holes in the back of his shirt. “Yup, just fine,” I say, though the words come out sort of breathy.
Down, girl.

We wind our way down a staircase and turn onto…another narrow beige hallway. I glance at my key card, nestled into a little blue cardboard folder with the number 298 written in ballpoint pen. The brass plaque on the wall next to my head tells me that my room should be just down this hall, so I charge on, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Lenny is behind me. He catches my eye and grins, and all speech leaves me. My friend from when I was twelve is a supreme hottie.

And we're on a boat. Together. For a week.

I stop in front of a white door with a brass plaque on it bearing the numbers 298. I stick my key card into the lock and jerk it out, but the indicator light blinks red. I try again, only this time I miss the slot and smash the card directly into the wooden door, leaving a tiny scuff in the white paint. I gasp and lick my finger, scrubbing at the spot to try to remove it before the band gets charged for damaging the ship after just four minutes aboard. My face is burning so badly by this point, I'm worried flames might start shooting from my ears. Lenny leans against the wall, his arms weighted down with luggage. I give myself the three seconds it takes to reach down and pick up the card that clattered to the floor to give myself a pep talk.
He's just a guy. You know him. Chill out.

I place the card into the reader and yank it out. The third time's the charm—I hear a mechanical click and the light turns green. I turn the silver knob and push open the door.

The room is tiny. I expected small, but the Sail Away Cruise Line must have used some kind of special lens or photo trick when they photographed the rooms for the website, because I was not expecting
this.
I have to step in all the way to the back wall in order to get Lenny and the rest of my stuff in and still have room to close the door. I'm pretty sure this entire cabin is the size of the bathroom on my last cruise, but on that trip I felt like some dirty-fingered little kid who wasn't supposed to touch anything. I'll take a tiny cabin on a boat with my best friends over a stuffy vacation any day.

Most of the room is taken up by two twin beds, side by side against the outer wall, both topped with identical nautical-themed bedspreads in shades of blue and green. The bed on the right already has Hillary's vintage duffel covered in patches of classic rock bands on it, so I heave my suitcase onto the bed on the left. Lenny puts the box down next to it and stacks my other suitcase and my duffel bag on top of it. Then he takes a seat on Hillary's empty bed.

Suddenly, I can't remember what I'm supposed to do with my hands or even what hands are for. I've never been alone with a boy in my room (unless you count Huck, but Huck has known he's gay for as long as I've known him, so I don't). It feels too awkward to keep standing, but the thought of sitting on a bed next to Lenny has my heart racing at a rate composers would call presto. Instead, I drop onto my bed, wedging myself between my suitcase and my tower of other luggage, which sways like it's about to topple onto my head.

I place my hands on my knees, which brush up against Lenny's knees in the narrow space between the two beds. The feeling sends me jumping to my feet again.

“Oh my gosh, this room is so small! Can you believe it? It's itty-bitty! Like, smaller than the dorm rooms at band camp! I mean, those aren't as nice, of course, because we have to bring sleeping bags and the carpet is
gross
from all the years of college students spilling soda or beer or whatever and those have cinder block walls that always have leftover pieces of sticky tack on them, so this is definitely nicer, but still, this is small. I've never seen anything like this.” I hear myself rambling on about the aesthetic qualities of the rooms at Cherokee State College, which hosts us for band camp each summer, as if it's the most exciting thing on the planet. I really need to get this nervous babbling under control. It's not a cute nervous tic.

Lenny just reaches out and runs a thumb along the monogram on my duffel.
HHS STYLE MARCHERS
, it says, and below that,
DRUM MAJOR
. Mom hand-embroidered it for me to celebrate when Mr. Curtis announced last spring that I got the job. I'd been up against three rising seniors, all boys, two trumpets and a percussionist. Beating them as a girl had felt pretty great, but beating them as a rising junior had been pretty well unheard of. Turns out the weeks I'd spent in my bedroom directing along to YouTube videos of marching bands had paid off. “Bummer about the band, huh?”

I stop in my tracks, thoughts of my tiny shower and the boy on the bed suddenly gone. I whirl around to face him. “You know about that?”

“Yeah, my dad told me,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Of course admin thinks the answer to a budget deficit is to cut the arts. God forbid they take some money from sports.”

Blood starts pounding in my ears like a bass drum. “It's not going to happen,” I say quickly.

“What?”

“It's not going to happen,” I say again, clearing my throat. This time my voice is loud and clear. “I won't
let
that happen. Those cuts only matter if we can't raise the money to keep us going, which we will totally do. Losing the band is
not an option.
”