“I don’t know about that. You blew everyone away at Big 9. My entire team was freaking until they were sure you weren’t competing at sub-sectionals.”
“I was suspended, but I went as a spectator,” I tell him.
“I wasn’t even allowed to do that.”
“You got in a lot of trouble?”
“We all did, especially the girls who took your script, but I told Ms. Cabera that since I’m the one who actually coached you, I should be the one to take the punishment.”
I didn’t think I could like Sam more than I already did, but in that moment, I do.
“Wow,” I say. “That’s … that’s brave.”
He shrugs off my words. “She suspended them too. I mean, they stole your freaking script.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. And I think this proves my theory. If speech team isn’t a reality TV show, it really should be.
“It worked out okay, I guess,” Sam says. “At least for me. I got to run in the track invitational yesterday.” He pauses, kind of dramatic, too, and doesn’t speak until he knows I’m listening hard. “Fremont was there, and I talked to Jeremy Spinner.”
“Oh.” My heart pounds so hard in my throat, that’s all I can force out.
“He’s still confused about the whole ringer thing, but me? I’m not confused about anything.” Sam stares at me and his eyes remind me of the warmest day of summer. “And we moved last week, so I had to help with that.” He rubs his shoulder like just the reminder is painful. “I was unpacking boxes when I got your text.”
The spring day turns to ice. Maybe that’s why it took so long for Sam to get here because he doesn’t live here anymore. My chest gets that funny shoelace feeling again—everything is strung too tight. The only thing that comes out is, “You moved.”
He points toward his old apartment complex and I follow his finger until it lands on a side street adjacent to the park. I realize he’s crossed that line between Winnetka and Fremont. I wonder what that means. For him. For me.
Everything keeping us apart is melting in the sunshine. I think this right up until Sam asks me a question.
“Why were you failing speech?”
“I … I used to freeze when I stood in front of a classroom,” I say. “I used to fake it—you know, be the one with the laser pointer while everyone else talked. But that didn’t work in speech class.”
“But I don’t understand why.” He glances at the park behind us, and back at me, the question clear in his eyes. How did the girl who built castles in the air lose her voice?
“Well, I got braces,” I begin.
“Wait.” Sam holds up a hand while he studies me. It’s as if he’s trying to reconcile grade-school Jolia with the new one sitting in front of him. “You needed braces?” he asks, his voice genuinely perplexed.
I don’t really want to get into The History of My Teeth. Not today, not with the sun so warm and his eyes so green. How even now, those insidious whispers might return—if I let them. I won’t.
“It made me … self-conscious,” I say at last. “About how I looked, how my mouth looked. At first, it was just easier not to talk.” I tell him how one form of silence led to another, until it was easier not to say anything at all.
“I can see that,” he says. “But does the story have a happy ending?”
“I got a B,” I tell Sam.
“Really?” He wrinkles his nose. “It should’ve been an A.”
“I had to make up for a lot of zeroes.”
“Well, there’s always next year.”
“Next year?” I try to be cool, but my heart’s gone into overtime again.
“I’m thinking you should look into dramatic interpretation,” he says. “You have a definite flair for it.”
I laugh at this. Me? Dramatic? “How so?”
“Did you or did you not hand me your first place trophy in front of a packed auditorium?”
I think of that soft kiss to his cheek, and my face burns hot. Okay. Maybe he has a point.
“Speaking of which.” He reaches into the bag and pulls out the trophy. The gold glints in the sunlight, the shine so bright, I hold up a hand so the glare won’t blind me. “I think this is yours,” he says.
“Thanks.” It’s one breathy word and doesn’t sound like nearly enough.
“You earned it.” Sam won’t let me protest that either. He eyes my coat pocket, then pulls one more thing from the paper bag—the script for Romeo and Juliet.
“I thought we’d get started early,” he says.
“We?”
“Ever hear of duo dramatic interpretation?”
Duo? As in two? As in me and … Sam? “Then—?”
He gives me that crooked grin. “I’m going to Fremont High next fall.”
His words steal my breath. I think about that. Speech team—with Sam. School—with Sam. It suddenly looms large, this new territory. I glance at the park. Part of me doesn’t want to lose this, those magic summers, or this winter, when we defeated the rink rats. I look at Sam, and I think he feels the same way. He hops from the bench, script tight in his hand. He takes one step, and then another, and I’m right behind him. On the way to the jungle gym, he scoops up a branch. His feet tear up the ground. I follow, the wind stealing my laughter. When we reach the climbing wall, he gives me a boost up.
“This time,” he says, “you be Juliet.”
But when I reach the top, he’s there too. We skip the balcony scene and start with the kiss. My mouth is cold, but his lips are soft and the spring day grows brighter. Okay, so technically, we’re not allowed to touch—never mind kiss—during tournament rounds. Still.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t practice.
Acknowledgments
Building a novel is a team effort. Many, many thanks to:
My critique/writing partner/wordsmith BFF Darcy Vance, who read The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet in more than one version and under more than one title.
Anne Goulish, who did a brilliant job editing the manuscript and schooling me on nonstandard comma usage. All mistakes that remain in the story are strictly my fault.
My family, who tolerates this writing habit of mine.
The Mankato West High School Speech Team, which long ago tolerated my presence on the team and was the spark of inspiration for this story.
Author’s Note
Within the story, I have tried to stay as close to the rules and regulations of speech team competitions as possible. In some instances, I may have glossed over the finer points, or, for the sake of storytelling, outright changed something. For this, I offer my apologies.
Speech team isn’t just for the wildly extroverted. If you have a strong introverted streak or are terminally shy, consider giving speech a try for a season. You might, like Jolia, be surprised what happens.
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Also by Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance
The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading
Read the book VOYA calls contemporary, laugh-outloud funny, and positive.
When self-proclaimed geek girl Bethany Reynolds becomes the newest member of the varsity cheerleading squad, she realizes that there's one thing worse than blending into the lockers: getting noticed. Who knew cheerleading was so hard? Well, at least there's a manual, The Prairie Stone High Varsity Cheerleading Guide. Too bad it doesn't cover any of the really tough questions. Like:
How do you maintain some semblance of dignity while wearing an insanely short skirt?
What do you do when the head cheerleader spills her beer on you at your first in-crowd party?
And how do you protect your best friend from the biggest player in the senior class?
/> Bethany is going to need all her geek brainpower just to survive the season!
Also by Charity Tahmaseb
The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath
3rd Place: 2015 International Digital Awards, Young Adult Novel
MacKenna’s mother died when she was a baby, a casualty of the first Gulf War. Now seventeen, MacKenna has spent her life navigating the minefield of her dad’s moods, certain of one thing: she is destined to follow in her mother’s combat boots. But when she pursues an ROTC scholarship, she finds herself at war before even enlisting.
Her father forbids her from joining the military, inexplicable considering he’d raised her to be a “warrior princess.” MacKenna turns to her grandmother—who arms her with an ammo crate containing her mother’s personal effects from the war. Hidden in the crate’s false bottom is a journal, one her mom stashed there hours before her death.
While MacKenna untangles the secrets of her parents’ tragic love story, her own life unravels. Dad’s behavior becomes erratic, her best friend grows distant and even hostile, and a boy from her past returns—with a life-threatening secret of his own.
If ever a girl needed her mother, it’s now.
The pen might be mightier than the sword, but are a mother’s words strong enough to slice through years of hidden pain? Can those words reach through the battlefields of the past to change MacKenna’s future?
About the Author
Charity Tahmaseb has slung corn on the cob for Green Giant and jumped out of airplanes (but not at the same time). She spent twelve years as a Girl Scout and six in the Army; that she wore a green uniform for both may not be a coincidence. These days, she writes fiction (long and short) and works as a technical writer for a software company in St. Paul.
Her novel, The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading (written with co-author Darcy Vance), was a YALSA 2012 Popular Paperback pick in the Get Your Geek On category.
Her short speculative fiction has appeared in UFO Publishing’s Unidentified Funny Objects and Coffee anthologies, Flash Fiction Online, and Cicada.
Copyright
The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet:
Copyright © 2014 by Charity Tahmaseb
Published by Collins Mark Books
Cover and Layout copyright © 2014 by Collins Mark Books
Cover design by Collins Mark Books
Cover art copyright © Aleshyn Andrei/Shutterstock
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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