Rival

by Sara Bennett Wealer

  “Do you want to go for coffee instead?”

  “Don’t you have plans with Miles?”

  I let out a sharp breath; the sting of his brush-off was still fresh.

  “I’m not with Miles,” I told her. “At least I don’t think I am.”

  She didn’t answer. She tossed a notebook into her locker and pulled out her jacket, scanning the hallway as she put it on.

  “Besides,” I went on, “we’re supposed to memorize that Poulenc piece for State. I thought we could do it together.”

  To my relief, she softened when I brought up music. “I heard you screw it up today,” she said. “Anderson’ll kill you if you do it again.”

  “See, I’m admitting I need help. Help!” I clasped my hands together and worked my face into a desperate frown.

  She slammed her locker door shut. “Fine. We’ll work on it at my place.”

  Brooke’s house was cold and still when we arrived, just like it always was when I went over there. Even though I’d been home with her dozens of times, I still found the place amazing, with the foyer so big it actually echoed and the rooms filled with antiques and fine art. As we went up the front staircase to her room, I peered over the banister to see her brother Bill grab a basket of mail off the foyer table.

  “Anything good?” Brooke shouted down to him.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” he shouted back.

  We were sitting side by side at her piano, working out Poulenc’s difficult rhythms, when he snuck in behind us to drop an envelope onto the music stand. It was addressed to Brooke.

  “When were you going to give this to me?” she said, snatching it up.

  “It got stuck to the Beer of the Month Club catalog,” Bill said. “Sue me.”

  She waited for him to leave before opening the envelope. “It’s from my dad,” she told me, and handed me the card inside. It was gorgeous, printed on handmade paper with a spare Japanese theme. Folded into it were snapshots of two men on a tropical beach.

  “See, here he is,” Brooke said, pointing to the taller man—the one who had her nose. The man standing next to him was suntanned with a big, toothy smile; I had the strange sense that I’d seen him someplace before.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. I remembered the movie Matt and I had rented a month earlier. “Is that…?”

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “Your dad is with him? Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked more closely at the picture, at the crow’s-feet around Jake Jaspers’s eyes and the graying temples I’d never noticed in paparazzi shots. “I thought he was with Alexis McCoy.”

  “That’s just an arrangement,” said Brooke. “Alexis is a coke fiend and a kleptomaniac. She needs to keep her image clean, so she goes to premieres with Jake. His publicist is a real cobra. If reporters ask too many questions they get cut off from him and all the rest of her clients. So everybody just takes everything at face value. Jake and Alexis are together. Nobody says anything different, and everybody stays happy.”

  I thought about Matt, about what he would say if he knew. The movie we had rented was called Mephistopheles, and it starred Jake Jaspers as a futuristic fallen angel who could grant people’s deepest wishes. Matt had liked it so much he’d raced online to get more information, a sure sign he was about to join a new fandom.

  “Have you met him?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Brooke said. “Jake and Dad have been together for, like, ten years now.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Totally different from how he acts in public. At premieres and stuff he’s this big action hero type. When you see him in person he’s this totally quiet househusband.”

  I squinted at the photograph, trying to picture it. “Does he ever come here—to Lake Champion?”

  “Not much. Can you imagine?”

  I couldn’t. That Jake Jaspers had ever been in our town was unfathomable to me; that Brooke actually knew somebody like him was even more amazing. As if to prove her connection, she moved to her desk, opened a photo file on her laptop, and started clicking through the slide show. There were photos of Jake and her dad in London, photos of them relaxing in what appeared to be a posh apartment, photos of them looking like any other couple walking their dogs on a chilly Saturday in the park.

  “Hm…,” I said as the images went by. “He looks heavier than in his movies.”

  “He uses a body double most of the time.”

  Another tropical picture came up. In this one, Jake Jaspers and her dad looked like they were standing at the edge of a giant volcano.

  “Where are they now?” I asked.

  “I think the Bahamas. Dad just closed a show, and they start shooting the Mephistopheles sequel in Romania next month. They wanted a break before they have to go out there.”

  “He didn’t come visit you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “Yeah, but we talk all the time.” She put her hand to the pendant around her neck, the one she never seemed to take off. “He used to call me his Little Star. Pretty stupid, huh?”

  “No, it’s sweet,” I told her. “Your dad seems really cool.”

  She went back to the pictures, her face glowing in the light of the computer screen.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, clicking. “It’s funny, but I was going to say the same thing about your dad.”

  “You’re kidding,” I groaned. “My dad sits around the house doing Sudoku and updating his résumé. His biggest thrill is when I get my name in the paper for being on the honor roll. ‘Cool’ is the last word I would ever use to describe my dad.”

  The slide show of her father and Jake ended, giving way to images of Brooke and her friends from parties past. Click, click, click…the photos went by but Brooke stayed silent—for so long that I finally said, “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you feel sick or something?”

  “No,” she murmured. “Maybe just a little lonely.”

  I let out a tiny laugh; I couldn’t help it. “How can you be lonely when so many people love you?”

  She shrugged, and in the light of the screen I thought she looked sad, but I still didn’t believe her. Sitting there in her big, beautiful house watching her beautiful life click by, I felt like I would gladly trade everything I had for just a fraction of what Brooke possessed—loneliness and all.

  BROOKE

  “READY, SET, GO!”

  I dove into the pool, breaststroked across it and back, and then bobbed up near where Kathryn’s feet were dangling in the water.

  “A minute fifty-seven,” she said. “Is that good?”

  “Not good enough,” I told her. “I need to shave off a couple more seconds before spring season starts. Time me again.”

  She gave the signal. I dove back into the water and came up doing a butterfly stroke. The exercise felt good. With nothing but the sound of splashing in my ears, I could finally think straight. Ever since Boodawg’s party a few weeks earlier, this blackness had started creeping into how I felt about Kathryn. It was like somebody knocked over a can of paint the night Miles started acting all interested in her. The blackness started around the corners of everything, and it pushed in a little bit at a time. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t her fault if Miles liked her. She didn’t know I liked him, too. But knowing all that didn’t help; I still had a hard time being around her.

  Except when it was just Kathryn and me alone together. When the two of us could work on our music or hang out at the coffee shop and make plans about all the things we were going to do after leaving Douglas, then the blackness moved back and things felt almost like they did in the beginning.

  Two laps. Up and back. I popped out of the water as Kathryn punched the stopwatch.

  “A minute fifty-five seconds!” she said. “Good!”

  She was sitting cross-legged on the pool deck in a tank top and cutoff shorts. Earlier, when I changed into my swimsuit, she’d to
ld me she’d forgotten hers.

  “You can get in with your clothes on,” I told her. “Plenty of people have done it. It’s no big deal.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t really feel like swimming.”

  “Why not? Afraid to get your hair wet?” I swam up and reached for her calves. She yanked back and stood up, looking freaked out.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Um…okay.” I pushed away from the side. “Sorry.”

  “I said I didn’t feel like swimming.”

  “I know. I heard you. I said I was sorry.”

  She let her shoulders relax. After a couple of seconds, she came back to the edge of the pool and sat down.

  “No, I’m sorry.” She kept her feet under her legs and wouldn’t put them back in the water. “I shouldn’t freak out like that. It’s just—God, this is embarrassing.”

  “What is?”

  “I can’t swim,” she said, tugging on her ponytail. “I never learned how.”

  “How’d you manage to never learn? I thought everybody took swimming lessons when they were kids.”

  “I was always kind of afraid of water. And my mom and dad were spending so much on other things, like ballet and piano lessons, I guess they figured they’d save by not getting a Y membership. Only now I’ve got this phobia about pretty much anything deeper than a bathtub.”

  “Man, that sucks,” I said. I thought about all the summers I’d spent at the pool as a kid—whole afternoons just floating by while my friends and I splashed around, getting waterlogged and tan. What had Kathryn been doing?

  “Don’t tell anybody, okay?” she said. “It’s completely embarrassing.”

  She looked really vulnerable, which made me feel good in a weird kind of way. “No worries,” I said. “You can just keep on being my timekeeper.”

  She smiled and gripped the stopwatch. “Okay.”

  “Okay. So, ready? I still need to get rid of two seconds.”

  She reset the watch. Then she gave me the countdown. I dove in and tore through the water, faster than ever. I couldn’t wait to get back to the other side and find out my time.

  But when I popped up again, Kathryn wasn’t there. I had to lift onto the deck to see where she went. First I saw her bare feet. And next to them, a pair of Ralph Lauren flip-flops.

  “Crap…,” I muttered.

  It was Chloe.

  “Hey, Brooke,” she called. “Kathryn said to come over.”

  The blackness started creeping in again as Chloe stripped off her T-shirt and jeans. She stretched, showing off her matching bra and panties and the little pearl in her perfect, pierced belly button. She dove into the pool with a big splash.

  I got out. I didn’t feel like swimming anymore.

  Chloe came up for air. She backstroked around while Kathryn and I stood on the side.

  “Hey, Kathryn!” Chloe shouted. “Get your clothes off and come in. I’m not swimming by myself.”

  Kathryn stopped smiling and blushed. “I’m okay. Really. You go ahead.”

  She looked trapped. And even though I was pissed at her for inviting Chloe over, I didn’t want her to have to tell her secret to the biggest bigmouth in school. So I decided to try and help.

  “We’re quitting, actually,” I said. “It’s getting cold.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s not cold. Seriously, Kath. Get in. What if it’s your last chance until next year?”

  “I don’t have a suit.”

  “Hello?” Chloe pointed to her own pink bra, which by now was completely see-through. “Neither do I.”

  “I’m not skinny-dipping,” Kathryn told her. “Sorry! No suit, no swim.”

  “So borrow one of Brooke’s.”

  Then Kathryn did something weird. She started laughing.

  “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way I’m fitting into something of Brooke’s.”

  I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. It was true: Kathryn’s probably a two to my size ten. But did she need to make a joke about it? She turned to me with a sorry little smile. I couldn’t smile back. I was too busy trying to see through all of that black.

  Chloe kept looking from me to Kathryn, then back to me again. She swam to the ladder and started to climb out. “Fine,” she said. “God, Brooke. Talk about a buzzkill.” I watched as Kathryn offered her my towel to dry off with. How did the whole thing get to be my fault?

  I escaped to the kitchen for drinks and snacks, and when I came back outside, Chloe and Kathryn were in the gazebo, laughing their asses off.

  “Oh my God, Brooke, you’ve got to hear this,” said Chloe. “You know that guy Matt that Kathryn used to hang around with? He’s into, like, Ren faires and stuff.”

  Kathryn looked like she expected me to laugh, too. But I didn’t get the joke. Our junior high madrigal group performed at a Renaissance festival once. It was actually a lot of fun. I could see why Chloe wouldn’t go for it. But Kathryn? I bet she’d been to a lot of Ren faires before, and liked them, too.

  “He used to dress up in elf ears,” Kathryn told us, stepping over and taking some lemonade from my tray. “And wear a cloak.”

  “No!” said Chloe.

  “Yes!”

  “Oh my GOD!”

  “I know! Huzzah!” They both bent over, laughing so hard they almost spilled their drinks. I felt bad for Matt. He was the kind of person who kept to himself, but not in a snobbish way. More of an I’ve got my own stuff going on type of way. Everybody liked Matt—well, everybody who didn’t have something to prove. But ever since Chloe started tagging along with me and Kathryn, I’d seen him lurking in the hallways with this lost look on his face. Kathryn never hung out with him anymore. When I asked her about it, she told me it was okay. “He gets it.”

  “Gets what?” I’d said.

  “This,” she’d replied, as if there was something about the two of us that made it impossible for her to have other friends. But the truth is that it wasn’t just the two of us anymore. It was Chloe and Dina and Angela and all of the other people who grabbed and followed and acted like getting seen with us would make them part of some special group. It seemed like the days when Kathryn and I could hang out just the two of us were pretty much over.

  I slumped in a chair and watched the two of them talking. I hated the way Kathryn wrinkled up her nose whenever Chloe made a joke. The way her eyes would get big, like every word Chloe said was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard.

  The more I listened, the more I wanted to push back time. I wanted to go back to the first day of Honors Choir and start talking to Kathryn because she was sitting alone in the back row, not because Chloe had decided to have a stupid rush party. If I had met Kathryn on my own I could have stopped her from turning into this weird, fake person I barely knew. I could have told Chloe and the others that she was just another music freak. Pretended not to like her until I found a way of becoming a music freak myself—somebody none of them would ever give a crap about. I wanted to get Kathryn away from Chloe and everyone else who had nothing to do with music. And while I was getting Kathryn away, I wanted to get away, too.

  “So what’s on for tonight?” Chloe asked me. She dangled her flip-flops off her pedicured toes. “We doing a party or something else? Dina could come over. Maybe Angela, too.”

  I put a lie together quick. “Bill and Brice trashed the house last week. So Mom said no sleepovers for a month. Besides, I’m going to bed early.”

  “Why?” Chloe made a face. As if getting a good night’s sleep was one of the stupidest things a person could do.

  I waited to see if Kathryn would say something. She didn’t, so I said it for her.

  “Kathryn and I are going to the Blackmore tomorrow. Over at Baldwin. It starts at nine and goes all day. The finals aren’t until eight or something.”

  Kathryn looked caught in the middle, but it was true. The two of us had been talking about the Blackmore since practically the day we’d met.

&n
bsp; “I did tell Brooke I’d go with her, Chloe,” she said.

  Chloe gave the ice in her glass a ticked-off rattle. “So basically, what you’re telling me is that you’re leaving me stranded so you can go watch a bunch of people screech and scream all day. Thanks a lot.”

  The guilt trip almost worked, until I thought about how Kathryn and I hadn’t done anything by ourselves in weeks. I scooted my chair around, so she and I were sitting closer together. “You could come,” I told Chloe. “But I know how much you hate music freaks. So Kath and I’ll just have to catch you later. Right, Kath?”

  Kathryn went red again. She stared into her lemonade.

  “Right.”

  Lake Champion changes completely when the festival comes around. Big banners go up all over campus. The light posts up and down Main Street get red, yellow, and orange streamers, and you start to see a lot of sophisticated people walking around—women with bobbed hair and men with pale skin, almost all of them dressed in black. There are reporters, talent scouts, and people who are such huge music fans that they don’t mind traveling to the middle of nowhere if it means getting to hear the next Renée Fleming. Usually the celebrity judges stay to themselves, but sometimes you can catch one of them in the restroom. It’s weird to see somebody you’ve watched play a Valkyrie on TV washing their hands at the sink like everybody else.

  And then you have the contestants. They come from all over the country—about a hundred of them in any given year. Up in the practice rooms, it’s like a soup of different accents and even different languages, with everybody sizing everybody else up.

  That morning Kathryn and I snuck in while the singers were still getting registered. We snagged two seats, right in the middle of the hall. For the first two rounds, singers are split between the main theater, the opera workshop theater, and one of the big choir rooms. Kathryn and I staked out the main venue. We ate granola bars and read the morning paper until it was time for the competition to start.

  “Gee, I wonder who they’re picking to win,” I said, showing Kathryn the arts section. They’d done a huge spread on the competition with a map showing where everybody came from and profiles on the Douglas people who were competing that year. There were three from our school—Hannan Ameri, an alto; Beatrix Stahl, soprano; and Joel Graham, a tenor. They each got a write-up, but one of the articles was bigger than the rest. It took up half the page.