by Rebecca Lim
‘Maybe you should leave the singing to the genuine talent and sit the next section out?’ Chatter ceases as all eyes fly to the young man still standing beside me, anticipation of a fresh kill scenting the air.
I can practically feel the heat coming off Spencer’s skin as he hangs his head in reply.
But Gerard Masson has more patience than his Port Marie counterpart and will not be deterred, forcing us all, with patience and good humour, to attack the same stretch of music again and again until Spencer has no trouble with the pitch or the timing. There is a round of lazy applause when Mr Masson stops the music at Figure 23 after the entire chorus, and every soloist, has made it through the section several times without mishap.
‘That’s a wrap!’ he exclaims happily as people surge to their feet and begin leaving the assembly hall in noisy groups.
Tiffany storms out with her faithful entourage, without a backward glance at me or Rachel, who gives me an excited little wave, her bell-like head of sandy hair fanning out behind her as she races to catch up with the others. I almost want to tell her not to bother, because it’s obvious Tiffany’s never going to speak to her again.
Spencer turns to me with a relieved smile and murmurs, ‘Thanks. I just needed to hear how it sounded.
Don’t tell anyone, but I can’t, uh, really read music all that well. And we don’t have a piano at home.’
‘No problem,’ I smile back, and I’m surprised to realise that I mean it. It’s gradually dawning on me that high school is like swimming with sharks for people like Carmen and Spencer. People who are born without shells, without sufficient armour with which to face life.
‘Do you want to, um, grab a coffee?’ I say, hoping my voice is hitting the right note of casual. I don’t want him to get the wrong idea — and he looks like the type to jump swiftly to the wrong conclusion — I just need to talk to the guy.
Predictably, his eyes light up for an instant then go flat. ‘Mr, um, Stenborg will be expecting me to get back on the bus with the others. I’m down for the evening shuttle.
He’s my, um, music director. We don’t have enough tenors at school for him to, uh, use anyone else.’ His tone is apologetic. ‘You should hear the others.’
‘You don’t have to explain,’ I say quietly, my heart almost aching for him. ‘I’ll go talk to Mr Stenborg.’ I head over to where Paul Stenborg is standing holding a clipboard, a cool messenger bag slung across today’s arty ensemble of striped shirtsleeves, buttoned-up waistcoat and slim-fitting dark trousers, eight-up Doc Martens. He’s like something out of the Prohibition era, a studiously tousled gangster. Spencer trails me uncertainly across the hall and stands some distance away, as if there exists some unspoken moratorium on him approaching his choir master any more closely.
‘Paul?’ I say brightly.
The man swings around, late afternoon sunshine glinting off his steel-framed glasses, his ruffled Nordic hair. His answering smile does it to me again, suspends time for a moment, the way Luc can, the totality of the man really quite heart-stopping. It hits me again, somewhere in the region of the solar plexus, how beautiful he is. And how rare is such beauty.
I give myself a mental shake as he smiles and holds out a hand to me. Charmed by the gesture, I retain my wits enough to neglect to take it, and after a moment he lowers it back to his side.
‘Carmen,’ he says good-naturedly, not discomfited in the least by my unwillingness to get any closer to him.
‘Thank you for being such a good sport. Spencer’s always needed a little more … encouragement than most.’ From the corner of my eye I see Spencer stare down at the floor, wounded, scuffing a semicircle with one double-knotted, well-tended boat shoe.
‘But he is the best tenor we have at Port Marie High.’ Paul Stenborg’s voice is apologetic as he stage whispers, ‘ Sadly.’ Not caring if Spencer can hear. He smiles broadly. ‘Now what can I do for you? You passed our wicked little test with flying colours, I must say. Gerard and I were talking about you before the rehearsal began and it was his idea to push you a little.’ As if he can hear what Paul’s saying, Gerard Masson looks up and catches my eye, giving me a conspiratorial wink and a thumbs up from across the room.
Paul catches the gesture and smiles at his colleague before continuing smoothly, ‘Now we know for certain what a remarkable range you have. Ellen Dustin did intimate how truly special you are, but we really had no idea until this afternoon. You have a range of over three octaves, surely? With ease, I should say.’ My answering smile is politely noncommittal, for who knows what Carmen is capable of without me? I can hardly separate the strands of us enough to reply definitively.
‘Would it be okay if Spencer and I did a little extra, um, practice?’ I improvise. ‘He just wants to consolidate some of the stuff we did today and we can use one of the practice rooms here. My host family can always run him home later …’ Paul Stenborg’s face assumes an arrested expression, which changes almost immediately to one of open amusement. ‘That’s very noble of you, my dear. But it won’t do much good — wiser heads than yours have tried and failed to improve him. Still, knock yourself out. You have my gratitude. And you’ll have to tell me how you get on …’ As Spencer and I leave the hall together, I can’t help but look back at Paul, his back to us, standing there in a shaft of sunlight like something out of a living painting by Vermeer. He suddenly breaks the illusion of stillness by turning and openly meeting my gaze. Anyone else would have blushed at being caught staring. But this is me we’re talking about, and I’ve always liked beautiful things. Know it for a truth.
I startle an answering look on the man’s face of …admiration? It’s hard to tell, because he looks away and it’s as if the room has gone dark just for a moment. Like the sun’s gone behind a cloud.
Chapter 16
‘I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you out for a coffee yet,’ Spencer says glumly as we walk towards Paradise’s main drag, battling a head wind that, by all rights, should knock Carmen off her size 35 feet.
‘So he really does, uh, do that?’ I say, intrigued to hear the same scuttlebutt twice.
The streets littered with broken hearts. I think it, but I don’t say it.
‘Yeah,’ Spencer replies through gritted teeth as we stumble through the swing doors of a faded, nautically themed joint called Decades Café. It’s deserted save for a lone, heavy-set female staffer perched behind the counter devouring a lurid celebrity mag. She barely looks up as we walk by.
‘He’s always going on and on about “genuine talent” and how rare it is. How it has to be nurtured, like a flower.’ Spencer’s voice is bitter as he recounts his choirmaster’s words. ‘But I wouldn’t know because he’s never asked me to go for a coffee and isn’t likely to. A, because I’m a guy, and B, because I’m just a no-talent filler. He’s made that pretty plain all the way along.’ We swing into an empty booth up the back, me facing the door, back to the wall. I don’t know why; it’s automatic, like breathing. The waitress throws down her reading material to take our order after a longer than polite interval. I order what Spencer’s having, because I don’t remember how I take my coffee, or even if I like coffee. I just know that people drink it a lot and that at some time, in some life, I must have tried it. The woman grunts something unintelligible at us in reply before stumping away.
‘You know he used to teach at some big-name school before he came here?’ Spencer continues, his face and voice thawing a little as our coffee arrives. Two steaming cups of oily black stuff that he proceeds to spoon three sugars into. When he’s done with the sugar bowl, I do the exact same, struggling not to screw up my face when I take a sip. It’s like industrial-strength floor cleaner, except sweet. Spencer inhales the steam and hugs the cup gratefully with both palms.
‘Oh, yeah?’ I say, stirring again for something to do with my hands. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘You should,’ he replies with surprise. ‘You’re really talented. One of those “genuine talents” he’s always
going on about. He’s really connected, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.’
‘So what’s he doing here then?’ I query as I pretend to ingest more coffee, wincing a moment later when I realise how bald that sounds. Tact isn’t one of my strong points. You’ve probably gathered that.
Spencer gives a no-hard-feelings laugh. ‘The official story? He’d had it with the snobby stage mothers that send their daughters to that place. Too much angst, too much admin, too much flirting from cashed-up, middle-aged matrons who should know better. Preferred the simple life — if you believe that.’ I don’t, and curiosity makes me ask, ‘And the unofficial story?’
‘He had to leave because some student had fallen in love with him and was making his life hell. She was stalking him or something. A couple of thousand dirty text messages, almost that many physical confrontations and a restraining order later, and he’d had enough. She even lay in wait for him in his bedroom once, did you know that? Climbed in a window or something. He had to get the police to remove her from his home. It didn’t stop, so he left the school, left town. Moved as far away from her as he could possibly get. People fall in love with him all the time. And I’m not just talking the girls, either.
Don’t see the attraction personally.’ Spencer shoots me a crooked smile across the rim of his cup.
As interesting as Paul Stenborg is — like an exotic flower in the arid wilderness of Paradise and its surrounds — I’m here to test Spencer about Lauren. I’m eager to see what he knows, but I have to go carefully or risk spooking him, and this is one guy who’s easily spooked.
‘Hey, you know who I’m billeted with?’ I say gently, striving for casual. I tilt the surface of my coffee this way and that, as if it has the power to tell me the future.
Spencer looks up from the table. ‘No, who?’
‘The Daleys,’ I murmur, darting him a glance from under my eyelashes.
Spencer immediately goes pale and takes a big gulp of his still searing drink. He gasps a little as he wipes at the corner of his mouth, his tearing eyes, with the back of one hand.
‘Ryan said to say hey.’ It’s a gamble. I don’t know if Ryan knows Spencer from a can of worms, or vice versa.
‘Tell him, hey back,’ Spencer replies slowly, his eyes suddenly glued to the dark surface of his coffee. ‘They’re a really great family. So close. One of those storybook families that you wish you had. Were,’ he corrects hastily. ‘I haven’t had much to do with them since … well, you know.’ We sit in silence. Spencer fiddles with his watchband, looking devastated, then picks up his spoon and stirs his coffee again, just before he pushes his glasses back up his nose. The amount of tension he’s radiating would make anyone think he’d disposed of Lauren himself.
Maybe I’m onto something here.
‘They don’t really talk about her much,’ I continue quietly. ‘All I know is that they kept her room exactly the way she left it, and there’s a couple of photos of you and Lauren still stuck to her dresser. She really liked you. Ryan said so.’ That’s a gamble too. But I know I’m on the right track when he glances at me briefly before looking back down at his coffee with a strained expression, then shifts it precisely two centimetres left, one centimetre right. He quickly removes something imaginary from the corner of one eye and I look away for a second, pretending I don’t see the glimmer there.
‘She was really, really nice,’ he murmurs, fiddling with his watchband again. ‘Patient, you know? And kind, even though she was one of those people that doesn’t need to be. I really liked her. We spent a lot of time together doing the last big inter-school concert before she, uh, disappeared. Me being one of the only, uh, semi-functioning tenors from Port Marie, you see.’ He swallows convulsively, fresh pain still evident in his voice. ‘St Joseph’s didn’t send anyone that year, so you probably wouldn’t remember it. But it was a big, big deal around here. You know I was one of the last people to see her alive?’ I watch with interest as he swallows again, wipes a non-existent speck off one lens of his glasses, and shoves them back on so hard that the nose pads push into the corners of his eyes, making them water some more.
‘I can tell she was nice,’ I say carefully. ‘She had a lot of friends, you can see from all the photos. There are dozens. I didn’t know you could have so many friends.
I certainly don’t.’ Ain’t that the truth, says that little voice wryly.
Spencer’s voice, when he finds it, is windy, bereft.
‘We just got each other, you know? She listened all the times I needed to vent — and they were plenty. I mean, he treats me like shit in front of everyone — it’s practically a school tradition these days, you know, the public baiting of Spencer Grady, because if the teachers do it, it must be all right — and I listened when she needed to get something off her chest.’
‘Oh, really?’ I say casually, casting Carmen’s eyes downward so that he won’t see the sudden hot gleam in them. ‘About what? Was she upset about something before she, uh, vanished?’
‘More like someone,’ Spencer replies with a faraway look on his face.
I want to leap into the gap he’s created so badly I have to bite my tongue to stop any words forming. But somehow I bide my time, taking another small sip of my unpalatable drink, dumping more sugar into it, stirring vigorously. As suddenly full of nervous tics as Spencer is himself.
Come on, come on.
I’m almost afraid he’s not going to say any more when he blurts out suddenly, ‘Mr Masson was trying to convince her to turn professional. Forcing her, more like. It wasn’t something she really wanted to do. She wasn’t sure if that was the direction she wanted to go in. He was putting real pressure on her to leave Paradise High and go for an opera scholarship with a prestigious performing arts school; next stop, the Met Opera House or something like that. The extra coaching sessions he’d arranged for her before the inter-school concert were really wearing her down — before school, after school, lunchtimes, during spares. And it confused things with her, uh, boyfriend, Richard, she said. She felt like she was being pulled in too many directions at once, and she wasn’t even sure if she loved singing enough to make the kind of commitment Mr Masson wanted from her. He kept saying he’d make her a star.’ Though Carmen’s outward expression is unreadable, I’m electrified by what I’m hearing. Mr Masson? That tired-looking, short-sighted little man with the wild hair and stubby fingers who cares way too much about adhering strictly to the tempo? Is Ryan aware of any of this?
‘The concert that year was Mr Masson’s pet project,’ Spencer adds helpfully as he drains the last of his coffee, licking his lips as they meet the sugar hit at the bottom of the cup. ‘It really mattered to him — he personally chose every piece. Lauren was like his — what’s that word? — protégé.’ The boy paints imaginary quote marks in the air.
‘He had her doing everything from operatic arias to Andrew Lloyd Webber and kept telling everyone that she had what it took to go all the way to the opera houses of North America, Milan, Austria. The music A-league. It was like he was obsessed.’ I push my coffee cup to the side discreetly, and Spencer, being sensitive to giving insult to anyone, immediately does the same.
‘We should do this again,’ he says hopefully. ‘It’s been really nice.’ I realise that really nice is his default position; it’s how he wishes the world, and everything in it, to be.
And something close to tenderness wells up again in my borrowed heart. As much as I do tender, anyway.
‘Yeah, it has,’ I agree neutrally as I steel myself and touch his bare wrist where it rests across from me on the table.
Just a brief hold, a moment of light pressure, but it’s enough to bring out a cold sweat on Carmen’s forehead as I flame into contact with him, feel that building pressure behind the eyes, search quickly for impressions of Lauren in his mind. The burning sensation in my left hand snakes rapidly up my forearm like a living thing.
Mercifully, it burns out as soon as I let go. Everything confirmed. Brend
a was right: Spencer had been sweet on Lauren, and crushed like a leaf twice over when she’d turned him down, then promptly disappeared.
Unlike Richard Coates, Spencer has barely registered my brief touch.
‘I was going to walk home …’ I trail off, hoping he won’t insist on keeping me company, even though it’s getting dark out. Or, worse still, insist on that lift I lied about. ‘Are you okay getting back to Port Marie?’
‘I’ll get Dad to pick me up,’ he says, a dull note creeping back into his voice. ‘Don’t sweat it. Maybe I’ll see you around?’ I stamp down hard on my evil inner voice even as I force Carmen to reply cheerfully, ‘First thing tomorrow morning, yeah? Maybe they’ll even let us sit together again. What are the chances? It’s been way fun.’ An answering grin lights Spencer’s usually solemn features.
I leave the café waving inanely, still no good at doing normal. As I watch him wave enthusiastically back from behind the window, I know I’ve changed in some way I can’t quite yet define. Because in the past, I would have eaten guys like Spencer alive with no regard for hurt feelings, and laughed as I spat out their bones.
Night has begun to mantle the streets of Paradise. I hurry away from the Decades Café, keeping as much as possible to the bright arcs mapped out by the streetlights, although there is barely anyone about. The wind is blowing so hard now that no one’s likely to make eye contact with me anyway, without getting a face full of desiccated leaf debris.
When I reach the outskirts of the Daleys’ property, I pull out Carmen’s tacky pink mobile phone and speed dial Ryan’s number. Maybe I only imagine that her fingers are shaking a little.
‘Help,’ I say softly when he picks up. ‘I’m outside the house and hoping you’re in there or I’m in big trouble.’
‘Stay right where you are,’ he says in his deep, familiar voice that always sets off that strange longing in me for some kind of normalcy, safe harbour, however fleeting. ‘I’ll come get you.’ The wind shifts, carrying the scent of me to Stewart Daley’s dogs. Their sudden, unbridled rage seems almost welcoming, as Ryan ushers me quickly into the warmth of his parents’ house, every downstairs lamp lit as if to welcome me back from a long journey. The Prodigal Whatever-I-Am.