Not Another Love Song

by Olivia Wildenstein

  My first-ever autograph.

  Hopefully, the first of many.

  44

  The Non-Date Date

  My phone chimes with a message on our way home from the Shake Shack, where Mom treated Lynn, Steffi, and me to lunch.

  BEAST: You better not have any plans tonight.

  Even though there’s no tone to text messages, his sounds aggressive. I’m tempted not to answer him, but of course I do. Nothing can ruin my day.

  ME: Why?

  BEAST: Because Nev has a DATE with a BOY and she’s going to the movies with HIM. Apparently you knew all about this and promised to chaperone her.

  I smirk at my screen.

  ME: Tell her to text me the time and place and I’ll be there. And tell her I’ll sit in the back.

  BEAST: Can’t believe you knew!

  ME: Can’t believe you’re freaked out about it.

  BEAST: She’s twelve.

  ME: She’s almost thirteen. Besides, it’s just a movie.

  BEAST: It’s a dark room.

  I bet he’s pacing his bedroom like a wild creature.

  ME: They keep it that way so you can see the screen better.

  I add a smiley face.

  BEAST: Funny.

  ME: I try. Anyway, don’t worry. I’ll make sure it all stays very PG. I’ll text you hourly updates.

  He doesn’t respond, which is a little rude. He could’ve at least thanked me. He’s probably not feeling very thankful.

  I debate changing his name in my phone, but don’t because it makes me smile. Probably wouldn’t make him smile …

  A couple of minutes later, Nev shoots me a text.

  NEV: I have a date!

  ME: I heard.

  NEV: What should I wear?

  I suggest a couple of different outfits. She snaps pics of herself in them. We finally agree on denim shorts paired with a hoodie (so Ten doesn’t completely flip). Plus they keep the movie theater at icebox temperatures. After Nev sends me the showtime, I call Rae to ask if she wants to come with me, but she’s meeting Harrison’s parents. I text Laney next. She’s out of town, but tells me she’ll be back in the early afternoon on Sunday if I want to wait for her to go then. I explain I have yoga with Mom on Sundays. Laney asks me where and then says she’ll try to come with her mother. I feel like I’ve just organized a Mommy-and-me playdate. But why not? I don’t think Mom knows Laney’s mother. Maybe she can become a new source of available men for the woman who keeps insisting there are no eligible good men left.

  I take a cab to the mall because I forgot to ask Mom for a lift. If I wait for her to return from the gym, I’ll miss the opening credits—I plan on watching both Nev and the movie. When I get there, I race up the mall escalator to the Cineplex. I don’t see Nev in the ticket line. I text her that I’m here.

  “Here,” a gruff voice says, shoving a ticket between my phone screen and my eyes.

  I look up so fast I give myself whiplash—okay, that’s an exaggeration, but my neck definitely creaked. “Ten! What are you doing here?”

  A nerve tics in his taut jaw. “Nev needed a ride to her date. Since I was here, I decided to stay.”

  After the shock of seeing him dwindles, I take the ticket from him and then dig out my wallet.

  “Angie, please, it’s a movie ticket.”

  I sense he’s too on edge for me to argue, so I offer to get popcorn and drinks, which he accepts. “Want butter?”

  He shakes his head.

  I get him a large bucket and get myself one with extra butter. He eyes the shiny kernels.

  “I can sense the chef in you cringing at all the artificial flavor,” I tease.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You don’t have to. It’s written all over your face. You have a very expressive face. Probably to make up for not being all that great at expressing yourself with words.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look so shocked. You’re not exactly the glibbest person. Unless you’re mad. Then you have plenty to say.”

  “Any more nice stuff to point out about my personality?” he mutters.

  I elbow him in the ribs. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  He side-eyes me. “It takes way more to hurt my feelings.” He opens the door to the theater for me.

  As I climb the stairs, I look for Nev. Ten gestures to a bobbing baseball cap in one of the middle rows. I try to get a better look at Nev’s date, but all I see is that he’s blond and has a swooping lock of hair across his forehead.

  I choose the highest row to give them as much privacy as possible.

  “Could you have chosen a farther spot?” Ten asks, settling in the seat beside me.

  I smile. “I could’ve chosen a seat in the front row, but I decided to spare your neck a kink.”

  He tries to get comfortable, which is apparently a feat for someone with long legs.

  Sensing he’s wound up as tight as my baby grand’s strings, I whisper, “Relax.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Ten, you’re only hurting yourself.”

  He grumbles something, but since he tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth, I don’t get what he’s saying.

  A third of the way through the movie, he leans forward. “Are they holding hands?”

  When he starts to stand, I yank on the hem of his zip-up hoodie, and he drops back down.

  “Stop,” I command him in a low voice.

  He harrumphs, then rests one ankle on his opposite knee and begins to shake his leg.

  I wipe the popcorn crumbs off my fingers, then clap his pulsating leg. That makes him freeze. It also makes me freeze, because I’ve never touched a boy’s thigh, and although this isn’t a date, it’s Ten. I have weird chemistry with this guy. I snatch my hand away and dig back into my bucket.

  He uncrosses his legs and sinks lower into his chair, which makes his legs flop open.

  I try to concentrate on the movie, but the side of his knee brushes my leg. I shovel popcorn quicker into my mouth, then try to angle my body away from his, but the boy doesn’t have normal-sized limbs.

  He shifts again, and again his knee sidles against my thigh. I swipe my water bottle from the armrest and chug most of it down, hoping it will cool me off. It helps a little. That is, until the hero and heroine make out on-screen. Then every inch of skin that Ten is unintentionally touching burns hot.

  Ten leans toward me. “Only a dude hoping to score would take a girl to see this piece of crap.”

  “He’s a smart kid, then. I’d totally fall for a guy who’ll sit through a chick flick with me,” I volley back.

  Ten goes rigid, seemingly appalled by my confession.

  I go back to watching the movie but have trouble enjoying it what with his unrelenting twitching. Seriously, he’s worse than a tweaker.

  I lean toward him. “Why don’t you go hike around the mall or something? I’ll text you when the movie’s over.”

  He stills, looks at me, eyes incandescent in the glow of the screen. “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  He rams his hands into his zip-up fleece’s pockets and glues his spine to the backrest, doing his best not to move. I can tell it’s an effort from the tension crimping his brow. This is torture for him.

  For some reason, that makes me grin. And then I’m laughing, and it’s really inappropriate, because someone’s just died in the movie. I garner many unhappy glares from the people sitting in the row in front of us, but my uncontrollable giggling loosens Ten up, so it’s worth it, if just for that.

  He slings his arm around the back of my seat. “If you don’t calm down, you’ll get us kicked out. And I want to know what happens next.”

  “What happens next? Have you even been following the story line?”

  He stares at me so intently that I sober up. “Maybe I’m not talking about the movie.”

  My stomach feels as though it’s been beamed right out of my body to make more room for my expandi
ng heart.

  Ten tips his head toward where Nev and her date are sitting.

  He wasn’t talking about us.

  My stomach resurfaces, heavy with popcorn and disappointment.

  I turn toward the screen and spend the rest of the movie pretending to be absorbed by the plot when I have no clue what the heck’s going on anymore. Even though Ten doesn’t lean toward me again, his arm stays locked on the back of my seat, radiating warmth and his salt-and-spice scent.

  The worst part is that I don’t even think he realizes it’s there, while I can’t think of anything else.

  45

  Humans Aren’t Reeds

  “I dreamed of spring rolls all night. No joke,” Laney says over lunch on Monday.

  She and her mother ended up coming to yoga and Golden Dragon with me and Mom yesterday, because Laney’s father was out of town at a real estate convention.

  “Did your mom join the book club yet?” Rae asks.

  Laney mops up the extra oil on her pizza with a paper napkin. “Jade invited her.”

  “Get ready to hear your mom speak of only that.” Rae twirls the ends of her blonde hair. “I swear, it’s like a cult.”

  “You think we’ll have a book club when we’re old, Rae?” I ask her.

  “Gonna be hard fitting a book club in between all your tour dates.”

  I shove my shoulder into hers.

  Rae grins at me. “Did you send in your recording yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you waiting for?” Laney asks, up to speed on everything thanks to Mom, who dropped the subject of my musical prowess in between the dumplings and the Peking duck.

  To say I was surprised would be the greatest understatement of the year.

  “I’m waiting for Mom to sign the form.” I twist my straw in my juice box. “She said she would.”

  “Oh my God! She did?” Rae all but screeches.

  Grinning, I nod.

  “Your recording for what?” Mel asks, dropping her lunch tray on our table.

  Laney looks up from her pizza. “The Mona Stone contest.”

  I flick my gaze to Ten’s table, where now sit Bolt and Archie. For someone who didn’t want to fit in, he’s fitting in. Which has me thinking about his boarding school application. He said he wouldn’t go, but it’s easy to say you won’t do something until you have the option to do it.

  “I’m so happy for you, hon! Yay!” Rae’s still sort of screaming. “Hey. Totally unrelated question.”

  I drain my juice box. “Yeah?”

  “Are we too old to go trick-or-treating?”

  I give a little snort. “Yes, but when has that stopped us?”

  “I love trick-or-treating,” Laney chirps.

  Mel, who looks more tanned than when school started, asks, “Are you guys serious?”

  “Deadly serious. Or is it deathly serious?” Laney asks.

  “It’s deadly,” Rae replies. “Deathly means cadaverous, grim.”

  “Mel, do you realize how lucky we are? We have a future superstar and valedictorian at our lunch table,” Laney says.

  “Who’s going to be valedictorian?” Jasper drops onto the chair next to Mel and nuzzles her neck, which makes her giggle.

  I didn’t expect them to last.

  Laney points across the table. “Rae, duh.”

  Rae grins, but then tears her paper napkin into tiny particles. “Maybe not. Ron Wilkins is extremely smart.”

  “Not as smart as you, Rae.” Laney pats her hand. “Hey, Angie, didn’t you say you would let us listen to your song?”

  I glare at her for tossing me under the bus, which just makes her smile broaden, because she knows my glares are all bark and no bite.

  “What song?” Jasper filches the pudding from Mel’s tray. “You’re not going to eat that, right?”

  Mel shakes her head at the same time Laney says, “Angie’s entering the Mona Stone contest.”

  “No friggin’ way!” Jasper slurps down the pudding.

  My cheeks grow as hot as the cafeteria’s plate warmers.

  “Conrad, you gotta sing it for us!” Even though Jasper’s words are garbled by pudding, people at other tables have turned to see what the commotion’s about.

  I sink low in my chair because one of those people is Ten.

  The cheerleading twins, who were walking toward the jock section, pause by our table in perfect synchronicity. “Are you guys talkin’ about Mona Stone’s contest?” one of them asks real shrilly.

  The other adds, “Our brother and his band are signing up for it.”

  “Angie, we’ve been friends for how long now?” Jasper asks. “Ten years? Eleven?”

  Mel sits up a little straighter.

  “That should earn us first dibs on hearing your tune,” he says.

  “Uh.” I bite my lower lip. “I’m not allowed to let people hear it until after the contest.”

  “Are you sure? Our brother’s band has been performin’ their song all over the state,” Samantha says. Or maybe it’s Valentina. They don’t only look the same, they also sound the same.

  I long to drag over one of the potted palms and hide behind it for the rest of the day.

  One of the twins has pulled out her cell phone. She hits PLAY, and a melody heavy with electric guitar blasts from the speaker. “They’re good, aren’t they?”

  Ten has just slotted his tray on the metal shelves a couple of feet from where I sit. For the briefest of seconds, our eyes connect, and I can swear I see his glimmer with hurt.

  Crap. Crap. Crap.

  “So? What do you think, Angie?” Sam or Val asks me.

  My pulse is strumming too hard inside my ears for me to hear much more than the instrumental twang. The song could be good, like it could be awful. I have no clue.

  A hand squeezes my knee. Rae’s. You okay? she mouths.

  I gulp.

  Laney’s brow furrows as she looks between me and the cafeteria entrance. After a couple of seconds, her forehead smooths as though she’s figured it out.

  I touch the little arrow speared through the cartilage of my ear. Twist it. Twist it.

  “So? What do you think?” the twin asks me again.

  “It’s good.” I press my palm against my stomach, suddenly feeling queasy.

  I inhale calming breaths. I’m having a panic attack from the overload of attention. Or am I having a panic attack from Ten’s reaction to the news of me entering his mother’s contest? Whatever the reason, I’m definitely panicking, and the fact that everyone in a one-mile radius is gaping at me is not helping.

  Rae pulls me up so suddenly she almost dislocates my shoulder. “Angie, we totally forgot to finish that project for Mrs. Rainlin!”

  I blink at her.

  “I need to get my notes from my locker,” she says.

  It takes my frazzled mind a second to comprehend she’s giving me an exit. I want to hug her, but instead I breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Once we’re in the hallway, I run to the bathroom and reach a toilet just in time to throw up.

  Rae holds my hair back, strokes my neck, says soothing things I can’t hear over the anxiety whooshing around my skull.

  I finally sit back on my heels, and tears leak out of my eyes. I want to tell her about Ten and Mona, but instead I whisper, “How am I supposed to do this, Rae?”

  “How long have you wanted this, hon?”

  “Forever.” Which is way longer than I’ve wanted Ten’s friendship … or whatever it is I want from him. If I renege on my dreams for a boy, then I become the sort of girl I despise—the sort willing to fold herself into another person’s ideal.

  People who bend too far run the risk of breaking. After all, we aren’t reeds; we’re made of bones and dreams, not chloroplasts and sunlight.

  “Look, if I thought you sucked I wouldn’t encourage you,” Rae says.

  “How do you know I don’t suck?”

  “Because I’ve heard you sing.”

 
; I snap up my neck to look at her. “When?”

  “Last year. I was picking you up to go to the mall, and your mom told me to go on up to your room, and you were belting out some P!nk song in the shower. I remember standing beside your stack of records and being floored by what I was hearing, but I knew you’d hate it if you caught me eavesdropping, so I left the minute the water turned off.” She crouches beside me, clasps one of my hands in hers. “You got this, Angie.”

  But she’s wrong. I don’t have anything yet, besides foul breath and an empty stomach.

  Her eyes suddenly get this glint that makes my insides flop.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she says, but she’s biting back a smile, so I know she’s thinking something, and that worries the heck out of me.

  “You’re not planning on making me sing over the PA system, are you?”

  She slaps a hand over her chest. “I would never do such a thing, Angela Conrad.”

  “You swear?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  And although I trust her not to do that, I don’t trust her not to do something equally terrifying. Rae’s life philosophy has always been about facing your demons, and what greater demon do I have than singing in public?

  46

  The Squeak of Bluebirds

  “Lynn’s singing at the Bluebird tonight,” Steffi tells me as she folds a metal chair and rests it against the wall. “It would mean a lot if you came.”

  The Bluebird sounds like the perfect thing to get my mind off the emotional roller coaster I’ve been riding since the incident in the cafeteria. At the end of that horrid day, I got up the nerve to corner Ten and tell him, “I’m not doing this to spite you.” He barely acknowledged me and hasn’t talked to me since.

  “I’ll be there,” I tell Steffi as I clamber up the stairs of the dance studio.

  “I’ll email you a ticket!”

  I pedal home in record time, shower, and change into black combat boots, fake suede shorts, and a white T-shirt with a black, loopy rendering of a guitar. After swiping on mascara and coating my lips in red lipstick, I blow my mom a kiss and get back on my bike to head to the Bluebird.