by Mary Strand
I glanced at Mom, standing at the bottom of the basement stairs, and tried not to roll my eyes at her paint-stained bathrobe and the ratty nightgown she wore underneath it. She’d driven me to school in that outfit too many times to count, which was probably why Dad finally bought the Jeep: to keep Mom inside the house until she put on something decent for work.
“I’ll head upstairs in a little bit, Mom.” Like, in two or three hours, which was how long it’d take me to finally nail this C chord. If I was lucky. “Promise.”
She nodded, smiling at me, but winced when I mangled the chord again and it sounded like Boris when I tossed him off my bed and he flew through the air.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying guitar so much, dear, but sleep is important, too.”
So was a well-balanced diet, but no one who lived in this house got one.
I gingerly touched my sore fingertips with my thumb, wishing someone would invent a painless method of playing guitar. Jazz kept telling me everyone went through this. I wouldn’t put it past her to lie to me.
“Honest. I’ll go to bed as soon as I get the hang of this chord.” I strummed it again, trying not to flinch.
Mom actually looked like she didn’t believe me. Or maybe like she wanted to either return the guitar to the store or burn it. “You may want to go to bed and try again after school tomorrow. Everything always seems fresher in the morning. Or, well, afternoon. It’s already quite late, and I—”
“I’ll be upstairs right behind you. Really.”
Depending on one’s definition, of course. My own definition was usually pretty flexible.
“But I think you should—”
I held up a hand. “Mom, seriously. I’m seventeen. I know when I need to go to bed.”
Now, probably. I covered a yawn with my hand, but not fast enough to escape Mom’s sharp gaze.
Tsking, she walked across the basement to where I sat hunched over my guitar, eased it from my grasp, and set it on the stand. A moment later she turned off my amp and tugged me to my feet. Next thing I knew, I was leaning back on my bed, propped against the wall. Fine. I’d humor Mom, then sneak back down to the basement in ten minutes and shut the doors at the top and bottom of the basement stairs so I could practice all night without anyone hearing me.
The only problem?
I woke up, tucked in bed with my covers pulled up to my chin, a half hour before school started the next morning.
Argh!
I wasted ten whole minutes trying to talk Mom into letting me cut school today—just this once!—and then had to shower, dress, and eat in record time. Cat nabbed the Jeep and left for school before I finished getting ready. Sure, it was only four minutes before school started, but you could make it in two minutes if you didn’t obsess about stop signs and took the corners on two wheels.
Mom didn’t drive like that—at least, not when she was on her meds—so the final bell rang just as I leaped out of Mom’s dented gray Saab and slammed the door.
I flew up the steps of school, ran past my locker on my way to Speech Communications, and skidded to a stop in the doorway.
“Welcome to class, Lydia. Glad you could join us.”
I heard a few snickers as Ms. Ciccarelli met me at the door, her gaze landing on my backpack.
She frowned. “You remember, don’t you, that students can’t bring backpacks into class?”
I’d remembered it every step of my sprint down the hall. A new school rule they adopted last year just because some jerk called in a fake bomb threat. “Yeah, but I was running late.”
She sighed. “Leave it by my desk, please, and then find a seat.”
“Nice going, loser. Forget anything else today?”
Chelsea’s whiny voice carried all the way from the back of the room.
As I opened my mouth to slam her, Ms. Ciccarelli touched my arm and gave me a tiny head shake. She actually looked sympathetic, which surprised me. I couldn’t remember the last time a teacher had been genuinely nice to me after the first ten minutes of the first day of class each year.
Ms. Ciccarelli pointed to an open seat by the window—right behind that annoying Heather MacAndrews—before striding to the back of the room.
“Chelsea, I realize this is Speech class, but your form of communication isn’t what I’m trying to develop in my students.” This time the snickers weren’t aimed at me, and Chelsea’s face flamed a really unattractive shade of brick red. “Unless you’d like a trip to Mr. Paymar’s office, I assume we won’t be hearing from you again until I actually call on you.”
“Ms. Ciccarelli, she’s just so—”
Ms. Ciccarelli whirled on Chelsea, whose words broke off. She then rat-a-tat-tatted back to her desk at the front of the room, where she jotted something on a sheet of paper. The grim set to her mouth was softened by the vase of pink roses at her elbow, but not much.
“Chelsea?” Picking up the sheet on which she’d just written, Ms. Ciccarelli motioned my favorite pal to the front of the room. “Please give this to Mr. Paymar. I’ve also requested that the nurse administer a hearing test, since you seem to be having difficulty with that this morning.”
As Chelsea tried to argue again, the idiot, a roar of laughter broke out in the room. I glanced around, trying not to grin too much in case Ms. Ciccarelli busted me for it, but I didn’t see Drew laughing or even smiling.
Instead, he was totally scoping me out, one eyebrow raised in an unspoken question.
We both knew his question wasn’t if I planned to play with the band tomorrow night.
I stomped my foot as the sound of my putrid E chord reverberated around the small practice room at the music store. “I can’t do this!”
Jazz looked up from her own guitar, still strumming the same chord, which sounded a lot different coming out of her guitar. Maybe if I’d gotten a more expensive guitar . . .
“You’re actually doing okay, you know.” She blew a bubble with her gum, an annoying habit she’d started in the middle of my first lesson after first pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her guitar case and then blinking when she realized she couldn’t light up in here. “Be patient. It’s coming.”
I shook my head. “It’s not coming fast enough.”
“To play a gig tomorrow night?” She laughed, not even pretending she empathized with my perfectly understandable problem. “Hey, I told you that on Tuesday.”
“You told me you could teach me.”
“Teach you? Yeah. Teach you by Friday? Princess, no one could teach you enough to play a gig by Friday, which is exactly what I told you at your first lesson.”
I huffed out an exasperated breath. Exasperated with this stupid guitar, with Jazz, even with myself. It had to be a first.
“Yeah, well, I’m still gonna play.”
And it would turn out okay, somehow, even if I had to fake the chords I didn’t know, which was pretty much all of them. Kirk was going to fall all over himself to dump Amber and hook up with me.
“Good luck with that.” Jazz was chewing her gum again, but she stopped blowing bubbles near my face. She also sounded different somehow, the snottiness gone from her voice. “I mean it. Everyone has to play their first gig, and most people blow it, but at least you’re getting the experience out of the way early.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m not going to blow it.”
“Hey, I’ll drink to that.” She grinned, as if the thought amused her. “The minute I get off work tonight.”
I wished I could join her.
I tried eating a burger for lunch on Friday, despite my panicking stomach, and I tried sitting at my old table again, next to Kirk.
Neither idea worked out too well.
So much for hoping no one would bug me about tonight’s gig. Kids kept stopping by our table, wishing me luck. Sincerely, but as if I needed it, which made no sense. No one at school except Cat knew I’d never touched a guitar before Monday night, so why did everyone think I needed all this luck?
Cat would
n’t have blabbed, would she? My own twin sister? My former partner in too many crimes to count?
No way.
For one thing, I’d kill her.
When another girl I didn’t know left our table after wishing me “all the luck in the world,” Kirk turned to me and grinned. “All set for tonight? Or would you rather bag out on it? Like I told you, Heather said she’d be happy to play.”
I’d also kill Heather, then toss Chelsea and Amber onto the funeral pyre for good measure.
I grinned back at Kirk, even though my teeth hurt and my stomach clenched. “No problem. I’m all over it.”
His eyebrows went up. “Hey, did Cat give you our song list? I told Jeremy to make a copy for her to give you.”
When Kirk could’ve given me a copy any day this week? Or driven over to my house? Was he too tempted by me to trust himself?
I shook my head. Yet another reason to kill Cat.
“Weird. But no prob.” He reached into his backpack, which kids weren’t supposed to have in the cafeteria, either, but rules like that never applied to Kirk. In the old days, they hadn’t applied to me, either. “I have an extra copy right here.”
I bit my lip as I scanned the sheet. Sure, I recognized most of the songs, but I didn’t know how to play anything. Jazz had taught me to play exactly five chords, and not well, and we’d started working on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” last night. She hadn’t taught me anything remotely useful, though. Like, how to skip town and never be found again.
“Does it look okay?” Kirk’s brow furrowed as he studied me, and it probably mirrored the look on my own face.
“Sure. Fine.” I set the song list down on the corner of my tray before my hands started shaking. Every other part of me was already shaking, and Kirk didn’t usually miss much.
“So you’re good to play?”
“I, uh—” My brain scrambled for an excuse, but I’d spent all week trying to come up with one, with no luck. Epic brain failure. “Yeah, I think so. But like I said before—” Only a million times. “It’d be better if we practiced first.”
Kirk shrugged. “That’s why the band is getting together early to practice. Six o’clock. Didn’t Cat mention that to you, either?” After another long look at me, and a glance across the cafeteria in the direction of the table where Cat and Jeremy sat, Kirk swiveled his head as if he was looking for someone. After a moment, he whistled as Heather MacAndrews came into the cafeteria from outside. “Yo, Heather!”
After waving to Kirk, she dropped her books at Cat’s table, then joined us. Tall and willowy, and almost gorgeous if you liked strawberry blondes with freckles, she didn’t seem to realize how good she looked. Well, from some guys’ perspectives.
Kirk wasn’t that kind of guy, but a grin lit his face. “Heather, you know Lydia, right? Can you still play tonight? I mean, if Lydia can’t? Or maybe you two could even alternate songs.”
I frowned. I didn’t share a stage—or the spotlight—with any other girl, and I didn’t plan to change that tonight.
“Like I said, Kirk, if Heather’s already in your band, no problem. I’ll find another one.” Like, in about five years, when I eventually learned how to play chords without making everyone around me wince.
Heather shook her head. “I don’t need to play tonight, Lydia. Kirk asked you first. I can do it some other time. Or, like you said, with some other band.”
She even looked sweet as she said it. Genuinely.
I glanced across the cafeteria as if I had better things to do. Unfortunately, except for running as far away from this school as quickly as possible, I didn’t. “It doesn’t matter to me which of us plays.”
Part of me would be relieved if Heather played, but I’d never backed down from a challenge in my life. Torn between wanting to impress Kirk and wanting to avoid the distinct possibility of school-wide humiliation, I finally realized I was clenching my fists.
Kirk looked at both of us, then across the table at Amber, who didn’t exactly look thrilled at the prospect of either Heather or me playing.
Finally, he looked up at Heather. “Sorry, but you’re right. I did ask Lydia first.”
“No problem! I’ll come watch you guys tonight if that’s okay.” Still smiling, Heather headed back to Cat’s table. Cat and Jeremy both greeted her like a long-lost friend, even though they treated me like dirt. Not that this bothered me or, for instance, made me want to rip Cat’s hair out.
Watching the three of them, I sighed. Technically, I’d won this battle, but I was going to go down in flames. Knowing my friends, someone would bring marshmallows to roast.
Head down to avoid the constant stream of kids wishing me luck—and were they really wishing me luck, or hoping I fell flat on my face?—I plodded into fourth-period Accounting and took my seat. Goth-chick Lauren was already there, filing and buffing her sharp claws as she pointedly didn’t look at me. A bottle of black nail polish sat on the corner of her desk.
I took a slow breath, relieved that at least Lauren didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about my gig.
“Playing guitar tonight, huh?”
So much for staying off the radar of the one girl in school who didn’t hang out with anyone I knew.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Do you even play? I heard—”
I held up a hand to cut her off as I kept an eye peeled for Ms. Frey. “I play. But I’ve never practiced with Kirk’s band before, so I’m not sure how it’ll go down.”
“Yeah? Your sister Cat is telling everyone that you don’t know how to play. She said you just got a guitar this week, and you’ve been staying up all night trying to learn it, and you’re just jealous because your sister Mary was so good.” Lauren shook the bottle of nail polish, then unscrewed the top and started in on her left hand. “Man, I’m glad I just have a baby brother. It must suck to have so many sisters to compete with.”
“I don’t compete with anyone.” I wasn’t sure if I said that out loud or in my head, but at least in my head it came out in a dull monotone.
But my stomach started churning wildly the moment Lauren told me what a total shit Cat had turned into. We’d always been best friends. What had I ever done to her? Be more popular? Get more guys? Talk Mom and Dad into sending me to Wisconsin Dells that summer?
I couldn’t help any of that, could I? Wasn’t I just born this way? On top of the world?
“Hey, are you okay?”
I blinked as the bell rang. Ms. Frey closed the door with a bang, and Lauren’s voice made its way through the haze suddenly clouding my brain.
But . . . Cat told everyone? Kirk and the rest of the band? And they were all laughing at me now the way everyone laughed at Cat when she sang with the band last spring?
“Lydia? Are you there?”
“Of course she’s here, Lauren. The weekend homework assignment is on the board. You might want to consider writing it down and perhaps even doing it this weekend.”
Somewhere in my brain I registered Ms. Frey’s soft-soled shoes coming down the aisle in my direction, but my head was spinning—Cat?—and I could barely remember how to breathe.
Cat did that to me?
The footsteps stopped at my desk, but no one said a word, not even Ms. Frey. It was as if twenty-five kids and one teacher were collectively holding their breath. Was I even breathing?
Ms. Frey’s hand was on my desk now, but not touching me. In some remote corner of my brain I registered neatly trimmed nails, no polish, not even a ring. Words were coming out of her mouth, but the roar inside my own head drowned them out.
Cat did this to ME?
“Lydia? Lydia.” The hand on my desk suddenly slapped the top of it, and I blinked.
“Uh, yeah?”
“Should I send someone with you to the school nurse?” Ms. Frey glanced around the room, looking for volunteers. To my left, Lauren raised her hand. “Someone other than Lauren?”
I blinked again, a few times, and the haze started t
o clear. No one was laughing, but I felt like an idiot. “No. I mean, I’m okay. Fine.”
“You’re sure?”
I sucked a deep gulp of air into my lungs, so deep I coughed hard. “Totally.”
After a last long look, she frowned and headed back to the front of the room, and I started scribbling her mind-boggling homework assignment into my notebook.
I finally realized Lauren was leaning in my direction when her scratchy voice hit my ears. “Your sister is just being a bitch, and you’ll do fine. Besides, you get an excuse to hang with Zach Lashinski. He’s hot.”
Frowning, I glanced at Ms. Frey before whispering back at Lauren. “Zach? The bass player? You think he’s hot?”
“Totally. But I’m not really his type, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be, either.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only screwed-up person in this room. Lauren was so out of touch, she didn’t know I could get any guy I wanted. Not that I wanted a guy with a Cat in the Hat tattoo.
I wanted Kirk. And he’d soon be mine.
But why I needed to play a stupid guitar to make it happen, I have no idea.
Chapter 8
It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume III, Chapter Nine
For the first time since Dad exiled me to Mary’s skanky, Boris-filled room last weekend, I was actually glad I didn’t have to share my old bedroom with Cat. I didn’t need her to see me hyperventilating as I tried to find something to wear tonight. Preferably, something that made me look invisible.
So far, no luck.
Hands on my hips, I chewed on my lip as I glanced again at the outfit I’d laid out on my bed. Black skinny jeans. Check. But my new red boots and cute top suddenly looked . . . wrong. As in, the opposite of invisible, which meant they’d call even more attention to my inept fingers. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want attention.
Why had I done this? Amber obviously hadn’t played guitar to hook Kirk. Amber would have trouble playing solitaire, let alone a musical instrument.