Wish You Were Eyre

  This pretty much never happens in Concord, mostly because my mother has been off the show for nearly five years, plus she’s usually wearing farm clothes when she runs into town to do errands. I can tell she’s a little thrilled to be recognized.

  Adele is wide-eyed watching this exchange. “I didn’t know you were a celebrity, Mrs. Delaney,” she says when the woman returns to her table.

  My mother laughs. “Hardly a celebrity,” she replies. “I used to be on a soap opera, that’s all. Senator Sinclair is the real celebrity at our table.”

  “It’s good for him to have a little competition,” says Mrs. Sinclair. “We don’t want you getting a swelled head, now do we, Robert?”

  Savannah’s father reaches up and pats his silver hair, pretending to be concerned. “Heaven forbid,” he says solemnly. “Especially if it outgrows what’s left of my hair.”

  The waiter takes our order, and then Mrs. Sinclair asks us about Juilliard.

  “It was amazing,” Savannah tells her. “I just wish they had a law school.”

  “Chip off the old block!” crows her father. He turns to her mother. “What did I tell you, Poppy? She’s hooked!”

  Savannah and I launch into a blow-by-blow description of my CJB hearing, and then Adele helps us fill Mr. And Mrs. Sinclair in on our Juilliard tour and the other a cappella groups we’ve met so far.

  “All I can say is, I heard the MadriGals in the practice room this afternoon, and I don’t think anyone else stands a chance,” my mother says when we’re done.

  “Doesn’t surprise me in the least,” says Senator Sinclair, beaming at my friends and me. “Not with the amount of talent at this table.”

  Later, as we’re waiting outside for our taxi to pull up, my mother turns to the Sinclairs. “I can’t thank you enough for such a lovely evening.”

  “The pleasure was all ours, wasn’t it, Poppy?” Savannah’s father replies, slipping his arm around Mrs. Sinclair’s waist.

  “Absolutely,” says Savannah’s mother. She tries to talk Savannah into staying at the hotel with them, but Savannah wants to go back with us, of course. There’s a party at the hostel tonight, and she doesn’t want to miss it.

  My mother kisses us all good night outside her room. “Don’t stay up too late, girls,” she tells us. “You need your beauty rest, and so do your voices.”

  Of course we ignore her. It’s just too much fun to be in a big city with a bunch of friends, and with new people to meet from so many other places. We change back into our jeans and casual clothes and head downstairs to the common room. It’s noisy and crowded, definitely not my usual scene, but Savannah and Adele pull me into the room before I can protest. We each grab a soda and go to look for the other MadriGals.

  We find them in a far corner of the room, talking to an all-guys a capella group from Cincinnati. They’re really funny, and we clown around and flirt a little—well, Savannah and Adele flirt. I’m not good at it, for one thing, and for another, I’m just not interested. We end up jamming a little with them on a few songs we all know like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Stand By Me,” then segue into Broadway tunes. People around us start to join in, and pretty soon the whole common room is having a spontaneous sing-along.

  “Whew,” says Savannah, collapsing on the sofa beside me after the last notes of a jazzed-up “Tomorrow” from Annie fade away. “That was awesome!”

  Adele yawns. “Yup. And the sun is coming out tomorrow sooner than we think. We’d better get to bed. I’m beat, how about you guys?”

  I nod sleepily. It’s been an incredibly long day, but I’ve been having so much fun that I forgot that I’ve been up since four a.m. It’s only now starting to kick in.

  My cell phone buzzes as the party starts to break up. I glance at the screen and see that Emma’s sent me a picture—a close-up of Stewart. He’s standing by Walden Pond, and barely visible in the background is Mrs. Wong, who appears to be handcuffed to a sign. CAMPAIGN PHOTO SHOOT UNDERWAY the text that accompanies it reads. OH WAIT. WAS SOPHIE SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING PICTURES OF MRS. WONG? There’s a frowny face, and then: HELP!

  I nudge Savannah, who’s drifted off.

  “Huh?” she says sleepily. I show her the picture and the text and she makes a rude noise.

  “Mademoiselle Velcro is at it again,” I tell her. “Emma needs our help. Got any bright ideas?”

  “Dial 1-800-CASSIDY,” she replies.

  “Brilliant.” I forward the photo to Cassidy, who immediately sends back a one-word text: BARF!

  WHAT CAN WE DO TO UNSTICK MADEMOISELLE V? I ask her.

  LET ME THINK ABOUT IT, Cassidy replies. I MAY NEED SOMEONE WHO KNOWS FRENCH.

  “That would be me,” says Savannah after I relay the message. “Thanks to Mademoiselle Estelle. And Mademoiselle Juliette, and Mademoiselle Hélène. My French nannies when I was little.”

  I used to think stuff like this was obnoxious, but it’s just Savannah. She had nannies the way Half Moon Farm has goats.

  “Great,” I tell her. Between Cassidy’s genius for pranks and Savannah’s foreign language skills, we can’t lose, right?

  No time to think about it now, though. Now we need to focus on MadriGals. Adele herds us upstairs to our room. I don’t even want to know what time it is. We set our alarm for seven; Mr. Elton wants us downstairs at eight sharp.

  By eight fifteen, my mother is knocking on our door. “Girls!” she calls. “What’s going on? Where are you? Breakfast is almost over!”

  We overslept! The three of us throw sweatpants and hoodies over our pajamas and race downstairs to the hostel’s cafeteria. We have just enough time to slam down a bowl of cereal, then shower and dress, before it’s time to head over to the concert hall at NYU.

  “Listen and learn, girls,” Mr. Elton tells us as we slide into a row of seats marked MADRIGALS/CONCORD ACADEMY. “This weekend is as much an educational experience as it is a competition.”

  The morning passes quickly. The other groups are fabulous, of course—only the cream of the crop makes it to Nationals each year. I try and ignore the butterflies in my stomach—which seem to have traded in yesterday’s soft wings for jumbo jet propellers—and lose myself in the music instead. I tear up at some songs, laugh at others, and leap to my feet and cheer after one or two. My mother is wrong. No way is this competition a slam dunk. Before I know it, Mr. Elton is leaning over and whispering that it’s time to head to the practice room for our warm-up.

  My mother leads us through some physical exercises she learned as an actress to loosen us up, then we vocalize for a bit with our choral director, and then it’s time to go onstage.

  The lights are blinding. But then, they always are. My mother says performers never stop feeling nervous in front of an audience; they just learn to channel the anxiety in different ways. I think back to the very first time I was onstage, in Beauty and the Beast back in sixth grade. I played the part of Belle, and I thought for a minute I was going to faint, but I focused on the music and pretty soon that was the only thing I was conscious of. I resolve to try and do the same thing now.

  As we file onto the risers, I hear Savannah beside me murmuring, “I’m not nervous, I’m excited” over and over to herself. Everybody has their method of coping with stage fright.

  Mr. Elton gives us our cue from offstage, and we launch into the first stanza of “Radiant Stars, Above the Mountains Glowing.” Its ethereal notes settle over the audience like snowfall, and the auditorium grows still. As we sing, I can practically feel the music rippling out of us, washing our listeners in the pure water of its sound. There are no solos in this one; it’s strictly an ensemble piece to show the judges how well our voices blend. We finish to wild applause. I think we nailed it.

  “You nailed it,” Mr. Elton confirms backstage. “Well done, girls, well done.”

  This is high praise from Mr. Elton, and we head for the lobby feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. The Sinclairs arranged to have lunch delivered, and we collect our food and
take it to one of the tables that have been set up for all of us.

  Our competitors are huddled nearby, and although people are still friendly, the mood is a little more subdued, and the boisterous joking around from last night has vanished. Everyone’s focused on the competition.

  I’m both looking forward to and dreading going back onstage again. “I Say a Little Prayer” is a bit of a departure for us—we tend to be traditionalists, and Mr. Elton usually picks period pieces and quieter ballads and serious madrigals that we sing in their original languages. This song is bursting with sass and attitude, and it’s a real crowd-pleaser when we do it right, the way we did at our Valentine’s Day concert at Colonial. We pulled the audience to their feet that night, and had everyone clapping and dancing.

  We’ve also been known to totally lose the beat and miss our cues in rehearsal, in which case the whole thing is a hot mess.

  Which one will it be this afternoon? I wonder, setting my sandwich aside. My friends must be feeling the same way, because hardly anyone eats more than a few bites.

  “Ten minutes to showtime,” Mr. Elton murmurs to us a couple of hours later, after we’ve sat through another round of performances. We stand up and follow him out of the auditorium.

  Showtime—and my solo!

  “You’re going to be great, honey,” my mother tells me in the hallway as we’re leaving the practice room a few minutes later after warm-ups. “Just let the music carry you.”

  I nod blindly. You’ve worked hard, I tell myself. You’re prepared. No need to be nervous. Remember what Darcy said?

  Darcy! I’d almost forgotten!

  “Tell Mr. Elton I’ll meet you all backstage,” I whisper to my mother, and racing to the nearest ladies’ room and the privacy of a stall, I pull the envelope Darcy gave me from my pocket, where I stashed it this morning. Inside, I find a smaller envelope clipped to a big fabric J, just like the ones star athletes get to put on their jackets. It’s blue and gold, Colonial Academy’s school colors. The little envelope clipped to it is addressed “To Jessica Delaney, Varsity Vocalist.” Laughing softly to myself, I take out the note inside:

  Congratulations, you’ve made the Varsity team! You’re going to rock the house! Love, Darcy.

  Love? I clutch the note to my chest, hardly daring to look at it again. I do, though, and sure enough the word is still there. Love! My feet barely touch the floor as I float down the hall to where the MadriGals are lined up backstage, waiting to go on.

  Love, Darcy.

  Confidence surges through me. I step out into the bright lights, ready for anything.

  CASSIDY

  “I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in . . . I have known you, Mr. Rochester.”

  —Jane Eyre

  “Now that,” says Coach Larson, “was ice hockey.”

  She beams at us. We beam back. We’re circled around her in the locker room, sweaty and panting, our legs on fire from being pushed past the limit, our throats like sandpaper from all the screaming we just did out there on the ice. We couldn’t care less. We just took the state title, earning ourselves a spot at Nationals.

  “Hard work, drive, and determination got you here, ladies, and hard work, drive, and determination is what I expect to see at the championships,” our coach tells us. “No letting up, okay? Since there are no games this coming week, I’ve arranged for us to scrimmage with the Alcott High boys’ team on Wednesday. You can expect our practice schedule to remain the same between now and Nationals, and I’ll be working with each of you to set up individual training regimens for running, weight lifting, and yoga or stretching. Understood?”

  We nod vigorously.

  She looks around our circle, her eyes bright. “I’m so proud of you all, I could burst,” she says. “Now get out of here before I embarrass myself and cry.”

  Our families are waiting outside, and as we appear they start to chant. “SHAWMUTS! SHAWMUTS!”

  Chloe waves her Lady Shawmuts pennant and makes a beeline for me, flinging her arms around my legs. “Dee! Dee!” she squeals. She can’t manage “Shawmuts” yet, or even “Cassidy,” so she just sticks with her favorite nickname for me whenever the crowd chants for our team.

  “Hey, monkey face,” I reply, scooping her up with my free arm.

  “Don’t—” my mother starts to say, then stops herself. It totally bugs her when I call Chloe that, which is why I do it, of course. But today, instead of scolding, she just smiles and hugs me. “Great game, sweetheart.” Her voice is kind of raspy. The last period was a nail-biter, as the Lady Shawmuts came from behind and snatched the victory away from the Pilgrims. All the whooping and hollering from our fans practically deafened us.

  “Amazing comeback!” adds Stanley. “Proud of you, kid.” He gives me a bear hug, then pulls back and does a little touchdown dance. “Can you believe it? Nationals!” I grin. My stepfather looks like a dork, but he doesn’t care and neither do I. “I know,” I tell him.

  “We’d better get going if we’re going to make it to our shindig in time,” my mother says. Our Wyoming pen pals were due to arrive last night while we were out of town for the state tournament, and the mother-daughter book club is having a big welcome party at Pies & Prejudice later this afternoon. As I say good-bye to my teammates and gather up my things, I look around for Zach, but there’s no sign of him.

  “Zach said to tell you he’s catching a ride home with Coach Larson,” my mother says absently, fishing in her purse. She pulls out her cell phone. “He said it would be easier, since we’re going straight to the tea shop.”

  “Oh.” I can hear the disappointment in my voice. Zach gave me a big hug out on the ice, of course—everybody was hugging everybody else—but I was kind of looking forward to dissecting the game with him on the way home. And maybe holding hands in the backseat, too, if truth be told.

  Zach’s kisses may be a little sloppy, but he’s a world-class hand holder. He has really big hands, and they’re always warm. They fit mine like a glove.

  “I’m e-mailing Courtney to tell her the news,” my mother says, tapping out a message on her smartphone. She looks up a moment later and smiles. “She says congratulations, and that she’ll call you the minute she’s back in the U.S.”

  My older sister is in Mexico at the moment with her fiancé and his family. This weekend is the beginning of UCLA’s spring break, the same as it is for our friends from Gopher Hole. It’s kind of stupid that all spring breaks aren’t synchronized, in my opinion. It would have been nice to be able to hang out during the day with our Wyoming friends. But instead we’ll be in school.

  “Too bad Courtney won’t be able to make it to Nationals,” says my mother, slipping her cell phone back into her purse. “At least the book club will be there to support you.”

  The National Championships are scheduled the same time as my sister’s midterm exams. We knew this might happen if the Lady Shawmuts won State, and it’s a bummer, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

  “I’ll film the whole thing for Courtney,” says Stanley. “Or better yet, I’ll ask Jerry Wong to do it. He has that amazing camcorder.”

  “And maybe Sophie Fairfax would be willing to take some photos, too,” says my mother, taking her phone out again to make a note. “I’ll ask her at the party this afternoon.”

  I make a face. Even though I haven’t had time to help with the campaign, I still can’t help feeling a little left out. Jealous, too. Sophie’s photos are really good. The ones that actually have Mrs. Wong in them and not just Stewart Chadwick, that is.

  I space out on the drive home, staring at the passing scenery and wishing that Zach had decided to ride with us, and not with Coach Larson. I’m also wishing that Courtney wasn’t out of the country right now. I could really use a heart-to-heart. She’s the one in the family with all the boyfriend experience—well, recent boyfriend experience. My mother’s dates with Stanley don’t count, and the last time she dated before that, women w
ore hoop skirts. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that long ago, but still. Courtney’s really good at listening and offering advice about my love life.

  My love life. If you can call it that. Sheesh. I can’t believe I even have one. Sometimes I wish I didn’t—it makes things so complicated. Life used to be a lot simpler. Guys were just friends, and I never used to be interested in romance. And then one day, out of the blue, boom—I was.

  I glance at my mother. She’s really good at giving me advice about most stuff—school, friends, dealing with my Chicks with Sticks and their parents—but for some reason this whole Tristan and Zach thing just isn’t something I feel comfortable discussing with her. Mostly because whenever the subject of guys comes up, her eyes go all misty and she gets that stupid My baby’s growing up! look on her face, which is enough to make a person want to barf.

  There’s no way I’m bringing it up to my book club friends—too embarrassing. And Stanley? My stepfather surprises me sometimes. He gives pretty decent advice too, so maybe. . . . As I’m pondering the possibility, he turns around and squishes his cheeks together with the heels of his hands, making his famous rude noise for Chloe, who shrieks with delight and bangs her sippy cup on the arm of her car seat.

  Or maybe not, I think.

  I could make an appointment with Dr. Weisman, I guess. I try and imagine myself sitting in his office, discussing boy problems.

  Nope, that’s not going to happen either.

  For now I’ll just have to tough it out alone until Courtney gets back. I sigh and stare out the window again.

  A couple of hours later we pull into Concord. My mother drops Stanley at home, and then she and Chloe and I head over to Pies & Prejudice. A sign on the door says CLOSED FOR SPECIAL EVENT. Looking through the big front window, I see our friends gathered inside. Winky Parker’s face lights up when she spots us. She rushes to the door and flings it open. “Cassidy!” she shouts, launching herself at me.

  “Winky!” I shout back. We hug each other, and then both of us start talking at once. Winky’s eyes widen as she looks over my shoulder and sees Chloe.