The hair stands up on the back of my neck as I pull it out and check the lock screen. There’s a one-word text from Jake. Hi.
“Okay!” he says to the crowd. “Let me just check our focus, here.” He leans over the eyepiece and adjusts something. “Step up and take a look, but try not to jostle the scope. If it’s your turn, and you don’t see Mars, let me know and I’ll adjust the scope.”
One at a time, members of the small crowd begin to take turns at the eyepiece.
“Come on,” Aurora says, nudging me. “Don’t you want to say hello?”
I do, but I’m not ready. Aurora steps forward, though, and suddenly hanging back is no longer an option. We move closer to Jake and the scope.
My heart booms in my chest as we arrive in front of him. “So I take it that you’re Jake?” Please?
A smile tugs at his lips. “Aw, Rachel!” He surprises me by pulling me into a tight hug. For one lovely second I’m squeezed against a hard chest. He smells like clean T-shirts and summertime. Not fried clams.
The hug ends almost before it began.
“I guess you didn’t look me up on Instagram like I did you! Welcome to Claiborne, Rachel Kress. And you must be Aurora?” He hugs her too, and the two of them begin to chat. But I lose a minute or two of the conversation, jetlagged by that hug, and by the mismatch between the Jake of my imagination and the real-life Jake.
And he looked me up on Instagram. I file that away to think about later.
“Let’s look at the moon next,” Jake says to the crowd. “Most of the time she just gets in my way, but tonight I’ll forgive her for that…”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later—after I’d learned what a nebula is and peered at lunar craters through the telescope—the talk ends. But Jake is waylaid by a lingering parent’s questions.
“We can wait for him,” Aurora whispers. “He can go with us to the ice cream social, maybe.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling pretty awkward about the whole thing. I hadn’t expected him to be so…attractive. And therefore hard to talk to.
When he’s finally free, he turns to us with a smile. “Ice cream?”
“Of course,” Aurora says easily.
So, with a pounding heart and weirdly clammy hands, I follow my two new friends back down the path toward campus.
It’s so pretty here. And I don’t mean the boy walking beside me. Claiborne in three dimensions is even more charming than on the map, with brick and clapboard everywhere, and endless green shutters on the buildings. The flagstone paths are lit with old-fashioned iron lamps. I could almost convince myself we’ve gone back in time a hundred years.
Until we reach the crowd on the lawn.
The number of students queued up for ice cream is startling. We add ourselves to a long, chatty line. At the front, cooks in white hats are scooping ice cream into paper bowls.
“So you’re from Spain?” Jake asks Aurora.
“Madrid,” she says. “My father has warned me about the winters here, but I like to ski.”
“Did your father go to Claiborne Prep?” Jake asks.
“Oh yes. He talks about it all the time. He is a fanatic.”
“Sounds familiar,” Jake says. “My family bleeds green. My brother is the football quarterback. He’s a PG this year.”
“Oh,” says Aurora.
“What’s a PG?” I have to ask.
Jake snickers. “Post-grad. He was a senior last year, but he didn’t get into the colleges he expected to get into. So he’s having a do-over. I can’t even gloat because I’m stuck with him another year.”
“Your brother is not likable?” Aurora asks, accepting a bowl of chocolate ice cream from one of the servers. “Gracias,” she says, moving on to the toppings.
“Eh,” Jake says, choosing vanilla. “Lots of people like my brother. He plays lacrosse in the off season, and he’s the president of the Gentlemen Songsters.” He turns to me. “That’s the men’s a cappella group.” But I know that already. “My brother has many enviable qualities except for one.”
“What?” I ask.
“He is a total asshat.”
Aurora giggles. “What is asshat?”
“When you meet him, you’ll know.” Jake dumps a spoonful of Oreo crumbs on his ice cream.
When we look for seats, all the tables in the tent are full. So Jake leads us over to a stone wall where we sit three in a row. I’m in the middle. Taking small bites of my chocolate ice cream, I surreptitiously admire the curve of muscle at the top of Jake’s knee.
Did he have to be so cute? It’s making me self-conscious. I’d pegged Jake for an über-nerd, but I obviously got that wrong.
“So this year is weird for me,” Jake is saying. “Most of my friends graduated last year, which kind of sucks. But I thought I’d be rid of my brother…”
“The asshat,” I put in.
“Right. But he’s still here. What a rip-off. And it’s weird having my parents across the ocean on sabbatical,” Jake admits. “We’re renting a ski condo in Vermont for Christmas break, because our house is leased out until June.”
“Your father is a college professor?” Aurora asks.
“Yes, of physics. And my mother is too. Sociology.”
“Ah. My father is a banker,” Aurora says. “And Rachel’s father is a famous singer. Freddy Ricks.”
I put down my spoon in surprise.
Aurora grins. “I knew him immediately—I saw his concert in Barcelona two years ago.”
Jake stares at me. “No way.”
And here I thought it wouldn’t come up so soon.
“Sorry,” Aurora says. “I should let you tell it. But he seems nice, and I’m thinking—what if Rachel was there in Barcelona? Maybe we were in the same room already. Wouldn’t that be neat?”
“Well, uh…” I take another bite, stalling. Telling people my story is one of the things I’ve been dreading. I mean—I wish my father had ever taken me to Barcelona.
“What?” Jake asks. “Is your father an asshat?”
It really depends who you ask. “My story is kind of a conversation stopper. I’ve been wondering what I’ll say.”
They’re both smiling at me, and I have to make a quick decision about how much of my craziness I’m willing to drop in their laps. “I don’t usually live with my father,” I begin, as my throat inevitably tightens up. “But my mother died about two months ago.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Aurora breathes, laying her hand on my arm.
Great. Now I’m going to make everyone sad. “See? I should have gone with: ‘I’m from Orlando.’”
Behind his big spectacles, Jake’s blue eyes blink at me seriously. “You didn’t, uh, mention that before.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then Aurora jumps up. “My phone is ringing.” She walks away, leaving the two of us alone.
Jake scrubs a hand over his forehead. “I whined about my college applications. Kinda seems stupid now.”
“No,” I croak. “You were so nice and I didn’t know how to bring it up.”
He hangs his head. “You said your summer was stressful. I just didn’t think…”
“I know.” My real middle name ought to be Awkward. “Look—it was really nice to read letters that weren’t about people dying. I needed that.”
He lifts his chin and studies me.
“And—just so you know—I really am worried about puking during my audition. That was absolutely true.”
“You won’t.” The corners of his mouth twitch. “The universe owes you one.”
“Not sure it works that way.”
“It should, though.” He smiles, and it’s such a nice smile that I wish I could just climb inside it and live there.
* * *
That night Aurora and I lay in our extra-long twin beds, talking in the dark. I learn that Aurora is also an only child, and that her parents divorced when she was six.
“How did your mother die?” Aurora asks.
“Brea
st cancer. She beat it once when I was ten. But not this time.”
“That is horrible.”
The dark makes everything easier to talk about. “The end came suddenly. People tell me it could have been worse. She wasn’t in terrible pain.”
“Your papa is lovely.”
That’s a nice thing to say. But would her opinion change if I told her we met only a few weeks ago? I don’t tell her, because it’s just so shameful. And not just for Frederick. When you don’t meet your dad for seventeen years, a part of you believes that you’re the reason why.
I used to wonder what was so wrong with me that he didn’t want to meet me.
I still wonder it.
“What is he like?” Aurora asks. “What does he do for fun?”
What an excellent question. I rack my brain for details of all those puff pieces I’ve read about him over the years. “He likes the beach.” I’ve seen shots of him surfing in Australia. And walking at the edge of the Mediterranean in the South of France. “I never lived with him before this summer,” I add, feeling guilty about my deception. “My parents lived two thousand miles apart.” Lived. The past tense will never sound right to me.
“But has your father been good with you since your mother died?”
“Yes, he has.” And that’s the truth, even if I’m not telling the whole story. People are always going to give Frederick the benefit of the doubt. His Facebook fan page has a million likes.
“I think…” Aurora pauses. “In Spanish we say ‘no hay mal que por bien no venga.’ There is no evil which does not bring some good.”
“That is a very nice saying.”
“Your life right now is a fairy tale,” Aurora says. “The mother dies, and you are sent to your father, who is king of a faraway land.”
“Any minute now there will be trolls and dragons,” I point out.
“There may be,” Aurora agrees, shifting in her bed. “And evil stepmothers. I have one of those.” She is silent for a moment. “But every fairy tale has a righteous ending, Rachel. It’s guaranteed.”
I laugh into the darkness, hoping she’s right.
Chapter Fourteen
The following morning I meet Dr. Charles, an elderly guidance counselor who gives me my schedule. “Don’t be a stranger, Miss Rachel,” he says. “We’ll speak more next month when you’re ready to start applying to college.”
I am so not ready for that.
But my courses look good. I text Jake to tell him that I got the Russian lit class. All those hours with Anna K are going to pay off.
His reply: Nerds of the world, unite.
Aurora and I have three classes together—government, physics, and calculus. It’s nice to know another newbie senior as we weave our way around the beautiful campus, trying to find each new classroom.
As classes get underway, I decide that Claiborne Prep really does feel like the big leagues. The teachers speak quickly and never repeat themselves, and there is a lot less goofing off in classrooms. The worst behavior I see that first week is some surreptitious checking of phones during class.
And the homework assignments! Even during the first week, they’re intense.
At mealtime, Aurora and I always go to the Habernacker dining hall together. I love its old-world formality. The chairs are oversized, like heavy wooden thrones. There are red leather banquette seats against the walls.
Those are the good seats. But since the wooden tables are comically long, if you want to claim an empty space in the middle of the bench, you have to either duck under the table or walk along the seat cushion, stepping carefully behind the neighboring diners.
On the third day of school, Jake sets his dinner tray down on the table across from me and Aurora, and my heart leaps. It does that every time Jake appears.
And since he lives in the same entryway of Habernacker—two floors up—my poor little heart gets a frequent workout. I’ve discovered that if I prop open our door, he’ll stop in on his way upstairs to say hi.
“Jake,” Aurora says before he can even sit down. “We’re going to the showcase concert after dinner. You’ll come with us?” The way she says it just assumes he’ll say yes. Aurora isn’t nervous around Jake the way I am.
“Why not,” he says. Today his T-shirt features a couple of triangles. One of them says “You’re so obtuse” to the other one.
“Rachel wants to rush a singing group,” she adds. “Why is it called ‘rush?’”
He shrugs. “It should be called, Kiss Some Ass And Hope They Choose You.”
“Auditions start this weekend,” I say, feeling my stomach dive. “I’m not ready.”
“Sure you are,” he says, picking up his fork and stabbing a piece of pasta with it. “You’re not going to puke. That only happens in Pitch Perfect.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. Survived first 72 hrs? my father has texted.
I tap my reply. Unpacked. Found all my classes. Aurora = good people. You?
Restaurants. Walk. Burritos = meh. Realtor = good people.
Me: Cool. Having dinner with friends. Got to go.
Frederick: Dinner w/ friends. How nonchalant. As opposed to “chalant,” which is not a word.
I grin at the screen. You’ve been saving that up, haven’t U?
Frederick: :D
“What’s so funny?” Jake asks.
“My father made a joke,” I say, putting the phone away.
“Did you hear?” Aurora gushes. “He’s thinking of finding a place to stay in Claiborne, to be near Rachel.”
I drain my Diet Coke. “Father of the year, eighteen years in a row.”
If they only knew.
* * *
“What a crowd,” I say as the auditorium fills up for the concert. There are eight musical groups at Claiborne, or “CPrep” as Jake calls the school. And it looks like everyone else on campus has shown up to see them.
“Music is a big deal here,” Jake says. “And the a cappella groups are the top of the food chain. I used to like a cappella, but Asshat kind of ruined it for me.”
The lights go down as the jazz band walks onto the stage. A teacher wearing a red satin dinner jacket and a ponytail takes a short bow to applause. Then he turns toward his crew, lifts his hands, and counts them in. “One. Two. And a one, two, three, four…”
The band erupts into a bouncy, complicated swing tune, the likes of which no band in the history of my Orlando public school could ever have mastered. I know nothing of jazz, but to my ears they sound ready for Lincoln Center.
If all the musical groups are this good, I’m screwed.
The jazz band is followed by the glee club, all forty members. They sing the school fight song in four-part harmony, their voices blending expertly. They finish to wild applause.
“Wow,” I say, clapping.
Jake just smiles at me, like I’ve done something cute.
Next up is the Belle Choir, so I sit up straighter in my chair. There are a dozen of them. They link arms at center stage, making a horseshoe formation. Then a woman with short blond hair hums a note. “She’s called the ‘pitch,’” Jake whispers in my ear.
The pitch raises her hands, and a dozen girls launch simultaneously into the most accomplished version of “Fly Me to the Moon” that I have ever heard.
I have goosebumps.
“Nice,” Aurora says when they finish. But their performance was so much better than nice. As they exit stage left, I itch to follow them.
The jam closes with the Senior Songsters, the boys’ a cappella group. “I’ll give you ten seconds to pick out Asshat,” Jake whispers just as they walk on. “One, two, three…”
“There!” Aurora says, pointing at the fifth guy in line. Even from the back of the auditorium, it’s obvious. Jake’s brother looks like a bigger, more angular version of Jake, without glasses. And he carries himself like a prince.
“That’s the one.” Jake sighs. “Consider yourselves warned.”
* * *
/> I register for the Belle Choir auditions the next day without telling anyone, so that if I’m eliminated in the first round, it won’t be so embarrassing. Signing up is as simple as writing my name down for a fifteen-minute time slot, and checking a box for “alto.”
When I show up to sing the next afternoon, I find all the girls waiting in their horseshoe formation.
“Welcome, Rachel!” says the blond pitch. “I’m Jessica. We’re going to do some arpeggios to warm you up. And then—are you familiar with ‘Scarborough Fair?’”
“Sure—the melody,” I reply. Would they ask me to sight-read a harmony part? That would be nerve-wracking, but I can manage if I have to.
“The melody is all you need—our arrangement has an alto melody line. That’s why we use it as an audition piece.”
“Okay.”
“We’re all going to sing it twice. The first time through, don’t worry about blending. We want to hear your voice. The second time through, that’s when you blend.”
“Got it.” It’s baby stuff. My shoulders relax during the warmup. And I carry “Scarborough Fair” without even trying.
“We’ll be in touch,” the pitch says afterward.
I hope it’s true.
* * *
They don’t call me the next day. And they don’t call the day after that.
Frederick departs for L.A., and I spend a massive amount of time on homework. Since Aurora and I chat too much when we’re both home, I pick out a corner of the massive CPrep library to work.
Like everything else at Claiborne, the library is gorgeous, with vaulted ceilings and paneled walls. At night, the main reading room is lit by old chandeliers. But I prefer to work in the stacks, which are less glamorous. There are four floors of shelved books, punctuated with the occasional study carrel.
I sit with my books and listen to the hush. These are the moments when I can feel my mother with me. I know she never lived in a dorm. She was a “townie” as she once called it. But when I’m trotting over the ancient slate flagstones it’s as if she’s watching from above. When I open my textbook in the library, I feel her beside me, breathing in the smell of old books.