How It Feels to Fly (13 page)

THAT EVENING, AS A REWARD FOR A LONG, HARD, productive week, we all go into town.

If you can call it a town.

The small college campus where Perform at Your Peak is housed is about fifteen minutes away from a strip of cutesy shops and mom-and-pop restaurants that's literally called Main Street. Andrew parks the van at one end of the road and we all pile out.

“So what's the plan?” Zoe asks. “Meet you back here in a few hours?”

“No,” Dr. Lancaster says, taking Zoe by the arm. “You're staying with me.”

“Oh, good.” Zoe nods. “Didn't want this to be fun or anything.”

“We have dinner reservations at Loretta's at seven o'clock. But since we're early, I thought we could spend
some time in the general store.”

“Yee-haw,” Zoe shouts. A couple walking by turns to stare. She waves and bows. “Don't mind us. Just a few
cra-a-a-zy
kids out for a night on the town.” She turns to us and stage-whispers, “They don't know you all are actually crazy!”

“Give it a rest,” Dominic says. He and Andrew start walking down the sidewalk. I grab Katie and follow, and then we're all on our way.

Walking into the general store is like stepping into a time machine. There's fishing equipment and mason jars of all different sizes and a whole section of overalls. Babies' overalls and kids' overalls and grown-ups' overalls, in denim and camo print.

“Sam!” Katie models a Davy Crockett raccoon-skin cap. “How do I look?”

“Awesome,” I tell her. Weirdly enough, she's making it work.

“You're ready to kill a bear, for sure,” Omar chimes in.

“Ew,” Katie says. “What?”

“You know, the song?”

“Do you know what he's talking about?” Katie asks me.

I vaguely remember learning a song about Davy Crockett in elementary school. “Kind of,” I say.

“Sing it, Omar!” Katie says. She's flipped the hat so the tail is off to the side, draped over her shoulder, where she can pet it.

Omar clears his throat and launches into the first verse. His voice wavers at first but then comes out clear and strong
and deeper than I'd expected. When he reaches the chorus, Yasmin appears next to him, harmonizing in a sweet soprano:
“Davy, Davy Crockett! King of the Wild Frontier.”

Katie and I applaud, and from behind us, Dominic says, “Nice.”

While he sang, Omar stood tall. But the moment he stops, he shrinks. “Thanks,” he mutters, and then runs off to another part of the store. Yasmin follows him.

Katie and I find Jenna looking through a rack of T-shirts airbrushed in neon colors. “Do people really wear these?” she asks, running her fingers over a tie-dyed, pink-and-purple shirt that says “JEN!” across the chest. She looks up at Katie, eyes widening. “
What
is on your head?”

Katie pets her hat. “I'm totally buying this. And you should get that shirt.” She turns to me. “Sam, what are we going to get you?”

The challenge is on. We spend the next half hour looking for the weirdest things in the store. I reject the camo-print pashmina and hand the old-timey shaving kit to Dominic when he joins our hunt. Omar shows up wearing a straw fedora he says makes him look like Bruno Mars. And then we see the wall of aprons. Katie makes me try on a few before we settle on a blue flowered one trimmed with white ruffles.

I spin, holding the edges out. “What do you think?”

“It's perfect.”

I don't look at myself in the mirror. I don't want to ruin the moment. Instead, I look for Andrew. He's at the front
of the store, flipping through a coffee-table book about the Smoky Mountains.

“Hey, Sam!” he says when he sees me. “I like your apron.”

“Thanks. We all decided to buy something random.”

“That blue brings out your eyes.” He smiles and turns back to his book. “Did you know the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has 244,000 acres in Tennessee and 276,000 acres in North Carolina?”

“Um, no. I did not.” I take a step closer, looking at the pictures of waterfalls and hiking trails with him. Not because I'm interested in the mountains. Because I want to be near him. I feel so much better when he's around. He makes me feel like
before
. Like the past seven months never happened and I'm still a whole, happy person.

After this morning, I know I still have a long way to go.

When Dr. Lancaster gathers us by the register to pay, I realize that Zoe's been sitting in a folding chair, wedged between the door and a humming mint-green refrigerator, this whole time. She has her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees.

“Nice apron, Ballerina Barbie,” she says. Her words lack some of their usual bite.

“Thanks.” I take it off and hand it to the cashier. And then—I don't know exactly why—I grab a key chain from the closest rack. It says, “I'm part of the Wolfpack!” on one side, with the North Carolina State logo on the other. “This too,” I tell the cashier.

“That's a dollar extra.”

I place the bills on the counter and toss the key chain to Zoe.

She catches it in one hand. “What's this for?”

“We all got something. I'll take it back if you don't want it.”

She looks at both sides and then says, “Whatever.” But she keeps it.

LORETTA'S IS AN
old-school Southern meat-and-three place: you get chicken, roast beef, or catfish, a choice of sides, and a biscuit or cornbread muffin for a set price. I stand in front of the array of options, feeling the fun I had earlier fizzle away. Everything's cooked in butter. Most of the vegetables have bacon in them. I have no idea what I'm supposed to eat.

I let Jenna go ahead of me. She orders fried chicken, collard greens, green beans, and red-skin potatoes, so I do too. She gets cornbread, but I skip it, even when the woman at the buffet—Loretta herself?—tries to insist. I tell her I'm allergic, and she says, “Oh, sweetie,” like that's the saddest thing in the world.

I sit down at the table and start peeling the skin off my chicken and separating the bacon out of my greens. I'm dividing a potato into four equal bites when Katie leans in close and whispers, “What do you think Dr. Lancaster's story is? Do you think she has a family?”

“She doesn't wear a wedding ring,” Omar says.

“Okay, but do you think she's divorced, or never got
married? Do you think she's with somebody now?” Katie looks toward the other end of the table, where Dr. Lancaster is talking to Yasmin and Dominic.

“Why are you so interested in Dr. Lancaster's love life?” Jenna asks.

“It feels weird that she knows so much about us, but we don't know anything about her,” Katie answers. “Like, does she have kids? How old do you think she is?”

“About my mom's age?” Omar guesses. “Maybe a little older?”

“I bet she has kids,” Katie says, nodding. “Maybe college age. That's why she can stay here with us for three weeks.”

“Or she never had kids.” Omar lowers his voice and adds dramatically, “We're the teenagers she never got to raise. We make the sacrifice worth it.”

“The sacrifice?” Jenna asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Omar says, back in his normal voice. “She always wanted kids, but she put her career first, and before she knew it, life had passed her by.”

“Actually, the opposite.” We startle. Dr. Lancaster is now standing behind us, wearing a wry smile. “I had children young, then went back to school. And”—she holds up a hand to stop Katie's next question—“that's all I'm going to tell you. Ready to go?”

THAT NIGHT, AFTER
we've all gone to bed, Zoe gets up and grabs the tote bag she carried into town. “Come on,” she whispers, shaking my shoulder.

I roll over. “What?”

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

My eyes have adjusted to the dark enough that I see her put her finger on her lips. “It's a secret.”

I roll back over. “No.”

“Yes.” She pulls on my arm. “Trust me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I'm sorry I said that thing about your butt, okay? So . . . come with me?”

I groan. “Fine.” I wait while she looks down the hall in both directions. I pad behind her on the thick carpet to Dominic and Omar's door. She knocks.

Dominic answers. “What's up?”

Zoe holds up her tote bag. “I come bearing gifts.”

“What could you have in there that I want?”

“Just let us in.”

“Hey, Sam.” Dominic opens the door wider. “Omar, make yourself presentable. We've got company.”

Omar sits up in bed as Zoe drops her tote bag on the floor. It clanks when it lands, and she says, “Whoops!” Then she leaves again. “BRB.”

Dominic points to the desk chair between his and Omar's beds. “Wanna sit?”

“Sure. Thanks.” I do, crossing my arms in front of my stomach. I look around the guys' room. It's surprisingly neat. Both of their suitcases are closed and zipped. Other than some energy-bar wrappers on Dominic's nightstand and a
dog-eared graphic novel on Omar's side, you can barely tell anyone's staying here.

“What's going on?” Omar asks, yawning.

“No idea. Sorry to barge in.”

“We weren't asleep.” Dominic leans back into his pillows, lacing his fingers behind his head. The position makes his biceps bulge—and judging by the way he's smiling, he knows it.

Zoe returns with Jenna and Katie, shuts the door, and turns off the overhead light. Then she opens the curtains to get maximum moonlight and flops down on the floor. Jenna sits on the edge of Dominic's bed, and Katie sits cross-legged next to Omar. And we stare at one another.

“So?” Jenna asks briskly. “We're here. What's so important?”

“This.” Zoe dives into her tote bag and emerges with a beer. She sets it on the floor in front of her.

“Where'd you get that?” Dominic asks.

“Took it from the general store.”

“You stole a beer.”

“Not just
a
beer.” She pulls out five more and sets them in a circle. “One for each of us. Welcome to the first meeting of”—dramatic pause—“the Secret Society of Crazy Campers.”

Omar frowns. “We're not crazy—”

“We can workshop the name later.”

“I can't believe you stole beer!” Katie scoots away like she's going to get in trouble just for looking at it.

“I can't believe you did it without Dr. Lancaster finding out,” Jenna says.

“She went to the bathroom. Left me with Andrew. Thanks for distracting him, Ballerina Barbie.” Zoe picks up a beer, pops off the cap, and gives me a cheers. “Who wants one?”

Dominic leans down and takes a bottle. “Me.”

Katie frowns at him. “You shouldn't.”

“It's not like she stole a keg. It's one beer.”

“I guess it can't hurt,” Jenna says. “We can pay the store back next time we go into town.”

“Barbs?” Zoe waves a bottle at me.

“No, thanks.” I don't drink—and even if I did, it wouldn't be beer.

“Worried about the calories?” Zoe taunts.

It's pointless to deny it. Everyone knows I am.

“I hereby declare this a therapy-free zone!” Zoe announces. “No talking about your issues, or whatever. I don't want to hear it.” She takes a gulp of her beer.

“I'll drink to that,” Dominic says. He takes a drink and groans. “You couldn't have stolen the good stuff?”

“Sam didn't flirt long enough for me to be choosy.”

I shoot Zoe a sharp look. Does she know how I feel about Andrew?

She winks at me, which isn't reassuring.

“Okay, give me one,” Omar says. Zoe does. He opens it and takes a huge drink—which he promptly sputters and coughs all over his bedspread. Katie squeaks and dives out of
the way. “Ugh, that's disgusting!”

Dominic laughs. “Omar, is that your first beer?”

“Yeah. So?” Omar says, defensive.

“That's kind of how I looked after my first taste. You get used to it.”

“I didn't really want one anyway,” Omar grumbles.

“So why'd you take it?” Jenna asks, sipping at her beer like it's a fancy cocktail.

“Because—because Dominic did.” Omar looks like he's sweating a little.

“Hey, I so did not peer-pressure you,” Dominic says.

“Aww, someone's got a crush!” Zoe grins. “Young love is so cute.”

“I do not have a crush on Dominic!” Omar protests.

“It's okay. You're an actor, we get it—”

“I told you yesterday, I have a girlfriend.” Omar pulls out the photo he's using to mark his place in his book. “See?” It's him with a cute brunette, both dressed up in Victorian outfits. We pass it around the circle.

“Whoa, are you at the Renaissance Faire?” Zoe asks. “Dominic, you've got your work cut out for you.”

“Helena and I were in
My Fair Lady
together,” Omar says. “That's how we met.”

“Zoe, you're awfully interested in who likes me.” Dominic's finished his beer and is leaning back in bed in that
look at my biceps
pose again. “Maybe you're the one with the crush? Wouldn't be the first—”

“Uh, no. You're not my type.”

“Not into tall, dark, and handsome?”

“Not into dudes.”

“You're gay?” Katie asks.

Zoe turns on her. “Got a problem with that?”

Katie wilts under Zoe's glare. “No, of course not.”

“I had a huge crush on my skating partner, when I used to do pairs,” Jenna says. “He turned out to be gay.”

“What about you, Sam?” Zoe asks. “Isn't the ballet world full of gay boys?”

“And straight ones. It's a stereotype that all male dancers are gay, just like . . .” I was going to remind her of what she said at lunch on Monday, about all ballerinas having eating disorders. But I don't want to go there. It's too close to what I try never to think about. “Anyway,” I say, “the only guy at my studio's straight.”