The Reece Malcolm List (7 page)

When I get the call from New City letting me know I’ve been placed in Honors Choir, Women’s Choir, and the New City Nation (most pretentious name for a show choir ever?), I feel good enough to get up the nerve to take out that piece of paper from my purse.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Choir Auditions

Hi Sai,

I’m the one who auditioned right after you today. Did you find out where you’re placed yet?

I type in the list of choirs I’ll be in but then delete them, considering it feels a lot like bragging. And, anyway, what are the chances Sai is gorgeous, from St. Louis,
and
an amazing singer on top of that? So I just sign my name and hit send. Whatever.

(Not
whatever
at all, really. I check my email
a lot
after that.)

According to school policy, I have to start the next morning so I won’t delay the choir classes any more, which is fine. Being new is so normal to me that I can’t get too worked up over it. At least here I have a ton of clothes that Missouri Me would have killed for, and—when I check first thing after I get up in the morning—an email from a cute boy letting me know he’s in Honors, Men’s, and Show choirs. He even sounds
excited
about all of that as well as about talking to me. If it were a musical we would totally be kissing soon, but I’ll probably find out that, despite my instincts, he’s gay.

Brad drives me to school because, as he puts it,
seven a.m. seems a bit dangerous to let Reece out into the world
, which is okay because he has a muffin and cocoa waiting for me, and he chatters on all the way to school in a manner that’s somehow distracting in a good way, not an annoying one. I wave good-bye when he pulls up to New City and walk inside like I have any idea at all what I’m doing. First day survival strategy.

It’s probably dumb to hope Sai will find me, but I do—and he doesn’t—so I head off from the Junior Cottage (seriously, that’s what my locker assignment sheet calls it) to the Music Hall for Women’s Choir.

Women’s Choir has never been my favorite of choir classes, since it’s just tons of girls, and I prefer the variety of having more of a mix of voices. (Also, not to sound snotty, but since it’s usually such a large group, it’s not as competitive as the other choirs and therefore not everyone is as skilled as in my other choir classes.) Plus Women’s Choir generally only sings pretty traditional songs. Honors Choir is much better, since there are boys, and it’s way more selective. Still, in Honors Choir we generally sing pretty standard and classical songs in precise arrangements. But they’re good for my voice, great for learning to sing well with others, and it isn’t as if I mind any time spent singing, period.

In show choir, though, at least there is a performance aspect, too, since the whole point is performing showier numbers with movement and choreography. I actually think it’s
kind of
a little
pretty cheesy. People say the same thing about musical theatre, but I don’t think that’s true at all. It’s one thing to burst into song in character because there’s such an overflow of emotion it can’t be contained. It’s another entirely to randomly sing and dance, apropos of nothing. I mean, I
love
it, but I can’t deny its cheesiness. (Musical theatre, on the other hand, I’ll defend to its—and my—death.) Still, show choir is a small group of talented people, and you occasionally even get to sing songs from this century. It’s the best of all of them.

I make my way through the crowd of girls to the piano, where the man from yesterday sits. “Devan, hi,” he says. “Killer audition yesterday.”

“Oh, thanks.” I look down at my schedule because I’m pretty sure that
Deans comma M
is listed for all three of my choirs. “Do you teach every choir class here?”

“Just the advanced ones.” He hands over a folder of music. “Here’s everything you need for this period. We’ll take care of the others when you get to them. There’s one other person beginning today in the Nation and Honors, too, so you won’t be the only newbie.”

I don’t tell him that I know that last bit already.

“So you’ll be in good company,” he says. “If you don’t mind waiting off to the side, once everyone’s seated we’ll find you a spot. Cool?”

“Cool,” I say, and step back to survey the room. It’s a lot less like being out in Hollywood this weekend and way more like most choir classes I’ve had before. (Though to be fair, being out in Hollywood isn’t actually scary; people are just dressed either super nice or super casual or somehow both.)

Once I’m seated with the altos, things feel even more familiar, and of course once I’m singing I couldn’t be convinced my life is weird in the least.

Plus here I’m definitely not Missouri Me. My schedule is for Devan Malcolm, and that’s how Mr. Deans introduces me to the class. It sounds really good, and I like how it looks in my handwriting, and when I practice my autograph during second-period chemistry class it definitely improves upon my standard one. Here at New City, I’ll be Devan Malcolm. I’m not some girl missing part of who she is with a weird secret unknown mom. Maybe here I can try being normal.

On my way from the Science Building (no fancy name for this one) back to the Music Hall, I spot Sai and force myself not to wave until he does. But at last he does.

“Hey.” He stops walking until I catch up with him. “Did you get my email?”

“Yeah, this morning.” Is it weird that I check my email in the morning? “We have two choirs together.”

“That’s awesome. Also awesome I got to transfer out of sociology to take this class. My dad made me start right away instead of waiting to see what choirs I got into. Let me see your schedule.”

I hand it over, and hope that people walking by take note that the mousy new girl is in the presence of the hot new guy.

“We have English lit together, too,” he says. “Best class after choir for sure. And Acting I.”

I feel like I owe New City School a thank-you letter.

Obviously, the New City Nation is a small class, only sixteen people, eight girls and eight boys. It’s usually kind of weird being the new person in a show choir class, especially in schools where it’s pretty competitive, but then again I’ve done this more than once. At least this time I’m new with someone else.

“Hey, Devan, Sai,” Mr. Deans says. “Go ahead and take a seat. We’ll introduce you once everyone’s here.”

That’s the other thing about show choir: it’s a lot closer-knit group than other classes. It’s not like I ever had good friends in any of them, besides Justine of course, but you still know everyone by name.

The kids next to Sai and me do not exactly look thrilled to see us, which happens sometimes. I guess it can seem unfair if it takes you years to get into a class, and some new kids make it their first day. I just don’t think you earn spots by waiting it out. The good stuff should be earned by being the right one, period. This part of my life comes so naturally to me—unlike pretty much the rest of it, besides knowing how to scour the clearance racks and vintage shops for the best pieces—that it’s easy to know this is what I should be doing.

We go through warm-ups and run through a couple songs before Mr. Deans asks Sai and me to each sing a recent solo to give the rest of the Nation an idea of our voices and styles. I let Sai go first (he sings “Being Alive” from
Company
, which just further closes the case on his perfection, especially because he nails it), and then I sing “Now You Know” from
Merrily We Roll Along
because it’s kind of big and fast and showy but not as much as, like, “Getting Married Today” from
Company
, another song I love singing to strangers who aren’t expecting anything. (Also it’s clichéd enough for us both to sing Sondheim, even if he’s the greatest musical theatre composer of all time, but both singing from the same show on top of that would be pretty ridiculous.)

People here obviously act pretty cool about things (barely raising an eyebrow when Sai hit this seriously impressive note) but there is a little murmur of appreciation for me, and so everything feels okay.

“Interesting choice, Devan,” Mr. Deans says as I sit back down. “This can’t leave the classroom yet, but the fall musical’s going to be
Merrily We Roll Along
.”

Oh my God, I love this place.

Merrily We Roll Along
is only one of my favorite shows ever. My freaking email address is even a reference to it. Justine pointed out (post-Tenor, of course) that it’s a show about friendship and not love, and maybe that’s why I love it so much, with me not having experienced True Love yet. (I haven’t experienced much True Friendship, either, but I didn’t leap to point that out.) There’s a lot about life I don’t get yet, but I don’t want people actually telling me so.

It’s a pretty ambitious show for a high school to perform, especially since I’m used to performing in the seemingly obligatory shows most schools do.
Merrily We Roll Along
is about this composer, Franklin Shepard, who starts off as a great guy who dreams of writing musicals with his best friend, Charley. But as he gets older, instead of staying true to his ideals, he falls for the Hollywood thing and abandons everything he once believed in. Totally, of course, losing Charley along the way because Charley actually holds on to his beliefs in the face of money and fame. The role I’ve been dying to play since I first watched a shaky video of this amazing production at the Kennedy Center is their other good friend, Mary, who doesn’t abandon Frank—mostly because she’s in total hopeless love with him—but does go from a successful writer to a washed-up alcoholic. (Which, okay, sounds pretty bad, but she gets amazing songs and scenes.)

Oh, and the whole crazy thing about the show is it goes backwards. When it starts, everyone’s old and jaded, and by the time the show ends, everyone’s young and sure they can make all their dreams come true. I guess that’s actually
completely
a little depressing, but I think you understand everyone’s relationships and loyalties better that way. Also the truth about life is sometimes it’s pretty depressing, and I’m pretty sure art should tell the truth about life.

“That should count as her audition, then,” says a blond guy wearing a preppy shirt with a little alligator on it and jeans that probably cost twice as much as even my nicest pair paid for by Reece Malcolm. “That was amazing, New Girl.”

The murmur of approval turns into something less positive upon that utterance. I guess I don’t blame them, but honestly I’m used to walking into new schools and almost immediately scoring roles kids who’d been there for years thought they deserved. If I hadn’t gotten used to how that felt I would have given up a long time ago.

“New Girl!” the preppy guy calls after class. I’m sort of walking with Sai, though we aren’t talking, really; he’s just trying to help me figure out where my next class is. “Hey, New Girl, wait up.”

“She probably has an actual name,” says a girl with black hair styled into something of a fauxhawk who I saw earlier in Women’s Choir, and who is also in the Nation.

“It’s Devan,” Sai volunteers, like he knows me so well.
Go right ahead and spread that rumor, everyone.
“I’m Sai.”

“You are to
die
for,” the guy says to me. He’s not much taller than I am, and he’s built kind of athletic, kind of small, like musical theatre chorus dancers often are. “Have you had voice lessons? I told my mom if she’d let me take actual lessons I’d be so much better.”

I’m way more comfortable with attention from a gay guy than I am figuring out how Sai can be so nice to me.

“I haven’t.” I shrug and try to seem modest. “Thanks, though.”

“I’m Travis Kennedy,” he says. “This is Mira Sato. What class do you have next?”

“Acting One.”

He wrinkles his nose. “I’m already in Acting Three. But don’t worry. There are a lot of crappy freshmen in there but other people, too. Oh, crap, you aren’t a freshman, are you? You don’t look like one, and they hardly ever let them into Nation.”

I learn that Travis and Mira are juniors as well, and that I have English lit with Mira and both world history and algebra II with Travis. And choir, of course. Part of me is pretty weirded out that barely into my first day, there are people who seem eager to talk to me, but then again my wardrobe has received a full upgrade, and I’m being seen in the presence of Sai-ness. When I walk into the cafeteria to get lunch (it seems most kids actually eat outside in the courtyard so I haven’t quite figured out where kids without friends sit), Travis waves me over to the line for sandwiches, where Sai is also standing, like we’re all friends already.

After we get through the line, Travis leads us outside, where I hear a little voice in my head think,
Yay, the weather’s so nice today
, which is kind of terrifying. No way am I going to start loving L.A. weather. The Midwest is my past and New York is my future, and this is just for now.

“Hey, Sai.” This girl appears, like, out of nowhere, the kind of girl who makes me feel like I’m some other species, tall and thin and with every blond hair in place. The kind of girl who
should
be talking to Sai. “You were going to eat with us, right?”

“Right, Nicole,” he says. “Hey, guys, you know Nicole?”

I wonder if there’s something wrong with Sai that he thinks we should be associating with Nicole at all. We’re in
show choir
. He just gets an exemption for looking like some gift from a God who’s spent too much time looking through my dreams for specific examples of what boys should be like.

“I promised Nicole I’d have lunch with her, meet some people,” Sai says to us. “But I’ll see you in Honors, yeah?”

This is the thing: he isn’t being a jerk. I want him to be a jerk because then I could hate him. But, no, he looks like he genuinely wants to honor Nicole’s offer of table location, not get away from us.

“I can’t believe it.” Travis pouts as he sits down across from Mira. “I thought we snagged the fresh meat. Then Nicole Ediss happened to walk by. It’s almost a cliché.”

“It
is
a cliché,” Mira tells him. “It’s probably for the best, though. I don’t know if I want someone like that sitting at our table. He looks too Disney.”