The Rivals (16 page)

I pause as they finish. “It’s short and sweet, but so is our version, and I’m going to let Delaney take the lead.”

I retreat to the rest of the line while Delaney steps forward. She’s in full regalia today—her purple hair is sleek and blown out straight, bangs landing crisply across her forehead, cutting a line just above her navy-blue eye makeup and heavily mascaraed lashes. She wears red vinyl boots, dark jeans that might as well be painted on, and a black T-shirt. I have to say, she looks smoking hot.

The rest of us begin a little doo-woppy sway, snapping our fingers and shaking our hips in time, as we croon out—badly off-key, most of us—a mix of “ooh” and “ahh,” like the backup singers we are right now.

The girl with the purple hair begins, her smoky, sexy voice hitting all kinds of notes as she sings a new tune:
“Dirty clothes, dirty clothes, where have you been? We’ve been down to the laundry room to get ourselves clean. Dirty clothes, dirty clothes, what did you there? We told the dryers all about the affair.”

“And now a mash-up,” I say, and nod to Jones, who joins Delaney in front of the line for a duet. We continue to back them up as they sing modified versions of “Hey, Diddle, Diddle” (the teachers jumped over the quad; the little students laughed to see such sport); a reimagined “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (then the students called her names, and the lamb was very sad); and my personal favorite, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” (we’ve been working on our college apps all the live-long day).

Then we’re done, and Ms. Merritt begins the clapping. Because she has to set the agenda for the teachers. She has to let them know she is pleased, and they should be pleased too; they should follow suit with their cheers. They do. And I know on some level she
must
get it—who we really are, what we really do, that our musical choices are not just a roast, not just normal teenage teasing of authority.

As she beams, a smile so wide it nearly reaches her braid, it’s the reminder that even if she knows, she just doesn’t care. Because what matters to her is that we have excelled, like her Weimaraners, like her twins.

“Would you like an encore?” Jones offers.

We don’t have any more songs, so I don’t know what he has up his sleeve.

But the approval is unanimous, so he plugs in his guitar to the portable amp he brought and then whispers to Delaney. She nods and smiles at him, then turns to me with a wink. Jones looks at me and says out loud, “You guys can kick back for this one. We’ll take care of it.”

Then the two of them launch into a hot, loud, and electrified version of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.”

I can’t think of a more apropos song.

“They were amazing, weren’t they?” I say to Martin for the fiftieth time as we leave the cafeteria after lunch and head to my room.

“Yep,” Martin says.

“And Jones. God, he was great. He really can sing,” I say as I bound up the stairs, Martin a step or two behind me. “And he can play. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better guitarist.”

“Yep, like Jimi Hendrix himself descended to the Faculty Club,” Martin says, but I ignore the sarcasm in his voice, because in my world Jones is as good as any of the Guitar Gods.

“Exactly,” I say. “He is totally going to be a rock star someday.” Then I realize now would be the perfect time to tell Martin about the jam fest in New York with Jones. Especially since Martin
can’t
go. He’s going away with one of his brothers for the weekend—some last mountain-bike ride before the Summers family turns to their snowboards. “Hey, so I wanted to tell you something about Jones—”

“Let me guess. He seduced you with his musical fingers and silver guitar and now you’re leaving me to run away with him and form some piano-guitar-playing hipster duo in Brooklyn.”

Maybe now’s not the time to mention that weekend after all.

“I’m not leaving you for anyone,” I say.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way,” he says, and drapes an arm over my shoulders. I like it. It feels protective, safe.

When we reach my room, Maia’s there, headphones on, Duran Duran blasting through them. Her affection for British bands from way back when runs strong. She looks up, shoots me a cold stare, then pulls off her headphones.

“This must be an official inspection,” she says, cutting and cold. “Martin, would you like to root through my things too? Maybe check and see if I have a list of all the alleged users or anonymous sources or spineless bastards you guys want to protect?”

Martin holds his hands up. “Whoa. Chill, Maia.”

Maia continues. “What? You didn’t know Alex has been spying on me and going through my things?”

My face turns red, and Martin turns to me. Martin’s not supposed to know I was investigating Maia. Like Parker, he thinks Anjali’s been doing it. I’ve led them both to believe Anjali’s been doing it.

Then Maia laughs and points at me. “Oh, that’s cute! He doesn’t know you’ve been looking through my stuff.”

“I think we’re going to go hang out someplace else,” I say, and grab Martin’s hand, pulling him out of my room.

As we walk down the hall, Martin asks me what’s going on. “I thought Anjali was investigating her, Alex.”

“No. I am,” I admit.

“Why?”

“Because she’s my roommate and she’s my friend and she’s not guilty, okay?”

“But what did you find when you were looking through her stuff?” he asks carefully.

“Nothing,” I say, keeping my eyes fixed straight in front of me as I lie. It’s not like I took an oath to put the Mockingbirds before my friends. Right? The board doesn’t need to know everything, especially if I was breaking Mockingbirds rules when I found the pills because snooping in someone’s bag is definitely verboten. But if I’m going to be protecting people, I’ve got to protect
my
people too, my friends, even if Maia’s mad at me, even if she won’t talk to me. I have to maintain some lines, because the slope is slick and oily under my feet, like the muddy hillside after a rain.

But like I snooped on my roommate, now I’m lying to my boyfriend—not to Martin the Mockingbird but to Martin
my
Martin. Because
this
is the kind of thing I’d tell him. And this is what Amy warned me about. The secrets you have to keep, the people you have to protect. You don’t get to be this great stand-taker without being yanked in every direction, without having your loyalties tested in every which way.

“I’m surprised, that’s all,” Martin says.

“Surprised? Like you thought it was her?” I say, snapping at him.

“No. Surprised at
you
. I just thought you were into playing by the rules.”

“You must have me confused with Parker. Because there’s another set of rules, and those are the ones that say you don’t let other people investigate your friends,” I say. But even as the words come out, I know I’m already doing the limbo under both sets of rules.

Do the ends justify the means, though? Does protecting Maia’s secrets make it okay?

“But what if your friends are doing something wrong?” Martin asks.

I stop on the landing and look at him, my eyes blazing. “My friend isn’t doing anything wrong.”

We walk down the steps in silence. I realize I’m shaking, like I’ve had way too much caffeine. There’s only one thing I need right now, and it’s not Martin.

The piano waits for me in the music hall. It’s like a well-worn blanket and I want to nuzzle it, cuddle it, bury my face in it.

I close the door behind me and walk to the beautiful thing I love, dropping my backpack on the floor. I run my hands along the black lacquer, smooth as glass underneath my skin. I close my eyes, spread my arms as far as they can go, palms pressed on the instrument as I take a deep breath. Nothing is complicated here. Nothing is confusing here. There are no friends against friends, no boyfriends you lie to, no dean who just smiles and waves.

The piano asks no questions. The piano tells no lies.

I sink down onto the bench and at once I feel calm, quiet. This is my haven and the only one I share it with tonight is the French composer Maurice Ravel. I could play his most famous piece,
Boléro
, for my Juilliard audition CD. But everyone else will play
Boléro
. It’s famous for a reason. It’s sex in music form. The whole thing is foreplay. It’s one long build. That’s why everyone picks it. They think they can send Juilliard admissions officers into a swoon by playing
Boléro
.

Sure, there’s no question it is quite possibly the most visceral, most sensual piece of music ever written. But it has to be played by the
whole orchestra
to work. The turn-on comes from every instrument having its say as the melody rides from flute to clarinet to bassoon and on and on and on. Then there’s that snare drum, that delicious, tingly snare drum a constant throughout, keeping score of the desire that can’t stop itself, that lasts and lasts until… a burst of sound, then it’s over.

Let all the others try to seduce Juilliard with
Boléro
.

I will seduce them with prowess, because I have chosen a piece you play with only one hand—a concerto Ravel wrote for the left hand only. He composed it for a classical pianist who’d lost his right arm in the first world war. Ravel’s goal? To create a piece to play one-handed that was as challenging, as complex, as virtuosic as something you need all ten fingers for. It’s a crazy-hard piece, since you have to cruise through several speeds and several keys without a pause. I’ve mastered it technically. Note for note, I can breeze through it and wring all the gorgeousness out of it with four fingers and a thumb. But sometimes it feels as if something is missing, and I don’t just mean another hand. Something deeper, like a secret in the piece that needs to be mined.

I begin the excavation.

I play and I play and I play. Without stopping, without breaking, without thinking. This is the blissful emptiness of a world that makes no more demands of me than I make of it.

When I finally stop hours later, I don’t know that I find what I’m looking for, but I do find a temporary peace. I stretch out my neck, shifting to the left, then the right. I feel a buzzing in my pocket and I take out my cell phone, noticing that it’s almost nine and I’ve been playing since the middle of the afternoon.

Would you like a visitor?

I remember how I disappointed Martin. I remember how he pissed me off. But for all intents and purposes, I’ve just been to the spa, getting a massage for the last few hours.

Sure. Leaving soon, though…

Three minutes later he’s here and I let him in.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say.

Then there’s silence, the awkward silence of a fight still lingering between us.

“Just because I don’t always agree with you doesn’t mean I don’t respect your point of view,” he says, going first with the apology. As he says he’s sorry I am struck by how it’s not what most guys would say. Most guys would say,
Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you
. But Martin, he knows this isn’t about whether we like each other after a disagreement. Martin knows I would never be that girl who thought he didn’t like me because we didn’t see eye to eye. Martin would never be that guy either.

And because he puts himself out there like that, because he opens himself up to me, I’m disarmed. And I like it.

“I guess I feel the same,” I admit.

“I just want us, the group, to do things the right way, even if the right way sometimes really sucks.”

“Yeah, the right way totally sucks.”

“So do we agree to disagree, then?”

I smile. “What choice do we have?”

“We could arm wrestle.”

“I think you’d win.”

“I hear you have pretty strong hands, though,” he says.

“They are powerful,” I say, holding up my hands like they’re claws.

“Show me how powerful,” he says, reaching for my hands, linking his fingers through mine. But rather than pull me close, he spins me around so I’m facing the piano. “Will you play something for me, Alex?” he asks.

With his hands on my shoulders, he sits me down at the piano bench. “What do you want to hear?”

“Ravel,” he says. “You’ve only been telling me about his left-handed piece for the last three months.”

“Oh, ha-ha.”

“But I want to hear the one you’re
not
going to play. I want to hear the one you think is too sexy for them.”

“I didn’t say it was too sexy! I said it doesn’t sound right just on the piano. You need a whole orchestra for the piece to be sexy.”

“Hmm…,” he says. “That is a dilemma. But I’m willing to let my ears be a guinea pig and tell you if it’s a turn-on without all those other instruments.” Then he moves in behind me, crowding me forward a bit, a leg on each side of me, his chest against my back. His hands slide down my arms as he rests them just above my wrists.

“That’s a bit distracting,” I say softly.

“Maybe like this you can get the piece just right,” he whispers.

“Close your eyes.”

“Oh, they’re closed, all right,” he says, his warm breath next to my ear.

So I begin. I glide through each of the repeating sections, naming the instruments that we’re supposed to be hearing as I go. “This would be the flute,” I say.

“Flute,” he repeats, brushing his lips against my neck.

“Clarinet,” I tell him.

“Clarinet,” he echoes, finding this spot just beneath my ear.

“Now the bassoon.”

“Mmm…bassoon.”

“Oboe.”

“Oboe,” he says, low and soft.

“Clarinet again.”

“Clarinet.”

“Now trumpet.”

“Trumpet,” he says, and traces his fingers up my right arm.

I shiver, then say, “Saxophone.”

“Saxophone,” he repeats.

Then there’s another saxophone, then piccolos, then his hands. Then more oboe, more clarinets, then his lips. Then more instruments, they all play together, those same eighteen bars, building, onward, further, over and over, hands on my arms, lips on my neck, breath in my ear, music all around.