The Trouble With Destiny (21 page)

I still don't know what to say, and the disturbance in my stomach has turned into more of an earthquake. I have to work to keep the quivering internal. I bend down to retrieve the notebook.

I pick it up, a thick spiral-bound number with rumpled and ragged pages, the metal binding bent and coming out at the top. I thrust it at him, but before he can take it, something catches my eye. The top page is covered with a series of Xs and Os, lines and arrows connecting them in a seemingly random pattern. At the top, a line of shaky chicken scratch spells out
Pro Right Option Left.
Not that that means
anything
to me. It doesn't have to. It's the handwriting I can't take my eyes off of.

And all of a sudden those things I said to Lenny are flying back to me. Only it's clear I said them to the wrong person. Because Lenny isn't the one who's encouraged me. He's not the one who understands dedication and leadership and teamwork. He's not the one who's the nice guy, who plays with kids in the pool and bounds around moving instrument cases.

He's not the one with the wobbly, boyish handwriting who wrote my name on the slip of paper during truth-or-dare.

It wasn't Lenny at all.

“You like me?” I blurt out. My eyes sweep from the words on the page up to Russ's face, which has managed to get even
more
tanned, his blue eyes staring right back at me. I gulp. My voice comes out a whisper. “Why didn't you say anything?”

His lips part slightly. He gives a sharp intake of breath, and I wait for the confirmation. The confession. He was the one who wrote my name that day. It's his handwriting I've been staring at each night before I fall asleep.

But he doesn't say anything. Instead he takes the notebook out of my hands, rushing past me like he's gunning for the end zone.

“Russ, wait!” I call, my voice cracking. I turn to call after him again, maybe even run, but he's already gone.

The paper in my hand is already soft and worn. The edges are starting to fray from my grip, and the ink is fading ever so slightly. Only I'd notice, but that's because I've been staring at it, running my fingers over the text, rubbing the softening edges, for the last four days.

I feel my neck start to stiffen, so I flip over to my other side. Again. I've spent the last four hours lying here in this narrow bed, trying not to think about everything my brain won't stop thinking about. Lenny and Demi. Russ. Huck. The punishment that's awaiting me back at home. And the competition, which is set to begin in—I flip back over to peek at the clock—just under twenty minutes.

I should be making sure everyone's got their music, and double-checking with Ryan that his is in the right order. I should be confirming that all the clarinets have spare reeds soaking under their chairs. That the percussionists have all their components in the right order, and that Jared didn't ditch his snare drum for a girl. I should be making sure my baton is at the ready between the pages of my binder. I should be gathering everyone by section and getting ready for our preperformance pep talk.

But I'm missing it. I'm missing all of it.

Okay, so those are all things that make
me
feel better before a performance. It's not like the band will grind to a halt without me over their shoulders every moment. It's not like Huck won't remember to do the important stuff, like count heads and tune everyone up. I know he can do it. It's just weird that it's not
my
job right now. That it's not my job anymore.

And even if I were up there with them, it's not like I'd have any idea what to say right now.
Hi, I'm an epic failure of a drum major, please don't follow my lead
hardly seems inspiring, not even if I try to say it with a little pep in my voice. And after the performance the other night, where they couldn't even
see
me and still gave their best performance ever, it's clear they don't need me.

But I need them.

I slide my feet back into my sneakers, resting at the edge of the bed. I take one last glance at the well-worn slip of paper, but there's nothing I can do there. Like Sofia said,
move forward.
I have mental space for only one thing at a time right now, and my friends win that fight hands down. So I shove the paper deep into my pocket, take my room key off the bedside table, and bolt for the elevators.

After an excruciatingly slow elevator ride, the doors slide open onto the Sunrise Deck. I follow the brass signs on the wall to the Grand Auditorium, where the competition is set to take place. But when I arrive at the heavy double doors that lead into the performance space, I realize there's no way I can go in. Mr. Curtis likes to stand in the back of whatever room we're performing in so he can make sure our dynamics are spot-on, that our pianissimo is whispering and our fortissimo is blowing the doors off the place. If I walk in, he's going to notice me right away and send me back to my cabin.

I rise on my tiptoes and peek through the round portholes in the door. I don't see Mr. Curtis, but I do see my bandmates filing onto the stage, instruments and music in hand. I see Jared and the percussionists setting up the timpani just offstage, ready to wheel it on after the Athenas perform. They're laying out drumsticks, tambourines, and triangles on the rolling cart that's topped with a piece of velvet my mom salvaged from an old set of curtains, which keeps everything from rattling on the cart. My stomach clenches when I see that the snare drum stand is crooked, causing the whole thing to list to one side, but Luke, a freshman percussionist, quickly adjusts it, smoothing over the top with his hand to ensure that it's level.

Down on the floor in front of stage left, the band is gathering by section, doing some quiet final fingering and mental run-throughs of sticky sections. I can't help but do a quick head count, and that's when I notice: one oboe is missing.

Immediately, I bolt down the hall, then crank a left, my sneakers skidding on the carpet like I'm in a cartoon. I get to a set of swinging double doors labeled
BANQUET KITCHEN
, ignore the line underneath that says
STAFF ONLY,
and push through. The kitchen is a bustling center of activity, and the heat hits me immediately. It fills my lungs like hot tar, and I have to stop for a second to get my breath back. In an instant, the back of my shirt is damp, and the little hairs that have escaped from my ponytail glue themselves to the back of my neck. I don't know how everyone in here isn't collapsed in a puddle of sweat. But the white-coated cooks don't seem to mind, or maybe they're moving too fast to notice. They're stationed all over, tending to boiling pots, pulling slabs of meat from hot ovens, and chopping heaps of vegetables with giant serial-killer knives. They dart from place to place, calling out things like “Hot hot hot!” and “Behind you, roast coming in!” The amount of activity is dizzying…and perfect. No one pays a second of attention to me, lest they burn a sauce or hack off a finger.

The smell of garlic overpowers everything as one prep cook in a corner attacks a whole bag of it, peeling off the papery skin and smashing the cloves with the flat of his knife. I suck in the smell, thinking of pasta night with Mom, when we turn the kitchen red with our vats of homemade sauce that always bubble and splatter over the entire kitchen, making it look like we've performed an autopsy. I make my way carefully down the main aisle of the kitchen, ready to leap out of the way of a cauldron of bubbling soup or a tray of some kind of roasted beast. When I get to the back wall, I scan in both directions, looking for the door that would lead to the backstage area.

I finally find it, in the back corner, when it flings open. A flash of gold sequins and a flounce of a high ponytail storm through. Demi is a picture of fury, from the way her mouth turns down to the way her fists are clenched at her sides. Just before she turns my way, I open the nearest door and step in.

The heat of the kitchen quickly gives way to an arctic chill. My breath comes out in puffs of white smoke. I've stepped into the walk-in cooler, and as my teeth begin chattering, I hope I'm not going to be in here long. I step to the back and plop down on a box labeled
STEAKS
, and figure that by the time I count to fifty, Demi will be gone and I can still make it out to watch the band. And hopefully I won't get discovered in the process.

That hope quickly freezes and shatters into tiny ice crystals as the handle on the door turns. I get a moment of reprieve when the cold air escapes and the warmth of the kitchen sneaks in, but that's gone right as the door shuts again. Demi has entered the walk-in cooler. However, she doesn't notice me, because she immediately turns and presses her forehead to the door. Her whole body shakes, sending tiny bits of light reflected off her sequins scattering around the room like a human disco ball. But she's not shivering.

She's crying.

Her shaking shoulders soon give way to a strangled sob, and her hands go to her face. She cries into them, and I'm instantly hit with a memory. We were nine years old. Demi was competing in one of those cheesy mall talent shows that her mom found on the Internet and signed up for. A low, portable stage was set up just outside the food court. The whole place smelled like a mixture of french fries and Cinnabon, and shoppers blithely bought new sweaters or sneakers or whatever else had brought them to the mall that day, mostly ignoring the parade of little kids performing dance routines.

I was sitting in the audience next to her mother, watching the dance routine Demi had practiced about a billion times, only something wasn't right. Her smile was so forced it looked like it was about to crack, and when she went into the double pirouette I knew she could do in her sleep, she wobbled on the first turn and fully crumpled to the stage on the second.

At the sight of my best friend in a heap on the cheap, carpet-covered risers, I couldn't help it. My mouth gaped open and I gasped. Demi's mother nudged me, and I quickly hid my shock, just before Demi glanced into the audience to see me. But even though I managed to get my smile back, Demi knew. She took one look at me, and we both knew that whatever was happening up there wasn't right.

Demi leaped back to her feet and quickly caught up to the music, jumping across the stage, shaking her hips. She finished up in an impressive split, her hands overhead and a triumphant (but fake) smile plastered on her face.

Demi stomped off the stage and went straight to a plastic palm tree in front of the Gap, leaned her forehead into it, and cried into her hands, just like she's doing now.

Back then, I followed her over to the tree and wrapped my arms around her until she dropped her hands and cried into my shoulder. But I don't think that's something I'm going to do now. I don't think it's something I
can
do now. That was so long ago, and so much has changed.

Instead, I settle for clearing my throat until Demi spins on her character shoes, her skirt flaring out around her hips. When she sees me on the box of steaks, her eyes grow as wide as dinner plates, then narrow.

“Great. Great! Just what I need,” she sneers between sniffles.
“You.”

I raise my hands at her, the international symbol for
hey, I come in peace.
“I was just sitting here. I have no idea what's going on,” I say.

“Of course you don't, Liza,” she says, punctuating the syllables of my name with a sharp cock of her head.

She starts pacing back and forth in the tiny walk-in cooler before continuing. “You're way too busy flirting with my ex-boyfriend. All week he's been following you around like a frickin' lovesick puppy, and you lapped it right up. Which, I mean, like,
what?
”

I would not have been more surprised if Demi had told me she cut off her own leg and handed it to the judges. “Demi, you have got to calm down,” I say. I take a step toward her and grab her by the shoulders. “I wasn't trying to flirt with Russ. I didn't even
know
Russ was trying to flirt with me. And besides, I'm pretty sure he hates me right now.”

She looks at me, tears pooled in her green eyes. She blinks once, hard, and they spill, leaving black tracks of eye makeup down her cheeks. When she opens her eyes, they're soft and resigned, and filled with sadness.

“So he just doesn't like me, then? He ditched me, just like you did?” Then tears spill in earnest, and her hands go back up to her face.

I take it back. I
could
be more surprised.

“Demi, what are you talking about?” I ask, careful to keep my voice soothing. “I didn't ditch you.”

She drops her hands back to her sides, her eyebrows knit together in frustration. “You did! You were my
best friend,
and one day you just disappeared. You stopped coming over. You stopped sitting with me at lunch. You got yourself all those new friends, and left me all by myself,” she says. She tries to swallow more tears, but ends up hiccuping.

I take a step back from her. I try to process what she's saying, but it just sounds so wrong. I didn't ditch her. She ditched
me,
by throwing herself into the rat race of middle school. She became this totally different person, with no time for me anymore. I was just dragging her down. And I tell her so. I tell her how
I
remember it, and I can tell from the way she shakes her head, confusion splashed across her ever-melting makeup, that she doesn't remember it this way at all.

“If you still wanted to be my friend, why didn't you just tell me? Call me? You could have come to sit with me at lunch any time you wanted.”

“Liza, you had the
band,
” she says, a note of disdain dripping from her overly lined cherry-red lips. Her stage makeup makes her look a bit like a mime, and every expression seems exaggerated.

I give her a dirty look, my lip curling when she says
band.
“Oh right, I forgot. The band is way too full of losers for you to deign to sit with us,” I snap, crossing my hands over my chest and cocking a hip out to the side.