Between the Notes (24 page)

S
chool the next day was beyond surreal. I kept thinking I had something on my face, the way everyone stared at me. And I wasn’t just being paranoid. A group of kids would be huddled around someone’s phone, then they’d all look up at me when I passed. And I kept hearing people say, “Five thousand dollars!” So, news of the cash prize had definitely circulated.

I still couldn’t believe I had won. I’d given the check directly to my mother. “For food. For bills. Whatever.” She’d taken it and slipped it into her purse, but promised the first thing we’d buy was an electric piano for my room. I didn’t argue.

Amid the happiness of winning, there was a disappointment also. James hadn’t shown. I’d looked for him everywhere, but he wasn’t in the theater. I couldn’t figure out why he’d gone to the trouble of sending me that flyer if he wasn’t going to be there.

I walked into English class, where everyone had gathered around Mr. Eli’s computer. I peeked between their heads, then quickly backed away when I saw what they were all looking at—me. Someone had videotaped my performance. It was right there on YouTube.

“Nice job, Ivy,” Mr. Eli said when he spotted me.

My classmates buzzed around me, full of congratulations and—let’s be honest—a bit of shock and disbelief. Their voices blended together into one long stream of praise. “I had no idea . . . so amazing . . . your voice . . . made me cry . . . that song . . . so good . . . where did you learn to play like that?” I nodded and smiled and thank you, thank you, thank you’d.

I looked toward Reesa, the one person I would’ve enjoyed celebrating this moment with. She sat primly in her chair, a secret smile on her lips.

I sat down next to her.

“Congratulations,” she said, not looking at me.

“Thanks,” I said back.

That was the extent of our conversation, which left an ache in my heart amid all its leaping and fluttering.

People I’d never met were shouting and whooping at me. I wanted to dig a very deep hole and swan-dive into it. Molly came running up to me just as I was about to take shelter in the bathroom.

“If I’d known you were going to do
that
, I would’ve convinced my mother to celebrate Dad’s birthday at the King,” she said. “He would’ve loved it.”

“Aw, thanks,” I said as a few of the basketball players came along and high-fived me. “This is so embarrassing.”

“It’s your fifteen minutes of fame,” said Molly. “Might as well enjoy it. And you are totally playing something with me the next time. Some crazy-ass clarinet-piano mind-blowing shit.”

“Definitely,” I said. “Ours will be the craziest-ass clarinet-piano duet in history. Also possibly the first.”

She hugged me, laughing. Over her shoulder, I saw Reesa watching us. I wanted to go to her and make peace. She’d been encouraging me to do something like this for so long. But the moment I caught her eye, she turned and walked away.

“So can we use some of that five thousand dollars to pimp out our party?” Molly asked. “Maybe hire a DJ or something?”

I shook my head. “I gave it to my parents. For stuff like food and shelter. You know.”

Molly grinned, “Yeah, that’s cool. Our lack of professional entertainment and catering doesn’t seem to be affecting the turnout, anyway.”

She pulled out a list of guests. “The party’s getting a little big,” she said. “And these are only the people who told me they’re coming. What if the entire school shows up?”

“They know we’re not serving beer or anything, right?” I said. “And my parents will be there.”

Molly shrugged. “I told ’em. Maybe they’re all planning to get loaded before they come.”

I cringed. “Oh, God.”

“Well,” she said, “Lennie’s friends will be there in case anything gets out of hand.”

“They’re the ones I’m worried about,” I mumbled.

I couldn’t face the cafeteria at lunch, for the polar opposite of the reason I used to fear it. They wanted me today. They wanted to soak in my moment of celebrity, as brief and fleeting as it surely was. All this time I’d been so worried about being cast out, only to discover that being wanted was sometimes harder.

So I went to the secret room. I flipped through the books, hoping I’d missed something, a hidden note. But they were just as I’d left them. No more James. No more notes. I shoved the books into my backpack. I could mail the Shakespeare back to him, at least. He couldn’t have meant to leave something so treasured behind.

When I switched off the lamp and closed the door to the secret room, it felt like I had finished the final chapter of a favorite book. I always observed a little period of mourning for the characters I wouldn’t be spending time with anymore. Their stories were over. They had walked off the page and into my life, then disappeared. Like James. It wasn’t fair. I hated not knowing what happened to him next.

I bumped into someone on the way to my next class and didn’t even realize it was Lennie until he offered to carry my backpack.

“What have you got in here?” he said, throwing it over a shoulder.

“Books,” I said.

“What kind of books?”

My heart felt like a brick. “Ancient history.”

Lennie didn’t ask any more questions. He walked me to my locker and set my backpack on the floor.

“Thanks,” I said.

His eyes were still gemlike and shimmering—with no stage lights to reflect. No purple dress. I was having a hard time looking away. “See you later?” I said.

“I told Molly I’d take her to pick up some sodas at Save-a-Cent. With my discount,” he said. “Meet us out front?”

I hesitated for just a second, distracted by his eyes and the weight of those books in my backpack and the party I was throwing the next day and how James had never responded to all those invitations and . . .

“Unless you’re afraid to be seen with me,” Lennie was saying.

“Sorry, I . . . what?”

He just shook his head. “You planning to float home or you want a ride?”

I smiled. “Both, I think.”

He smiled back, and I forgot about everything else and just wondered, how did I not see how beautiful he was before?

M
olly and I started decorating for the party early Saturday afternoon. We set up chairs that Molly had collected from the neighborhood. And my mother unpacked some strings of white lights she had stashed under the bed, a small fraction of what we used to decorate our old house for the holidays but enough to drape around and illuminate the backyard. Kaya spent the day cutting ghosts and bats and spiders out of construction paper and attaching them to tree branches or recruiting Lennie to hang them from higher limbs. Brady mostly ran around, so excited he could hardly say anything except “Boo!”

Things felt different between Lennie and me. Ever since open mic night when he’d held my hands backstage—my hands felt empty without his. And every time I looked up, Lennie’s eyes would find mine. It seemed like he was afraid I’d disappear.

I helped Carla in her kitchen for a while and was stealing a taste of the
pan de huevo
she was making, with chocolate, vanilla, and coconut toppings, when my mother called to me from the
screen door, waving a little slip of paper in her hand.

“There’s a message for you on the machine,” she said as I walked out of Carla’s apartment. “From yesterday. I forgot to check until now. It’s James.”

Lennie looked over from the tub he was filling with ice and sodas he’d brought from the Save-a-Cent.

This was the moment I’d been waiting for, hoping for . . . for weeks. Checking messages every day. Ever since James left, my first and last thought of the day had been of him.

Until I saw Lennie backstage . . .

“What did he say?” I hurried up the back stairs to meet her at our kitchen door.

“He said he’s coming to the party,” she said, too loud, before glancing over my shoulder and realizing Lennie could hear her. “I saved the message.”

The machine was blinking like crazy. I pushed the button to rewind. The first voice I heard was Lennie’s: “Mrs. Emerson? This is Lennie Lazarski. I’m with Ivy, at the King Theatre and . . .”

My mom had told me the night before about Lennie calling, telling them all about my performance so they wouldn’t miss it. I hit the button to skip to the next message. Lennie again. Then one from Carla. Then my dad looking for Mom. Lennie once more. And finally, the soft, low voice I’d been missing all these weeks.

I held my breath as the recording began to play. “Hi, it’s James . . . uh, James Wickerton, calling for Ivy. Ivy? I, uh . . . got
your invitation. I’ll be there, okay? I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I can’t wait to see you.”

I played it back and listened again. He hadn’t mentioned open mic night, or the song, but he knew about the party so one of my letters must’ve gotten through. And he was coming!

That’s what I wanted, right?

I listened to the message again and again, and once more before going back outside, where I found Molly icing the sodas alone.

“Where’s Lennie?” I said.

She blinked at me a few times. “Went home on the third playback of the message, I’d say, or maybe it was the fourth.”

“You could hear that?”

She pointed toward our kitchen. The window above the sink, the one right next to the answering machine, was open.

“I should go talk to him,” I mumbled as I started toward Lennie’s shed.

Molly stopped me. “Might want to leave him alone for a while.”

“But . . .”

“Seriously.” Her voice was sharp. “You invite some other guy to the party we’re having and you don’t think he’s going to be pissed?”

“I didn’t . . . it’s not like that, I . . .”

“Look, it’s none of my business. Just stop torturing him, okay?” She started opening folding chairs, a little more vigorously than necessary.

I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, now painfully aware of
the absence of Lennie’s eyes on me. My hands still felt empty and now my heart did, too. Carla’s back screen door creaked open and she leaned out, her face tender with understanding. She must’ve heard it all.

“Can I do anything?” she asked.

I sighed. “Actually, could you help me with my costume?” I said. “I finally figured out what I want to be.”

She nodded and let me in. I sketched my idea on paper and we found the perfect gauzy fabric in her bins of leftovers, as well as colorful bits of chiffon. We untwisted some wire hangers and bent them into shape; then Carla sewed and I glued. While it was all drying, I went upstairs and picked out a pair of black boots and black leggings and a stretchy black top with long sleeves. I pulled my hair up with one of those giant black binder clips, the one Lennie had made fun of that day (which seemed like a thousand years ago but also just yesterday).

Then I went back downstairs to Carla’s and put on my butterfly wings.

“Gorgeous,” she said, motioning for me to spin around so she could appraise our handiwork. “If I do say so myself.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Why a butterfly?” she asked. “Is that who you
really
are?”

I wasn’t prepared to explain it, how the butterfly wings were my way of showing Lennie I
was
the girl he thought I was—a girl who wanted to fly, who wanted fly with
him.
“It’s who I want to be,” I finally said.

When it was time for the party to start, Molly and I stood out front—me in my butterfly wings and her in an all-white outfit with horizontal lines drawn across the front and back. “A story yet to be written,” she explained.

I glanced at Lennie’s house as guests began to arrive, but he didn’t come out. There were assorted superheroes, as I predicted, and one girl came dressed in full-on princess garb, tiara and everything. The guy Molly liked had simply hung a compass around his neck and declared himself an explorer. Rigby showed up with a bunch of newspaper articles taped to his shirt, all with horrible news about car accidents, fires, earthquakes, unemployment.

“What are you?” I asked.

He flashed a mischievous grin. “Bad news. Get it?”

I groaned, then laughed.

Rigby looked past my shoulder. “What’s up, man?”

I turned to see Lennie approaching. He wasn’t wearing a costume, just a black T-shirt and black jeans. He folded his arms over his chest when he reached us, his tattoo flexing.

“Let me guess,” said Rigby. “Batman? No, a hipster?” He stroked his chin. “Really need a goatee for that. How about . . .”

Lennie didn’t answer. He barely acknowledged Rigby’s presence. He was too busy staring at me in my butterfly wings, as surprised as if I’d just flown in on them and landed right in front of him.

“Yeah, uh . . . I’ll just . . . get myself a drink,” said Rigby, flashing
me a quick glance. “You okay, Ivy?”

I nodded. “I’m good.”

I stepped closer to Lennie and laid my hand on his chest. On his heart. “Who are you?” I whispered.

“Me?” He looked down at my hand. “I’m nobody. Nobody at all.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

“Sure it is.” He smirked. “You said so yourself.”

“When?”

“Plenty of times,” he said. “To your friends. To yourself . . .”

I opened my mouth to protest but he was right. I had said it. “That was before I knew you. I don’t think that anymore.”

“What
do
you think?” His dark eyes sank into mine, and I didn’t look away. I’d done this for him, this costume. Now I was going to have to tell him why.

“What I think is . . .” I took a deep breath. “I think you’re the only one who ever really saw me. Like
this
.” I lifted my arms so my fingertips could brush the edges of my wings. “You’re the only one who thought I could fly.”

He took a step toward me, put a hand to my waist. “Now I’m just afraid you will.”

My lips parted to tell him I wouldn’t, that I wasn’t going anywhere. But Brady ran up and squeezed right between us in his pirate suit. Lennie stepped back.

“What are you?” asked Brady, poking his plastic sword at Lennie’s chest.

“He’s not wearing a costume,” I explained.

Brady looked thoroughly troubled by this news. We had told him everyone would have a costume, that it was a costume party. Not having a costume was a
problem.

Lennie seemed to sense it, too. “Maybe you could find one for me,” he said quickly to Brady. “An extra sword or something?”

My brother’s face got very serious and he marched back into the house.

“You are in serious trouble now,” I said.

Lennie smiled, gazed down at my costume again, and said, “I sure am.”

I gave him a playful shove. More guests were arriving, and I soon got caught up with hellos and pointing people to the drinks and giving Rigby a thumbs-up on the music he was playing. When I danced my butterfly wings back over to Lennie, he was kneeling down in front of Brady by the hedge that separated our yards. There was a bundle of red-and-blue cloth in Brady’s arms.

“Costume for you,” he was saying to Lennie.

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh at the Superman pajamas he held up. “This is great, little dude,” said Lennie. “But I don’t think it’ll fit me.”

“Here.” I stepped in and separated the red cape from the rest of it. “This is just your size.”

Lennie sighed but didn’t argue. He let me tie it around his neck. Then he zoomed around Brady like he was flying. My brother clapped, he was so happy. Then he dug something else
out of his pocket and held it out to us. Lennie took it and his eyes went wide. He showed it to me.

It was a Wonder Woman Band-Aid.

“Oohh,” I said, laughing now. “This is just what Lennie needs, Brady. Very nice.”

My brother beamed and ran off, satisfied that his mission was complete. Lennie handed me the Band-Aid. “Would you like to do the honors?”

I unwrapped the package and held the sticky part of the bandage toward him. “Where do you want it?”

He tapped his chest, right over his heart. “This spot could use a little mending.”

I swallowed. “Did I do that?”

He shrugged. “It’s a recurring injury.”

I stepped very close and pressed the bandage to his shirt, rubbing it against his chest with my thumbs to make sure it would stick. “All better now.”

“If you say so,” he whispered, cupping his hand over mine and pressing it to his chest. He took a few small steps backward into the shadow of the hedge, pulling me with him.

I literally had his heart in the palm of my hand, and it was pounding hard. My thumb slid up to the base of his throat and caressed the hollow spot there. I hardly knew what I was doing. It was as if my body had rebelled against my brain, and my brain wasn’t putting up much of a fight.

“Len,” I whispered as his lips brushed my jaw. “I . . .”

He inhaled my unspoken words with a kiss so soft and so warm, it made me want to fly. My whole body sighed into his.

When we pulled apart moments later, he smiled at first, his mouth pink from my lip gloss. Then his eyes flickered past me to the party now in full swing, and his body tensed. His hands dropped away from me.

I turned and saw James standing in front of our house, searching the crowd. He was wearing his apron from Bensen’s grocery. I took a step farther into the darkness, but Lennie pushed me back. “Don’t jerk the guy around,” he said. “He doesn’t deserve it any more than I do.”

“But . . .”

“Your prince awaits,” he said as he slipped behind the hedge and disappeared.