Enthusiasm (24 page)

After our curtain calls, Dean Hanson and the headmaster took over to make what amounted to a fund-raising pitch. Ned stayed onstage as the Live Performance Scholar, an example of the great things that resulted when Old Boys opened their checkbooks. But Parr slipped away and found me backstage where I was waiting for Ashleigh. “Here—these are for you,” he said. He handed me a bunch of flowers wrapped in blank newsprint.

Ashleigh came up, carrying an armload of bundled costumes and props. “There you are,” she said. “I don’t think we can wait for Ned—he said it would take another hour. We better get going. Your mom’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll walk you,” said Parr.

On the way out of the theater, a woman in the audience stopped him. They had the same eyes. “Snip, that was wonderful,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom. But not in public, remember?”

“Oh—right—sorry, Snip, I forgot.”

“
Mother!
Matricide!”

“Sorry, sorry, I mean Grandison.”

“That’s better. Mom, this is Ashleigh Rossi and Julia Lefkowitz. My mother, Susan Parr. I’ll be right back, Mom, I’m just going to see Julia and Ashleigh out.”

“It’s nice to meet you, girls. Don’t be too long, Sn—Grandison, your father’s trapped in there with the headmaster.”

“ ‘Snip’?” I asked as we walked down the drive.

“It’s short for Parsnip, I’m sorry to say. She’s not supposed to call me that in public. I wish she hadn’t. I love her, and it’ll pain me to kill her.”

“Snip is better than Junior,” said Ashleigh.

“It’s better than Parsley or Parboiled. Or Sley or Boiled,” I suggested.

“Don’t,” said Parr. “It would pain me even more to kill
you
.”

“Tridge,” I said. “Terre. Ticipation. Kinglot. Liament.”

“Enough! Mercy!”

“All right, Typooper.” I was giddy with relief that we seemed to be on speaking terms again. We approached the end of the drive.

“When will I see you again?” asked Parr. “You’re coming to the Spring Frolic, aren’t you? I’ll send you tickets. But it’s not until April.”

“Didn’t Ned tell you?” said Ashleigh. “We’re collaborating on a song cycle. Ms. Wilson said we could—it counts as community outreach. We meet on Thursday afternoons, when the music studio is free.”

“Oh, Ash! You didn’t say it was Thursdays! I can’t make it then,” I said. “That’s when
Sailing
meets.”

“I didn’t know you sailed,” said Parr. “So do I—my father’s obsessed with sailing. Maybe I’ll go out for it in the spring. We could meet on the river.”

“Not sailing boats—
Sailing to Byzantium
, our literary magazine,” I explained.

Parr stiffened. “Oh, I see,” he said.

Oh, no! He was clearly thinking of Seth. Had I ruined everything? Was there anything I could say? “I wish I could quit—I would, but Dad would kill me, especially now that
Insomnia
’s over and I don’t have any other extracurriculars,” I said.

Parr relaxed slightly. “Well, I’m sure I’ll think of something,” he said. “Ski break isn’t that far off, anyway.”

“Ski break? What’s that?” said Ashleigh.

“You know—mid-February vacation—Presidents’ Day and all that. Don’t you get off for it?” We shook our heads. “Well, we do,” said Parr. “My parents like to go to Vermont, but I think this would be a good year to stay at our place in Steeplecliff instead.”

We reached the gate and my mother’s car and said our good-byes.

When Ashleigh deposited her armload of props and costumes in the backseat, I saw she was also carrying a bunch of flowers in newsprint. Hers were tulips; she looked at mine, which were something tall and lilylike. “Oh, Ned gave you flowers too!” she said.

“These are from Parr.”

“Yeah, Ned told me he stole them from the Conservatory. Turkeyface almost caught him,” she said proudly. “It’s just like him to share them with Parr.”

As we drove away, I saw Parr standing by the gate, looking after us until we turned the corner of the drive.

Chapter 21

A Nonstatic Screen Wipe
~
Ashleigh’s new Craze.

A
nd that was it. No more
Midwinter Insomnia.
No more Parr. The weeks stretched out before me, blank and numb.

Ashleigh, lucky thing, began her musical collaboration at Forefield that Thursday, while I stayed at school for the
Sailing
meeting.

“Slim pickings here,” said our editor, Eleanor, waving a few pages, the only submissions so far. “Come on, guys, beat the bushes. Pound the pavement—pester the talent. Get your ear in gear. What’s the matter, doesn’t
anyone
have a masterpiece in a drawer somewhere? Maggie? Andrew? Julie? What’s wrong with you! Come on, Julie, I know you have something squirreled away. Of course you do, you always have ink up and down your arms.”

“Don’t be shy, Julie,” said Seth. “What about that sonnet you said you were writing?”

I denied it. Any expression I might have given to my feelings was too private, too sacred for those eyes.

Since my mother was still at work, Seth drove me home after the meeting. “Don’t you want to show me your sonnet?” he coaxed, parking in front of my house. He was clearly angling to be invited in. “I could help you make the rhyme and meter work before you submit it to the board, if that’s what you’re nervous about. I bet it won’t be too hard to fix it.”

“There is no sonnet! Leave it alone, okay?” I said irritably, getting out of the car.

“All right! Sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be so touchy,” said Seth. “You don’t have to be, you know—you’re really a pretty good writer.”

“Yeah, thanks, see you tomorrow,” I said, shutting the door hard and going into the house quickly.

I went upstairs and e-mailed Parr. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help it.

Thanks again for the beautiful flowers. They’ve just finished opening. I have them on my desk, where I can see them whenever I look up. Did Ned really steal them from the conservatory, like Ashleigh says?

Parr wrote back at once:

Dear Julia,

Do you think I would let someone else commit my crimes for me? I stole every one of those amaryllises with my own hands.

I miss you.

CGP

He missed me! The words made my inky arms tingle, and I confess I kissed the screen where they appeared. Did he mean it? Did he miss me as much as I missed him? But what good would all the missing in the world do, when he was
there
and I was
here
and Ashleigh lay between us? Almost screaming with frustration, I got a nonstatic wipe out of my desk drawer and cleaned the mark of my lips off the screen.

When Seth drove me home again a week later, Ashleigh was waiting for me on her porch, wrapped in the big down throw from the Rossis’ couch. “There you are, Julie,” she said, hurrying down the steps. The corner of the throw trailed in the dry grass. “I need to talk to you.”

Seth set his jaw sourly. By now he must hate Ashleigh as much as my stepmother did, but I was grateful to have a chaperone for the dangerous end of the drive, the most likely moment for a guy to lunge. I knew he wouldn’t do anything with Ashleigh hovering over us. He let me out and drove off at once.

“Thanks, Ash,” I said after he was gone. “I keep being afraid he’s going to kiss me good-bye. What’s up?”

She looked grave and uncomfortable. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go up to my room,” she said.

I followed her upstairs and sat down on her bed. She sat on her desk chair, fidgeting, weirdly quiet.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why are you acting all weird?”

“Jules, I . . .” She stopped, took a deep breath, and started again. “Julie, is it really true . . .” She trailed off.

“What? Is what really true?”

“Is it true that—is it true what you’re always saying about Ned?”

“What? Ash, tell me what’s wrong. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What am I always saying about Ned?” She opened and closed her mouth a few times, but didn’t manage to answer. “What do you mean?” I said. “I’m not the one who talks about Ned all the time—you are. I don’t know why you want to believe I like him, but I don’t. I mean, he’s a nice guy and everything, but I just don’t
like
him.”

“That! That’s what I mean,” said Ashleigh. “Is it really true? You’re not just saying that?”

“What, that I don’t like him?
Yes
, it’s really true. Why would I be just saying that? I keep telling you it’s true! I keep telling you over and over! Why don’t you want to believe it?”

“You’re sure?”

“YES, I’M SURE! Why are you going on about this?”

“Because—” Ashleigh took a deep breath. “I . . . He . . . We . . .”

My heart began to pound before I knew why. Then I knew why. “Ash!
You
like him! Is
that
it?”

She gave a strangled nod.

I had never before seen her speechless like this. I felt like whooping. I threw my arms around her. “Ash! You’re perfect for each other!”

“You don’t mind, then?”

“
Mind
? Why would I mind? That my best friend likes a really nice guy? And he likes you too, right? It’s so obvious! The flowers! The music! Why didn’t I see it? He does, doesn’t he?”

She nodded. “I think so,” she said. “At least—he kissed me.”

“He
kissed
you? What? When? Tell me!”

It had happened in the soundproofed rehearsal room. “When you spend a lot of time with someone, and you realize all the things you have in common, like music and liking to do fun things like playing little tricks on people and trying out different instruments and really talking about stuff, and there we were sitting on the same piano bench in complete privacy because nobody could hear us, and oh, Julie! He’s so wonderful! He has the most beautiful voice! And his hands are so strong from playing the piano and his left hand has these wonderful calluses from the cello. Don’t you love the cello? It has that soulful, sexy sound—just like Ned’s voice. Kissing him is absolutely nothing like kissing Ravi. He was a little shy, so I kissed him first, but he said afterward that he was about to kiss me a split second later.”

Once they realized how they felt, said Ashleigh, the only thing that stood in their way was Ashleigh’s loyal determination not to destroy what she thought, generous girl, was my happiness. She still had trouble believing that I was telling the truth—she had trouble believing that anyone could know Ned and not love him as she did. I had to reassure her over and over.

I considered admitting that there was Someone Else for me too, but I held off. I knew how much trouble she would have turning her focus from the subject that engrossed her—but once she did, there would be no holding her back. My tender feelings weren’t yet ready for the full force of Ashleigh. Besides, I didn’t want to spoil her moment.

For the rest of the evening she poured out her joy. I soon realized that her new attachment represented not merely a change of love interest, but a full-out craze change. How had I missed it? The signs had all been there: her relenting about whether to expose the lower limbs, the intensity of her interest in
Midwinter Insomnia
. Her parents had noticed her new enthusiasm for Broadway long before I did—hence the tickets to
Fascination!
And our visit to Parr’s town house, I now realized, had been for Ned’s sake, not Parr’s.

“What about Parr?” I asked at length, my heart beating hard.

“What about him?”

“You said you liked him back in October—remember? You seemed pretty serious about it.”

“Oh—yes—well, I thought I did, but that was before I really understood what Love was. You were right after all when you thought Ned was Darcy! Nothing against Parr, he’s a really nice guy, but he’s no Ned. He just doesn’t have the same fire—the talent—the intensity—the inventive good humor—the
life
. You know what I mean?”

Smiling to myself, I said I could see how she would think so.

Chapter 22

The B-word
~
Seth vanquished
~
a Ring
~
my Sixth Kiss
~
an Acrostic.

I
fell asleep that night in a dazzle of happiness. Honor no longer stood between me and my heart’s desire.