Silent Song (Ghostly Rhapsody) (6 page)

“Again, I have to ask…” He shoved his hands in his pockets, lay back against the control table in the pit and regarded me coolly from under his unruly, straight hair. “What do you care?”

No smart comeback on my part. I fished around for some excuse to throw his way, but I couldn’t concentrate on inventing an explanation to avoid the truth when I couldn’t make sense out of the truth either.

What do I care, really? What is it to me, to have him stay after hours with the rest of us, alone among all the theatre people, playing that heavenly music of his?

He smirked again, wider this time. “Is my house no longer enough for you?”

I froze. Literally. My blood crystallized in my limbs and my lungs burned from lack of air. I guessed that I had gone either very pale or extremely red.

“What are you talking about?”

His gaze went down my body, all the way to my feet, and then up again. “I know it’s you.”

“What are you talking about?” I repeated, my voice going shrill.

“I’m talking about camping under my window for hours, listening in. I’d call it voyeuristic, but it’s not like I’m having sex. Though that might be what you think about. Is it?”

I slapped him. I wasn’t even conscious of me crossing over to him, but then my hand stung and his head stayed turned to the side, his cheek reddening by the second.

If I had hoped to deny it, my reaction had just sold me.

My lips tried to form words, lies, to say it hadn’t been like that, to ask how he knew. Again, his gaze traveled lazily to my feet… He wasn’t appraising me, I realized with a sickening feeling. He was pointing out my favorite shoes.

“The yard might not be as well cared for as your own, but it still shows when you kill the flower beds with stilettos.”

“There are plenty of people who wear stilettos.”

“Not plenty of people who wear them muddy the next day to school.”

Damn, damn, damn it and damn him and…

He knows
.

“How long have you known?” My mouth was dry.

“Long enough, Princess. You know, you could have come in to listen without the damp and the cold…”

He pushed off the table and sidestepped me, and suddenly he sounded tired and…hurt? He hauled his guitar case up and walked to the door.

“But that would have been too much like the old times, right?”

And he left. And I realized a stupid, fat tear had escaped the corner of my eye and was intent on ruining my mascara.

The secret was out. What would that mean now?

When I collected myself and left the auditorium, I went straight for the school exit. The rest of the group was lounging in the corridors, waiting and looking smug and amused.

Had they thrown some extra jives Keith’s way when he left?

I didn’t really want to know. I could do something extremely stupid if the answer was yes. I didn’t want to see their high-and-mighty faces either, so I didn’t stop when I passed them by. But I did throw my best icy, Bitch Princess look to Lena, right over my shoulder.

Hah! Take my royal power
.

When I was by the curve of the parking lot, hurried footsteps caught up with me.

“Alice!” Anna shouted, out of breath. “Wait up! What’s gotten into you?”

I whirled on her. “How would you like it if Lena had broken, I don’t know, the windshield of your car instead?”

She gave me a look that said she didn’t understand. Then she snorted a short, incredulous laugh. “I can’t believe it. This is really about that?”

“Yes, it’s about that. And I can’t believe you’re so cool with it.”

“You’re taking his side, even though he hit my head? Hello! I’m here, and we’re supposed to be friends!”

“You said you were okay, and it happened almost a month ago!”

“So what? It’s still my head, my clothing, and my stuff.”

“Nothing got damaged, Anna. Nothing at all. Which, coincidentally, wasn’t the case today.”

“I
could
have been hurt!”

“Then, take it up with your beloved Ray because he flung you into Keith!”

I breathed hard because of the discussion. Of both discussions. This was starting to be too much, too fast. What I needed was some quiet time to regroup, think straight and come up with something that said that no, my life was not in shambles. I didn’t need to be fighting with my best friend in plain view of the school, defending the resident freak.

But the words were out and I could not call them back. Anna’s eyes narrowed.

“Is that it? You’re jealous because I have Ray?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can barely stand him.”

“You don’t seem to complain when we go partying and he gives you a ride home.”

“He did it once, Anna, because you told him to. And surprise, I don’t mind because he’s my best friend’s boyfriend!”

“It takes guts to call yourself my best friend while taking the side of Dracula in Drag.”

“Dracula in Drag?” For a moment, the nickname was so ridiculous that it sobered me up. The moment didn’t last long enough. “Name calling is so kindergarten.”

“Yeah? You sure you’re not bothered because it’s him?”

“Please, what could I possibly have with him?”

“You tell me. I know you used to know him, before high school.” Her narrowed gaze became hard and she shot to kill. “Perhaps you miss playing doctor with him, and that’s the reason you’re freaking out because of a joke? Is that why you’re putting Dave off?”

I wanted to be enraged, but I was ashamed and mortified. I hated Anna at that moment. She was the only one who knew, besides my parents, of course, and while we’d never talked about it and it had been a long time since she’d learned my obscure secret… She had good memory and knew how to hurt.

So I paid back in kind. Turning on my heels, I tried the most dignified exit I could pull off—and judging by the looks of the other kids in the parking lot, it worked.

Perhaps it was cowardly, beating a hasty retreat when my friend unburied the war drums, but I was a Bitch Princess, not a National Hero.

Besides, I needed to do damage control. How many people had learned that Keith and I had shared a couple of years of elementary school? By itself, the admission wasn’t too serious. And we’d not really been friends back then—when you’re a kid, friendships are quite limited. But for a while, our parents had known each other and gotten along in a distant, nice kind of way and so had we.

Then Keith had moved. I hadn’t seen him at all during middle grade. When we met again, in high school, he was so changed that the only traits remaining were his eyes. And even those had gotten much older.

By that point, talking to him in public would have been social suicide. I had been curious, though, and had followed him to his place one day to ask how he was, why he’d moved and why his horrid taste forced him to dye his hair with silvery streaks. I never got answers, but I discovered his guitar. I had started taking detours and listening to him baring his soul while he thought he was alone.

And while the knowing him part wasn’t compromising, the spying on him part was very much embarrassing.

***

I went straight home that day. Dad hadn’t returned from work yet, but Mom was on the sofa, reading a book with the TV on mute.

“Hey, Mom,” I said on the way to the stairs. Then I stopped, my mind still whirling about Keith and Anna and Lena.

Why not?

“Hey, Mom,” I said again, wandering into the sitting room.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Do you remember the Brannaghs?”

She seemed startled and perhaps ashamed for a second, but then she put herself together and closed the book, leaving her finger to mark the page.

“Of course. We saw quite a lot of them when you were little. I believe the boy goes to school with you now?”

I nodded. “Yeah, so… why did we stop seeing them?”

“They moved.”

Prefabricated untruth stink coming from a mile away.

“So…?” I pressed the issue.

Mom sighed. “Adriana… Mrs. Brannagh died. Cancer.”

I had no idea. I hadn’t really seen Keith’s mother around, but I’d figured it was because I took pains not to see anyone related to him.

It made me feel wretched.

“He never said anything,” I muttered. He never spoke about his father either, or his pets.

Does he have pets?

What do I know about him anyway?

Okay, not going that way. Depression awaits there
.

“Shouldn’t we have been closer to them, then? You know the drill, cookies and friendly support and such.”

Mom shifted.

So that’s what makes her uncomfortable
.

“They moved, and then Mr. Brannagh closed up. He didn’t look like he wanted visitors,” she explained, not believing a word she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just realized I didn’t know the answer. I’m going up to my room. I got a lot of work, so I might not come down for dinner.”

She nodded and turned back to her book, and I mounted the stairs in a most unladylike fashion, my mind reeling. Somehow, mocking “Keith, Dracula in Drag” felt great in comparison to mocking “Keith, Whose Mom Died Tragically.” But they were one and the same, and I had been ignoring him and making fun of him for as long as high school had lasted.

Way to make myself feel better after an awesome day
.

Dropping my bag and the textbooks haphazardly in a corner, I threw myself on the bed. I did have a lot of work, but I wouldn’t be able to get it done before I figured out the mess I was into.

Which meant it didn’t get done at all, because after a while of thinking, I fell asleep, dead to the world.

I didn’t dream that night.

Next day at school, I had to wonder if what had happened the previous day had only been a dream.

Everyone acted like their everyday selves. Anna grinned and joked with me like always, and Dave came up to walk us to the cafeteria on lunch break.

It felt way too much like a parallel universe, because Lena looked nice and sweet—in her Bitch Queen kind of way, I guess—and Jack kept his big mouth shut.

I sat down and started to eat in silence, pondering my possible madness while listening to the newest gossip, when I felt movement behind me. The smile was wiped clean from Lena’s face, Anna bit her lip and Dave, bless him, reached across to put a placating hand on Ray’s shoulder.

“Got a minute?”

I would recognize the deep, rumbling voice anywhere. I thought about saying no. About ignoring him and finishing my lunch. That would have been in character for me.

But, who was I kidding? I wanted to talk to him.

“Do you really think anyone would have a minute to waste on you?” Lena’s voice sounded harsh and biting, but I covered the end of her sentence with the scraping of the chair as I got up.

The whole table looked up at me, their expressions hovering between astounded and horrified, but I kept my head high and turned to Keith with my most imperturbable look.

After a long minute of just looking, I prompted, “Well?”

He broke his surprised gaze away and nodded, leading the way out of the cafeteria. The chatter stopped in our wake and pairs of eyes from all the tables we passed by drilled my back. I could almost make out the din of their gossiping kick-starting with a vengeance when we were out of sight. Thankfully, the halls were empty and our footsteps echoed in the silence as Keith guided me away from the lunch rush, from the classes, from any possible straggler. Taking a turn to the left, he opened an emergency door into a fire exit and waited for me to enter before him.

“You don’t seem too worried about my flaunted reputation today,” I said, unable to hold the silence any longer, even though it wasn’t a very nice way to start the conversation.

He smiled, neither happy nor amused. Just a physical gesture of a smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay. No one will think that anything happened while being alone and sequestered in a fire exit, the most clichéd make-out spot in the world.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but managed to tone it down. A little.

“I meant about yesterday. I’m sorry about yesterday,” he amended, reaching up to brush his hair out of his face and to look at me.

That threw me off balance.

“It wasn’t your fault. I just took it out on you because you were handy,” he went on.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special.” He tried to elaborate, but I held up a hand. “It’s okay,” I said. “That guitar is very important for you, isn’t it?”

“She’s my life.”

“Was it a gift?” I had been thinking about it before going to sleep. He had gotten so mad when I had told him to just replace it because it was old; perhaps it was a gift. Perhaps it was the last gift from his dead mother.