The Boy I Love (7 page)

“Oh, hey, Wren,” he said. He let go of the girl's hand, which took some doing since their fingers were so tangled up together. “How's your wrist?”

“It's my hand,” I said. I held up my bandage to show him. “It's real bad. I probably won't ever play guitar again.”

“Ever?” he said. “Your mom said you could start again this winter.”

“No,” I said. I felt like an idiot, and a little kid, but I couldn't stop myself. I was so close to crying. “I am never going to play guitar again.”

Then I turned around and ran out of the store, Allie right behind. It was dramatic, and I didn't bother turning around to see the looks on Ry's and his girlfriend's faces. I could imagine well enough anyway. They would look totally confused, and then after a minute they would start laughing about another stupid little girl in love with Ry. Probably three of us a day run out of that music store in tears.

“Aw, Wren, that sucks,” Allie said, as we sat down to eat slices of pizza at the Good Life. “I can just imagine how I'd feel, if I saw Tim like that with another girl. And just when things were going so well for you.”

“Allie,” I said. “My river is infested with reptiles and I nearly burned my hand off in a bonfire.” At the same time I said this I knew exactly what she meant. These two unfortunate occurrences had led to all sorts of attention and new friends. Funny how life can be that way. For example, after the initial shock, I found myself not feeling especially sad about Ry. Sure, I was embarrassed about how I left the music shop. “But truthfully,” I told Allie, “what did I expect would happen? I'm sixteen. Ry's, like, twentysomething.”

“He could be arrested,” Allie agreed. “And anyway, he's got snaggly teeth.”

I shrugged. I thought Ry's teeth gave him character, but I didn't feel like arguing.

“Maybe now you can have a boyfriend your own age,”
Allie said. “I can go out with Tim and you can go out with Devon.”

Devon? Huh. He might act nice, but by now I felt pretty sure he
wasn't
so nice. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I wouldn't go out with him if you paid me a million dollars. I would've expected Allie to realize this, but the idea made her so happy that I didn't argue.

Allie's mom drove me home, and instead of heading inside I snuck out to the barn. Even though I wasn't cleared to ride yet, I could still climb up on Pandora's back. It's something I've always liked to do to calm myself down—just climb on up, and then lie back with my head on her rump, staring up at the pine-board ceiling and taking in the scent of clean hay and straw.

*   *   *

Tryouts for
Finian's Rainbow
were on Monday after school. My mom and I had been practicing singing “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” all the past week and I felt pretty good, though she kept warning me about how a sophomore probably wouldn't get to play Sharon. That was her nice way of saying that no matter how well I sang, I looked way too young to play the lead. Unlike Tim Greenlaw. I wondered if he could really sing, and what part he'd get. I thought about what happened with Allie and cheerleading and reminded myself not to get my hopes up. Allie had finally broken down and told her
parents that she hadn't made the squad. She was so sad about it that her mother called up the coach. According to her mom, it was all pretty cut-and-dried. Two hundred girls had tried out for twenty spots, plus five alternates. The coach said Allie should try again next year, because she was real good. “Just not good enough,” Allie had told me. I knew full well the same thing could happen to me with the play.

Williamsport High built their state-of-the-art theater before the economy fell apart, and it's just as nice as Raphael Hall, which is the place downtown where they give concerts. In fact, it's even nicer than Raphael Hall, because it's all updated with the most modern equipment and decor. For the auditions they had us all wait out in the lobby, I guess so people couldn't make fun of the ones who didn't perform well. It was so crowded that I had to sit on the floor. I saw Tim was already there, hanging out with a couple of older kids over on the other side of the room.

“Hi, Wren,” a voice above me said. I looked up and saw Jesse Gill standing there. I moved my backpack so he could sit next to me.

“You trying out?” I asked stupidly.

“Yeah,” he said. “It's the whole reason I came here, you know, and last year I didn't get a part in the fall play or the spring. I really hope I get in this year.” His voice sounded tired. It made me wonder if people had been
teasing him, but I didn't feel comfortable asking. Jesse and I had known each other for a long time, but we'd never hung out much.

Almost right away they called Jesse's name. “Break a leg,” I told him as he headed in. I really hoped he'd get a part, he looked so sad and lonesome.

By the time a lady poked her head through the door and called, “Wren Piner,” the lobby was half-empty. Everyone left looked over to see who was going next, so I waved a little as I scrambled to my feet. My mother likes to tell this story about how when I was five or six I heard her telling someone she suffered from terrible stage fright, and I said, “I am not related to your stage fright.” In this instance, though, I had to admit I felt nervous.

There were three people sitting in the front row holding clipboards. One of them, a woman, said, “Wren?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“What are you going to sing for us?”

I told her “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” and she said, “Oh, good. Victor sure knows how to play that, don't you, Victor?”

He played the first couple of notes, and then I joined in. I did it just the way Mom and I had practiced, real quiet on the first few lines (“I hear a bird”), and then belting it out on the first “Glocca Morra.” They let me sing the whole entire song, and when I finished, everyone sat real quiet.

Finally the main woman said, “It says here you're a sophomore. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Well, Wren, you sing well. Very well.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“But I need to tell you, we usually cast the older students in lead roles.”

What was I supposed to say to that? Okay? It didn't seem particularly okay. I thought about telling her I was sixteen, but I figured the policy was to give everyone a fair chance, and even if I was eighteen, I had three years here to be in plays. She asked some more questions about my hand—what had happened and when the bandage was coming off. Then Victor handed me a script, and the woman—by now I'd found out her name was Ms. Winters—read a page or so with me. She let me read the role of Sharon, even though she'd as good as told me I'd never get that part.

When I came out of the audition, Tim was standing by the door, waiting for me. “How did it go?” he asked.

I felt kind of confused about how it had gone, and I told Tim so. “Well,” he said, “you'll find out on Wednesday. Want to wait with me? You can come in and hear me sing.” I'd noticed that a couple of people brought their friends in to hear their audition. “We have to take the late bus, anyway,” he added.

So that's how I ended up back in the auditorium, listening
to Tim sing. He didn't sing a song from the play. Instead he sang this Ben Harper song called “I Believe in a Better Way.” I thought he was really good, and when he finished, Ms. Winters did not warn him not to expect a good role. She just said, “That was excellent, Tim. I'm glad you found the time for us this year.”

Tim smiled, and then read some pages of the script with her. He did an Irish accent and everything, and I counted five times that he made the people watching laugh, including the piano player. Sitting in the back row watching all this, with no one watching me, I wondered what it would be like to let myself have a crush on Tim now that Ry was out of the picture. Obviously that still left Allie as an obstacle, but as I told you, sometimes I am a terrible friend. A miserable friend.

Sitting there, I thought about what it would be like if I was Tim's girlfriend. Probably he would save me a seat every day on the bus. And I'd never have to worry about where to sit in the cafeteria, because I could always sit with him. Maybe he'd hold my hand when we walked down the hall. I'd give him a picture of myself to hang up in his locker. Of course it was totally 100 percent disloyal of me to think all these things—the very things my best friend in the whole world might be thinking right at that very moment. But I couldn't help myself, and I'd gone this far, so I just kept going.

When the bandage came off my hand, I could take Tim riding at the farm. I'd ride Pandora, of course, and if he didn't have much experience he could ride Brutus, who used to be one of our most uneasy horses but now was so old even Allie's sister Sylvie could ride him. Tim and I would ride across the fields at the farm, and we could ride down the Old Farthing Road. Maybe we could even sneak and camp out there together. Now that the alligator was gone, we could wade in the river. And Tim could kiss me.

*   *   *

Allie called me later that day to see how tryouts went. When I heard her voice I felt like a total rat, almost as if I hadn't just imagined kissing Tim but had actually done it. I shook that thought out of my head and told her I did well but the teacher told me I probably wouldn't get a part. Really Ms. Winters had said I probably wouldn't get a
lead
part, but I found myself adjusting this information.

“Oh my God, we're cursed!” Allie said.

In my opinion she sounded a little too happy about it, but I forgave her on account of my earlier treacherous thoughts. And actions. For example, I did not tell her that I watched Tim try out, or that he and I rode home together on the late bus.

Here's another bad thing I did: I told Allie they were posting the cast on Friday. Don't ask me why; I just felt like I needed to be by myself when I looked at the list. I
didn't even go see it right after it was posted, because I didn't want to have to stand in a crowd the way Allie had done for cheerleading. Instead, on Wednesday afternoon I skipped the early bus and waited till everyone had either gone home or headed off to their after-school activity. Just as I hoped, the auditorium was empty. I walked over to the list and ran my finger down to find Sharon. Sure enough, another girl's name was listed.

Next, I skipped straight to the chorus. My name wasn't there. I couldn't believe it. I didn't make the play at all! Allie and I might just as well have stayed at Cutty River.

I took a deep breath and raised one of my good fingers to the top of the list. Very carefully and slowly I ran it down the piece of paper until it stopped—right there in black and white—on my name. Wren Piner.

I walked over to the couch and sat down to call my mother. I tried not to let my voice sound too excited. “I got a part,” I told her. “I'm a ‘Necessity' girl. There are three of them. I don't even know what that means.”

“Wren, that's a great part!” Mom said. “In my production just one girl sang it, but they must be staging it as a trio. It's a great song, a real showstopper. That's wonderful, Wren; I'm so proud of you.” She told me to hang on, went to her computer, and looked it up on YouTube, then held up the phone so I could hear it. Those singers were really belting it out to the rafters.

“What do you think, Wren? Isn't it a great song?”

“It really is,” I said.

Mom was so excited she drove in from Leeville to take me out for ice cream. I didn't tell her that the boy who'd rescued me from the fire would also be playing her favorite part: Og the leprechaun.

On Friday afternoon we had
our first rehearsal. Tim had a few big numbers, and I sat watching him with another guy who usually played football, Tyler Caldwell. At one point in the play this evil, racist senator gets turned into an African-American man, and Tyler was playing him after the transformation. Tyler agreed that Tim sang great, but still couldn't understand why anyone would voluntarily give up football to be a leprechaun. Tyler himself had some kind of knee injury, which was the only reason he was sitting out this season.

The role of Og was very silly and cute, and the way Tim acted him out was just hilarious. Sitting next to Tyler, watching Tim up onstage, I felt this longing in my gut that I knew made me nothing but a big fat traitor.

That longing also made it extremely fun to ride home on the late bus with Tim. What else could I do, anyway?
Tell him he couldn't sit next to me? Because that's exactly what he did—he got onto the bus and beelined right for the seat beside me. I was starting to agree with Allie's earlier suspicions. It seemed like maybe Tim liked me, though that seemed pretty crazy. Maybe he hadn't figured out Allie had a crush on him.

When the bus stopped at the end of my driveway, he said, “Hey, can I come up and see your horses?”

I sure loved the idea of spending more time with Tim, but I had to think about this for a moment. Allie was already ticked at me for lying about when the play results were posted, and even though she'd
never
admit it, I was pretty sure she was also mad at me for getting a part when she hadn't made cheerleading. Plus, she looked at me funny anytime Tim came near. So I knew I should make an excuse. A good friend would, wouldn't she? But there was Tim, waiting for me to answer, and out of my mouth came, “Sure. Do you like horses?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I wanted one when I was a kid, but we didn't have the money for it.”

“My parents don't have the money for it either,” I said.

Tim laughed like he didn't believe me. Everyone always thinks we're rich because of our horses and property. Little do they know. But if Tim needed any convincing as to our nonwealth, he sure got it when we reached the top of the driveway. Something I hadn't seen in a long while, an
unfamiliar horse trailer, was parked in front of the house. Daisy came running up to greet me and to menace Tim, but even over her barking we could hear Dad loud and clear.