Through to You (23 page)

I look at Anna, who's texting on her phone, holding it under her textbook so the teacher won't notice. She doesn't look too concerned, so I let out the breath I've been holding. If something were wrong with Harper, Anna wouldn't be acting like nothing was wrong.

And then I spot the date on the board.

The fourteenth.

Today's Harper's audition, the one for the choreography program.

My heart speeds up, and I pull out my phone, wondering if I should send her a text and wish her good luck, let her know I'm thinking of her. But what if she doesn't text me back? This is definitely one of those rare times when a phone call is better than a text. I raise my hand and ask for the bathroom pass.

On the way out of the room, I swear Anna gives me a suspicious look, like she knows I'm going to call Harper. She glares at me, almost like she's telling me not to ruin this for Harper. But there's no way she could possibly know what I'm up to, and she's probably just giving me the normal look that girls give guys who've totally fucked over their best friends.

But still.

It's enough to make me pause when I get out of the classroom and into the hallway. What if I screw her up? What if Harper's just about to go into her audition and I call her and she gets all distracted and flubs the whole thing? I stare down at my phone, trying to remember if there was a specific time she was supposed to start. She might not be dancing yet.

I'm just standing there, staring down at my phone like an idiot, when it rings in my hand.

Harper.

It's my first thought.

But it can't be.

The number is one I don't recognize, and if it were her, her name would have come up on my caller ID. But what if she's calling from someone else's phone? What if her phone died and she had to borrow one? It's a ludicrous story that I've totally fabricated in my head like some kind of psycho, but I've almost convinced myself it's true.

“Hello?” I say when I answer, half expecting to hear her voice.

“Hello. Can I speak with Penn Mattingly, please?” a female voice asks. But it's not Harper.

“This is Penn,” I say, before realizing that you should always ask who it is before you admit to who you are.

“Hi, Penn. This is Diana from Dr. Marzetti's office,” she says. “I'm calling because Dr. Tamblin referred you to us. Dr. Marzetti has a cancellation, and I'm wondering if you'd like to take the appointment?”

I'm about to tell her no, that I'm not in the market for a doctor right now and she can take me off her list. But something stops me. “When is the appointment?”

“At noon.”

“What date?”

“Today.”

“Today?”

“Yes, Mr. Mattingly,” she says, like she can't believe I would be shocked. “As you can tell, it's very short notice, so if you don't want to take it, please let me know so that I can call the next person on the list.”

Wow. This chick has a serious attitude. I wonder if it's because she's on some kind of power trip because she works for a powerful doctor. She's probably used to people falling all over themselves to rush down to the hospital whenever she snaps her fingers. Maybe she even get bribes, like people sending her presents so she'll schedule an appointment for them. Well. If she thinks she's going to get that kind of treatment from me, she has another thing coming.

“I'll be there,” I say, shocking myself. “Thanks for calling.”

“See you then. And please have any X-rays or medical records e-mailed over before you come.” She rattles off the e-mail address, which I immediately forget. But that's the least of my worries.

The most of my worries is that I've somehow agreed to go to a doctor's appointment in an hour. Not that leaving school is a problem. It will be the first time I've left school in the middle of the day for an actual legit reason, ha-ha.

Why did I do that?
I wonder, still staring at my phone. Why would I agree to go to that appointment?

Harper.

Her name pops into my head again before I can stop it. But why would I go because of Harper? Because I want an
excuse to call her. And if I go to this doctor, and she tells me something I want to hear, or even something I don't, I'll have one. But I want to call her now. I want to call her and tell her I'm going to the doctor, that I'm ready to talk to her, that I want to let her in, that I miss her so much, it hurts.

But I stop myself.

If I call her now, it's not going to mean anything. What am I going to say? Oh, I have a doctor's appointment? No, I decide. It will be better once I'm done, once I actually have something concrete to tell her.

I don't even bother going back to history to get my books.

I just take a deep breath. And tell myself I'm ready to face this.

* * *

The receptionist at Dr. Marzetti's office is nothing like I pictured her. I thought she'd be kind of older—like, thirty—with a pinched-up face. Instead she looks like she's in college, and she has long shiny brown hair, and she gives me a big smile when she sees me.

“You must be Penn,” she says. “It's nice to put a face with the name.” If I didn't know better, I'd think she was flirting with me. And if I wasn't so hung up on Harper, I'd probably flirt back.

“Yup,” I say. “That's me.”

She hands me a clipboard with a form on it and asks me to fill it out. “And did you have your X-rays e-mailed over?”

“Yes.” I found Dr. Marzetti's e-mail address on their
website, then called Dr. Tamblin on the way over here and asked them to send the X-rays.

“Okay,” she says, giving me another warm smile. “I'll let the doctor know you're here. It shouldn't be that long.”

I take a seat in the waiting room and start filling out the form. There's only one other person in here, a man with a buzz cut and broad shoulders who's flipping through a magazine. I'm finished filling out the form in about three minutes, and the receptionist isn't back yet, so I just go and set the clipboard down on her desk.

My leg is jittering up and down, and there's an unsettling feeling in my stomach. It's not the same kind of feeling I'd get before a game, not the nauseous I'm-going-to-throw-up feeling. Instead it's something else. Excitement?

I pull out my phone and text Harper.

At an appointment with another doctor. I miss you. A lot.

I hold my breath and stare at the screen, waiting to see if she'll text me back. I tell myself it doesn't mean anything if she doesn't, that she's at an audition, that she might not have her phone on her.

Five minutes later I'm still staring at a blank screen.

“Penn?” the nurse calls, opening the door to the back of the office. “They're ready for you.”

Okay, so the girls at this audition are super hard-core. Like,
really
hard-core. I mean, I know dancers are some of the toughest people out there. You have to be to put your body and mind through everything it takes to be successful at dance. But seriously, these girls are taking it to another level.

They're all wearing expensive dance clothes and eating these energy Shot Blok things, and then they start jumping around and doing complicated-looking stretches. It's honestly making me a little nervous. I mean, these girls have been training and practicing since they were, like, five. And yeah, I know a lot of them aren't really my competition. Most of them are here for other dance programs, not choreography like me. But still.

I turn off my phone, shove my earbuds into my ears, find a quiet corner of the hotel lobby, and start my warm-up.

The nurse leads me into a small room that looks more like an office than an examination room. There's a big mahogany desk sitting in the middle and a bunch of framed diplomas hanging on the wall, all from impressive-sounding schools, like Harvard, Columbia, and Penn. There's a bunch of awards, too, for patient satisfaction, that kind of thing. On the desk is a picture of two smiling children. One's missing a top tooth, and the other has pigtails. It's such a normal-looking picture that for some reason it makes my heart squeeze.

“Penn?” the doctor asks as she comes into the room. “Hi. I'm Dr. Marzetti.”

“Hello.” I stand up and shake her hand. She has long blond hair, and she looks a lot younger than I pictured her. I thought
in order for her to be the best in her field, she'd have to be at least sixty, but she looks like she's in her early forties.

“So,” she says, sitting down. Her voice is warm, but I can tell she's the type who doesn't like to waste any time. “I looked at your X-rays. Baseball player, right?”

“Yes.” I nod. “How did you know that? Did Dr. Tamblin tell you?”

She grins. “Dr. Tamblin said you were an interesting case, but he didn't tell me the specifics, just that I might want to give you a call. I can tell by the X-rays, though. Collision at the plate?”

I nod, not saying anything. I don't like the word “collision.” Every time I hear it, it makes me relive that moment.

“So,” she says, “there are a couple of things we can do. But I want to make sure you—”

I shake my head. “What?”

“About your shoulder. There are a couple of things we can do. The first one is riskier, but it's—”

“Wait, hold on.” I lick my lips and swallow hard. “How do you . . . I mean, don't you have to take more X-rays?”

She looks down at the chart in front of her. “You just had these done recently, right?”

I nod again, not trusting myself to talk. My heart is pounding, and I can practically hear the blood rushing through my body.

“Then, no, you don't need new ones. There's very little change from the ones you had before, anyway, when you first
got hurt. The bone is healed, yes, but other than that, it's not getting worse.”

“It's not getting worse?”

She shakes her head. “No. You've just been in a holding pattern.”

“So, what . . . I mean, you said . . .” She said there were a couple of things we could do, but I don't even want to say that out loud, because I can feel it already. The hope stirring inside me, the hope I've done everything I can to tamp down. It's swelling into a wave, threatening to take over.

“Right,” she says. “There are a couple of things we can do. The first is riskier, but it could give you full use of your arm back. It's a surgery. Now, I need to be honest with you. If it doesn't work, it could make it worse.”

I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me. “You said . . . I mean, I could . . . My shoulder could work again?”

“Yes.” She nods. “But if it doesn't work, then you could lose some of your mobility. The reason I need to tell you that is because I know with athletes, some of them decide that the risk is too great. Some of them want to play overseas, that kind of thing.”

I know what she means. She's saying that if the surgery doesn't work, and I get worse, I might lose my chance to play in a smaller market, like Japan or something like that. But fuck Japan. I never wanted to play there anyway, and it's not like anyone from overseas ever made any effort to contact me.

I put my hand up, stopping her from going on.

“I don't need to hear the second option,” I say. “I want the surgery.”

She starts talking about plans and schedules, and a bunch of stuff I'm going to have to consider, like recovery time and things like that. But I'm not hearing any of it. Because all I can think about is telling Harper.

I'm so focused that when it's my turn, I don't hear them call my name. The girl next to me, this really bratty-looking brunette who's wearing hot pink leg warmers (wtf?), has to poke me in the side until I pull my headphones out.

“Um, I think they're calling your name,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Like, you have to pay attention, you know?”

“Thanks,” I say, deciding not to let her bad attitude rattle me.

I convinced myself not to be scared, that the people I'm auditioning for are just people, that they'll be nice, that it won't be like one of those movies where you walk in and everyone's really dressed up and intimidating and they make you feel like a jerk.

But it's exactly like a movie.

Well, not exactly.

The choreography admissions people are friendly enough, but they
are
intimidating. I recognize them immediately. Katie Fox, Reginald Perry, and April Dewan. They're all choreographers who've done music videos, Broadway shows, you name it. Right away my palms start sweating, and I wipe them on my dance tights, and then immediately regret it. I already don't have the right outfit, and now I'm wrecking it even more.

“Hi, Harper,” Katie says, looking down at the list in front of her. “What are you going to be doing for us today?”

“I'm going to be doing a piece to ‘Smooth Criminal' by Michael Jackson.” I watch their eyes to see if there's any reaction, if they think it's a cheesy song, or not classic enough, or if maybe they like the idea that I've chosen something a little riskier.

“Okay,” Reginald says. His smile is friendly, but it doesn't give anything away. “Whenever you're ready.”

I take a moment to calm my breathing, and to remind myself that whatever happens, I'll be okay. But, damn, I want this so freaking bad.

I nod to the girl in the corner who's in charge of the music, and the first bars of the song come echoing through the room. The music is louder than I expected, which I like. I love when the music reverberates through my body, taking over so that I don't have to think about anything except the beat.

I know they're not judging me on my dancing. I'm here for the choreography program, which means I need to know how
to put a dance together and teach it, not be the best technically. But I also know that how I dance my piece is going to be a factor in how good they think my choreography is. If I'm a big mess, then they're not going to be able to see how good my dance is.