Emily For Real, page 3
It’s cold out. My fingers feel frozen even with my hands stuffed in my pockets. There’s bunches of leaves blowing around, scraping the sidewalk like fingernails on a chalkboard, which gives me major shivers. Even the streetlights make me think of ice.
I hear their guitars a few houses away from Cory’s. They don’t sound bad. But right now I feel like turning around and going back home.
I get to Cory’s driveway and see the side door of the garage open, so I walk in before I can change my mind. The sound goes suddenly from blasting guitars to nothing.
“Told you she’d come,” says Leo.
Cory sets up a microphone. He’s got an electric guitar and Leo’s got a regular one. There’s an amplifier and extension cords and a lawn mower and a snow blower and a workbench that looks identical to Dad’s, all piled with tools and cans of paint, so there’s really no space left to work on.
“If I’m just lip-syncing, what’s this mic for?”
“We need a singer,” says Leo.
“I’m not a singer.”
“You don’t have to be a singer, you just have to sing,” says Cory, handing me the lyrics. “You come in after this riff.” He plays something unrecognizable but excellent. “It’s in A major. Try it.” He gives me the chord.
I do nothing. What am I doing here?
“Come on, Emily. It’s easy.” He gives me the chord again.
When I do nothing again, he starts back at the riff and this time Leo plays along with him.
I stand in front of the microphone, facing the big garage doors and make myself try the first line. Disaster.
“Too low,” says Leo. “Let’s try it in C.” He gives me the C chord and hums it.
I’m remembering how much I used to like singing in elementary school with Miss Taylor giving us the note on her little harmonica. I try again.
“Close,” says Cory.
“Let’s just listen to the song all the way through,” says Leo.
Cory pushes in the CD and unplugs his guitar from the amplifier. He plays silently except for the soft, squealing sound of his fingers on the strings of his electric guitar.
“Okay, let’s try again,” says Leo. “Ready?”
“Not really,” I say. But no one’s listening.
“One, two. One, two, three.”
Their guitars start, one like an echo of the other. And then they’re together. Precision. High notes like wind howling through telephone wires. Gusts and blasts of wind. Then quieter and Leo’s large fingers move up the neck of his guitar and slide down. Cory brings in a few howls through the telephone wires. I hear the riff and get ready.
My voice through the microphone is like it isn’t mine. It’s bigger. And smoother. Then it wobbles and falls flat.
The guitars stop, with a note or two still floating up out of the amplifier before it’s totally quiet.
“Don’t think about your voice.” Leo’s obviously read my mind. “Just think about what the song means.”
“And breathe,” says Cory.
“But don’t suck in air in front of the mic.”
“One, two. One, two, three.”
By the eleventh or thirteenth try, I’m making it all the way through the song, mostly because Cory and Leo don’t stop when I mess up. When the song works and my voice is with the guitars, I can really feel it. I sing at those garage doors like there’s an audience there. Thousands of people.
Cory and Leo have this kind of wave going as we come into the last two lines. This feels amazing. Cory does the ending riff and I add in the last word of the last line again, only softer. Leo gives us a couple of tumbling notes and then a single final note.
“Yes!”
I face the garage doors and shout into the mic, “Thank you! Thank you! On guitars behind me—Cory Bell and Leo Mac. I’m Emily Sinclair. Thank you! Good night!”
We’re all grinning.
“That rocked, man,” says Leo.
And I haven’t even thought about Brian ... except for right this second.
***
Leo and I walk to the end of Cory’s driveway and turn in the same direction, which is heading to where I live. I don’t know where Leo lives. He’s carrying his guitar in a canvas case that hangs off his shoulder. I don’t really know what to say to him at first, so I go for the obvious. “Why’d you transfer to our school?”
“Had to.”
“How come?”
“They say I have anger issues,” says Leo flatly. “Some light bulb thinks changing schools’ll change me. Stupid idiot.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that. I can’t figure Leo out. Being next to him right now is like being next to a bear. A tame bear. He’s so tall and big. But maybe he could forget the fact that he’s tame.
Out of nowhere he says, “You need to know you’re not my type.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Just what I said.”
“I know what you said, but I don’t have a clue why you said it.” My cheeks are burning red. Who does this guy think he is? “You don’t think I’ve got the hots for you, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, like you can see it coming and this is some kind of warning for me. Well, you’re so wrong!”
“Okay then, I’m wrong.”
We keep walking without saying anything. I’m trying not to be mad, but this is a very touchy subject for me right now. Very. I can’t help it. And no way am I explaining anything to Leo about me and Brian.
I picture Brian this very minute, walking down a street in Montreal with his French girlfriend. Maybe his arm is around her and she’s very small and fits right up against him like a jigsaw puzzle.
I feel like I’m walking in deep water and a wave of sadness is crashing over me.
“My street’s down this way,” I say.
“Right. When’s English tomorrow?”
“Second class.”
“Okay. See ya.”
Leo crosses the street with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up and the guitar hanging on his back. Watching him gives me this lonely feeling.
When I get home, Dad’s standing in the kitchen eating toast and drinking milk, meaning he’s pretty sure he’ll have a hard time getting to sleep. The TV in the living room’s off so Mom’s already in bed.
“Hungry?” Dad asks.
“Not really,” I say.
“How’d your school project go?”
“Okay.”
His face is all saggy and he’s holding the piece of toast like it weighs a ton. Usually he has green eyes, pale green like mine, but right now they’re gray. I know what he’s thinking about, but I don’t know what to say.
He takes a drink of milk. “I can see how confused and hurt our mother would’ve been if she saw Dad with another woman. She probably wanted to get out of there and just drive. Shake off those awful feelings before she had to face us kids.”
“It makes sense,” I say. With another woman. No one’s said exactly what was going on when my grandmother looked in that window but it isn’t impossible to figure out.
Dad just looks at me with his pale gray eyes and his saggy face.
What I’m wearing is so lame. This short black skirt and black boots and a tight white top and this wispy turquoise scarf tied around my waist. My hair is falling across my eye and you can only see one of my earrings dangling down. I look like a rock-star wannabe. Delusional.
And this morning I had to take the bus because Jenn has a dentist appointment.
Cory’s waiting outside English class with his guitar and the other gear for our project. “Hey, you look awesome!” He’s delusional. “You see Leo yet?”
When English class starts, Leo’s still not here. When it’s our turn to do our project, he’s still not here.
Cory doesn’t even take his guitar out of its case. “We’ll just play this CD. Forget the live music,” he says. “I’ll just say stuff about the song and then you do the bit about how it fits the play. We’ll fake it from there.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t say anything to Mr. Canning about practice or about Leo. I hate it when people suck up and make excuses,” says Cory.
We do okay. Our project’s boring but accurate.
“How’d the English project go? You look hot,” says Jenn. Everyone’s delusional today.
“Leo didn’t show so we just did the basic blah, blah, blah. No live music.” I take off the turquoise scarf and cram it into my backpack.
“Let’s go somewhere and get lunch,” she says.
I pick up this very miniscule sound in her voice and I know she’s got something to tell me that she thinks I won’t like. “What’s up?”
She’s walking away.
“Something going on?”
“Wait,” she says.
When we’re in her car, she doesn’t start it. She looks straight ahead like we’re out there in traffic. “Okay,” she says, “I had sex with Ronny last night.”
It’s obvious she thinks this is shocking news (okay, it is shocking) and that it’s going to break my heart (give me a break).
“That’s hysterical,” I say, but I’m not laughing.
“Are you mad?”
“Why should I be mad?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because of last Friday.”
“I already told you nothing happened. Besides, I’m not interested in Ronny.”
“He’s sexy,” she says a bit defensively.
“When he’s sober,” I say a bit aggressively.
“Look, if you’re going to—”
“No. No. I’m sorry.”
We’re quiet for a minute.
“I’m not really hungry,” she says.
“Me either.”
I see Leo coming down the hall before Cory does. Almost everyone’s already in class except for a few people grabbing things from their lockers.
“Oh yeah, so now you show up,” says Cory. “Thanks a lot, loser.”
Leo gives him this wild glare.
“Take it easy you guys,” I say. “The project’s over. Forget it.”
“I could’ve flunked because of you,” says Cory.
“Oh, yeah? So am I the reason you flunked last year too?”
Cory’s caught by this. Surprised. He slams his hand against Leo’s chest. Leo pushes it away. This is no fair match. If Leo explodes, there’ll be debris everywhere.
Cory dives into Leo and they fall hard against the wall.
Mrs. Delva comes out of her classroom shouting, “Boys! Boys! What’s going on here? Cory, let go. Listen to me.”
Some people are squashed at the doorway of Mrs. Delva’s classroom, trying to see this whole scene.
Cory lets go and takes a step back. His face is blotched red and he’s not looking at Leo. Leo is watching Cory’s every move.
Mrs. Delva turns to the spectators in her doorway. “Go back to your seats, please. All of you.” She closes the door. “Cory, I want you to walk in that direction. Cool yourself down. When this class is over, I expect to see you in Ms. Crosby’s office and we’ll hear your explanation for this attack. Emily and Leo, please walk in the other direction. No doubt Ms. Crosby will want to hear from both of you as well.”
No one moves for a second, then we all follow her orders like she’s a traffic cop. I’m wishing she’d asked me to walk with Cory instead of Leo.
We’re just about at the end of the hall when Leo says, “That guy’s a friggin’ hothead.”
“Oh, right. Like he got mad about nothing.” Because it was my project too. Then, before I can stop myself, I say, “At least he doesn’t have anger issues.”
Leo takes off ahead of me. I’m already late for French class, but before I go down the stairs I make sure there’s a lot of space between him and me.
In last class, Ms. Crosby comes on the PA and says she wants to see me. Embarrassing.
Leo’s outside her office but I don’t look at him. I sit as far away as I can.
She asks him to go in first.
While I’m waiting, I think about the fight, playing everything in my mind because she’ll be asking me how it started. Well, Leo didn’t show up for our project. But Cory called him a loser. Then Leo goes and makes that remark about Cory flunking last year. In a way, both of them started the fight.
Leo comes out of the office and walks away.
I tell Ms. Crosby the details I remember. Then she says, “Did you and Cory take the time to ask Leo why he wasn’t in school for the English project?” Which means that whatever kept him from showing up this morning is no lame excuse. And it’s something she’s not going to tell us if Leo doesn’t.
On my way back to class, I think about last night, how Leo was walking across the street alone, carrying his guitar, all hunched up against the cold. I get this sad feeling because he’s probably alone like that a lot and there must be more stuff than just a cold night he has to protect himself from.
Today in English class, Leo sat by himself near the window and Mr. Canning didn’t make him move back to the table with Cory and me. News travels. Cory was obviously still ticked off but he didn’t talk about it. The more I looked at Leo over there by himself, the worse I felt about saying what I said to him about anger issues. I don’t want the guy to hate me.
Jenn had to go to work after fourth class so I’m taking the bus home. Leo’s at the bus stop. He’s ignoring me. Surprise.
“Look, I shouldn’t’ve said what I said yesterday. After the fight.”
“I didn’t start that fight.”
“You didn’t show up for our project.”
“I didn’t start the fight.”
“So how come you weren’t in English class?”
“Complications.” He looks in the direction that the bus will be coming. “May as well walk,” he says to himself and turns around and leaves.
The bus comes and I get on. Leo ignores the roar of the bus as it passes by because he knows if he looks up he’ll see me sitting here looking out at him.
Four
Halloween used to be better than Christmas. You got to dress up and go out in the dark where everything felt so strange. Shadows and streetlights. Kids in costumes knocking on doors. Trick or treat!
I’m the one in charge of giving out candy. Dad was never into this, and now Mom has me as an excuse not to answer the door and pretend to be amazed and say, “What do we have here? Oh, my, a monster!” when all the time you know it’s Sam or Finn from down the street.
Two kids dressed up as teddy bears are holding their pillowcases open. I say, “I don’t think teddy bears eat candy. I’m sure they only eat berries.”
One of the kids pulls off her mask and says, “I’m not a teddy bear. I’m Lily.” That cracks me up.
I grab another handful of candy, and then I see Leo walking along beside a small pink rabbit. The rabbit’s got long, floppy ears and sparkly whiskers and it’s holding a basket. They turn and walk toward our door, where I’m standing with this handful of candy kisses and a surprised look on my face.
For a second there’s an awkward silence. Leo’s obviously surprised to see me too.
“Hi, pink rabbit,” I say. “Sorry I don’t have any carrots tonight. Just boring ol’ candy kisses. I don’t think rabbits eat candy kisses.” Why not go for the same trick twice?
The pink rabbit looks up at Leo with a worried frown. I’m thinking she might cry.
Leo says, “Tell her you’re a candy-eating rabbit and that carrots suck.”
All she does is look into her almost-empty basket. I dump a huge handful of candy kisses in there, and the rabbit looks at me and smiles. Her nose is painted pink on the very tip. She’s so cute.
“Say thank you,” says Leo.
“Thank you,” says the rabbit.
“You’re welcome, little pink candy-eating rabbit,” I say.
Another bunch of trick-or-treaters are crowding up on our doorstep as Leo and the rabbit walk away. There’s a pirate, a gypsy, and a sailor who looks too old to be out trick-or-treating. I dump stuff into their bags, thinking that the rabbit must be Leo’s sister. It’s funny thinking of Leo with a pink-rabbit sister.
In English class, Cory and I still sit at the same table and Leo still sits alone over by the window. I don’t say much to Cory these days. Not that we were ever best buds, anyway.
When the bell rings, I time it so I’m at the door just when Leo gets there. He isn’t fooled.
“Who was that rabbit you were with last night?” I try to make this sound like a corny joke.
“Caroline.”
“She your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s cute.”
“Yeah.”
What am I doing? He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me.
Leo keeps on walking and I’m still beside him for about three more steps. Then I fake forgetting something and say, “Oh, darn. I forgot something in English,” and I go back all the way into the classroom and stand there like an idiot.
Mr. Canning is erasing the board and looks at me over his elbow. “Do you need something, Emily?”
“Ah, no. I just thought I forgot something but I guess I didn’t.” I leave before I look even more ridiculous.
Leo’s a couple of people ahead of me in the cafeteria line, giving me a sideways look. He thinks I’m stalking him. As if I need this.
“Look,” I say when we’re all the way through the line, “I’m trying to apologize for what I said the other day. I don’t usually say sarcastic stuff like that.”
