No Place to Fall (19 page)

When I walk through the
door of her chorus room on Monday afternoon, Mrs. Early gives me a big hug. “Are you getting excited, hon?”

My audition is this Saturday, and there's still so much I have to do to get ready. I've got to type up my paperwork and clean my shoes. Will and I need to practice more and I need to figure out a way to keep my nervous stomach calm.

“I'm more of a wreck,” I say honestly.

Will walks in behind me and stands by my side. He looks at me with a big, wide smile. “You're going to be great. I know it.”

Mrs. Early beams at him. Then she turns away from us and to the rest of the chorus. “Okay, places, everyone!”

After a couple of run-throughs of the songs we're preparing for the end of the year recital, Mrs. Early holds up the glass bowl for Show-off Solos. The first name she calls is Will McKinney's.

I hear him clear his throat. “Mrs. Early, may we sing a duet?”

My eyes skip to his seat and he's waiting with a wink. Inside I feel the flutter of that butterfly.

Mrs. Early looks up at Will. “What do you have in mind?”

“I'd like to play my banjo and sing one of Amber's audition songs with her. So she can practice.”

Mrs. Early nods her approval and smiles a little.

Will looks at me from across the room and holds out his hand. Ladies first.

I clomp down the stands. My ankle doesn't hurt at all anymore, but the doctor says three more weeks in my cast.

We sit in the chairs Will's set up, slightly turned toward each other. There are only a few inches between my knee and his, but I don't scoot my chair back. Will doesn't look at me as he pulls the banjo into his lap and plucks the opening chords for “I Wish My Love Was a Red, Red Rose.” We've never sung it together before. It's only me who's sung it, and he's played to accompany me.

Will starts picking the tune on his banjo and sings first.

“I wish my love was a red,

red rose growing in yon garden fair.

And I to be the gardener, of her

I would take care.

There's not a month throughout

the year, that my love I'd renew

I'd garnish her with flowers fine,

sweet William, Thyme, and Rue.”

He doesn't look at me as he sings, but the energy between us is palpable, and draws me toward him. It's a wire, a cord, a ribbon binding us. It's more than song.

Will stops then, and it's my turn to sing.

“I wish I was a butterfly,

I'd light on my love's breast,

And if I was a blue cuckoo,

I'd sing my love to rest,

And if I was a nightingale,

I'd sing the daylight clear,

I'd sit and sing for you, my Will,

for once I loved you dear.”

The song is really for someone named Molly, but just then, singing Will's name instead felt right. Out of the
corner of my eye I glance at him, to see if he's noticed. I see him smile to himself, but he keeps his eyes focused on his banjo as he sings the last stanza.

“I wish I was up on the mountain

and seated on the grass.

In my right hand, a jug of punch,

and on my knee, a lass.

I'd call for liquor freely and I'd pay before I go,

I'd roll my Amber in my arms, let

the wind blow high or low.”

There's a loud murmur coming from the chorus in front of us, but I am frozen to my chair. He's swapped “mountain” for Dublin Town, and my name for Molly's. Will and I are both looking at our feet but that doesn't stop me from feeling the way I'm feeling. Like we're in each other arms. Like we're connected. Like we just had song sex in front of the entire chorus.

Somebody whistles and yells. “Turn on the AC, Mrs. Early. It's hot in here.”

She clears her throat. “Okay. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Amber.” She hustles us back to our chairs.

When chorus is over, I walk as fast as I can, even in my cast, to get out of the door first. My face is red, and my
heart is doing flip-flops. I won't be able to say one intelligent word if Will talks to me.

“Amber,” he calls behind me.

I close my eyes for a second and slow down so he can catch up to me.

When he does, Will touches my arm. “That was good,” he says, smiling.

I want to sling my arms around Will's neck and push him up against the brick wall and press the length of me against the length of him. But instead I manage to meet his gaze and whisper, “Thank you.”

Mama honks the horn.

“I gotta go.”

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” I wait.

“Um. I was wondering . . .” He looks down, shifts his banjo case to his other hand. “Would you want me to come with you to your audition on Saturday? To be your accompanist?”

“You'd do that?”

“I want to,” he says, and opens the car door for me.

I nod and climb into the passenger seat of the minivan.

He slides the door shut and grins before turning away.

It takes a second before I look over at my mother, but when I do, I gasp, “Mama! What'd you do?”

She holds up a hand to her hair, newly colored a rich auburn and styled in long, soft layers. “Do you like it?”

“It looks amazing!”

Her smile is girlish. “Aneeta did it for me.” Since last Tuesday, Mama and Mrs. Whitson have traded recipes, cooked in each other's kitchens, talked on the phone, and Mrs. Whitson even came to church with us on Sunday. Being around Mrs. Whitson makes me a little nervous, still, but Mama's the happiest I've seen her in years.

“Daddy's going to be floored.” I can't stop staring at her. “Hey, let's go shopping this afternoon. There's a new consignment shop in town. You need something pretty to match your new 'do.”

“Oh, I couldn't do that.” Mama shakes her head.

“For me?” I put the tips of my fingers together and bat my eyelids at her.

She pulls the rearview mirror toward her and checks her reflection. When she sees herself, she smiles. “No,” she says, readjusting the mirror. She places her hands firm on the wheel. “I'm going to do it for me.”

We find a parking spot in the town lot and walk the cracked sidewalk to the new shop, “A-Z Me to You Consignments. Quality Clothes at Reasonable Prices.” A couple of ladies we pass on the sidewalk comment on Mama's hair.

“You sure do like nice, Donna.”

“That color suits you.”

Mama grins and I can tell she's working hard not to seem too proud, but I like seeing her carry some pride.

A bell chimes when we push through the door. From the back a muffled voice calls out, “Be right there. Y'all look around.”

Sure enough, they have a whole section of larger lady clothes. Lots and lots of nice brands like Lane Bryant and Doncaster, not double-knit stretch-waist pants that Mama tends to wear.

I help look and soon we have an armful of things for Mama to try on. She disappears behind the yellow-curtained dressing room door.

I'm picking through a rack of blouses when a young saleswoman appears. “Y'all finding everything you need?”

“Yes, thank you,” I say.

Mama steps through the curtain, her eyes shining. “Amber, would you look at this?” She's wearing a cowl-necked blue top and a full print skirt. They look great on her.

“You look gorgeous.”

Mama does a side-to-side twirl. “You think so?”

“Absolutely.” I want to tell her Daddy will think she looks beautiful, too. But I don't.

Mama tries on a few more outfits and she actually seems to enjoy it. By the time she's finished, she's piled up
a purse, a couple of pairs of shoes, and four or five outfits. I'm not sure where she's going to wear all these new clothes, but there's no way I'm stopping her.

As the young woman rings up Mama's purchases, she pulls a handful of small white bottles out from behind the counter. “Do you like lotions? Try some of these samplers. My mother sells Body Soft products, if you're interested.”

Mama slowly flips the cap on a bottle. She raises it to her nose, but the lilac smell hits us both quick. The bottle drops from Mama's fingers.

It's the scent.

Daddy's other woman.

Lilac with a hint of vanilla and spice.

Mama shoves a handful of bills at the saleslady and grabs the bags. “Come on, sugar. Let's go.”

The saleslady calls after us. “But your change. There's over three dollars here.”

“You can keep it.” Mama's mouth is set in a tight line, her expression a combination of resolve, anger, and sadness.

Mama knows. She knows about Daddy's girlfriend.

I stomp after her, the stupid cast slowing me down. “Mama?”

Mama turns. Her eyes meet mine and in them, pain flashes like the bright scales of a rainbow trout.

My heart breaks in two. “I love you, Mama.”

She nods and takes a deep breath. “I love you, too, sugar.” Her fists clench around her shopping bags before she whispers, “This family. You, your sister, Coby, your daddy. You are my world. You understand? And it is my fight, my job to keep us together.”

I nod, fighting back tears. Knowing that she knows I know. I take the bags from her hand.

“Let's go home,” I say.

“Home,” Mama says.

In my room, I punch Will's number into my phone. He answers on the first ring.

“Amber.” The way he says my name fills me up, and I fight the urge to cry into the speaker.

“I need to sing. Right this minute.” My voice cracks even though I'm fighting to keep it strong.

“Go ahead.”

I love him for not asking why.

I sing one to make me feel good, Dolly Parton's “Little Sparrow,” and let the sweet notes surge down through me and around and I push out all the dark feelings on my exhales.

When I finish, he sighs, a sound sweeter than any music I could ever make.

We're silent for a minute.

“Will?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know if your dad has ever cheated on your mom?” I lie back on the bed and stare up at my ceiling, tears welling up.

“I don't think so.”

“My daddy's cheating on my mama.”

He doesn't try to fill in the space with small talk as he waits for me to say something else. Then he says, “That must hurt like hell.”

After a minute, I wipe away the tears and spit out the other thing bothering me. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Anything.”

“When you drove me up on the mountain that day after school, were you expecting what happened to happen?”

“You mean did I expect we'd hook up?”

“Yes.” I curl up into a little ball, waiting.

He's quiet, then says, “I guess a part of me hoped we might.”

His honesty silences me. “Is that what kind of girl you thought I was?”

“Of course not.”

“Then how come you were so prepared?”

Will laughs. “I'm a teenage boy. With a mom who's been preaching at me for years. I've carried condoms in my wallet since the ninth grade, not that I needed them much.”

“Oh.” I pause. “Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you cheat on Amber-o-zia?”

He sighs heavily. “Because I was a dick. To you and to her. Because I was on a mountain with an incredibly beautiful and interesting girl I've been stealing glances at for two years. Because I'm a boy, and it felt good.” He pauses. “Amber, I'm sorry. It was way more than I expected and since then, I've wished I could take it back.” He pauses. “Me and Amber-o-zia were never like that.”

I close my eyes. “I don't want you to think it's always like that for me.”

“I don't. Hey, Amber?”

“Yeah?”

“I've got to go. My dad's calling me.”

“Oh. Okay. Bye.”

What am I doing calling Will McKinney, expecting him to want to listen to me sing, to hear about my problems? What am I doing, thinking something real might be happening between us? Even if he did refer to Amber-o-zia in the past tense.

“I'll see you at school,” he says, and then he's gone. I lay the phone back down on my nightstand and look at the red tacks on my map.

After a few minutes, I stand up and pull out the one stuck on Sevenmile and put it on the dresser. The only red tack left is the one for Winston-Salem. My future.

I'm dressing for school on
Friday morning when Mama comes into my room. “What happened between you and your sister?”

I stop, one hand still on the zipper of my skirt. “What do you mean?”

“Amber Delaine, I'm not blind. She hasn't said a word to you in more than a week. That's not like the two of you.”

I ache to tell Mama the truth. But nothing bad has come of what I did. Sean's got his guitar. Sean's aunt and uncle haven't discovered the missing pills. And even though Whitney thinks I'm a husband-stealing bitch, at least I'm out of the band. Sometimes what nobody knows doesn't hurt a thing.

But I can hit near the truth. “She thinks I was flirting with Sammy.”

Mama's mouth drops. “She
what
?”

I finish zipping up my skirt and turn toward the big open window, then face my mama again. “She thinks I like him, God knows why, in an
unsisterly
way.”

Mama fiddles with the strand of red beads hanging around her neck. “That beats anything I've heard all week. You'd as soon throw Sammy in a nest of rattlesnakes as say two kind words to him.”

“Well, you asked. That's why she's not talking to me.”

Mama shakes her head. “Crazy talk.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

“Don't thank me. You two need to work it out. This tension is wearing on my nerves.”

Devon picks me up with a frozen coffee in his hand. “Mom McKinney daily special,” he says, and hands it to me. “With toffee chips for luck.”

I take a sip. I've lied to Mama and Daddy, to Whitney, to Sean, and even to Will about where the guitar money came from. But I've got to tell something true to Devon.

“Devon.”

“Super-tasty, correct?” he asks, starting off down the driveway.

“Yes, it is. But I need to tell you something.”

He slows the Jeep and looks at me. “Do I need to pull over?”

I shake my head. “No, keep driving. You need another focus.”

He puts his hand to his chest between shifting gears. “Please tell me you didn't really sleep with Kush.”

“
What?
” I roll my eyes. “He added that to his hit parade?”

Devon nods and pats my shoulder. “But don't fret. Everyone's catching on to him. And it isn't pretty.” He mimics somebody stirring a pot.

I rub the condensation on the side of the plastic cup, worrying patterns into the wet surface. “No. I didn't hook up with Kush.” I pause before getting out the next words quickly. “But I did have sex with Will.”

Devon hits the brakes so hard we both fling forward. “Oh my god.
When?
What was it like?”

He seems completely unconcerned I named his brother. “You're not mad?”

He starts driving again and looks over at me. “
Mad?
I love my brother. I love you. It's the closest I can ever come to hooking up with you myself.”

“Devon, I'm serious.”

This time, Devon does pull the car over at the turn-in
to someone's vacation home. “Okay. I'm serious, too. Amber, I don't care. When did it happen? This week?”

I twirl the straw in my fingers and whisper, “The first day of school.”

Devon's mouth drops open. “Shut the hell up.”

I grimace. “Stop acting so shocked. It just happened. I've felt guilty for so long. About Amber-o-zia. About not telling you. About it happening at all.”

Devon's quiet for a minute. “Has he been nice to you?”

“Will?” I ask.

Devon's hand clutches the gearshift, waiting on my answer. “Yeah.”

“He has been nice. He never said anything to anybody. He never tried anything again.” The memory of the kiss at Sizz's house flares in my brain. But that was me, not Will. “He's a good guy, Devon.”

Devon lets go of the gearshift and grabs his cup out of the cup holder and takes a sip. “Yeah. He is. So . . . what now? Are you two dating?”

Devon's sweet concern and his question open something inside me. Big tears slide down onto my cheeks. Then my nose starts running. Devon pats my back and I blow my nose into a Kleenex.

I shake my head and finally manage to speak again. “No. He hasn't even told me that he broke up with
Amber-o-zia. I keep waiting. Hoping . . .” My voice trails off. Then I whisper. “I really like him, Devon.”

Devon rubs my shoulder. “Oh, Plain and Small. Let's see what Devon can do.”

He pulls back onto the road and drives us to school.

Mrs. Early calls me down to the floor during chorus to practice my audition pieces. This is it. My last practice before the moment when I will either fall or stand as tall as the hills I call home.

Will comes down to play his banjo and Mrs. Early joins him on the piano.

We go in the order I'll follow at the audition. I start with “Shenandoah,” which everyone in the chorus knows. Then I move into “I Wish My Love Was a Red, Red Rose,” though this time I sing the traditional lyrics. My last song is “Ave Maria.” It hasn't been as hard as I'd thought it'd be to sing in Latin.

Will starts in on the banjo, a slow plinking of strings that ascends upward until I open my mouth.

“Ave Maria . . .”

I close my eyes and my arms lift slightly from my sides. I picture the song swirling inside of me, like butterflies. I draw the notes out
.
When I release the words, they fly around the room. The chorus is silent, listening, and all I
hear is the sound Will and I make. When the final notes of my last “Maria” land, there's a collective inhale. It's a quiet I wouldn't mind living in for a while.

Slowly, my classmates start to clap. I open my eyes to see Mrs. Early clapping with them. “Amber, dear, I think you're ready.”

The rest of the chorus murmurs in agreement. Will shouts, “Damn straight, she's ready!” and stands up next to me with a big smile on his face.

After chorus, I head out front and don't see anybody's car.

“Need a ride?” Will's by my side, his backpack slung over his shoulder, banjo case in his hand. Outside of the chorus room, Will's grin is wicked.

“I get in trouble when I go for rides with you, Will McKinney.”

“Come on, it's only a ride.”

Right then, Mama pulls up to the curb.

I look back at him and smile. “Maybe another time.”

I start to get into the car but Will stops me with a hand on my arm. He looks down, then looks back up at me. He looks a little nervous. “Hey, I don't know if you heard about me and Amber-o-zia.”

I shrug. “Maybe. But I don't put too much stock in gossip.”

He drops his hand. “Fair enough.” He shrugs. “But it's true. It took me longer than it should have—I kept hoping she'd say the words—but in the end I had to be honest with her about my feelings.”

“Okay,” I say. When Will doesn't say anything else right away, I reach for the door handle.

“You said maybe another time. For a ride. How about tomorrow?”

I furrow my brow. “To Boone? Mama's driving. She insisted, actually.”

Will swings the banjo case, then stops. “I was thinking more about after. I was wondering if you'd want to go with me to C.A.'s party. You know, like a date.”

“A date?” I take a breath. “Did Devon talk to you?”

Will eyes are questioning. “Devon? I haven't seen him since breakfast.”

His words settle in. Devon didn't say anything. This is all coming from Will. An “Ave Maria” tries to burst its way past my lips, but I only smile. “Yeah. Okay. A date.” I open the car door. “See you in the morning.”

Will's rocking on his heels and swinging his banjo case, watching us pull away.

Mama glances behind us. “Is that Judge McKinney's older son?” she asks me.

“Uh-huh,” I answer, a grin bursting like fireworks across my face.

“Uh-huh,” she repeats, her face mama-wise, her voice shrewd. Then she pats my leg. “I'm so proud of you, sugar. A fellow like that would be a fool not to see it, too.”

I whisper, “I think he does, Mama.”