Starry-Eyed (47 page)

“You did,” I said. “Oh, God.”

“I didn't have to. Mr. Oglesby's a reasonable man. He knows he can't give every single solo to one girl even if . . .”

“Even if she deserves it.”

“I wasn't going to say that.”

“What were you going to say? She's a hundred times better than me, a thousand. I could never be that good.”

“Of course you can be.” My mother tried to smile. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

We got a rating of
Very Good
(“like a C,” I told Mom) at state. The next week, I started private voice lessons with Mr. Oglesby.

. . . . .

In the next years, I worked my butt off. I went from voice lessons with Mr. Oglesby in eighth grade to lessons with a “real” teacher, a professor from the university in ninth. “It's worth the money,” Mom told Dad, “for something that's so important to Meghan. Besides, maybe she'll get a college scholarship someday.”

It seemed actually possible. I practiced hours each day and by senior
year, was taking home
Superior
ratings at National Federation of Music Clubs competitions and Florida Music Educators Association. I didn't go out at night so I could rest my voice. I was adding notes to my range, high B-flat, C, even a C-sharp, and a squeaky D—each note a tiny victory, when I couldn't sing it one day. Then, I could. That year, my church did
The Messiah
at Christmastime. I had the soprano solo and, though I rolled my eyes at the slobbery compliments the old ladies there gave me, I loved it too.

Our choir director in high school was Mrs. Gower. Mom still made the headpieces, and Becca and I still alternated on most of the soprano solos, but it seemed more reasonable now. I never forgot about that morning in the hallway in eighth grade, but I liked to think that I—and my voice—had grown past it. I was really good. My voice teacher assured me that a career in music was possible for me. Alli and I were still best friends too.

As far as I knew, Becca had no friends.

About a week after my performance in
The Messiah
, I got a call from the director of the local civic chorale. “We're looking for two girls to do the solos in our performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's
Requiem
,” he said. “I saw you do
Messiah
. It was just gorgeous. Would you be interested? There'd be a small payment involved. Nothing much.”

“Wow!” I could actually feel my heartbeat. “That'd be great.”

Then, his next words: “Do you know anyone for the other solo?”

My first thought was Alli. But I knew Alli couldn't handle that difficult music. Maybe in the chorus. No way as a soloist. My second thought was . . .

“No, I'm sorry. I don't know anyone else. But I'd love to do it.”

Actually, Alli was more involved in drama club and had quit choir in high school. At her insistence, I'd tried out for the drama club's Evening of One Acts sophomore year and got a small part, but it wasn't really what I was into. It took time away from singing. “If they did a musical, maybe I'd try again,” I'd told Alli.

Then one day senior year, Mrs. Gower announced in choir, “The Palm-Aire High School drama and music departments have decided to try
something very special this year. In cooperative effort, we will be doing a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's wonderful musical,
Oklahoma!
I hope that many of you will come out to audition for roles in this production.” As she said that, her eyes fell on Becca. “In addition to the major roles, there is a full chorus, so everyone who wants to should be able to participate.” She looked at the rest of us.

Alli and I ran out and rented
Oklahoma!
that night. I knew that Alli—cute, funny Alli—would be perfect for the part of Ado Annie. And I could picture myself wearing a calico dress, my blond hair curled, as Laurey. I'd always wanted to be in a musical, ever since I was a little girl and my mother put me to bed with selections from
The Sound of Music
and
My Fair Lady
. Now was my chance.

I saw Becca several times in the days before auditions. I'd tried hard to keep her off my radar in high school, but that week, she was all that was on my mind. Mrs. Gower had practically issued her a written invitation to audition. But this should be my part. My chance. Finally, the day before auditions, I couldn't handle it anymore.

“Are you going to try out?” I asked.

We'd barely spoken since that day at the bus stop years earlier. She'd avoided me, and I hadn't objected. Now she turned and her green eyes swept up and down, taking me in. She smiled.

“Of course.”

. . . . .

Mom had let me buy a new dress for tryouts, and a book of vocal selections from
Oklahoma!
I chose the song “Out of My Dreams” for the audition, figuring just about everyone else would sing “People Will Say We're In Love” or “Many a New Day” because they were easier. I had Mom finance an extra voice lesson that week, spending the whole hour working on “Out of My Dreams,” getting just the right dreamy quality. Mrs. Gower might have looked at Becca when she made the announcement, but the drama teacher, Mrs. Sandler, was part of the decision-making process too. She'd remember me from the Evening of One Acts.
Becca hadn't participated in anything. And Mrs. Sandler wouldn't have any preconceived ideas, like Mrs. Gower. If I was the best person at the auditions, I would get the lead.

I could barely sit still at the auditions, so it was a good thing there was a dance tryout first. I noticed with satisfaction that I picked up the steps much faster than Becca did. “Singing's next!” Mrs. Gower announced.

“Can't we do it privately?” someone asked.

“Sorry,” Mrs. Gower said. “If you can't sing in front of people now, how will you do it in the play?”

Most of the auditioners were freshman and sophomores, hoping for, at best, a solo line among the chorus. They sang a few lines of a song from the radio and were gone. Alli nailed her rendition of “I Can't Say No,” and I heard the drama club people whispering among themselves that she was a shoo-in for Ado Annie. Only drama club people would still use an expression like “shoo-in.”

“Becca Marino is next!” Mrs. Gower called.

Becca stood and walked toward the piano.

Becca hadn't bought any special dress for the audition or done her hair any special way. She wasn't even a blonde which, to me, made her inappropriate for the role of Laurey. She stood in the curve of the piano, and I recognized the dreamy opening bars of “Out of My Dreams.”

It had been years since I'd really listened to Becca sing. Oh, sure I heard her in class, but I tuned her out, and even when she had solos, she stood in front of the choir, her voice carrying forward. She didn't go to Federation competitions or take lessons with my voice teacher. She'd continued to take lessons with Mr. Oglesby at the middle school, so I was able to ignore her, to relegate her to a place of inevitability in my head. Becca was there, every day in chorus, in school, like humidity or homework, or rain.

But now, seeing her standing up there, singing
my
song in what should have been
my
place, I was back in that eighth-grade hallway again, and again,
tears filled my eyes. But this time, they were hot, angry tears, tears I couldn't shed so they sat in my stomach and my throat, forming a hard lump like a wad of chewing gum. It wasn't fair! I knew how hard I'd worked, how hard I'd always worked. No way could Becca have done any more.

But part of me was transported to an Oklahoma cornfield, and I knew everyone else listening was too. She sounded like a real singer, a professional. The rest of us were just kids.

The audition list was in alphabetical order, so the next name called was mine. I stumbled through “People Will Say We're In Love,” barely remembering the words. But I couldn't sing the song I'd prepared. Not after that.

The next day was callbacks to read for the principal roles, but I already knew it was decided. I did my best and hoped for a miracle.

I didn't get it. The next morning, the cast list was posted outside the drama room:

Curly . . . . . . . . . . .Jared Davis

Laurey . . . . . . . . . . Becca Marino

Ado Annie . . . . . . . Alyssa Hall

Jud . . . . . . . . . . . . .David Hernandez

Will. . . . . . . . . . . . .Nick Szpykowski

Aunt Eller. . . . . . . Meghan McGinley

“Aunt Eller's a good part too,” Alli said. “You have a big solo number.”

“Yeah, about cows.” But then I remembered myself and said, “Congratulations on Ado Annie. It will be fun, being in the play together. It will be, like, our last hurrah before college.”

That day, at the first meeting to give out scripts, I could barely look at Becca. I was sure if I did, I'd see derision in her green eyes.

But Wednesday, when I got to rehearsal, Mrs. Sandler called me to the front of the room.

“Would you still be interested in playing Laurey?”

I drew a sharp breath. “I, uh . . . sure. But what about Becca?”

“Becca's had to drop out of the production.”

I looked around, noticing for the first time that Becca wasn't there. I'd been trying not to look at her lately. “Why?”

“I have no idea. She called just this morning and said she couldn't do it. I'm afraid she's not a very reliable girl. She didn't even turn in her script sides and sheet music pages. You'll have to get them from her when you see her.” Then she added, “I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job, Meghan. It was a hard decision to make. You were really equally good. I just thought you could be Eller because you're taller.”

What a lie. But I guessed it was one she had to tell. She couldn't have Laurey doubting herself. I should have been elated, and I was in a way. But in another way, it was a letdown. I hadn't really gotten the part. And I dreaded running into Becca, knowing that I was second-best—as if I'd been caught rooting through her garbage, looking for leftovers.

She didn't show up for school on Thursday. And by Friday, I admitted to myself that I needed those script sides—the part of the script that had my lines on them. So that day, after school, I looked up her address in the phone book and walked to her house.

I stomped up the pitted driveway and knocked on a door with peeling once-white paint.

I barely recognized the Becca at the door. She pushed it open, just a crack, so all I could see were her red-rimmed eyes.

“What do you want?” she said.

“I . . . um . . . Mrs. Sandler asked me to come get your script.”

“Oh.” Without inviting me in, she walked away.

I pushed the door open a bit more and went in.

The house was small, so small that when I walked in the door, I was already in the living room and almost to the kitchen. And it was a mess. It was dimly lit, and it smelled like cat pee. Objects littered the floor and every available flat space. I moved my foot to avoid stepping on a used Q-Tip. On the sofa was a pile of what I first thought was laundry. Then I realized it was a woman.

Becca's mother.

I hadn't seen her in years, but I recognized her, sort of, from some assembly back in grade school. She'd changed so much since then. She was curled up sort of in the fetal position. Without thinking, I stepped toward her.

“Who said you could come in?”

The voice stopped me dead. I turned and looked into those piercing eyes again.

“I just thought . . .”

Becca thrust a wad of papers at me. “Here's your script. Now get out.”

I didn't move. “Becca, I—”

I didn't even know what I was going to say. Whatever it was, I didn't get it out because Becca was on me, pushing me toward the door. “Get out!” she yelled. “Get out now!”

I went along. I thought she would have hit me if I hadn't. As it was, she was shoving so hard, saying, “You got my part. You get everything you want. Now, you can leave.”

When we finally reached the front porch, I started again. “Becca . . .”

“Are you going to tell?” Even as she said this, her face wasn't apologetic or embarrassed, but defiant. “Are you going to run and tell everyone at school how I live, what I—”

“No.” My voice was a whisper. “No, I won't. But Becca . . .” I struggled to put together the words. “Why'd you quit the play?”

“The play.” She laughed. “Yeah, that's what really matters. The play.” But in response to the question in my eyes, she looked away. “Howard. My stepfather. He said I couldn't do it. He didn't want me away from the house that much. I had too much stuff to do around here. He doesn't like me out evenings.”

I thought back to eighth grade, to the overnight she'd missed. Since then, Becca had systematically missed every overnight trip, while attending everything else.

“He supports us, Mom and me,” Becca continued. “We'd be on the street without him. So I have to do what he wants. He's in charge.”