The Sky is Everywhere(6)
Author: Jandy Nelson

When the rest of us lesser musical mortals have recovered enough to finish the piece, we do, but as we put our instruments away at the end of practice, the room is as quiet and still as an empty church.

Finally, Mr James, who’s been staring at Joe like he’s an ostrich, regains the power of speech and says, “Well, well. As you all say, that sure sucked.” Everyone laughs. I turn around to see what Sarah thought. I can just about make out an eye under a giant Rasta hat. She mouths unfreakingbelievable. I look over at Joe. He’s wiping his trumpet, blushing from the response or flushed from playing, I’m not sure which. He looks up, catches my eye, then raises his eyebrows expectantly at me almost like the storm that has just come out of his horn has been for me. But why would that be? And why is it I keep catching him watching me play? It’s not interest, I mean, that kind of interest, I can tell. He watches me clinically, intently, the way Marguerite used to during a lesson when she was trying to figure out what in the world I was doing wrong.

“Don’t even think about it,” Rachel says as I turn back around. “That trumpet player’s accounted for. Anyway, he’s like so out of your league, Lennie. I mean, when’s the last time you had a boyfriend? Oh yeah, never.”

I think about lighting her hair on fire.

I think about medieval torture devices: The Rack, in particular.

I think about telling her what really happened at chair auditions last fall.

Instead I ignore her like I have all year, swab my clarinet, and wish I were indeed preoccupied by Joe Fontaine rather than by what happened with Toby – each time I recall the sensation of him pressing into me, shivers race all through my body – definitely not the appropriate reaction to your sister’s boyfriend’s hard-on! And what’s worse is that in the privacy of my mind, I don’t pull away like I actually did but stay wrapped in his arms under the still sky, and that makes me flush with shame.

I shut my clarinet case wishing I could do the same on these thoughts of Toby. I scan the room – the other horn players have gathered around Joe, as if the magic were contagious. Not a word between him and me since my first day back. Hardly a word between me and anyone at school really. Even Sarah.

Mr James claps to get the attention of the class. In his excited, crackly voice, he begins talking about summer band practice because school’s out in less than a week. “For those who are around, we will be practicing, starting in July. Who shows up will determine what we play. I’m thinking jazz” – he snaps his fingers like a flamenco dancer – “maybe some hot Spanish jazz, but I’m open to suggestions.”

He raises his arms like a priest before a congregation. “Find the beat and keep it, my friends.” The way he ends every class. But then after a moment he claps again. “Almost forgot, let me see a show of hands of those who plan on auditioning for All-State band next year.” Oh no. I drop my pencil and bend over to avoid any possible eye collision with Mr James. When I emerge from my careful inspection of the floor, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I turn to Sarah, whose visible eye is popping out of her head. I sneak out my phone and read her text.

Y didn’t u raise ur hand??? Solo made me think of u – that day! Come over 2nite???

I turn around, mouth: Can’t.

She picks up one of her sticks and dramatically feigns stabbing it into her stomach with both hands. I know behind the hari-kari is a hurt that’s growing, but I don’t know what to do about it. For the first time in our lives, I’m somewhere she can’t find, and I don’t have the map to give her that leads to me.

I gather my things quickly to avoid her, which is going to be easy because Luke Jacobus has cornered her, and as I do, the day she mentioned comes racing back. It was the beginning of freshman year and we had both made honor band. Mr James, particularly frustrated with everyone, had jumped on a chair and shouted, “What’s wrong with you people? You think you’re musicians? You have to stick your asses in the wind!” Then he said, “C’mon, follow me. Those of you who can, bring your instruments.”

We filed out of the room, down the path into the forest where the river rushed and roared. We all stood on the banks, while he climbed up onto a rock to address us.

“Now, listen, learn and then play, just play. Make noise. Make something. Make muuuuuuuuusic.” Then he began conducting the river, the wind, the birds in the trees like a total loon. After we got over our hysterics and piped down, one by one, those of us who had our instruments started to play. Unbelievably, I was one of the first to go, and after a while, the river and wind and birds and clarinets and flutes and oboes mixed all together in a glorious cacophonous mess and Mr James turned his attention from the forest back to us, his body swaying, his arms flailing left and right, saying, “That’s it, that’s it. That’s it!”

And it was.

When we got back to the classroom, Mr James came over to me and handed me Marguerite St Denis’s card. “Call her,” he said. “Right away.”

I think about Joe’s virtuoso performance today, can feel it in my fingers. I ball them into fists. Whatever it was, whatever that thing is Mr James took us in the woods that day to find, whether it’s abandon or passion, whether it’s innovation or simply courage, Joe has it.

His ass is in the wind. Mine is in second chair.

Lennie?
Yeah?
You awake?
Yeah.
We did it.
Did what?
Toby and I did it, we had sex last night.
I thought you already had, like 10,000 times.
Nope.
Well…
It was incredible.
Congratulations then.
Sheesh, why can’t you ever be happy for me about Toby?
I don’t know.
What is it, are you jealous?
I don’t know…sorry.
It’s okay. Forget it, go to sleep.
Talk about it if you want to.
I don’t want to anymore.
Fine.
Fine.

(Found on a takeaway cup along the banks of the Rain River)

I know it’s him, and wish I didn’t. I wish my first thought was of anyone in the world but Toby when I hear the ping of a pebble on the window. I’m sitting in Bailey’s closet, writing a poem on the wall, trying to curb the panic that hurls around inside my body like a trapped comet.

I take off the shirt of Bailey’s I’d put on over mine, grab the doorknob, and hoist myself back into The Sanctum. Crossing to the window, my bare feet press into the three flattened blue rugs that scatter the room, pieces of bright sky that Bailey and I pounded down with years of cut-throat dance competitions to out-goofball the other without cracking up. I always lost because Bailey had in her arsenal The Ferret Face, which when combined with her masterful Monkey Moves, was certifiably deadly; if she pulled the combo (which took more unself-consciousness than I could ever muster), I was a goner, reduced to a helpless heap of hysterics, every time.