Inevitable and Only(52)

That night, as we were getting ready for bed, Elizabeth said, “Cadie—you know him a lot better than I do, of course, but—do you think Josh is okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth just now, he was going downstairs with his cello. I don’t think he realized that I saw him.”

I checked the time—10:04. Huh. It was well past Josh’s bedtime, let alone his practice time. “I’m sure he’s fine,” I said, annoyed that Elizabeth had noticed and I hadn’t. A few minutes later, though, I made a big show of pretending I couldn’t find my script, and crept down the stairs.

I didn’t see or hear anything at first—Dad wasn’t even on the couch or in the kitchen. Then I went to the basement stairs and pushed the door open a crack. Soft music floated up. Well, soft sounds—Josh was practicing something with a mute on down there, and it didn’t exactly sound like music. I listened for a few more minutes and caught snatches of melody here and there, but couldn’t figure out what he was trying to play. It sounded like he was hitting a lot of wrong notes. Judging by that and how frequently he stopped and muttered to himself, he was trying to learn something new.

I closed the door gently and turned to find Mom standing behind me, her whole face creased into a frown. “He’s got seven weeks until the competition, and his Popper is a wreck.”

“He’ll be fine, Mom,” I said.

“He’s not fine, listen to that!” Mom took a deep breath, then continued more quietly. “I didn’t know he was sneaking out of bed to practice. Has he been doing it for a long time?”

“I have no idea.” I felt as miserable as she looked. How long had Josh been practicing in the basement in the middle of the night? How could I not have noticed before?

“I’ll talk to him about it in the morning,” Mom said. “I don’t want him to think I’m spying on him.”

The music stopped for a moment, and we both jumped as we heard something crash downstairs. It sounded like Josh had thrown his rock stop across the room. “Mom, why can’t he just play one of his Bach suites for the competition? He sounds fantastic on those, and he practices them all the time. He loves them.”

She shook her head. “Those aren’t competition pieces. There are certain pieces assigned to each age category, and we’re trying to show how far above his age level Josh is. That’s why we picked the Hungarian Rhapsody.”

“We?”

“Yes, me and Olga. If he wins this competition, or even if he places well, that would open all sorts of doors for him for high school—Interlochen, or—”

That sounded familiar. Josh had told me something about Michigan last weekend, hadn’t he? “You’d send him all the way to Interlochen? Mom, that’s in Michigan, right?”

“We’ll have to do what’s best for your brother’s career,” Mom said, and turned to go up the stairs.

“He’s just a kid, Mom, he doesn’t have a career!”

“Not yet. But you wait and see, Cadie, that boy is going to be something special.”

And what about me, Mom? I thought. Why is it always about Josh, Josh, Josh with you?



Monday morning, I woke up with a fluttering stomach. It took me a few minutes to remember why. Ah, yes. Drama class.

Zephyr smiled at me when I walked into the Shed, but other than that, he didn’t treat me any differently than he had pre–Center Stage binge weekend. Which meant he didn’t go out of his way to talk to me at all, unless we were working on a scripted scene together. So much for having a new friend?

“Cadie,” Robin called, snapping me out of my reverie. “What are you doing in this scene? What’s your objective? What do you want?”

We were still working on our Crucible scenes in class.

“Sorry,” I said, “I forgot how I did it last time.”

Robin waved his arms as if hailing help from a sinking ship. “No, no, no! How many times have I said this? We don’t ‘remember’ anything on stage. Conscious forgetting, people. Every time you step into a scene, your reactions should be new and real. Forget, forget, forget!”

“Then I’m doing a great job,” Sam muttered. He’d forgotten three of his lines and missed two cues already.

“Wipe the slate clean.” Robin clapped his hands. “Try again.”

I took a deep breath and tried to forget the blocking, the cues I was expecting, to relax my body enough that all of that would come naturally. Inevitably. Trying to make it look like I wasn’t doing any work at all. Easy peasy my ass.

Robin had us run the scene two more times, and then we sat down and watched the next group. He stopped them even more frequently, with more arm waving and even some Shakespearean cursing thrown in.

After class, I lingered over my backpack, just to see if Zephyr would come over to talk. He didn’t. In fact, it seemed like he packed up and left extra quickly, ignoring the fact that Robin was trying to wave him over. Robin looked extremely annoyed. He flagged me down by the door instead and said, “Cadie, if you happen to see Zephyr before tonight’s Much Ado rehearsal, would you please remind him that he has been running late for his scenes? Actors are expected fifteen minutes before their call times.”