Famous in a Small Town(35)

Flora shrugged. “I just do.”

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, even though I was the one who brought it up. Flora had a way of drawing stuff out of you, stuff you weren’t sure you were ready to confront yourself.

“Have you been doing your social media outreach?” I said instead.

Flora made a face. “Let’s just enjoy summer.”

“You sound like Brit.”

I thought she was going to say something more about it, but she threw her head back and looked at the sky.

“Firefly,” she said instead.





twenty-three


Band rehearsals started back up the next week in preparation for the Fourth of July parade. We would be marching with our program for the Rose Parade, as well as a few other standards—the fight song, some current pop hits.

Our Rose Parade show theme was “Sounds of the ’60s.” It was a medley of three songs: “Windy” by the Association, “Build Me Up Buttercup” by the Foundations, and “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops.

“Windy” was happy and bouncy and fun and kind of meaningless. Like, as a song, the lyrics were definitely absurd, but the music was undeniably feel-good. “Build Me Up Buttercup” was a deceptive song in that it sounded incredibly bouncy and fun, and, barring the lyrics, it was, but the lyrics themselves were pretty depressing. Luckily we were just extracting the instrumentals.

“Reach Out” was my favorite—the band arrangement was incredible. The drums, the brass, everything built into a giant wall of sound over the course of the song. It was perfect to march to.

The first day back in rehearsal, I took my seat in the woodwinds section. Two girls from my class, Chelsea and Becca, were sitting in front of me, fussing with their instruments.

“I was there on Saturday, but I didn’t see him.”

“Jess said he usually works mornings. Sophie probably knows.” Chelsea suddenly turned around to me.

“Sorry?”

“The new guy.”

“The hot new guy,” Becca clarified.

“As opposed to the not-hot new guy? There is only one new guy. He is hot, and you know him,” Chelsea said.

“Is he single?” Becca added, before I could answer.

“Uh … yeah, I think?”

“You guys aren’t a thing? Someone said they saw you at Miller’s last week.”

“We were just …” Doing “Gave You My Heartland”? That wouldn’t fly. I shrugged, and it came out so much more casually than it felt: “We’re just friends.”

“Awesome,” Chelsea said, and they both turned away.

It sounded foolish, but I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like having August in school with us. Meeting people at parties was one thing, but when school started, we would have to share him for real. What if he found people he liked better?

We, I told myself. This was definitely my concerns for we, the group, and not me, the person who had spent several nights staring at the ceiling and thinking of the feeling of August’s lips on mine.

I threw myself into rehearsal.

I genuinely liked being back in the swing of it, even if we were just in the band room to start, running through our program. First we needed to get the music going all together. Then we needed a balance to the performance—the brass could easily overwhelm, like a soprano who sang too loud. The drum line needed to be crisp and precise.

Ms. Hill gave us instructions, and we broke things down and put them together again, and it felt good to be back.



* * *



We reconvened at Teen Zone 2 after rehearsal.

I stopped at home to drop off my clarinet and hung around waiting for Flora, but she texted me saying to go on ahead. When I arrived, everyone else was there, including August, who was settling on the couch as Brit fussed with the laptop set up on the Ping-Pong table.

“We’re watching a movie,” she announced. “I already picked for us.”

“How gracious of you,” I said.

“I do what I can.”

We had just settled in and started the movie when everyone’s phones buzzed. A message from Flora: Sorry, still held up at home, be there soon!!!

“What is it?” August said.

“Flora’s on her way,” I replied. We were a few minutes back into the film when I said, “We should add you to the group chat. Then you’ll get everyone’s messages too.”

Brit raised her eyebrows. “You want to add him to WWYSE?”

“Why not?” I could hear her voice at the party some weeks back: So we’re officially adopting him now?

“WWYSE is a commitment,” Brit said. “It’s forever.”

“Forever?” August repeated.

“It’s just a group chat,” I said.

“Excuse me, it is not just a group chat. When someone asks where you’ll spend eternity, you are contractually obligated to respond.”

“Is there paperwork?” August asked.

“Soph, I love you, but we’re not adding some … passing crush to the group,” Brit said.

“He’s not—you’re not—” I squeezed my eyes shut briefly, breathed through my nose.