The Accidentals(40)

“But has your father been good with you since your mother died?”

“Yes, he has.” And that’s the truth, even if I’m not telling the whole story. People are always going to give Frederick the benefit of the doubt. His Facebook fan page has a million likes.

“I think…” Aurora pauses. “In Spanish we say ‘no hay mal que por bien no venga.’ There is no evil which does not bring some good.”

“That is a very nice saying.”

“Your life right now is a fairy tale,” Aurora says. “The mother dies, and you are sent to your father, who is king of a faraway land.”

“Any minute now there will be trolls and dragons,” I point out.

“There may be,” Aurora agrees, shifting in her bed. “And evil stepmothers. I have one of those.” She is silent for a moment. “But every fairy tale has a righteous ending, Rachel. It’s guaranteed.”

I laugh into the darkness, hoping she’s right.





Chapter Fourteen





The following morning I meet Dr. Charles, an elderly guidance counselor who gives me my schedule. “Don’t be a stranger, Miss Rachel,” he says. “We’ll speak more next month when you’re ready to start applying to college.”

I am so not ready for that.

But my courses look good. I text Jake to tell him that I got the Russian lit class. All those hours with Anna K are going to pay off.

His reply: Nerds of the world, unite.

Aurora and I have three classes together—government, physics, and calculus. It’s nice to know another newbie senior as we weave our way around the beautiful campus, trying to find each new classroom.

As classes get underway, I decide that Claiborne Prep really does feel like the big leagues. The teachers speak quickly and never repeat themselves, and there is a lot less goofing off in classrooms. The worst behavior I see that first week is some surreptitious checking of phones during class.

And the homework assignments! Even during the first week, they’re intense.

At mealtime, Aurora and I always go to the Habernacker dining hall together. I love its old-world formality. The chairs are oversized, like heavy wooden thrones. There are red leather banquette seats against the walls.

Those are the good seats. But since the wooden tables are comically long, if you want to claim an empty space in the middle of the bench, you have to either duck under the table or walk along the seat cushion, stepping carefully behind the neighboring diners.

On the third day of school, Jake sets his dinner tray down on the table across from me and Aurora, and my heart leaps. It does that every time Jake appears.

And since he lives in the same entryway of Habernacker—two floors up—my poor little heart gets a frequent workout. I’ve discovered that if I prop open our door, he’ll stop in on his way upstairs to say hi.

“Jake,” Aurora says before he can even sit down. “We’re going to the showcase concert after dinner. You’ll come with us?” The way she says it just assumes he’ll say yes. Aurora isn’t nervous around Jake the way I am.

“Why not,” he says. Today his T-shirt features a couple of triangles. One of them says “You’re so obtuse” to the other one.

“Rachel wants to rush a singing group,” she adds. “Why is it called ‘rush?’”

He shrugs. “It should be called, Kiss Some Ass And Hope They Choose You.”

“Auditions start this weekend,” I say, feeling my stomach dive. “I’m not ready.”

“Sure you are,” he says, picking up his fork and stabbing a piece of pasta with it. “You’re not going to puke. That only happens in Pitch Perfect.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. Survived first 72 hrs? my father has texted.

I tap my reply. Unpacked. Found all my classes. Aurora = good people. You?

Restaurants. Walk. Burritos = meh. Realtor = good people.

Me: Cool. Having dinner with friends. Got to go.

Frederick: Dinner w/ friends. How nonchalant. As opposed to “chalant,” which is not a word.

I grin at the screen. You’ve been saving that up, haven’t U?

Frederick: :D

“What’s so funny?” Jake asks.

“My father made a joke,” I say, putting the phone away.

“Did you hear?” Aurora gushes. “He’s thinking of finding a place to stay in Claiborne, to be near Rachel.”

I drain my Diet Coke. “Father of the year, eighteen years in a row.”

If they only knew.





“What a crowd,” I say as the auditorium fills up for the concert. There are eight musical groups at Claiborne, or “CPrep” as Jake calls the school. And it looks like everyone else on campus has shown up to see them.

“Music is a big deal here,” Jake says. “And the a cappella groups are the top of the food chain. I used to like a cappella, but Asshat kind of ruined it for me.”

The lights go down as the jazz band walks onto the stage. A teacher wearing a red satin dinner jacket and a ponytail takes a short bow to applause. Then he turns toward his crew, lifts his hands, and counts them in. “One. Two. And a one, two, three, four…”

The band erupts into a bouncy, complicated swing tune, the likes of which no band in the history of my Orlando public school could ever have mastered. I know nothing of jazz, but to my ears they sound ready for Lincoln Center.