The Accidentals(45)

That Saturday night, Aurora suggests a horror movie that’s playing in the student center.

“Let’s watch something here,” Jake suggests, sitting on the S.L.O.— the squishy Sofa-Like Object that Aurora and I bought. It’s a cross between a futon and a giant beanbag, and it fits the three of us, more or less.

“Horror makes you squeamish?” I tease.

“Did you just call me chicken?” He smiles back at me, and I find myself wanting to reach out and measure his dimple with my fingertip.

“Or we could play Hearts,” Aurora proposes. “The three-person version.”

“Sure,” Jake says. “Get the cards.”





I lose miserably, several times in a row. “Ugh. Can we go out for a snack now?” There’s a gelato place that’s open until nine on the weekends.

“Nah,” Jake says. “Let’s stay here.” Jake sets the cards on the floor and picks up a copy of the student newspaper off our makeshift coffee table.

I watch him for a second, feeling as if I’m missing something.

“If we’re not having gelato, I’m going to make some tea,” Aurora says, carrying her electric kettle into the bathroom for a refill.

As I watch, Jake pulls out his phone and checks the time. Then he puts it back.

“What are you waiting for?” I demand.

He shrugs, sticking his face in the paper again.

Outside, I hear voices and the sound of running feet across the courtyard. I go to the window and look down. A group of guys is hustling into the door of entryway 3.

As the door shuts behind them, I feel the hair rise on the back of my neck.

There are several rooms with the lights on over in entryway 3. After a minute I see the group appear in a room on the fourth floor. Aurora, back with her kettle, comes to stand beside me.

“Open the window,” she says.

I do, and we can hear the faint sounds of singing—the school fight song, in four-part harmony.

I turn around to look at Jake. “It’s tap night for the singing groups, isn’t it?”

His eyes lift from the newspaper and he nods. “Worst kept secret on campus.”

“Oh.” I go to sit next to him on the S.L.O. “So… I guess I’m waiting, aren’t I?”

Jake puts his hand on top of mine for about a nanosecond. Then he takes it back again.

“Thank you for not telling me earlier,” I say in a low voice. “I’d be a wreck.”

From her desk chair, Aurora snorts. “Jake is excellent at not telling.”

The minutes tick by. Aurora busies herself with flipping through a magazine, and I busy myself with feeling ill. Every minute that goes by is a minute when the Belle Choir is busy tapping someone who is not me.

Eventually there’s the sound of running feet in the courtyard again. The three of us look at each other, but I don’t get up to see which entryway they’re approaching. Then, over the thudding sound of my heart, I heard footfalls in our stairwell.

Aurora jumps off the couch. “They’re coming for you!” She throws open our door. Jessica rushes in first, followed by Daria, Other Jessica, and nine other girls. They made a quick horseshoe in front of me and began to sing “Our Glory Years,” a traditional Claiborne song.

I just stand there, open-mouthed, while the sounds of twelve blended voices reverberate off the walls. When it’s over, Jessica beckons me to the end of the horseshoe and puts an arm around me. “Rachel, would you like to be a member of the Belle Choir?”

“Heck, yes!”

There’s a cheer from the hallway and I turn to see a small group of our neighbors peering in.

Twelve girls hug me quickly. And then the Belle Choir begins to file out of the room, on their way to tap somebody else.

I close the door, then turn to see my two friends smiling at me. Aurora claps her hands. “Don’t you want to call your dad and tell him?”

But hearing his name is not what I need right now. Because I’ll never know whether I would have gotten in if I wasn’t Freddy Ricks’s daughter. “It can wait,” I say.





October arrives, and the trees all over town are painted in glorious colors. The maples turn an astonishingly bright shade of red, and the yellow elm leaves look lit from within.

The sun begins to set very early, which means it’s already dark when my Belle Choir rehearsals end each evening.

I walk back to Habernacker alone, humming whatever tune we’ve sung last. We’re working on Jessica’s arrangement of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” She’s made it into an ensemble piece, bringing in voices one by one until it rises to a great crescendo. The climax of the song makes chills run up and down my back, in the best possible way.

Jessica—the pitch—runs the Belle Choir with an iron fist. During the first couple of rehearsals I was a little afraid of her. Maybe that’s silly, but I want to do well.

When she gives me a solo stanza of “Imagine,” though, I start to relax. Rehearsal is my favorite thing to do. Life is basically perfect between seven and eight p.m. on weeknights.

The Saturday before Halloween, I play a Belle Choir recording while Aurora and I sit painting each other’s toenails on the S.L.O. “If you get sick of hearing this music, just say the word,” I insist. “I’m still trying to learn the repertoire. But…hold still! You wiggle too much.”