Isaac was wrong, it turned out.
Not about everything. We didn’t get caught in the field, thank God. And the Minuets didn’t go to the administration about the mattress stink bombs.
But it wasn’t over.
The day after the Great Ammonium Sulfide Retaliation, Nihal and I jogged up the steps to find a giant fluorescent penis spray-painted on the red door to the Crow’s Nest. Nihal “borrowed” some red paint from the Visual Arts painting studio, and I helped him fix the graffiti. “My finest work,” Nihal said in a mournful drone, painting over one edge of the penis. “Penis on Red Door, mixed-media, 2016. Lost forever to revisionist history.”
I chuckled. I’d finally mastered that—a laugh fixed low enough in my register that it didn’t sound like a giggle. “You,” I said, “are so pretentious.”
“I will do what I must for My Art,” he droned. I cracked up.
The day after the penis attack, Isaac, Erik, and Jon Cox caught about six-dozen crickets and let them loose under the Minuets’ dorm room doors.
At the start of Thursday’s rehearsal, Trav asked everyone to sit down. I felt, all of a sudden, that incoming sense of doom of getting back a Chemistry test.
“So,” Trav said, perching on the piano bench. “The Minuets’ music director came up to me today and told me about eight different ways to go to hell.”
“What, Caskey doesn’t like his new friends?” Isaac said innocently. “His loud, six-legged friends?”
Mama and Jon Cox slapped hands.
“No,” Trav said, giving them a sharp look. “That’s not a high five. I don’t care what they do next. We’re not retaliating anymore.”
“But—” Isaac started, but Trav cut in.
“Not a discussion.” Trav looked around the room. Everyone avoided his eyes. Marcus shifted uncomfortably in his windowsill.
“It’s October 2nd,” Trav said quietly. “I know you think the competition is way off in the future, but nine weeks isn’t an eternity. These four arrangements are not easy. Besides, the Spirit Rally’s the 16th, so leading up to that, we’ll have to waste three rehearsals on learning the school songs. And we’ll lose a big chunk of time at the end of the month, since we have to prepare for Daylight Dance. Then there’s Thanksgiving, which—”
“Hey. Hey,” Isaac said, lifting his hands. “Trav, breathe, all right? We’re not pressed for time. We’re already almost half-done, and putting the Minuets in their place isn’t distracting anyone from learning the music.”
“Also, they deserve it,” I muttered, thinking of the giant penis. The persistence of dick graffiti made no sense to me, especially coming from straight guys. If they were thinking about sex all the time, shouldn’t they have been scrawling vaginas all over the place?
“I, um.” Marcus’s hand jerked into the air. Everyone looked at him, and his hand faltered. “I kind of think Trav’s right. Like, a couple of the new Minuets are in my Theory class, and it’s really awkward. I-I told them I didn’t do the cricket thing, but they didn’t believe me, so—”
“What, Xander and Gonzales?” Erik said, lip curling. “Those guys are morons. Why do you give a shit what they think?”
Marcus quavered, his voice shrinking. “Because I—it just doesn’t seem like it has a point.”
“Exactly,” Trav said. “It’s pointless. My having to fend off Connor Caskey is pointless, and this discussion is pointless, and we don’t need any more like it.”
“What?” Isaac said. “This so-called discussion was your idea.”
And with that, the whole room was talking all of a sudden, talking over each other, bubbling up and up until Trav snapped.
He shot to his feet. “Quiet,” he breathed. His hands were out in front of him and shaking. The half-dozen rings on his fingers glinted, polished pewter. “Quiet. Now.”
For a moment, I thought Trav was having some sort of attack. After a second, though, he lowered his hands, which came to fists. His piercing eyes scanned each of us in turn and stopped, fixing on Isaac. “We’re done here. That’s final. Unless you’ve thought up any other ways to waste my time.”
The air went cold and still.
My time, he’d said. Rehearsal time—all his, and never contested. The question had never floated so clearly to the surface. Who did we belong to? Trav, with his strangled intensity, the gorgeous music he wrote, the balletic precision that he brought to rehearsals? Or Isaac, with his easy charisma, welcoming and omnipresent, the force that held us together?
Isaac’s eyes were set alight. His lips were an arrow shaft leading to a sharp crease in his cheek. He looked ready to snarl. All fire to Trav’s ice.
Jon Cox and Mama traded a look. Nihal closed his eyes, lashes dark against his cheek.
Isaac shoved a loose lock of hair behind his ear and leaned back in his armchair. Relief, then discomfort, prickled over my skin.
“Circle up,” Trav said, snatching his folder from the piano bench.
That night, nobody stayed after rehearsal.
“All right,” Mr. Rollins said, as the clapping dispersed. “Take a seat.”
It was first period on a Friday. I was wrung out—I’d barely slept. My scene partner, Douglas, took the seat we’d been using in our scene, and I dropped to the Palmer stage, smoothing the long locks of my wig over my shoulders.
“Well, what’d you all think?” Rollins turned to address the rest of our Character and Humanity class, fifteen kids dotted among the front rows of blue-covered seats. “Don’t be shy,” Rollins said, folding his arms. The command boomed out, rippling like thunder into the corners of the Palmer house. Rollins had graying cheeks, scruffy silver hair, and the sort of gravelly, dramatic voice that usually got assigned to mythological creatures in movies, which, incidentally, he’d made his living on for twenty-odd years. Then Hollywood had found a new, more famous guy to voice their dragons, and Rollins had enjoyed a respectable stage career before retiring into teaching. “Speak up,” he urged. “Shy won’t help anyone.”
Finally, Lydia raised her hand. The silver charm bracelet on her forearm slid toward her elbow. Rollins pointed to her.
“So,” Lydia said, “I enjoyed the scene. But . . .” She looked to me. My heart clanged like a bell; my nerves reverberated. Nobody’s critiques were more accurate than Lydia’s. “Jordan, you’re supposed to be playing a refined lady, and I’m not quite seeing . . . that.”
Heads wagged up and down in the audience. Rollins snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Good, Lydia. I’m glad you hit on that.” He faced me. “Jordan, to be honest, this wouldn’t be a part you’d land on, because part of the plot of The Duke revolves around Lady Calista being short enough to disguise herself as a twelve-year-old boy.” He raised his eyebrows at Douglas and me. “Which you both know, of course, because you read the entire play before performing this scene. Right?”
“Of course,” Douglas said. I nodded.
“Okay, good. So—” Rollins’s hands made grand gestures through the air, wringing the booming words out. “We’re back in the Restoration. Remember: This is the first time that actual women were allowed to play women’s roles onstage. This sort of seduction scene was the height of titillation back then, okay? Yeah, titillation, thank you, guys,” he aimed over his shoulder at the couple of people who were failing to stifle their laughter. “So, Jordan. Imagine it. Imagine being that restricted! That’s going to show in everything, okay? When every second of your life is shaped by being a woman, at a time where women are so defined by this idea of extreme femininity, you need to play this seduction sequence as if this guy is the first guy, ever, that you’ve seen behaving like this, showing interest like this.” He had worked himself into a frenzy. “It’s scandalous! You know? That’s why the unflappable Lady Calista’s so appalled by it. So delighted by it.”
I glanced at Douglas, my cheeks burning. He met my eyes, looking equally humiliated. I had this private theory that hell was an eternity of sixty-year-old teachers explaining seduction scenes.
Mr. Rollins took a breath and placed his palms flat on the stage. “Long story short, there’s some stuff happening with your body that doesn’t match that. Remember your Hagen, right? Who am I: How do I perceive myself? Part of character is how you take up a space. Part of humanity is how you think of your own human body. And Jordan, you’re a confident girl, that’s great. But at one point, I look at you and you’re sitting with your legs stretched out like you’re some guy on the subway. You’re laughing like someone modern laughs, not like a demure member of the aristocracy who was raised not to draw attention to herself. And you’ve got this arm thing going on, your arms are so involved when you talk. If you’re in the clothing typical of the period, right, you’re not going to be able to do that. You’ve got to make it all match, okay?”
“Got it,” I said.
“Great. Let’s try some of this when we run it again later. Anyone got something for Douglas?”
As Rollins turned back to the class, I frowned, looking down at myself. I hadn’t realized it at all, about the way I was sitting or moving.
At the end of last year, people’s comments had been the exact opposite. “You need to push it more.” “You look scared to reach out of your space.” “It’s like there’s this box around you.” The longer I thought about it, the more I realized that it had started to feel restrictive not to carry myself with the sloppy confidence I’d adopted for Julian. His persona had worked its way into the crevices of my normal life.
A hint of confusion awoke. What did it say that I’d gotten so addicted to my male disguise? If girlhood felt frustrating, and boyhood felt freeing, did that say more about girlhood, boyhood, or me?
I’d never questioned being a girl until now. I sat on that stage, detached, suddenly weighing every part of myself, wondering.
But the longer I thought about the possibility that I might not be a girl, the more I became sure that I was one. I knew it innately. The struggle to fit into some narrow window of femininity didn’t exclude me from the club.
At the same time, even just pretending to be a guy was changing me. It was letting me access parts of me I’d pushed back, and parts I didn’t know I’d had, and I wanted that version of me. I liked her better. She was new, she was interesting, she felt in charge.
My old self was losing traction, and as she fell further behind, I realized I didn’t particularly miss her.
Nihal texted me late that afternoon. Hey, what time are you going to Bonfire?
I stretched out my legs on the Nest couch, glancing around the room. Marcus sat in his window, brown hair lit up gold by the receding sunlight, reading a peeling copy of Leviathan. Mama hunched over the piano, examining sheets of staff paper spread out on the music rack, his huge hands occasionally darting over the keyboard with a surprisingly light touch. Erik was slouched, texting, in my usual armchair. It had been a subdued afternoon.
“Hey, guys, what time are we going to Bonfire?” I asked.
“Um, I don’t know, whenever’s good!” Marcus said, sounding awed, like he always did when someone included him in something.
“I dunno,” Mama said, pulling at the strings of his hoodie. His eyes were fixed on a page so densely packed with chords, it looked like somebody had spilled an inkwell over the systems. “I’m still waiting for Jon to get back to me.”
Erik laughed. “What are you, married?”
Mama didn’t turn around. “Simmer down, rook,” he said absentmindedly. His pen tapped F-sharp on the piano over and over.
“Hey, whatever.” Erik arched one eyebrow, still texting. “I don’t judge.”
Mama glanced to me. “I’m thinking early. Maybe right at seven?”
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll tell Nihal.”
I went back to my phone. Probably 7, I typed. You? I hit send, lying back on the couch. With September out the door, the Nest no longer felt like the inside of an oven, so I’d been spending more and more time here. Which meant less and less time out of disguise. These days, my voice fell naturally into its lower register, more than the occasional slip—whenever I was on the phone with Jenna, or even Mom and Dad, it felt like a performance.
Meh, Nihal texted. I was going to wait until after practice.
You’ll miss all the food tho, I said, before remembering Nihal didn’t eat meat. Wait. Ok. Never mind.
He texted back a cow emoji. Please, spare me!! I like wandering through fields!! Being alive!!
Aaand thanks for the guilt trip.
You are just so welcome, Nihal said. See you at 7.
I grinned, tucking my phone between the couch cushions. October Bonfire was the best fall tradition at Kensington, with the long tables of sizzling hamburgers and the flickering rumble of fire in the parking lot. The huge pyre they set up burned long and low, embers sparking and cracking up into the dusk.
“Seriously, though,” Erik said after a second of quiet. “Are you guys . . . you know? You and Jon Cox?”
It took a second for me to realize what he was asking. Marcus suddenly seemed too interested in Hobbes, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his beefy neck.
Mama went still for a second before turning to face Erik. “I mean, why do you care?”
“Maybe ’cause we spend all our time together?” Erik said, as if it were obvious. “Why do you not want to answer?”
Mama looked unaffected by the baiting. He tilted his head, letting the silence stretch until I felt this impulse to clap, or stomp, or yell, to snap the tension. Finally, Mama said, “I don’t want to answer because you’ve never bothered to ask me a question about my life before. And this is a weird, presumptuous one to start off with.”
Erik went red. He shifted in his chair and looked back at his phone. “Okay, forget it. I don’t care.”
I restrained a sigh. I don’t care—people always used that as a get-out-of-jail-free card for arguments, as if by pretending the whole thing meant nothing, they could hide their obvious losing hand.
Mama ran a hand through his flyaway hair, which settled over his heavy eyebrows. For a second, I thought he was going to backtrack, cave, and answer the question. But he shook his head and looked back at his staff paper. “Handel’s my favorite composer,” he said gently, “and I have two little sisters, and I’m from Kansas City. Just some stuff to start you off with.”
Erik didn’t look up from his phone, but it was obvious that he wasn’t concentrating on the screen at all.
We got to the bonfire as the sun dipped red toward the horizon. Buffet tables stretched down the parking lot, which had been cleared of cars, leaving a plain of asphalt to catch the sunset in its jagged fissures. The fiery crown of the bonfire roared up ahead. Teachers unsettlingly dressed in jeans and casualwear were hauling hay bales into rings around the fire, a safe distance back from the blaze. Once we’d heaped our plates high with food, the seven of us tugged a few bales together to sit.
Trav hadn’t shown. He’d been silent on the group text since last night. Isaac, on the other hand, was here, making quips with the sort of snappy preparation that made me sure he was more bothered by the fight than he would ever admit. The amount of food he shoveled into his face stunned me. He didn’t even have time to hog the spotlight, he was so busy putting hot dogs and rolls away.
A few teachers manned the bonfire, standing close to ensure that nobody threw anything in. It had become an unofficial student tradition, trying to distract the teachers long enough to sneak something into the fire. In my freshman year, Michael had done it to impress me, darting up while Mr. Yu’s back was turned. He’d sent his empty plate arcing up into the inferno like a grease-stained Frisbee, turned back to me with that triumphant smile, and pressed a kiss on my eyebrow.
That memory didn’t hurt anymore, which was strange. It just twinged. Pressure on a paper cut.
Nihal and I shared a bale. Erik perched to our right, and for once, his blustering attitude had vanished. He didn’t talk, didn’t sneer when Marcus talked, and didn’t jump in with opinions on every tiny topic. Most noticeably, he didn’t look at Mama once.
When a hand fell on his shoulder, Erik jumped, spilling water all over his khakis. “Shit,” he said, wadding his napkin against his leg. He looked up at the girl the hand belonged to and scowled. “Thanks a ton.”
“No problem,” the girl told Erik with a grin. “And wash out your mouth, child.”
I looked up at her, too. Victoria Taylor, I realized. Her sudden proximity was a shock. Victoria, the music director of the Precautionary Measures, was a Kensington celebrity, as well as a real-world celebrity: one of those rare ex–child stars who had actually kept her life together. She’d been the lead of a sanitized cable sitcom for three or four years—and she’d looked totally different onscreen, preteen pigtails and bubblegum-pink smile. Now, sharp black eyeliner drew her hooded eyes up into wings, and rippling golden-brown hair fell to her waist. Her left ear had about a half-dozen piercings.
The other guys had stopped talking to each other. Victoria glanced around the circle. “Hey, Sharps,” she said, all casual. The family friend at the reunion. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty well,” Mama said. “You know Erik?”
One of her eyebrows rose. “Yeah. He’s my brother, so, like, we’ve met a couple times.”
Jon Cox made a noise that made me worry, for a moment, that he was choking to death. “He’s your—?” Then he fell silent, staring at his plate, embarrassment written all over his face. It made him look like a different person. Victoria studied him for a second, looking baffled.
“He, um,” Jon Cox mumbled. “He didn’t mention.”
“Yeah, I hope he’s been good,” she said. “Mom was so worried about him making friends, since he has all the social skills of a dying moose.”
Marcus sprayed a bit of Sprite from the corner of his mouth, and I traded a delighted glance with Nihal. Even Isaac stopped eating to laugh.
Erik’s cheeks went bright red. “Victoria,” he said through gritted teeth. His voice cracked dramatically, flipping from bass to soprano and back within the space of four syllables.
Victoria shrugged, a wicked gleam in her eyes. She had an impossibly commanding presence, for someone who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. She’d worn flats at the Measures’ last concert, and with all the other girls in heels, she’d been about a head too short to blend in.
“Erik’s been a real problem,” Isaac said, tapping his chin in mock thought. “The Measures are probably gonna have to take him on as some sort of fake alto.”
Nihal chimed in. “He set off fireworks during rehearsal the other night.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and he eats string cheese without peeling it into strings. So messed up.”
Victoria laughed. “A new low.” She looked me over with curious eyes, glancing from my hair down to my clothes. I picked hay out of the bale, suddenly self-conscious.
“Eh, he’s been fine,” Mama said, breaking the stream of criticism. “Nothing we can’t fix.”
Erik, whose ears were bright red by this point, looked Mama’s way. After a second too long, one corner of Mama’s mouth lifted, and he went back to his food.
Nobody seemed to notice the tacit forgiveness bouncing across the circle, but I knew that was it. The weird fight was done and forgotten, and thank God. We didn’t need any more clashes.
“Well, good, since you’re stuck with him,” Victoria said, flashing a smile. She had brilliantly white teeth. “You know what? We should all go into town for a group dinner sometime. Sharps and Measures. Best of pals.”
“Absolutely,” Isaac said. “I’ll get you in touch with our schedule-master.”
“Ah, Traveler,” Victoria sighed. “Where is he, anyway?”
Isaac shrugged. “Probably making a blood sacrifice at his shrine to the Yale Whiffenpoofs.”
The others laughed, and I spluttered along, more at the name than anything. The Whiffenpoofs? I could only guess that was an a cappella group, although it sounded more like a breed of dog that rich blonde ladies kept in their handbags.
Someone called Victoria’s name a few hay bales over, and she said, “Gotta run. Later, guys.” She flashed chipped red nails in a wave and jogged off.
Everyone watched her go, and then turned back to the center of the circle. An immediate air of conspiracy sank over us. Jon Cox hissed to Erik, “Victoria Taylor is your sister?”
Erik didn’t look pleased about it. “Yeah, duh.”
Isaac spoke through a mouthful of burger. “Jon’sh been in love wiff your shishter f’r like a year.”
Jon Cox shoved him. “I’m not in l—it’s not like a—it—”
“I have to put up with the pining 24/7,” Mama groused.
“I don’t pine!”
“As you can see,” Nihal said, “he can’t even really look at her without his brain turning into a sea cucumber.”
“Nature documentary,” I muttered to Nihal, and he elbowed me.
Jon Cox buried his face in his hands. His glasses slipped up, getting tangled in his swishy hair.
I couldn’t help a grin. Jon Cox losing his shit was kind of cute. I’d wondered why he didn’t have a girlfriend, if his pickup attempts were as frequent as Mama said. Hot guys didn’t stay single long at Kensington, since the girls here were on the whole so much better-looking than the boys, it was almost embarrassing.
By senior year, attractive single boys turned into famously single boys. The way people talked about, for instance, our seniors, you’d think it was a personal insult that they had no apparent interest in dating. I couldn’t blame them for not wanting to get wrapped up in Kensington’s ridiculous dating culture, though. This place bred long, intense relationships with lots of poetic love declarations and romantic serenades. Valentine’s Day at Kensington could induce nausea in even the sappiest people.
Obviously, Trav was already in a relationship with his arranging software. As for Isaac, whoever he eventually landed with, I’d be warning them to keep some sort of industrial-grade muzzle on hand.
The sun had set. With Mama and Isaac still teasing Jon Cox mercilessly, we rotated our hay bales to face the bonfire, which roared up into the purpling sky. I scanned the faces in the bonfire crowd. They flashed yellow-orange in the changing light. A few Theater sophomores sat half a dozen hay bales to the left. To our right, the Minuets hooted with laughter, cluttering up the air.
All of a sudden, the other Sharps fell quiet one by one, their eyes fixing behind me. I glanced up.
Trav stood by our hay bale, looking out of place in neatly pressed slacks.
We were all too still. I could feel the line of attention drawn from Trav to Isaac like a spiderweb, but Isaac was busy examining his tightly laced black sneakers. The noise of people milling around persisted, cupping our silence inside, as clear as spring water.
Trav cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to waste our rehearsal time, but I wanted to talk about yesterday.”
Isaac glanced up, looking wary.
Trav smoothed down his linen jacket. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. It—”
“Hey, Atwood,” jeered one of the Minuets. We looked over. The guy jabbed a finger toward the bonfire. “Check it out.”
I squinted in the direction of his finger to the corner of the bonfire nearest us, where somebody stood dangerously close to the pyre, cast into a tall silhouette by the light. His dark hair caught the firelight.
“Connor,” Nihal murmured, his voice filled with suspicion.
Nearby, the shortest, stockiest, and beardiest of the Minuets stood in front of a teacher guarding the bonfire. The Minuet wore a huge, kiss-ass smile, talking up a storm.
Foreboding settled over me like a cold blanket. As we watched, Connor Caskey unzipped his backpack and pulled out something I couldn’t make out in the brightness of the bonfire. He darted close to the fire, stashed it among the flames, and darted back again before any of the teachers noticed.
The group of Minuets were all wide smiles.
By the fire, Connor reached into his bag again, shuffling out another object.
“Is that . . .” Nihal murmured as it caught the light. This time, I recognized it. A manila folder bursting with stapled papers.
No.
My stomach clenched. I shot to my feet. “The archives,” I choked out. “That’s our music!”
Isaac was already moving. He vaulted a bale of hay and bolted toward the fire, but too late. The second folder landed in the fire and roared into life.
My heartbeat felt hollow, a small mallet knocking against a large, deep drum. I watched with detachment as Nihal darted after Isaac and seized his wrist, pulling him back from the fire. A few people nearby stared, but mostly, in the mix of voices and motion, the whole thing went unnoticed. Just a few guys acting out.
The decoy Minuet left the teacher, who turned to see Caskey a safe distance from the bonfire, strolling backward. For one second, Caskey flashed us an arrogant grin. There it was again: I win. Isaac’s face gleamed in the light as he snarled something at Caskey, and with the rest of the Sharps’ faces a mix of disbelief and fury, unfamiliar rage built in my chest, too, white-hot and righteous.
Fists curling, I looked around. Trav had vanished.
I caught sight of him disguised by the fluttering light. Past the tables, behind the crowds, his black backpack bobbed into the darkness, away from the lot and down the road.