That night I pulled out a painting I had done over a year ago. It was Cooper on a quad, flying over the sand dunes. It was good, realistic, but that was it. I studied the painting, remembered the fear that had coursed through me when I was in the same position, and set out to alter what I’d created. I tried to mask its portrait feel and make it more dramatic. More shadows, more sand flying, more expression. I didn’t refer to a real picture while working out the details on his face. I didn’t care so much if it was true to life. Just that it was real.
I stood back and glanced up at the wall clock. Three hours had passed. It hadn’t felt that long. My hands were covered in paint—black and deep blue streaked along all my knuckles. I used a clean corner of my paint shirt to wipe a blob I could feel under my eye, and then I assessed what I had done.
It was different. There was emotion on Cooper’s face that didn’t exist in the picture this was based off, along with steeper dune angles and misty sand flying and much more shadow. I wasn’t sure if all this made it better or just different. I wasn’t sure if I was better. The doubt that had lodged in my chest with Mr. Wallace’s summary of my work had built a sturdy nest there that wasn’t going to be easily disassembled. I dropped my paintbrushes in the jar and went to clean up.
“I can’t believe you talked me into doing this,” Cooper said. We were sitting in the red velvety seats of an auditorium with a hundred other people. They all held some sort of paper, and I stretched up to try and see what it was.
“What do they have?” I whispered. “We don’t have anything.”
Cooper looked around too, as if my mention of it made him realize that people were, in fact, holding papers. He was taller than me, so he had a better view. “Sheet music?” he said, as if not sure his guess was right. “It looks like sheet music.”
“Were we supposed to bring our own sheet music to try out with?”
“Obviously,” he said. “I guess that means we should leave.” He moved to stand, and I grabbed hold of his arm, pulling back down.
“We are not leaving.”
The click-clack of heels echoing through the room drew my attention to the stage in front of us, where Lacey now stood. I gave a small hum of surprise.
“What?” Cooper asked.
“Lacey Barnes is here. And apparently in charge.”
“And that surprises you?”
“I guess not. She is the star of a commercial.”
“And almost every single one of our school plays.”
“I guess I should watch more school plays.”
Lacey cleared her throat and spoke. “Welcome, everyone. We’re so excited to have you. I’m Lacey Barnes, assistant director of The Music Man this year. Thank you all for coming out. We’ll be starting soon. Our pianist today will be Mac Lawrence.” She gestured to the piano on the floor in front of the stage, and a man stood up and waved. Everyone clapped and I joined in.
“Myself and Jana Kehler, the director, will be sitting at that long table back there. So make sure you project.” She smiled, then held her arms out to the sides. “If I could get the guys to come up the stairs and gather behind the curtain, stage left, and the ladies stage right, we can get started.”
Everyone stood and filed up a set of stairs on either side of the stage.
“I’m thinking of a proper punishment for you after this,” Cooper said.
“You’ll be fine. You love the spotlight.”
“Not this kind,” he said right before we separated and joined our respective groups on opposite sides. Lacey saw me and walked quickly over.
“I thought that was you,” she said. “I didn’t know you liked theater. Be honest, was it my amazing British monologue at the library?”
“Yes, so inspiring.”
“That’s what I thought.” She smirked.
“Speaking of that amazing monologue, why aren’t you starring in this thing?” I asked.
“My acting coach suggested trying all the different aspects of theater as a form of growth. That’s exactly how she said it too.”
“I figured.”
She laughed. “Here’s to growth.”
“So,” I said before she expected too much from my audition, “this isn’t my thing and I didn’t know I needed to bring music.”
Girls were trying to walk around Lacey and me to get backstage, so she pulled me to the nearest corner. “That’s okay. People who don’t bring their own music get to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’”
“Nice.”
“Did I see Cooper Wells too? Did you guys come together?”
“Yes.”
She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Oh, no. Not together like that. We’re just friends.”
We both looked across the stage to where Cooper stood staring at us, like he found it weird to see us talking.
“You don’t keep someone who looks like that in the friend zone for too long,” Lacey said.
“Yes, I do, I mean, no, I don’t want . . . didn’t want to. He . . . it’s complicated. Please don’t repeat that,” I added, realizing I’d just revealed more to her than I ever had to Rachel.
“I have no idea what you just said, so I will gladly not repeat it.”
“Thank you.”
She gestured over her shoulder. “I better go. Someone has to run this thing.”
“Okay.”
“Break a leg,” she said and was off.
The next hour went by like someone had pushed a fast-forward button. Lacey would call people out one by one to sing. She and the director would take notes, and then the next person would be up.
Cooper went out before me. I thought he would be nervous, but he smiled at the judging table. “I didn’t bring music,” he said. “But I can sing some Metallica if you want. Or a little MJ.”
I held in my laugh.
“Happy Birthday is fine,” Lacey said.
He nodded, and the piano gave a frilly intro. Then Cooper sang. A few of the girls standing near me giggled.
One behind me said, “He’s nice to look at, but not good on the ears.”
I didn’t think his voice was all that horrible. It wasn’t like the other guys we’d heard who were polished and perfect, but he could carry a tune. When he got to the part where he had to insert a name, he sang Lacey. I peeked around the corner to see her smile at that.
When the piano played its last note, Cooper bowed and left the stage.
Finally, it was my turn. I’d been the one to suggest this, and now my palms were sweating, my heart racing.
A spotlight I hadn’t noticed before shone right in my eyes. I tried to look at Lacey and the director, but I couldn’t see them through the bright haze. I held up my hand to block some of the light.
Lacey gave me the thumbs-up.
“I need to sing Happy Birthday too.”
Without another word, the piano began its opening notes. I dropped my hand and let the light take over my vision. I always thought I was a better singer than Cooper, but there on the big stage in the middle of the even bigger theater, my voice was swallowed whole. I tried to sing louder, but I was already forcing my voice, so it cracked. I was so happy when I sang the last “you” and I rushed offstage.
“Good job,” the girl who’d been mocking Cooper said.
“Really?” I asked.
“You were kind of quiet, but you have a nice voice.”
“Thanks.” A surprising feeling of happiness coursed through me. I peered across the stage to the other side to see if I could get a glimpse of Cooper. He was standing there beaming, and the happiness in my chest expanded even further.
When all the singing was done, we were handed reading parts we had to perform. It felt like we’d been there all day, listening to people with varying degrees of talent read, when finally Lacey dismissed us. She handed out a paper that explained the callback process, and everyone filed toward the doors.
I hooked my arm in Cooper’s and we headed to the exit.
“That was torture,” he said.
“It wasn’t that bad.” It was something new. Something I’d never tried before, and it had pushed me outside my comfort zone to feel nerves I hadn’t felt in a while.
“You have a good singing voice,” he said to me.
“Thanks.”
“I don’t think I realized that before.”
“Abby!” Lacey ran down the aisle toward us. Cooper and I turned to face her. “Hey,” she said, when she stopped in front of us. “I wanted to tell you about a small barbecue I’m having at my house for the Fourth. You should come. Both of you.”
I’d actually heard about Lacey’s parties. There was nothing small about them. She lived in a huge house and threw even bigger parties. We’d never been invited, though. Cooper looked at me. We always watched the fireworks on the pier for the Fourth of July, and I wondered what he thought about this change of itinerary.
“Um,” I said, hesitating. Cooper didn’t say a word, obviously leaving this decision up to me.
“There will be people and food and fireworks. It’ll be fun,” she added.
Maybe I could count it as something from my list. The one about strangers or trying something new. I had to think of five of those, after all. “Okay.”
“Really?” Cooper said under his breath, and I elbowed him.
Lacey took the paper I held about callback information and wrote her name and number on it. “Text me and I’ll give you my address and stuff.”
“Okay.”
Cooper held his tongue until we’d waved good-bye and were outside. “Are you and Lacey friends now?”
“No, I hardly know her.” We hadn’t had a new friend join our group since it originally formed. We all got along too well and were too comfortable with one another to try and force an expansion.
“So no pier this year?” he asked.
“Rachel and Justin aren’t here, so it will already be different. We don’t have to stay at her party long if you don’t want to.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we should. Maybe I’ll bring a date.”
I tried to keep my voice casual when I said, “You might want to ask Lacey first.”
“If she’s just going around inviting random people, I’m sure she’d be fine with it.”
“Random people?”
“No offense.”
I laughed. “Well, too late, offense already taken.”
“You know what I meant.” He paused for a moment. “I wonder if she got a lifetime supply of zit cream from that commercial.”
I pushed him. “You’re a dork.”
With late afternoon light shining through the windows of my art room later that day, I started a perspective piece—the view from the stage. Again, I tried to go just from my memory and how I had felt. It had been so hot up there on stage. And bright. The light shining in my eyes basically blinded me. I squeezed a large amount of yellow and white onto my palette. I mixed a bit of each color and blotted it onto the middle of the canvas, making a quarter-size spotlight. I squeezed out some red and cream, some black and brown for the chairs and people and stage that would surround that spotlight, and got to work.
The window in the room had grown dark, and now only my lamp lit the painting. I moved to the switch and turned on more overhead lights to assess my progress. It was wrong. There was something wrong with it. Too many chairs. Too many eyes from too many people looking forward. That’s not how I had felt on the stage. I had seen hardly any chairs and almost no eyes. I swiped a clean brush through more yellow and white. I pulled out the light from the spotlight wider and wider. I streaked it across the chairs. The not-dry red mixed with the white and yellow and made orange swirls on the outside. The side of me that had obviously always loved my paintings to reflect reality almost painted more yellow over it, but I stopped myself. It was interesting movement. The spotlight in the center now made it almost impossible to see the surrounding chairs or people watching or edge of the stage. It took over the painting.
My eyes were tired. They had been straining too long. I resisted the urge to rub them with my paint-covered hands. I wasn’t quite done with the painting, but it was time to call it a night. I stepped back but then stopped when I noticed a face in the few that remained just outside the spotlight. I leaned closer and squinted. It was my mother. I’d painted my mother into my painting without even realizing it. My mother—the least likely person to be in that auditorium today.