I snuck out of the house before Mom had a chance to wake up and see me leave. I didn’t bother to leave a note. After the last few days, I figured she didn’t particularly care where I’d gone.
George texted me that their competition was at Merrill Middle School, a school from the county over. He was competing in two events—one with the full jazz band from the high school and one combo. The performance with the whole band was first, and I followed the Sharpie signs to the auditorium. I grabbed a program on the way into the auditorium and found a seat in the back, not in the biggest people mood at the moment.
I scanned the program until I found George’s name, and it sent a little shiver of excitement down my spine. I didn’t realize how excited I was to see him play until that moment.
“Next we have the Springdale band under the direction of Dr. Rauch,” someone announced from the side of the stage. George walked onto the stage with his saxophone in hand, his mess of strawberry blond curls tamed by an extreme amount of gel. It was weird seeing him in a shirt buttoned all the way to the top and dress shoes. I preferred his signature sneakers any day.
They started things off with a bang, George bouncing in time with the beat as he played. They all seemed to take their cues off him—each time he would breathe in they would start in on a new phrase. It was a choreographed dance that George was the center of. He stood up in the middle of the song to stand in front of the microphone at the front of the stage. He closed his eyes and started to solo, riffing off the band behind him. He never missed a beat, even though it was completely made up on the spot. When he finished, his face spread into his signature lopsided smile before he went back to join the band again. I let out an extra loud “Go, George!” in the mixture of the audience’s applause.
The set was over all too soon, and everyone who came to watch Springdale started to file out of the auditorium. I waited until most people had left before I got up from my seat, looking at the program to see where his combo would be performing next.
“Savannah?” someone asked when I left the auditorium.
I looked up to find a young girl who looked a little bit like Grace, if Grace had blue eyes and was still thirteen years old.
“I’m Hannah,” she said. “George’s sister. He showed me your picture on Instagram, sorry if that’s creepy.”
“Not creepy at all,” I said, blushing just thinking about Hannah taking a spin through my Instagram feed. Thirteen-year-olds were a thousand times cooler on Instagram with their themes and what not. I wondered what she thought about my series of “hot dog or leg?” photos from last year. Ashley and I got a good laugh from them at least.
“We’re about to head over to his combo if you want to come sit with us?” she asked, motioning toward her parents standing in the middle of the Merrill Middle School lobby. Mrs. Smith waved at me and showed me the same lopsided smile that I’d come to recognize as George’s.
“Sure, that would be great,” I said.
“Mom, Dad, this is Savannah. George’s…” Hannah trailed off.
“Friend,” I interjected, holding out my hand. “I’m George’s friend Savannah.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Savannah,” Mrs. Smith said. “George has told us so much about you. It’s been really nice for him to have such a great friend as he transitions to his new school. Thank you for that.”
“Oh, no, he’s definitely helped me out more than I’ve helped him. Trust me,” I said.
“We have a few minutes before he performs again,” Mr. Smith said, checking his watch. I loved that he still wore a watch and checked it rather than using his phone.
“Let’s get scootin’!” Mrs. Smith said.
We made our way down the hallway, and Hannah caught up to my side as we walked.
“Let’s send a good-luck Snap to George before he goes on!” she said, positioning the camera so that we were both in the frame of her selfie. She put up a thumbs-up in the picture and all I could do was attempt to smile before she pulled the phone away.
“I think I blinked, should we redo it?” I asked.
“You look cute, don’t worry,” she said. Commence the full-body blush on my part.
The room that we went in to watch the combo was a much smaller classroom where you could most definitely see the audience watching you. I sat down in the front row, in between Hannah and Mrs. Smith, as we waited for the combo to come into the room.
“It was very nice of you to come, Savannah,” Mrs. Smith said. “I know it will mean a lot to George.”
“I’ve been dying to see him play. I wouldn’t miss it,” I said.
A girl walked into the room with a sheet of paper in her hand. Her hands shook nervously as she read from it. “Next we have the Springdale swing combo from Springdale High.”
This time when George walked into the room, his eyes found mine immediately. His smile grew across his face, and damn, it was pretty contagious. I couldn’t control the smile that crossed my lips and stayed plastered there for the rest of the performance.
George counted everyone off, fully in the leadership position now that there wasn’t a director standing in front of them. He moved his body more during this performance, almost being the conductor with just his body movements. This music seemed more challenging and quick, and I watched in awe as his fingers moved deftly over the keys. I wondered how many hours of practice it took to perfect these songs, let alone the practice with the whole combo to make sure that everyone’s parts fit together seamlessly.
As the combo hit their last note, I instantly started clapping and even let out an embarrassingly loud whoop! Was it not customary to whoop at a jazz band concert? I didn’t care. I was all kinds of impressed and proud, and the whoop was the best way that I knew to show it.
“Georgie said he’d meet us in the lobby,” Mrs. Smith said, patting my leg. I followed them back down and waited anxiously to see George. I had so many questions for him. How did he become appointed the leader? What did they call it when he held out that really high and impressive note for a long time? How was he so confident when he performed solos? How did he know he wouldn’t mess up? So. Many. Questions.
Mr. Suave Saxophone Man rounded the corner with his case about ten minutes later after Hannah had the perfect amount of time to suggest an Instagram theme for me to start using. Mrs. Smith wrapped him in a giant congratulatory hug before he could acknowledge the rest of his posse, and my heart squeezed when she planted a big kiss on his cheek. When he pulled away from her, he looked at me. My breath left my lungs in a whoosh, and I swear for two seconds I could hear my heart beating in my ears.
He walked over to me, and we stood in this awkward, do-we-or-don’t-we-hug limbo that was doing unfair things to my nerve endings. I settled on crossing my arms in front of my chest and smiling up at him rather than going in for the unreciprocated hug.
“You were amazing up there,” I said. “I didn’t know that I was tutoring a music prodigy.”
“Prodigy’s a little bit of a stretch,” he said, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck. His telltale nervous sign.
“No, seriously, you were amazing. And they all just followed you whenever you’d move—it was kind of incredible. How come I never knew that jazz band was such a big deal at Springdale?” I asked.
“You’ve obviously been hanging out with the wrong crowd,” he said. “But seriously, thank you for coming. It, uh, it means a lot to me.”
“Of course,” I said. I wanted so badly to reach out and grab his hand that wasn’t currently occupied by his saxophone case. We were both smiling at each other for an unknown amount of time before Mr. Smith coughed behind us. We both turned around quickly and knew that my face was turning red.
“Savannah, would you like to come over for dinner? I’m making some celebratory homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Unless you’re vegetarian. We can go meatball-less, too!” she said.
“Oh, no, I’m a big fan of meatballs,” I said. Hannah started snickering from her phone, and George sent her a warning look. Truthfully, it was taking everything inside of me to not laugh at the innuendo I just dropped in front of my crush’s parents, too.
“Well, great! George, why don’t you drive back with Savannah to show her the way to our house, okay? We’ll meet you both back there!”
Hannah waggled her eyebrows at us as she left with their parents. Once they rounded the corner I burst out laughing.
“Subtlety is not one of my family’s greatest strengths,” he said.
“I see,” I said, recovering from my laughing attack. “Norma’s this way.”
“Norma?” he asked.
“Did I not explain that my beloved car is named Norma?” I asked.
“You would name your car,” he said.
“She needs a name for when I accidentally hit the curb and I have to apologize to her,” I said.
“Obviously. How silly of me to think that you wouldn’t name her something.”
He flung his saxophone case in the back seat and climbed into the passenger seat. We had about fifteen minutes of a car ride ahead of us, and I was already thinking of all the conversation starters that I had in my back pocket.
“So Hannah is going to help me start an Instagram theme,” I said. “She thinks I look like a blue-tint kind of girl. What do you think?”
“I think I don’t understand Instagram,” he said.
“Thank God I’m not the only one,” I said.
His leg was bouncing up and down nervously, and I tried to focus on the road in front of me to forget that a very cute and talented George was sitting in my front seat.
“I just—”
“When did—”
We both started at the same time.
“You go,” I said.
“Oh, okay,” he said. “I was going to ask when you got there. Did you see the first performance?”
“I did! I was in the back; you probably couldn’t see me,” I said.
“That was probably for the best,” he said. “I was a lot less nervous because I didn’t know you were there.”
“I made you nervous?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “I got that Snapchat from Hannah, and I thought I might be sick!”
“Wait, what? Why? You were so good!” I said.
“I mean, you’re so good at everything you do. I wanted to prove that I was kind of sort of good at something, too,” he said. He looked out the window as he finished his sentence, and I felt my mouth drop open.
“George, what’s your middle name?” I asked.
“Samuel.”
“George Samuel Smith, do you even realize how wonderful you are?” I asked. “Do you need an official hype woman? Because I’m your gal if you need one.”
“You think I’m wonderful?” he asked.
“Yes. Now we’ve hit our cheesy quota for this car ride. I will literally ooze cheese if we praise each other anymore. Here’s the aux cord. Pick out something fun to play,” I said.
He put on Eminem, and I burst out laughing as he started rapping all of “Lose Yourself.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he practiced it. And that fact made my heart soar.
We somehow made it back to his house before the rest of his family, and he led me inside. There were still a few boxes piled up in the living room, but adorable pictures of baby George and Hannah hung on the walls. I stopped to look at all of them, my particular favorite being one of two-year-old George in a bath filled with rubber ducks.
“I need to go drop this upstairs. Do you want to come up?” he asked.
“George Samuel Smith, are you asking me to go to your bedroom with you?” I asked in my best Southern belle accent.
“It’s a regular town scandal,” he said, leading me up the stairs.
His bedroom was fairly plain, with a double bed pushed into one corner of the room and with sheet music scattered all over the floor. The walls were still bare, like he’d just managed to set up the bed and then gave up on unpacking the rest of his things.
“I was expecting more posters of naked video game characters,” I said.
“I keep it nerdy chic in my room, thank you very much,” he said.
He pulled his normal uniform of a T-shirt and jeans from a pile of clothes on the floor and turned to leave. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
“You can change in here, I’ll promise to close my eyes,” I said.
“Do you think Clark Kent ever let people stay in the same room when he became Superman? I can’t possibly have you know my secrets.”
“I guess you’re right. Go on, Clark,” I said.
He shuffled out of the room and into the bathroom. I sat down on the edge of his bed, taking in the mess of it all. I suddenly became acutely aware that I was in George’s bedroom while his parents weren’t home. What would the casual onlooker think? Would they think we were a couple? Or would they think that I’d been hopelessly friend-zoned by the supercute saxophone boy?
When I looked back to the left, George was leaning against his doorframe with his arms crossed. My heart beat wildly in my ears, and I wished so badly that he would close the distance between us and kiss me. We stared at each other for three beats before we heard the sound of the garage door go up.
“And that’s our cue,” he said, not breaking eye contact. I slowly stood up and followed him back downstairs to the promise of Mrs. Smith’s delicious spaghetti and meatballs.
When we made our way back downstairs, Mrs. Smith was already boiling pasta and heating up the most delicious-smelling sauce ever on the stove. Hannah and Mr. Smith were sitting in the living room, starting a questionable Netflix movie that neither of them had heard of before. Those were the true gambles in life.
“We can chitchat in the kitchen, if you’d like!” Mrs. Smith said over her shoulder.
George and I took a seat at two matching stools at their kitchen counter while she worked at the stove, adding dashes of spice and a little bit of water here and there to her sauce.
“So, Savannah, George tells me you’re a mathematician,” she said.
“Oh, not really,” I said. “I just like calculus.”
“Well, you’ve been really helpful to George. He’s always struggled with math,” she said.
“Thanks, Mom,” George said, a blush creeping up on his cheeks.
“Sorry! Sorry! Foot in mouth,” she said.
“So, do you or your husband play music?” I asked.
“Oh, gosh no! But my sister plays clarinet. Georgie started on the clarinet, did you know that?” she asked.
I turned to face him, raising my eyebrows. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s pretty standard for saxes to start on clarinet,” he said.
“He teaches lessons on saxophone and clarinet,” Mrs. Smith said.
“Ma,” he started.
“What? I’m proud of you, that’s all!” she said. “I don’t know why you two in there started a movie. Dinner is going to be ready here in a second!”
Hannah and Mr. Smith grumbled from the other room before getting up and coming to the kitchen. It’s like they all had some unspoken roles in the dinner process that they all fulfilled. Each of the Smiths went to different parts of the kitchen to grab plates, silverware, cups, and placemats and set them out accordingly. I watched their silent dance in awe, wondering if this was how normal four-person families functioned. The only other family besides my own that I had to base it on was Grace’s, but she lived in a six-person household, which was decidedly more chaotic than most.
“Savannah, why don’t you come serve yourself, dear!” Mrs. Smith said, handing me a plate. I looked in to the pot of delicious carb-ridden goodness and my mouth watered. We hadn’t eaten regular noodles in the house in over a year, and the sight and smell of them made me practically drool on my plate. Good-bye forever, spiralized zucchini noodles.
I took a heaping helping with me to the table and poured myself a glass of water before sitting down. I loved that their table was actually in the kitchen and not removed in a dining room somewhere. You were right in the action, and it made everything and everyone seem so much closer and more involved.
Their family chatted animatedly throughout the whole meal (dropping some bread crumbs of amazing embarrassing stories of George along the way) and not once did one of them monitor the other person’s meal. I knew that I was stuffed to the brim from all the spaghetti that I grabbed the first time, but knowing that I would have the option to go back up for a second round of food without any judgment made the biggest sense of relief and calm fall over me.
* * *
Spending time with George and his amazing family made me realize how incredibly angry and tired I was of the way that Mom had been treating me lately. Sure, she’d been dealing with her own issues surrounding seeing herself on Shake the Weight again for the first time in six months, but she had no right to completely go off the wall while my friend was over. It was one thing to be controlling about what I ate, but it was a whole other thing to be controlling over what George ate or brought into the house.
Her car was still in the driveway when I pulled up. Good. Now would finally be the time that I let go of all the anger that I’d held back in an effort to keep the peace between us. All the pent-up anger in the last few weeks started to well inside of me, and I knew that once I saw her face, I could quite possibly explode.
My anger ricocheted inside my chest as I made my way through the front door. I could hear the pitter-patter of her feet hitting the floor in her room, the telltale sign of her doing a jump rope workout. I flew up the stairs, not entirely sure what I would say first. I wasn’t always in my best form off the cuff, but I knew that if I didn’t say something now, I never would have the guts.
The door smacked against the wall of her bedroom and she let out a small yelp, turning to face me.
“I didn’t hear you come home,” she said. “You scared the daylights out of me.”
“Oh, I scared you? How about you scaring me yesterday?” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“When George was over and you went all Godzilla on my baking session,” I said.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Savannah. I’ve told you numerous times that I don’t want that kind of food in my house, and you explicitly disobeyed that rule,” she said.
“I had a friend over. He brought the food. It was a completely different situation,” I said.
She wiped her forehead with a towel that she’d slung across the end of her bed and took a sip from her water bottle before turning back to face me.
“You’d be a lot happier if you could just make the choice to lead a healthier life. I have a goal to work toward. When I’m down another fifteen pounds, I can fit back into my swimsuit and go swimming again. How wonderful will that be?” she asked.
“You are perfectly capable of going swimming right now with the body you have right now,” I said.
“Not the way that I want to go swimming,” she said.
“And what happens if you don’t lose those fifteen pounds? Will you never swim again?” I asked.
Her hands flew into the air in an angry spiral. “Don’t put that kind of negativity out into the universe, Savannah. I’m going to lose those fifteen pounds and be happier because of it.”
“So what happens when you do drop those fifteen pounds? Will you be content? When is this going to stop, Mom? When there’s nothing left of you?” I asked.
“Don’t talk to me like that. You think you know what’s best for everyone around you? I am in control of my body—not you, not your father—no one,” she snapped.
I flinched. “I’m just worried about you,” I said quietly, my resolve starting to crumble.
I could sense her pulling away into herself. All the anger that I’d had earlier was slowly turning into fear. Fear for the look in her eyes while she screamed about having control of her body. Fear for the circles that were prominently showing under her eyes. Fear for the bones that were more pronounced in her figure than the last time I looked at her.
“I wish you’d stop worrying so much about me and start worrying about yourself. I’m sorry that I tried to save you from processed sugar and fatty foods. Excuse me for wanting my daughter to have a better life than I did growing up when I was—”
“Fat?” I finished for her. I felt the tears sting in my eyes as I tried to keep my voice steady. “News flash: fat isn’t a bad word, Mom. It’s the twenty-first century. I have blue eyes. I have blond hair. I’m fat. Literally nothing about my life is changed because that word is associated with my physical appearance. I’m sorry that someone taught you to hate yourself because of your body somewhere along the way, but I’m not going to let you pull me down with you.”
“Savannah—” she started.
“No. I’ve said what I had to say. And until you are ready to have a real conversation about this, I have to go.”
And, in a completely un-Savannah-like fashion, I raced down the stairs, snatching my car keys as I stormed out the front door.