Not Another Love Song Page 2

  I shake my head. “I’m not going far.”

  He climbs into his car fast, as though worried I might change my mind. I start walking my bike down the sidewalk, straining to hear his car tires screech. Either he has the quietest car, or he hasn’t driven away.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder. Even though the hazard lights are off, his car isn’t moving. He’s probably just as shaken up as I am by the collision. He honks, and it makes me jump. I spin my head around just in time to avoid knocking into a streetlamp.

  Is that why he honked? To warn me?

  Ugh. He must think I’m a total klutz, which isn’t going to help my case about my cracked cell phone screen. The store receipt with his phone number feels as though it’s burning a hole in the back pocket of my cutoffs. Maybe I have insurance for the screen. I hope so, because I don’t want to contact him. He’d probably ask me to prove my phone wasn’t damaged before, and I really don’t feel like having to prove myself to anyone.

  Except to Mona Stone.

  I quicken my strides, buoyed by the desire to look up everything about the contest on Rae’s computer.

  3

  Rules Are Meant to Be Broken

  For the past hour, I’ve been poring over Mona Stone’s website, reading every line of fine print about the music competition.

  “Mom will never consent to this,” I grumble to my best friend, who’s lacquering her nails the same bright hue as her cell phone case.

  Hot pink is Rae’s favorite color. Even her bedspread, on which we’re both lounging, is dotted with pink swirls. When we were kids and had to draw self-portraits for school, she’d always paint herself with pink eyes instead of brown. She even sported pink contacts when we were twelve, but they made her look like a bloodthirsty vampire.

  She holds up her fingers and blows on her nails. “Maybe Mona will launch another one next year. Once you’re eighteen—”

  “Rae!” I say, horrified.

  She jerks her face toward me, the movement creating a ripple in her very straight, very long, and very blonde hair. “What?”

  “I can’t wait that long. Besides, what if this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing?”

  Rae studies me a moment, then studies the shot of Mona midperformance that graces her laptop screen. “How ’bout you write a song first? Then once it’s written, you play it for your momma, and since it’ll obviously be fan-freakin’-tastic, Jade will have to sign on the dotted line.”

  I flip onto my back. “You really think she’d change her mind? She hates Mona.” I pull my bottom lip into my mouth. “We had another fight about her after dinner, which, weirdly enough, led to talking about Dad. The way she speaks about him, you’d think he was a monster.” I turn my head to look at my friend, who’s started applying polish to her toes. “Has she ever told your mom anything about him?”

  “Not that I know of, but I can ask.”

  I sigh. “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Ready to make our senior-year bucket list?” Before I can say yes, Rae leaps off her bed and grabs a pad of paper from her desk. It’s pink and scented and has her name embossed at the top.

  She tosses me a pen and a sheet of paper, then plops back on the bed and begins jotting down bullet point after bullet point of things that range from getting accepted into her dream college (Stanford, for their premed program; Rae’s wanted to be a heart surgeon since we dissected a frog in middle school) and never dating another jock (her ex was one, and it didn’t end well) to graduating valedictorian and getting elected prom queen.

  Someone who doesn’t know Rae might deem her delusional, but I have no doubt she’ll be ticking each one of those boxes. She’s the most gorgeous and popular nerd who’s ever walked the hallways of Reedwood High.

  As her pen loops and flows over her paper, I finally write down my ambitions for this school year. Or rather, my single ambition.

  “Um, why’s there only one item on your paper?” she says, cocking a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

  “Because that’s all I want.”

  “Come on, hon. What about getting a boyfriend? Or—”

  I grunt.

  “What?”

  “I need to focus. Boys are a distraction.”

  “What you need is to live a little.”

  “And I will, but first”—I tap one unpolished nail against my sheet of paper—“I want to win this contest.”

  “It’s nationwide.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s a little like winning the lottery.”

  “No it’s not. The lottery is all luck; Mona’s contest requires talent.”

  “Which you have, but which a lot of people have too.” Rae leans toward me and wraps one hand around mine. “I admire you, hon. I’ve always admired you. But what if it doesn’t work out? You’re sensitive, and—”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I grumble, snatching my hand out of hers. I scoot off the bed and stride toward the door, eyes prickling with heat.

  Before I reach it, Rae says, “This is what I’m talkin’ about. You’re about to cry.”

  I rest my hand on the doorknob but don’t turn it. “I’m not.”

  “Angie…” Rae’s suddenly at my side, her pretty pink nails circling my forearm. “Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. Spread them into different baskets. Find different baskets.”

  “I don’t want different baskets.”

  Rae sighs real loudly. “Fine, but you’re not allowed to whine and cry if you lose.”

  “Fine.” I’m still staring at her hand, which finally comes away from my arm. Her fingertips have blurred a little.

  “And just so we’re clear, I do believe in you.”

  I finally look back up at her. She’s a couple of inches taller than I am, but not so many that I have to tilt my head back.

  She gives me a one-armed hug. “Now let’s call the beast who knocked you over.”

  That’s how I entered the driver of the large black SUV’s information on my phone—under Beast, for the T-shirt he was sporting. Yes, my phone still works, but the cracks make it difficult to read the screen, plus I almost sliced my finger. I ended up winding a piece of tape around the bottom to keep the cracked glass in place.

  “We’re not calling him,” I say.

  “You said he was hot.”

  “Rae, he gave me his phone number so I could tell him how much it’ll cost to fix my bike. Running into me wasn’t some creepy pickup scheme or anything.”

  Rae fake pouts, but then moves on to discussing the possibilities of there being new kids in Reedwood High this term. Every year, there’s a handful of them. Talking about them gets Rae as excited as I become when my favorite artists drop a new single.

  Funny what gets people’s pulses pounding.

  4

  The Beast in Tennessee

  I spend the night dreaming with my eyes open, Mona’s contest electrifying my brain. By two a.m., I come up with a melody that I think is good until I play it on our baby grand before heading to school. It sounds so awful that I glower at the black and ivory keys a solid ten minutes before plunking them in an attempt to make something better rise.

  Nothing better rises.

  Well, besides my mother. She walks into the living room dressed and made-up, asking why I’m not ready yet. I cover the keys and lug my tired and annoyed self back up the stairs and then over to school.

  After hooking up my bike to the rack in the parking lot, I speed up the flagstone path and into the grand redbrick building. Classroom doors are still clicking shut in the hallway lined with sunshine-yellow lockers. The color is supposed to be soothing and energizing, or so says our principal, who’s a great believer in everything feng shui and holistic. She had a Buddhist monk rearrange the classrooms last year. In some of them, the desks fan out around the whiteboards like sunrays.

  “Angie!”

  I spin around to see Rae pulling open a classroom door.

  “Tell me you have first-period history with Mr
. Renfrew.”

  “I didn’t get my schedule yet.”

  I’m starting to walk away when I almost bump into a wall of tanned skin covered in fruity body lotion.

  Melody Barnett smirks at my knees. In my haste to leave, I forgot to replace the princess Band-Aids with flesh-colored ones. “Took the training wheels off your bike?” She says this low enough so that Rae doesn’t hear.

  Mel adulates Rae—like most everyone in school—and dislikes me—like most everyone in school. People don’t get our friendship.

  “Bite me,” I say, pushing past her.

  In a pair of high-wedged espadrilles that make her legs look longer than my entire body, Melody toddles toward Rae, flapping her schedule as though it were Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. “I have history too, RaeRae.”

  Ugh. Even the sound of her voice is grating, high-pitched and nasal, which makes her first name quite unfortunate.

  Mel loops her arm through Rae’s and tugs her into the classroom.

  “I’ll save you a seat,” Rae says to me.

  Once they’re gone, I start toward the registrar’s department, a modern wing made entirely of glass that houses the administrative desks and the principal’s office. Only one other person is waiting for their schedule this late.

  Jasper leans against the secretary’s desk. “If it isn’t my all-time favorite singer,” he says to me.

  I roll my eyes. “You’ve never even heard me sing.”

  “That’s not for lack of tryin’.” He rakes his fingers through his sideswept golden bangs.

  “I don’t sing in public.”

  “You’re aware that if you want to be a singer someday, Conrad, you’ll have to sing in front of people?”

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  He shoots me a sly smile. “Can I get a private showcase when you are ready?”

  “I don’t do private showcases.”

  “You wouldn’t even have to sing,” he says in a low voice.

  My pulse trips.

  The secretary hands him a sheet of yellow paper, then asks for my name. The enormous printer behind her roars to life and spits out another piece of yellow paper.

  Jasper skims his schedule, then stuffs it in the pocket of his khakis. “What class do you have?”

  “Calculus with Mrs. Dabbs. You?”

  “History.”

  “Rae and Mel have history too.”

  “I’d rather you had history.”

  I blink at him, then blink down at my schedule, because I’m not sure what to do with that comment. Jasper and I have been friends for almost as long as Rae and I. Granted, we’re not as close, but still … I fold and refold my schedule until it’s no larger than a mosaic tile.

  “Angela, Jasper.” Principal Larue chirps our names.

  I turn, ready to apologize for being late, but the words stick to my tongue. Next to her stands the beast who ran me over.

  Okay, he didn’t run me over, but it was a close call.

  The principal smiles up at him. “I’d like you to meet our newest student.”

  “Welcome to Reedwood, dude,” Jasper says.

  The beast nods, rolling his white button-down’s sleeves to the elbows, revealing tanned forearms with ropy lean muscle. I bet the rest of his body is just as nice … Not that I’m interested in the rest of his body. Or anyone else’s body, for that matter.

  I zip my gaze off him and set it on the principal, who’s traded in her signature permed hair for a funky new hairstyle—a short Afro adorned with a silk scarf that makes her look a decade younger.

  “Would you be so kind as to show Tennessee to his classroom, Angela?”

  “Me?” Since I forgot to replenish my depleted supply of oxygen, it comes out as a squeak.

  Nice.

  The beast … I mean, Tennessee, presses his lips together so tightly that his stubble-coated jaw tics. I still can’t get over the fact that he goes to my school. Let alone to high school.

  “I can show him to his classroom, Mrs. Larue,” Jasper proposes.

  When Tennessee’s gaze dips to my knees, to the Band-Aids I haven’t removed, Jasper steps closer to me and angles his body as though to shield me from the beast’s piercing golden eyes.

  “If I’m not mistaken, you have history, Jasper”—she taps his forearm—“and Angela has calculus.”

  She’s not mistaken. Mrs. Larue lives and breathes for her school and students. She knows everyone’s names, allergies, and grade point average. Once, she even asked how I’d enjoyed the Fleetwood Mac album I’d bought at the PTA winter market. Even though I’d mumbled something about “Dreams” being one of my favorite songs, what I’d really wanted to say was, “Do you secretly work for the CIA?”

  “Let me get you three tardy slips so Mrs. Dabbs and Mr. Renfrew don’t penalize you.” Her heels click on the smoke-gray floorboards as she walks over to her secretary’s desk and grabs the slips. She jots down our names, then hands the slips to us. “You will never have this day again, so make it count.”

  Tennessee arches a thick eyebrow.

  “Run off now, my children.”

  Once we’re back in the quiet hallway, Jasper slings an arm around my shoulders. It feels incredibly heavy, and not because of his bulky muscles. “What brings you to Tennessee, Tennessee?” Jasper asks.

  Tennessee hikes his black backpack higher on his shoulder. A silver bracelet glints on his wrist. There’s an engraving on it, but I can’t make it out.

  “Ten. Just Ten.” Instead of answering Jasper’s question, he asks, “Is the principal always this … cheery?”

  I shrug out from under Jasper’s arm. “Always.”

  “Every morning, she spouts some philosophical crap over the PA system,” Jasper says, which is true. Principal Larue reads us a quote every morning. “But she’s a chill lady.”

  Through the frosted glass window of Mr. Renfrew’s classroom, I spy Rae and Mel sitting together at a collaborative desk. So much for saving me a seat …

  “Take good care of my girl, now, Ten.” Jasper winks at me before entering the classroom.

  Once the door shuts behind him, I say, “Our classroom’s three doors down,” at the same time as Ten says, “Your boyfriend’s friendly.”

  “He sure is.”

  Why I don’t correct him is beyond me. Maybe it’s because I want him to think I’m more popular than I am. Or maybe it’s so he stops eyeing me as though I were some pitiful hick.

  5

  A Tall Order of Insufferable

  Tennessee and I have three classes together—calculus, art, and English.

  In calculus, where there’s assigned seating, we’re stuck next to each other—a consequence of turning up late on the first day. Rae doesn’t get why I’m so glum about having to sit next to Ten. She, along with most of the female student body, thinks he’s a God-given gift to the girls of Reedwood High.

  I don’t get it. Sure, he’s hands down the most handsome guy at Reedwood, but his surly attitude is such a turnoff. All week, he ate lunch by himself and couldn’t get into his car fast enough after school let out. Not that I was keeping tabs on him. He’s just so tall that he’s hard to overlook. Plus he wears his brown hair spiky instead of floppy like ninety-nine percent of his peers, which adds a solid inch.

  “I wish he’d mauled me with his car,” Rae says dreamily, glancing over at Ten, who’s already seated at our double desk.

  He stares out the window at the middle school half a mile away. Unlike our brick building, its design is modern—brushed concrete striated with long strips of windows that reflect the late-morning brightness.

  “The second bell has rung, Miss Conrad. Please take your seat,” Mrs. Dabbs says, pushing up the sleeves of her crimson tunic, which she’s paired with wide-legged pants in the same shade. Combined with her frizzy red hair and streaky blush, she resembles a candied apple.

  She should take makeup tips from Mona Stone, who’s always put together so perfectly. My dance teacher, who used to be o
ne of Mona’s backup dancers, told me my idol does her own makeup because she doesn’t like anyone poking at her face. The second she shared this with me, I spent hours watching tutorials to learn how to line my eyes and dust sparkly powder over my cheekbones. I don’t wear more than mascara and concealer to school, but if I had to go onstage to accept a Grammy, I could glam myself up real quick.

  A couple of minutes into the class, Mrs. Dabbs quizzes me on parabolas, and I scramble to locate the answer between the lyrics and musical notes I scribble in the margins of my math textbook.

  She poises her felt-tip pen against the whiteboard. “So, Miss Conrad, what is the difference between a parabola and a hyperbola?”

  Sweat beads on my upper lip, and I lick it away, flipping through the book in desperation. I hate being put on the spot. How will I ever succeed as an artist if I can’t stand to be the center of attention, though? Did Mona ever get flustered in high school? Probably not.

  “Hyperbolas have two curves that mirror each other and open in opposing sides. Parabolas only have one curve.” It’s Ten who answers.

  Mrs. Dabbs shoots him a smile as white as the board behind her. “Thank you, Mr. Dylan.” She turns to me. “Miss Conrad, may I suggest you use the weekend to study for my class since you are clearly too distracted by your doodling”—she sweeps her arm in my direction, making all the blood in my body converge in my face—“to pay attention to my lesson?”

  I untuck my wavy brown hair from behind my ears to curtain off my glow-in-the-dark complexion, then spend the rest of class with my head bent over my book, attempting to memorize equations, which clearly won’t serve me considering my choice of career.

  The second the bell rings, I toss my stuff into my fabric tote, impatient to escape this torture session.

  “You’re really into music, huh?” Ten asks, halting my escape. He’s reading the flowy lyrics I inked on my bag—the chorus from my favorite Mona Stone song.

  Startled he talked to me, I don’t immediately answer. Finally, I say, “It’s my life.”

  He puts away his books slowly, as though trying to drag out the moment. He’s probably waiting for the classroom to empty so he doesn’t have to chat with anyone else on his way to the cafeteria.