Our Rose Parade show theme was “Sounds of the ’60s.” It was a medley of three songs: “Windy” by the Association, “Build Me Up Buttercup” by the Foundations, and “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops.
“Windy” was happy and bouncy and fun and kind of meaningless. Like, as a song, the lyrics were definitely absurd, but the music was undeniably feel-good. “Build Me Up Buttercup” was a deceptive song in that it sounded incredibly bouncy and fun, and, barring the lyrics, it was, but the lyrics themselves were pretty depressing. Luckily we were just extracting the instrumentals.
“Reach Out” was my favorite—the band arrangement was incredible. The drums, the brass, everything built into a giant wall of sound over the course of the song. It was perfect to march to.
The first day back in rehearsal, I took my seat in the woodwinds section. Two girls from my class, Chelsea and Becca, were sitting in front of me, fussing with their instruments.
“I was there on Saturday, but I didn’t see him.”
“Jess said he usually works mornings. Sophie probably knows.” Chelsea suddenly turned around to me.
“Sorry?”
“The new guy.”
“The hot new guy,” Becca clarified.
“As opposed to the not-hot new guy? There is only one new guy. He is hot, and you know him,” Chelsea said.
“Is he single?” Becca added, before I could answer.
“Uh … yeah, I think?”
“You guys aren’t a thing? Someone said they saw you at Miller’s last week.”
“We were just …” Doing “Gave You My Heartland”? That wouldn’t fly. I shrugged, and it came out so much more casually than it felt: “We’re just friends.”
“Awesome,” Chelsea said, and they both turned away.
It sounded foolish, but I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like having August in school with us. Meeting people at parties was one thing, but when school started, we would have to share him for real. What if he found people he liked better?
We, I told myself. This was definitely my concerns for we, the group, and not me, the person who had spent several nights staring at the ceiling and thinking of the feeling of August’s lips on mine.
I threw myself into rehearsal.
I genuinely liked being back in the swing of it, even if we were just in the band room to start, running through our program. First we needed to get the music going all together. Then we needed a balance to the performance—the brass could easily overwhelm, like a soprano who sang too loud. The drum line needed to be crisp and precise.
Ms. Hill gave us instructions, and we broke things down and put them together again, and it felt good to be back.
* * *
We reconvened at Teen Zone 2 after rehearsal.
I stopped at home to drop off my clarinet and hung around waiting for Flora, but she texted me saying to go on ahead. When I arrived, everyone else was there, including August, who was settling on the couch as Brit fussed with the laptop set up on the Ping-Pong table.
“We’re watching a movie,” she announced. “I already picked for us.”
“How gracious of you,” I said.
“I do what I can.”
We had just settled in and started the movie when everyone’s phones buzzed. A message from Flora: Sorry, still held up at home, be there soon!!!
“What is it?” August said.
“Flora’s on her way,” I replied. We were a few minutes back into the film when I said, “We should add you to the group chat. Then you’ll get everyone’s messages too.”
Brit raised her eyebrows. “You want to add him to WWYSE?”
“Why not?” I could hear her voice at the party some weeks back: So we’re officially adopting him now?
“WWYSE is a commitment,” Brit said. “It’s forever.”
“Forever?” August repeated.
“It’s just a group chat,” I said.
“Excuse me, it is not just a group chat. When someone asks where you’ll spend eternity, you are contractually obligated to respond.”
“Is there paperwork?” August asked.
“Soph, I love you, but we’re not adding some … passing crush to the group,” Brit said.
“He’s not—you’re not—” I squeezed my eyes shut briefly, breathed through my nose.
“Rage headache?” Terrance’s voice.
“Brit headache.”
“Same thing.”
Three phones dinged.
I checked mine—a message from Brit.
If he’s in the chat, we can’t talk about your M A J O R B O N E R for him.
“Brit. Come on.”
“Say it in the chat, that’s what it’s there for,” she replied.
I hate you.
OPPOSITES, she replied, followed by a string of hearts.
* * *
We went into the house for snacks later, but Brit and August stayed outside, lingering on the back patio.
I could hear them through the screen door as Terrance poked through the fridge and Dash investigated the cabinets. Terrance and Dash had their own kind of shorthand established: “There should be more—”
“Uh-huh. Do you want—”
“You know it.”
So I was free to listen in on Brit and August.
“You get it about the chat, right?” Brit was saying. They had settled on the steps outside the back door, facing out into the yard. “It’s more than just jokes, you know. It’s like … our friend-group thing. Not that you’re—it’s nothing personal, I’m just saying. We’ve known each other for … our whole lives, basically. Compared to that, you’re a blip. We’ve been friends for long before you got here, and we’ll be friends long after, you know?”
That was harsh as hell, wasn’t it? I wanted to keep August with us, not lose him to some other friend group, to Chelsea and Becca from band or whoever.
I almost pushed through the door until I heard August speak.
“I get it. Just … seemed important to Sophie.”
“Everything’s important to Sophie. She cries when people get voted off reality shows.” She shook her head. “But she would never let you see her crying when someone gets voted off a reality show, because then you might feel sad or uncomfortable, and she doesn’t want anyone to feel anything less than happy all the time. She’s … the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
August paused. “Is that a joke?”
“What about her would make you think that was a joke?”
“Not Sophie, you. You just … usually make jokes.”
“I can take shit seriously,” she said. “I would jump off a bridge if she asked me to. Because I know she wouldn’t ask without a really good reason.”
August was quiet. Where’s the joke? I wondered, because the same could be said for him.
“She’s a thousand times better than both of us,” Brit said. “So just … keep that in mind, okay?”
I didn’t understand Brit. She was the one saying she’d wingman the shit out of this for me. I didn’t get how this fit in.
I pushed through the door.
Brit glanced back at me, then stood. “You guys need snack supervision? I want melted cheese on everything.”
“Better get on that, then,” I said.
So she went back in, and I sat down next to August.
We hadn’t hung out alone together since the last day of “Gave You My Heartland” week. The kiss day.
It was only weird if we made it weird. Right?
I was thinking about what to say to convey that it wasn’t weird when August spoke: “So, uh, I asked Kyle. About Megan. For the whole … investigation thing.”
“Oh.” Megan was, for once, nowhere near the forefront of my mind. “Cool. What’d he say?”
“She was a year behind him in school. He said he knew her a little, but she was out of town a lot when she was on the TV show, and after it ended, she wasn’t around much. I don’t think she actually graduated.”
Her first album came out when she was sixteen. It made sense she wouldn’t have a lot of time for school.
“Does he know anyone who kept in touch with her?”
August shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
“Heather know anything?”
“She said they had gym together, and Megan was, quote, terrible at everything involving balls.”
I let out a breath of laughter. “I’ll make a note of that.”
And just like that, it wasn’t weird.
twenty-four
The Fourth of July parade was one of my favorite things in Acadia.
It always had an abstract theme, like “Let the Good Times Roll” or “A Town of Neighbors and Friends,” that seemed nearly impossible to translate into an actual float. The businesses and churches in town would do their best, decorating pickup trucks or pulling a flatbed covered in crepe paper and poster board, pinwheels and banners.
The scouts decorated their bikes and rode together in a pack. The sports teams from school and the cheerleaders would ride in the back of trucks or walk alongside. The Yum Yum Shoppe would go up and down the street pulling coolers filled with cups of ice cream for sale.
The band marched, of course. It was too hot at midday for full uniforms, so we wore khaki shorts and our blue Marching Pride of Acadia T-shirts. We lined up in the parking lot at school and joined the queue of floats heading to Main Street.
As we marched, I passed my parents seated with Flora’s mom and grandma. A little farther down were the Conlins. Heather had Harper on her lap, and Cadence stood next to August, who was sitting on the curb. Cadence was clutching a bag to collect candy that people threw from the floats.
They both waved as we went by. The drum line took over at just the right time, so I had a hand free to wave back.