I thanked her and scooped the keys out of the bowl on her dresser. Instead of driving west toward the shopping center or the mall, I turned east and made my way to the studio. I let myself into the cool, dark space, flicked the lights on in the voice room. Took a deep breath and got to work.
I don’t know exactly why I hadn’t wanted to tell Olivia where I was going. Maybe I was worried that no amount of practice would be enough. I wasn’t used to being embarrassed in front of her, to feeling like I was letting her down all the time just because I wasn’t as good at something as she was. I’d never been as good at this as she was—I’d never had any reason to want to be. That had never mattered, until now. Coming here had felt like my only option for getting out of Jessell. But I worried that it had been a massive mistake.
I warmed up with scales to start with, my voice echoing off the tall beige walls. I took my time, singing phrases over and over, doubling back when they didn’t sound right, starting over. It was weird, but I actually liked being in there with nobody listening, nobody to make faces when I didn’t hit my notes correctly. Nobody to disappoint. I’d made it all the way through “Only for You” when someone behind me started to clap.
“Jesus Christ,” I exclaimed, whirling around with no small amount of horror to find Alex standing in the doorway. My heart was pounding, my face flooded hotly with embarrassment—that he’d heard me, that he knew I was struggling, that I was here rehearsing at all. “You gotta stop sneaking up on me, buddy.”
“Sorry,” Alex said, smiling like a person who wasn’t, really. “Didn’t mean to. What are you doing here?” he asked, taking a couple of steps into the studio. He was wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt, a faded baseball cap pulled down over his golden hair. “It’s Saturday.”
I shrugged. “You’re here,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’m an overachiever.”
“I bet.” I glared at him a moment longer, then sighed. There was something about Alex that made me want to tell him the truth. “I bit it in front of Guy yesterday,” I admitted. “Like, full-on crash and burn, couldn’t hit my harmonies, screwed up all three songs. And now everybody hates me even more than they did before.”
“Ouch,” Alex said, wincing. “That bad, huh?”
“Bad,” I assured him. “It was humiliating, if you want to know. So anyway”—I gestured around—“here I am.”
Alex nodded thoughtfully. “Can I hear you again?” he asked.
My eyes narrowed. “What, now?”
“Yeah.”
“Why, so you can make fun of me?”
Alex made a face like that was ridiculous. “Maybe I can help.”
No way. I wasn’t about to spend any more time alone with Alex, if I could help it, on top of which I was too proud to let him hear any more of my suckage than he already had. I shook my head. “Thanks,” I said, “but I don’t want to keep you from your own practice.”
“Well, from the sound of things, you need it more than I do.”
“Screw you,” I said, but he was smiling at me again, and after a moment I couldn’t help but smile back. Still. “That’s okay,” I told him. “Really.”
“If you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to get used to people hearing you,” he pointed out.
“I know that, thank you,” I said, irritated. He could be such a know-it-all sometimes. “But it’s also easier to let people hear you when you’ve had, like, a million years of voice training. Which everybody else here has, just FYI.”
“Well,” Alex replied, sounding unruffled, “you better start playing catch-up, then. You got sheet music?”
“What, you’re going to—” I broke off as he sat down on the bench Lucas usually occupied and reached for my binder, flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for. “You can play piano?”
“Sure,” Alex said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “Here”—he tapped “Only for You”—“this is the one you were just singing, right?”
“I—” I sighed. “Yeah.”
Alex nodded and set to playing the intro.
So. This was happening, then. There didn’t seem to be anything to do but sing—which I did, fumbling my way through the first verse as Alex listened seriously, his sharp face still and thoughtful, not giving anything away. When I was finished, he looked up at me and nodded again.
“Well, first of all, I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear from me, but you’re breathing wrong.”
I scowled. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t,” Alex said with confidence. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
Which is how we wound up spending the afternoon working through every Daisy Chain song in my lyrics binder, Alex breaking down the harmonies and going over them as many times as it took. He was a good teacher: knowledgeable and easygoing, exacting and particular, but patient, too. I liked that he never made me feel stupid for not knowing a musician or a vocal term he dropped into conversation—and, though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I liked the glowing smile he shot my way whenever I got things right. When I finally glanced up at the clock on the wall, it was almost dinnertime.
“I’m a jerk, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I ate up your whole afternoon.”
“Are you kidding me?” Alex asked, shaking his head. “I had a blast. You’re talented, Dana,” he told me. “Like, sure, you haven’t had the training or whatever, but you have whatever that thing is that just makes me want to listen to you, you know? Not everybody has that.”
I ducked my head, not knowing how to respond, exactly; it was the first time anyone had ever said anything remotely like that to me. “Thanks,” I finally said. “For all of it, really. You didn’t have to help me like that.”
“I wanted to,” Alex said stubbornly, then, reaching for my arm as we headed across the parking lot: “Dana.” In the late-afternoon sunlight he looked almost shy. “Look, I’m going to ask one more time, and if you say no, then I’ll drop it. Will you—”
“Alex.” I shook my head. “I can’t. I just—it has nothing to do with not wanting to. But I can’t.”
Alex smiled. “Can’t blame a guy for asking, right?” he said. “I’ll see you around.”
It was nearing dark by the time I got back to the complex; I was tired and starving, a little cranky as I climbed the stairs to our unit. I wanted to collapse into my bed and take a nap. I had just reached the door when I heard Ashley’s voice from the living room: “—she’s completely screwing up our chances. And even if she manages to somehow pull it together, which is a big if, I just don’t understand why she got picked in the first place.”
“Because she’s hot,” Kristin fired back, just as I put my key in the lock. “Probably Guy wanted to screw her, so he chose her even though she’s got zero talent.”