“For real, Jordan, what on earth?” said Michael’s voice. The words shrank me. I got the distinct feeling that I’d had a clairvoyant nightmare about this situation.
“Wait, your name’s not even Julian?” Jon Cox said. “Are you also secretly a swarm of bees wearing human skin?”
“Stop it,” Isaac said.
The Sharps turned to him. Disbelief slackened Jon Cox’s face. “You knew?”
“Yeah, but guys, this doesn’t change anything.” Isaac’s voice strengthened. “Nothing’s different, all right? We still won. We’re still—it doesn’t matter.”
Dr. Caskey let out an incredulous laugh. “All right, excuse me,” he said with icy precision. “It matters, Mr. Nakahara, because your group is an historic all-male society intrinsic to the culture of the academy. An unchanging part of the landscape of student life since 1937.”
Isaac lifted his chin, defiant, new president clashing against the old. “Okay, sure, but what does that mean without the rhetoric? What’s the actual reason Jordan can’t sing with us? So she’s a girl. So what? She’s got the tenor range. She worked just as hard as the rest of us.”
He shot an urgent glance at the guys for backup.
Trav cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “True.” Marcus nodded along at his shoulder.
Jon Cox and Erik shrugged simultaneously, still looking baffled. “Well, yeah,” Mama said, “but technically she has a contralto range, not a tenor.”
I could barely look at the seven of them. Gratitude drew my throat tight. I hoped they could read it on my face, because if I opened my mouth I thought I might be sick. Was there a chance this could still happen?
To my side, Nihal stayed quiet.
The Aural Fixation guys were murmuring. Michael was bowed into the pack. I felt disconnected from the sight of him, from the knobby crown of his head down to the neon laces of his sneakers. The shock of his appearance had worn off. Now it just felt strange not to want him.
Eventually, Watson cleared his throat. “Yeah, we don’t mind if you guys are coed. The main thing is that it’s weird to tour with sixteen guys and one teenage girl, but we have ladies on crew, so it might be all right, depending on whether your parents—”
Dr. Graves cleared his throat. “Hang on.” He sounded a bit dazed. “Let’s talk through some steps. You just—you can’t do this as the group exists currently. For this tour, this . . . young lady . . . needs to be accounted for under her real name, for liability reasons among others. For her to travel as part of the group, she needs to be formally registered with the group. And for her to be allowed in, you need to get a recategorization petition from Student Life, to change the status of the organization.”
“We can do that,” Isaac said. “All the offices are open until the seventeenth, right? We’re not supposed to fly out for a couple days, so I’ll just stay and—”
Dr. Caskey shook his head, waving Isaac’s words away with a confident hand. “I hate to break it to you, gentlemen, but that switch is never going to happen. Your group has a lot of influential alumni who would be diametrically opposed. Risking their relationship with the academy over this?” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I doubt it, guys, I really doubt it. You’re not just going to need Dr. Graves’s signature; you’re going to need the dean’s, too, and I’m afraid I’m just not going to put my name to it.”
Resignation weighted my body. That was it, then. Dr. Caskey had the final say, and it was over.
Caskey finally looked to me. Something malicious was in his eyes. “Besides,” he said, “it wouldn’t be appropriate to reward this kind of behavior.”
The patronizing tone made my entire body heat up a degree. “What behavior?” I ground out, finally finding my voice.
“The Kensington motto: ‘Art through innovation, art through perseverance, and—” he raised one eyebrow,“—art through honesty. Music is nothing without honesty.”
Dr. Caskey looked around at the Sharps. His voice grew an edge. “This event has made you all representatives of Kensington to the public. This is an embarrassment.” He looked back at me. “And frankly, I’m not sure what’s more immature: the idea that you could conceivably manage an international tour under a pseudonym, or your unwillingness to accept responsibility for months of lying to your community.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve never seen such a waste of a Kensington education.”
The sentence landed like a blow. I knew everyone felt it hitting me, because the room took on the absolute silence of held breath. In the vacuum, I tried to breathe, and tears needled my eyes. Dr. Caskey’s voice sounded like the one in the back of my mind, assuring me that I would never succeed. I was a waste. I was disposable. I was nothing.
Then a dry voice rang out to my left, clear and confident. “Actually,” Nihal said, “since she’s an acting student, I’d say this whole thing reflects pretty positively on what she’s learned.”
Chuckling broke the silence. I looked up. The Sharps were all glaring murder at Dr. Caskey, except Nihal, who was looking at me now. I met his brown eyes. One side of his mouth lifted, and I read the beginnings of forgiveness out of his expression.
Dr. Caskey’s voice strained. “I can guarantee disciplinary action on this. There’s a Board meeting at the turn of the year; I’ll ask them what they recommend.”
Dr. Graves finally broke out of his stupor. “No. That’s absurd,” he said flatly. “There’s been no technical rule-breaking in the slightest. In fact, if she were doing this as an independent study for a sociology class, I’m sure she’d be getting high grades.” He looked at me, exasperation in the grim lines of his face. “I’d be extremely surprised if you faced disciplinary action.”
“Well,” Dr. Caskey said, turning a glare on Graves, “that’s a matter of opinion. We’ll see.”
I found myself faintly smiling. Confidence coursed through me, dissolving my guilt, rolling a weight off my back. It was strange. In so many ways, I’d failed: I couldn’t tour. I would never graduate from Kensington. I had nothing on paper for these months of effort. But with the Sharps at my back, I felt a little invincible. I stood tall and clear-headed and myself, sensitive and strong, voice unhidden, a mix of everything masculine I’d stopped suppressing and everything feminine I would never let go of. This was finally me, the most perfect me I’d ever been.
“Well, I’m not sorry,” I said, because tomorrow afternoon I’d be on a plane to California, and this sad middle-aged man’s threats would never touch me. “I’m not going to pretend it was a mistake. I would do it again in a second.”
I took a breath. I let it go. I let it all go. “I changed for this. Didn’t you ever want something that much?”
Dr. Caskey looked like he’d tasted something sour. Beside him, Dr. Graves was examining me as if he’d never seen me before.