“Well, I guess they passed it,” Dad said, one finger tracing the crossword absentmindedly. It occurred to me how contented he looked. “Six votes to five,” he said, “starting this semester. They credited us for your flight back already.”
The paper was crumpling in my hand. “And can I get on that flight?” I asked, and I knew the answer, had known it from the second my mother admitted she might have been wrong. I was going back. I could already imagine myself there. I found myself submerged in the future, again, as always. Everything flowed smoothly forward from this frozen instant: first, the rumble of hitting the runway in the Watertown airport. Then, the slow drive up to Arthur’s Arch and through, that distinct sensation of slipping into a new world, as if through the wardrobe, while the Kensington winter closes me in. No longer barricaded in my room, no longer torn in two, I’m myself this time around. This time I track the Sharps down across campus just to see their faces. I am not afraid. Night falls and I walk up stone steps to a red door, laughter glowing behind it like treasure, with my hand in the grip of someone who respects me. I am honest; I am honest again. A new semester’s classes break in, and I scan the collection of students arranged around the table, familiar and unfamiliar, old stirred in with new, and I feel eager and spoiled, and I think I am never going to do arm’s-length again, I want everyone close. The gas-jet fire flickers in the Burgess Lounge as we scribble in silence, extracting all the scrambling thoughts from our heads, learning to line them up in order. We walk into the next audition heads up and fearless, because no matter how many times we’ve heard no, we still imagine the answer will be yes, yes, yes.
fin
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Because I am a Chinese girl who until very recently spent 90 percent of her time singing a cappella music, it’s worth reiterating that all the characters in this book are entirely fictional and none of them are based on real human beings. Except two. And they’re the loosest of loose adaptations. Thanks, Clara, for letting me steal approximately three of your mannerisms, and Annie, for providing my inspiration for Anabel, who actually turned out nothing like you in the end, but there we go, I guess.
I owe this novel to the people who make it possible for me to do what I love: my beyond-supportive family; my champion agent, Caryn Wiseman; my brilliant editor, Anne Heltzel; and the rest of Amulet’s amazing team, especially Caitlin Miller. Thank you guys for dealing with my neuroses. Hugs and kisses also to my early readers, Mary Frame and Suzanne Payne, and the rest of my beloved Goat Posse.
A big thanks to Iori Kusano, Jackie Rayson, and Justin Martin for their invaluable insights on matters of disability, class, and trans visibility within the novel. Thanks also to the folks at Writing in the Margins for helping to promote and facilitate authors’ critical engagement with the representation within their work.
To the Kenyon College Chamber Singers, the Owl Creeks, and the ladies of Colla Voce: I love you; thank you for the mem’ries that dwell dear past supposing. Love also to my friends in Take Five, the Ransom Notes, the Stairwells, the Chasers, the Cornerstones, Mannerch?r, and the Kokosingers.
Next, one of those weird, distant notes to people I don’t know: thanks to the NU Nor’easters and UChicago’s Voices in Your Head for making gorgeous and innovative a cappella music that I listened to nonstop while writing this novel. If you care at all about a cappella, you must listen to VIYH’s cover of “We Found Love” and the Nor’easters’ album RISE posthaste. While I’m at it, check out The Sons of Pitches, who sound the way I imagine the Sharpshooters sounding.
Lastly: the artists in this book do not exist, but the songs do. You can listen to them on my website, http://rileyredgate.com, if you’re so inclined.
Hope you enjoyed Noteworthy by Riley Redgate. Keep reading for a preview of her debut novel Seven Ways We Lie!
“All right,” I say, “either the furnace is on overdrive, or we’ve descended into the actual, literal fiery pits of hell.”
“I feel like ‘both’ is the answer here,” Juniper says. “Assemblies, eternal damnation . . . same basic concept.”
“Correcto.” I wipe sweat off my face, feeling as if I’m melting. “God, this is horrible.”
Other kids stream past to our right, flooding the overheated auditorium’s aisles, filling the seats ahead of us. Juniper ties back her hair, looking clean and sweat-free, like those airbrushed girls in deodorant ads who are always prancing through blank white voids. I’m used to it. Juniper is the kind of beautiful that we regular human folk can’t quite connect to. With guarded gray eyes, blond hair swept back, and the barest touch of blush, she’s a cautiously assembled girl. Always has been.
A noise from across the aisle catches my attention, a noise that could be either a violent throat-clearing or a cat being strangled. Looking over, I catch a glare from Andrea Silverstein that could level a building.
“Oh, good Lord, not this again,” I mumble, sinking down in my seat.
“Ignore her.”
“Trying, Juni.”
Seriously, though, can someone explain why they call it a “personal life” when it’s the one part of my life everyone knows? Today alone, I got three death stares in the hall, two whispers accompanied by averted eyes, and one So that’s Olivia Scott! face of recognition. Why do I even have a branded face of recognition?
Okay, granted: Andrea maybe has license to get defensive, since it was her brother I hooked up with. But the rest of the world can shove it up their collective ass.
Andrea’s eyes burn into the side of my skull for a straight minute. Finally, Juniper leans forward and gives her a cool, uninterested look. Andrea stops glaring at once.
I’ve been friends with Juniper since third grade, and I’m still waiting for her to pull out the magic wand she obviously owns. Something in her composure makes people stare; when she talks, she holds attention like a magnet. Juni chews on her words before saying them, as if she’s parsing the sentences in her head, ensuring they’ll come out perfect.
“Shit. Do you see Claire?” I say, looking around the auditorium. “I said I’d find her.” With the fluorescent lights bathing us all in sickly green, Claire’s red hair doesn’t pop out of the crowd as usual.
“Maybe she’s skipping,” Juniper suggests with a wry smile.
I snort hard enough to kill off a few brain cells. Claire skipping anything school-related would be the first sign of the apocalypse.