I rolled my eyes—I knew what was coming. “Because I’m deaf.”
“No. Because I convinced Will and Tash to give you a chance to prove yourself. We gave you a month, but all you needed was three weeks. Don’t you think it’s hypocritical you couldn’t even give Kallie half that long?”
Josh acted like he was waiting for me to respond, but I think he knew there was nothing more to say. For once, he was absolutely right, even if I couldn’t bring myself to admit it.
CHAPTER 22
Over breakfast the next morning I stared at Kallie’s junior year portrait on my laptop screen. I remembered when I first saw it in the school yearbook, a passport-sized photo with all the mysterious allure of a Vogue photo shoot. And now here it was again, blown up to fill the entire screen.
I glanced up from the computer to see if Finn had come downstairs yet, but no. He probably figured there was no need to be on time for school when he was always late leaving at the end of the day. I finished my last piece of waffle and checked out the photo again.
Maybe I should have been thrilled. All press is good press, right? But there was something deeply unsettling about seeing Kallie’s likeness gracing a website run by a concerned parents’ support group. And the photo was just too large, like the authors had decided that their audience would enjoy ogling Kallie even more than reading the text below.
I scanned the article. It was chock-full of phrases like “positive message,” “endearingly humble,” and “ideal role models.” I tried to reconcile these observations with my own experience of Dumb—Josh’s overflowing ego, Tash’s overflowing temper—but the two just wouldn’t mesh, so I kept reading . . . and discovered the article wasn’t about Dumb at all, although the band’s name appeared often. It was All About Kallie, and whatever she had said on the radio had clearly enchanted concerned parents across Washington State.
And that wasn’t the only site dedicated to preaching the gospel of St. Kallie. Even religious bloggers got in on the act, describing Dumb as ideal role models for teens everywhere. Some splashed older photos of Kallie across the screen, ones I hadn’t even seen before. Below one of them, a caption read: “Kallie Sims—modest, kind, and beautiful too!” Another described Kallie as “not only stunningly gorgeous, but a supremely talented lead guitarist.”
I read that last sentence again, tried to pretend it didn’t really use the word “talented” in connection with her playing. Heck, she hadn’t played at all on the recording. And while I knew I should be laughing at a situation so completely improbable, I just couldn’t. Because as Finn entered the kitchen and stared at me like he was about to administer CPR, it dawned on me that Kallie had just become the face of Dumb—a pretty face that Tash was no doubt eager to rearrange.
CHAPTER 23
It was raining hard by the time school ended, so I stood just inside the main doors and watched a thousand students disgorge like water down a drain. Several of them actually flicked their heads in my direction as they passed, which represented a serious shift from my customary invisible state. True, they didn’t actually say anything to me, but as far as I could tell, they didn’t often say anything to each other either. In any case, I kind of liked the attention.
Ten minutes passed before I saw Kallie, by which time I’d begun to wonder if she’d taken a mental health day. Turns out she was just avoiding anyone connected to the band—not a positive development, but certainly understandable. She stood with her supermodel posse, all head flicks and lip biting. Every boy who passed by ogled them, including Finn, who almost walked into me.
I sensed that the conversation I was about to have with Kallie might be delicate, and I wanted some moral support, so I told Finn I needed him to interpret for me. It wasn’t actually a question, so I was taken aback when he said no.
If you don’t help me, you can walk home, I signed, making the stakes perfectly clear.
Finn sighed. “Sometimes I really hate you,” he said. But he followed me anyway.
I knew she had seen me—her full lips straightened into a thin line as I approached—but she wasn’t about to initiate a conversation with someone as hopelessly uncool as me. She even turned away from me slightly, forcing me to stand right in front of her before signing.
Finn looked crushed, his eyes half closed while he relayed my message: “Piper wants to check that everything’s okay.”
Kallie curled her lip. “What are you talking about?”
I signed again.
“The band,” explained Finn. “She wants to make sure there’s no problem.”
Kallie stared at Finn, exasperated. “Why are you interpreting for her? I’ve seen her at band practice. I know she can read my lips.”
Finn looked lost, but all eyes were on me, not him. The modelettes shook their heads disapprovingly, like I’d been lying about my deafness all these years. I wanted to scream.
“I’m done, Piper, okay?” said Kallie firmly.
I thrust printouts of the blogs at her—the glowing praise, the Kallie love-fest. She glanced at the text and handed them back. “So what? I’m done. That’s my final answer.”
I took a deep breath, produced a copy of the contract she’d signed. I pointed to a clause embedded deep on page three, the one that stated no member could leave the band without majority approval, under forfeit of $1,000 fine. Mom said it wouldn’t be legally binding for anyone under eighteen, but I was willing to bet Kallie didn’t know that.
Sure enough, Kallie’s face turned ashen. “No way. You wouldn’t.”
I signed, Yes. I would. People want to see you. My mother is a lawyer. If you leave, she will sue you.
I waited, but Finn didn’t pass along the message. I gave him my death-ray stare, but he returned it with interest, then slung his book bag over his shoulder and skulked away with a shake of his head.
I felt myself redden. “If you leave, Kallie, my mother will take you to court for that money.”
“That’s crazy,” she moaned, but she looked worried.
“No one made you sign the contract.”
Kallie took a deep breath and readied herself for another assault. But when she couldn’t think of anything to say, she began tearing up, right there at the entrance to the school.
I was suddenly acutely aware that our discussion had attracted quite a crowd, most of them gawking at Kallie like she was in the process of spontaneously combusting. Which, in a way, I suppose she was.
“I—I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she cried.
To tell the truth, neither could I, but I didn’t have time to say that, as Kallie was already sprinting toward the girls’ bathroom. And however bad I’d felt the night before, I felt a thousand times worse now.
I tried to shut out the incriminating glares as I shuffled after her. My hand was shaking as I pulled open the restroom door. Thankfully we were the only girls in there, which meant there were no other witnesses as she bit her lip to prevent her whole face from creasing up.
“Why do you hate me so much?” she cried.
“What are you talking about?”
She didn’t answer. She knew I understood her.
“It’s my job to make sure you stay in Dumb,” I said.
“And what if Tash wanted to leave? Would you treat her the same way?”
I rolled my eyes. It was a stupid question, but I couldn’t exactly deny she had a point.
Kallie leaned against a scraped porcelain sink and ripped a paper towel from the dispenser. She dabbed at her eyes slowly, deliberately, like she needed time to think. “Seriously. Why do you hate me?”
I snorted, considered saying “Why the hell do you think?” Only it occurred to me that Kallie was the one in tears, not me. While I was busily stating my case, she was scrabbling around for a sign that I could tolerate her existence.
“I don’t hate you, Kallie. It’s just . . . look at you. You’re beautiful and popular and . . . you have really nice clothes.” (I couldn’t believe that with four years to prep
are, that’s the best I could do, but her crying kind of threw me off my game.)
There were still tears in her eyes, but she looked stronger, more defiant now that she had something to work with. “My mom is a supervisor at Nordstrom Rack,” she explained, her voice steady. “All my clothes were bought with her employee discount, and they were imperfect to begin with. Plus, everything is last season.”
I tried to think of a suitable rebuttal, but failed.
“I also share a one-bedroom condo with my mom because my dad hasn’t paid child support in seven years,” she continued.
I should have been sympathetic, but I just felt defensive, like she’d unfairly withheld evidence from the prosecution. “You’re still popular though,” I said, sounding like an eight-year-old.
“You mean the friends that started walking away when you made me cry? The ones who didn’t follow me in here? The ones who like to remind me that my clothes are so last season?”
“Then why do you still hang out with them?”
“Who else should I hang out with? Tash? Will? You and Ed? You’ve all made it clear how much you want me around.”
I felt exhausted, and it wasn’t just the strain of lip-reading in a room that echoed like a cathedral. Despising Kallie from afar had always been an unwavering constant in my life, like Finn being late, and USS Immovable’s engine turning over twelve times before starting. If I’d been wrong about her, what else had I been wrong about?
“It’s only Tash that doesn’t like you being in the band,” I conceded. “And maybe Will. Why did you even want to join Dumb in the first place?”
“Because I love music. I’ve wanted to be in that band for ages, and I’ve been practicing, honestly. I thought there was a chance I could join last year, but then Josh said the others wouldn’t agree to it. He said he needed one more member in favor of me joining, so he wouldn’t be outvoted. And then you became manager.”
As I processed the remark, I tried to convince myself it was all just a coincidence. Surely Josh wouldn’t go to the trouble of installing me as manager just to get Kallie on board. But then I pictured him with his hands on Kallie’s butt, his come-on as subtle as a sledgehammer. Making me temporary manager had probably seemed like a small price to pay for increasing his chances of hooking up with Kallie. If that had been his plan, he’d have to be disappointed by the early returns on his investment.
“Has Josh asked you out?” I asked finally. I knew it was the million-dollar question, and I didn’t have the energy to broach the subject gently.
“No. Well, he did last year, but I wasn’t really interested.”
“Are you going to date him now?”
Kallie narrowed her eyes. “I like watching him perform. He’s funny, and really smart, and he’s got so much energy, but ...”
I didn’t need to hear what came next. “But” was the only word that mattered.
Kallie had stopped crying now, but the recent waterworks imbued her with a melancholy beauty that was possibly even more striking than her usual sex appeal. I wondered what she was thinking. Was she contemplating the very real possibility that we were both pawns in a chess game that Josh was controlling like a Grandmaster?
She adjusted her shoulder bag (which may not have been a designer label after all). “I know managing Dumb must be very difficult,” she said, “but in the past week I’ve had my guitar unplugged during a recording session, and been cussed out by Tash. Now you’re threatening to sue me if I quit. I don’t know what to do.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Me too. But I still want you to know that I think you’re a really good manager. And I don’t hate you at all. I don’t even hate you for having blond hair, and gorgeous blue eyes, and a chest people can actually see. Or for the way people listen when you open your mouth.” She began tearing up again. “You’re deaf . . . but I may as well be dumb.”
She didn’t wait for a response before leaving, but that was just as well—nothing I could have said would have made things right.
I leaned over the sink beside me, turned on the faucet, and splashed my face with cold water. Her accusations had been uncomfortably spot-on, yet the line that kept replaying was the one about my appearance. I tried to dismiss her observations, pretend that in the heat of the moment she’d exaggerated for effect, but when I looked in the mirror I saw the same pale blue eyes that she had seen. And while my dirty blond hair wasn’t going to turn any heads, it could have been worse. Even my boobs were at least a cup size larger than Kallie’s. None of it changed who I was—I was as unspectacular as before—but I couldn’t ignore the fact that Kallie had really looked at me, and in doing so had found herself lacking. I grabbed a paper towel and dried my face before I was tempted to undertake any more self-analysis in the mirror.
I waited a couple minutes before leaving the bathroom. I wanted to be sure that Kallie had gone, and I hoped the rest of the foyer had emptied too. But when I pushed open the door I found Finn and Belson engaged in another heated debate.
Finn spun around and pointed at me, like he’d just delivered a decisive blow. For his part, Belson staggered back like a punch-drunk boxer.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I told Mr. Belson I was waiting for you, but he gave me detention,” blurted Finn, signing the entire sentence as well just to be sure I got it.
I couldn’t hide my shock. “Mr. Belson?”
Belson furrowed his brow. “He’s loitering on school premises again, listening at the girls’ bathroom. I just thought ...” He ran out of steam, clearly unsure exactly what he had thought. “I’ve got my eye on you, Vaughan.” He waggled a finger at Finn as he shuffled away.
I waited until we were completely alone. Were you really listening? I signed. Finn nodded. You’re a pervert.
“I’d rather be a pervert than whatever you are,” he shot back, no longer even making the pretense of signing.
I’m not discussing this.
I turned away from him, but he grabbed my arm and spun me around. “Some manager you’ve turned out to be. Kallie gets blistered by the other members of the band, and you go after her instead of them.”
You don’t know anything about it.
“I know enough.”
Don’t tell me how to do my job.
Finn closed his eyes, shook his head slowly. “Whatever. Let’s just go home.”
“Whatever,” I droned. “You can walk.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You can’t do that. It’s not your car.”
“Then drive yourself.” I tossed the keys at his feet.
Finn bent down and picked them up, but his eyes never left me. He wanted to say more, that was obvious, but he had the self-restraint to clamp his jaw shut and stomp away.
I hung around after he left, waiting for him to return and apologize. The lights in the foyer dimmed, and I was aware of how completely the school had emptied, all the pent-up energy of another stressful day sucked out in one efficient maneuver. I felt so tired. I just wanted to go home.
When Finn didn’t come back after thirty seconds, I stepped outside. It occurred to me he’d probably decided to run home, knowing that without the keys I’d have to traipse after him. Quite a smart plan, actually; I should’ve thought of it.
But I was mistaken. Instead, in the far corner of the parking lot, USS Immovable shuddered slightly as the engine misfired. I inhaled sharply, tried to convince myself that Finn wouldn’t actually do anything as stupid as I knew he was capable of, but then the car shuddered again. I broke into a sprint, hoping against hope that he’d realize I’d left the car in gear to stop it from rolling backward.
I suspect that of all the sounds in the universe, the dead crunch of metal is the one I hear just as clearly as anyone else. I know I watched in disbelief as the car lurched forward, like it was trying to steal a kiss from the concrete wall.
Finn was climbing out of the car when I reached him, so I shoved him back onto the driver’s
seat. He looked like he might try to get out again, but then gave up and cowered in the seat, bawling like Grace when you take her pacifier away.
I hadn’t seen Finn cry in years, and it made me pause. I didn’t feel comfortable shoving him again, even though it seemed like an entirely rational response given the situation, so I inspected the damage: a crumpled front bumper, but thankfully nothing more. I leaned against the car and waited, as the rain drizzled down and the air chilled around us.
A minute later Finn reemerged, clearly distraught. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, he signed with shaking hands.
I just shrugged. What the hell is going on? Is this about Kallie?
Finn grimaced, shook his head.
Then what? It can’t be about signing for me.
He nodded slowly.
Why? What is it you’re so embarrassed about? Me? Or the signing?
He kicked the tire angrily. Neither. I’m pissed you treat me like your personal slave, even when you don’t really need my help.
I don’t treat you like my slave.
You do. You never thank me, and whenever I don’t want to sign, you threaten me.
I sensed the blame-balance shifting, and I hated feeling defensive after Finn had just crashed the car.
Why is it such a big deal for you? I asked, my face tense, my gestures sharper.
Because when everyone hears your words coming from my mouth, they forget I’m interpreting. They think I agree with you.
No, they don’t.
Yes, they do. And you don’t even notice. When you and Kallie left, everyone stared at me like I was the one who’d made her cry, even though I’d refused to sign for you by then. It’s totally unfair.
What’s unfair is how I’m deaf but you’re not. Have you thought about that?
But I’ve done everything I can. Other kids learned Spanish or French, but not me. I’m fluent in American Sign Language, and I did it for you. Not for Oma and Poppy. I did it so that I could talk to you, because you’re my sister.