It wasn’t up there.
It wasn’t up there!
At first Megan thought she’d missed it, and scanned the list, poised to squeal the instant her eyes caught her name.
But it just wasn’t up there.
She hadn’t made Ensemble.
“Way to go, Joe!” a female voice called. That red-headed alto.
“Sara! We’re awesome!” the boy shouted back. The tall tenor.
Their hand-slapping was happening at the edge of a nightmare because it wasn’t up there. She hadn’t made Ensemble. And she’d known she would.
“Rehearsals at 7 a.m.?” Sara whined.
“If you can’t handle it, there are 10 other altos waitin’ to take your place,” Joe remarked. “Hey—you want this girl’s place?”
For the first time Megan pried her eyes away from the list. Joe’s eyebrows were cocked expectantly. “Sara obviously doesn’t want the honor. So take her place, would you?”
Sara nudged him sharply.
“What?” he protested, as she dragged him away. “What’d I say?”
“She tried out for Ensemble, Tofu-for-Brains,” Sara hissed to him. “Don’t you remember?”
Megan tossed back her mane of blonde, just in case they should look back. Nobody needed to know that her throat was clogged with a thousand waiting tears.
Letting it Sink In
The bell rang. She pulled her notebook to her chest and moved slowly toward the chorus room—the last place she wanted to go now.
The room was a cacophony of squeals and hugs. Megan wriggled through it, head down, and slumped into the alto section. A couple of the waiting tears got clearance for takeoff, and she smacked at them fiercely.
“All right, folks,” Mrs. Christopher sang out. She always sounded like she was singing. Right now it was a funeral dirge.
“I trust you’ve all looked at the list—”
“No! Am I on it?” Joe quipped.
“Congratulations to our new Ensemble. You realize that in a school that prides itself
on its arts programs, those people are the very best we have—”
Then my name should be up there! Megan thought to herself. I am the best. Why else would my parents have gotten a transfer to send me here? Why else would everyone have been telling me since I was 7 years old that they’d be seeing me on the cover of my own CD someday?
“—naturally I could only select 14, but the rest of you who auditioned, don’t be discouraged. You’ll have other chances.”
“I’m trying out again next year,” said the girl next to her. “A sophomore almost never makes Ensemble.”
Megan looked at her in surprise. That girl—what was her name? Brenna? She’d belted out, “Memory” from “Cats” like Bette Midler. She was only a sophomore—like Megan?
“And students—“ Mrs. Christopher peered at them over her music stand “no back-stabbing. If you have a problem with my selections, come and speak to me personally.”
Confrontation
School was out at 2:05. At 2:07 Megan was tapping on the chorus office door.
“My ‘new kid!’” Mrs. Christopher sang. “I’ve been wanting to get to know you a little better.” She pulled two stacks of music from a chair.
“These first few weeks of school are such a zoo with all these auditions -please, sit down—but now we can get on with the business of singing.”
Megan nodded.
“So—what can I do for you?”
Megan opened her mouth—and then slammed it shut. She’d planned to tell Mrs. Christopher that she obviously had chosen her “pets” for the Ensemble, and that Megan and people like Brenna-what’s-her-name ought to be on the list.
But this was the first time she’d really noticed anything about Mrs. Christopher except that she had too much salt-and-pepper hair for her tiny face. Now dazzling, kind blue eyes sparkled at her. She smiled a smile that said I have all the time in the world for you.
Megan cleared her throat. “I wanted to talk to you—about—why I didn’t make Ensemble.”
“Why do you think you should have?” Mrs. Christopher inquired.
Megan’s eyes leapt up. “Well—OK—I’ve been singing since I was way little. You couldn’t be in the junior choir at church unless you could read, so I learned in about three months—just so I could sing—that’s how much it means to me.”
More than a few of the clogged-up tears were making their escape. Silently Mrs. Christopher pushed a box of Kleenex toward her.
“Like—from the very beginning, they always gave me all the solos—and people tell me every Sunday what a gift I have. I mean, that’s why I changed schools. I didn’t even take Honors English because it’s the same period as chorus.”
“What do you plan to do with your singing, Megan?” Mrs. Christopher asked.
“The Lord meant for me to be a singer. That’s what I want to do with my life.” Megan snorted the gunk that came with the tears. “I practically have my first CD cover designed.”
“Not making Ensemble was really a blow, then?”
Megan could only nod.
Mrs. Christopher sat on the edge of her desk and touched Megan’s hand lightly.
“Megan, I don’t pull punches with my students. You have a sweet voice, and you know your stuff. I’m delighted to have you. But, my dear, I don’t think you’re going to be a professional singer. Maybe your voice will mature—I’ve been wrong—but right now you aren’t Ensemble material.”
Megan stared as Mrs. Christopher’s face blurred into the tears.
“I’m going to go now,” she mumbled.
And before Mrs. Christopher could answer, she’d slammed the door behind her.
Change of Plans
There was no question about what to do now. She didn’t even discuss it with her parents. They’d probably have a fit when they found out she was dropping chorus altogether to sign up for Honors English—when they’d gone to all the trouble to have her transferred.
But at third period she placed the pink schedule change form on Mrs. Christopher’s desk. The blue eyes met her sharply.
“I’ve already missed two weeks of Honors,” Megan stated woodenly.
Mrs. Christopher stood up. “I won’t sign this unless you’ll do something for
me.”
You? Megan snapped to herself. The same person who took my dreams and wadded them up like a rough draft ?
“You know about our Career Exploration Program here?” Mrs. Christopher was saying. “You can spend one day with a professional and get a feel for her career. If you’ll spend a Career Exploration Day with me, I’ll sign your schedule change.”
“But—what career?” Megan asked.
Mrs. Christopher threw her bushy head back and hooted. “I often ask myself that!” she declared. “I’m a music professional, my dear. And I want you to see what that can mean.”
A Different Perspective
At 7 a.m. the next day, Megan was in the rehearsal hall, gritting her teeth as the Ensemble practiced. At 2 p.m. she was in the empty chorus room, counting. She’d heard almost 200 kids sing in one day. And in the midst of it, she’d seen Mrs. Christopher make a kid laugh when his recently changed voice did a two octave lurch.
She’d seen her spend 10 minutes in her office calming a crying girl and the next 20 discussing cruelty versus manners with the class. She’d seen her teach music theory to kids who were headed for Julliard, discuss opera with kids who looked like potential dropouts, and play piano for a struggling soloist with one hand while eating a sandwich with the other.
Her hair got wilder, her smile got wider, and at the end of the day she kicked her shoes playfully across the room.
Still, Megan didn’t see what any of it had to do with her. “I’m through now?” she asked hopefully.
“Not in the slightest! You’re coming home with me. I called your mom—she was glad to get rid of that long face for an evening! Get your sweater. The day is still young.”
Megan was less than enthusiastic as they pulled up to an almost-all-glass house with a grand piano displayed in one huge pane. But once inside, when Mrs. Christopher offered, “Play it if you want. I’ll start dinner,” it was hard to keep scowling.
The piano quivered at the slightest touch. So did the violin lying on top of it.
The living room was checkered with piles of music, and one huge cabinet bulged with tapes and CDs.
“Who are you?” a tall kid with a backpack full of textbooks asked her as he passed through.
“Nice to see ya—want a Coke—is she the slave driver at school that she is at home?” That’s what the other three said as they passed through. All four of Mrs. Christopher’s almost-grown kids tinkered with the piano and flipped the remote on the CD player.
At the dinner table they argued happily about who would be kicked off this week’s “American Idol.” And after supper they all sang barbershop quartet in the kitchen while they did the dishes. Megan joined in on alto.
“Aren’t any of you ever going to get your own places?” Mrs. Christopher asked them, laughing. “When you have kids, Megan, make them sign a contract at birth that they’ll move out when they’re 18.”
Megan felt strangely content for a minute. It looked like a happy life, with music and love at work and at home. But she shook her head at herself. It wasn’t a CD cover.
At 7 p.m., Mrs. Christopher tossed Megan her sweater. “We’ll be at ‘The Dream Machine,’” she sang out to her family, and ushered Megan to the car.
“What’s ‘The Dream Machine?’” Megan asked.
“It’s an alternative to CD covers,” Mrs. Christopher replied.
Actually it looked like a café. Inside were small tables clustered in front of a stage, and Megan barely had a Coke in front of her before an emcee with dimples came out, cracked everyone up with his jokes, and introduced Elizabeth Louise somebody, who sang.
And then Blaire somebody, who danced. And even Chuckles somebody, who juggled five Rubik’s cubes.
They were all good, Megan thought, yet none of them was Taylor Swift. But that didn’t seem to matter to anybody, including the audience. Because eventually, everyone in the audience got up there, beaming under the lights, and did his thing. Even Mrs. Christopher.
Megan had never heard her sing before, beyond belting out the alto part when the section was clueless. Microphone in hand, se eased out a song called “Unforgettable,” which Megan had never heard before, but which she knew she’d hear in her memory-ear a thousand times. Mrs. Christopher made it sound like velvet—soft and deep and rich. Megan wrapped herself in it.
And then it hit her. Mrs. Christopher was wonderful—but she wasn’t good enough to make CDs. She must have had that dream one day. Everyone in the room must have thought that at age 15.
But they were still singing—and tap dancing—and juggling Rubik’s cubes. And they were happy.
Thinking it Over
On the way home, she and Mrs. Christopher sang together. “Kelly Clarkson, eat your heart out,” Mrs. Christopher laughed softly when they pulled up to Megan’s front door. “There’s something to be said for doing it for the joy of it.”
Megan reached into her purse and pulled out the pink slip. “I need to leave this with you,” she murmured. And she wadded it up into a lump.
“Here’s where that belongs,” Mrs. Christopher smiled, dropping it into the litterbag. Then she looked long and hard at Megan.
“I’m not trying to push you into teaching,” she explained, “I just wanted you to see that you can still be a professional, still have music in your life, without being a star.” “Thanks,” Megan said huskily. The tears were circling the airport again.
She was grateful, she thought as she buried her head in the pillow later. Tomorrow it was all going to have a new perspective. But tonight there had to be a good cry. After all, it would have been such a hot CD cover.
Nancy N. Rue has written a bazillion books and lives in Lebanon, Tenn.