Chapter Eleven
A COOL GUST of wind hit my cheeks as the referee blew his whistle to end the second quarter of the football game and announce the beginning of halftime.
I was in the line of mellophones, pressed between Jacob Whittaker and Larry Schmidt, who both stood at attention, their gleaming horns positioned perfectly.
But beneath their navy-and-white silver-embossed hats, their eyes communicated the pair’s usual brand of mischief.
Someone bumped my back with the slide of a trombone. Will Garrison, no doubt.
“Sorry,” Will mumbled, and I rolled my eyes.
The crowds, the noise, the funky smell of band uniforms .
. . all these made me detest marching season.
But it was a required part of the class, so if we wanted to sit onstage wearing elegant black dresses and tuxedos, performing music by real composers instead of bad arrangements of radio drivel, we had to spend the first quarter of the year marching in formation and putting up with the occasional clonk on the head from stray footballs.
But as we took the field tonight, I had at least one glimmer of enjoyment.
Victor.
As drum major, he marched out first onto the white-striped field.
He strutted with confidence, leading the parade of majorettes, all flash and fringe and silver batons.
Pride swelled in my heart. Victor was such a natural at everything.
He never seemed nervous in a crowd. Never robbed of speech around someone he liked.
Not the least bit unsure of what he wanted to do after high school.
No, Victor’s goal was clear: He wanted to become a world-renowned choral director and composer.
And his path to achieving that goal was equally clear.
Even before high school, he’d set his sights on the Whitehall Conservatory of Music in Chicago.
As I watched him, his baton moving up and down with expert precision, his head held high, every movement a concerto of choreographed confidence, I couldn’t imagine him not achieving all those dreams and then some.
Men had it easier, of course. Victor’s mother hadn’t sat him down repeatedly and encouraged him to come out of his shell, to put away his sensitivities and shyness and just “Smile. Smile, dear, you’re so much prettier when you smile.
Not like that face you always make. You mustn’t look at a man that way, darling, or he’ll think you’re criticizing him. ”
“And what if I am, Mother? What if he’s doing or saying something that deserves to be criticized?”
“Iris, you mustn’t. Certainly never in public. If you absolutely cannot hold your tongue, then it is imperative that such a conversation take place in private and with the utmost in respect. Otherwise you’ll never find a husband.”
And what if I didn’t care about having a husband?
Of course, I never asked Mother that. Whatever I might want didn’t matter.
Never mind that women were achieving more than they ever had.
Money talked, and most people thought if you came from money, you could do whatever you wanted.
But in my case, money was precisely why dreaming about the future was painfully pointless.
Why, if Mother had her way, I’d be trapped in a prewritten life, a boring composition with no dissonance, no development, and no hope of improvisation.
No hope of improvisation now either. It was time for the halftime show.
A few minutes later, it was over, and I made my way back to the band’s spot in the stands. A variety of sounds assaulted my ears. The blaaaaaaattttt of a trombone. An unnecessarily loud rim shot from one of the snare drum players. The seal-like laughter of Jacob and Larry.
I sighed into my mellophone’s mouthpiece and opened the spit valve. Only four more home games, and then I could leave the Peterson High Marching Patriots behind forevermore.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
The deep voice startled me, but in a much more pleasant way than all the previous noises had. Victor stood at my right.
Gorgeous? Not possible. Not in this ridiculous navy-and-white band uniform, complete with a cape, with my face half covered by the chinstrap of my hat, my hair mashed into a frizz bomb underneath.
“Hi.” There was so much noise—and my voice so quiet—that Victor probably didn’t even hear me.
He removed his hat, his dark-blond hair damp and pressed to his forehead from a slightly-too-tight hatband, and his pale skin flushed, but the smile he aimed at me could’ve melted ice. He made this dumb, itchy band uniform seem dapper and sophisticated. Like he’d been born to wear it.
He leaned his baton against the front of the bleachers. “Hungry?”
Actually, yes. I’d only gotten half an hour at home before I’d had to get ready for the game, and I’d spent that time working on another melody that wouldn’t leave me alone. “Gosh, I—”
“Because I’m starving,” Victor declared.
I smiled up at him. “Me too.”
“Well then, milady”—Victor gave an exaggerated courtly bow, complete with a flourish of his cape—“would you care to accompany me to the purveyor of concessions?”
Giggling, I set my horn down. “Of course, my liege. I particularly fancy a cylinder of their finest processed beef, grilled to perfection and served piping hot in a nest of freshly baked bread, topped with a pinch of Dijon and an array of chopped pickles.”
“That does sound delicious.” Victor beamed, pleased that I’d joined in his game.
“I have my eye on that as well. It would be even more scrumptious with a side order of potatoes, sliced into strips, salted, and fried to a crisp.” He leaned in, brows arching with mischief. “Perhaps they won’t go cold this time.”
Our eyes met and our laughter increased, the shared moment at Sammy’s shimmering in the chilly air between us.
“In fact,” he continued, “perhaps later we could—”
“Hey! You two!”
We turned at the sound, and a long-haired kid in a pair of bell-bottoms and a bunch of necklaces aimed a camera at us.
“Smile,” he said. “Say cheese. Whatever.”
“Sure,” Victor replied in his normal voice. “Just let me put my hat back on.”
The rest of the band streamed past on the way to the snack stand as Victor replaced his hat and leaned in close. His hat clunked against mine, and his arm found its way around my waist.
His arm.
Was around.
My waist.
Someone was touching me.
Victor was touching me.
And unlike touches from most people, Victor’s felt nice. Comfortable. Like I belonged to him.
I slipped my arm around his waist too. And it didn’t feel as weird as I thought it would.
He tightened his grip, and that didn’t feel weird either.
In fact, it felt . . . good.
“Okay,” the photographer said. “One . . . two . . . three!” The camera clicked, and the flashbulb popped. “Far out.” His feet crunched against the gravel around the field as he headed toward a cheerleader.
What was I supposed to do now? Spots from the camera flash still danced in front of my eyes, and Victor and I still stood there, smiling at nothing, our arms around each other. But he slid his away, and I did the same.
Phew. Okay. Good. It was over.
Wait, was that good? Was I truly glad it was over, or did a large part of me wish it would happen again?
Okay, all of me wished it would happen again. But maybe not at the orders of a half-stoned photographer.
As though summoned by my thoughts, Victor slipped his hand into mine. He still wore his gloves, and so did I, but I could feel the warmth of his skin through the thin layers of white fabric.
We were holding hands. And . . . that felt good too.
“Let’s see.” Victor no longer sounded like he was from London. “We’ve been out to Sammy’s together. And we’ve been photographed together. And now we’re holding hands.”
Curious, I glanced his way. “All of that is true.”
“Well then. I think that makes you my girlfriend, Iris Wallingford.”
I stared. Girlfriend. I’d never been anyone’s girlfriend before.
The word sounded weird, especially if I thought about it too much. Girl. Friend. Both were true of me, so the combination made sense. But Victor’s expression indicated he had a lot more than “friends” on his mind.
I did too. Victor Nelson made me feel like nobody else ever had. Weird and warm and tingly, but not in a bad way.
If I made him feel anything close to that, then I probably was his girlfriend.
My smile made my cheeks ache. “I guess that makes you my boyfriend.”
He answered my smile, then led us toward the snack stand. “Brilliant. Talented. Gorgeous in a band uniform.”
This made me giggle.
“You amaze me more every single minute.”
Once again he’d managed to put my feelings into words.