34
Musicale

Performing in Musicale may not be mandatory, but everyone is required to attend. Of course, getting up on the stage to perform did not seem appealing to me at all, not after I have already provided so much entertainment to both schools (live and on film, which makes me a multimedia sensation).

But now I’m here, sitting in the bleachers of the gymnasium, the same one where I met Alex only a month ago, with Pierre and Marie Claire to my left, waiting for the performance to begin. And I realize that just watching might be even worse. At least if I were performing, I would be too nervous preparing to remember the truth: that my life in Brooklyn has only gone from bad to worse.

I watch as the bleachers begin to fill. While I am not the only one with family here—even though it is only three o’clock, many parents are; that is how seriously Musicale is taken in these schools—I am quite sure I’m the only one whose aunt and uncle have come for the sole purpose of making sure that I stay away from boys, and that they stay away from me. My uncle deliberately chose the last row of seats, farthest away from the stage, even though we arrived so early that there were plenty of better seats still available.

“How long is this going to last?” Tonton Pierre says, shifting his weight on the uncomfortable aluminum seat.

It’s been a week since the video showed up and my fight with Jenna, but my problems at school are still a big topic at home. Tonton Pierre was surprisingly gentle toward me for the first day or two, but then he started to ask me questions: How did I come to know the boys in the video? Why was that mean girl so jealous of me? Why was I associating with such misguided young people? And when he found out that I had joined a Musicale group that included boys, he became so angry that Marie Claire had to step between us and tell her husband to calm down, take a breath, and stop berating his niece.

Marie Claire pats Pierre on the knee. “Sit back and relax, mon cher. We are here, at Bijou’s school. And we are going to enjoy the performance.”

Tonton Pierre grumbles and shrugs, as if accepting a brief sentence in prison.

The bleachers are starting to fill up. Nomura leads his parents into the third row, then jogs backstage. Maricel is right behind him, although I don’t see Ira. Rocky, his hair slick and shiny, walks ten feet in front of his parents and scowls at his balding father. Jenna is here, too, with her mother and little brother. I shrink into my skin, wanting to avoid any contact with her. The last thing I need is for Pierre to realize who she is and create a scene. And I doubt her mama would be any more pleased to see me, the girl who had called her daughter a common house servant.

Mary Agnes looks up, finds me, gives me a wave. She is leading her parents and three younger siblings—every one of them with carrot-colored hair and milky, freckled skin that wouldn’t survive a day in Port-au-Prince—into front-row seats, which are permanently reserved for her, since she is on the planning committee for every event in the school’s calendar. I wave back, smile, and hope that Mary Agnes doesn’t feel a sentimental urge to introduce herself to La Famille Doucet.

But it is too late. Here she comes, marching up the steps with a neon smile.

“Hi, Bijou!” She kisses me on both cheeks, then says, “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Doucet, I’m Mary Agnes Brady,” and extends her hand as if she has come to my house to take me to the high school prom (no, we don’t have prom in Haiti, and yes, I learned what prom is on Tous Mes Enfants). Is she unaware of the awkwardness of the situation, or does she simply not care? I brace myself for Pierre’s reaction, but he and Marie Claire both return Mary Agnes’s greeting politely.

“I wanted to tell you both how much we all love Bijou here at St. Catherine’s,” she says, more like a headmistress now than a prom date.

“Oh, really?” says Pierre.

Marie Claire squeezes his thigh. And not with love. It’s an order: Don’t cause trouble.

“Well, I’m really glad she came here,” Mary Agnes says, “and that we’ve become friends.”

Mary Agnes doesn’t stop there. In less than three minutes, she manages to tell us about herself and her family and to get more information on my uncle and his furniture-restoration business, on Marie Claire’s part-time job as an administrator at Kings County Hospital, than I knew myself. Pierre and Marie Claire nod and smile, and Pierre even asks some questions of his own. He wants to know, for some reason, how long she has lived in Park Slope, what her parents do for a living, even the names of her siblings. She tells him, and he seems as fascinated as if she were providing the explanation to the origin of life.

Mary Agnes checks her watch. “Oops, I’m really sorry, I need to get going,” she says. “It was so nice to meet you.” And she hugs them. Both of them! “Bijou, are you sure I can’t change your mind? You’d dance circles around Maricel and me.”

“I’m fine here,” I say, smiling. “Really.”

“Are you sure, Bijou?” my uncle asks.

I look at him as if he is a madman. As if he has asked me to change into a swimsuit and do cartwheels in front of everyone. “No, Uncle,” I say. “I really am fine.” Marie Claire laughs into her palm.

“Okay, I had to try,” Mary Agnes says. And just like that, as the lights go down, she leaves us, waves to her family, and disappears behind the stage.

“What just happened?” Marie Claire asks.

“We just met … a very nice girl,” Pierre says. “A very impressive young lady.”

Yesterday, Mary Agnes was a central part of the conspiracy to involve me in a sinful coeducational Musicale performance, and now she is my uncle’s favorite seventh grader in Brooklyn. Either I don’t know Pierre as well as I thought, or when Mary Agnes grows up, she should be an ambassador for world peace.

The lights have gone out completely now, and a single spotlight shows on the podium. Headmistress O’Biden welcomes us all to this year’s St. Catherine’s–St. Christopher’s Intramural Spring Musicale. Everyone applauds and cheers, and within moments, the first act, an eighth-grade boy and girl duo, are singing “Falling Slowly,” from the musical Once. It is a pretty song, and as singers, they are not bad. Marie Claire brings out a tissue to wipe away a tear at the corner of her eye while Pierre checks his watch for the hundredth time.

As Jenna and Angela take the stage as the second act, wearing matching short skirts and fishnet stockings, my whole body stiffens. I try to tell myself there is no way that they will try to embarrass me, not today, not ever again. But it is only as they are nearly finished with their number, a “sexy” but harmless dance routine set to the song “California Gurls” that I allow myself to relax.

“Silly,” Pierre says too loudly while the boys around us hoot and holler. “Their outfits aren’t appropriate, and they should be more … dignified.” Marie Claire gives him a look, but I could not have said it better myself.

“Thank you very much, girls,” says Headmistress O’Biden, who is probably relieved herself that Angela and Jenna did not push any more boundaries than they did. “Next, please welcome Mary Agnes Brady, John Nomura, and Maricel and Ira Lopez. Their choice of song isn’t listed here, but I’m sure they have something very special in store for us.” Half the audience claps; others giggle and cheer sarcastically.

Ira appears onstage alone and puts his laptop on a table, fiddling with cords and wires. He is probably getting the backing track ready. In the only rehearsal I attended, we didn’t even succeed in picking a song, so I have no idea what they decided on in the end. He is also probably preparing some sort of video, although I pray that the boy is a bit better organized now. Mary Agnes must have been crazy, after everything that’s happened, to allow him to be responsible for any kind of visual entertainment.

Ira is still monkeying with his machine and talking to the man running the sound and video system, but he keeps looking off to the side of the stage. He tries to concentrate on his work, but someone is obviously distracting him.

Alex walks onto the stage and cups his hand over Ira’s ear.

“Who is that?” Pierre asks. I ignore him and lean forward in my seat.

Ira is shaking his head, no, no.

“What’s happening?” Marie Claire asks. “Are they having some kind of technical problem?” I pray the problem is only technical.

“Who is that boy?” Pierre asks. I’m wondering what special gift of intuition my uncle possesses that could draw his attention to Alex Schrader.

Now Rocky and Trevor are on the stage, too, and Alex is gone. Ira unplugs one of the wires he connected only a moment earlier, and apparently plays something for the two of them, who hunch over the machine with great interest. Rocky puts his hand over his mouth, looking surprised, and Trevor, who I haven’t seen since that strange moment when he insisted on helping Mary Agnes carry me into school, rocks uncomfortably on his heels. Alex, checking their reaction, nods a quick okay, and all but pushes them off the stage.

When Alex returns, he is not alone. He is with his rada drum. And he is with my brother.

“Is that Jou Jou?” Marie Claire asks. “What is he doing here?”

“That’s the boy,” Pierre says, and he’s not talking about my brother. “God help me, I knew that was the boy.”

“Tonton, je t’implores. Ne fais rien,” I say. Uncle, I beg you. Don’t do anything.

Now the headmistress is whispering to Alex. She looks confused. Or angry. Or both. But finally she gives him the microphone and walks to the side of the stage. Alex nods toward my brother, who starts to play the raboday rhythm, his right hand slapping the stick loudly on the cow-skin head and cupping the drum with warm bass tones with his left.

“The white boy is going to play rara music,” Pierre murmurs, helpless. “God help us all.”

Alex steps to the front of the stage and calls out to the audience over the ancient vodou rhythm.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he starts, “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but there’s something I really need to say right now.”

There is nervous laughter from the audience, and one boy yells, “Schrader, I need to say right now that you’re a total dork!”

“I’m not talking to all of you,” Alex says. “Just to one of you.”

I fight the urge to cover my face with my hands.

“How about talking to none of us?” another boy says.

Then Trevor stands up and yells, “Everybody shut up and let Schrader talk!”

Rocky stands next to him, nodding. Suddenly they are all best friends? When the crowd quiets down, the two of them take their seats.

“The only person I want to talk to, the person who matters most to me in this entire room, is you, Bijou,” he says.

Oh my Lord, Alex. S’il te plaît, ne fais pas ça. Please, don’t do this.

Jou Jou’s raboday goes even stronger and louder, but Alex is still able to call out above the rhythm, his voice a high, clear tenor. “Bijou, you are the best person, the truest person, in this room. And I would be so honored if you would join me right now and help us do this raboday right. We can’t do it without you.”

He cannot be serious. He cannot think that this is the right time, the right place, to declare his feelings for me. That is what he is doing, isn’t it? This is more, after all, than asking me to dance along with the raboday.

Jou Jou yells above the beat, “Come on, Bijou! Get down here, sister!”

The people in the rows in front of us, each and every one of them, turn around to stare at me. I’ve never seen any of these parents, brothers, and sisters in my life. How do they even know I am the one he’s talking to—can they feel the heat burning off my cheeks? (Alex has at last succeeded in making me blush.) The Lopezes, the Minayas, even the tiny, carrot-colored Brady children, are all staring at me, waiting for a decision.

“Go ahead, child,” whispers Marie Claire. “Do it.”

“Don’t you dare,” says Pierre. “I absolutely forbid it.”

I look at the stage, tears filling my eyes. Do I want to go and dance up on that stage with this crazy boy? With this sweet boy who is also the most inappropriate person I have ever met?

Alex, I’m going to get you for this. And Jou Jou, you, too.