Dress rehearsals had sneaked up on them.
December came to Glisgold with several feet of snow and lit-up Santas the size of grizzly bears adorning houses long before Christmas week. And with the constant repetition of Christmas songs in every store came the reality that opening night would soon arrive whether they were ready for it or not.
Nessa was prepared for the show, but not for final curtain call.
She’d gotten nothing from Brody. He never left his things out of his sight when she was around. It was easy to think this was because he knew she was Eve’s best friend, and he kept his guard up. But that was hard for Nessa to believe, because she’d always been invisible to him.
A part of her liked to imagine that Brody was secretly in love with her, but he knew his friends wouldn’t accept it, and so he hid his feelings. She knew this was just a fantasy, but there was something about the daydream of him confessing his love to her and her getting to turn him down that she couldn’t stop thinking about. During math class, when the teacher went on for too long, she dreamed of rejecting him in front of the whole school. “No, Brody. I just don’t feel that way about you!” she’d say, strutting off like they did in the novelas her grandma, a huge novelera, watched on Univision.
Sophie had turned down his kiss. Even Eve had gotten a chance to reject him. Some girls had all the luck. Other girls.
As tech week got underway, Nessa, Lara, and Erin tried multiple times to create a diversion and get Brody distracted enough that one of them could search through his things. Lara and Erin even pretended to get into a huge fight over a made-up boyfriend living in Finland. Nessa thought they were pretty convincing, and worried slightly that Erin might go overboard and slap Lara. But instead of luring Brody away from his backpack, they just annoyed Mr. Rhodes with their hollering and elicited nothing but a chuckle from Brody.
As opening night neared, Nessa almost lost hope. But then, one day, a Christmas miracle occurred.
The weather demanded winter coats, and often the cast would throw theirs in a pile in the corner of the auditorium. Two days before the show, all the other kids had left rehearsals after a run-through, and Mr. Rhodes asked Brody and Nessa to stay behind to work on their song. This happened a lot because, of course, Brody couldn’t find his note with a pitch pipe implanted in his brain. When they finished up, Mr. Rhodes spoke to Brody for a second and Nessa, being the excellent citizen that she was, picked up both of their coats and went to hand Brody his navy blue Patagonia. Walking toward the piano, as she held it out to him, she spotted orange paint stains surrounding the inner pocket. Stains the exact shade of the orange paint sprayed onto Eve’s locker.
The markings of a vandal.
Brody hadn’t been in school the week that happened, so Nessa hadn’t even suspected him. Had he sneaked in after hours? Or been allowed to go to sports practice? Somehow, he had found time to be even more of a jerk to Eve. Nessa almost laughed. Brody had thought he’d get away with it. But now, finally, she had him. He could get expelled.
As Brody sang, Nessa laid his coat down on the chair and pulled out her phone.
Nessa saw him look at her. And he saw her take a picture and slip that evidence into her pocket.
“Nessa, mind joining in on this harmony one more time before you go?” Mr. Rhodes asked.
“Sure,” she answered with a grin.
As Brody and Nessa crooned a love song together, their hands cradling each other’s, his breath surprisingly minty, Nessa let herself believe that he was Harold Hill, and she felt pleased as he hit his high notes with some accuracy, and for a brief moment she let go of the reality that both of them knew that she would be the one to take him down.