So Lyrical
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
Teaser chapter
NAL JAM
Published by New American Library, a division of
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by NAL JAM, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, May 2005
Copyright © Patricia Cook, 2005
All rights reserved
Song lyrics courtesy of Chris Forte and Heather Horton
NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Cook, Trish, 1965-
So lyrical / Trish Cook. p. cm.
Summary: The life of Winnetka, Illinois, high schooler Trace revolves around her young, music-loving mother, an unknown father, a voluptuous best friend who may be going off the deep end, and the rich, gorgeous lead singer in a band.
eISBN : 978-1-101-11785-9
[1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Musicians—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.
4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Running—Fiction. 6. Fathers—Fiction. 7. Illinois—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C773So 2005
[Fic]—dc22 2004025298
Set in Granjon
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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http://us.penguingroup.com
To Steve, the best husband imaginable, and Courtney and Kelsey, the two coolest kids ever
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to:• My agent, Marlene Stringer, for taking a chance on me
• My editor, Anne Bohner, for making me feel instantly at home
• Team Cook plus Mom and Tom for always having my back
• Suzanne DeMarco for being my muse, savant reader, and biggest fan
• Sue Wilson for always making me laugh and also because she told me she’d be pissed if she didn’t have her own line
• Michele Garger, Alison Shotwell, Joanna DePorter, and Julie Mangan for the brave advance reading and liking where I was headed even when I was lost
• Meredith Roholt for being the best cross-generational pal anyone could ask for
• Heather Horton for offering up her awesome songs and even more awesome friendship—go to www.hhroxx.com to find out where you can catch her live
• Chris Forte for sharing his lyrics, opinions, and kick-ass guitar knowledge with me—be sure to check him out at www.chrisforte.com
• Liz Phair (www.lizphair.com) for letting me take her name in vain when I was looking for an agent, giving me a glimpse of what it’s like to be a rock star, and giving me the private lesson on Friend of Mine
• Green Day, Good Charlotte, and MxPx for making great music I can play along with on my Daisy Rock Venus (www.greenday.com, www.goodcharlotte.com, www.mxpx.com, and www.daisyrock.com)
CHAPTER 1
“Trace!”
I stuck my head out of my locker and scanned the between-class mosh pit. A blur of faces surfed by, none of which seemed to belong to anyone in desperate need of me. Taking a deep breath, I went back to my excavation. I finally found what I was looking for underneath a week-old lunch bag.
“Gotcha,” I muttered, unearthing my trig book. Pens, crumpled papers, and unwashed gym clothes all came flying out after it. I tossed the scrambled mess back inside, slamming the door and throwing myself against it for good measure. I could totally understand the escape attempt. It reeked like tuna and old sweat in there.
“Trace!”
There was that voice again, only louder and more pissed off this time. I scoped the halls until I finally spotted the screamer—otherwise known as my best friend, Sabrina Maldonati. Her body-hugging skirt and sky-high heels made navigating the polished marble floors of Northshore Regional High School a tough proposition. Think beached mermaid and you’ll get the picture.
If I could only fast-forward her, I thought, glancing at my watch and hoping I wasn’t going to be late for class. Brina made her grand entrance a moment later clutching a piece of paper to her more-than-ample chest.
“Stop bitching and start reading,” she said. “Because this is the most unbelievable thing ever.”
I faked a big yawn. “Can’t Harvard just take no for an answer?” The more over-the-top she gets, the more I like to yank her chain.
“Not funny.”
“Your mom wrote a note so you don’t have to face the fat calipers in gym today?”
Brina shook her head so hard I thought brains would come flying out her ears in wrinkly pieces. “Wrong again. And anyway, you know how I feel about the f word.”
“What, fu—?”
“Uh, uh, uh. You quit swearing, remember?” Brina said, interrupting me just in the nick of time. “And the word I was referring to is ‘fat.’ Last night, my mom offered to get me liposuction for my eighteenth birthday.”
“You’re so full of—”
“Trace, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder if you’re serious about cleaning up your language.”
“I was about to say ‘malarkey.’ ”
“One of us is lying,” said Brina. “Here’s a hint. It’s not me.”
She was right. I wouldn’t be caught dead saying anything remotely like, “You’re so full of malarkey.” Tha
t meant the lipo story must be true. Brina’s mom, being the anorexic lunatic that she is, probably decided fat-sucking cash was the most thoughtful, generous gift in the history of mankind.
The reality is this: Brina has an eye-popping, curvaceous bod. But instead of realizing that boobs and a butt are normal—even desirable—parts of a woman’s figure, all Mrs. Maldonati can see is rolls, rolls, and more rolls. In her wildest dreams, Brina suddenly turns into whichever Olsen twin is the dangerously skinny one. “Don’t hold your breath” and “not in this lifetime” are two choice phrases that come to mind, but Mrs. Maldonati refuses to give up hope just yet.
“So if it isn’t from Harvard and it’s not a reprieve from the claw, what is the most unbelievable thing ever?” I asked.
“An anonymous note. Signed by ‘slp.’ I don’t know whether to be flattered or call the cops.”
So maybe this really was something worth getting excited about. “Hand it over,” I told her.
Brina passed the note my way and breathed down my neck. I could almost hear her lips moving behind me as I read.
Brina,
I like to watch you from afar
Always know just where you are
But not where this might lead
Maybe you could walk with me
slp
A lone bead of sweat trickled down my back. Was I jealous? Hell, yeah. Here was some pretty awesome poetry, sweet without being sickening, warm without losing its cool. And once again, I was relegated to the lumpy, frumpy sidekick role—Quasimodo next to Brina’s Esmeralda.
“Honestly? It’s amazing,” I admitted.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, folding the paper carefully and zipping it into a little compartment in the front of her notebook. I hated how she could be so neat. I also hated that her boobs were so big, and that mine were so nonexistent.
“So what are you going to do about it?” I asked her.
“Do? Nothing.” We took a couple more steps before she said, “Why? What would you do?”
“I’d go walk with him.”
Brina rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious,” I told her.
“Oh, please. Why would I want to stroll around with some loser who’s too scared to ask me out?” Brina said, doing a quick one-eighty and dismissing slp as yesterday’s news. “Let’s just forget about it.”
I cleared my throat as a new thought came to me. This would be a kick if it actually turned out to be true. “Maybe slp is a she,” I suggested. Brina may have had all the guys in school drooling after her, but up until now she hadn’t done a thing for the chicks. “Your Sss-sss-secret Le-lelesbian Puh-puh-pal.” I emphasized the letters so she’d catch my drift.
Brina didn’t even stop to consider my theory. “Sorry, Trace. It’s just not my thing. If my pal’s a gal, we’re gonna have to stay friends.”
I took one last crack at it. “Have you ever considered it might just be Some Lovesick Puppy?”
“Shut up, Trace, and walk. We’ve gotta get to trig.”
Brina and I slipped into our seats as the final bell was ringing. I kept rereading the note in my mind, trying to figure out who slp might really be. And why he—like every other guy I knew—found Brina so intriguing, and me so not.
Stanley Larsen Pratt?
Spencer Louis Perog?
Shawn Leonard Pearsall?
All great guesses. If any of these names belonged to anyone we knew, that is. And they didn’t.
Minutes passed before I, being the incredibly brilliant person I am, solved the slp mystery. There he was—Sam Parish, a cute enough guy if you could overlook his constant sniffling—slumped down in his seat with his feet stuffed under Brina’s chair.
I got all excited and passed her a note.
Brina:
Don’t look now, but I think slp’s behind you. If his middle name is Lester or Langley or Lancelot or Lars, it’s him. Identity crisis over.
Trace
P.S. Maybe it’s not an allergy or drug problem like we thought. He could just be trying to inhale your pheromones, or whatever they’re called.
She read it and scribbled back.
Trace:
Good detective work. Let’s see if he passes the test. slp’s girlfriend
While the rest of the class was trying to calculate the Pythagorean cosine tangent of the something or other, Brina casually leaned back and whispered, “What’s your middle name, hon?”
Sam pointed to his chest—honestly, he looked a little scared—and mouthed, “Me?” Then he just sat there staring at Brina with his mouth hanging open.
She finally patted his arm and whispered, “That’s OK. You can tell me later.” Brina turned her attention back to the nasty problem at hand, and Sam scrunched down even farther in his seat. He looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him up because he’d just ruined his one big chance with Brina. Or who knows? Maybe he was just trying to hide a huge boner.
Scratch, scratch. Fold, fold. Brina chucked the note back to me.
Trace:
Don’t think it’s him. Far too shy to have the balls to send me an anonymous love note. He might write one, but I think that’s about as far as it would go.
B
Maybe, maybe not, I thought. He could also be embarrassed at being outed so quickly by gifted me. Scribble, scribble, toss, toss.
B:
Let’s keep him on the list for now. I’ll put it right next to the one about my dad on my locker door.
T
The other list was necessary because, unless his name really was Mike Graphone like it says on my birth certificate, I don’t know a thing about my father. And as cool as my mother is in other respects—especially compared to my friends’ parents—she’s unbelievably uptight and closemouthed about everything related to Daddy dearest. The only suspects I’ve been able to pinpoint so far are total shots in the dark: the guys I see hugging my mom in pictures hung around the rock-and-roll shrine otherwise known as my house.
Scritchy-scratchy. Flitter-flutter. Plip-plop. Mr. Flagstaff’s eyes darted around the room until they came to rest on the note Brina had thrown my way. It was just lying there on my desk looking guilty.
“Care to try your hand at the board, Tracey?” he asked.
“Sure thing, Mr. Flagstaff,” I said in as cheerful a voice as I could muster. Maybe a little enthusiasm would make him forget I hadn’t been paying attention for the past half an hour. Since day one, if I’m being totally honest.
But nothing could have saved me. I had no clue how to even start the problem, much less solve it. I stumbled and bumbled with the chalk, creating a powdery mess that made no sense. Not nearly soon enough, the Staffman put me out of my misery.
“Perhaps some extra homework problems will help you catch up to the rest of the class, Miss Tillingham. Your notes tonight will have a lot less to do with your social life and a lot more to do with trigonometry now, won’t they?”
I gave him my best conciliatory look and saw a night of terminal boredom and frustration in my future. Once again, Brina had been my partner in crime and I was the only one captured.
Why wasn’t I the least bit surprised? Because it happened all the time. Farty old Mr. Flagstaff probably had a crush on her, just like every other man on earth. Having the world’s most desirable girl as my best friend was really beginning to suck the big wazoo, no matter how much I liked her.
I went directly to my room after school and changed into my workout clothes. I thought maybe a long, hard run might help me focus on the fact that I was not, contrary to what my mind would have me believing today, the world’s biggest loser. Me, my Brooks sneakers, and my beloved green iPod mini were all halfway out the door before my mom stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Hey, Bebe,” I said, grabbing a Balance bar and shoving it down my throat. Though my mom’s real name is Belinda, I’ve called her Bebe since I could string a few sounds together. She says that at the time, “Mommy” was just too weird—after all,
she was still a teenager herself—and the whole shebang proved to be too big of a mouthful for one-year-old me.
“So Brina got a secret love note today, huh?” Bebe asked.
I swallowed fast. “How’d you find that out?”
“She called and when I asked how her day was, she said, ‘Great! I got a secret love note today.’ ”
“Subtle.”
“So what did it say, anyway?”
“Something about watching her from afar and not knowing where things will lead,” I said. “Oh, and that maybe Brina should walk with him.”
Bebe ran her fingers through her hair, looking a little puzzled.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It just sounds familiar and I can’t figure out why.”
“Right. Well, wouldn’t you know it, even the sensitive, poetic types are falling for Brina now.”
“Pisses you off, huh?” Bebe put her arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.
“Yup,” I said. “I guess I should be happy for her?” I didn’t mean to, but it came out as a question.
“Nahhhh. It would piss me off, too.” It’s almost eerie how Bebe always understands exactly how I’m feeling. The fact that we’ve never been through that “I hate you” phase most mothers and daughters hit at some point during high school makes me extremely lucky—I know. But when your mom (a) is younger than everyone else’s parents by at least ten years, (b) was a groupie back in the eighties (regardless of whether the overwhelming majority of bands she worshipped were kinda, sorta lame even then and definitely ancient history now), and (c) has morphed herself into a successful author of Harlequin-ish romances starring fictional musicians, it’s easy to see how we’d relate better than most.