Chapter Nineteen
The Letter
The letter came on a Friday, eleven days after the audition, in an envelope the color of cream.
Darius knew what it was before he touched it. The envelope was thick β heavy paper, the Harrington crest pressed into the corner in dark blue β and it was sitting on the kitchen table like it had been waiting for him all his life. His mother stood beside it with her hands clasped so tight her knuckles were white. Caleb leaned in the doorway, trying very hard to look like he didn't care and failing completely.
"Well?" Caleb said. "Are you going to open it or are we going to stare at it until it graduates?"
Darius's fingers shook as he slid a thumb under the flap. The paper inside was folded in thirds. He unfolded it, and the first words his eyes found were Dear Mr. Cole, and the last words were Dr. Alan Pierce, and somewhere in the middle, in language so formal it took him two readings to believe it, was the sentence: a full music scholarship to Harrington Academy, covering tuition, fees, and private instruction, effective immediately.
Full. Not partial. Full.
"It's β " Darius's voice came out strange. "It's yes. It's a full β "
Tanya made a sound like a laugh and a sob at the same time and pulled him into a hug so fierce it knocked the breath out of him. Caleb whooped loud enough to rattle the windows and lifted Darius clean off the floor, spinning him around the tiny kitchen while their mother laughed and cried into her hands.
"Put him down before you break the scholarship boy!" Tanya said, wiping her eyes.
"Scholarship boy," Caleb repeated, setting Darius down and ruffling his hair hard. "Listen to that. My little brother's a scholarship boy." There was something bright and wet in Caleb's eyes too, but he would have denied it to his dying day.
Tanya was already on the phone. "David," she said, and her voice broke on his name, "David, he got it. The full one." She listened, laughing, and handed the phone to Darius. "Your father wants to talk to you."
"Dad?" Darius said, and then his own voice broke too, because his father's voice on the other end was thick in a way Darius had never heard it.
"Son," David Cole said. "Son, I'm so proud I don't have the words. You hear me? I'm getting in this truck right now."
"Dad, it's β you're two states away. Your route β "
"My route can wait one night. My boy can't." Darius could hear the diesel engine turning over in the background. "I'll be there by morning. Tell your mama to save me some of that celebration."
He drove through the night. Darius knew because he woke at dawn to the sound of a truck door closing softly in the driveway, and then his father's arms around him in the hallway, smelling of diesel and coffee and road, and his mother standing in the bedroom doorway with her hand over her mouth, and Caleb pretending to be asleep on the couch with the world's worst fake snore.
They had pancakes. David flipped them wearing one of Tanya's aprons, and they were lopsided and perfect, and nobody talked about the letter for a whole hour because they didn't need to β it was sitting in the middle of the table in its cream envelope, and every so often somebody would glance at it and smile like it was a fifth member of the family.
At school on Monday, the news traveled the way everything traveled at Harrington β fast, and with embellishments. By lunch, three separate people had congratulated Darius on a "full ride," and a girl from the orchestra asked if he would consider joining for the spring concert, and Darius said, "Maybe. Let me think about it," and felt the strangeness of the words in his mouth.
He was at his locker after sixth period when Preston appeared.
No entourage. No Spencer. Just Preston, alone, holding his backpack straps the way he did when he was nervous β Darius had noticed that detail in the trophy hall and couldn't un-notice it.
"Hey," Preston said.
"Hey."
A long pause. Students streamed past.
"I heard about the scholarship," Preston said. "Congratulations. I mean that."
"Thanks."
Preston shifted his weight. "I owe you an apology. A real one. Not the β " He gestured vaguely. "Not the hallway kind. The rumor. What I said. It was a lie, and I knew it was a lie, and I said it anyway because I was angry and I wanted somebody else to feel the way I felt." He looked directly at Darius. "I'm sorry, Darius. Really."
Darius studied him. There was no audience. No performance. Just a boy at a locker, saying a hard thing badly and meaning it.
"Thank you," Darius said. "That took guts."
Preston let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for weeks. "My father β " He stopped. "He actually said it was the right thing to do. The apology. First time he's ever said something like that." A small, disbelieving smile. "I think the gala scared him. Seeing everyone stand up for you. He keeps talking about 'character.' I don't think he knew I had any."
They stood there for a moment, two boys in a noisy hallway, the whole complicated history between them settling into something quieter.
"So," Preston said. "The spring concert. You're playing?"
"Looks like it."
"Good." Preston hesitated. "Maybe β I don't know β maybe sometime you could show me how you do that thing in the middle. The run. I keep trying it and my left hand gives up."
Darius grinned. "Your left hand gives up because you're scared of it. Come by the rec room sometime. I'll show you."
"Yeah?" Preston looked surprised, and then something like genuinely pleased. "Yeah. Okay."
He walked away, and Darius watched him go, and thought about doors opening.
Chapter Twenty
The Spring Concert