The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away Read online

  Kate couldn’t hold back. “I just had my first band practice! I mean, just this very minute. Do you know Torie Reisman? We practiced at her house.”

  Matthew took a step back, a big smile blooming across his face. “Dude, I just had band practice too. Over at Bob Stockfish’s. It totally rocked, except for the part where we stunk up the joint.”

  “Us too!” Kate exclaimed. “At first I thought, This is never going to work. But then we kind of figured it out.”

  “Kate?” Mr. Faber stood at the end of the aisle. “Oh, hi, Matthew. Good to see you.”

  “Hey, Mr. Faber,” Matthew said. “Kate and I were just talking about music.”

  “As usual,” Mr. Faber said, and then he checked his watch. “I’ll be in the car, Kate. Five minutes, okay?”

  Kate looked at Matthew, and they both grinned, like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. “Okay,” she said. “Five minutes. What can we accomplish in five minutes?”

  “We could talk about the good old days,” Matthew suggested.

  “Let’s talk about band practice instead,” Kate told him. So they went to stand in line so Matthew could pay for his magazine, and they talked about their bands. They talked about whether Kate should put a pickup on her guitar or if Carter could just keep her amp low, and they talked about how much it would cost to rent practice space at the community center, because Matthew could tell Bob’s mom was not into the idea of having band practice at her house on a regular basis.

  They walked out of the store, still talking, and stood at the bagged ice freezer, where they suddenly stopped talking and just stared at each other, both of them looking awkward and tense.

  “I guess I ought to get going,” Kate said finally. “Do you need a ride?”

  “Nah, there’s a shortcut to my house around back.” Matthew rolled up his magazine and slipped it into his back pocket. “But maybe you could come over sometime? Like tomorrow?”

  Kate wanted to say yes. She missed Matthew. A lot. But she wasn’t ready to give up the feeling she’d gotten that afternoon, playing with Torie and Carter, this feeling of being strong and free and, well, alive. If she started hanging out with Matthew again, she might lose it. She might trade it in for the feeling of having an almost boyfriend.

  “Maybe not tomorrow,” she said after a minute. “But sometime, okay? I mean, soon. Like maybe when the play’s over. Are you coming to it, by the way? Opening night is next Friday.”

  “Sure,” Matthew said. “Sounds good.” He reached out his hand, as though he were going to touch Kate’s hair, but then seemed to think maybe that wasn’t a great idea and shoved it into his pocket instead. “I’ll see you then. And we’ll hang out together soon, definitely.”

  He turned to leave, and Kate turned to leave, and just as she reached the car, Matthew called out, “That’s awesome about the band, Kate.”

  Kate looked at him. “It’s awesome about your band too. You’ll be great.”

  Matthew nodded, and then he went around the corner of the store and was gone. Kate stood by the car door for another second, looking at the empty space he had left behind him. Come back, she wanted to call, but she didn’t. Because as much as she wanted Matthew Holler, there were other things she wanted more.

  “What on earth are you doing out here?” Kate’s dad sticks his head out of the window. “You’re going to break your arm. Or get pneumonia.”

  “Maybe both,” Kate says pleasantly. “Plus rabies, if there are any raccoons up here.”

  Mr. Faber climbs through the window and sits down next to Kate. “Aren’t you freezing?”

  “I’ve got a sweater on,” Kate points out. “And it’s not that cold. It’s going to be spring soon.”

  “In a couple of weeks, maybe. It still might snow. So, was band practice fun?”

  Kate shrugs. Sometimes she doesn’t know how to answer her dad’s questions. He’s always asking if things were fun. Was school fun today? Was PE fun today? Did you have fun spending the night at Marylin’s? Kate’s thirteen; her life really isn’t about fun anymore. It’s about bigger things now.

  “It was good,” Kate tells her dad. “Only at first it was terrible. It took us a while to figure out how to play together.”

  “I had some roommates in college who were in a band,” her dad says. “I used to watch them practice, and the first twenty minutes were always worthless.”

  Kate leans back against the roof and looks up at the stars. It’s still early, so there aren’t a ton, but she can see one or two, plus the moon. One or two stars plus the moon. Her mind goes to work on this, trying to turn it into a song—One or two stars, the moon and you. No, definitely not right. Two stars and a lonely moon, another night here without you. Better. When she goes back inside, she’ll write it down, play around with it some more.

  “I heard you singing just now. It sounded nice,” her dad says. “You get that from your mom. I can’t sing a note.”

  “I practice a lot. It helps.”

  Her dad nods. “It’s the key to everything, practicing. I used to think you were either naturally good at something or you weren’t. I was a terrible runner when I was a kid, really slow, and I thought I’d never get any better. But I knew I’d never make the JV basketball team if I couldn’t run, so the summer before ninth grade I got up at six every morning and ran as fast as I could up and down our street for thirty minutes. Totally wore myself out.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Yeah, I got a lot faster. Not like I was the fastest guy in the ninth grade, but I got fast enough to make JV anyway.”

  Kate wonders what she needs to practice. Singing harmonies and learning how to pick the guitar instead of just strum, definitely. She should probably practice being nicer to Tracie, although it’s hard to be nice to someone who never replaces the toilet paper when she finishes up a roll and always takes the last piece of cake without asking if anyone else wants it.

  Not missing Matthew Holler—that’s something she’s been practicing for over a week now, and she’s getting a little bit better at it, but she’s still not an expert. She knows she was right today to tell Matthew she couldn’t hang out with him yet. But she hopes more than anything that one day she’ll be able to be friends with him and not want to kiss him every second.

  “You’re the man of my dreams, you’re the man in the moon,” she sings, forgetting that her dad is sitting right next to her.

  “Thanks, Katie,” he says, grinning. “I didn’t know you cared.”

  Kate is quiet for a minute, focusing on the brightest spot in the sky, wondering if it’s a star or a planet. Maybe it’s Venus, the evening star. She likes that—a planet being called a star, one thing being called the opposite thing. But are stars and planets opposites? She’s not sure. How about stars and moons?

  This is why she likes sitting on the roof. You never know what thoughts are going to come into your head, which direction your mind will go in. Maybe during the summer, she’ll sleep out here, under the moon, and dream all sorts of crazy dreams.

  “I care too much,” she says, breaking the silence. “That’s the problem. But I’m trying not to. I’m practicing how not to care.”

  “Don’t,” Mr. Faber says, and to Kate’s surprise, his voice is sharp. “That’s the worst thing in the world you can do.”

  Then they’re both quiet, and Kate realizes suddenly that she doesn’t really know her dad all that well. He’s just her dad to her, not a real person, not someone who might have some experience when it comes to caring too much.

  Kate reaches over and puts her hand on her dad’s, just for a second. Just long enough to let him know she’ll never be able to stop caring, no matter how much she practices.

  “What are you guys doing out there?” Tracie’s face appears at Kate’s window. She pokes her head out and makes a face, like something on the roof stinks. “It’s freezing!”

  “Just having a heart-to-heart,” Mr. Faber tells her. “Want to join us?”


  Tracie barks a sharp laugh. “Yeah, right. Mom said to tell you the pizza’s on its way. She hopes everyone’s okay with one veggie and one pepperoni and mushroom.”

  “Fine by me,” Mr. Faber says. “How about you, Katie?”

  Kate nods, and Tracie pulls her head back inside. “It’s freezing!” she says again, and then she slams down the window.

  Mr. Faber turns and looks at Kate. “You know these windows don’t open from the outside, don’t you?”

  Kate shakes her head in dismay. “Right now I’m practicing not hating Tracie’s guts.”

  “Well, I’m practicing being brave enough to climb down off the roof,” her dad says. “It’s not that far to the ground, but I’d hate to fall.”

  “We could just wait until the pizza guy gets here and yell at him to tell Mom,” Kate suggests. “It won’t be that long.”

  Her dad thinks about this for a second and nods his head. “Sure, okay.”

  So Kate and her dad sit on the roof, not really talking, mostly just thinking their own thoughts, and Kate decides it’s kind of nice, sitting on the roof with someone else, looking out at the stars. She scootches a little closer to her dad, but not all the way close. She needs a little space between her and other people, space to fit in the music and the poems and the crazy dreams that belong to her and no one else. But she needs the closeness, too. This is what she has to figure out. How do you have both? How do you have the caring and the not caring too much, the kiss good night and the walk home alone?

  It’s like the stars, she thinks. The faraway stars and the light you can hold in your hands. You need them both, one to look at, the other to help you see. Something like that. Kate knows she’s going to have to think about this some more before she gets it all figured out. That’s okay. She’s got time.

  She shivers, and her dad asks, “You cold?”

  “A little,” she admits. “But the pizza guy will be here soon.”

  And sure enough, she sees the car at the end of the street, with its little triangle of light on top, driving in their direction. She’s almost sorry to see him, even if she is getting cold. There’s so much she needs to think about, like whether she should save up for an electric guitar, and if they should ask more people to join the band, and when it’s going to be time to be friends with Matthew Holler again.

  Pretty soon, she thinks. Not too long from now. She needs a little more time to practice caring without caring too much. To practice holding the light in her hands. To practice letting it go.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author would like to thank Caitlyn Dlouhy, the brains of this operation, and Ariel Colletti, who is as lovely as her name. Thanks to Justin Chanda for his ongoing and unwavering support and for just being a great guy.

  Thanks to Valerie Shea, genius copy editor; eagle-eye production editor Kaitlin Severini; Sonia Chaghatzbanian and Michael McCartney, who design such beautiful books; and production manager Chava Wolin, who makes it all come out right.

  As always, this author would be at a loss without her fine friends to keep her sane. Special thanks go to Lisa Brown, Amy Graham, Sandy Hasenauer, Jaye Lapachet, and Sarah Schulz in this regard. Many thanks to the good people at Pretty fab PR, who throw pretty fab book parties, and to the folks at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. Thank you, Stephanie Rosen, for being an ideal reader, and to your mom, Michelle Rosen, for being an ideal librarian.

  As always, the author would like to acknowledge Clifton, Jack, and Will Dowell, the most awesome family a girl could ask for, and Travis, her dog, who kept her company while she wrote this book.

  frances o’roark dowell is the author of many critically acclaimed novels, including Dovey Coe, which won the Edgar Award, and most recently The Second Life of Abigail Walker. She lives with her husband and two sons in Durham, North Carolina. Connect with Frances online at FrancesDowell.com.

  Check out Frances’s other books!

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at

  KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

  Also by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  Chicken Boy

  Dovey Coe

  Falling In

  The Kind of Friends We Used to Be

  Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Blasts Off!

  Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Erupts!

  Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Gets Slimed!

  The Second Life of Abigail Walker

  The Secret Language of Girls

  Shooting the Moon

  Ten Miles Past Normal

  Where I’d Like to Be

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS • An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 • www.SimonandSchuster.com • This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. • Copyright © 2013 by Frances O’Roark Dowell • All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. • ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. • Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. • The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. • Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian • Jacket design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian • Jacket photograph by Ali Smith • The text for this book is set in Lomba Book. • Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data • Dowell, Frances O’Roark. • The sound of your voice, only really far away / Frances O’Roark Dowell. — 1st ed. • p. cm. • Sequel to: The kind of friends we used to be. • Summary: Best friends Marylin and Kate compete for limited school resources when Kate helps her boyfriend seek funding for the Audio Lab, while Marylin covers her interest in the student body president by claiming she only wants his support for new cheerleading uniforms. • ISBN 978-1-4424-3289-5 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4424-3291-8 (eBook) • [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Middle schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Popularity—Fiction.] I. Title. • PZ7.D75455Sou 2013 • [Fic]—dc23 • 2012030308