Even as a baby, Ally's musical talent was astounding. Where toddlers and infants will smash keys on a toy piano just because it makes noise, she would try as she might to follow direction, suggestion and the baby equivalent of sheet music. Yellow, yellow, blue, blue, green, green, red. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. She lived for the sounds of birds in the morning and the crickets come the sunset. She sang carols for her family during the entire month of December and as she got older, tried to orchestrate a choir with her baby cousins. Ally has loved music her entire life.
When she met Austin, someone so frustratingly ignorant when it comes to music theory and history and anything of the sort, but so brilliant on the guitar with a voice like honey, she knew that somehow, he'd be exactly what she needed.
While Ally was clean and precise and damn-near perfect as a pianist by the age of fourteen, she had been told that she lacked what Austin was full of: personality. She didn't feel the music, she just played it. She didn't connect with the music, she just played it. Until she met Austin, she didn't feel anything but pride when she played the piano. She never played with emotion, she played with a detachment to the instrument that gave an aura of sophistication, indeed, but not something schools want, certainly not universities and colleges. Austin taught Ally how to have fun in her writing and that passion doesn't equate to perfection. Perfection is a cop-out.
Two years and a bit later, Ally is a recording artist with Ramone Records and she feels the music.
She also feels exhausted when she comes home from school that wet May afternoon.
She trudges in to her house and slips off her shoes, followed by her wet jacket. She hangs it up and heads upstairs to her room before flopping on her bed with a grunt. She loves school, really, but she doesn't love track and field day at school, especially when it's raining and the meet was at a different location, so she had to drive home in muddy shoes and disgustingly soaked socks. She ditches those when she musters enough energy and lets them sit on her floor.
She stretches out in a star formation and her body writhes with her yawn, causing her to relax in to her bed with a satisfactory smile. She doesn't move for at least fifteen minutes. Lester trots by her bedroom door and pauses when he sees her.
"You look comfortable," he notices.
"Mmm," she replies lazily, eyes wide shut.
"How was your track meet?" he asks, and in a flash, she catapults a pillow at him. He narrowly avoids it but laughs. "About that good, huh?"
She peers at him through her long lashes and sighs. "I came in fifth place in our school, which means I earned a 'You Did Well But Not Good Enough For A Medal' Ribbon," she explains, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Which means that I don't have to go to the next meet since I placed in the top ten which is all I wanted."
"I'm proud of you, honey," Lester tells Ally, sitting at the edge of her bed.
"You're supposed to say that, you're my dad, Dad."
He shrugs. "True, but I'm still proud of you. You could have come in eleventh."
"You'd still be proud of me," she mutters, laughing.
He grins. "Yep!" Her eyes close again and he stands up. "Any plans for tonight?"
She shrugs (as much as one can when one is lying horizontally in a bed surrounded by pillows). "Austin's coming over to watch Zaliens 16 and then we're probably just going to get Trish and Dez to come over."
"Why don't you invite them over to watch it with you?" he wonders.
She opens her eyes and gives him this 'Are You Serious Right Now Dad Omg" look. "Trish and Dez already saw it and Dez can't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it." Lester laughs knowingly. "No, Dad, you don't get it," she adds. "One time we were all playing Call of Duty and it was guys against girls and we didn't know where they were hiding and even though his computer life depended on him not telling us where he was he still accidentally told us where he and Austin were hiding. So if we brought him over here he'd spoil the entire thing before it even loads."
Lester sighs. "Well anyway, have fun tonight. I'll be home from the store around ten-ish, so you'll have to make yourself dinner again." She nods in acknowledgement (she often has to fend for herself on weeknights). "Maybe order a pizza or something?" he suggests. "There's money in the jar."
"You mean the 'Rainy Day Jar'?" she teases.
"Well, I mean, it is a rainy day, isn't it?" He sticks out his tongue as he leaves. "Love you, honey, don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
She rolls her eyes at him and yells back, "sure, Daddy, love you too."
When she hears him leave, the clock reads 3:48. Austin wouldn't be coming over until around 4:30, so she had just enough time to have a shower and maybe skim over her homework before he'd get to her house. She grabs a towel from her closet and cranks one of her playlists on her dock before getting in the shower.
Her feet practically scream in relief as the hot water pools around them, soothing the icky wetness from her socks. And the beads of sweat on her forehead are washed away as she gently washes her hair, and they're replaced by new beads of sweat from the heat. The cycle continues. She uses her favourite body wash – a coconut-melon combination that Austin bought her for Christmas, and her favourite shampoo – a strawberry-cucumber combination that Austin also gave her (he gave her this horribly ordinary gift basket with an array of soaps and washes from The Body Shop – luckily, she adored it). She waxes quickly and reshapes her eyebrows while she's in the tub, all the while singing along – loudly – to the music that plays from her iPod.
By 4:06 she emerges from the steamy washroom and shuffles to her bedroom, the cool air from outside wafting through her windows. She welcomes the freshness as it wraps around her and she sits for a moment in her towel, enjoying the draft. She hears the music continue from the other room and sings along until it finishes, then works up the energy to finish drying up, since Austin will be here soon.
She throws on a pair of black leggings and a black lace bra (since it's laundry day and the only other alternative is a white lacy one and that so doesn't go with her pants) and searches through her drawers for a shirt. Her hair decides to be a bitch and get in her way every time she bends over, and when she attempts to put it up, she's interrupted by the sound of knocking at her bedroom door. She looks over to see Austin lounging casually against the door frame.
"Hey beautiful," he greets with a grin. "Let myself in. You couldn't even wait until I got here to get undressed?"
She scoffs but laughs anyway. "I just finished having a shower, smart ass."
"No, I get it. It's all my manly scent that makes your panties drop," he teases.
She walks over and smells him. "Your 'manly scent' smells like..." she stops. "Pancakes? Really? Isn't this like the third day in a row you've had those now?"
"Fifth, actually. Oh I picked up your mail, by the way. It's on your desk." He falls on her bed with a sigh. "Why is your bed always so warm?" he sighs delightfully. "I love it." He cuddles a pillow and closes his eyes while she stares at him.
"Anyway," she says, resuming her quest for a T-shirt. She digs through her hamper of freshly clean clothes (she has this thing where she doesn't put away clothes unless it's really necessary).
"You don't need a shirt," Austin says from the bed. "You can just wear me."
"Smooth," she tells him, unaffected by his sly attempt to get her naked. She comes up empty and huffs. "Fine, I'll go shirtless."
"Next step is to take off your bra," he adds, sitting up with a evil grin.
"Next step is for you to order pizza and put in the movie while I comb out this tangled disaster I call hair," she tells him.
"You're no fun," he pouts, injecting the DVD player with Zaliens 16.
"Sucks," she retorts.
"Will you?" he asks, hopeful.
"Shut up, freak," she swats him, laughing.
"You love me," he says, throwing himself on the bed and landing a peck on her cheek.
"You're lucky I do," she agrees. "Now order the pizza, I'm starving."
"Want a sausage?"
"Stop it or I'll wring you by your neck you horny fucker," she threatens, stifling a snicker.
His eyes widen. "So what do you want on your pizza?"
"The usual."
She manages to tear apart the knots in her hair and for the most part, it's dry now, twenty minutes later. She curls up to Austin's chest and rests her cheek on his stomach.
"You're going to love this one," he enthuses about the movie.
"You say that about all of them, Austin."
"Yeah, but in this one, the Zanthian Princess teleports to an intergalactic Zalien base after she's possessed by a powerful spirit that tries to use her to enslave the entire Zalien population so they can like, be her army against the rest of the universe."
She rolls her eyes. "Alright, well, press play."
The movie is interrupted when Ally abruptly pauses it and leaves her bedroom, then trots downstairs. Austin stays put, confused.
She reenters moments later with a bottle of vodka and a carton of orange juice.
"Vodka, really?" he asks, bewildered at Ally's suggestion to drink.
She nods, resuming her spot on the bed. "I'm not doing the rest of this movie sober, so," - she takes a drink straight from the bottle - "here we go." She presses play on the remote and they pass the bottle around accordingly.
Fun drinking game – take a shot every time someone says the word Zalien.
She'd like to be able to say that she's only a little tipsy after the movie is over, and she'd really like to say that she only laughed at some parts because she consumed too much booze, but she can't. Near the end, she's snickering like a hyena and holding her head in her hands.
Austin's also laughing, but at this point it's merely a product of her laughter – funny by association, maybe. "It wasn't that funny," he points out. He's far less drunk than her.
She shakes her head. "No but like where the Zalien princess-"
"-Zanthian."
"Like when she comes out and starts yelling at all the Zaliens like LALALALA LA LABLA BLA and they ran off in a million like directions because she told them to get help, I DIED." She sputters over the last few words and giggles.
He comes over and sits on the bed. "What she said was, 'LulLulLulLALULL LUL, LA BLAR'," he explains, grinning. "What YOU said was, 'Scatter the chickens before thermometers have sex'."
She screams and throws her head back, crashing in the pillows. She squeals and laughs.
He crawls on top of her and hovers over her body before planting a kiss on her throat. She pushes him back and gets on top of him and reverses the play, kissing him back, but on his chest. He leans up to really kiss her, but she pulls back and sprints off the bed to the washroom. He looks in the direction of the noise as she throws up and decides to book downstairs for a cold cup of water and a cool towel.
He eases her up off the floor when she feels like she won't throw up anymore and he brings her to her bed. He offers her the water and says, "drink slowly". She lays down with the cool towel and he turns off the lights in her room, then opens the door to the balcony, letting the cool air waft in, since it's that time of year where it's rarely not disgustingly hot and humid. He joins her in bed and curls up beside her, pulling the blanket to their torsos. "How are you?" he asks quietly.
She grins. "Better, now that I got that out of my system. Drank too fast, I think."
He chuckles. "Clearly, I barely had any," he pretends to pout.
She curls in to him. "Can you believe we're graduating in less than three weeks?" she whispers in to his chest.
He groans. "If I pass, that is," he adds. "We all know school isn't my strong point."
She shrugs. "You'll pass. You got 1790 on your SATs and you're great in phys-ed. Music (obviously) is your strongest point, but colleges and universities will also look at the fact that you're seventeen with two full-length albums out, you've been on tour, and you can play a trumpet through another trumpet. Yes, academics are important, but your score is good enough that you shouldn't have to worry," she promises.
"Yeah, but I'm not like you," he argues. "I have a couple albums, yeah. You've opened for me, you have an EP, you're a genius at the piano, you dabble at the guitar, you know your shit about theory and stuff, and you scored a perfect 2400 on your SATS."
"2450," she adds uncomfortably.
He sighs. "Right, because you corrected the question and they gave you the extra points, and you were one of like six kids in the entire country to do that, none of which even live in Florida."
She rests her hand on his arm. "Trust me, Austin. Just trust me. You'll get accepted places."
He smiles but sits up. "I have to run to the washroom, hang on."
When he leaves she sits up and tests her stomach, which seems okay now. She vaguely remembers that Austin picked up her mail on his way up, so she goes to check it out, picking up a heavy pile of junk.
Pizza flier, real estate flier, cheque for Lester, election pamphlets and a coupon for a free Quarter Pounder Meal with the purchase of any Happy Meal. She tosses it all except the coupon, the cheque and a heavy envelope, of which is addressed to a Ms. Ally Dawson. Normally, she wouldn't even blink at a letter – she got them all the time. Fan letters, thank you letters, congratulatory letters, cheques. But this letter was different.
This letter was sent from Julliard.
With shaking hands, she sits on her bed with the envelope, staring at it.
When Austin comes back in her room, he freaks out at her sudden pale skin.
"Ally?" he approaches her carefully.
She looks up at him, eyes wide and fearful. "Julliard sent me a letter. I'll either get in or I won't get to go to the most prestigious arts school in the country."
He sits down beside her and holds her hand. "Open it."
She tears it apart with one hand, her other in his, and pries the letter out of the bubble-wrapped package. She takes a deep breath and reads it aloud.
"Your application for admission to the Juilliard School had been carefully considered. The credentials you shared as part of your application meet and exceed the requirements for admission. However, at this time, the School has offered admission to the maximum number of candidates who can be admitted at this time. For this reason, a wait list has been established and you have been selected as one of the applicants to be granted wait list status."
She doesn't continue. "I was wait-listed," she whispers.
Austin tries to cheer her up. "That means you have a shot, Als! You just have to wait for a spot to open up!"
"Yeah but what are the odds?"
"It's out of your hands. All we can do now is wait. And see if I can hopefully get wait-listed too," he adds.
She pulls out her phone, dials her dad's cell and waits for his answer. "Dad? ... I might have gotten in to Juilliard."