Read Online The Fixer Upper by Judith Arnold - Free Book Online Page B

Ashleigh and Kim laughed, which was what Reva had hoped they’d do. She hated when her friends bickered.
    Kim scooped a spoonful of soup out of one of her plastic containers and sipped it. “Do you think Ms. Froiken is going to start auditioning soloists today for the fall concert?”
    “I heard we’re doing excerpts from Tommy ,” Ashleigh said.
    “That’s what I heard, too,” Kim confirmed.
    “Tommy is so seventies,” Ashleigh said, crinkling her nose. “It’s like, my parents listened to that stuff.”
    “It’s good music,” Reva argued. “A lot of old rock is good. And besides, did you ever see pictures of Roger Daltrey when he was young?”
    “Who’s Roger Daltrey?” Kim asked.
    “The guy who sang Tommy in the seventies. He’d go onstage without his shirt, and he had this incredible chest. And no tattoos, either.” Reva couldn’t stand the tattoos all the rock stars seemed to have nowadays. It had become such a cliché, and they looked kind of dirty, like when she got ink smudges on her fingers. Whenever she saw a tattoo on a musical artist, she always wanted to tell him to take a shower.
    She hoped Darryl J didn’t have any tattoos.
    “Are you going to try out for a solo?” Kim asked.
    “Who, me?” Ashleigh wrinkled her nose again. “I’m lucky Ms. Froiken hasn’t kicked me out of chorus. She always stares straight at me when she says, ‘Someone’s flat in the second soprano section.’”
    Ashleigh Goldstein was definitely not flat, but Reva refrained from making any boob jokes. If her mother had had that breast reduction surgery, it might be a sensitive subject with Ashleigh, too.
    “Actually, I meant Reva,” Kim said, turning to her. “Are you going to try out?”
    Reva snorted. “I don’t know. Ms. Froiken never gives me solos.” It was true; Reva thought she had a decent voice, and she tried out for solos every year. Last year, when they’d performed a medley of songs from the Lion King, she got to make a little introductory speech about the circle of life before the chorus started to sing, but that was talking, not a real solo.
    “You should try out,” Kim urged her. “You’ve got such a great voice.”
    Kim was just saying that because she was a good friend—but one reason she was a good friend was that she said such things. “You should try out, too,” Reva told her.
    Kim shook her head. “Ms. Froiken always says my voicedoesn’t carry. Anyway, she’s probably going to ask me to do the piano accompaniment.”
    “Maybe she’ll ask me to turn the pages for you,” Ashleigh remarked. “That would be one way to get me from ruining the second sopranos.”
    “You don’t ruin the second sopranos,” Kim said, which Reva thought was really sweet, given that Kim wasn’t crazy about Ashleigh. “I’m a second soprano, and I’ve never heard you sing flat. I think Ms. Froiken is staring at Kirsten Hough when she says that.” Kim jerked her head toward Larissa’s table. Kirsten sat at Larissa’s left, wearing a sheer white blouse with a pink camisole under it, just like Larissa. “Anyway, you should go for it, Reva. You’ve got a great voice.”
    “Yeah.” Reva took a swig of her milk and shrugged. “Like, maybe someday I’ll wind up on a street corner, singing for spare change.”
    “Or singing backup for another street singer,” Kim murmured, then winked.
    Oh, God, how cool would that be? Singing backup for Darryl J…Not that he needed a backup singer. Not that his songs needed any embellishment from anyone at all whatsoever. But if Reva was his backup singer, she’d get to travel with him and appear with him on the stage of the Knitting Factory or the Mercury Lounge, and she’d step up to the mike with him on the parts of his songs where she was supposed to sing, and they’d both lean in toward the mike together with their lips so close they were practically kissing.
    “Okay, you guys.” Ashleigh used her thumb to nudge a stray sprout into her