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Chapter 16: Somewhere Only We Know

16

Somewhere Only We Know

Nicky had never been that nervous. Her palms were sweating. She kept bringing her hands together, popping her knuckles. She could feel her heart race beneath her chest. She had a bad feeling they’d mess it up. They hadn’t really practiced. Only a little during lunch break. They’d even have to get away from the noises inside the classroom. They went back to that mango tree with that rice sack hammock that Nicky had once slept on. It was the only place they knew no one could bother them. But it was still a drag especially that Eddie Boy kept on tagging along and almost used up the entire lunch break chatting with Red, bugging them during practice. He wouldn’t even give them space. It was when he finally rested on the hammock that Nicky and Red finally practiced their duet. It didn’t go on too smoothly, besides from Nicky’s sudden compulsive interjections on how to go about this and that, Eddie Boy also, would jolt out from his little nap almost every other minute and crack some silly jokes he heard from his father. It was enough to make Nicky mad.

Nicky figured, Red could play the guitar really well, and she was relieved he got rid of his wanna-be Kurt Cobain voice. But Nicky was worried with their choreography, or rather, the lack of it. She noticed other pairs prepared some matching gestures and walks on their duets. The last thing she wanted was their duet to appear on-the-spot and unprepared. Red even told her they didn’t have to do some choreography, they’d just have to do well with their singing, and everything else would just fall into place. Besides, they didn’t have that much time to come up with something of somewhat a resemblance to choreography, either. Nicky agreed to disagree. She complained she’d probably look awkward in front just by merely singing. “Easy for you to say, you have your guitar,” she said to him. “You wouldn’t worry what to do with your hands.”

“Well, if you wanna dance, you can dance,” Red replied sarcastically.

“You mean do an interpretative dance?” Nicky cringed at that thought. “No way. That’s just over the top. And embarrassing.”

“Exactly.”

“What if I’ll forget my lines? What if you’ll forget your lines?”

“You worry too much. Everything’s just gonna be fine.”

“I can’t just settle with fine, Red. We have to be great. We have to—” Then, she stopped for a moment. “You know what? You’re right,” she suddenly said. “We don’t have to do that much action. We just have to feel the song. Make a good eye contact with each other. Sometimes, less is more.”

“Whatever you say, Nicky. Let’s just get this over with.”

Nicky sighed in frustration. She wished she had a better partner. She hadn’t realized she had said it out loud until she heard Red muttered, “me too.”

Iggy and Camille were the first pair to sing their duet. They held hands while they sang. Nicky didn’t like their song. It was too much of a love song. She assumed Camille had picked it. They did okay, but nothing remarkable. Their girl classmates kept teasing them, and saying they look good together, while all along, Nicky wish she could wipe off that shy, cutesy smile pasted on Camille’s face. She couldn’t even sing. Nicky was somehow surprised that he didn’t even like how Iggy sounded when he sang. I never thought he could be that bad. She wondered would she and Iggy be like that, had they did the duet together. We probably do much better, especially that we’d give more time practicing, he’ll be more cooperative, and I’ll be really good with my singing.

The class clapped their hands after Iggy and Camille were through, and Nicky was getting more nervous. What if Red and I would sing worse than that?