Coming of Age in Lima: Chapter 1
Chapter 1. In which Fiona introduces herself, high school sucks, and Glee club is formed.
I’ve been doing my best to blend in ever since the sixth grade, which isn’t easy when you’re a foot taller than all of the boys in your class. It’s harder when the boobs kick in. Junior high was a pain like that - girls started talking about makeup, boys started talking about girls, and in the middle of it I had to untangle my own legs every time I tried to stand up. But despite the legs and the boobs and the fact that I wasn’t very good at being a girl, it was okay. I had my best friend Puck to punch me in the shoulder (or the upper arm, when I got taller than him) and call me names. And being friends with Puck meant that I was still on all of the sports teams, and kicking butt, and that had been alright.
And then came high school. High school is a lot harder because Puck and me aren’t in all of the same classes, and it’s not cool to play sport during lunch, you have to be on a team and play after school. And you know what teams McKinley High has for girls? Softball, and the Cheerios. Well, there’s also wrestling, kind of, but those people scare me. And Coach Sylvester has made it clear that she doesn’t want my clumsy body contaminating any of her squad, and that all of the boy positions have been filled anyway.
Thanks, Coach.
But I hate high school. Everyone calls me Fiona, except for Puck, who calls me Finn which I like. But it’s really hard to explain why he calls me that without looking like a baby. Girls wear skirts, and somehow wear makeup without looking like clowns, and apparently having short hair makes you weird. While people like Quinn made their way to the top of the pile quickly, people like me stayed at the bottom. I just don’t know how to dress, or how to act. But, as Quinn said, at least no one can see my face all the way up here. I mean, she’d smiled when she said it, and I’d smiled back, and I think we’re maybe kind of friends. She puts up with me, and she makes me walk in front of her between classes, so I carve out a path for her in the crowd. But she lets me copy off her in English sometimes.
I don’t know, maybe ‘hate’ is too big a word. I do my best to blend in, and with Puck and Quinn looking out for me it’s not so hard. I don’t hate the cafeteria food, I do okay in my classes. I even have a favourite class - Spanish, with Mr Schuester. I’m not very good at it, but I don’t mind because he doesn’t seem to mind either. He draws smiley faces in people’s workbooks when he marks them, which Quinn thinks is the dorkiest thing ever, but I’m pretty sure we’re having a ‘who can draw the better smiley face’-off.
High school is survivable. I mean, even though I can’t play on the football team - they all play like girls anyway - and even though I can’t cheer for the team, I’m still kind of useful. Being besties with Puck means that I know all of the football team, and being friends with Quinn means knowing a whole heap of the Cheerios, which means that every time someone needs to put a name to a face, or know if someone was single, well, they treat me like I’m a secret agent. Sometimes I even get told to who to sit with - when Santana wants to flirt with Puck, I have to sit with the guys so Quinn and her have an excuse to come over. I’m like a big, dumb gateway to the opposite sex. It can be annoying, but it still beats sitting alone, you know? I don’t really see the appeal of either sex, but you can bet I keep my fucking mouth shut about that. I’m getting pretty good at playing along though, and it’s not like guys are lining up to ask me out anyway.
“What would I do? Ask a guy to bring his own box to stand on when we went out?”
Quinn laughed. “You need reverse-high heels,” she said. “Shoes to make you shorter.”
“Or she could just date a guy who wears heels,” Santana replied. “I’m sure the gay kid would have a pair.”
I rolled my eyes. “You just think he’s gay because he has better skin than you.”
“He sits next to you in Spanish, right?” Quinn said, the wheels in her head turning. “Maybe he does like you.”
Santana snorted. “Liking Fiona is as good as being gay.”
“Liking Santana will give you a rash,” I replied. Santana snapped her head around, her bitch-face on, but at the end of the day I’m over a head taller than her, and that isn’t a fight Santana is comfortable she’d win.
When I looked around the cafeteria, I saw Kurt sitting two tables over, looking down, his cheeks flushed. I waited until he looked over out of the corner of his eye, and I rolled my eyes dramatically. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I smiled back. The corner of his mouth twitched in response. When I returned to the conversation, however, I found both Puck and Quinn staring at me with very different looks on their faces.
I guess I’m not as good at playing along as I figure.
*
“So,” Puck said later when we were shooting hoops after school. “You hear what Schuester’s up to?”
“No?” I suspected he was bringing this up to distract me, since I always kick his ass at Horse.
“You know how Ryerson came out as a total pervert?”
“Yeah, which surprised exactly no one.”
“Right,” Puck paused, taking a million years to line up a shot. “Well, since he’s gone Schuester decided to take over Glee club. Except, since Gaylord is still in counselling he’s got a total of one member.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. There are tryout sheets everywhere, and he came around during practice to try and get some of us to join. Like that’s going to happen.”
“So your mad karaoke skills will remain a secret,” I teased, as I let the ball fly.
“You’re a fucking freak,” Puck said, as he watched the ball sail through the hoop. “Anyway, I figured I’d let you know in case he tries to sign up the Spanish class. Probably bribe you guys with extra credit or something.”
“I’m surprised you’re not more into it,” I said. “I mean, you’ll take any excuse to miss a class, and don’t the Glee kids have practice whenever they feel like it?”
“Kid. Singular. And that should tell you all you need to know about Glee. It’s so lame that not even the lame-os like it.” Puck missed the shot again.
I grinned. “And that’s another slushie you owe me.”
“I can’t wait until you get dissected by science.”
*
But Puck was right, there were signup sheets everywhere. And there were even a couple of names on them. Kurt, I knew. And Artie the wheelchair kid.
“How’d he even reach up to put his name on the list?” Santana asked.
“He’s faking it,” I replied. “He’s only in the chair because chicks dig a guy with his own wheels.” Quinn tried to repress a smile, but Brittany clearly didn’t get it. Santana gave me one of her patented death-looks. Seriously, under Darth Vader’s helmet, I bet he looked like Santana.
“He wanted to talk to the squad, but Coach wouldn’t let him,” Quinn said, carefully nibbling at an apple. “She said that she doesn’t trust a man who spends that much time on his hair.”
“Or course he spends ages on his hair,” Santana said, crossing her arms on the table. “He’s gay.”
“He is?”
“Oh yeah,” Santana said. “I’ve seen him around with his boyfriend.”
“You think everyone is gay,” I said.
“I never understood that,” Quinn said. “If he’s gay, then why doesn’t he dress better?”
“Have you seen how gay people dress?” Santana asked, eyeing Kurt off. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Whatever,” I said, sick of the topic. “Is it true that Lea dropped Karofsky?”
Quinn stared at me. “How did you only just hear of this?”
That got them distracted.
I thought about Mr Schue later. I mean, you hear comments and things, but who really knows what’s true? It’s like Kurt - everyone says he’s gay, but it’s not like anyone’s got any proof. It’s not like any of the guys let him get close enough to prove anything. Maybe it’s because people say stuff about me sometimes, but I really don’t think it’s anyone’s business. He was still my favourite teacher. How can you not like someone who lets you watch Harry Potter in Spanish, and then makes fun of the voices?
*
In many ways that should have been the end of it, but because I have some messed up kind of luck it really wasn’t.
Coach Tanaka wanted me to join the track team when the weather warmed up, so sometimes he called me out to run laps with the football team. I used to get shit for it. But I can keep up with the fastest guys, and Coach often points out that I have a better throwing arm than a lot of them. As Puck says, maybe if you spent less time bitching you’d also spend less time sucking.
Anyway, so when I got detention - which happened a lot more often than I told my mom, I’m not great at remembering to hand things up - I’d just go out to the field and do it with Coach Tanaka. Sometimes I’d do laps, or hold the pads for the smaller guys to crash into, or help pack up the obstacle course. If it was wet I’d do things like stack the towels in the guys’ change rooms and dump the stinky gym gear into the industrial washing machine they had down there. And while I’d do this kind of cleaning crap, well, sometimes I’d sing.
And one day while I was folding towels and stacking them on the shelves, Mr Schue came in to collect the signup sheet (which really wasn’t going to help him), and I stood there singing and making a dick of myself for about twenty minutes before I even noticed him. And when I did notice him, I got the fright of my life and almost fell over my own feet.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just listening to you sing.”
“I don’t really sing,” I said awkwardly, picking up the towel that I’d dropped. “It’s more like yelling.”
“No, you’ve got a really good voice.”
No one had told me that before. Well, one person, one of my mom’s old boyfriends. He’d been great, and we used to sing along to the radio as I helped him fix our place up. But he left, and mom had been pissed so we didn’t really talk about him anymore. All of the people I knew who did singing lessons all did really girly stuff, like pop songs. I’m not a big fan of pop, and to be perfectly honest, my voice isn’t exactly girly. And now I had to go and embarrass myself by braying like a donkey in front of Mr Schue.
“You should join Glee,” he said. “We need a voice like yours.”
I went red. “Why? To make the other kids sound better?”
Mr Schue smiled. “No. It’s because you’re good. And because you look happy when you sing. So why not do something that makes you happy?”
I looked at his face, with his sweet honest smile and his bright green eyes, and I felt kind of mortified and something that could have been butterflies breeding in my stomach. “Um,” I said.
“Great! Our next rehearsal is Thursday, after school. Don’t be late.”
*
I didn’t tell anyone. I figured that I’d just ignore it, and forget about it, and I’d never even turn up so there’d be nothing to worry about. But then on Thursday I had Spanish, and Mr Schue had written “choir room, 3pm, don’t forget :D” on my homework, and when I looked up he smiled encouragingly at me. I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
So then my big plan was to go along, open my mouth, and when it was apparent that I sucked I’d just slink off. If anyone found out, I could just claim that it was a prank since Glee sucked and so did I. And it’s not like I’d be embarrassing myself in front of anyone who mattered.
My plan seemed to be going better than I thought, because when I stepped into the choir room everyone stopped and stared at me. And I mean stared in a bad way.
“You’re kidding, right?” Artie said. He didn’t look impressed. Maybe it had something to do with that time that Puck had spiked one of his tires. Or any of the things that Santana said to him.
“Come on, guys,” Mr Schue said. “Fiona has a great voice, and we should let her share that.”
“Mr Schue,” Kurt said, “if I could make a point?”
I sat next to the head cheerleader half the time, and the quarterback the other half. I was friends with the people who picked on people like Glee clubbers. While singing was a release and a reprieve - whatever that was - for everyone in Glee, it was one that I didn’t need.
Kurt thought that I was too cool to be in Glee. I mean, what?
“Santana puts Nair in my shampoo,” I blurted out. “Every couple of weeks, I swear. The only reason I’m not bald right now is because I smell everything before I use it.”
“Guys,” Mr Schue cut in, “Glee is not about popularity, or cliques. It’s about music. So unless any of you have a legitimate reason for Fiona not to join-”
“What about the time you tripped over in the cafeteria line and took out five people?” a black girl I’d seen around said.
“She’s right,” a girl with brown hair said. “Sorry, but you have to admit, you’re a walking disaster and dancing doesn’t strike me as some secret talent of yours.”
I looked at Mr Schue, and let the panic show on my face. “Dancing?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You do sport, right?”
“I play basketball.”
The black girl crossed her arms over her chest. “Basketball ain’t hip hop, if you catch my drift.”
Mr Schue crossed his own arms in response. “How about we let Fiona audition for us, and then make up our minds?”
Everyone stared at me. Great. This wasn’t going to end badly at all.
*
In all honesty, I hate my voice. It doesn’t fit properly - it’s too deep too sing girl songs, and not deep enough to sing guy songs. So I guess it fits me perfectly, right? But even though I don’t like my voice, I love singing. I don’t even know why, I just get really sucked into the music, and sometimes a lyric will just hit me out of the blue and I’ll be all ‘ohhh, so that’s what that means!’. My mom tells me that I sound just like Karen Carpenter doing ACDC. Wouldn’t that be a cool concert? Admit it, you’d totally download the album.
But ACDC aside, there I was in front of a room full of people who I’d slushied, and tripped in the halls, and bumped into lockers (not exactly on purpose, I just take up a lot of room when I walk). And the stupid thing was, even though I didn’t like them, and they didn’t like me, and even though there was no reason for it since I didn’t want to join Glee anyway, I still wanted to impress them. I wanted to be good and to wipe that smile off of all their faces. So I tapped my fingertips against my leg, marking out a beat, and I took a deep breath, and I closed my eyes.
“Livin' with my eyes closed, goin' day to day.
I never knew the difference, I never cared either way.
Lookin' for a reason, searchin' for a sign.
Reachin' out with both hands, I gotta feel the kick inside.”
I honestly don’t know why I chose ‘All Fired Up’. I’ve always liked it, and maybe sticking with my own gender was a good choice. I do love that song though. I love the way it builds, the way Pat’s voice changes over the chorus, it gets stronger and a little rougher somehow. I don’t know the words for it, but it’s great. It’s like the song reaches out and grabs you and pulls you along for the ride.
And even though I’m young and my voice shakes sometimes, I did my best. The first chorus was pathetic, but by the second I was into it. And maybe it was in my head or maybe not but there were voices singing with me. I still had my eyes closed.
“Now I believe there comes a time,
When everything just falls in line.
We live an' learn from our mistakes,
The deepest cuts are healed by faith.”
And by the end, yes. I don’t know how to describe it, that moment when you just hit it right, when it feels like you’re the only person there is and that’s the best thing ever and as the song comes out of you, you get filled up with the sound of how yes it is.
And then it was over, and I was left a little short of breath and a little embarrassed. I opened one eyes slowly, checking out the room. The brunette had a critical look on her face, and there were a few nods and smiles. Kurt looked shocked. I rotated my head to one side, to look at Mr Schue. He was looking at everyone else with this big smile on his face, as if to say ‘See? I told you so.’
I guess I passed the audition.
*
I thought things were going to be cool - Glee was fun, and I have no idea why but we worked together, we just kind of clicked. And when I’d sang people had looked at me differently, like maybe there was some part of me that I didn’t need to cover up or should be embarrassed about. I was actually thinking that this was going to be great.
And then as I was walking down the front steps after practice, a hand shot out and grabbed my back pack, hauling me over to the bench by the parking lot and showing me down onto it.
“You can’t be serious,” Quinn said, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. “You’re joining up with those losers?”
I’d been having the same thought since the talk with Mr Schue in the locker room, but now I had that tingle of something good flowing through me, and I wasn’t about to let her bring me down. “Why not?” I said defiantly. “I can’t join the football team. I can’t join the Cheerios. And what, now I can’t join Glee either?”
“Fee,” Quinn said firmly. “Your popularity is precarious as it is.”
“You know I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that if you don’t play things right, you’ll end up getting slushied in the halls and your books knocked over during class. And if it goes on for long enough, it could spread to the rest of us.”
The rest of her explanation remained unsaid, but I could hear it bouncing around in my head anyway: And if we start getting targeted, you’re on your own.
I stuck my jaw out in a sulk. “Hasn’t there ever been anything that you’ve wanted to do, but you were scared to do because of how it would make you look? Because maybe it wasn’t cool, or good for your rep?”
Quinn paused. “Yes,” she said finally. “Which is why I didn’t do it.”
I looked at her with big eyes. “But you wanted to,” I stressed. “And don’t you wish that maybe sometimes you had?” Quinn looked away. “Let me try this,” I persisted. “Maybe it’ll suck and fine, things go back to normal. But maybe I’ll get a chance to do something that makes me feel good for a change. Instead of feeling like a freak.”
“If you join Glee, you’ll be a freak anyway,” Quinn said, picking her bag up.
I looked down at my too-big feet in their dirty sneakers. “Yeah, well, at least I’ll be in good company.”
Quinn hesitated, but I didn’t look up, and eventually she walked away.
Next Chapter
Back to Master Post
I’ve been doing my best to blend in ever since the sixth grade, which isn’t easy when you’re a foot taller than all of the boys in your class. It’s harder when the boobs kick in. Junior high was a pain like that - girls started talking about makeup, boys started talking about girls, and in the middle of it I had to untangle my own legs every time I tried to stand up. But despite the legs and the boobs and the fact that I wasn’t very good at being a girl, it was okay. I had my best friend Puck to punch me in the shoulder (or the upper arm, when I got taller than him) and call me names. And being friends with Puck meant that I was still on all of the sports teams, and kicking butt, and that had been alright.
And then came high school. High school is a lot harder because Puck and me aren’t in all of the same classes, and it’s not cool to play sport during lunch, you have to be on a team and play after school. And you know what teams McKinley High has for girls? Softball, and the Cheerios. Well, there’s also wrestling, kind of, but those people scare me. And Coach Sylvester has made it clear that she doesn’t want my clumsy body contaminating any of her squad, and that all of the boy positions have been filled anyway.
Thanks, Coach.
But I hate high school. Everyone calls me Fiona, except for Puck, who calls me Finn which I like. But it’s really hard to explain why he calls me that without looking like a baby. Girls wear skirts, and somehow wear makeup without looking like clowns, and apparently having short hair makes you weird. While people like Quinn made their way to the top of the pile quickly, people like me stayed at the bottom. I just don’t know how to dress, or how to act. But, as Quinn said, at least no one can see my face all the way up here. I mean, she’d smiled when she said it, and I’d smiled back, and I think we’re maybe kind of friends. She puts up with me, and she makes me walk in front of her between classes, so I carve out a path for her in the crowd. But she lets me copy off her in English sometimes.
I don’t know, maybe ‘hate’ is too big a word. I do my best to blend in, and with Puck and Quinn looking out for me it’s not so hard. I don’t hate the cafeteria food, I do okay in my classes. I even have a favourite class - Spanish, with Mr Schuester. I’m not very good at it, but I don’t mind because he doesn’t seem to mind either. He draws smiley faces in people’s workbooks when he marks them, which Quinn thinks is the dorkiest thing ever, but I’m pretty sure we’re having a ‘who can draw the better smiley face’-off.
High school is survivable. I mean, even though I can’t play on the football team - they all play like girls anyway - and even though I can’t cheer for the team, I’m still kind of useful. Being besties with Puck means that I know all of the football team, and being friends with Quinn means knowing a whole heap of the Cheerios, which means that every time someone needs to put a name to a face, or know if someone was single, well, they treat me like I’m a secret agent. Sometimes I even get told to who to sit with - when Santana wants to flirt with Puck, I have to sit with the guys so Quinn and her have an excuse to come over. I’m like a big, dumb gateway to the opposite sex. It can be annoying, but it still beats sitting alone, you know? I don’t really see the appeal of either sex, but you can bet I keep my fucking mouth shut about that. I’m getting pretty good at playing along though, and it’s not like guys are lining up to ask me out anyway.
“What would I do? Ask a guy to bring his own box to stand on when we went out?”
Quinn laughed. “You need reverse-high heels,” she said. “Shoes to make you shorter.”
“Or she could just date a guy who wears heels,” Santana replied. “I’m sure the gay kid would have a pair.”
I rolled my eyes. “You just think he’s gay because he has better skin than you.”
“He sits next to you in Spanish, right?” Quinn said, the wheels in her head turning. “Maybe he does like you.”
Santana snorted. “Liking Fiona is as good as being gay.”
“Liking Santana will give you a rash,” I replied. Santana snapped her head around, her bitch-face on, but at the end of the day I’m over a head taller than her, and that isn’t a fight Santana is comfortable she’d win.
When I looked around the cafeteria, I saw Kurt sitting two tables over, looking down, his cheeks flushed. I waited until he looked over out of the corner of his eye, and I rolled my eyes dramatically. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I smiled back. The corner of his mouth twitched in response. When I returned to the conversation, however, I found both Puck and Quinn staring at me with very different looks on their faces.
I guess I’m not as good at playing along as I figure.
*
“So,” Puck said later when we were shooting hoops after school. “You hear what Schuester’s up to?”
“No?” I suspected he was bringing this up to distract me, since I always kick his ass at Horse.
“You know how Ryerson came out as a total pervert?”
“Yeah, which surprised exactly no one.”
“Right,” Puck paused, taking a million years to line up a shot. “Well, since he’s gone Schuester decided to take over Glee club. Except, since Gaylord is still in counselling he’s got a total of one member.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. There are tryout sheets everywhere, and he came around during practice to try and get some of us to join. Like that’s going to happen.”
“So your mad karaoke skills will remain a secret,” I teased, as I let the ball fly.
“You’re a fucking freak,” Puck said, as he watched the ball sail through the hoop. “Anyway, I figured I’d let you know in case he tries to sign up the Spanish class. Probably bribe you guys with extra credit or something.”
“I’m surprised you’re not more into it,” I said. “I mean, you’ll take any excuse to miss a class, and don’t the Glee kids have practice whenever they feel like it?”
“Kid. Singular. And that should tell you all you need to know about Glee. It’s so lame that not even the lame-os like it.” Puck missed the shot again.
I grinned. “And that’s another slushie you owe me.”
“I can’t wait until you get dissected by science.”
*
But Puck was right, there were signup sheets everywhere. And there were even a couple of names on them. Kurt, I knew. And Artie the wheelchair kid.
“How’d he even reach up to put his name on the list?” Santana asked.
“He’s faking it,” I replied. “He’s only in the chair because chicks dig a guy with his own wheels.” Quinn tried to repress a smile, but Brittany clearly didn’t get it. Santana gave me one of her patented death-looks. Seriously, under Darth Vader’s helmet, I bet he looked like Santana.
“He wanted to talk to the squad, but Coach wouldn’t let him,” Quinn said, carefully nibbling at an apple. “She said that she doesn’t trust a man who spends that much time on his hair.”
“Or course he spends ages on his hair,” Santana said, crossing her arms on the table. “He’s gay.”
“He is?”
“Oh yeah,” Santana said. “I’ve seen him around with his boyfriend.”
“You think everyone is gay,” I said.
“I never understood that,” Quinn said. “If he’s gay, then why doesn’t he dress better?”
“Have you seen how gay people dress?” Santana asked, eyeing Kurt off. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Whatever,” I said, sick of the topic. “Is it true that Lea dropped Karofsky?”
Quinn stared at me. “How did you only just hear of this?”
That got them distracted.
I thought about Mr Schue later. I mean, you hear comments and things, but who really knows what’s true? It’s like Kurt - everyone says he’s gay, but it’s not like anyone’s got any proof. It’s not like any of the guys let him get close enough to prove anything. Maybe it’s because people say stuff about me sometimes, but I really don’t think it’s anyone’s business. He was still my favourite teacher. How can you not like someone who lets you watch Harry Potter in Spanish, and then makes fun of the voices?
*
In many ways that should have been the end of it, but because I have some messed up kind of luck it really wasn’t.
Coach Tanaka wanted me to join the track team when the weather warmed up, so sometimes he called me out to run laps with the football team. I used to get shit for it. But I can keep up with the fastest guys, and Coach often points out that I have a better throwing arm than a lot of them. As Puck says, maybe if you spent less time bitching you’d also spend less time sucking.
Anyway, so when I got detention - which happened a lot more often than I told my mom, I’m not great at remembering to hand things up - I’d just go out to the field and do it with Coach Tanaka. Sometimes I’d do laps, or hold the pads for the smaller guys to crash into, or help pack up the obstacle course. If it was wet I’d do things like stack the towels in the guys’ change rooms and dump the stinky gym gear into the industrial washing machine they had down there. And while I’d do this kind of cleaning crap, well, sometimes I’d sing.
And one day while I was folding towels and stacking them on the shelves, Mr Schue came in to collect the signup sheet (which really wasn’t going to help him), and I stood there singing and making a dick of myself for about twenty minutes before I even noticed him. And when I did notice him, I got the fright of my life and almost fell over my own feet.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just listening to you sing.”
“I don’t really sing,” I said awkwardly, picking up the towel that I’d dropped. “It’s more like yelling.”
“No, you’ve got a really good voice.”
No one had told me that before. Well, one person, one of my mom’s old boyfriends. He’d been great, and we used to sing along to the radio as I helped him fix our place up. But he left, and mom had been pissed so we didn’t really talk about him anymore. All of the people I knew who did singing lessons all did really girly stuff, like pop songs. I’m not a big fan of pop, and to be perfectly honest, my voice isn’t exactly girly. And now I had to go and embarrass myself by braying like a donkey in front of Mr Schue.
“You should join Glee,” he said. “We need a voice like yours.”
I went red. “Why? To make the other kids sound better?”
Mr Schue smiled. “No. It’s because you’re good. And because you look happy when you sing. So why not do something that makes you happy?”
I looked at his face, with his sweet honest smile and his bright green eyes, and I felt kind of mortified and something that could have been butterflies breeding in my stomach. “Um,” I said.
“Great! Our next rehearsal is Thursday, after school. Don’t be late.”
*
I didn’t tell anyone. I figured that I’d just ignore it, and forget about it, and I’d never even turn up so there’d be nothing to worry about. But then on Thursday I had Spanish, and Mr Schue had written “choir room, 3pm, don’t forget :D” on my homework, and when I looked up he smiled encouragingly at me. I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
So then my big plan was to go along, open my mouth, and when it was apparent that I sucked I’d just slink off. If anyone found out, I could just claim that it was a prank since Glee sucked and so did I. And it’s not like I’d be embarrassing myself in front of anyone who mattered.
My plan seemed to be going better than I thought, because when I stepped into the choir room everyone stopped and stared at me. And I mean stared in a bad way.
“You’re kidding, right?” Artie said. He didn’t look impressed. Maybe it had something to do with that time that Puck had spiked one of his tires. Or any of the things that Santana said to him.
“Come on, guys,” Mr Schue said. “Fiona has a great voice, and we should let her share that.”
“Mr Schue,” Kurt said, “if I could make a point?”
I sat next to the head cheerleader half the time, and the quarterback the other half. I was friends with the people who picked on people like Glee clubbers. While singing was a release and a reprieve - whatever that was - for everyone in Glee, it was one that I didn’t need.
Kurt thought that I was too cool to be in Glee. I mean, what?
“Santana puts Nair in my shampoo,” I blurted out. “Every couple of weeks, I swear. The only reason I’m not bald right now is because I smell everything before I use it.”
“Guys,” Mr Schue cut in, “Glee is not about popularity, or cliques. It’s about music. So unless any of you have a legitimate reason for Fiona not to join-”
“What about the time you tripped over in the cafeteria line and took out five people?” a black girl I’d seen around said.
“She’s right,” a girl with brown hair said. “Sorry, but you have to admit, you’re a walking disaster and dancing doesn’t strike me as some secret talent of yours.”
I looked at Mr Schue, and let the panic show on my face. “Dancing?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You do sport, right?”
“I play basketball.”
The black girl crossed her arms over her chest. “Basketball ain’t hip hop, if you catch my drift.”
Mr Schue crossed his own arms in response. “How about we let Fiona audition for us, and then make up our minds?”
Everyone stared at me. Great. This wasn’t going to end badly at all.
*
In all honesty, I hate my voice. It doesn’t fit properly - it’s too deep too sing girl songs, and not deep enough to sing guy songs. So I guess it fits me perfectly, right? But even though I don’t like my voice, I love singing. I don’t even know why, I just get really sucked into the music, and sometimes a lyric will just hit me out of the blue and I’ll be all ‘ohhh, so that’s what that means!’. My mom tells me that I sound just like Karen Carpenter doing ACDC. Wouldn’t that be a cool concert? Admit it, you’d totally download the album.
But ACDC aside, there I was in front of a room full of people who I’d slushied, and tripped in the halls, and bumped into lockers (not exactly on purpose, I just take up a lot of room when I walk). And the stupid thing was, even though I didn’t like them, and they didn’t like me, and even though there was no reason for it since I didn’t want to join Glee anyway, I still wanted to impress them. I wanted to be good and to wipe that smile off of all their faces. So I tapped my fingertips against my leg, marking out a beat, and I took a deep breath, and I closed my eyes.
“Livin' with my eyes closed, goin' day to day.
I never knew the difference, I never cared either way.
Lookin' for a reason, searchin' for a sign.
Reachin' out with both hands, I gotta feel the kick inside.”
I honestly don’t know why I chose ‘All Fired Up’. I’ve always liked it, and maybe sticking with my own gender was a good choice. I do love that song though. I love the way it builds, the way Pat’s voice changes over the chorus, it gets stronger and a little rougher somehow. I don’t know the words for it, but it’s great. It’s like the song reaches out and grabs you and pulls you along for the ride.
And even though I’m young and my voice shakes sometimes, I did my best. The first chorus was pathetic, but by the second I was into it. And maybe it was in my head or maybe not but there were voices singing with me. I still had my eyes closed.
“Now I believe there comes a time,
When everything just falls in line.
We live an' learn from our mistakes,
The deepest cuts are healed by faith.”
And by the end, yes. I don’t know how to describe it, that moment when you just hit it right, when it feels like you’re the only person there is and that’s the best thing ever and as the song comes out of you, you get filled up with the sound of how yes it is.
And then it was over, and I was left a little short of breath and a little embarrassed. I opened one eyes slowly, checking out the room. The brunette had a critical look on her face, and there were a few nods and smiles. Kurt looked shocked. I rotated my head to one side, to look at Mr Schue. He was looking at everyone else with this big smile on his face, as if to say ‘See? I told you so.’
I guess I passed the audition.
*
I thought things were going to be cool - Glee was fun, and I have no idea why but we worked together, we just kind of clicked. And when I’d sang people had looked at me differently, like maybe there was some part of me that I didn’t need to cover up or should be embarrassed about. I was actually thinking that this was going to be great.
And then as I was walking down the front steps after practice, a hand shot out and grabbed my back pack, hauling me over to the bench by the parking lot and showing me down onto it.
“You can’t be serious,” Quinn said, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. “You’re joining up with those losers?”
I’d been having the same thought since the talk with Mr Schue in the locker room, but now I had that tingle of something good flowing through me, and I wasn’t about to let her bring me down. “Why not?” I said defiantly. “I can’t join the football team. I can’t join the Cheerios. And what, now I can’t join Glee either?”
“Fee,” Quinn said firmly. “Your popularity is precarious as it is.”
“You know I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that if you don’t play things right, you’ll end up getting slushied in the halls and your books knocked over during class. And if it goes on for long enough, it could spread to the rest of us.”
The rest of her explanation remained unsaid, but I could hear it bouncing around in my head anyway: And if we start getting targeted, you’re on your own.
I stuck my jaw out in a sulk. “Hasn’t there ever been anything that you’ve wanted to do, but you were scared to do because of how it would make you look? Because maybe it wasn’t cool, or good for your rep?”
Quinn paused. “Yes,” she said finally. “Which is why I didn’t do it.”
I looked at her with big eyes. “But you wanted to,” I stressed. “And don’t you wish that maybe sometimes you had?” Quinn looked away. “Let me try this,” I persisted. “Maybe it’ll suck and fine, things go back to normal. But maybe I’ll get a chance to do something that makes me feel good for a change. Instead of feeling like a freak.”
“If you join Glee, you’ll be a freak anyway,” Quinn said, picking her bag up.
I looked down at my too-big feet in their dirty sneakers. “Yeah, well, at least I’ll be in good company.”
Quinn hesitated, but I didn’t look up, and eventually she walked away.
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