Captain Quad

chapter one

 THERE WAS A MOMENT in the dark of the wing, a startling moment that was part optical illusion and part raw nerves—but for the space of an eyeblink, it appeared to Kelly Wheeler as if Peter Gardner was headless. His body stood erect beside her, caught in an oblong of stage light, and there was nothing above the neat line of his collar but air, black air. It was absurd. She knew it was only a trick of the light, but for that eerie, spun-out first second she was convinced that someone had lopped off his head.

Then he shifted a half-step toward her and that same oblong of light found his face, and he was grinning at her nervously, fingering the tight loop of his collar, looking like the groom at a shotgun wedding.

Chuckling at her bizarre misperception—one that had carried with it an alarming force—Kelly drew him back into the dark and hugged him. He was rigid with apprehension and she tried to reassure him.

“Don’t panic,” she told him. “You’re going to play just like you always do—flawlessly.” She kissed him lightly on the chin, her hand on the back of his neck feeling his tension.

Peter’s eyes, the color of sandstone, settled over the top of Kelly’s head on the gleaming baby grand that stood waiting for him at center stage.

“Yeah,” he said. “Flawlessly. If only I could find my fingers.” He poked his hands into the light with the fingers bent at the middle knuckles, creating the illusion that the distal segments had been neatly amputated.

Kelly, almost as nervous as Peter, jabbed him playfully in the ribs. Though eager to show him off, she felt guilty about putting him through all of this. He’d never played in public before—his music, he’d told her, was for himself and the people he loved—and it had taken all of her wiles to persuade him to appear at this final assembly. But he was good, maybe even great, and she wanted people to know it. She was proud of him.

Taking Peter’s hand, Kelly returned her attention to the stage, where the principal, Mr. Laughren, stood reciting his annual address. It was the last day of school, June 28.

“As your principal,” Laughren was saying, his round face the color of brick, “I consider it my personal duty to prepare each and every Laurentian High graduate for the fickle and often treacherous road ahead...”

Peter said, “Gimme a break. Same old bullshit only deeper.”

Kelly kissed him again, letting her hand slip to the sculpted small of his back. “Will you relax?”

“Relax,” Peter said. “Right.” He shifted the curtain a few inches, enough to allow Kelly a glimpse of all those impatient faces out there. “Just look at those animals. The minute Laughren steps down they’re going to eat me alive. They’ll wolf down the tender bits, then take turns gnawing on my skull.” He noticed his mother and kid brother seated near the front, eyes expectant and bright, then let the curtain fall closed.

Kelly giggled, only now beginning to appreciate how petrified he actually was. “This has really got you going, hasn’t it?”

“Look,” Peter said in his most reasonable tone. “Why don’t we just skip this whole deal? Hop on the bike and zip down to the DQ for a Dilly bar? I mean, no one’s going to care—”

“I’m going to care,” Kelly said, cutting him off with her words and the wounded look in her eyes. “And your mother’s going to care. And Sam.”

“But—”

Both fell mute as Laughren’s amplified voice swung toward them. “It gives me pleasure to introduce to you now a graduating student whom most of you know from his prowess on the football field.”