International Exchange Concert

They watched as the Rangers first walked through, and then played through, one of the evolutions that would be used in the show. Under the sharp eyes and sharper tongue of the Godfather, the maneuver quickly polished up. When the bell for second period rang, the group was dismissed. Inga caught up with Debbie and Brad as they trotted back toward the school.

"Have you seen Robby?" she asked. They looked blankly at her.

"Spock," she clarified. Brad pointed toward the student parking lot. Marching bells and their harness dangling from his right hand, he was heading toward his Jag. Inga cut across the grass and pavement to intercept him.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To class," he said as her lifted the instrument into the back and slammed the hatch. "You'd better hustle, Inga, or you'll be late to second period."

"Will I be seeing you around the school today?" she asked as he got into the car.

A corner of his mouth quirked up. "Unlikely. But if you're around tonight when your gang starts setting up for Cabaret, you'll see me. I run the stage for the Drama Club and I'll be doing that for you guys too."

"Oh, you'll see me," she said. "Pick me up at Debbie's at 6:30." She closed the door for him and ran to catch up with Debbie. Robert stared after her for a minute before he started the engine.

She didn't have a chance to ask Debbie what Robert's cryptic comment about classes meant until they had settled into their seats at the start of third period. She repeated their conversation and looked questioningly at her host.

"What he meant was he doesn't take many classes here. He was tracked into the gifted program a long time ago and his father the doctor does not believe in interrupting schooling. He started taking high school level classes in the seventh grade, whatever he could fit into a summer school day. He had enough academic credits to graduate by the end of sophomore year."

"So why is he still here, eh?"

"Because the state requires a certain number of non-academic credits, too. He has to pass Phys. Ed. and Life Skills, and those are given only during the school year. His dad tried to get the requirements waived for him, but the School Board wouldn't play. Doc Jabez got his own back on them, though.

"There's an obscure law that says if a school cannot meet the needs of a particular student, the School Board has to pay the student's tuition at a school that can. It was meant to cover students with special needs, but it isn't worded that way. Doc Jabez enrolled Spock at the University and sent the bills to the School Board. They screamed blue murder and went to court. The judge found for Spock and his father.

"He'd been taking college classes for a year and a half now. The Board has to pay for his tuition, books and fees. The members of the School Board hate that Spock only shows up here for Life Skills, gym class and rehearsals. If he doesn't have a class at the university, you usually can find him in a practice room, in the main auditorium futzing with the stage gear, or in the tutoring center."

"That explains a lot," Inga said slowly. The teacher walked in and the subject was dropped.

At 6:30 there was a knock on the door of the Province home. Debbie opened it to find Robert in casual clothes, his Jag parked at the curb.

"C'mon in. Inga will be out in a minute." She went down the hall to fetch her. They came back and Robert gave a respectful whistle. Inga was dressed in spandex tights with a black corset over them, twirling a bowler on one finger and wearing dancer's pumps, a tote in her other hand.

"Miss Sally Bowles, I presume?"

"Charmed," Inga riposted with a curtsey. Debbie and her mother, who had just come in from the kitchen, laughed, and Inga joined in. Robert's eyebrows rose and he applauded politely.

"You won't keep her out too late, will you, Spock?" Mrs. Province asked.

"I'll try to have her back sometime before cockcrow," he said. "The performers like as not will go out for a bite after rehearsal, so we may be late."

"Well, be sure to call us if you're going to be very late," Mrs. Province said to Inga. "Have fun, you two." She waved them on their way.

Enroute to the high school, Inga asked, "You're going to be the stage manager for the show?"

"Tech master, not stage manager. I handle lighting, sound and special effects. You guys brought your own stage manager, thank goodness. Dealing with people is hard enough for me; dealing with actors, impossible."

"Even me?" She fluttered her eyes coquettishly at him and smiled adoringly.

The corners of his mouth quirked. "Well, perhaps not you."

At the school, she headed for center stage while he went into a huddle with his Canadian opposite number. The rehearsal was mostly for lighting and staging, with a piano substituting for the pit orchestra. Lighting was set, the Canadians were introduced to the selsyn tracking spots the Buckthorn auditorium enjoyed, and minor problems were ironed out. When the director called a break, Inga found Robby in conversation with a teenage bodybuilder of Mediterranean extraction, discussing the need for a filter on one of the tracking spotlights for one of the musical numbers.

"So, Robby, where are we going to eat after we break for the night?" she asked. Robert looked at the macho man standing next to him.

"Will Anthony's place still be open by the time we get out of here, Duke?"

"I'll call and make sure," the hunk said. "Who's your friend?"

Inga found herself shaking hands with Richard "Duke" Taormino. The introduction had to be immediately repeated as a slender Italian girl walked up to Duke and handed him the filter Robby had ordered for the spot, and Inga met Carissa Gaetana, also known as the Duchess. Inga felt an immediate affinity with her and the four of them chatted until the rehearsal resumed.

When the rehearsal ended shortly before 10 PM, they met by the lighting console. Robby waited until the stage cleared, then shut everything down except the auditorium lights. The adults would get those on their way out. The four walked to the parking lot.

"Robby," said Duke as they neared the cars, "I have a problem with a paper for my World History class."

"Like what?"

Duke looked down and scuffled his feet. "Well, the fact is I don't have a topic. Any ideas?"

"Sure. How about 'The Ten Most Influential Small Arms in History?' Not too hard to write, easy to get photos to expand the page count without increasing the amount of writing too much, and as long as you back up your opinions with stats, old Mr. Dalton won't argue. When it comes to military technology, he's a complete idiot." The two boys looked at the girls.

"Inga, would you mind riding to the restaurant with the Duchess? If Duke rides with me and takes notes, we can have his paper outlined by the time we get there." Inga and Carissa looked at each other, as if to say, "Boys!"

"All right," she agreed. Without another thought, Robert fumbled in his pocket for his keys, saying, "So what do you think they are, Duke?"

"Well, the AK-47, of course. And the Garand..."

"Don't forget the Mosin Nagant - "

"You're just saying that because of Natasha!"

"No, I'm basing my claim on the fact it's been in service around the world for more than a century, and still is. Which brings us to the Brown Bess..." The conversation was cut off as the doors on the Jag slammed. Carissa shrugged and the two girls got into Duke's Mustang.

As they followed the Jaguar up the road, Inga asked, "So who is Natasha? I thought Robby didn't have a girlfriend."

"Natasha's not a who, she's a what. She's his favorite gun, a Mosin Nagant Russian battle rifle that's been civilianized with a custom stock and a scope. He and his father go hunting a couple of times a year. Natasha was his first big gun and he's good with her. Davy Crockett had Old Betsy and Daniel Boone had Tick Licker; Robby has Natasha." Carissa was silent for a minute, as if making up her mind about something.

"Have you met Joyce Karlassian yet?"

"Yes, the other night. She and Robby settled who would hold the Halloween party, right before Debbie almost choked on her pizza."

"I heard about that. Well, you can think of Joyce as the cruise director for the Symphonic Wind Ensemble. She's a born organizer and party-thrower and she's really good at it. She makes sure the Wind Ensemble plays together as well as plays instruments together. But there are times when she doesn't stop to think things through; that some people, by which I mean Robby, can't do whatever the activity she has in mind may be. She's done things like set up skating parties and ski weekends and insist that Robby go along even when he doesn't know how or isn't coordinated enough to keep up with the rest.

"I sing in the Buckthorn Madrigals, the vocal program's elite group, which is how I heard about this one. One of our altos and one of our tenors are also in the Wind Ensemble. They had a real horselaugh telling us about Robby trying to ice skate and falling half a dozen times as he tried to make it around the rink. On his face, on his butt, losing his balance and slamming into the boards, and all the time hearing the other kids chortling and mocking him.

"Or the time they went skiing; he'd never been on skis before. A couple of the skiers in the group taught him the fundamentals and eventually got him down the bunny slope without him doing a face-plant. They told him they thought he was ready for something a little more challenging - and then they took him down a black diamonds trail for expert skiers while the rest of the group was watching at the bottom of the mountain!

"They almost couldn't get the story out, they were laughing so hard. It was like something out of a comedy. Skidding round corners on one ski; hitting a mogul and going airborne, with Robby frantically trying to get his skis back under him; Robby going off the trail over a short drop and somehow extending like a ski-jumper to land in the one clear spot among the bushes to pick up the trail again; flying over another mogul and making a complete somersault without losing his skis and managing to stay up when he landed, heaven alone knows how. He made it all the way to the bottom without falling, by the grace of God and pure dumb luck.

"Instead of congratulating him on making it down an expert run without falling even once, what they did was laugh and tell him how foolish he looked flying through the air like the cow shot from the catapult in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Hysterically funny or not, he did make it down in one piece, but they couldn't see past the humor of it. And they didn't get it when he told them it wasn't even a little funny. Roller-skating, water-skiing, bowling, it didn't matter; he was always comedy relief.

"Then Robby decided he'd had enough of being laughed at for his lack of athletic skills.

"When the Army deactivated a training area west of town a few years ago, a group of investors, including Robby's father, bought it and turned it into a private gun club. There's enough land to hunt on, and it has rifle, pistol, skeet and trapshooting ranges the Army built. There's a picnic area with barbecue pits, grills and deep fryers, too. A real nice setup for parties, you know?

"After the Ensemble got back from their USO tour last summer, Robby arranged to rent the place for a day and had Joyce set up a shooting party and barbecue. He invited Duke and me, too; Duke's a good shot and I'm learning. They both teach me.

"A bunch of the boys had .22s and thought they were good shots, real hot shit with a gun. They, Roberto Santiago in particular, had a ball blasting tin cans, plastic bottles, and assorted vegetables off stands on the 50 yard plinking range, the only place the club allows that kind of shooting. They were teaching their girlfriends in the Ensemble how to shoot. Robby watched all this tolerantly.

"Then Santiago, who's the Wind Ensemble's president with an ego the size of Australia, took out a Russian sniper rifle with a scope and went over to the high power rifle range with a bunch of hangers-on. He set up a gallon milk jug filled with water at the 100-meter line, went back to the bench on the firing line, put his rifle on a rest and fired. The jug exploded. He looked over at Robby, who was watching him. 'What do you think of that?' he bragged.

"'Why don't you try a real target?' said Robby. 'There's a head-on steel deer silhouette at 300 meters. Hit that, and you'll be doing some shooting.'

"Santiago tried four shots at it, firing seated from the rest. He missed. Robby took Natasha out of her case and loaded five rounds. Standing up and shooting offhand, he put all five shots on target. BOOM, clang! BOOM, clang! BOOM, clang!, five times, as fast as he could work the bolt and get back on target.

"When he was done, he looked at the members of the Ensemble who were watching open-mouthed. 'Not as much fun for you as my falling on my ass, perhaps,' he said, 'but for me it's much more satisfying.' He cased his rifle and walked away.

"The barbecue was much more subdued than Wind Ensemble parties usually are. He'd made his point."

The car was silent for a minute as Inga digested this. "So he doesn't have a girlfriend. He doesn't date at all?"

The Duchess shook her head with a sad smile. "There isn't a girl in the school that would be caught dead with him out on a date. Not even Sandra Slotski, whose nickname is 'Sally Slut.' She is, shall we say, not at all fussy about who she goes out with and has remarkably easy virtue?"

"Couldn't keep her legs together with glue, eh?"

"You got it. And it's not hyperbole. Robby actually tried to date her once.

"Last year he really wanted to go to the Junior Prom. He's too young for the college girls he goes to class with at the university, knew he didn't have a prayer with any of the girls in the music program, and the ones he'd had classes with in the gifted track either had boyfriends or hadn't treated him like he was a human being. He asked a couple of them anyway, and got turned down. One of the wits in the Wind Ensemble suggested he ask Sally. So he caught up with her after school one afternoon, gathered his courage, and asked her.

"To the surprise of the school, she accepted. But she had one condition: that he meet her at the hotel where the Prom was being held, rather than pick her up at her house. That would have set my warning lights off -"

"Mine, too," agreed Inga.

"- But Robby didn't know any better. So he shows up in the lobby of the hotel in a tailored white dinner jacket waiting for her, and in walks Sally Slut on the arm of this big bruiser of a fullback she's been seeing off and on. Duke and I arrived just in time to see her laugh in his face and tell him, 'You really thought I'd come to the Prom with you? You're so weird, a crack whore wouldn't go out with you if you gave her a rock the size of a snowball!' And everyone in the lobby laughed out loud.

"In the movies, this would be where the doors slam shut, heads explode, people catch on fire and jocks get thrown through the walls. But in the real world, that doesn't happen. Robby just looked at her and said, 'If you didn't want to go out with me, all you had to do was say no. There is no reason you had to humiliate me in public. I hope you and your date enjoy yourselves.' He dropped the prom tickets and the orchid he'd brought for her and walked out, no expression on his face. I told Duke to wait and went after him.

"I found him leaning on the steering wheel of his Jag, crying. Not wailing, not sobbing, just crying. I wanted to approach him, but I couldn't. He had just been massively embarrassed and my being there would not have been a comfort.

"I heard him say, 'There's no hope. There isn't a single person in the world who wants me. No one cares. I'm just a sometimes-useful robot, a piece of equipment that does a job and gets put away until the next time it's needed. Machines are not allowed to have feelings. "Love" is an illusion. Everyone acts like it's real, but it doesn't really exist. I'd better get used to the fact I'm not human. Maybe then it won't hurt when they laugh at me.' And then he drove away."

"Dear God. That sounds like the kind of thing that pushes someone over the edge, where he snaps and starts shooting until the police show up and put him down like a mad dog."

"I know. Fortunately, Robby's sane. But you want to hear what's really weird?"

"Weirder than being desperate enough to make a date with the school slut?"

"Yeah, even weirder than that. I don't believe this, and I was there.

"I have a cousin from New York. She got sent off to a boarding school run by nuns out in the middle of nowhere because she went wild when she turned 16 two years ago. To keep her out of trouble for the few days between the end of summer camp and the start of school, her folks sent her to visit us, far away from the bright lights of New York City. Long story short, I was deputized to keep her out of trouble. Duke came up with the idea of taking her to see the attractions down at Colonial Williamsburg: the recreated Colonial museum town, the parades, shopping; and then Busch Gardens, the amusement park. To keep her from feeling like a third wheel, I roped Robby into coming along.

"I wouldn't have expected Sophia to be interested in him. She looks like a lingerie model and gets whatever she wants from guys just by crooking her finger. They drool and babble and step on their tongues around her, doing everything but pound their chests like apes. Robby is as straight-arrow a guy as I've ever met. He flies with the Civil Air Patrol, drives people home from parties when they've had too much, tutors at the high school, helps out friends with cousin problems and everything. But for some reason, she was taken with him.

"Maybe it was because he didn't act like he was out to lay her. Maybe it was because he wasn't obviously impressed with her looks. Maybe it was because he was polite but not fawning; I don't know. But she was attracted, no question. Pressed up against him in the back seat, took his arm every chance she got, asked him questions and hung on his answers - you know, all the things we girls do to impress a guy and make him think he's wonderful. But it cut no ice with him.

"She asked me to see if he was free for the weekend so we could go to the beach and then maybe Duke and I could get lost, if you get my drift. He said sorry, but he was flying with the CAP both days. Duke checked; he's in the 496th too. Robby volunteered to fly. It wasn't his turn on the schedule. I don't think Sophia has been that surprised since she grew boobs and found out what she could get with them!"

"I don't suppose he smiled and laughed at her jokes, did he? He seems to take everything so seriously. I've never seen him smile."

Carissa was silent for a minute. At last she said, "I met Robby through Duke. Duke's 19, a year older than me. He was held back junior year because he couldn't read very well. He was ordered to report for reading tutoring, and Robby caught him. He sat down and talked to Duke for about 15 minutes, excused himself, left and came back with a book. He tossed it on the table and told Duke, 'Read me that, out loud, please.' It was a copy of a car repair guide from the library. Inside of two months of three times a week lessons, he had Duke reading confidently, simply by picking things he wanted to read. From car manuals they moved on to other books, and he gave Duke the idea that reading can be fun, a look into another world. They also discovered a mutual interest in cars, guns, airplanes and hunting. Duke may be the first real buddy Robby ever had.

"So when I ran into trouble with a paper I had to do for American History class, Duke took me to see him. I knew who Mr. Spock was, of course; everybody in the school does. He was that nutjob with the funny ears who never smiles, who's taking college classes at the town's expense. But it wasn't until I walked into the tutoring center that I realized Duke's friend Robby was Mr. Spock. I'm ashamed to admit I snapped at Duke, that I thought he was playing a joke on me. Robby just looked at me and said, 'If you want to spend summer vacation sweltering in a classroom taking American History all over again, you'll just swish that cute little ass of yours out the door. If you want to get an A on your paper and pass the course, you'll park it in that chair. Your call.'