I waited for the music to flow again over the weekend, but the sound never came. The only thing I heard was the roar of an old Chevy Camaro that someone picked Jesse up in. I watched them drive away from my creeper perch, as Sam is now calling it. She isn’t wrong; I stare out this window at Jesse’s house now instead of the stars. Or at least, this is where I have been for the weekend.
His house is quiet this morning. No little brother running around the driveway, or his harried mom who I’ve only seen twice. I don’t see him or his sister, either. It could be that it’s five in the morning and everyone who is not on the school’s drumline for marching band is still asleep. Two more glorious hours of sleep.
Sam is asleep. She quit band in fifth grade the second a guest student from high school came and answered our questions.
“How early is practice?” Sam asked.
“Five-thirty,” was the answer.
“I’m out,” she said.
And she was. She got her mom to drop the class for her by the end of the week. She took pottery instead. She has never once made anything.
Five-thirty doesn’t phase me, though. I’d give up sleep for weeks to keep my hands moving, sticks vibrating, the buzz perfect. There are times when I’m better talking in short, choppy sounds than actual words. It’s weird, but I speak drum.
Gadda-gak.
My dad opens up the mail shop early during the week, so he’s my ride. I offered to walk Bessy, our Yorkie, around the block this morning, though, and she’s slower than I remembered. She did her business about a hundred feet from home, but I kept walking with her because I wanted to see if I could hear anything behind Jesse’s house.
Creeper 101: Listen through the fence.
I scooped Bessy into my arms when she started to wander and slow me down, and I gained a few precious minutes that I’m now spending with my confused pup behind the wall of Jesse’s back yard.
Someone’s crying. Not hard. It’s the sniffles, mostly, and I can just tell that they aren’t the allergy or cold kind. They come every few seconds, like a curse word—almost angry. I wonder if his sister hates her school? I wonder if she goes to the charter near the mall or if she’s at Public, where everyone in Orson goes. Our high school is the same—everyone’s either a dropout, online schooler, or stuffed into overcrowded classrooms at Vista High. A new high school was planned, but when the tax base bottomed out, so did the state support. Me and my friends draw totally inappropriate things on the abandoned foundation slabs with sidewalk chalk. Rain is welcome because it means there’s a clean slate, and that means we have something to do again.
It’s not vandalism if it’s ugly and abandoned in the first place. At least, that’s what Sam says.
I stand just on the other side of the wall, my ear pressed to the thin cracks where cement was poorly slathered on. The longer I listen, the more certain I am that this isn’t a young child crying. It’s either Jesse or his mom, and my gut oddly tells me that it’s a guy’s stifled cry I hear.
My hand repeatedly runs over Bessy’s fur-ball head, trying to keep her distracted and calm, and after a full minute of just listening, I realize I’m frowning.
I’m feeling for whomever this is.
“Jess, come on! Seriously…it’s time to go!”
The call from a woman’s voice confirms my suspicions, and I hear enough of Jesse’s frustrated breath to seal it.
“Jess, what are you doing out here?” A screen door slides open.
“I’m just waiting.” His answer is typical teen, but it’s also more than that. Where would he be going? He isn’t in band. I’ve prayed and looked every day, and every day he’s not transferred into my first period.
“Well, while you’re waiting…we’re late.” Her words are clipped, and a bit sarcastic. I get the sense his mom works nights. She wasn’t anywhere to be found when his band was practicing, and the van usually rolls in when I leave for school.
The screen slams to a close over the wall, and the sharp sound sends Bessy out of my arms with a yipe that cuts through the slight wind picking up.
Fuck.
My wide eyes watch my little dog bolt in the opposite direction, back around the way I came, but my feet can’t seem to move. There’s no way he didn’t notice that. I breathe out my energy and let the red take over its favorite spots on my skin just before I take off into a sprint after my dog. I don’t catch up with Bessy until I reach my house again, which probably means I could have just let her go on her own. Figures.
My dad is already waiting in the car, the motor rocking all one-hundred-forty-thousand miles of it as condensations spills from the pipe in the back. My mom lets Bessy in and I pick up my school bag that I left just outside the garage. I round the car to the passenger door, and just before I get in, I meet Jesse’s stare as his mom drives by our home slowly in her van. She’s searching for something through her purse in her lap while she coasts down our street, which gives Jesse plenty of time to lower his lashes and stare at me with those foggy eyes. I feel instant guilt again for what I overheard, not that it was much to hear at all.
I look away before he does, not wanting to know how long his scornful expression lasts or if he turns in his seat to keep it on me. I wouldn’t be surprised either way.
“You’re gonna need gloves soon. Getting nippy in the mornings.” My dad is a morning man. He opens and Mom closes, which makes their marriage and business partnership work perfectly.
“It’s seventy-eight today.” My voice is flat. I’ll wish I had somewhere to toss my jacket by lunch time.
“Well sure, but right now it’s,” he leans forward and runs his glove-covered palm over the dash glass that always fogs—winter, summer…spring and fall. “Look at that, it’s fifty-nine.”
“Brrrrr,” I deadpan.
My dad’s body lifts with a laugh and his smile grows. I can’t get to him, even with my grouchiest self, so I give in and smile too. It’s a better way to start my day rather than mortified and choking on empathy. It’s a better way for everyone in our family to be—blissful and seeing the bright side of everything. It somehow comes easier to my parents, though. I often wonder if they’re really this okay with their life—our life.
I step from my dad’s car just in time to catch the last few bandmembers rushing from the parking lot to the room to grab their gear. If you’re late to practice, you run a lap—with your instrument. It’s not so bad to be a tardy flute player, but tubas have it rough, and snare players like me hit our quads on the bolts.
I make up time with a smooth drop of my bag and fit into my harness, and I’m on the field with two minutes to spare. Every bit of fire that was on my skin clears out the moment I take my sticks and roll my wrists, eyes steady on the black and silver circle that marks my sweet spot. There are six of us on snare—I’m lead. I’ve been lead since freshman year, which means I get to set the cadence we play when we march. I love our squad, and our taste is epic. I go with something special this morning to get everyone’s steps in for marching practice—the beat I think long-haired Chris should have played to that beautiful song Jesse was playing. I feel it in an instant, and everyone else picks it up after the first and second pass. The tones of the bass drums work up and down, like a wave that carries our collective breath. I wish we weren’t marching right now so I could see the way our sticks line up, flying up and down in precision. This one’s a keeper.
We have a few weeks left before the state competition. Block lines help our director correct our feet, but it doesn’t mean we have to march to a metronome. People are meant to move to rhythm. We spend most of the morning fixing a few things we messed up during our last competition, and we only get to run through our actual set once. I don’t care, though—I would be content doing nothing but drum features and solos.
“You have a fan,” says Josh, a junior who will take over for me on lead next year.
He taps his sticks on my drum a few times and glances to my left as we walk up the path back to the band room. I follow his gaze to Jesse, who’s leaning against a metal column on the side of the bleachers. My heart starts a drumroll that I know won’t stop for several minutes, so I focus on my breath and try to not act like a fool as I step closer to him.
“Enjoy the show?” I’m bubbly, like the morning version of my dad. I give myself an internal eyeroll and remind myself that I’m confident, snarky Arizona with this boy. I’m new me. Not shy and blushing me, even though I’m certain there is a blotchy patch of red on my chest right now. Body chemistry is really weird.
“What was that thing you were doing before…when it was just you—just drums?”
My heart stops roaring. It just stops, period. I bite my tongue behind my lips and pull my mouth in at the corner on the outside to make it look like I’m thinking.
“This?” I let it flow from beginning to end, sixteen bars that I repeated a hundred or more times on the field. I had that beat memorized the moment I replaced Chris’s with it in my head while Jesse sang.
Of course it’s this.
“Yeah. I like that.” His eyes narrow and focus on my sticks, which suddenly feel like an extension of my hands. I grip them and swallow.
“Cool,” I say, shrugging a little. I’m not sure what else to say, and any words I add will be in morning-dad voice. They won’t be authentic.
Jesse pulses with a short laugh, his eyes still on my drum, a little lost in that place he goes while he sings. He’s imagining the sound—remembering it. His mouth starts to curl, and I indulge in watching the pattern form on his cheeks until he flits his eyes to mine and I’m caught. I glance to the side quickly when I am, nothing I’m able to do about the pink cheeks I have now. I hate that I get so rosy. It’s always been my curse.
“You didn’t say you played.”
I laugh quietly and smile to my side, still not quite able to look him in the eyes.
“Yeah, well…I didn’t want show Chris up.” My boldness surprises me, and I blink a few times and force myself to meet his waiting stare. His head is cocked to one side, making him look at me a little sideways, and the way his mouth barely shows a smile is unnerving and yet also delicious.
This encounter will be the death of me.
His eyes flit to my hands, and he nods for my sticks. I raise them and our hands brush in the exchange, my cold knuckles warming instantly. He flips the sticks in his palms, finding the perfect hold, and I love the comfortable way he grips them. They’re white, because we like to be able to show off our precision on the line. They glow against his warm skin. My own hands feel instantly awkward, with nothing to hold and nothing to do but stand here and hold the drum as he hovers over the head.
He nods a few times, like he’s counting silently, and his hands tentatively begin to work lightly above the drumhead, merely buzzing it for practice until he fully settles in. I can tell this style isn’t natural for him, but I can also tell he plays. He’s better than Chris, and he has such unbelievable flow. His smile broadens as he relaxes more, stepping up on the lip of the curb to get a better position so he can really pound. The more he gets into it, the more I realize we’ve drawn a small crowd. Josh has come back and joined in, playing on the off-beats, and a few of my bandmates are jamming with the rhythm.
Jesse stops in the perfect place, leaving in the middle of a bar, which makes everyone want more but still feel satisfied and right. He grips the sticks in his hand with a squeeze then flattens them on my drum for me.
“Wooo whooo! Damn!” He shouts with his chin lifted and his eyes shut.
His joy makes me giggle.
I take my sticks back, one in each hand, and I feel better already—less self-conscious. My natural state, I guess.
With the ring of the bell out in the distance, our small crowd has already started to disappear, but Jesse’s still balanced on the lip of the curb with no sense of urgency in his body. I feel compelled to wait with him, which twists my insides because I also don’t like to be late for things.
His hands move to the front pockets of his black jeans and he looks down at our feet. I can’t see below my drum, so I shift my gaze around from side to side, occasionally meeting his eyes in the middle. When I look at him again, I catch him hunched over slightly with a smirk on his face.
“Your shoes are covered in grass.” His eyebrows lift as if having wet grass on your feet is truly shocking.
“The look goes with my ice cream shirt normally, but I thought I’d try them out as separates.”
My joke garners a genuine laugh from him this time, the sound echoing his singing voice, or perhaps I imagine it that way. His eyes crinkle and his mouth remains open, curved and happy. This is different from the scowl I met this morning. This is a different guy, entirely.
“You should come play tonight. Just me and Rag.”
The wave drowns my chest again, thunder that doesn’t stop against my ribs.
“Oh, I…” I bite my bottom lip, frozen and unable to answer. I have nothing to do. I just…I guess I’d rather just watch them.
Jesse tilts his head again, smiling on one side.
“You played the shit out of that thing. Don’t get all modest.”
“No…no. I’m not. Actually, I know I’m really fucking good, it’s just…”
I stop while he laughs at my arrogance. I’m glad, because I only said that because my nerves made the words come out. Not that it isn’t true. I have, like, two skills in life. Parallel parking and drums.
“I’m not great at set is all,” I say, turtling into my shoulders slowly.
“You’ll be fine,” he says with a nod. He cages me with a stare that I know isn’t going to let go until I agree, so I finally nod and give in.
The final warning bell sounds, and my stomach literally eats itself with stress, so I start to walk back toward the rooms.
“I’ll see ya tonight,” I say, waving with a small lift of my sticks as I back pedal.
“Come around seven,” he says, moving the other way.
I keep my eyes on him for a few more steps, wondering where he’s off to. It’s clearly not class, which means he’s probably not going to hack it at this school thing for long. I don’t want him to drop out, though. How will I luck into little run-ins like this.
“Class is this way, ya know.”
His grin shows his teeth, lopsided and flirtatious.
“Yeah, I’ll get there. I got…things.” He pulls his wallet out and removes a joint. I nod, wondering how the hell I became so attracted to a ditching stoner. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s also human, and has the ability to cry when he thinks he’s completely alone. He hasn’t brought it up—this morning. I won’t. I sure as hell won’t now, when things are progressing so…nicely.
“Hey, what do you call that thing you played anyway?” he asks, shouting across the growing distance between us.
It’s my turn to leave him with a little mystery now.
“Oh, you would know.”
I shrug, and his brow pulls in, puzzled.
“What do you call that song you were working on when I showed up Friday? The slow and sweet one that they all kept fucking up?”
“Bury Me Holy.”
He says the title fast, and I wonder if it’s the first thing he ever wrote. It’s clearly his favorite.
I nod once.
“That’s it then. Bury Me Holy.”
His eyes narrow to slits, his faint smile lingering until I have to turn to face the other way. I lift my sticks in the air as I pass, as if I’m Bender at the end of The Breakfast Club, and I walk the rest of the way to the band room with a little bit of swagger.
Swagger, and grass all over my damn feet.