The whole room stops moving.

“Whoa.” Alejandro steps in, looming over us.

“I think I know,” says Trevor, regaining his balance, “that you’re an arrogant asshole—”

“You have no idea what I’m going through!” Caleb’s voice is full of wrath. Everyone in the room is staring and they both sound like children.

I grab his arm and pull. “Come on.”

Caleb turns away. Behind us, Jon and Matt are on their feet.

“You’re such an asshole, Caleb,” hisses Cybil.

“Settle down, pard’ner,” Jon says, invoking a cowboy drawl. Hang with him long enough, and you’ll hear every movie accent there is.

“Okay, who needs some fresh air?” I say, leading the way to the door.

Once we’re out in the hall, I turn to Caleb. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“Honestly, who fucking cares?” He throws up his hands, his gaze still not meeting mine. “I’m not sorry. I don’t care. And Trevor was being a dick. He has no idea what it’s like.”

“Well, you also never told him.”

“Because he’s an ass. So they hate me, so what?”

“Caleb! So what is if the other bands hate you, then all their fans are going to hate you, and that bad vibe is going to spread like a virus! All you needed to do was say you were sorry.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t! Now stop trying to manage me and listen to what I’m saying.” And just like that, he stalks off.

“Wow,” says Jon. “That all went well.”

“Is he like that often?” Matt wonders, sounding worried.

“I guess I don’t really know,” I say.

Jon summons a British accent. “He has been a bit ornery today.”

I watch him go, equal parts furious, wounded, wanting to scream and fighting the urge to run after him, something I am not going to do. “I’ll see you guys later.”

I try not to storm into calc, try not to think too much about Caleb, but that just makes the whole afternoon feel even longer. What was with him? And why couldn’t he tell me? I want to ask him, but he’s the one who left, so I resist the urge to message him.

Finally, in study hall last period, I feel my phone buzz against my leg. I slip it out under the table. A text from Caleb:

      Really sorry. More drama last night. Couldn’t share with the others around. Should have told you this morning. Can we talk after practice?

I debate my reply. I said I’d be home around 8, so I’ll have to clear it with the powers. Since you never ask me out PROPERLY.

I am a ruffian and a scoundrel.

Yes. I wait a second and add: But I want to know what’s up.

How about Tina’s after practice?

Tina’s frozen yogurt. A suitable apology. Sure. And you better give me the SCOOP on your mood.

He replies: It’s fro yo, more like the DISH.

Finally, I smile a little. :) See you then.

6

MoonflowerAM @catherinefornevr 2h


Summer’s not here right now. She’s eating frozen yogurt in the future. #whereismyTARDIS

I clear the evening with my parents. They’re usually fine with this kind of thing. They know the grades are off to a good start, and Dad keeps bringing up schools with good law programs. I strategically humored him one night and looked over his search results, even though the idea of college makes me ill. I mean, it’s always been assumed that I’ll go. I’m just worried it will change me.

That’s what happened to my older brother, Bradley. We’re not that close, but when he was in high school, playing sax and piano and operating as a mid-level rebel, I looked up to him. Now he’s a senior at Pomona and applying to med schools and he spends his breaks at home talking about residencies and the changing face of health care. These days, he feels more like a junior partner in Carlson Squared.

I get my homework done at a coffee shop, then grab a bus across town, anxious to talk to Caleb, frustrated that it’s three transfers to get to the Hive. My parents have offered to get me a car, but I don’t want one. I can use one of theirs when I need it. I like the bus. And a car feels like a contract, like: here is this BIG THING that now means we have more say over you because we OWN the big thing and we can take it away. Not that they’d necessarily pull that kind of crap. But the bus keeps it from ever being an option.

The Hive is a concrete block of converted factory. The white facade has giant windows that make you think there’d be a cavernous space waiting inside, but instead, the windows look in on walls, and the whole thing has been cubed up into hall after hall of tiny practice spaces.

The entrance is flanked by clusters of musicians shrouded in cigarette smoke. There’s every breed of band: hipsters in clutching T-shirts, pencil-thin jeans, and brightly colored sneakers; straight-up rockers, jeans torn and flannels ratty; metal bands, so many metal bands, with chains and hair and acne and sneers; a lost-looking trio of quirky kids who probably jam too much, clad in fez and tweed and thinking that anyone who plays a song shorter than five minutes is a slave to the corporate overlord. Everywhere, skin is tattooed and chins are rough with all manner of facial hair, most not quite successful. Passing among them is to suffer an onslaught of sweat and hair product and secondhand smoke.

I keep my eyes straight ahead. Musicians aren’t like jocks; they don’t catcall, they’re all too cool for that. But when it comes to ogling, I almost prefer jocks: they just dumbly assess your dimensions on some primal mating level, like we live on a savannah. You feel like they can’t even help themselves. Musicians, though, they judge you silently. Your coat. Your expression. The brand on your guitar case. Anything they can. Are you cooler than they are? Do you think you are? Are you the real thing? But you can’t be. There must be flaws. Let’s find them.

Inside, the claustrophobia increases. The air is stuffy, sour with pot and rank with body odor. As I move down the hall, there’s an acidic twinge of vomit and urine. Dangerheart’s room is on the fourth floor, up concrete stairs made uneven by years of gum deposits. The air is sticky with humanity, and everywhere there is the throbbing muffled pulse of bands, each room a cell in this musical organism, one riff bleeding into another as you pass each door.

I have to use the bathroom, but when I step inside, past the wild splatters of vomit and God-knows-what-else, and push open the only working stall door, I jump back at the sight of a girl making out with a guy.

She looks over her shoulder. “You need to go?” she asks mildly, her lips and eyes painted black.

“No, thanks. I’ll hold it.”

I hurry down the hall and pause outside door 418. I always arrive about halfway through practice, to give the guys time to bond, to get into it and let their guards down, to make their silly boy jokes. I feel like this is especially important since Caleb and I are dating. Arriving with him would be the girlfriend move. The manager isn’t arm candy. The manager checks in and evaluates. Though I do love hearing them play, and watching Caleb sing, I try not to show how much.

I press my ear to the door. It vibrates with each kick-drum beat. They’re crashing through a song called “Artificial Limb.” It’s frenetic and punkish, pretty fun but not quite there yet. I don’t know that it should be part of the set long term, but since they’re just starting out, getting a full set of decent songs is all that matters right now, and “Limb” is definitely decent.

I knock when they’re done and it’s Caleb who lets me in. We lock eyes and I wonder if this will be weird or cool, given our fight before, and whatever was clearly bothering him all day, but he greets me with a relaxed smile, and I do the same. We’re both in pro mode. We allow a brief hug, and I want more, but I hold it back. And yet just before the hug ends, he whispers in my ear: “Sorry about before.”

“Me too.” His hand lingers on my wrist as he pulls away, and it’s enough to get me through to Tina’s.

I drop down on the couch against the far wall. The Hive has a basement full of discarded furniture and busted amp cabinets, a sort of perpetual recycling system. When it comes to the couches, it’s take at your own risk. This one was once a bright-green-and-purple paisley, but it’s mostly a sort of moss color now, blotchy with stains, cigarette burns, and areas where the velour covering is almost completely worn away. I don’t even want to know what rooms this couch has been in, what’s happened on it, but we sprayed it with Lysol and Febreze and now it seems sanitary enough.

It’s not like the practice space is glamorous anyway. Jon thoughtfully strung some cool little globe lights across the ceiling, but they barely hide the water stains and cracks in the wall, and even if it looked great, it’s a windowless, ventless room, and nothing can stop the general boy smell. Still, there’s something special about it, because it’s the incubator where the music comes to life.

“How’s it going?” I ask.

“Pretty good,” says Caleb. “Just ran through everything. About to go again.”

“Cool.” I open my notebook.

“Uh-oh,” says Jon, “she’s getting out the ledger.”

“Come on,” I say with a smile, “this is what you pay me for.” I flip to my page of notes from last practice. In between scrawling doodles (not because I’m bored: I like to draw to the music, it helps me think), I have a short list of things to point out. I always like to let a practice go by before mentioning any critique to the band, as some things are just one-time issues, and work themselves out on their own.

They start with “Exit Strategy,” which is upbeat and hyper. It’s a little raw but sounds great.

Next is “Knew You Before.” This is my favorite song so far, and I think it could be a big hit. But as they play it, I hear the main issue that I wrote down last practice. Jon has this pedal board that Caleb nicknamed Mission Control. There are anywhere from five to ten multicolored pedals attached to it at a given practice, cables snaking between them, and he is constantly fidgeting with knobs and buttons. During “Knew You,” he keeps messing with a teal-blue pedal, and his guitar seems to waffle in and out of this time space.

I wait a moment after the song ends, and then say, “So, Jon, what are you going for with that spacey sound?” I’ve learned that Jon is the kind of person who responds to questions. He’s self-critical and will usually intuit what you’re getting at.

“You know,” says Jon with a shrug, already tweaking another dial, “a kind of ethereal wash. Like your arms are out and you’re spinning.”

“Ah.”

He looks up at me. “Was it too much?”

I shrug. “Maybe?” This is a good time to look to Caleb. I don’t mention my critiques to him before I say them, because then it would be like we were ganging up. Also, I try to notice if I’m suggesting something that the band totally doesn’t agree with, because if I am, it’s best to back off and take a different approach.

“It could maybe be a little more direct,” says Caleb.

“I liked when you had more fuzz on the riff in the verse,” Matt adds.

Jon sighs, but it’s not annoyed, rather a scientist hard at work. “Okay, I’ll dial back the tremolo, kick up the overdrive, see if I can make it a little more urgent.”

“Urgent is the perfect word,” I say.

They go through it again and it’s better, but I make sure to ask Jon, “What did you think of it like that?”

“Sure,” he says, “that could work.” Which is close enough to a yes from someone like Jon.

Next, they play “Chem Lab,” which is poppy and about crushing on your lab partner. Caleb’s lyrics are clever and fun: pipettes and titrates and love. But Matt has given it this really complicated beat: busy with lots of accents, when the song feels like it should just flow.

“Matt,” I say when it’s done, “that’s a really cool beat, but it kinda loses me.”

Matt’s eyes always light up when I say his name, except then he immediately looks away, down into the space between his floor tom and bass drum. “It’s just supposed to feel like a loop,” his says, disappointed.

Matt is tougher than Jon. He takes criticism personally, and he’s really proud of his beats. Drummers can get really focused on the sixteenth notes of a song, rather than the song as a whole. But I’ve figured out something that usually works with Matt.

“No, it’s really cool, I just wonder if it’s too syncopated. Probably seems obvious to a drummer. But the other day I heard that song ‘Freeze Dried’ by the Bulbs. Do you know that song?”