Battle of the Bands

by Eric Smith

  “Is that where Lil went?” Hailey murmured.

  “Gotta be. She knows the wire suspension system. Plus, nobody else is getting away with horseplay like that with Lil on the prowl.”

  “She asked me once if we ever get tired of nobody seeing the work we do. Looks like Lil decided to get herself seen for once.”

  “Respect.”

  “Sarah’s gonna shit like ninety-three bricks over fire code.”

  “Lil would have, too, before Lil maybe perpetrated this.”

  “Out with a bang.”

  Safe & Sound was crowned winner, wreathed in the last remnants of the smoke from Lilly’s final hurrah.

  Sarah, Hailey, and Katrina waited in the wings for the crowd to disperse before going quietly to work, a collective leaden sadness having enveloped them as they prepared to tear down the stage and thereby lay to rest the Sisterhood of Light and Sound, committing it to golden memory.

  As Katrina was carefully winding a mic cord (Nice big loops; the cord has a soul. Listen to it tell you how it wants to be wound, Sarah taught), she spied Brenner approaching. Her heart buzzed against her ribs like a junebug against a screen door, her melancholy notwithstanding.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “You guys kicked ass,” Katrina said in her normal voice, without even being tempted to add a sweaty joke. Being in a somber mood was serving her well in terms of comporting herself with relative dignity.

  “My jack worked fine. My guitar jack, I mean.”

  Katrina summoned a smile.

  “So, my band and I were gonna grab Taco Bell after this, if you wanna come.”

  Katrina looked at Hailey and Sarah.

  “It’s cool,” Sarah said. “Hailey and I got this.”

  A couple of moments passed. Katrina turned back to Brenner. “I’m gonna stay and help tear down, and then I think Sarah and Hailey and I were going to hang. But I’d love to get together another time.”

  “Shoot me your number.” Brenner got out his phone and entered Katrina’s number. “Everything okay?” he asked. “You seem different than before.”

  Katrina didn’t answer for a second but looked wistfully at Sarah and Hailey. They were kneeling, disconnecting mic cables from the snake, laughing about something. “I’m good.”

  “Cool. Text me?”

  “I will.” She was not lying.

  As Brenner turned to leave, he almost ran headlong into Beckett, who was ascending the stage steps, tapping her drumsticks nervously against her thighs. Hailey put an SM57 in the mic case and stood to face her sister.

  They looked at each other without speaking, the weight of what they’d weathered in the last year — moving, changing schools, growing apart, their most recent fight, their catalogue of heartbreaks, late-night songwriting sessions — heavy on them. If there was one lesson Hailey had taken from this evening, it was that it’s a terrible thing to be apart from someone you love. If there was another, it’s that family — both the kind joined by a compact of blood and the kind bound by a shared history of shoddy mic cables, unreasonable demands for more vocals in the monitors, strictly mandated black Chuck Taylors, and impassioned movie arguments — matters above all else.

  “You rocked tonight,” Hailey said quietly. “With your various and sundry bands.”

  “I’m really sorry, Hay.”

  “Me too. About this week. About tonight. Bailing on our Halloween costume. About all the shit this year, really.”

  “I’ve missed you,” Beckett said.

  “Same, loverpants,” Hailey said.

  They smiled at each other, more warmly than they had in a long time. There was more to say and to work through. But it looked like the ice on the path there was thawing.

  Beckett spun her drumsticks. “You got a Miss Somewhere song in you?”

  “Now?”

  “There’s an amp, and the drum kit is still set up,” Sarah said.

  “Play us out,” Katrina said. “Give us some teardown music.”

  Sarah pulled an SM58 from the mic case, walked over to one of the collapsed mic stands, set it up, put the mic in the clip, then deftly ran a mic cable to the snake. She sprinted in the direction of the sound booth, calling behind her shoulder, “You like a pretty wet reverb on your vocals, right?” Sarah knew the answer already, so Hailey didn’t bother responding.

  “I’m kinda guitarless,” Hailey said. “I wasn’t planning on playing tonight.”

  “Be right back —” Beckett said, walking backstage. She returned holding Hailey’s Fender Jazzmaster by the neck. “Hey, look. Last time you put away your guitar, it must have fallen off the stand and rolled a couple miles here.”

  Hailey smiled and took her guitar from her twin. She slung it on, plugged it into the amp, and dialed in her sound, playing a couple of chords. She walked up to the mic. Beckett took a seat behind the drum kit and thumped the kick a few times.

  Sarah called down from the sound booth, “You’re live and ready to go.”

  And go they did. Hailey didn’t check the mic. No need with Sarah behind the board. Beck counted them in, and Miss Somewhere started into one of their originals like a wave slowly breaking onshore. They sounded like Mazzy Star meets Beach House, and they had the sort of effortless chemistry that only people who once shared a womb can have. They had a sense of each other the way you have a sense of yourself, how you can perfectly touch the tip of your nose without looking.

  Sarah and Katrina, who had never before heard them, stopped work to watch in wonder.

  “They’d have won,” Katrina said to Sarah.

  “No question. Good job with Brenner, by the way.”

  Katrina beamed. “My jokes worked.”

  “Please consider that it wasn’t your jokes specifically but rather your winning personality more generally that sealed the deal.”

  They watched quietly for a long time. Katrina couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Sarah discreetly wipe away a tear or two. And that was surprising. Sarah wasn’t the moved-to-tears sort. But she also didn’t do the whole make-lots-of-friends thing. Which probably made it hard to leave behind the ones she had. So maybe it wasn’t altogether shocking.

  It soon became clear that Beckett and Hailey had no intention of stopping anytime soon. They played like they were trying to stitch up a wound that would start bleeding again if they stopped.

  But both Katrina and Sarah knew well the keening wish that all good things lasted forever. And so they were in no rush to leave.

  They went back to work.

  BRITTANY CAVALLARO is the New York Times best-selling author of the Charlotte Holmes novels from HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books, as well as Hello Girls and Muse. In high school, she wrote a lot of short stories inspired by Something Corporate songs. Every year Spotify reminds her that Jimmy Eat World is her most-played artist.

  PREETI CHHIBBER is an author, speaker, and freelancer. Her screamo claim to fame is that she once held Nate Barcalow’s hand so that he wouldn’t fall off the railing at a Finch show. She has several books and anthology appearances on the way, but for now you can find her co-hosting the podcast Desi Geek Girls. Learn more at PreetiChhibber.com.

  JAY COLES is the author of Tyler Johnson Was Here and Things We Couldn’t Say, a composer with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and a professional musician residing in Muncie, Indiana. He is a graduate of Vincennes University and Ball State University and holds degrees in English and liberal arts. Currently, he enjoys playing drums and piano in his free time.

  KATIE COTUGNO is the New York Times best-selling author of six messy, complicated feminist YA love stories: 99 Days, How to Love, Fireworks, Top Ten, 9 Days & 9 Nights, and You Say It First. She is also the co-author, with Candace Bushnell, of Rules for Being a Girl. Her books have been honored by the Junior Library Guild, the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee, and the Kentucky Association of School Librarians, among others, and translated into more than fifteen languages. Katie is a Pushcart
Prize nominee whose work has appeared in the Iowa Review, the Mississippi Review, and Argestes, as well as many other literary magazines. She studied writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College and received her MFA in fiction at Lesley University. She lives in Boston with her family and has a knack for accidentally getting stuck behind tall people at concerts.

  LAUREN GIBALDI is a public librarian and the author of The Night We Said Yes, Autofocus, and This Tiny Perfect World. She lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and daughters. She drummed for a band that only had one gig — her high school’s battle of the bands.

  SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON is the author of numerous books for young adults, including We Are the Ants, The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried, and A Complicated Love Story Set in Space, as well as the young adult memoir Brave Face, chronicling his struggles with depression and coming out. When he’s not writing, he’s probably baking or playing video games. He currently lives in Seattle. Find Shaun online at shaundavidhutchinson.com.

  JUSTIN COURTNEY PIERRE is the lead singer/guitarist of Motion City Soundtrack and has never written a book, best-selling or otherwise. He did, however, play in multiple high school bands and therefore is an expert on the subject matter contained within this book. Unfortunately, he chose to write about drugs instead. He currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his wife and daughter and works far too hard at trying to understand things most people seem to know innately.

  ASHLEY POSTON grew up on a heavy dose of rock and roll, but it wasn’t until high school that she found her true music calling — punk rock (and she made everyone in marching band listen to her clarinet rendition of “MakeDamnSure” to prove it). Since then, she’s retired the clarinet and taken up another hobby — writing. Her set list includes the geeky Once Upon a Con series, the Heart of Iron duology, and Among the Beasts and Briars.

  JENNY TORRES SANCHEZ is a full-time writer and author of five novels for young adults. She was born in Brooklyn but has lived on the border of two worlds her whole life. She grew up listening to a lot of angsty music and trying to tune out the world around her. She currently lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and children. Visit her online at jennytorressanchez.com and follow her on Twitter at @jetchez.

  SARAH NICOLE SMETANA is the author of The Midnights. Growing up in Orange, CA, she taught herself to play guitar and listened to a steady stream of emo bands, like Saves the Day and the Get Up Kids. In high school, she was often found gallivanting around Southern California’s many awesome music venues (sometimes even playing at them) or filling notebooks full of lyrics. She currently lives and writes in Brooklyn. You can visit her online at www.sarahnicolesmetana.com.

  ERIC SMITH is an author and literary agent who was once booed at a high school talent show while playing Third Eye Blind on the guitar. Badly. He is the author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating, The Girl and the Grove, Don’t Read the Comments, and You Can Go Your Own Way. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son.

  SARVENAZ TAGHAVIAN is the author of The Geek’s Guide to Unrequited Love (an Amazon Best Book of the Year and a YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant YA Readers), Virtually Yours, Three Day Summer, and more. She was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up on Long Island, New York. She received her BFA in film and television from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, which means she got to spend most of college running around making movies (it was a lot of fun). She also spent much of high school relegated to the ensemble of various musicals, which gave her plenty of time to hone her completely useless skill of composing parody lyrics to show tunes. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young sons.

  JENN MARIE THORNE was lead singer of LA band Punch Buggy Blue for like three weeks and never even played a gig but still acts like she’s some rock star. She’s now the UK-based author of YA novels The Wrong Side of Right, Night Music, and more, as well as books for adults and wee tots.

  JASMINE WARGA is the New York Times best-selling author of Other Words for Home, Here We Are Now, and My Heart and Other Black Holes. Her book Other Words for Home received a Newbery Honor. She has never been in a band but spent tons of time during high school at the local music venue — Bogarts — listening to emotive indie rock.

  ASHLEY WOODFOLK went to Warped Tour multiple times just hoping to get close to the drummer from Yellowcard. When she finally did, she dropped her open water bottle and soaked her Chuck Taylors. Now she frequents emo nights at dive bars in NYC, and though she’s always avoided mosh pits, she writes about music like it’s her job. She is the author of The Beauty That Remains, When You Were Everything, and the Flyy Girls series, and is a co-author of Blackout. She lives and writes in Brooklyn with her very cute family.

  JEFF ZENTNER is the award-winning author of The Serpent King and In the Wild Light. Before becoming a writer, he was a musician who recorded several albums and appeared on recordings with Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Thurston Moore, and Nick Cave.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Compilation copyright © 2021 by Lauren Gibaldi and Eric Smith

  “Miss Somewhere” copyright © 2021 by Brittany Cavallaro

  “Cecilia (You’re Breaking My Heart)” copyright © 2021 by Ashley Poston

  “Sidelines” copyright © 2021 by Sarah Nicole Smetana

  “Battle of the Exes” copyright © 2021 by Sarvenaz Taghavian

  “Love Is a Battlefield” copyright © 2021 by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “You Found Me” copyright © 2021 by Ashley Woodfolk

  “Adventures in Babysitting” copyright © 2021 by Justin Courtney Pierre

  “Peanut Butter Sandwiches” copyright © 2021 by Jasmine Warga

  “Reckless Love” copyright © 2021 by Jay Coles

  “The Ride” copyright © 2021 by Jenn Marie Thorne

  “Three Chords” copyright © 2021 by Eric Smith

  “Merch to Do About Nothing” copyright © 2021 by Preeti Chhibber

  “All These Friends and Lovers” copyright © 2021 by Katie Cotugno

  “A Small Light” copyright © 2021 by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  “Set the World on Fire” copyright © 2021 by Lauren Gibaldi

  “The Sisterhood of Light and Sound” copyright © 2021 by Jeff Zentner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2021

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  www.candlewick.com