Guitar Notes

by Mary Amato

  Lyla hears her own heart beating even above the noise in the hall. She shifts her books, pressing them against her chest to dull the sound. “Annie, has your heart ever been so loud that you could hear it without a stethoscope or anything?”

  “No.” Annie stops. “Is your heart being weird?”

  “Sort of.”

  “That’s what the first week of school does.” Annie shrugs it off. “It gives you a heart attack. Hey, remember that time in fifth grade when you swore to me that you could hear your bones grow? For, like, six weeks I tried to listen to my bones.” She laughs and leads the way into the English room, which is noticeably hot and stuffy.

  Sweat prickles on Lyla’s forehead. Stay calm. She has to get through school.

  Annie turns and whispers, “If you die of a heart attack and leave me alone this year, you know what I’ll do?”

  “What?” Lyla asks.

  “I’ll kill you.” Annie laughs.

  SEPTEMBER 8. MONDAY.

  ROCKLAND HALLWAY; 8:19 A.M.

  As Tripp is walking to class, he notices the music teacher posting a sign on the music bulletin board.

  PRACTICE ROOM SCHEDULE 11:26–12:10

  ROOM A: PATRICIA KENT EVEN DAYS;

  ANNIE WIN ODD DAYS.

  ROOM B: LYLA MARKS EVEN DAYS;

  TRIPP BROODY ODD DAYS.

  “Thank you. Thank you!” Tripp says.

  Mr. Jacoby turns and looks at him. “Tripp?”

  Tripp nods. “You have just saved my life.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. I found one guitar in storage. This program really focuses on band and orchestra.”

  “What kind of guitar is it?”

  “Acoustic, steel strings, but the strings are shot.” Mr. Jacoby frowns. “You’ll have to provide your own.”

  “I don’t mind, as long as I can play. Can I take it home?”

  He shakes his head. “No. You’re not in the music program here. Technically, the instruments can be checked out only by students in the program. We’ll keep it in Room B. By the way, two of these girls are serious musicians and would like to practice every da—”

  “I’m a serious musician, too.”

  “I wasn’t implying that you aren’t. If you decide that you don’t want to use the room, just let me know right away so that I can reassign it. The rules are posted in the rooms: One person per room; the computers in each room are to be used only for music—no video games or surfing the web; clean up after yourself.”

  “Got it. Thank you.”

  Mr. Jacoby heads into the orchestra room, and Tripp continues on his way to class. He has been allotted precisely forty-four minutes of joy every other day, beginning next Monday. Something inside him bubbles up and he leaps into the air.

  “What was that supposed to be?” one girl behind him asks another.

  “I don’t know. Who does that?”

  He laughs. “I do.”

  ABEL PHOTO STUDIO; 3:58 P.M.

  The studio is large and white. In the back, a gray cloth is draped on the wall and floor. Lights are set up on either side of the cloth, facing in.

  The photographer shows Lyla into a dressing room. While she is changing into her performance dress, she hears her dad taking her mom’s cello out of the case. He starts explaining to the photographer that he wants to include one photo in her Coles application and wants to send the other to the local newspaper with a note about her upcoming Kennedy Center audition.

  Her phone buzzes. When she sees that it’s Annie calling, her heart pounds even harder.

  “Where are you?” Annie asks. “I looked for you after school.”

  “At the dentist, remember?” Lyla whispers. “I told you about it yesterday.”

  “Are you done? Ask your dad to drop you off here.”

  “I’m in the waiting room. I haven’t even gotten in yet.”

  “Call me as soon as you’re done.”

  “Okay,” Lyla agrees. She tucks the phone into her backpack and hangs it on a hook. Then she takes a deep breath and walks out.

  “Great dress,” the photographer says. “Beautiful choice.” He asks her to stand on the cloth, and her dad brings the cello to her.

  “This is going to be very easy,” the photographer says, stepping behind the tripod. “Piece of cake. All you have to do is smile.”

  Lyla forces a smile.

  Click.

  SEPTEMBER 15. MONDAY.

  ROCKLAND SCHOOL; 11:23 A.M.

  Tripp isn’t sure where the practice rooms are located. As he turns down the hallway toward the orchestra room, Annie Win passes him, walking in the same direction. Black hair as straight and silky as a doll’s, falling all the way down to the middle of her back. Crisp yellow capris. Matching yellow sandals. Ankles that have never been dirty. He imagines that instead of showering, someone merely brushes her off with a feather duster.

  She opens the orchestra room door, and when he follows her in, she looks back and scowls. “What are you doing here? You aren’t in orchestra or band.” Her eyebrows are high and pointed rather than rounded in the middle. Her voice is like a rapid-fire laser gun.

  “I’m installing new carpeting,” he says.

  “You are so strange,” she says.

  “Yeah. We’re putting it on the walls to dampen the sound. People over in art have been complaining about the violins.”

  She makes a face, turns, and gets her violin case from the storage room. He notices the dead-end corridor in the back of the room and, guessing that the practice rooms are there, heads toward it.

  She is at his heels. “Seriously. Why are you here?”

  “I signed up for a practice room.”

  “I saw your name on the sign-up list, but I thought it was a joke. It’s not fair for you to get a room,” she says. “Mr. Jacoby told me and Lyla that we can’t have rooms every day because somebody else wanted one, too. I thought it was an orchestra person.”

  He stops and she bumps into him.

  “Why isn’t it fair?” he asks.

  “These rooms are for music.”

  “Yeah, well, you band and orchestra people are not the only musicians in the world.”

  She stalks into Room A with a slam of the door.

  Perfect girls think they own the world.

  Tripp walks into Room B and immediately wants to shout with joy. It’s small, but perfect. Blank white walls, a workstation with a computer, an electronic keyboard, and cool recording devices. Way better than he expected. Go, Rockland School. And there’s the guitar—waiting just for him.

  Eagerly, he closes the door, moves the bench to the side, lays the battered case on the floor, and opens it. The sight of the guitar cracks his face into a smile. He runs his fingertips along two big scratches on the front. Four of the six strings are gone; the two that remain are gummy and old. It’s beat-up, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a guitar.

  Tripp pulls a packet of strings out of his backpack and gets to work. The minute the guitar is in his hands, his body is pumped with energy. One by one, he changes the strings, and then he uses the keyboard at the workstation to find the right pitch for each string, ignoring the muffled scales of Annie’s violin next door.

  Sitting on the floor, he pulls his pick out of his back pocket and strums. He rests his right hand on the body of the guitar, feeling the vibration of the wood, listening to the sound, and something inside him comes alive. It’s as if there are six strings inside him, tuned to the same pitches, and when the guitar is strummed, it causes his strings to ring out, too.

  Well, well, well, he thinks, the Termite will not be able to devour my entire soul.

  SEPTEMBER 16. TUESDAY.

  ROCKLAND HALLWAY; 11:24 A.M.

  “Let’s get out of this oven.” Annie pulls Lyla out of the English room.

  “It’s an even day,” Lyla says. “I get the practice room today.”

  “Hey, when you see Patricia What’s-Her-Name, ask her to switch days with me, then we can both pract
ice on even days.”

  “What?”

  “That lowly French horn player. She has Room A on even days. Ask her to take it on odd days, and I can take even days with you and we can have the same lunch schedule. We only have morning classes together. It’s not fair.”

  The responsibilities of the week are scrolling through Lyla’s mind in a continual loop: the new cello piece for the Coles audition, the U.S. history project, French quiz, the club Annie wants them to join, reading for English, algebra problems, science, Saturday’s Metz Youth Orchestra rehearsal, the Kennedy Center audition … her heart beating faster and louder as the loop goes on.

  It’s like the story she read last night for English class. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. One man murders another and stuffs the body under the floorboards. When the police come, the murderer believes they can hear the beating heart of the victim and so he confesses, but it’s really his own heart beating in his ears. No! Her life is not like that at all. She didn’t murder anyone. What does she have to feel guilty about? Why is she thinking of that story?

  Stay calm, she tells herself, and your heart will slow down.

  “Ask her!” Annie repeats.

  “Okay,” Lyla says.

  Annie scowls as they thread their way through the crowd. “You sound like that’s a bad idea.”

  “I said okay.”

  “Your voice was weird.”

  “It was not, Annie. Why wouldn’t I want us to have the same lunch schedule?”

  Annie nods toward a girl down the hall. “Look at Marisse’s calf muscles. She probably exercises in her sleep. She thinks every guy is always drooling over her. I hate her. She’s in all my afternoon classes.”

  They reach the B hallway and say good-bye. Lyla continues past the media center by herself. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  A trio of girls pass by and say hi. Lyla smiles and waves, catching a glimpse of herself in the glass of the trophy case: She is Lyla Marks. Everyone loves her. She is on her way to the music room to practice during lunch because that’s what she does. She is a cellist. This defines her, separates her from others. She is the first-chair cellist.

  Breathe in, she tells herself. Breathe out.

  After she takes her cello into Practice Room B and closes the door, she gets it out of the case, lays it on the floor, and stares at it for several minutes. She glances up at the ceiling, checking for hidden cameras that she knows are not there. Lately, she’s been feeling as if she’s being watched, even when she knows she’s not.

  Breathe in, she tells herself. Breathe out.

  Slowly, her heartbeat regulates, the tightness in her chest loosens.

  The little room helps. The fact that no one is watching her.

  Trash on the music stand catches her eye. The odd-day guy must have left it. Tripp Broody, the guy who criticized her and Annie for being “chipper.” She glances up to check that the rules are still posted there from last year. NUMBER THREE: DISPOSE OF ALL TRASH IN HALLWAY TRASH CAN. It makes her mad when people don’t follow the basic rules.

  She breathes and looks at the guitar case. It’s scuffed, one lock unhinged, the handle attached with duct tape—the odd guy’s domain. Even the case looks like him. In contrast, her cello is unblemished and polished, lying on its side on the floor, like a whale that has washed up on the shore. She should pick it up, resuscitate it with her bow. Instead, she calls up her MP3 files of cello music on the computer and plays them so anyone who passes by the room will think she’s practicing. After she is finished eating her lunch, she will practice, she tells herself. She eats her lunch in tiny, tiny bites.

  SEPTEMBER 17. WEDNESDAY.

  PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:23 A.M.

  An odd day, the only kind of day that counts. Tripp barely hangs on to consciousness through Intro to Tech and Spanish, but then he walks through the orchestra room and opens the door of Practice Room B. It’s the energy of the room he loves, this quiet peace that is just waiting to be filled with sound.

  Hello, little room.

  The room likes him. He can tell. He sets his lunch on the workstation and opens the guitar case. A piece of white paper, folded neatly, is tucked between the strings. An unexpected development.

  Dear Odd Day Musician,

  We are sharing this room. Please remove your trash from the music stand when you are done. Thanks.

  —The Even Day Musician

  Lyla Marks has left him a note. He flips the paper over and writes his reply.

  Dear Ms. Even Day,

  Thank you so much for the little note you left in the guitar case.

  The napkin that I left on the music stand was not trash. I wrote a chord progression on it. Did you throw it away in your quest for a perfect spotless world?

  Most Sincerely,

  Mr. Odd Day

  P.S. Please do not leave negative Even Day vibes all over the room. They will soak into this guitar, which will ruin it. Please clean up after yourself.

  He folds it and leaves it on the music stand.

  SEPTEMBER 18. THURSDAY.

  PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:22 A.M.

  Lyla sees the note right away, and as she reads it, her face grows hot.

  She was right, and he knows it. She hates people who try to make other people feel stupid just because they choose to follow basic rules of politeness.

  She calls up the cello music on the computer and pushes up the volume. She tells herself that she will, in fact, practice the cello today, but only after she writes Mr. Odd her reply.

  SEPTEMBER 19. FRIDAY.

  PRACTICE ROOM B; 11:23 A.M.

  As Tripp opens the door to Room B, he hears his name and turns around.

  Annie Win, violin case in hand, hops into place. “Lyla has your room on even days. If you trade with her, you would get even days, and Lyla and I could have odd days together.”

  “No,” he says.

  “Why not?”

  “I like odd days.”

  “They’re exactly the same. What difference does it make?”

  Tripp shrugs. “Odd days are better than even days.” As he closes the door, she huffs. Poor perfect girls can’t have what they want. Too bad. He has Intro to Tech and science on odd days; he needs the little room to survive.

  Opening the guitar case, he smiles to see a second note, folded and tucked like the first.

  Dear Mr. Odd,

  Forgive me for mistaking your chord progression for trash, but you also left a candy wrapper and a crumpled napkin on the music stand. I thought I had chipper vibes, not negative ones. Well, you can make fun of me and my “vibes” for being bothered by trash, but at least I am considerate of others. Clean up after yourself and you won’t have to read any more of my “little notes.”

  —The Even Day Musician

  The note is like the pickle in his sandwich: a tangy crunch to make the bread of his morning and afternoon classes less boring. After he plays, he’ll have fun writing a reply.

  The guitar practically jumps into his arms. He loves this moment, when his fingers are ready to find something: a chord, a pleasing phrase, something worth repeating, something worth following.

  SEPTEMBER 21. SUNDAY.

  TRIPP’S ROOM; 6:11 P.M.

  Josh and his friends sitting on somebody’s couch. Josh and his friends knee-deep in snow. Josh shooting a free throw in a crowded school gym. Tripp is staring at the photos on Josh’s efriends page. He hardly recognizes his old friend. Since when did he play basketball? He looks happy in Schenectady, wherever that is.

  He clicks SEND A MESSAGE. Then he stares at the blank box. After a minute, he clicks X to close the site. He has nothing to write about.

  On the wall behind his desk is a photo he took of his dad sitting on a log in front of their tent. It’s dark, but the light from the fire shows his wide smile and lights up all the goofy wind chimes they hung in the trees—the spoons and spatulas, the old hubcap and the bathtub faucet handles, the kiddie xylophone parts they had found by the side of the roa
d. He can smell the smoky warmth of the fire, the scent of the loblolly pines, and the musty smell of the tent.

  If they were there right now, they’d be taking one last look at the lake before they had to come back. His dad always said that: “Let’s take one last look at the lake.”

  Tripp forces his gaze back to the computer. What he needs to do is learn a new riff, a new trick. He searches YouTube until he finds a good guitar tutorial and tries to follow along with the guy, but without a guitar, he just gets more frustrated. After a minute, he stands up and yells at the top of his lungs: “I NEED A GUITAR.”

  He hears the heavy roll of his mom’s car pulling up the driveway, flicks off his laptop, closes it, and crawls into bed with the assigned short story for his English class. Edgar Allan Poe. “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

  The main character murders a guy. Tripp is hooked. The story is gothic and full of orphaned phrases that he plans to adopt:

  … hearkening to the death watches

  … all in vain

  … Villains!

  Over the wheeze of the air conditioner, he hears his mother and their neighbor Susan talking in the driveway.

  “The Slater Creek Parkway Cleanup Committee needs a chairperson, Terry; you’d be perfect,” Susan was saying. “All you have to do is sign up on the Slater site.”

  “It’s a great cause, Susan, but I don’t really have the time—”

  Susan. Susan. Susan. Do you really want a termite like Terry Broody on your cleanup committee? Tripp tunes them out and reads on.… In the story, the guy’s heart is beating so loud, he thinks it is his victim’s. A bizarre horror story. This kind of homework he doesn’t mind.

  When he is done, he stares up at the ceiling, trying to block out the sound track of his mother’s entrance into the house, the click of her heels in the kitchen.