Beatless

by Amber L. Johnson

  He grinned. “Consignment. It’s like a yard sale every day.”

  “Right. Consignment. I love that. It’s perfect.”

  “She doesn’t use computers. Does everything by hand and calculators.”

  “Ugh. Math.” I scowled, feeling defeated.

  He tucked a piece of hair behind his ear and shrugged. “If it helps with your decision, you get a discount.”

  My face grew hot and I looked down at my feet. “Well, that’s not a huge selling point.”

  “You’re a girl. Of course it is.”

  That did make me laugh and when I’d finally collected myself, I looked up to see him leaning against the wall, still staring down at me with an intense look in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I heard you didn’t get to go to Vanderbilt. Tough break.”

  “Yeah, we couldn’t afford it. I’ll apply for a grant or something after first semester when I can prove my GPA. I’m going to Perimeter. Are you still there?”

  He nodded hastily. “Yeah.” His chin lifted towards the parking lot. “Mrs. Moore just pulled up. Good luck, Mal.” Turning quickly, he was gone. Faster than a heartbeat. Faster than the blink of an eye.

  Faster than I could say, “Thanks, Tucker.”

  ***

  I got the position much quicker than I anticipated. Apparently Mrs. Moore knew my mom and had heard through the grapevine about her job. She knew that I was stuck behind, so she’d offered me the chance to start as soon as possible. With only a few more days before the start of classes it seemed risky. I was bitter. I was still . . . looking for excuses not to do the things my Aunt was forcing me to do. But after working for a week, I figured out just how easy it was to sell other people’s things. I was trusted to close the store more often than not, and going straight from school to the shop (where I did my homework behind the counter) kept my mind off other things.

  I only had classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And I wondered if I would be able to add more on Tuesday and Thursday to accelerate my curriculum. Turns out the answer was no. You can’t just add classes a couple weeks into the semester. Apparently, that’s something I should have thought of prior to registration . . .

  It wasn’t as difficult as I thought to make conversation with the people in my classes. Most were a year younger, but I imagined that this was what Lassiter and Brooke had gone through last year. They’d been forced to make new friends and find a way to fit in, so I did, too. I mean, look how it worked out for them.

  I even saw Tucker a couple times while crossing the quad, and he waved like we were old friends.

  It was about three weeks after school started that he came by the store. I didn’t notice him at first because there wasn’t a bell at the entrance that announced shoppers. I’d asked for one, but it never happened, so I was on constant alert to the soft whoosh of the door across the welcome mat. Tucker was quiet, though. And Mrs. Moore insisted on playing an Oldies station (most of the music I’d never heard in my entire life) over some old ass speakers for the clientele.

  I was stacking records in a crate by the far wall when I heard a shuffle behind me, and right before it crashed to the ground, Tucker’s arm shot up by my face and righted them on the shelf.

  “That would have been a disaster,” he chided me, pushing by and making sure they were in place before stepping away.

  “Thanks . . . What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged and eyed the racks of clothes. “I don’t know. I got off early and figured maybe you needed a ride home.”

  “My aunt has that covered.” It was true, even if I blushed when I said it.

  He leaned against the wall and appraised me with a grin. “Yeah, I noticed she dropped you off that day.”

  I huffed and nodded. “Well, I told her I could just take my mom’s car, but she’s insisting that I learn to drive a stick and won’t let me use it because I need to start driving my own. Plus she doesn’t have a job anymore so what else is she going to do if she doesn’t drive me everywhere?”

  “That was a really complicated explanation.” He laughed. He smelled like grease and gum, a strange combination that made my stomach growl in defiance. His fingers tapped against his jeans pockets and he looked over my head at the speaker above the register. “Mrs. Moore has listened to this station the entire time I’ve known her.”

  “Nostalgia,” I responded. “It’s a debilitating old person’s disease.”

  Tucker’s eyebrows drew together and his eyes narrowed skeptically. “You don’t like it?”

  “Not particularly. My parents didn’t exactly force me to relive their glory days through their favorite mix tapes.”

  He looked appalled. “You definitely need to be schooled. You can’t appreciate music today without knowing what influenced it in the first place.”

  I stepped away and shrugged my shoulders. “Oh yeah? Are you gonna be the one to teach me about it?” It was supposed to be a joke, but the look on his face was anything but.

  “You name the time and place, Mal.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious.”

  I slipped behind the register and pulled out the till reconciliation form, noting that it was five minutes before the store closed. “I have a lot on my plate. What with classes, and my parents, and the new job.”

  Without missing a beat, he crossed the carpet to the door and leaned against it, opening it just the slightest bit. “The offer stands.”

  “Okay.”

  “We could start at The Kick. Friday.”

  “Um, I’m not going to a teen club, Tucker.”

  “You’re missing out.”

  “Doubt it.” I looked down at the paperwork, trying to fight against the heat that was creeping across my cheeks.

  “Well, in case you want to come – we’ll be going on at eight. It’s usually a full house so you might want to show up early.”

  “You’re in a band?” That made so much sense. I lifted my gaze in his direction and our eyes met for a second before he smiled like he had that day in the Waffle House parking lot. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You’ll show up,” he said with conviction. “What else do you have to do?”

  After he left, it occurred to me that he was right. What else did I have to do?

  ***

  Not wanting to appear over-eager, I asked Sam to drop me off at The Kick right at seven fifty on the dot. Ten minutes didn’t seem as early as he’d suggested. There was no need to let him think I was going to just do whatever he suggested. Even though I was. Because I had shown up.

  “You need a ride home?” Sam was eyeing the club like she actually didn’t want to leave me there.

  “Probably.”

  “I’ll be awake.” She moved in like she was going to hug me, but thought better of it, as if the people in the parking lot might see and I’d get shit for it afterwards.

  The doors leading inside the building were painted a flat black, the windows covered in what appeared to be garbage bags. My heart was beating hard at the thought of walking in, having to find a seat by myself. Feeling like an outcast once again.

  I was halfway right. The music inside was deafening, and there were at least a hundred people crammed into the small space, bent over tables, stuffed into the red cracked seats of the booths. There was a bar, but it only served soda and snacks. Most of the people were sitting doubled up on stools, ordering food and drinks while a handful were dancing on the black and white checkered floor in front of the dingy stage.

  The white tank top I’d chosen to wear glowed purple beneath the black lights and it felt too bright, like I was attracting too much attention. But not one person noticed me. I slipped effortlessly up to the bar and ordered a cherry Coke, watching as the guy behind the counter actually stirred the Coke and syrup, adding a cherry to the top before sliding it over to me and asking for three dollars. I didn’t even care that my money was supposed to go toward tires; I was so impressed I gave him a dollar
for a tip.

  I squinted and scanned the crowd for any of the new people I’d met in my classes, but no one stood out. Not like I expected many college students to be there. The Kick was mainly a high school hangout and even if there had been anyone recognizable, I was probably too shy to approach anyway. So I concentrated on drinking my soda and staring out over the bodies on the dance floor toward the stage, wondering exactly how late Tucker would be to start his show or whatever I was there for– if he was even telling the truth about it.

  And that’s when I saw him in the crowd, swaying to the music overhead, his hand cradling a drink in one palm and the other pressed against the waist of a girl who was turned around with her back to him, moving in time to the beat. He had an eyebrow raised as he appraised her, his attention divided between the girl and the guys standing to his left. All of them wore amused grins and right as she spun around to wrap her arms around his neck, he turned, lifted his drink into the air and disappeared behind the stage.

  The music started to die down and the entire crowd moved onto the floor, filling every available space, yelling and whooping in excitement. I’d never seen anything like it outside of a legit concert, and I wondered why I’d never heard of Tucker’s band before, because it seemed like everyone else within a fifty mile radius had.

  After the lights lowered, I could make out the smallest of movements behind the dirty black curtain. After a minute, it rose. On stage was an entire band made up of teenagers. I didn’t recognize any of them from our school. But there, off to the side, was Tucker holding a guitar right behind a microphone.

  After a brief hello followed by raucous applause, a stunning redhead leaned into the mic to say sweetly, “We’re The Beat.”

  The drummer hit his sticks together, called out a four count and the singer let out the loudest, most crisp note I’d ever heard. Chills ran straight up my spine and my arms broke out in gooseflesh listening to the reaction of the crowd. It was a song I’d heard on the radio before, but there was another beat – a second groove – that had been added once the other musicians started to play that pulled me from my seat to make my way through the crowd. I got maybe three people from the front, transfixed by the sound when the chorus of another song blended in and I realized that they’d done a complete mash up of two songs that I would never had thought to put together - one of my recent favorites and another that I knew from one of Sam’s favorite albums.

  Who knew Adele and The Eurythmics went together so flawlessly?

  They continued for forty five minutes, and I couldn’t move, glued to the spot as they brought the house down with their remixes, playing with such passion and intensity. They all sang, except for the drummer and the bassist – the latter rapped when a song called for it. I was floored by the lead singer’s talent. And Tucker’s voice did a weird thing to my insides. When the last song was hitting the bridge, all the instruments faded away and we were left with the lead singer’s sweet voice singing a cappella. And the entire crowd erupted.

  Something inside of me felt new – all the way to my bones. Like I’d just witnessed a life changing event. Even when the people around me began to move toward the doors, because the club closed at the state-set curfew, I couldn’t move. I was shaken.

  Tucker slipped out the side door from the stage, almost bypassing me before he stopped and backtracked to look me over. He was wearing a baseball hat that pushed the sides of his hair out in a flip above his ears, his grey t-shirt darkened from sweating under the stage lights. My mouth was clearly still hanging open because he frowned in concern. “You made it.”

  I swallowed, noting how dry my mouth was, and wishing I’d bought water or another cherry coke because I was feeling hoarse again. But this time it wasn’t from mono. “I did.”

  He grinned, looking down at the floor. “What did you think?”

  “I think it was incredible.”

  And there was that smile I’d known for so long. “You should come with us. We usually grab something to eat and head back to Berkley’s to go over the show and what we can improve on for the next one.”

  I hesitated. After all, Sam was probably waiting for my call. “My aunt should be here soon.”

  “Tell her I’ll bring you home. I know where you live.”

  It made me think about what she’d said. That maybe this year I could allow myself to branch out and take chances. Not be so worried about what other people thought. So I sent a text to Sam to let her know I would be home late.

  To which she replied, “Good.”

  Mal,

  I feel like I need to tell you that high school prepares you for the rest of your life. Even though you leave, it never really leaves you. It festers. It becomes the way we park our cars, who we eat our lunches with, who we seat to our left and right at work events such as Christmas parties or company meetings.

  I’ve seen it firsthand.

  People park their minivans in the same spot every day like they have assigned parking. Like the seats at school.

  They wait anxiously for their friends in the café to sit next to them at a huge table so that they’re part of the elite.

  Before I was occupationally emancipated, I made excuses not to go to work events because being ignored five days a week for nine hours a day was embarrassing enough, but having to own up to still being unpopular more than twenty years after graduating high school was too much to have to admit to myself, much less my betrothed.

  That’s probably why he ran off. There’s no sense sticking around and wasting your time with half of a woman when there are plenty of whole-women lying in wait. Especially ones who used to be cheerleaders in another life. They’re always the top of the Food Pyramid.

  It doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to define you.

  Don’t let it.

  Sam

  ~*~4~*~

  They let me ride in the back of the van while they talked over their performance – exactly as Tucker said they would. I guess I’d expected that they wouldn’t be as open to having a new person in their group, but they were a very different crowd than I’d been used to with my other friends. They acted like our small posse was an impenetrable force field that you were lucky enough to know.

  Berkley Trent, the lead singer, was still in high school at Shiloh. Miller Brandt was the drum captain at Brookwood. Sara McNamara, a graduate of North Gwinnett, was actually going to Perimeter, too. She was in her second year, working toward her Associates so she could concentrate on getting accepted into Juilliard. If her keyboard skills were any indication, she had nothing to worry about. The bass player was named Marcus Brennan - a music major at AIM who had graduated from Parkview.

  “All of our mortal enemies,” I’d joked to Tucker when they told me where they’d gone to school.

  Getting to know them took my mind off a lot of things – the fact that my mom was gone, the fact that my dad hardly ever called, the fact that my little group of friends, who I had spent so many years with, were suddenly too busy to talk, but not too busy to upload pictures of their new lives on Instagram. It was just like Sam had said: when the old ones left, the others moved in and filled that void that I’d been so worried about.

  I added five new friends to my cell phone and my life. I worked and Tucker would come by every once in a while under the guise that he was looking for something for his sister Eliza, but I knew better because we didn’t really carry anything a thirteen year old would want.

  The first meeting at Berkley’s mini-mansion had proven to be tense, with the critiques between all the band members becoming more accusatory than helpful. I attended two more Friday night shows, each one ending with Tucker asking if I’d like to come over and me accepting without hesitation. It was fun and they were interesting, like a dysfunctional family. We ate pizza and talked about music, watched movies in Berk’s home theater until I could hardly keep my eyes open. And then Tucker would drive me home in his old blue Ford Festiva that had clearly seen better days; but with th
e windows rolled down and his music turned up loud, it didn’t really matter. It was comfortable. No more. No less.

  The fourth time we all hung out after a night at The Kick, I could tell that something had changed. Sara and Miller were in a heated discussion about what had happened during their set, and the drummer looked like he was about to punch a wall. I tried to keep out of it, but my curiosity got the better of me and I ended up on the couch right next to them, pretending to pick green peppers off my slice.

  “You were off. It makes it difficult to play when you’re a beat behind. Or ahead.” Sara held her arms up like she was telling the truth and he just needed to admit it. “You try to go off on these solos and it doesn’t work because you don’t practice it in rehearsal so we’re all left to keep up with you while you’re trying to show off.” She blew her blonde streaked bangs out of her face and straightened her black rimmed glasses.

  Miller, a good foot taller than her, crossed his skinny arms and leaned into her face. “I’m an artist. I can’t control how it comes out.”

  Tucker piped up. “You’re part of a band. Not a solo act.”

  The glare that came out of Miller’s brown eyes made me shrink back, thinking that the two would end up punching one another in their respective faces. But they were locked in a staring contest instead.

  Berkley sat back in a large leather chair by the television and watched patiently. Marcus was perched on the couch next to me, completely enthralled, rubbing his calloused fingers together nervously.

  “I can’t do this anymore. You’re always blaming me for everything, and honestly? It’s not even worth it.” Miller shrugged and leaned over to pick up the drum sticks he’d laid on the table. “I’m out.”

  In silence, we all watched as he walked to the door without another word and effectively quit the band.

  “Well, that went well,” Tucker muttered, sinking down onto the couch next to me. “I don’t know of another drummer that could learn our stuff fast enough to play our next gig. We’re so screwed.”