by Sarah Moon
That night, Ty checks us in and then tells us to go outside. We all look confused. “It’s a ritual,” he says. “The night before the big show, we go have primal scream to get all the nerves out.” I look at Spike, and she says, “Don’t worry, it’s fun.”
In the middle of campus, halfway between Heart and ESG, there’s a flagpole with a big circular driveway around it. The whole camp is there, forming a circle in the driveway. As more and more girls join, everyone begins to hold hands. Lara and Tanasia find us; Tanasia takes my hand, Lara takes Spike’s, and a minute or so later, the whole camp is joined together.
“Okay,” says Kendra, standing in the middle by the flagpole. “You’ve all worked very hard. You’ve spent this last month trying to find your voices, learning instruments that you’d never seen just four weeks ago. You’ve taken strangers and made them your bandmates, made them your sisters.” Squeezes from Tanasia and Lara on each side of me. “You have been fearless and brave and silly and curious. You have said maybe when everything in you wanted to say no. I’ve watched each and every one of you embrace your fierce, loving, rocking self, and I couldn’t be more proud. And I know you couldn’t be more nervous. But tomorrow is just another day. You’ve done all the work already. The hardest part is over. Whatever happens tomorrow, you are rock stars, you are heroes, and I am so lucky to know you. And you are so lucky to know each other.” I squeeze back. “Tonight, I want you to let go of all of it. Let go of the nerves and the what-will-they-think, let go of any voices of perfectionism or criticism. We’re going to open our mouths and scream because not everyone can make that kind of noise, but we can. And so we must. One … two … three … ”
We hold hands tighter and straighten our arms all the way down. Like we could take off. Like one big mouth, we breathe in, open up, and let it all out. It feels like everything muddy, difficult, and dark inside me is coming up and out. I feel a flutter through my chest as it rises, and a force as it flies out of my mouth. Lara is screaming and smiling at the same time. I think I see a tear in the corners of Spike’s eyes. They’re closed and her face is red and it’s like the scream is coming up from the very bottom of her insides. We all stop, as if by magic, at the same time. All our demons let loose into the night air, carried up to the stars that we can see so clearly here.
“I love you guys. Eat ’em up tomorrow. Now get some sleep.” With that, Kendra dismisses us back to our dorms. Spike and I hug Lara and Tanasia, and we all say, “See you tomorrow,” and even though my voice trembles a little bit at the word tomorrow, we put our hands in for a group high five.
Back on the hall, after Ty checks us in again, Spike and I both sit on her messy, unmade bed.
“You love primal scream, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah. It’s always my favorite part.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Were you crying?”
“Maybe. The end of camp is rough.”
“Why?”
Spike sighs and looks at her dirty sneakers, which she’s still wearing, which I try not to think about because—gross.
“It’s hard. Going back is hard. Eleven months until I get to be here again. Until I get to have friends again.”
“You don’t have friends at home?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“But you have so many friends here!”
“I’ve known people here for a long time. You guys are my closest friends, though.”
“I don’t have any friends at home either, but that’s not much of a surprise.”
“You do now. You have Tanasia. You’re lucky.”
“That’s true. She’ll be the first.”
“I don’t have a Tanasia. I have stupid boys who spit on me when I’m walking down the stairs. I have girls who leave the locker room when I walk in it. And if I’m really lucky, I’ll have Derek again this year.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm.
“Who’s Derek?”
“He’s the kid in my class, in three of my classes actually, who sat behind me and whispered the word ‘dyke’ at me every single day for forty-five minutes all of last year.”
“Did you complain?”
“I did. They told me that if it were true, a teacher would intervene. It just sucks.” Spike looks defeated. She looks so small to me, this girl with the big voice and the big personality.
“I wish I could go with you,” I tell her.
She smiles, resigned. “I wish you could too.”
“You can come visit—come to school with me and Tanasia for a day. We’ll take you around Brooklyn.”
She nods. “I’d like that.”
“Can I ask you another question?”
“Yeah.”
“Why Spike? I mean, is that what your parents named you?”
“No, they named me something that wasn’t going to help.”
“How do you mean help?’
“Think about it this way: You’re me, right? You’re this gay kid in this tiny town, people want to mess with you. The whole point is that you need to be tough to keep people from messing with you. You need a name that will at least try to keep them away. Rosie wasn’t doing it for me.”
“Your name is ROSIE?”
“It is. Or it was, until I went with Spike.”
I nod. “The thorns instead of the flower.”
“Exactly. We’ve all got our ways of keeping people out, right? Want to play something?” She hands me a guitar and teaches me a few chords. She sings and I play until we fall asleep, shoes on, lights on, sitting upright on her bed.
The sound of Nina singing “Here Comes the Sun” wakes us up in the morning. We blink our eyes, and I look down at the guitar on my lap. The lights are on.
“Guess we fell asleep,” I say.
“Yeah.” She sounds like a talking frog.
“Whoa, Spike, your voice is so hoarse. Let’s get you some water.” We get up and go into the bathroom and brush our teeth. I can’t help but feel just a little proud of myself for finally getting myself in here with everyone, even if it is the last day. After we shower, we get dressed and sit in the hall to wait for Ty and the morning sing.
Spike’s eyes are closed, and she seems less than her usual excited self. This morning, Ty has us sing a cappella. “I know you know it by now,” he says with a smile. “Let’s give it up for Nina.” And we sing, and there’s this knocking in my chest—the reality that when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t be sitting with all of these people, Ty won’t be DJing my morning, Spike won’t be sitting here rocking her head from side to side, smiling. Wait. Why isn’t she singing?
As song ends, I elbow her in the ribs. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I have some bad news, Sparrow.”
My heart sinks. She doesn’t need to tell me the news, it’s in her voice—the voice that has gone from froggy to hoarse to barely audible just in the course of the hour we’ve been up. It’s seven thirty. The show starts at twelve. We are so, so, so completely screwed.
We go to in Heart and wait for Lara and Tanasia. They sit down with their breakfasts, waffles all around. Lara looks at hers lovingly; it’ll be a long time until she sees a waffle again.
“Guys, I’m not ready to go back to food prison,” she says.
“It’s so unfair,” says Tanasia. “I’ll mail you cookies.”
“We have a big problem,” I say. “Has no one noticed that someone here is unusually quiet?” I gesture to Spike, who’s miserably poking her oatmeal.
“I lost my voice,” she mouths.
“What?” Lara looks up from her soon to be long-lost waffles.
“Spike lost her voice,” I say. “What are we going to do?”
“Let’s go find Ren,” says Tanasia. As if she could tell we needed her, Ren is just finishing in the breakfast line.
“Go get her!” My heart is beating too fast for this early in the morning.
Ren walks over with Tanasia. She doesn’t look as alarme
d as she should. “Listen, guys, this is a rough break. And, Spike, I’m really sorry. I know how hard you’ve worked. But it happens sometimes. Particularly when you scream your face off and then sing all night long before a show.” Spike blushes. “But listen, the show must go on. Figure it out, guys.” She heads over to the counselors’ table and digs into her waffles without a care in the world.
“Okay, what are we going to do?” asks Lara.
“We could just do the instrumentals,” I say.
“I think that’ll be lame,” says Tanasia.
“Why don’t you sing, Tanasia? You have a great voice.”
“I can’t. I don’t know the melody well enough. I sing harmony, remember?”
“Well, I can’t do it,” says Lara. “I have enough on my plate just making sure my arms and legs are moving in time. I know there are people who can drum and sing at the same time, but I’m not one of them.” She concocts the world’s best bite of waffle (small corner, slice of strawberry, single blueberry, drizzle of syrup) and forks it. We go around and around, and don’t notice that Spike has dug a pen and a pad out of nowhere and is pointing at it.
Sparrow does it, it reads.
“Like hell I do, Spike.”
“Honestly, Sparrow, I don’t know what else we can do,” says Lara.
“Have you met me? There’s no way. I’d die.”
“You won’t die, and we can’t do it without you.”
“Sparrow, the band needs you. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it, but there’s nothing else to do,” Tanasia says.
“There has to be something else. I can’t.”
“Come on, Sparrow. It’s not like you don’t know the damn song. After all, you wrote it.”
“We all wrote it.” I shoot Tanasia a look like, What are you talking about?
“Yeah, but only one of us wrote the first three lines. It’s your song, Sparrow.”
“I can’t.” My legs push my chair out and don’t let me stop until I’m far away from Heart, from ESG, from Nina, and from the Boom Chachalacas. The bench behind Heart will be full of smoking counselors by now. I run and keep running until I find myself at Narnia.
Narnia is a weird patch of pine trees in the middle of an empty field behind the gym that we don’t use. It was Lara who named it Narnia the first time we saw it. I think of the story, of the kids who disappear into a closet and find themselves in a different land. Sounds like a good deal to me. In Narnia, no one expects you to sing in front of hundreds of people like it’s no big deal.
I pull up my hood and lie down on the pine needles. I’m waiting. For what? Birds? I guess. I watch them hopping from branch to branch above me, indifferent. There’s not going to be any swoop swoop in my chest, my eyes won’t grow small and round, my arms won’t lift me up and out, wide and feathered. I am not about to become anything I’m not.
I watch the sky move against the branches, watch the waxwings above me move easily from limb to limb. The world feels quiet and almost as far away as I wish it were. I stare up and up and wait. Wait to be far away from here. Wait to stop caring about what happens to the band. Wait to stop feeling my heart try to escape from my chest.
I think about Dr. K and how disappointed she’ll be. She told me to enjoy this day, not to hide in the bushes. The thought of enjoying this day makes me laugh. How could anyone enjoy this? Enjoy feeling terrified? Enjoy disappointing their friends? Oh, God, and it’s not just friends; Mom is on her way up here with Aunt Joan and Curtis, and it’s going to be the same as always—sorry, everyone, Sparrow is too crazy to pretend to be a normal person today, show’s over. Mom will worry about me, make me switch from Dr. Katz. She’ll probably send me to boarding school for crazy, friendless children.
I can hear the little kids warming up. Kendra must have asked them if they’re ready to rock, because even from Narnia I can hear the sound of twenty-five eight-year-olds screaming “YEAH!” The weight on my chest grows heavier. I would love to be able to get up there, to show up for the girls who have been like family to me this last month. But I don’t know how. I think about Spike and how brave she is just being herself every single day, about how Lara’s gentleness, which I always think will make her seem weak, only ever seems to make her stronger, and about Tanasia, who has seen me so clearly even when I wanted nothing more than to be invisible. I think about Ty coming to find me that night in the studio, how worried he was, and how relieved. I think about Nina.
Tears roll down my cheeks. I won’t see these people after today. I won’t have Ty telling me to open my mouth and let people know me. I won’t get to see Lara take delight in all things carbohydrate. I won’t get to see Spike in her boxers and undershirt, shaking her bedhead and greeting the day like a Golden Retriever. I won’t get to sit in a room and play bass until my hands hurt. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to miss this. I don’t want to spend the last day hiding from the people who make my heart hurt with how much they give me.
With every waxwing that comes and goes overhead, I think, Dr. K, Mom, Aunt Joan, Curtis, Spike, Tanasia, Lara, Ren, Ty. They fill up the space under the trees, the space between me and the rest of the world. Maybe they’re what I’ve been waiting for this whole time. They’re not coming, though. If I want them, I’m going to need to figure out how to get up. I can hear the notes from the sound check, the little kids trying out their jams before their parents come. I think of the Boom Chachalacas, how hard it was for us to come together, how hard we’ve worked, how it was that we ever became friends. It doesn’t seem right to screw them out of a chance to perform just because I’m more scared than I have ever been in my life. It’s funny. I’ve woken up in a hospital with an IV coming out of my arm, but this is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.
“Sparrow! Sparrow!” I hear Lara and Tanasia calling my name in the distance, and their voices get fainter each time. They’re headed in the wrong direction. I think of how Chocolate looked for me, how good it felt to be wanted, to know that someone thought it wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t there. And when I put my hand out for Chocolate’s, she taught me how to fly. I keep waiting to feel ready to get up, and then it hits me—I’m not going to be ready. I’m going to have to do this without being ready.
When I come out from under the trees, the world looks the same, which surprises me. The sun should be brighter or maybe clouded over. Ty should be roaming the grounds with a concerned look on his face. Maybe a stray dog should be wandering by, or a toucan. Something to let me know that things are different than they were when I was in Narnia.
I run up to the performance tent they’ve set up next to ESG. Spike, Tanasia, and Lara are waiting anxiously backstage. I feel terrible for what I’ve put them through.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, out of breath. I say it over and over, tears pouring down my cheeks.
“It’s okay,” says Lara. Tanasia hugs me. Spike gives me a thumbs-up.
“Listen,” says Tanasia, “I didn’t mean to blow up your spot like that, about your poem—”
“You’ve found our prodigal Sparrow!” Ty cries as he walks over. “This is a bad habit you’ve got, girl.” He puts his hand on my shoulder.
“You’re here now,” says Ren, “and you guys are next.”
I peek around the curtain at the sea of people. “Cool,” I say, “I just have to go throw up real quick.” Spike puts her hand in mine and squeezes. She shakes her head. “You’ll be fine,” she croaks. She passes me my makeshift tuxedo, and before I know it, Ren is passing me the bass with one hand, and pushing me onstage with the other.
“Go love them fiercely,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s talking about the audience or the band, but before I have time to think about it, Lara’s drums start, Tanasia’s guitar starts, I’m playing too, but I just can’t open my mouth. Lara and Tanasia aren’t budging; they’re just repeating the first couple of measures over and over again. I get the feeling they’ll do it all day until I start singing. I see Spike in the front row
. She nods at me with the beat. She smiles. She doesn’t say, Come on or What the hell is wrong with you? She just smiles and nods until my mouth finds its way open. I’m feeling restless, reckless; it all comes easy after that. I hear Tanasia’s voice mix with mine. Lara is killing it at the drums. I remember the day we all played together for the first time, the magic that lives in the four of us together. My voice isn’t strong at first but it gets stronger and stronger. The beat is in my sneakers, in my hands on the strings, in my voice through the speakers. At the last chorus, the audience joins in. Their voices lift me up, my limbs go light, a familiar but totally different swoop swoop inside me. I’ve never flown this way before.
Live in the flesh, Sparrow the rock star!”
It’s been so long since I’ve been in the actual office that it seems smaller now. I sit in my seat, really her seat, and the windows seem shorter. Even Dr. K in her purple Nikes doesn’t seem quite as tall.
“It’s weird to be here. I can’t believe I’m back.”
“Do you miss camp?”
“A lot. And nothing feels normal. At home, even here. It’s like nothing is different except me and now I don’t feel like I fit into any of the places I fit into before.”
“What does it feel like here?”
“Everything seems smaller. Like the set of an office for a TV show, not the real office. This place always felt so big to me. I remember asking you to switch seats with me way back, and now even the sky looks small.”
“Follow me.”
I have no idea where we’re going, but I’m following her because—well, because why not? It can’t be worse than sitting in the used-to-be-everything-I-needed office feeling like it can’t hold me anymore.
We walk out past the lilac trim and the off-white walls, past the old New Yorkers and out the door. We walk down the yellow hall with the industrial carpet, that factory gray, past the shiny elevators, and through a heavy door to the stairwell. When we start walking up, I realize where we’re going. I can’t believe it. Seventeenth floor. This building has twenty-three. We pass eighteen, nineteen, twenty; I’m out of breath more because I’m surprised at her than because of the stairs. We pass twenty-three and come to the last step of the staircase, the one that meets with a cold metal door that says Tenants Only, and she takes out a key and here we are.