Miles comes out of the fitting room in a pair of brown cords and a paisley shirt. He manages to look like a young Lenny Kravitz and the ghost of Jimi Hendrix at the same time.
“I’m totally performing barefoot,” he says, admiring his reflection in the large gilded mirror.
“Live your dreams, kid,” I tell him. I’ve decided on the zebra leggings, a men’s black shirt that goes down to my knees, and a child’s double-breasted waistcoat that I can barely do up. It’s lime green and has bumblebees on the buttons! I’m going to wear my biker boots with the outfit, I think. Docs would be too predictable.
After we pay, Miles and I search for Jacob and Tamara. We find Jacob standing outside the fitting rooms in the back of the store. He’s wearing a surprisingly well-fitting men’s suit and looking pretty much like one of the Beatles. Which is excellent in every possible way.
“Where’s Tamara?” I ask. Jacob points toward a closed fitting-room door. I have a flashback to the day I tried to shop with her, when nothing fit and everything made her look sad. I hope we’re not facing a repeat.
“When are you coming out?” Jacob says to the door.
“I’m not sure about the dress,” Tamara says. “I kind of had to squeeze into it.”
Jacob grins. “The best dresses always have to be squeezed into.”
“Jacob!”
He looks at me innocently. “What? It’s true!”
“Okay, I’m coming out,” Tamara says.
I actually hold my breath as the door opens.
Ever have one of those moments when you suddenly see the universe as a friendly, supportive haven instead of a hostile and confusing maze of dark tunnels and dead ends? Seeing Tamara in that dress is like that. She looks A-MA-ZING! She is definitely squeezed into the dress up top, and her boobs are framed in wild waves of ruffles. The skirt is gathered and full and cloudy-looking, like cotton candy. She’s wearing it over black tights, with green Chucks on her feet. The dark pink of the dress, her pale skin and fair hair, which she’s bunched into a pair of spiky pigtails, all work together to create an arty, rocky, sexy hipster look that I could never in a million years pull off.
I turn to look at the boys, to see their reactions. Miles is grinning and clapping. Jacob’s face is bright red, his mouth hanging open. I’m calling that a win.
“How do you feel?” I ask Tamara as she considers her reflection.
She takes her time answering, even swirls in the dress, before offering her assessment.
“I feel like a star,” she says. “An exploding pink star.”
“You mean in a good way, right?”
Tamara doesn’t answer. She just ducks back into the fitting room and grabs her purse.
Five minutes later, when we all leave the store, Tamara is still wearing the dress.
* * *
When we get back to town, Mom drops us at Mitchell Music, our only store that sells musical instruments. The staff used to be mad-conservative, classical-only jerks who sneered at kids like us if we didn’t buy something straight away. But recently the store got a new manager, a cool Jamaican guy with dreadlocks and a wicked accent. He’s a lot more tolerant. And, perhaps not coincidentally, there are now a lot more girls in the store whenever I drop in.
I need some drumsticks, and the boys need strings. Tamara comes along to peruse the sheet music. I guess we’ve been having such a magical shopping day, we don’t want it to end.
Mitchell Music has a great selection of used guitars, which the boys dive into without so much as a see-you-later. I’d love to try the drum set on display, but that might be a bit antisocial. Instead, Tamara and I head into the sheet-music part of the store.
“I want to learn an aria,” she says, flipping through the classical-vocals section. “Actually, I might do a tenor aria. ‘Nessun Dorma,’ maybe.”
Always with the contradictions, this girl. I love it.
“Tammy? Oh my god!” a sickly sweet voice says behind us. I turn around just as four girls dive onto Tamara and smother her in air kisses and squealy girl hugs. Once they step back, I recognize them. They’re the remaining members of Fantalicious, all four of them in booty shorts, tight cartoon T-shirts and way too much makeup. They look like they should time-travel back to the nineties and dance in a Britney Spears video.
Tamara introduces me, and the Fants are a little too friendly as they look me up and down.
“OMG, I totally used to do karate with you, Stella,” says one of them. “You don’t recognize me?”
“Did you kick me really hard in the head the last time you saw me? Maybe that’s why I can’t place you,” I say, which makes them all squeal with laughter.
Tamara catches my eye, her eyebrow raised. “What are you guys doing here?” she asks.
Karate Girl answers. “We’re looking for a song to cover for the Parkland Summer Music Festival auditions.”
Another girl finishes her thought. “We think a cover will be a more popular choice. Apparently the judges are super conservative this year. Petra said even the Dixie Chicks would be too radical! Can you imagine?”
“What are you doing here, Tammy?” a third girl asks.
I begin to feel like we’re having a conversation with some hideous four-headed beast.
Tamara hesitates. “I’m just looking at arias. I thought I’d try to learn one.”
“Opera?” Karate Girl says. “Well, you know what they say about opera.”
It’s like watching a child fall down and knock her teeth out. Like you reach out to try to stop it, but you can’t, even though it seems to be happening in slow motion. On cue, one of the other girls snorts.
“Yeah, it’s not over until the fat lady sings.”
Wow. Tamara is many things that these girls aren’t, not the least of which is dignified. She just turns and looks down at the selection of arias as though the last five minutes didn’t even happen. Maybe she’s thinking how she would mop the floor with all of them in a real singing competition if it ever came to that. Maybe she’s just trying to keep from crying or punching one of them in her frosty-pink mouth.
As for me, I don’t care about dignity. “You know what they say about trashy pop music?” I ask the four girls, noting with some satisfaction that they all look vaguely mortified. “It’s not over until the cheap skank sings.”
Then I grab Tamara’s hand and drag her back toward the guitar section.
“Thanks,” she says, giving my hand a squeeze.
“Believe me, it was my pleasure. Are you okay?”
“I’m fabulous,” she says. “I’m a pink exploding star, and the singer in the best band since Sonic Youth.”
The boys are having a little jam session when we get there. I look at the manager with a pleading expression, and he just rolls his eyes and shrugs. The display drum set is pretty sweet. It has Zildjian cymbals and a wicked run of toms that I’m itching to try out. I dig my drumsticks out of my backpack and start a simple rhythm to go with Miles and Jacob’s jam. When Tamara plugs a microphone into the little pa, the boys automatically bust into her song, “The Alien.” But she doesn’t sing along.
“Wait!” she says into the microphone. Everyone in the store, including the Fants, who are still skulking around in the sheet music, turns to look at us. “Let’s do the new one. Stella’s song.”
Oh, crap. My “love” song. We’ve only practiced it a few times since Nate blabbed about it to Tamara. To be honest, her voice makes it all kinds of sweet. Like sweet-love-song sweet AND sweet-edgy-moody-dark-and-broody sweet. That’s the miracle of Tamara Donnelly.
I take a deep breath and count us in. “One, two, one two three four.”
The song is basically an answer to Tamara’s “The Alien.” Where she wrote about feeling isolated and unworthy of someone who might love her, I wrote about how it feels when you finally meet that one person who seems to get you just as you are. The day I wrote it, I thought maybe it might be about Nate, which is mortifying beyond all measures of mortificati
on. But as Tamara sings the opening lines, I begin to think that maybe I was writing about her. I mean, not in a romance way or anything, because I’m pretty sure I prefer boys. And I’m pretty sure Tamara does too. But she does get me better than almost anyone I’ve ever met.
A small crowd starts to gather around us as the song builds. Tamara comes around the back of the drums and stands beside me as she starts the chorus. She leans down to share the microphone with me. Without even thinking about it, I add a harmony to the chorus. Not only are the notes I randomly add amazing—all minor and introspective-sounding—but my voice comes from somewhere deep inside me that I didn’t even know existed. I don’t sound like a scared little girl. I sound like a woman. Miles and Jacob actually turn around, looking at us with their eyes bugging out.
I’ll never be a singer like Tamara. I don’t even want to be. But singing harmony with her in front of all these people, without squeaking like a mouse, running out of steam or just generally freaking out? It’s for real just about the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t even care about the music festival right now.
Watching the Fantasy Lickers sneak out with their skinny tails between their legs doesn’t hurt either.
Eleven
It’s audition day, and I’m not nervous, not one little bit.
Yeah. Right. I’m not a liar pants on fire either.
There’s a band playing that is doing the very Shania Twain song I caught Jacob and Tamara practicing three weeks ago. And they’re good too. The guitarist takes a solo in the bridge that makes Jacob bite down on the guitar pick in his mouth.
“That’s all skill and no spirit,” Tamara says, patting his knee. “Anyone can copy a solo. Your solos are pure creative genius.” She lets her hand linger on his knee for a few extra seconds. Jacob blushes to the tips of his ears. Miles, oblivious, tunes his bass with his headphones on.
We’re tucked into a corner in the hallway outside the audition room. The festival organizers booked a large reception room in one of the business hotels. We all turned up at dawn and got a number. Now each act is waiting its turn out in the halls. Some in groups. Some by themselves. Some being fussed over by wild-eyed stage moms. It’s just like American Idol but with fewer cameras.
So far I’ve been surprised by the quality of the acts auditioning. None of them are playing the kind of music I like, but there are some talented musicians around here. I guess I never opened my eyes and ears to that before.
The Shania Twain act finishes its song, and silence once again descends on the hallway. One of the organizers pokes his head out the door.
“Fantalicious?” he says. “FANTALICIOUS?”
Four girls in tight dresses appear around the corner, teetering on their high heels as they rush to the door.
“You’re on deck. Wait here and come in when this next song ends.”
Great. Now they’re standing five feet away from us while the act before them plays. The opening chords to “Viva la Vida” pulse through the thick wooden door.
“God help us,” Tamara says. “I am so sick of this song.”
“What song are you guys doing?” one of the Fants asks. It might be the girl I did karate with. They have all sort of blended into one, so it’s hard to tell. They’re wearing silver dresses with fishnet tights and high-heeled red Mary Janes over turquoise knee-high socks. I’m not sure if they are hoping to blind the judges or planning for an alien invasion.
“We’re doing an original,” Tamara answers lightly, as though these girls are decent human beings deserving of respect and not stuck-up brats. “I wrote the lyrics and the band wrote the music.”
The Fants exchange a look. “We’re doing a Kelly Clarkson song,” one of them says, even though no one asked. “One of the judges went to her concert in Winnipeg last month. She tweeted about it. Petra researched them all.”
I am so tempted at that moment to lie, to tell them that Tamara and I both had affairs with Chad Banner or something equally implausible, that I actually feel it like a blob of gum stuck in my throat. As usual, Tamara rescues me from myself.
“That’s clever. Well, good luck with it,” she says.
I get the feeling the Fants are a little disappointed by Tamara’s reaction. They stand around looking ridiculous for the rest of the song, which, mercifully, ends after only three verses. Someone holds the door open and they disappear inside.
“Kelly Clarkson?” I say. “Ew.”
“I like her,” Tamara says with a smile. “At any rate, I’m glad they picked her. She’s got a killer voice, and none of those girls can live up to her standards. So I can sit here and feel smug while they suck.”
Jeez. Tamara has a nasty side. I like it.
We stop talking. The boys stop tuning. I don’t know why, but I think we’re all waiting to hear what Fantalicious will sound like. It’s weird, too, because it’s not like they’re our competition or anything. I mean, it’s totally possible that we’ll both get chosen for the festival, right?
Then I get nervous again, because what if Fantalicious is actually good? Maybe they grew souls or something and can actually perform decent music. I’m sitting here wanting them to suck because that might be the final cherry on the cake I’ve been building to feed Tamara’s self-esteem. She wants to hear them fail. I want to hear them fail. But I’m not sure hearing someone else fail is a good way of feeding self-esteem. Just like cakes with cherries on top of them taste good but aren’t all that good for you.
The music starts inside the audition room. It’s “Already Gone,” a super-schmaltzy song, but one that definitely needs a good singer. Tamara turns her ear toward the door as one of the Fants starts singing.
“Remember all the things we wanted…”
Crap. She sounds pretty good.
I watch Tamara’s face. She has a little frown of concentration. Not upset or anything, but she definitely notices the singer’s voice.
“Hmm, someone’s been taking lessons,” she says. “I wonder who her teacher is.”
“You’re better than her,” I say automatically. It’s true and everything, but I say it without even thinking.
Tamara tilts her head at me with a little smile. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “But who cares? This is all a popularity contest anyway.”
That takes a second to process. “What, you mean this contest is? Like, this audition?”
“This business, Stella. At the end of the day, talent only gets you so far. Sometimes you don’t even need talent. Plenty of crappy millionaire performers out there.”
I stare at her in her pink dress and pigtails, sitting cross-legged like some kind of froufrou mountain sage. Miles and Jacob have wandered down the corridor and are now fighting with the snack machine.
“So what’s the point, then?” I ask Tamara. “What are we doing this all for, trying to be so good and so genuine, if none of it matters?”
Tamara looks at me for a few seconds and I realize that Fantalicious has finished their song. I hear them giggling before they all spill back into the hallway, clinging to each other and ignoring us as they wobble off. Their shiny silver butts disappear around the corner just as the next act begins its song inside the audition room. “Viva la Vida.” Again.
“The music matters, Stella,” Tamara says firmly. “You’re the one who made me think about the music again. I got so twisted about the Fants and screaming tweens that I forgot it’s the music that matters. Don’t we just do this because it feels good?”
“I guess. Yeah.”
“Well then. Take it from me, screaming tweens get real tiring after a while.”
A head pops out of the audition room. I blink at it a few times before I realize it’s Chad Banner.
“Stella Wing,” he says. “I’m so glad to see you here.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be judging?” Tamara says, giving him a little shove with her sneakered foot.
“Nah, I can’t stand Coldplay. I’ve rescued myself.”
Tamara
and I both stifle laughs.
“Listen,” Chad goes on. “You guys are on deck. Come on in and wait at the back, okay?”
Tamara jumps up and jogs down to the snack machine to muster the boys.
“Nervous?” Chad says as we wait for them to come back.
“Not really,” I say and am surprised to realize it’s not a lie. “I mean, I don’t think the selectors will like our style, so we’re just going to…” Not sure what. Maybe something that can’t be articulated.
“Have fun?” Chad offers.
“Bigger than that,” I say. “Be real.”
Chad grins so widely that his bright white teeth nearly blind me. “Right on,” he says, holding the door for us as Tamara and the boys run back from the end of the hall. I follow them into the audition room and Chad steps in behind me, letting the door swing closed. He ushers us to some chairs by the door.
“Give ’em hell, kid,” he whispers before turning to head back to the selectors’ table. Then he stops. “Oh, I nearly forgot. You didn’t fill in a band name on your entry form. You want me to add it?”
“Sure,” I say, giving Tamara a wink. “We’re called the Frail Days.”
Twelve
Waiting to hear the results of our audition is like torture dreamed up just for me. As the weeks roll by, we try to keep rehearsing in the studio as though nothing big is hanging over our heads, but it’s hopeless. We keep stopping in the middle of songs because one of us thinks we hear a phone ring. And we used to have a strict phones-off rule for rehearsals, but that’s out the window, I guess.
Tamara and I have been hanging out almost every day, writing songs and talking about music. This morning, it’s so hot in my room that we dare each other to put on swimsuits and go to the pool. I change into board shorts with skulls on them and a sports bra thing. Tamara stops by her house to put on a frilly little skirt suit that makes her look like Betty Boop. The pool is packed with tanned teenage boys who keep looking over at us and nudging each other. What’s that about anyway? Okay, so maybe we look ridiculous and my knees are getting sunburned, but it’s fun.
Frail Days Page 6