“Thespians,” one of the girls repeats in a snooty voice. “We are a troupe of thespians.”
“Hello, Miss Thespian,” a boy says as he dramatically bows before her, taking her hand. “How do you do?” He kisses the back of her hand, and the two of them dissolve into laughter.
Petra says, “Got it.” She’s holding the camera and has just covertly captured their awkward little scene. They seem delighted at the thought of their mini mall-play performance appearing in the yearbook, which makes me think that, as nerds, they’re maybe a little less self-aware than they realize. In fact, they look rather over-the-top silly right now.
“Thanks, guys.” Petra gives one last look to Chuck before walking away. I give Tom a wave good-bye and move to follow her.
“Hold on, Andie.” He stops me. “I’m really curious. What were you thinking our group’s label should be?”
I look around at the zanily dressed crew. My mind swims with suggestions, but after a quick pause I look Tom straight in the eye. “I think you’re basically a collection of teenagers with eclectic tastes who have plenty in common with your peers from school, but you choose to focus on the ways you are unique.”
Tom raises his eyebrows. “Nice.” I turn to follow Petra, who’s already halfway down the mall’s main corridor, but stop when he calls after me. “And what do you call yourself, Andie?”
“Ha!” I turn and call back, “I’m a free agent.” I punch the air the way Bender does in the final scene of The Breakfast Club.
“Yes!” Tom closes his eyes and gives a big open-mouthed grin as he mimics my punch. The two of us freeze frame like that.
After a moment, the girl in the fifties pinup dress asks, “What on earth are you two doing right now?”
I break my pose and cover my mouth in laughter, but Tom holds his steady until one of his buddies takes him by the shoulders and shakes him back and forth. He finally reanimates with a laugh.
I turn and walk away, but that image of Tom’s smile framed by the camera’s lens is still burned into my brain.
When I catch up to Petra, I ask, “So, what was the deal between you and Suspenders Boy back there?”
Her blush is immediate as she holds up the camera and starts scrolling through the photos I’ve just taken. She stops on the shot of Chuck’s face as he dramatically gazes off into the middle distance, and she sighs. “Yeah, that’s Chuck. We used to be close.”
“Did you two go out? Did it end horribly? Why can you barely look at him without blushing?”
“I’m not blushing.” She turns her beet-red face to me. “And Chuck and I didn’t even speak today. How did you notice us?” she asks.
“It just seemed like he wanted to talk to you at lunch today, before Anna blew him off. And he was definitely watching you back there.”
“Wow, you’re pretty observant, Andie. Has anybody ever told you that?”
“I just sort of . . . see a lot, I guess.”
Petra puts the camera strap around her neck and lets the device drop to her waist. “You’re right. I do like Chuck.” She goes on to tell me of how she ran a fund-raiser volleyball tournament last year that Chuck helped her put together.
“It was for autism, and he has a brother with autism, which meant he really wanted to get involved.” She smiles. “He is absolutely horrible at volleyball, so he put together this team of really bad players who were just there to have a good time.”
She describes how funny it was to have all these serious teams who were organized and super competitive coming up against Chuck’s players. “They’d do crazy stuff like kick the ball and bump it off their heads, and then they’d cheer and celebrate each time they simply got it over the net.” She laughs. “I ended up joining their team just so someone could return the ball once in a while. It was hilarious the way they’d all go wild when I’d get up to serve.”
“Sounds good so far. What happened?”
Petra’s face tightens. “Anna happened,” she says. “I mean, you saw how they all acted just now. I’m not really like them, and Anna is a real take-charge person. She kyboshed things between Chuck and me before they even got started.” She sighs. “Anna hates that whole group.”
“How could anyone hate them? They’re only having fun.”
“Yeah, they like to have a little too much fun,” she says.
I widen my eyes at her. “They do drugs?”
“Gosh, no.” She gives a little chuckle. “Last year, a bunch of them started this challenge where they tried to get into as many yearbook group photos as possible.” Petra rolls her eyes. “Anna didn’t realize what they were doing, since she was in half the extracurricular activities photos herself.”
“She is quite the joiner,” I say.
“Nobody noticed all the photobombing until we were doing the layout pages, and by then it was too late.”
“So they played a little prank,” I say. “Anna can’t forbid you from seeing a guy you like over it.”
“Trust me. Anna takes the yearbook very seriously. In fact, I’m a little worried about the crappy job we’re doing here right now. The shots I got of Colton and Kaia acting all cozy will just set her off, so I’m probably going to delete them from the camera.”
“That’s silly,” I say, but Petra’s brow is furrowed with anxiety.
She says, “All we’ve really gotten so far are shots of a bunch of students clowning around at the mall. All kids Anna has grudges against.”
“Anna’s grudges seem to spread far and wide.” I don’t point out that one of her grudges could be keeping Petra from finding true love.
She turns to me. “Anna puts an incredible amount of pressure on herself to do everything perfectly. It would make her so happy if we can just find a few classmates from a different clique to photograph.”
“I’m pretty sure the goths are beneath us,” I say, and she gives me a look of surprise.
“They’re still people, Andie.”
“No! That’s not what I meant.” I let out a laugh. “I only meant that I think they’re on the floor below us. Getting tattoos. Unless it’s still too early.” I look at my phone and try to remember what time I got here with Bridget yesterday. Or maybe they only came for my sake. I picture my film reel tattoo again and smile.
Petra looks at me like I’m crazy. “What are you even talking about? Secret tattoo tunnels?” she says. “Have you been to this mall before?”
I think of cycling through with Colton, back when I thought he was the love of my life. “Once or twice,” I say. “But I have been to the basement.”
Petra’s phone buzzes, and she looks at it. “Shoot. I forgot about band practice. Did you say you play the bass?”
I laugh. “Apparently, I do today.” Petra gives me another strange look, and I add, “I mean, I’m in the early learning stages, but I’ll give it a shot.” After all, now that I know how to keep a beat, how hard can it be to march around on a football field banging a bass drum?
I text my mom that I’ll be home later. She texts back, Yay! New friends? and I start to write, Maybe, but then delete that to write, Yes I love it here!, because, hey, why not make my mom happy?
Petra asks if I want to swing by the food court to get some dinner before we go. “I’m starving,” I say. The brown goo I’ve switched to eating may not upset my stomach, but it’s less filling than authentic sustenance.
Colton and his groupies are still at the same table when we go by, and I realize he must have left the food court early back when I was with him, probably because it was clear I wasn’t enjoying myself. I can’t believe I was ever so blind to our obvious incompatibility.
As Petra and I move past his table, he stops to greet me. “Hey there, Andie, I haven’t seen you around. Hope you had a good first day.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say. “It’s been pretty ongoing.”
Kaia is watching me intently, and I want to tell her to just relax with all the jealousy already. She may seem like she’s perfect, and confident,
and perfectly confident, but I’ve come to realize she’s actually very insecure when it comes to Colton and other girls. Which is a shame.
I tell them, “Have fun together at the party tonight.” Colton gives a strange look, so I quickly add, “I mean, I’ll see you around,” and I make a dash over to the Spudz World counter where Petra’s busy ordering.
“. . . and two cheddar bacon broccoli Spudz,” she’s saying. “Three with just bacon. Oh, and cheese on those too. In fact, extra cheese on everything.” It sounds like she’s getting an insane quantity of cheesy Spudz.
“I’m not actually all that hungry,” I tell her, and she laughs.
“Anna texted me everyone’s order so we can bring dinner to the practice.” She nods toward Colton and his crew. “So, what was that all about?”
“Oh, Colton and I know each other from the movie theater this summer.”
“That’s cool,” she says, “but I’d play that down when you’re around Anna.”
“Are you afraid of Anna or something?”
“No,” Petra says, and then shrugs. “Just afraid of upsetting her.”
Once she and I are all settled in her car, surrounded by sacks of Spudz, she pulls out of the parking lot in the opposite direction of the school.
“Wait, I thought we were heading to band practice.”
“Yeah, we are. It’s in Katy’s basement. It’s the only spot with a full drum kit.”
“Oh, wow. It’s still in a kit? I’ll probably need a little help putting it together.” I’m thinking I should’ve looked up what being a bass drummer for a marching band entailed before opening my big Muppet mouth hinge about being able to play. Perhaps this isn’t a skill I can fake with a little learned rhythm.
Petra looks at me strangely. “I thought you were on bass.”
“Yup, that’s me. Can’t wait to start playing.” I press my lips together so I’ll stop speaking, since I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’ll just have to wait and see how this drum thing plays out.
chapter 14
It turns out that the whole scene of me marching around with the band as I bang on a bass drum strapped to my front is very different than how I pictured it. Especially since Petra, Anna, and a few of the other girls aren’t in marching band at all.
They’re in a rock band.
I can’t believe I’d assumed they were talking about the bass drum when in fact they meant the bass guitar.
They’re already playing in the basement when we arrive at Katy’s house, and I don’t need to know very much about music to know that they are loud.
As soon as we show up, the band yells out “Food!” in unison, and abandons their instruments to launch an attack on the bags from Spudz World.
Anna smiles at me, which is so unexpected, it’s almost unnerving. “I’m glad you joined us, Andie.”
“Um, thanks?” I look at Petra, who hands me a Spudz and a spork.
“Our band’s called Mad D Batteries.” Anna points to a guitar leaning against an amp and says, “And we’ve desperately needed a bass player.”
Uh-oh. “Right,” I say. “I can’t wait to get my hands on that guitar.”
As we all inhale our Spudz, Anna shows us the pictures she shot of the cheerleaders at practice. “They’re so gross and sweaty!” she says gleefully.
She must be good at hiding, because I never noticed her taking the photos when I was learning to be a cheerleader. But I do know how hard the girls in the photos are working. Looking at them, I can still feel it in my limbs. Their strained faces dripping with sweat aren’t exactly model perfect, but I think they look amazing.
The next thing I know, Anna is strapping the bass on me and plugging it into the amp. I know almost nothing about guitars, but I’m thinking this four-stringed one’s at least two strings easier to play than a regular guitar.
Petra sits behind the drums and starts rolling her shoulders and stretching her neck. I stand in position, holding the bass low and reminding myself I’ve played plenty of air guitar over the years. This should be a piece of cake to fake.
I look over at Anna tuning her guitar and start imitating her: strumming the strings and twisting the little knobs as if I have some idea what I’m doing. I oversell my tuning, plucking and twisting until I realize everyone is watching me.
Looking around, I stop what I’m doing and nod at the guitar in approval. There has probably never been in all of existence an instrument that is more out of tune than this guitar. One of the strings is actually hanging slack. Holding it in place before someone notices, I grin and announce, “All set.”
“Let’s rock,” Petra says from behind the drums. “I’m pretty sure you’ve heard this one.” Banging her sticks together, she counts down, and everyone launches into a song I instantly recognize.
This song has been playing everywhere and constantly for the past few years. It was basically my generation’s anthem when I was in tenth grade, and Rhonda and I even made up silly yet elaborate hand motions to the lyrics.
I’m faking my way through, mimicking a bass player in a rock band, but between my out-of-tune bass and my having no idea how to play it, the other girls gradually stop playing their instruments one by one.
Without the rest of them covering up my sound, it’s truly horrible. I freeze and realize everyone’s looking at me as if I’m shredding my bass. And not in the good way.
“That was awful,” Anna says.
“Yeah, I know. Sorry,” I say. “I’ve uh . . . never heard that song.”
Petra says, “Seriously? That song is iconic.”
“What is up with you anyway?” Anna squints at me suspiciously. “Are you messing around with us?”
I look around and try to come up with a reasonable excuse. “Actually, I ran off the road in my car and hit my head.” I start talking before I have an idea what I’m about to say. Which never ends well. “I was on my way to pick up a pineapple!” I grin as if adding in a plot point from one of my favorite movies will make my lie more believable.
The girls all stare at me. I think about what happened in Fifty First Dates. “I got amnesia and, apparently, I’ve forgotten that song . . . and how to play the bass.” I look at the guitar I’m still holding as if I don’t know how it got into my hands or even
what it is.
Finally, Katy says, “How do you know you ever played the bass?”
I nod. “Good point.”
Petra says, “Wasn’t Drew Barrymore on her way to get a pineapple in that one movie—?”
“Who’s Drew Barrymore?” I practically shout.
Anna narrows her eyes and asks, “So, you don’t have any memories from before your accident?”
I squint my face like I’m trying to remember stuff. Finally, I pretend to give up and shrug my shoulders. “Nope. It’s all gone.”
Katy widens her eyes. “Did you transfer here because you don’t know who you are or where you really belong?”
“No, my parents moved here on purpose. We moved to, um, help me recover. I kept getting freaked out when people I didn’t remember walked up to me like they knew me.” This is going worse than I imagined.
Anna hasn’t stopped studying me. “And you just forgot how to play the bass?”
I nod my head harder, willing her to believe me.
It’s clear from her expression that she doesn’t. “That’s really strange, because the part of the brain that stores long-term learned skills is in a different place than the part that would remember things like people you’ve met and songs that everyone in the English-speaking world knows.”
I give a weak laugh. “Yeah, it is strange, you know. I was actually hit on both sides of my head.” Because, hey, why not dig myself in a little deeper? “It sort of knocked back and forth.” I mime getting my head ricocheted around.
When I stop, Katy and Petra are giving me looks of pity, but I can’t tell if it’s because they believe me and feel sorry for me, or if it’s because Anna is clearly about to bust
me for lying.
A look of knowing passes over Anna’s face. It’s the second thing, I’m sure of it.
Thinking fast, I pull out my phone and hold up the screen. “Oh, look at that. It’s my mom calling. I need to go home, since my condition means I need to get to bed at, uh”—I look at my phone—“eight o’clock.”
“By all means then, you should go,” Anna tells me.
“Listen, I promise you, my brain is seriously messed up.” As the truth of that statement washes over me, I’m hit with sadness. I can feel my eyes start to sting with tears. “My whole life is like a surreal art film where the timeline is all messed up and you never know what in the world is going on.”
Anna’s smug expression falters, and Petra quickly moves around her drum set to put an arm over my shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “You seemed so super observant about things like me and Chuck.”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “It’s weird, all right.”
Katy says, “So your medium memory is extra good, but your long-term and short-term memories are shot?”
Anna puts her hands on her hips. “That is not the way the brain works, Katy.”
I shoot back at her, “We have no idea how the brain works.” And then I feel the tears spill past my lower lids, because I realize that everything around me may in reality be the same as ever, and I’m genuinely losing my mind.
Anna says, “Despite the numerous cases of amnesia on cheesy soap operas and medical dramas, the phenomenon itself is very rare.” She looks at me. “And the version you’re describing is scientifically impossible.”
“Did you forget other learned skills, like dressing yourself?” Katy asks. “Because it really doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
“It doesn’t make sense period,” Anna says.
I try to think. What I really have is some form of amnesia in reverse. I am remembering things that are impossible for me to remember, because they’re all from a day that never happens.
It’s as if I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t have amnesia.
Pretty in Punxsutawney Page 16