Our Year of Maybe

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  “You’re okay with this, then?”

  “Super okay,” I say, forcing a smile. “You’re my best friend, and the party . . . I was drunk. It didn’t mean anything, right? We were probably both just curious.” I have to bite out each word.

  He hugs me, though I am stiff with cold and disappointment. Still, I don’t want him to let go. “Nothing’s going to change,” he says in a tone that he probably means to sound reassuring. “We’re going to stay exactly like we’ve always been.”

  CHAPTER 16

  PETER

  MY FIRST BAND PRACTICE IS probably the most Seattle thing that’s ever happened to me. We’re in Aziza’s basement, Dylan is wearing a Mudhoney T-shirt, and Kat’s singing about a girl who only leaves her house when it’s raining and never carries an umbrella.

  I stand frozen behind my Yamaha keyboard, fingers perched on the keys. The basement’s small and dark and low-ceilinged, our instruments crowded in one corner while Aziza’s girlfriend, Bette, watches us from a patchy gray couch.

  “Just play around on the keys,” Chase told me before practice started. “See what you come up with.”

  This song, “Precipitation,” is like Amy Winehouse crashed a Ramones show, crunchy punk guitar chords with Kat’s powerful vocals. When they get to the first chorus, I add some crunchy chords of my own. Chase glances up from his mint guitar, lifting his brows in encouragement. So I keep going, banging out chord progressions that complement his guitar. During the bridge, I slow it down, my sounds low and smooth, but I bring the piano back during the final chorus. Loud. Unforgiving.

  We don’t all end in the right place. When Aziza gives her cymbals a final smash, I quickly pull my fingers off the keys, but Chase and Dylan are still playing. Kat taps her foot impatiently, and while Dylan stops after one last bass lick, Chase is still going, fingers racing around the frets of his guitar.

  “We get it; you play guitar,” Aziza says.

  Chase grins sheepishly, as though so lost in the music he didn’t realize we’d all stopped. It’s a grin that does something pleasant to my stomach. Halloween was a week ago, and I’m still daydreaming about Chase’s handshake. It’s probably the most a person has ever thought about another person’s hand.

  “Sorry. I got really into it,” he says. He flicks his longish bangs, which drooped into his face during the solo, out of his eyes. Today he’s wearing a striped button-down, open over a vintage band tee. The Rolling Stones.

  “You guys are getting better!” says Aziza’s girlfriend from the couch. Bette is a tall blonde with skin so pale it’s nearly translucent. She’s wearing a Diamonds Are for Never T-shirt she screen-printed herself. “Or maybe that’s Peter.”

  “Definitely Peter,” Chase says, dragging the back of his hand across his damp forehead. “The keyboard sounded great.”

  Aziza nods. “I liked it.”

  “Yeah?” I say. Their words coax my mouth into an easy smile.

  “I think your style fits the sound we’re going for,” Dylan says.

  “No one wants to hear my opinion?” Bette asks.

  Aziza shakes her head, tossing around her spiral curls. “Sweets, no offense, but your favorite band is Journey.”

  “What’s wrong with Journey?”

  They all laugh as though liking Journey is exactly what’s wrong with Journey, and I make a mental note to never admit that I don’t hate “Don’t Stop Believin’.” I mean, there’s a reason everyone knows the lyrics—they’re damn catchy and fun to sing along to. These are Music People, even more so than I’ve ever considered myself a Music Person, and they clearly take it seriously.

  We take the song from the top again, but halfway through, Kat sighs into her mic and says, “Stop, stop. This is all wrong.”

  Aziza thumps her bass drum in a frustrated fashion. “I thought it sounded fine.”

  “ ‘You know that band Diamonds Are for Never? Yeah, they’re fine.’ ” Kat shakes her head. “We should strive for better than fine.”

  “Not ‘Closer to Fine’?” Bette says, and Aziza groans at the Indigo Girls reference.

  “What are you thinking, Kat?” Dylan asks.

  “Backing vocals. This song is in desperate need of them. Peter, is there any chance you can sing, too? None of these jerks can.”

  “I can, but you guys said I shouldn’t. There’s a difference,” Chase says.

  Sophie’s always made fun of my voice, so I only ever sing when I’m playing piano alone. “I’m . . . not sure.”

  “You know the chorus with the ‘whoa uh-oh’ part?” Kat says. “If you could harmonize with me, that would sound super cool.”

  “I’ll try.”

  This time I’m not afraid of the keyboard. I smash my fingers down on the chords, experiment with a few flourishes. And when it’s time for me to sing backup vocals, I follow Kat’s instructions, and it doesn’t sound awful. We try it again, and it sounds a lot better. Again, and it’s more intricate. Again, and we end at almost exactly the same time.

  “Whoa,” Dylan says. “We’ve never sounded like that before.”

  “You have a nice voice,” Chase says softly, not quite meeting my gaze. “A little uncertain, but nice. I like it.”

  That stomach flip again—both because of the music we made, and his compliment. You have a nice voice. You have a nice voice. It’ll reverberate in my mind the rest of the day.

  “We’re keeping you,” Kat decides, and I don’t dare argue with that.

  Five songs later, each played at least three times through, we’re exhausted, Bette’s bored, and we’re all ready for a break.

  “Diner food,” Kat declares, and the rest of the band cheers their agreement. To me, she explains: “It’s a band practice tradition.”

  We cram into Aziza’s van, which boasts a bumper sticker that says MUSICIANS DUET BETTER. In the back seat, Chase’s thigh touches mine for a full fifteen minutes. It’s very distracting. Aziza pulls into the parking lot of the Early Bird Diner—where Sophie’s sister works.

  Sophie and I have been here plenty of times, though not recently. We usually get waffles and pancakes and split them both. She drenches everything in syrup, I make fun of her, and she says since she’s miraculously never had a cavity, she’s living on the edge.

  Aziza, Bette, Kat, and Dylan skip inside, but Chase hangs back in the parking lot, grazing my arm with a fingertip as though asking me to hang back with him. It isn’t a handshake, but somehow the tentative uncertainty of it is better.

  “Hey. Is this all . . . okay?” He pushes his old-man glasses higher on his nose. “I don’t want it to feel like I’m throwing you into something that you’re not into.”

  “Seriously?” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m so into this.”

  He visibly relaxes, blowing out a long breath. “Good, because I don’t think the rest of them are going to let you go.”

  “I like them.” I like you, I want to say. “I sort of always wanted to be in a band. I never thought I’d get the chance. And . . . this might sound weird, but I’ve never had other queer friends.”

  “Not weird at all,” he says. “I know the feeling. Maybe—” he starts, and then sort of awkwardly stares at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe we could . . . hang out just the two of us sometime?”

  “That would . . . Yeah. Okay.” In my attempt to not sound as excited as I actually am, what comes out is a statement devoid of emotion. I clear my throat. “I mean—yes. Let’s definitely do that.”

  There’s a rapping on the window of the diner. “Come on, losers, it’s grease time!” Kat shouts.

  The Early Bird is a fifties-style diner with red vinyl booths and black-and-white-checked floors. Aziza and Bette rush over to the jukebox to fight over songs. I scan the restaurant, unreasonably anxious about the possibility of seeing Tabby here.

  I slide into a booth next to Dylan, across from Chase. Beneath the table, his shoe bumps mine.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Small booth.”

/>   But it’s not that small. And the next time it happens, he doesn’t say sorry.

  “What can I get you—oh! Peter,” Tabby says, standing in front of our table with a notepad in her hand and a very confused expression on her face.

  I feel my face flame. “Hi.”

  “Where’s Sophie?”

  “I—um—I’m not sure,” I say quietly, which doesn’t feel like the right answer.

  Tabby’s eyebrows rise, and I give her what must be a pained expression. I’m not sure what I’m worried about—that Tabby will tell her sister I was having dinner with people who aren’t her? Sophie and I didn’t have plans. I’m not doing anything wrong, being here.

  “You two know each other?” Dylan says, wagging a finger between Tabby and me. “Is there any chance of getting some free food here?”

  We order too much of everything, and Tabby throws in a free order of pancakes.

  “We should change our name,” Kat says thoughtfully between slurps of milkshake.

  Dylan catapults a fry at her. “You say that every week.”

  “You can’t change your name. Then I’d have to make a new T-shirt,” Bette says.

  “What does our new keyboardist think of the name?” Kat asks.

  “I like it.”

  Aziza thumps the table. “The name stays!”

  This entire afternoon is so strange and fantastic. In the past, I always envied groups like this, who were loud in public and laughed too much.

  Now I’m too loud. I laugh too much.

  My phone buzzes with a text from Sophie, and for a second I’m convinced Tabby told her I was here and she’s going to demand to know why I’m at the Early Bird and who I’m with.

  God I’m so nervous. I’m teaching my song to the team tomorrow. Say something to reassure me I won’t make a tremendous ass of myself?

  “So, tell us more about you, Peter,” Aziza says before I can answer Sophie’s text. My fingers itch for my phone’s keyboard. Sophie needs me right now, but everyone’s waiting for an answer.

  It occurs to me I could mention my medical history, that before this year, that would have felt like my primary defining feature. But it isn’t now, and really, it wasn’t back then, either. “Well . . . I’m a huge book nerd. I have a pet chinchilla. And . . . I can’t roll my tongue?”

  Dylan asks to see a picture of Mark—of course I have at least a hundred on my phone—and the others prove to me how unusual it is not to be able to roll your tongue by doing exactly that.

  “I’m majoring in English,” Kat says. “Who’s your favorite author?”

  “You realize that’s like asking someone who their favorite musician is.”

  “Hole.” Kat doesn’t miss a beat. “And Janet Fitch.”

  “Rufus Wainwright. And . . . is it cliché to say Salinger?”

  Kat pinches her forehead and groans. “Oh God, you and every other teenage guy who thinks they’re Holden Caulfield.”

  “I am not Holden Caulfield. Besides, I like his short stories a lot better than—”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” Kat says with a wave of her hand.

  When everyone’s immersed in a conversation about whether Pearl Jam is overrated or not, I surreptitiously pull out my phone to text Sophie back.

  God I’m so nervous. I’m teaching my song to the team tomorrow. Say something to reassure me I won’t make a tremendous ass of myself?

  Like, literally anything.

  Peter??

  The desperation of those double question marks is what gets me. I should have told the band I had to go to the bathroom, given Sophie the reassurance she needed. She gave me a kidney, and I couldn’t text her back? Feeling guilty, I thumb back a few messages, one after the other:

  I am SO sorry.

  Phone was off

  You’ll be GREAT. I have zero doubts.

  The band feels too new to tell her about yet. I want them to be solely mine for a while longer.

  Her reply comes back right away. Thanks.

  There’s something about the finality of that period. There’s a sadness to it. Maybe my response isn’t what Sophie wanted, or it didn’t sound genuine, even though I meant it. Or it wasn’t enough to make up for my silence. Punctuation is really messing with me today.

  Beneath the table, Chase’s shoe taps mine again.

  And stays there.

  A spark shoots up my spine, and my entire body feels warm. I take a huge sip of ice water in an attempt to cool down.

  “Something wrong?” Chase asks me, grinning. Subtly he runs his shoe along mine.

  I shake my head. “Nope. Everything’s great.”

  Kat and Dylan are dramatically singing along to the Bowie song Aziza picked on the jukebox. I’m trying not to make eye contact with Tabby, who’s fortunately busy enough with her other tables that she doesn’t come by ours very often.

  “Have you all been playing your instruments for forever?” I ask.

  “Playing our instruments,” Kat says with a snicker.

  “Kat.” Dylan shakes his head. “You’re the oldest. Be mature.”

  With her fingertip, Kat draws a circle on the tabletop. “Gutter.” She points inside it. “My mind.”

  “I’ve been playing bass since I was thirteen,” Dylan says. “So only a few years. Basically, I wanted to be Kim Deal. I imagine that’s how approximately eighty-five percent of people decide they want to start playing bass.”

  “And I wanted to be Meg White,” Aziza says. “Minus whatever messed-up relationship she had with Jack White.”

  “Weren’t they siblings?”

  “No. Husband and wife, I think? And he took her last name?”

  “How long have you been playing?” Dylan asks me as Kat and Chase debate the White Stripes.

  I squint, as though it’ll help me remember. “About ten years?” I say, and Dylan whistles. “But it took a while for me to realize I didn’t have to just play the classics, and then I was forever changed. I bought a book of Rufus Wainwright’s music and never looked back.”

  “Love him,” Dylan says.

  “Guys, where’s Bette?” Aziza says.

  The Bowie song stops, and the familiar opening notes of Journey’s “Separate Ways” come through the diner’s speakers. Bette stands at the jukebox with a victorious fist thrust in the air.

  CHAPTER 17

  SOPHIE

  I CLOSE MY DANCE TEAM locker and tighten my ponytail, letting out a long, shaky breath. Montana lays her hands on my shoulders.

  “You’ve got this,” she says, dark eyes boring into mine. She’s so close to my face; no one but my family and Peter has ever been close enough to see all my pores and imperfections like this. A few months ago it would have intimidated me, but now her closeness is a comfort. “We’ve been over it at least fifty times.”

  I’ve spent a couple days a week at Montana’s and sometimes Liz’s—not mine, since a screaming baby makes it hard to concentrate. It makes my life feel oddly off-kilter. Carpooling to school should be normal after Peter’s insistence that we’re going to be “exactly like we’ve always been,” but it’s been marked by strange silences and Peter’s desperation to fill them with random facts about books and obscure musicians.

  “What if no one likes it?” I ask Montana, who’s lifted her hands from my shoulders and is now jamming a few pins into her bun.

  “Then they’re off the team.” She breaks into a smile. “Kidding, but I’m positive they will. And Liz and I will be here to back you up—if Liz can part with her fictional characters for an hour.”

  On the other side of the aisle of lockers, Liz is sitting cross-legged, eyes glued to a thick book. She holds up a finger. “Five more pages.”

  “Two.” Montana pauses, then adds, “And I love you.”

  “Love you too,” Liz grumbles as she turns the page.

  “What are you reading?” I ask, and Montana groans.

  “Don’t get her started or she won’t be satisfied until you’ve read all four books
in the series—”

  “Five books, with at least two more on the way,” Liz says without looking up.

  “Yay, there’s more.”

  Liz snaps the book shut. “Queens of Night is a groundbreaking fantasy series. The main character is queer and a badass, but she’s also sensitive and soft when she needs to be. And the villain—oh my God, don’t even get me started on the villain. She’s incredible. This world is incredible.” Liz slips the book into her locker. “Anyway, this was book five, which came out last week. I’m hoping Emi Miyoshi does a tour stop in Seattle.” Rummaging in her backpack, she pulls out a worn copy of a different book. “This is book one. Want to try it?”

  I open it up to the tiniest font I’ve ever seen. “I’m, um . . .” I’m not embarrassed by my dyslexia, but I’m not sure Montana and Liz and I are at this stage of friendship yet.

  “You’re what?” Montana finishes her bun with hairspray.

  “Dyslexic,” I finish. “Peter loves to read, but . . . it can be really hard for me.”

  “They have audiobooks!” Liz says. “I’ve listened to them, and the narrator is brilliant.”

  When I assure her I’ll get the first book on audio, she beams, and a warmth blooms in my chest.

  With one final smoothing of her bun, Montana says, “Dance team practice?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s something we could do.” Liz winks at her, and Montana rolls her eyes. Their relationship has an effortlessness to it. Their teasing, I can tell, comes from a place of true affection.

  Before the transplant, Peter and I teased each other like that.

  We meet the rest of the team in the gym. Over and over, Montana has told me to be commanding, but that’s easy for her to say. Maybe it’s easier for tall people to be leaders. Right now I’m mainly terrified of the judgment: of someone telling me what I’ve poured my soul into isn’t good. There has to be nothing worse as an artist.

  “Today we’re going to learn a piece Sophie’s been choreographing,” Montana says after leading us in a warm-up, and while the team doesn’t exactly look ecstatic, they don’t look horrified, either. I take this as a good sign. “Sophie, take it away.”