Beige

by Cecil Castellucci

  Lake sits on the lounge chair with her big sun hat and her composition notebook, scribbling away.

  I keep on the lookout for Leo. I keep staring at his balcony. I can’t help it. Even though he never really liked me.

  I try not to cry.

  Lake starts humming and mouthing words. I watch her lips part to show perfect teeth in the form of a smile. She smiles when she’s coming up with a song.

  Garth has stopped jumping around playing with his non-muscles. I notice that he’s kind of standing there, leaning in, trying to listen to Lake’s half singing.

  I notice something else.

  Garth doesn’t have a boner anymore.

  “Is that the kind of girl you like? Lake?” I ask Garth later at the gelato store.

  “I dunno.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Well. OK. Yeah. But . . .”

  “She wasn’t flirting with you when she asked you to go up to my house to get a new pen for her.”

  “I know. I’m still making progress with her. But maybe she’ll talk to me this year at school. What do you think?”

  “Probably not,” I say. “Sorry, Garth.”

  “I wish you were going to be here,” Garth says. “You make things bearable.”

  “She wasn’t even flirting when she asked you to stop by the jam space tomorrow to help her,” I say. “She’s just using you.”

  “I know.” Garth nods to himself. “I know she doesn’t like me, and anything that I think that might be happening with her is just in my head. But at least she asked me to help at Sunset Junction.”

  I keep my mouth shut. It hits a bit too close to home. A bit too close to how I felt about Leo. Leo, who I’ve made about one hundred excuses for to explain his bad behavior. Leo, who I’ve tried to convince myself is still thinking about that night as much as I am even though he told me to my face that it meant nothing.

  “What makes her hot?” I ask. “What makes a girl like Lake hot?”

  “The way she moves. The way she looks. The way she wears her clothes,” Garth says. “The way she’s got stuff on her mind. The way she’s totally independent. The way she doesn’t want me.”

  “I wonder if I’ll ever be that hot.”

  “Sure. You are now. I mean not to me. But you know what I mean.”

  “I probably need more boobs, though. Lake has big boobs.”

  “She sure does,” Garth says kind of dreamy.

  I want to laugh at him, because he’s acting like a girl, not just looking like one. Then I do it. I open my mouth and laugh right out loud.

  “Thanks, Garth. I needed that.”

  “Hey, man,” he says, “anytime.”

  We walk back into the courtyard, and I hear laughing. My eyes glance up toward Leo’s. I see him come out on his balcony. He’s with someone. I hear giggling. He pulls a girl out onto the balcony. She’s protesting, like she doesn’t want to go out, but she kind of does.

  He looks down in the courtyard and sees me, then he pulls the girl close to him and wraps his arms around her. He sees me watching him, but I don’t let him see that it bothers me. I don’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, I smile and wave.

  I look up at my nails. Lake’s black nail polish looks good on them.

  The Sunset Junction Street Fair is today, a whole day of rides and games and booths, right in my front yard. Except I can’t explore. I said I was going to help Lake. I sit on the side of the stage and wait until Lake shows up.

  “Where’s Garth?” Lake asks.

  “I’m not his babysitter,” I say.

  “He said he’d be here.”

  “Well then, he’ll be here,” I say.

  “Go find a table and set up the stuff,” Lake says. “You have to set up the merch. That’s your job.”

  “I thought my job was lugging all your equipment.”

  “It’s called ‘loading in,’” Lake says. “That’s why I need Garth.”

  “Where is your band?” I ask.

  “They don’t do the hard work,” Lake says. “I have to make it easy for them or they won’t do stuff, like show up.”

  Right. Easy on them. Hard on me.

  I get it when I see them. The other girls are talking to boys. They aren’t interested in the nitty-gritty of being in a band. Just the glory. That’s why I helped with the flyers. That’s why I’m moving the boxes and boxes of merch.

  I am too sweaty to keep working like a dog. I’m hot and bored and tired. I didn’t want to be a mover. One of the boxes falls off the table and Lake glares at me. I throw my arms up in the air. It’s not my fault there is just too much stuff. It’s annoying.

  Garth finally skates up to us a big smile on his face, helmet firmly on his head, and an ice-cream cone in his hand.

  “Where have you been?” Lake asks. “You’re late.”

  “No, I’m not. You told me to get here at quarter of.” He lifts his wristwatch to show us that he’s on time. “Let’s get this merch organized.”

  Garth hands me his ice-cream cone, which I start eating, and he starts to prettify the merch table. He could be an interior decorator, he’s got such an artistic eye.

  The Grown-Ups get up on stage and start to sound-check. All Lake does is complain. Everything is a problem. The drums don’t sound right. Her vocals don’t sound right. Her guitar doesn’t sound right. The other girls’ backups don’t sound right.

  It all sounds fine to me. Her problem is she’s a perfectionist, maybe.

  The sun is hot, hot, hot. I am hungry and want to explore the street fair. It’s just opening up for the day, not too crowded. Not yet. I want to ride on the rides. I want to buy something cute. I might as well buy something L.A. that I can wear in Madrid.

  When Lake joins us, she’s muttering. She’s mad as hell, while the other girls in the band all hang out together on the other side of the stage, giggling. Not helping.

  “Poseurs,” Lake says.

  “What? Who?”

  “The rest of the band. They are poseurs.”

  She’s saying this to me, the biggest poseur of them all. What am I doing here?

  The fair is starting to get more crowded. Some of the people head straight for the merch table, make a beeline for me. Lake kind of pushes me and Garth out of the way and takes over, telling everyone what is what. Bullying them into buying stuff. She starts handing me the wads of cash.

  “How much is the the Grown-Ups underwear?” a boy asks.

  “Five dollars,” Lake says. She grabs the twenty out of the boy’s hand, and I quietly make change, glad for something to do.

  “Perv,” she says as he leaves. And we laugh.

  A stagehand comes over to the table and alerts Lake that it’s almost set time. Kids and adults start to gather by the stage, waiting for the Grown-Ups, which is the first band to go on.

  “Beige is in charge of the store,” Lake says to Garth. “Help her, lame-o.”

  Then she blows over to the backstage area and disappears.

  In between selling the odd piece of merch, I can observe the Junction with a purpose. My eyes scan the crowd, noticing all the kids. I see Auggie on top of The Rat’s shoulders with food all over his face. Trixie is laughing. People are having a good time.

  My eyes are drawn to someone flying out of the gated-off backstage area. It’s Lake, followed by the other girls in the band. They’re yelling. Oh, no. This is not good. Lake disappears out of my range of view and then emerges with her guitar. She then comes pushing through the crowd toward me.

  “Let’s go!” she yells.

  I’m confused. I can’t move.

  “Katy. Now. Come.”

  I don’t know why I should come with her. I don’t know what’s happened. I do know that she’s called me Katy. Not Beige.

  “Garth, stay here for me, OK?” I say.

  “Anything for you, Beige.”

  I grab my stuff and I follow her out into the crowd before she can disappear from view.

  We walk t
hree blocks through the thickening crowd and I’m practically running behind her. I want to stop for kettle corn or sausage or a papusa or an iced tea. But I can’t. I want to know what’s happened.

  “What’s going on?” I say, out of breath, finally catching up to her stride. “Aren’t you on in like fifteen minutes?”

  “I kicked those bitches out.”

  “What?”

  “They called me a friggin’ band Nazi,” Lake says. She stops walking. She looks right at me. “I just want to be good. I don’t need them. I told them they could find a new band after the show, but they bailed.”

  She sounds like a cartoon. A mad, angry cartoon. I don’t know where we are going. She sits down on the curb. She puts her head in her hands. She starts to cry. Blubbery. Sobbing. Heartbroken.

  “This was my big chance,” Lake says. “This is where it was all going to start for me.”

  If she were my friend, I might know what to say.

  Wait a minute. Lake is my friend. I do know what to say.

  I stand up.

  Who am I kidding? What I have to say is crazy.

  I sit back down. I look at Lake. Her shoulders are slumped. She looks defeated. She looks nothing like the Lake I know. Running away. Not singing. It’s so very . . . beige.

  There can’t be two of us. I take her hand in mine.

  “Come on,” I say. “You have a show to play.”

  “What? Didn’t you hear me? I have no band.”

  She just needs to know she can do it. I’m the only one who knows she can.

  “You have your guitar,” I say.

  “Play by myself? No way.”

  “Sing all your songs stripped down, like ‘Tiny Heart.’ Like you did at Skooby’s. It sounded really good,” I say.

  She shakes her head no.

  “I can’t.”

  “Are you scared?” I ask.

  Lake looks at me.

  That’s it. Lake-the-Fearless is scared. She’s not so different from me. I know all about being scared. But I also know that Lake is supposed to rock today. There’s only one thing to do. Leap to her rescue.

  “I’ll sing backup.”

  “Can you sing?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Probably not.”

  Lake’s sobbing changes to laughter. “That’s the stupidest idea ever,” she says.

  Then that little feeling I had of being sure just kind of pops, like a soap bubble. “Yeah, I know,” I say.

  “But Beige, you’re a genius!” She jumps up and grabs me.

  We run back through the street fair to the stage.

  “What’s going on?” Garth asks as we whiz by.

  “Keep minding the store,” I say. He salutes me.

  And then Lake and I climb up on the stage.

  There are a lot more people in front of us than I thought. People of all sorts. Young, old, regular, normal, punks. It’s a lot of people. I’ve never really been on stage before. I’ll be useless up here. I lied to Lake. I mean, really, who am I kidding? I can’t do this. I catch her eye. I see that she’s still scared. It’s too late to back out now. So I just nod encouragingly.

  She nods back. Looking determined. She straps her guitar on and flips a switch.

  “Hi, I’m Lake Suck, and this is my girl, Beige. And we’re here to rock.”

  People are just kind of standing around looking at us quizzically, except Garth. Garth is standing on top of the merch table, whistling and clapping.

  Oh, God. I’m going to throw up.

  I look down at the set list. The first song is “Charmer Alarm.”

  OK. I know it. I totally know it. I open my mouth at the right spots. It is weird, hearing my voice amplified by the microphone. Actually it confuses me, so I try to forget about the voice that is out there being amplified and concentrate on the one inside my head. Lake keeps singing but looks back over at me and flashes me a smile and waves for me to sing louder.

  I’m glad she doesn’t seem nervous anymore. But I am. I’m sweating bullets.

  I close my eyes for a second to situate myself. I try to listen for her guitar. It sounds almost different up on the stage. But it’s loud. OK. That’s coming from the monitor. I hear the melody. The melody that makes sense to me. I just try to remember what the other girls sang in the song. I know this. I can do this. I open my eyes and I listen for the spots that need some support. I make my voice do something just a teensy bit different at the chorus. It might not sound as good, but Lake is still singing. I hear myself in the monitor. Just breathe. Just wait. Just go. Just sing.

  When I sing the words, Lake’s words, it’s like I know her a little bit better. It makes me proud of her, that she can express herself this way. It’s like everything she can’t say like a normal person she can say in a song. And we’re singing it together.

  Then the song is done. Lake hits the chords to the next one.

  I look down at the set list. “One, Two, Three, Whore!”

  Oh, yeah. I know a good part that I can do. I can double her scream. Yeah. That’ll sound good. It’ll feel good, too.

  I just keep listening for the music to tell me where to open my mouth.

  Halfway through the set, I look up. I’m surprised to see the crowd sticking around. They are enjoying the show. They are clapping.

  There’s this kind of energy that moves between me on the stage and the people out in the crowd. It’s a flow. I feel buzzy inside. And proud, like I’m doing something right.

  I see Garth whistling from the merch booth. I see Sam Suck hooting and hollering. Trixie is in the back, smiling, kind of moving her body in time to the music with Auggie in her arms. I see The Rat standing next to her with an astonished look on his face.

  We don’t sound half bad.

  For the next song, I sing a little bit louder.

  “Wow! Just WOW!” Garth says. “That was the baddest-ass show ever!”

  “Did we sell stuff?” Lake asks.

  “Yeah,” Garth says. “People just swarmed me.”

  Sam Suck comes up to us to offer his congratulations.

  “That has a lot of potential, I think,” he says. “Lake, I think you can go a little sparser with the guitar if you don’t have the backup band.”

  “OK. OK, Dad, give me a break. I haven’t figured it out yet,” Lake says. She sounds like she’s bugged, but I know she’s not. I can tell that she’s excited. She’s thinking. She’s working it out for herself. She’s itching to keep going in this new direction. I don’t know how I can tell, except that I do.

  Maybe because I feel so good.

  The Rat grabs me from behind in a bear hug and swings me around.

  “My, my, my, my, my!” The Rat says. “My, oh, my!”

  “That was something else, Katy,” Trixie says. “I think your dad is trying to tell you that he liked it.”

  The Rat just looks at me, all beaming. All smiling. All excited. I don’t want him to make a big deal out of it. He’s making me blush.

  “How do you feel, kiddo?” he says.

  “All right,” I say. I shrug. I withhold. I’m not ready to share just yet. I need to think for a minute. Sort out my feelings.

  I still need to digest it all. I need to keep the buzz going on for a minute so I can sort it out. But I want to say, I FELT TERRIFIC! HOLY, HOLY! WHEN I WAS ON STAGE, I FELT COMPLETELY ALIVE! DO YOU FEEL THAT?

  “Cool, yeah. I could picture like a real minimal beat behind it, but you know it doesn’t need it,” The Rat says, kind of toning down his enthusiasm a bit, kind of getting that I need to reflect on what I just did up there.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything,” I say. “I was just helping Lake.”

  “Right, right,” The Rat says. But he’s still beaming. “Yeah, of course, you were helping out a friend.”

  A friend. Yes. Lake is my friend.

  The Rat doesn’t say too much more, and I’m happy about that. I just want to feel it. I’m kind of floating around while Lake is jum
ping up and down with happiness.

  “I wish you’d told me what you girls were up to,” Sam says. “Next time, I’ll record you off the soundboard so you can hear it.”

  Next time?

  Lake and I wander the booths and ride the rides and check out the crowds. There are all sorts here. All sorts. Dressed up in wigs. In leather. In rainbows. With colored eyebrows and shaved heads. I eat one of everything. I ride every ride. I sit on the curb.

  All day I bask in the glow of the after-show. It feels so good. I didn’t know it felt this good to perform. I feel ten feet tall. I feel terrific. I feel like I can conquer the world. I buy a funky orange skirt, a skirt for the new me. Lake helps me pick it out. I feel strong and a bit cocky in an I-am-Lake way.

  No. In an I-am-Beige way.

  Last on the bill is Suck. I thought it was crowded earlier, but when Suck takes the stage, it is crazy.

  Lake grabs my hand and pulls me all the way to the front so we lean forward on the stage. When Suck comes on, everyone starts screaming.

  I watch Sam as he jumps around and pushes himself off of the monitors. I watch the bass player and The Rat on the drum riser. He’s like an animal, even more explosive than at the Fourth of July party. People are screaming the lyrics. Screaming them.

  I kind of get it. I get the way they move; they are forced that way by the way the guitars chug and by the attack of the drums. You’d have to ride on the notes that way. You’d have to. I watch The Rat as he bangs away. He’s just grabbing what’s given and throwing it back out.

  I close my eyes. I’m still riding the buzz from my own show. Even though the music and words sound dangerous, I know they’re not. I wouldn’t go there. I am more interested in my heart. But I am starting to understand why they do.

  I open my eyes and see The Rat.

  There’s that connection again, a string that moves from me, to him, to his drums. I relax. I let the rhythm enter me. My body starts to sway. I bob my head in time to The Rat’s drumming.

  The Rat sees me in the crowd. He’s looking at me. He’s smiling at me. The crowd behind me, the kids, the middle-aged, the old around me, sing along. They jump and move around. They are moved by the music.

  And, in my own way, so am I.