Five Flavors of Dumb

by Antony John

  CHAPTER 29

  Everyone stopped talking as soon as I walked into the dining room.

  “Where have you been?” demanded Mom.

  I hesitated. “Kurt Cobain’s house.”

  “Yes, Finn told me that. I mean, what were you doing at Kurt Cobain’s house when you should have been here for dinner?”

  I was about to mention the e-mail from ZARKINFIB, but I could tell that Mom wouldn’t consider that an acceptable explanation right now. “Kallie said it would be . . . illuminating.”

  Mom rolled her eyes. “Oh, great. So air-guitarist Kallie is also an air-head.”

  “I never called her an air-guitarist.”

  “No, Finn did. The airhead bit I worked out for myself.”

  “She’s not an airhead.”

  “Oh, right. She just drags you off to the house of a suicidal rock star. Sounds like a shoo-in for Mensa.”

  Finn looked up suddenly. “Kallie is smart, actually. And since you’ve never even been to Kurt Cobain’s house, I don’t see how you can call it a waste of time.”

  Silence. Mom was ready to have an argument with me, but Finn’s vehemence surprised all of us. It was like he’d declared war, and she didn’t care enough to continue fighting. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Kallie or Cobain at all. Maybe she was still pissed at me for last night.

  “Look, Piper,” she said tiredly, “I’m all for you indulging this project, but I’m not going to bend on our rules. You get home in time for dinner or you can forget about the band. Understand?”

  I nodded, and Finn returned to studying his plate. He wouldn’t meet my eyes until Mom and Dad left the table, and even then I could tell he was still shaken by his outburst.

  Do you like Kallie? I signed, trying to keep my facial expressions as neutral as possible, not wanting him to clam up.

  She’s okay.

  She’s very popular. You know that, right? I tried, hoping he’d read between the lines and realize she was completely out of his league.

  Yes. So what?

  Nothing, I lied, then thought better of it. It was just something Tash said to me tonight, that’s all.

  Suddenly Finn was blushing, and I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d been lying.

  CHAPTER 30

  On Saturday morning Dad and I took USS Immovable to the shop. He said he’d waited until then so that Finn and I wouldn’t be inconvenienced, but the truth is that he just didn’t want to give us rides to and from school. It would’ve meant sticking Grace in her car seat, which, you know, is thirty seconds of extra work.

  Also, by waiting until Saturday he made it possible for me to experience every guilt-filled moment, from the ancient mechanic who shook his head incredulously at what I’d done, to the estimate for the work ($400). When Dad found out that the car wouldn’t be ready until Monday he almost blew a fuse. Seriously, if Finn hadn’t been such a star at the rehearsal the previous afternoon, I might have strangled him when I got home.

  It took me thirty minutes to walk to Josh and Will’s house on Sunday. Everyone in the band had agreed to an extra rehearsal, even though there wasn’t a recording session. Still, that was before I had my blowup with Tash. Just as I’d worried that Kallie might not show after our run-in a few days ago, I now wasted several minutes biting my fingernails and wondering if Tash had made her final appearance. Only I got the feeling that Dumb had an additional attraction for Tash, and that seeing Will was sufficient compensation for having to hang out with Kallie for an afternoon.

  Sure enough, Tash showed up just like usual, unpacking her guitar and tuning it methodically. Then she handed her tuning fork to Kallie. It was a simple gesture—essential, really—but it seemed symbolic: Tash grudgingly acknowledging that Dumb needed its two guitarists to be in harmony. What’s more, they’d both clearly been practicing—with varying degrees of success—so the band was able to polish up “Kiss Me Like You Mean It” and still have time to learn “Look What the Cat Dragged In,” a new number from the Cooke family songbook.

  Meanwhile, I sat by the window, engrossed in a biography of Kurt Cobain I’d checked out from the library. It was the story of a life so heartrending that I wanted to hug every member of Dumb just to show I truly cared.

  I figured we’d split after the three hours were up, but then a pizza delivery guy arrived and Will said, “Now you all owe me another hour,” and no one disagreed. I couldn’t decide if I was more amazed that Will had had the forethought to order pizza, or that he had expressed an opinion, but either way, it worked. And when the extra hour was up, nobody mentioned it, and Dumb pressed on for an hour after that. Maybe it was because they knew that the next full rehearsal wouldn’t be until Friday, but even so, it felt momentous, like everyone had finally taken responsibility for making this thing work.

  For the first time, Dumb’s five flavors were mixing, blending, and forging something altogether greater than the sum of its parts. And I didn’t need perfect hearing to know they realized it too.

  All of this meant that I was in a pretty good mood on Monday. I even tolerated Dad’s eye rolling and steering wheel slapping on the way to school without uttering a single sarcastic remark. There should be medals for that kind of self-control.

  At lunchtime I met up with Ed for a game of chess. I was finding it hard to concentrate on anything but the band, so I set goals to help me focus: checkmate in twenty moves or under (not too difficult); execute checkmate through a bishop-queen skewer (significantly harder); mustn’t smile—even a small one—when I pulled it off (close to impossible). My assignment worked—for twelve minutes I was focused on nothing but the game, and met every goal except the last one.

  Usually Ed was the first to start setting up the pieces again, but for once he just sat back, lost in his thoughts.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Just got a lot on my mind.”

  “I get that. We’re still two songs shy of a set, and I want to start selling us as an opening act.”

  Ed’s eyes grew wide. “Why?”

  “Well, how else do you think we’re going to make any money?”

  “But ...” He broke eye contact.

  “But what?”

  Ed leaned back and gripped his hair in his hands. “Do you honestly believe that’s going to happen anytime soon?”

  I wasn’t sure I liked where the conversation was going. “It might.”

  “But it can take years for a band to develop that kind of a following.”

  “We don’t have years.”

  “I know, but . . . what about Kallie?”

  “What about her? I was wrong. She’s actually really nice.”

  “That’s not the point. She’s not ready to play in public. And unless she and Tash plan to meet with Finn every lunchtime, I don’t think that’s going to change.”

  I wondered if I’d misheard him. “What did you say about Finn?”

  “I said Kallie and Tash are meeting with him, to go over the songs.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Finn told me during morning break. He wanted to check a couple chords out with me.”

  I was struggling to come to grips with this revelation. “Where are they?”

  “In the practice room.”

  I jumped up and began jogging over there, Ed following close behind. I don’t know what I expected to find as I peered through the small window in the practice room door, but the one thing I was certain I wouldn’t see was Tash and Kallie hanging on Finn’s every word.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised: Finn had been playing guitar since he was eight. He’d even taken lessons for five years, until his teacher brought things to an end over a “philosophical difference” that was never fully explained. I think by then Dad had an inkling he’d soon be out of a job, so I can’t exactly say that anyone discouraged Finn from quitting. Except that he never actually quit, of course—he simply changed focus from classical to rock guitar, a shift we interpreted as giving up. And no
w here he was, a fourteen-year-old leading a guitar master class with two girls on the cusp of eighteen—a freshman boy’s fantasy gone wild.

  I got the feeling he knew it too. A month earlier he’d seemed awestruck simply by breathing the same air as Dumb, but now he was correcting Kallie’s mistakes with a reassuring smile. When she struggled with a chord, he gently moved her fingers to the right place, maintaining the contact for so long I wondered why he didn’t just get down on one knee there and then. By contrast, Tash’s mistakes were addressed from a safe distance with no physical contact—probably a wise move for a boy who cracked the scales at an even 110 pounds.

  I peered over my shoulder at Ed, who nodded somberly. Whatever his misgivings about Kallie, it was clear he saw the benefits of extra rehearsals with Finn. I wondered if Ed wished he could swap places with him. I hoped not.

  The only sign of friction between the girls was when Finn brought things to a close and they both wanted to try out his guitar. At least, that’s how it seemed, and Finn was happy to oblige. It was a relatively new-looking guitar too, not like the battered one he’d bought himself at a garage sale when he was eleven. It also faced the opposite direction from the other guitars, presumably designed for left-handed players. I wasn’t actually sure I’d seen the new guitar before, which got me thinking about where it had come from. He handed it to Tash first, and she ran her fingers lovingly over the white body, gazed at the neck, and pulled a string with a rapturous expression. Then she gave it to Kallie, who was equally inspired by the moment. It was geek love with a twist.

  I stifled a laugh and turned to ask Ed what he made of it, but he’d already gone. And while I certainly didn’t expect him to consult with me every time he moved, I realized it was the first time he’d ever taken off without telling me.

  With a few minutes of lunch break left, I wandered into the classroom next door and opened up my laptop. Checking e-mail and Dumb’s MySpace page was becoming habitual, an itch that never went away no matter how many times I scratched. And it’s not like anything ever changed significantly either, although . . .

  Dear Piper: Thank you for your kind message. At Seattle Today we have always striven to inspire our viewers by highlighting the goodness of the earth, and the warmth of our fellow human beings. After reviewing your materials and reading enthusiastic responses to your recent performance, award-winning host Donna Stevens would like to invite you to participate in next Tuesday’s show (November 5), which will focus on the positive contributions of youth in society, featuring no fewer than THREE child psychologists! While this is short notice, you will only be required to perform one song (“Loving Every Part of You” would be perfect) and answer a few informal questions afterward. Please let me know today if this is acceptable, as we have a fourth psychologist on standby.

  Sincerely,

  Tiffany Myers

  (senior producer, Seattle Today)

  P.S. We will provide an honorarium of $300.

  Oh. My. God.

  CHAPTER 31

  There wasn’t time to get Dumb together to approve the show, so I wrote Tiffany back immediately and accepted the invitation, omitting to mention that we’d be using the occasion to return to our hard rock roots. I even threw in some extra fictional-but-complimentary phrases about the show (and other artists that had influenced us) to reassure her we were the kind of band she thought she was getting, rather than the kind of band we actually were. Lying smoothly was an art form that required diligence, but I was getting better every day.

  Just before dinner that evening, I found Finn playing his new white guitar in the basement, Dad’s enormous old headphones wrapped over his head. I wanted to thank him for working with Tash and Kallie, but he didn’t see me, so I just stood in the corner and watched as he ran his right hand up and down the fretboard. He used to practice like that all the time back in middle school, hunched over, eyebrows knitted in concentration. And whatever the cause of that philosophical difference with his teacher, Finn seemed completely rededicated, like Tash and Kallie had fired his imagination. And even I could see how Kallie might have that effect.

  I didn’t hear Dad coming down the stairs behind me, so I practically screamed when he placed a hand on my shoulder. Finn leaped up and pulled off the headphones like he’d just been caught watching a porno.

  “Well,” said Dad gruffly, “I’ll say again that I’m very disappointed in you for damaging the car. Still, the mechanic managed to find a bumper from scrap that was the right color, so the work was only a hundred and fifty dollars. It’s a lot, but I think we can agree we dodged a bullet here. In the future be more careful, okay?”

  I nodded, but it didn’t make sense. I’d seen the mechanic place the order for a new bumper. I looked at Finn, but he immediately turned his attention to his guitar. And he wasn’t alone—Dad seemed transfixed by it, gliding forward like a moth drawn to a flame.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  Finn cast his eyes around uneasily. “It’s a, um . . . blah Jimi Hendrix blah blah,” he mumbled.

  “A what?” I asked, slowly and loudly.

  Finn glared at me, then finger-spelled Fender Jimi Hendrix Tribute Stratocaster.

  Dad wasn’t paying us any attention at all. He just gazed longingly at the guitar until Finn felt obligated to hand it over.

  “Is this the one we bought you?” he asked.

  Finn shook his head, kindly omitting to mention that he’d bought the old electric guitar with his own money.

  “So whose is this?”

  “It, uh . . . belongs to a friend. I’ve got it on extended loan.”

  Dad seemed satisfied by that, completely missing the freaked-out expression emblazoned on Finn’s face. “How are you handling the switch from right to left hand?”

  “Um, okay. Takes some getting used to, but I want to be able to play both.”

  Dad nodded approvingly. “Man, it’s beautiful,” he said, running his fingers over the polished surface. “Wasn’t it a limited release?”

  Finn looked up, narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. How do you know that?”

  Dad’s head snapped up and the trance was broken. “What? Oh, I must’ve heard it somewhere. I guess. Probably. I mean, I wouldn’t really know, of course.” He shuffled his feet as the silence lingered. “Yeah, well, time for dinner. Nice playing, Finn,” Dad added, even though he hadn’t heard anything. “I’ll see you both upstairs.”

  He took the stairs two at a time.

  “How did he know this guitar was a limited release?” said Finn, wide-eyed.

  I shrugged. “Who knows? But maybe there’s a lot about Dad we don’t know. He can’t always have been as hopelessly uncool as he is now.”

  Finn snorted, and I laughed, and a moment later he started to pull the headphones back on.

  “Not so fast, Finn. I don’t suppose you know anything about the spare bumper?”

  Finn stared at his guitar. “What do you mean?”

  “Come on. Don’t lie to me.”

  He rolled his eyes and gently laid the guitar beside his chair. Whatever we were about to discuss was clearly going to take a few minutes.

  I paid most of the bill myself, then told the mechanic what to say to Dad, he signed, presumably because he thought it would make me less critical.

  I felt my stomach flip. “You did what?”

  “What’s the big deal?” he moaned, already done with signing now it was clear the magnanimous gesture hadn’t worked. “The mechanic didn’t care as long as he got all the money.”

  “How much did you pay?”

  Reluctantly, Finn’s right hand formed the signs for 278.

  My legs felt unsteady. I was hyperventilating. “Where did you get the money?”

  “Shh!” Finn pressed a finger to his lips, stared at the staircase until he was sure no one had heard. “That’s my business.”

  I wanted to throttle him. “What about the guitar? You may be able to fool Dad, but I know it’s yours.”

  “Y
eah, but only someone who actually cared about me would realize that.”

  It was a first-rate self-pitying line, and somewhat true. But he was going to have to do much better than that to throw me off the scent. “How much was it?”

  “Not much. It was used.”

  How much? I repeated, reverting to sharp signs and a fierce face so I could convey my seriousness without having to scream.

  Still Finn hesitated, clearly deciding whether or not to lie. 750.

  My mouth hung open in shock. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Where are you getting all this money?

  None of your business.

  It is my business when I have to cover for you after school each day. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. Are you selling drugs?

  No! At the mention of drugs, Finn looked like he was about to burst into tears. It’s from the poker games.

  I’d have been less surprised if he’d told me he was growing a bumper crop of marijuana in his bedroom. True, Dad used to play poker with us all the time when we were younger. It was something he could do with me that didn’t involve speaking or signing, plus he liked winning. But when I switched to chess he bailed, saying a chess game was too great a time commitment. I’d figured that was the end of the Vaughan family’s poker playing days.

  Or not.

  When do you play poker?

  Lunchtime, replied Finn, content to sign as long as it kept his secret under wraps. And we started playing after school too, because you made me wait while you rehearsed. Except Friday, when you made me go to the rehearsal. In a way, the whole thing is your fault.

  I laughed, but inside I was utterly freaked out. You’ve really won a thousand dollars playing poker?

  He clearly misread my surprise as admiration. Almost. I’m a lot better than everyone else.