The Victoria in My Head

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The Victoria in My Head Page 12

by Janelle Milanes


  I’ve gotten comfortable with myself as a singer, but only in the privacy of our now-familiar little band room. I haven’t tested my comfort level outside of that shared space and in front of people who aren’t my fellow band members. Not since the drunken karaoke night at the Cave. Annie is covering for me to make it to the gig on Saturday. She has me tell my parents that we’re working on a group project in the library. Because she’s Annie, she’s prepared me to handle my mom’s interrogation.

  “Which library?” Mom asks me.

  “The one on tenth street,” I say. “Some of our group members live in Brooklyn, so it’s really the most convenient meeting place.”

  “And what project is this?” Mom asks. She glares at me preemptively.

  “It’s for science class,” I say, reciting the lines that Annie e-mailed me. “We’re studying the effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive abilities.”

  Mom looks impressed, and I say a silent “thank you” to Annie. I am officially free on Saturday.

  Two hours before the gig, Annie, Krina, and I are staring into Annie’s intensely organized closet. Her clothes hang off satin hangers, grouped by color and style. The task at hand is figuring out what I should wear. I don’t trust myself to make the decision alone, since I lack Krina’s innate sense of cool and Annie’s attention to detail.

  “I don’t know why you’re stressing,” Krina says to me. “Wear a T-shirt and jeans and call it a day.”

  “Krina,” Annie chides. “That’s so frumpy.”

  “That’s what I’m wearing.”

  “Yeah, but you’re hidden behind a drum set.”

  “So? The boys wear jeans too. Because Vi’s a girl she needs some sparkly look-at-me outfit?”

  “Uh, no,” says Annie. “But Vi is the lead singer, so she should stand out. It has nothing to do with gender.”

  “How about this?” I interrupt, pulling out an all-black ensemble. Black top, black pants, and black boots. I imagine the audience will perceive me as a woman shrouded in mystery.

  Annie’s lip curls. “Are you planning a heist?”

  “What?” I dangle the clothes in front of her. “It’s chic.”

  “It’s my orchestra costume,” she says.

  “Oh.”

  “What about your hair?”

  I tighten my ponytail. “My hair isn’t working today. It’s too poofy.”

  “Poofy is fine.” Krina slides off my hair tie. “Poofy is you.”

  “Poofy but styled,” Annie corrects.

  She sets to work, producing an empty spray bottle from her drawer and filling it with tap water. Then she instructs Krina to coat sections of my hair in gel and wind them around her finger.

  “I’m going to look like a chola,” I warn, but neither of them listens.

  I try to ignore the heavy stone rolling around in my stomach. In all the time I spent playing the good girl, trying to cement my spot in the band, I focused only on the happy things, not the scary things. But the scary thing is here, today. In mere hours.

  “You’re quiet,” Annie comments after my hair is finished. She pats at my face with a powder puff, and I try not to inhale the particles rising from it.

  “Nervous,” I say.

  Krina’s rummaging through Annie’s drawers, looking for accessories like Annie instructed. “Those don’t go away,” she says, shuffling through folded clothes. “The nerves.”

  “You get nervous?” I ask her. I can’t see it. Girls with Mohawks aren’t nervous.

  “We all get nervous,” she says. “Strand was the worst. He used to throw up before going onstage.”

  I’m not sure if I feel better or worse knowing this. If Strand, confident sex god, gets nervous, what hope is there for me?

  Annie opens a tube of red lipstick and tells me to pucker up. “I can’t imagine Strand that nervous,” she says, carefully outlining my lips.

  “He just hides it well,” Krina says. “Hey, what about these?” She pulls out a pair of red suspenders from Annie’s drawer.

  “What about those?” I ask.

  “These will give you the perfect pop of color,” Annie says, snatching them from Krina and clipping them onto my waistband.

  “Aren’t those from your Doctor Who Halloween costume?” I ask skeptically. “They don’t exactly scream rock star.”

  “Here. Wear them slung over your hips, like this,” Krina says, pulling the suspenders off my shoulders so they dangle at my sides.

  They bring me over to the mirror, looking pleased at the end result. Examining myself in the reflection, I have to admit the suspenders are a cool touch. It takes me a while to adjust to the Victoria staring back at me. I look almost as fearless as Krina, if you ignore the queasy look on my face and my skin’s sickly yellow tint showing through the layers of powder.

  My hair is still poofy, but it’s purposely poofy. It’s unrestrained, not confined to the limits of a hair tie.

  Annie taps a finger against her chin. “I don’t know . . . it’s missing something.”

  “It’s not missing anything,” Krina argues. “She looks perfect.”

  “Hold on.” Annie rustles through her bag and her hands emerge clutching a pair of chicken cutlets.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “No! No. This is not becoming my thing.”

  “Come on,” Annie says, laughing. “Just in case you feel the urge to throw them.”

  “You never know when desire will strike,” Krina says.

  I sigh and stick them into my bra, even though I have every intention of pulling them out before I get to the gig. Then I shoot Krina and Annie the finger, which makes Annie laugh and Krina smile in approval.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “FALLING AWAKE”

  —KAISER CHIEFS

  We’re playing at Country Lanes bowling alley on Staten Island. It’s not exactly Madison Square Garden, but a gig is a gig.

  Country Lanes is two hours from my apartment. I meet the band there, entering a bare, cavernous building teeming with kids and old Italian men wearing bowling shirts, the old-fashioned kind with name patches. It’s noisy and overwhelming. Every time I hear the clattering of bowling pins it’s like a jolt to my nervous system.

  When I get inside, a man named Vinnie with a thick New York accent leads me down to the basement where the rest of the band is waiting. Everything—the walls, the table, the floor—is sticky from dried beer.

  “You okay to perform?” Levi asks me when he sees me descend the stairs. “You look nervous.”

  He doesn’t kiss me hello or compliment my hair or makeup or outfit, which makes me feel insecure. I hate that I’m a girl who feels insecure because her boyfriend doesn’t compliment her appearance.

  “I think I’m going to puke,” I say, “but I’m otherwise fine.”

  “If you’re going to puke, the bathroom’s upstairs,” says Strand. He looks up at me from his guitar, his eyes flicking to the top of my head. “Your hair . . .”

  I reach up to touch it. It’s still puffy and stiff with product. “What about it?”

  “It’s big.”

  “Okay?” I knew I should have brought my hair tie.

  “I like it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Vi, did you bring the earplugs?” Levi asks me.

  I look away from Strand. “Krina has them. Hey, should we be concerned that there’s no one our age here?”

  “We still have an hour before we’re scheduled to play,” Krina says, handing the earplugs to Levi. “And a few people I invited said they were definitely coming . . .”

  “We get paid either way, right?” Strand asks.

  Levi is a blur, zipping around the room, playing with the equipment and tinkering with extension cords. I stand around helplessly. I warmed up in my room with Annie earlier, but my vocal cords are now seizing in my throat.

  “He’s in preshow mode,” Krina says, tipping her chin in Levi’s direction. “You can’t talk to him until after. Not
hing you say will register.”

  I wish I would register with him, even a little bit. I need him to hold my hand and reassure me that I won’t blow chunks all over the audience.

  By the time we’re set up, we have half an hour to practice. We run through the first song on our set list—“Reptilia” by the Strokes, and my voice manages to hold steady because no one is focused on me. They’re frowning over their instruments, pausing once in a while to retune.

  “One more time,” Levi says before the final note of the song fades, so we play it again.

  I grip the microphone tightly, staring at the cinderblock wall, trying not to imagine performing upstairs where actual living beings will be listening to me. When I imagine that, I stop breathing.

  When we finish playing, Levi taps my arm and says, “So after the first couple songs, you’ll introduce us.”

  My blood runs cold. “What?”

  “You’ll introduce us,” he repeats.

  For some reason, this idea terrifies me more than singing. At least when I sing, I have a melody and lyrics, both forming a lighthouse to guide me through my fear.

  “What do I say?” I ask. “Can you write it down for me?”

  He gives me a strange look. “All you say is, ‘Hey, we’re Debaser.’ Then you say your name and everyone else’s. You talk to the crowd.”

  He might as well ask me to recite The Iliad while I’m at it. Both seem equally impossible. I’m not the confident bandleader who can rile up a crowd. They’re strangers to me. Strangers who will smell my insecurity and pounce on my mistakes.

  But I nod and say, “Sure. Fine.”

  Like it’s nothing. Mostly because I want Levi to stop staring at me like I’ve grown three heads.

  “I can do it,” Strand offers.

  I point to him. “Sold.”

  “No, Vi has to do it,” Levi argues. “She’s the lead singer. The face of the band.”

  “Who gives a shit?” Strand replies. “There’s no rulebook.”

  Levi sighs, rubs at his eyes underneath his glasses.

  “Oh, just let Strand do it. It’s Vi’s first gig,” Krina says behind us, tapping on the snare drum.

  Levi clenches his jaw. “Fine.”

  I’ve disappointed him, but my relief wins over my desire to please my boyfriend.

  We rehearse a couple more songs before Vinnie pokes his head in and tells us we can go up in a couple minutes.

  “What do we do now?” I whisper to Krina.

  “We wait,” she says.

  The waiting is the worst part. I pace the length of the room, chewing on my bottom lip before I remember the lipstick Annie applied to me so carefully. It’s probably smeared all over my teeth. I rub them with the side of my finger and wonder if I should wipe it off.

  “Hey.” I feel two hands clamp onto my shoulders to stop me from moving. Strand spins me around to face him. “Think of it as a practice.”

  “I can’t,” I say, my voice cracking embarrassingly. “There are people . . .”

  “And?”

  “And . . . I can’t sing in front of people!”

  “Look at me, Cutlet.”

  I do. Right into those midwinter sky eyes, which still make my legs go weak even though I’m supposed to know better.

  “They’re all going to be dead one day.” Strand flicks his hand toward the door. “So will we. This is a tiny moment in time that will one day be lost forever.”

  I laugh, in spite of myself. “Morbid much?”

  “It helps though, right?”

  In a weird way, it does.

  Krina is drumming her fingers against the wall. Every part of her body seems to move. Her toes tap, her head bobs. Levi sits with his eyes closed on the teeny couch against the wall. Krina tells me that Levi always meditates a few minutes before heading onstage.

  Levi is unflinchingly calm, while every muscle in my body quivers.

  Vinnie’s voice upstairs breaks the silence, amplified by the microphone. “Hey . . . uh . . . how’s everyone doing?”

  “This is it, this is it, this is it,” I mutter to myself.

  Krina smacks her drumsticks against the wall. “Bring it in, guys.”

  Levi opens his eyes and springs to life. The four of us circle up and each place a hand in the center. Mine goes last, on top of Krina’s.

  “Since when do we ‘bring it in’?” Strand asks her.

  She glares at him. “Since now. It’s Vi’s first show.”

  It’s surprisingly sweet for Krina, but at the moment I’m too nervous to appreciate the gesture.

  “Hurry up,” Levi urges.

  Krina frowns at him. “On the count of three . . .”

  But after she counts, no one says anything.

  “Well,” Strand says, “that worked out well.”

  When we head upstairs, the crowd is smaller than I expected. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse. On the one hand, fewer people to see me perform. On the other hand, I can see each and every one of the faces in the audience. They aren’t an anonymous mass. I see a freckled girl from my English class. A boy with translucent white skin who sits near us at lunch.

  I see Annie, who is wearing her paperclip nose ring. She holds up a sheet of paper that says I ♥ DEBASER in thick purple marker. The sign is big enough that we can see it, but not so blatant that it’s embarrassing.

  Krina takes her seat behind the drums. Strand and Levi pick up their instruments.

  “Please welcome . . .” Vinnie checks the index card in his hand. “Debaser!”

  What would happen if I ran off the stage? Strand would probably take over, pulling double duty—guitar and vocals. The groupies would be all over that.

  Our set is only supposed to last forty-five minutes. As Krina counts off, I think about how good I’m going to feel forty-five minutes from now.

  And then the music starts, and I stop thinking.

  I soak up the haunting sound of Strand’s guitar, the building thumps of Krina’s drums, and the sudden burst of sound when everything collides. What I love about this song is how it kicks off at full speed.

  A few cheers ring out when some people recognize the guitar chords, and the intro is too quick for me to think about what my voice will sound like and how I’m not sure what’s going to come out when I open my mouth.

  It’s only my voice. It doesn’t squeak or wail or do anything embarrassing like I expected. It just sounds like me. A more timid version of me, but at least it’s not as shaky as it was during the audition.

  Annie lets out a whoop when I start the first verse. The crowd is smiling, drinking, . . . and moving. I’m doing this. I’m making them move. I’m like an all-powerful puppet master.

  I move too. As much as I can without bumping into Strand or Levi, since there isn’t much room on the stage. I don’t move like I do when I’m alone in my room, or even the way I do during band practice, but I manage to do something besides stand still.

  Strand takes the mic after we play our third song and introduces us. He saves me for last, and I wait for him to call me Chicken Cutlet or Giggles, but he says, “And please give it up for our immensely talented lead singer, Victoria Cruz!”

  My face warms, and I look down at my Doc Martens. I have to mentally remind myself that lead singers don’t look down at their feet. When I raise my eyes to the crowd, they’re all smiles. They’re like a pack of dogs, hungry for music, lapping at each new song we offer. They feed us, too. We eat up their energy as we play. It reminds me of Super Mario after Mario eats a mushroom and doubles in size. I feel doubled.

  Pale boy is jumping around, and the girl from my English class is swaying her hips off rhythm. When we end our set, the group shouts, “Encore, encore, encore!” before the words devolve into inarticulate screams. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Better than the London Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. I want to record the crowd and listen to them every day.

  We play the encore, and they roar with delight. Every
one jumps up and down in perfect unison, and we match the action onstage. The stage is set low, so if you looked at all of us from above, you would see us as one leaping, fleshy blob.

  When we leave the stage, my skin is slick with sweat. I jump on Levi like a tree frog and wrap my legs around his waist.

  He laughs. Postshow Levi is much more fun than tense, preshow Levi. I kiss him hard, adrenaline still coursing through my veins.

  “Should we leave you two alone?” Krina asks.

  I hear a frown in Strand’s voice as he says, “Gross. You’re killing my buzz.”

  Levi and I pull apart and he lowers me back onto the floor. I feel euphoric, like a helium balloon barely tethered to the ground.

  “I can’t believe it,” I say. “I can’t believe how awesome we sounded.”

  Strand pokes his shoulder against mine. “You did it, Cutlet. You pulled it off.”

  “Fucking right she did,” Krina says. Even Krina looks happy, which for her means a less deep frown.

  “That being said, I do have some notes,” Levi announces, and we groan. Krina smacks him lightly on the head.

  I kiss him, fully on the lips and tell him, “Monday. Let us have today.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “MODERN GIRL”

  —SLEATER-KINNEY

  I work hard at making out, the way I work hard at school and singing. I study, and I apply myself. I adjust my moves to fit Levi’s. But maybe studying isn’t enough to make up for my lack of experience.

  When do you move forward from kissing, anyway? There should be some kind of time line. Month one, kissing. Month two, groping. Month three, hand job. And what is a reasonable amount of time before sex should occur? If you have it too soon, you’re a slut. If you wait too long, you’re a prude. There’s no winning if you’re a girl, and when I decide what to do with Levi and when to do it, I will inevitably make the wrong decision, because everything is the wrong decision. Thinking about it too long gives me a migraine.

  My parents would insist that sex should come only after marriage, which is easy for them to say. They were each other’s first big relationship and married at eighteen. It’s not like they had to suffer without sex for long. A few years ago, I let them sucker me into signing a purity pledge at church. My Bible-beating peers and I solemnly swore that “true love waits,” and I used my most grown-up cursive handwriting to sign a (thankfully) nonbinding contract.

 

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