When we got back to campus, I went straight to his room. A shirtless Tromboner Dave threw open his door and folded his arms when he saw it was me. He gave me a knowing smile. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
I ignored him. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Shoot.” I think he kept purposely flexing his biceps for my benefit. I kept my attention on his trombone in the far corner.
“Dumpster is playing at the open mic night,” I said.
“We are.”
I took a deep breath and prepared my argument. The fate of my musical life hinged on the whim of Tromboner Dave.
And even after our conversation, I’m still not one hundred percent certain that he’s going to come through for me.
The coffee shop is packed. Since it’s the last night of camp, the Krause kids are treating this open mic night like their own cabaret. It’s tradition. The students sing and the teachers sing. I hope the coffee shop regulars are prepared to hear some opera, because that’s what’s on the docket.
Despite the crowd, somehow Kendra and Finley found a table up front. It’s the same table we occupied during Dumpster’s debut, which seems like forever ago. Tina and I grab the empty seats, and I trace the words to the limerick about Theresa and her pizza.
The room is packed with familiar faces. Norman and Brie, looking lovey-dovey, stand together near the counter with Andy, who’s still flirting with Randy the barista. Seth is with Yvetta and Philip at a table across the room. Mr. Bertrand is sitting, arms crossed, at a dark table with Ms. Jones and Mr. Zagorsky, who seem less than enthused to be in his company. The café is at full capacity, standing room only. Everyone is here. Well, practically everyone.
The stage at the front of the coffee shop is set up for any and all eventuality. There are microphones and guitars and drums and keyboards waiting just offstage for whoever might take the spotlight next. I tap my foot like a crazy person as I wait for the show to start. The MC finally calls up the first act at 7:29. Sad Mezzo and Angry Tenor, who apparently came back to spend one last night with his one-time girlfriend, sing an Italian duet about love. Then Philip Towers does some shockingly insightful standup comedy. Next, a woman with a ukulele warbles about her dogs for way too long. Every second I’m not up on that stage is abject torture.
Tina gets up to grab coffee while some sad bastard singer/songwriter bares his soul, and I barely notice when someone slides into the seat next to me. I turn and find myself face-to-face with Jack.
“Hey,” I say, surprised, wary. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since I got kicked out. I prepare myself for Jack’s customary snide remarks and passive-aggressive ribbing.
But, “That dress,” he says. “Wow.” His eyes light up like old Jack, Nutty Bar Jack, like he-never-did-anything-to-hurt-me Jack. Ethan Garcia may have been an out-and-out jerk to Dana, cheating on her and being generally pretty inaccessible, but Jack is just as bad in his own way. He’s oblivious. I know his angle. He figures if he just ignores a situation long enough, it’ll blow over. It’s how he’s dealing with his girlfriend, and it’s how he’s been dealing with me. Well, not this time, buddy, I think. I cross one leg over the other, keeping my knee as far away from Jack’s as space allows. He starts to open his mouth, but the guitarist on stage shoots him the evil eye.
After Sad Bastard finishes his set, a trio of girls takes his place. Jack starts shuffling around next to me, rifling through stuff, unzipping things. He’s digging through Chumley, defiling him, and I mouth, “What the hell?” even though I’m not sure he can see my lips in the darkness. He swirls his hand to indicate I should turn my attention back to the girls, who are doing a slowed down version of some Kanye West song.
Scratching noises cut through the music as Jack scribbles on the back of an old receipt. I try to focus on the stage, but, a few moments later, Jack hands me the paper. I squint to see what he’s written. “So, Dana. Shit.”
I make a frowny face on the receipt.
He snatches it back and starts writing again.
A few seconds later, he tosses the paper back to me. “We should watch a marathon together tonight, right? Out of respect? You can keep wearing that dress…?”
I shake my head.
He mouths, “No?”
And I mouth back, “No,” with an aggressive headshake.
He leans in closer and my heart starts beating faster. “Kiki, I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
“For what?” I whisper back, making sure the girls on stage don’t notice our conversation.
“For everything. For reacting the way I did about you and Seth. For stringing you along. For being a gigantic bastard.” He waits a second, and when I don’t respond, he keeps going. “I spent the last week down in the basement waiting for you to show up, which is stupid, I know, but”—he leans in slightly closer—“the whole thing with Dana, it made me see what an idiot I’ve been. About everything.”
So he came to the same conclusion I did. Life’s too short to waste any of it. Not sure if I trust this new Jack, I tell him, “Death epiphanies are a dime a dozen.”
A girl at the next table shushes us, so Jack grabs Chumley again and hunts until he finds another piece of paper. I glance around to make sure no one else is getting annoyed by the scratching, whispering, and paper rustling. They’re all captivated by the Kanye ballad. When Jack finishes writing, he shows me the paper.
“I’m single now,” it says.
I grab the pen from him and write “So?” before passing the sheet back. I’d be lying if I said my stomach didn’t fill with something. Excitement? Butterflies? Bile? I’m not sure what.
He stares at the stage for a moment before scribbling again. When I get the paper back it says, “So, nothing. Just making sure you heard.”
I take the pen back and write in the last bit of white space, “You’re finally a man. Congratulations.”
He reads my words and smiles as the audience erupts in applause. After the trio leaves, Tromboner Dave and his band take the stage and I start sweating. It’s almost show time, time for me to get naked up on stage—metaphorically, of course.
“We’re Dumpster, and we’re gonna rock your world,” Eric says into his microphone, adopting a bit of a British accent.
They play two songs, one cover and one original. When they finish, Dave remains for a second, leaning in toward his microphone and saying, “We were supposed to do one more, but tonight we’re giving that song up to Kiki Nichols, who let me touch her boob once. She’s playing an original piece. Treat her with kindness.” I head up to the stage, where Dave helps me push the keyboard to the middle. Then I sit down.
I squint into the lights. I can barely register faces in the crowd, but I see Kendra, Finley, and Jack sitting down in front, smiling and silently cheering me on. I grin. “Thank you,” I say into the microphone. And then I start playing the song I wrote over the past few days, my reaction to Dana dying, the piece that says everything I’ve been feeling about her death and the uncertainties of life. I play a few bars of the introduction, and I start singing, and it’s like I’m in the basement again, just like how I had imagined it. I’m up on stage, playing and singing and wearing a killer red dress (but no tiara, damn it), and people are watching me with rapt attention.
These are my words, my chords, my melodies. Without me they wouldn’t exist. As I play and sing I think about all the little moments that got me here, about the work and about how much more I have to learn and how much better I want to be. But thinking about that doesn’t tire me out. Just the opposite, in fact. I want to do the work. Creating music doesn’t feel like a concession. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. I don’t miss Twitter or Project Earth or any of that nonsense when I’m doing it. I’m where I want to be. I’m happy in the moment.
When I’m about finished with the song, I glance out at the audience again, back to my friends, and I catch Jack’s eye. He’s staring up at me with sad, proud eyes. My Nutty Bar guy. My eyes shoot down to my hands and I sto
p playing. I just…stop.
The coffeehouse grows silent, so silent I’m sure they can hear my heart slamming against my rib cage. I sit there doing nothing for a while, too long. I know people are growing restless. I’m growing restless. One guy in the back starts to clap, but I cut him off. I lean in toward the microphone again and speak. “You know what? I’m up here and I’m gonna do one more. A short one. Bear with me, please.”
I squint into the lights again. “My first night here in Indianapolis, I had an experience that when you say it out loud sounds ridiculous, but it’s one of those things that can only happen in a dorm, when you’re shoved with a bunch of strangers into one building.” I gulp. “I went down to the basement of Chandler Hall.”
That gets a “whoo-hoo!” from one of the audience members, like I just said the name of his hometown or something.
“Thank you. Thank you very much. I went down to the basement and I found this old piano sitting there, so I started to play. And then a guy showed up. He was eating a Nutty Bar, just standing there watching me, and then—this is when it gets weird.”
A couple people in the audience whistle like things are about to veer into porno territory.
“No, not sexy weird, musically weird. The guy pulled out—no, not his penis.” I pause for a laugh from the audience. “He pulled out a set of drumsticks, of all things, and he asked me to play something. I had no idea what to do, so I started playing the first song that came to mind. He joined in on percussion, and it was magic. And then he disappeared, never to be heard from again. So in honor of him, the Nutty Bar guy, here’s the song we played together on that one fateful night back in June.”
I lower my head and watch my fingers move across the keys before launching into the first line of the song. The whole room disappears. It’s just me and the piano and nothingness. I block out everything happening around me, the espresso machine, the coughs, the sneezes. But then, during the second verse, I notice movement toward my left and I look over. Jack is there, taking his place at Tromboner Dave’s drum kit, setting himself up, and he joins me on the next refrain. I smile at him. He smiles at me, the guy with glasses and khaki pants, wailing away on the drums. I sing for him and he plays for me until the song is over and the crowd starts clapping, shaking us out of our trance.
I stand and bow, and then, holding my arm out toward Jack, I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Nutty Bar guy.”
After that, the show has to continue. I go back to my seat, but Norman’s in Jack’s, so he disappears somewhere. I can barely feel my fingers, and I definitely can’t concentrate on Yvetta and her teacher, Ms. Jones, meowing “The Cat Duet.” Everyone at my table thumps me on the back and tells me what a good job I did.
Kendra leans over Norman and says, “You knew about Jack and the drums this whole time?”
I nod.
“No wonder you were so hot for him.”
I grin in spite of myself.
After Yvetta and Ms. Jones finish “The Cat Duet,” the MC jumps up on stage to announce an intermission, and Norman pats me on the back. “Dana,” he says.
“I know.” I take a sip of my coffee, which is now lukewarm.
“I tried texting you.” He shakes his head.
“My parents took my phone away. And my computer, tablet, and TV.”
“How did you live?” he asks.
“I almost didn’t.”
Mary approaches our table. Her shoulders are hunched and her eyes down on her coffee mug. She mutters, “Good job up there, Kiki.”
“Thanks.” I refuse to look at her.
“Go away,” says Norman.
Finley and Kendra have turned their seats away from her as well.
“I feel really bad about everything,” she says.
“And yet you’re still here, vying for a scholarship,” I say, finally looking at her. “If it were me, the guilt would be eating me alive right now, knowing that I took a scholarship away from someone else, that I sold my classmates and friends down the river, that I’d have to attend school with them next year, the people I’d betrayed. That, I think more than anything, would kill me.”
Mary’s face is a stone.
“But maybe that’s just me.” I shrug. “I mean, I guess if I were shady enough to dick over my friends like that, I suppose a little guilt on top of it would be like nothing.”
Mary lets out a little squeak and Norman and everyone else glances over at her. She’s shaking. Her lip trembles. “I didn’t have a choice,” she whispers.
“Bullshit,” says Kendra.
Mary drops her drink on the floor, shattering the glass with a sound that cuts through all the conversation in the room. “I didn’t have a choice,” she screeches. Mary, who had trouble projecting her voice during a master class in room Y106, has now grabbed the attention of every person in a jam-packed coffee shop. The entire room quiets and turns toward her. Her lips form a line and her eyes look like they’re about to spill over. “I’m not as good as the rest of you. I have trouble with theory. I don’t have the stage presence or the voice. I was never going to get the scholarship on my own.” She glances around the room and points to a darkened corner. “He cut me a deal.” She slaps her hand over her mouth.
Now the crowd’s focus is on Mr. Bertrand, who’s trying to ignore the situation by engaging Ms. Jones in a separate conversation. She’s having none of it. She shakes her head at him, and pulls her hand away when he tries to grab her arm.
Mary is still pointing at him. “He said if I fed him information about the rest of you, he’d make sure I got one of those scholarships.” Tears stream down her face. “It wasn’t worth it. I’m so sorry. You have no idea.” She takes a deep breath and shores up her shoulders. “Everyone,” she says, “there’s one more scholarship available, because I’m out.”
She opens her mouth to say something else, but then turns and runs away.
“He made the offer to me, too,” says Norman. “I didn’t take it.”
“Same,” I say.
“Me too,” says Kendra. “After I was caught breaking curfew. I didn’t say anything because…”
“I get it,” I say.
We all sit and look at each other for a moment. It could’ve been any of us.
The MC leans into the microphone. “Now that our little one-act is over, I’d like to invite Greg Bertrand to the stage.”
The crowd sits in stunned silence as the voice teacher makes his way to the mic. Having been away from camp for a little while now, and having gone through my whole Calliope Pfeiffer enlightenment, I managed to gain some perspective on his situation. He’s this great singer and performer. Everyone in Indianapolis knows who he is because of it. I’m pretty sure teaching a bunch of young kids is not his dream job. Why would it be? And probably, when we all started breaking curfew and drinking and singing irresponsibly, it added insult to injury. Did he go about disciplining us like a good teacher would? Maybe not. But maybe, as I suspected, Mr. Bertrand never really wanted to be a teacher in the first place. Maybe he was, in his own way, settling, and we simply hadn’t made it easy for him.
Mr. Bertrand keeps his composure as his accompanist plays the opening bars of his song. Then he starts to sing and I realize the crowd is actively ignoring him. They’re talking and joking and paying him no heed. But like the professional he is, Mr. Bertrand keeps going. He’s in great voice to boot, better than I’ve ever heard him.
During the second verse, a crowd toward the back begins a chorus of “you suck” that nearly drowns out the Kurt Weill song Mr. Bertrand is desperately trying to perform. Andy runs over and tries to shush them to no avail.
Kendra, Norman, Finley, and I sit there, open-mouthed, watching him carry on, like he’s the string quartet who kept playing as the Titanic sunk. I feel like this, this moment, is the greatest lesson he’ll ever teach us. Through all the nonsense happening around him, he simply keeps singing. This is the master. This is Greg Bertrand.
When the song ends, he stands th
ere for a moment, waiting for the piano chords to die out as the rest of the audience continues to ignore him. But Kendra, Norman, and I stand, along with Brie, Andy, and Seth across the room, and my sister behind us, giving Greg Bertrand a standing ovation. He earned it, for making it through this performance, for putting up with our shenanigans all summer, for challenging us to work harder and strive for better, even when, sometimes, we fell short. He acknowledges us with a slight grin, wipes the sweat from his brow with a pristine linen handkerchief, and leaves the building without a word.
The show goes on, though most of us have trouble concentrating after Mr. Bertrand’s performance. After Mr. Zagorsky sings his final note, my friends and I, and Tina, mill about inside Crossroads, like we’d all tacitly decided to postpone leaving until the last possible moment. This is the last night of camp, the day before the scholarships will be announced. There’s an aura of anticipation in the air, and hope and excitement and relief that it’s all over. We’re bonded together. For tonight, at least, we are all Krause students. Tonight, we can make plans and promises for the future. Tonight, we believe, we assume, we’ll all be together again next year. We’re saving the tears and disappointment for tomorrow.
I stand back for a minute, alone, leaning against the table, watching the scene. Brie and Norman talk to Andy, who’s making eyes across the room at Randy. Norman keeps gazing up at Brie like he’ll never need to look at his naked lady pictures again. Sad Mezzo is crying outside the bathroom door and Angry Tenor is over in a corner flirting with Yvetta Moriarty. Seth Banks, Philip Towers, and Finley Chen are captivated by whatever Kendra is saying. Six weeks ago I had no idea these people existed, and now I’m able to call them my friends.
Brie leaves Norman and comes over to talk to me. “I never thanked you,” she says.
“You don’t have to.”
“I do, though. You could’ve easily hung me out to dry.”
I grin. “I wanted to beat you fair and square for that scholarship. Besides”—I wince, wanting to clear the air completely—“there’s something else.”
The Sound of Us Page 24