I glanced at the clock on Zed’s dashboard. I was glad he was impressed, but as of a few hours from now, my newfound fame might be a moot point when Mom and Dad decided to ground me from being seen out in public for weeks. I finally understood Lana’s last text. I wasn’t invisible little Melanie Martin anymore. No way could I get away with skipping. This was a terrible idea.
“I need to get to school. People are already asking where I am. And probably not just the other kids, probably teachers, too.”
Zed frowned.
“I’m really, really sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have called you. It’s just that this morning, my dad … ” I was about to tell Zed about getting fired, but all of a sudden it didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. He’d said I would sing for any of the services that had already requested me, so technically I was still The Funeral Singer. And maybe it was a good idea for me to take a break. If anything, it meant I could spend more time with The Grime. With Zed. “You know what? Never mind what happened. But I do appreciate your coming to get me. It means a lot.”
He reached over and patted my knee. “Of course. Sure you don’t want to hang out?”
His hand stayed on my leg. My heart was pounding so loudly. Could he hear it? “Oh, I want to hang out,” I said. “But I can’t. Mom and Dad will seriously ground me. I probably wouldn’t be able to play with you guys until I turned eighteen. And even then, only if I moved out from under their roof.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Zed made a U-turn at the next light and headed toward Edison.
I settled back into my seat, ripped a sheet of paper out of my notebook and forged a late note from my dad: Please excuse Melanie for being late this morning. I was firing her from her job at the funeral home. Gerald Martin.
I didn’t even sweat about whether his signature looked right. Something told me no one from the front office would want to call him to check whether that excuse was for real.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I caught up with Ms. Jensen in her office during my lunch period. “Hey, Ms. J. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course, Melanie. Come in and sit.” She scooped a stack of papers off the chair in front of her desk and balanced them on top of an already overflowing file cabinet. “Sorry it’s such a mess in here. Things are getting crazy with All State coming up.” She sighed and sat down across the desk from me. “I understand things are pretty crazy for you right now, too.”
I flinched at the concern in her eyes. She was making this even harder. “Yeah, about that. My schedule is totally messed up this week. I’m going to have to miss rehearsal.”
“I see. Today’s rehearsal?”
“Yeah.” I traced my finger along a scratch on the arm of the chair. “All three of them, actually.”
For a moment, Ms. Jensen said nothing. Then she stood, came around the desk and perched against it. A strand of her usually perfect light-brown hair had fallen out of its twist, and she had faint shadows under her eyes. “I understand you have a lot going on, Mel, but we’re at crunch time for All State. You know my policy.”
I nodded. Attendance was mandatory except in cases of emergency. “Yes, but it’s just for this week, I swear. And I will be singing—I’m doing some recording work with The Grime. And of course, I’ll practice on my own. Please, Ms. Jensen, this is a big deal to me. A huge deal.”
Ms. Jensen crossed her arms over her chest. “Would that be fair to your chorus mates? Most of them have activities competing for their time and attention as well—sports, jobs, family issues.”
Seriously? Was she comparing someone’s soccer schedule to what I was dealing with right now? “But this is an opportunity for me to turn singing into a real career.” I scooted forward in my chair. “You always say the gift of song is meant to be shared. Do you have any idea how many kids show up at a Grime concert?” It was a lot more than at All State, that was for sure.
“You know, we might have quite a crowd in Richmond this year,” Ms. Jensen said, almost as if she’d read my mind. “The board emailed yesterday to ask whether you would be there. They’re working on a press announcement to try to boost attendance and attract some media coverage.”
“That’s cool. I guess.”
“You know, Mel, this could prove very beneficial to the chorus program.” Ms. Jensen crouched down so we were face-to-face. “It could also mean a lot to some of the other kids whose talent has been, shall we say, underappreciated.”
My stomach clenched. I knew exactly who she meant. Pete. He’d auditioned last year for the Washington Men’s Chorus, but he must’ve had a horrible case of nerves, because somehow he blew it. Never even received a call back. Ever since, he’d made up excuses for why he couldn’t try out again. Ms. Jensen wanted him to major in voice in college, and at one point he was thinking about it, but after the Men’s Chorus debacle he applied to the University of Virginia engineering program and that was the end of that. He wasn’t even planning to try out for their school chorus.
“Okay, how about this?” I pointed to the chorus room across the hall. “What if I spend every single lunch hour this week practicing? And I miss two rehearsals instead of all three?” I’d told Zed I could make it to Ty’s every afternoon this week, but I’d have to figure out a way to get out of it one day.
Ms. Jensen stared at the chorus room door. I could tell she was making up her mind. She surely wanted me to sing at All State every bit as much as I did, but how could she make a special exception to her policy? “Also,” I added, “I won’t tell anyone why I’m missing rehearsal. As far the other kids are concerned, it could be an emergency.” Well, except for Pete. He already knew about the recording sessions, but I doubted he’d tell anyone. His complete lack of interest in The Grime finally may have paid off for me.
“Fine,” Ms. Jensen said. “This week only. Two missed rehearsals.”
I smiled and jumped up before she could change her mind. “Thank you, Ms. J. I promise, you will not regret this. We are going to kick some serious All State butt.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The recording session wasn’t what I expected. First of all, I was the only one being recorded. Second of all, Mick was there. Yes, Mick. As in Mick Nolan. As in dead, buried, and PLAYING KEYBOARD IN MY FREAKING EAR.
Turned out the band had recorded four new songs before he died, and Zed wanted to add my backup vocals. On the one we were working on today, “White Out,” Bruno sang the chorus: “Cold as ice, around you blow, blanketing my heart below,” and then the whole band came in with, “Beating deep beneath the snow.” Mick’s voice was so clear on that line, it was as though he were right there in the room with us. Eerie.
But if hearing Mick’s voice was freaky, hearing my own was incredibly cool, especially when Marvin, the tech guy, would mess with the tone or the reverb. Who knew I could sound so … Adele-meets-Duffy?
“He’s really good,” I said to Zed. “He makes me sound amazing. He could make Yo Gabba Gabba sound amazing.”
Zed laughed. “You’re probably right, but we’ll stick with you. Those freaks would drive us nuts on the tour bus.”
Behind him, Bruno rolled his eyes. It was just Zed, Bruno and I in the studio, with Marvin on the other side of the glass. I wasn’t sure what Bruno was doing there other than making me nervous.
“All right, let’s get started,” Zed said once I’d gotten used to working with the headphones and the tracks. He pointed to my lyrics sheet. “Right here, after ‘beating deep beneath the snow,’ you repeat, ‘beating deep beneath the snow’ real soft.”
I gave it a try, my inflection rising and falling just as Zed’s had, but it didn’t sound right. It seemed awkward and out of place. Bruno looked as though he were witnessing a murder, and even Marvin was shaking his head.
“No worries,” Zed said. “We’ll get this. Try again, only even softer.”
I tried it softer, then deeper, then slower. Nothing worked. By the sixth failed attempt, a small knot ha
d formed in the pit of my stomach and my throat was beginning to constrict. What if I couldn’t do this? What if I didn’t have what it took to be part of The Grime?
“Let’s take a break,” Zed said. “You’re obviously getting frustrated.” He grabbed his cell phone and stalked out of the studio.
I stared at my lyric sheet, the words blurring as my eyes welled up with tears. Was Zed upset? Did he regret asking me to join the band? Maybe I didn’t have it in me to create. Maybe all I would ever be able to do was sing other people’s songs.
“It’s not going to work.” Bruno startled me. He had walked up behind me, so close I could feel his breath on my neck. “It’s all wrong.”
I blinked back the tears and turned to face him. “Don’t you think I know that?” I didn’t need him to tell me how much I sucked. I’d heard it with my own ears six times now.
“Brilliant. You know it’s not working, but do you know how to fix it?” He gave me the famous Bruno sneer. Cocky jerk.
“Obviously I don’t. Nothing I’ve tried so far has worked.”
Bruno grabbed a pen. “Here’s how.” He reached over to the lyric sheet and scratched out my line.
Cut the line. Cut me. Nice. I started to shake. Why did he have to be so mean?
Bruno turned to me. “Repeating the same exact line the band sang added nothing, meant nothing. Now.” He handed me the pen. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
I stared at him, speechless. He wasn’t cutting me. He wanted to rewrite the line. Or more precisely, he wanted me to rewrite the line. My shaking worsened. I couldn’t help but feel as though this were some kind of test. “Fine,” I said. “What if, rather than repeating, ‘beating deep beneath the snow,’ I sing, ‘deep down beneath the snow’?”
The sneer returned. It had been a test, and I’d failed.
“Doesn’t add much meaning, does it?” Bruno grabbed for the pen, but I held it out of reach.
“I don’t get it. These are background vocals. Why do they have to add meaning?”
“Fair question,” he said. “Most times they don’t. But here’s the thing: This song was done—written and recorded—long before you got here. It worked perfectly without you.”
I flinched. Wow. He really did not want me here.
“We’re adding these lines after the fact for one reason: So the world-famous Funeral Singer can have her name on the credits.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. “If it’s a bunch of meaningless words tacked on for no reason, that’s exactly how it’s going to sound. If we’re going to change up the song now, we’d better add something to it.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. Much as Bruno’s words stung, he had a point. The line did feel tacked on. That’s why it wouldn’t work, no matter how I sang it. I closed my eyes to think. “White Out” was about a woman who’d broken a guy’s heart. Not because she’d cheated on him or broken up with him or even said something cruel to him, but because she’d kept him at a distance for so long their love had died. I opened my eyes and wrote: deeper than you’ll dare to go.
Bruno’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “That’s the idea. Might even work.”
“What might work?” Zed appeared in the doorway.
I showed him the line. He glanced uncertainly between Bruno and me, but he nodded. “Can’t hurt. Let’s try it.”
Sure enough, the line did work. In fact, after a few times through, it was hard to imagine the song without it.
“Great job,” Zed said as we wrapped up. “Tomorrow we’ll work on ‘Goodbye, Grace.’”
“What are you talking about?” Bruno had been halfway out the door, but he spun around. “We agreed ‘Goodbye, Grace’ is solid the way it is.”
“Let’s just try it.” Zed clenched his jaw.
“How are you going to have a girl’s voice in the background on a straight-up love ballad? It won’t work.”
“I said, let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll leave it the way it is.”
“Fine. You’re wasting your time, but fine.” Bruno glared at both of us and left.
I took a deep breath. “He doesn’t want me here, does he?”
Zed placed his hand under my chin, lifting my face up to look into his eyes. “Don’t worry about Bruno. He’ll be fine. He’s just messed up about Mick. These songs are tough for him.”
I nodded. That made sense. And anyway, why should I care? Bruno was a jerk. Zed was the one I really cared about, and he definitely wanted me here. “So, you said something about a tour bus?”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you said Yo Gabba Gabba would drive you nuts on the tour bus. Is there a tour bus in our future?”
Zed held the door for me as we left the studio. “Not our immediate future. But I’m working on setting up a couple of local gigs for later in the month, and if they go well—”
“Seriously?” I tried to keep my voice even. “Live gigs?” Rehearsing and recording with The Grime here in Ty’s basement was one thing, but singing on stage with them still seemed too good to be true.
“Um, yes, live gigs,” Zed said. “I know you’re used to dead gigs, but that’s not how we roll.”
“Ha ha. Hilarious.” We reached Ty’s front door, and I stopped and turned toward him. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Same time, same place.” Zed took a step closer. “You sounded amazing today, you know that?” He reached up and brushed a strand of my hair off my face, his hand lingering just behind my ear. I remembered the first time we’d touched, that day in the funeral home. The electricity that had run through my arm on that day coursed through my entire body now. Meanwhile, one thought coursed through my mind: Please kiss me. Please kiss me. Please kiss me.
Zed’s hand moved slowly down my neck, light as a whisper against my skin. I reached up and touched the scar on his chin, the flaw that somehow made him even more beautiful. His hand made its way all the way down my spine to the small of my back, and he pulled me toward him. And he kissed me. A soft, warm, slow kiss. A kiss that vibrated through me with a sensual rumble. I was his bass, and he was playing notes I’d never known existed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lana swerved, barely missing the pickup truck that had slowed in front of us. “He kissed you?”
“Yeah.”
“Two days ago? And I’m just now hearing about it?” She sounded genuinely pissed.
“Come on. You’ve kissed plenty of guys and failed to mention it for days.”
“I know, but you’re … ”
“Different. Right.”
Lana stopped at a red light and turned to me, eyes wide. “Not different. Special.”
“Screw you.” I laughed and stuck out my tongue.
I wasn’t sure why I’d held out on Lana for so long about the kiss. I mean, it was kind of a big deal. First of all, because he was Zed Logan. And second of all, because me kissing a boy, any boy, was not an everyday occurrence. This was only my third kiss ever, and the first two were both … what’s the word I was looking for? Wet. Awkward. Sloppy. Take your pick.
“So how was it?”
“I don’t know. Nice.” My cheeks flushed. It was more than nice. It was soft and incredible and exciting and sweet and absolutely unfreakingbelievable. I closed my eyes and felt Zed’s strong hands pressing into the small of my back and his lips on mine. I shook my head. “It was just a one-time thing, though. He hasn’t kissed me again. In fact, he’s basically acting like it never happened.”
Lana’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? He kissed you and … that was it?”
“That was it.”
“Weird.”
I turned to look out the window. “I don’t know. I mean, we do work together. Maybe he wants to keep things professional.”
“Yeah, well, if that’s the case, he shouldn’t have kissed you in the first place. Idiot. Guys are idiots.”
Right. Maybe this was why I’d taken so long to tell her. Because I knew Lana would jump right into “guys are idiots”
mode. Zed wasn’t an idiot. He was amazing and hot and beautiful and why oh why hadn’t he kissed me again? What if it was because I was a horrible kisser? For the millionth time in two days, I wondered whether Zed could tell I had no idea what I was doing, or whether maybe he thought my tongue was too fat or my lips were too dry or my teeth were too big.
I turned back to Lana and changed the subject. “So. You ready to meet Bruno?” It was all I could do to refrain from adding, “ … speaking of idiots.”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Lana glanced in the rearview mirror and picked at her curls. We were on our way to Ty’s for a barbecue. She’d been freaking out about wanting to make a good first impression ever since I’d invited her last night. “I wish I’d had more time. My hair needs more blond. And my eyebrows—ugh. That new girl at Bon Bon’s has no idea what she’s doing. I look like the spawn of Martin Scorsese.”
“You do not. You look amazing, as always.” I wasn’t used to seeing Lana nervous. She was the confident one, the fun one, the slightly crazy one. And even though she wasn’t model-gorgeous, there was something about her that drew guys to her like kids to cotton candy. Unfortunately, her relationships usually had as much substance and lasted about as long.
As we turned into Ty’s neighborhood, I realized this party was going to include a lot more than “a few friends,” though that’s what Zed had told me. Cars lined the curb on both sides of the street for at least half a mile.
Lana parked at the end of the line and we began walking. “How’s your Keyboards from the Crypt album going?” Lana asked.
I laughed. “That’s just wrong. Funny, but wrong. How about Grooves from the Grave?”
“Ballads from Beyond.”
I tried to think of another one but drew a blank.
“Downloads from the Dead,” Lana said, finally.
“Nice.” I held out my fist and Lana bumped it.
“It’s going okay, I think. The first song we did went great. The second one, not so much.”
The Funeral Singer Page 8