Beauty and the Bully

by Andy Behrens

  Literally, he had breathing issues, he was so happy. He began to hyperventilate as he opened the Reliant’s door. Carly had already smiled, given him a wiggly-fingered wave, and driven off, so she didn’t actually see a light-headed Duncan sitting at the wheel of his car, his head between his knees taking deep, calming breaths.

  That was just spectacular, he thought.

  He inserted his key in the ignition and started the Reliant. The digital clock blinked 5:02.

  “Whoops,” he said aloud.

  He sped out of the EFTHS parking lot, rather recklessly eased through a few stop signs, and raced home. When he arrived at his driveway, he saw Jessie’s car parked along the street.

  “Oh, man, she’s gonna be mad,” he said.

  Then, just ahead of her car, he saw a black Monte Carlo—the same car Freddie had left school in the day before, the very Monte Carlo that he’d been tossed onto.

  “Freddie’s sister,” said Duncan. “Oh, yeah.” He stared at the garage. “Wonder how practice is going.” He approached the side door of his garage with dread. He took note of the flaking brown paint, knowing that his dad would make him paint in the spring. He stood at the closed door and listened. He thought he heard laughter. Anxiously, he turned the door-knob and entered.

  “Hey, everybody, really sorry I’m late. Couldn’t be helped. There was this TARTS thing that Carly invited me to, and I couldn’t very well say—”

  A cowbell whizzed past his ear.

  14

  “Hey!” yelled Duncan. “Not this again!”

  “Yes, this again!” shouted Jessie, flinging a strand of sleigh bells at him. “What the heck, dude?! It’s like a quarter after five! You know I’ve gotta be home by six!”

  “I’m sorry!” he said. He ducked to avoid a flying Cabasa. “I’m really, truly, incredibly sorry!” He remained hunched over near the door, unwilling to lift his head until he could be sure he wouldn’t be struck by anything. “Enough with the projectiles!” he called. “Please! You’re gonna break all the instruments! Or you’ll break me!”

  “Okay,” said Jessie. “Fine, cease fire.”

  He stood up slowly. A set of castanets hit him in the stomach.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  “Well, I hadn’t actually hit you yet,” Jess said. “And any-ways, have I ever fought fair? No.”

  In addition to Jessie and Stew, Duncan saw a strangely familiar face in his garage. It belonged to the blond girl who’d been at the wheel of the Monte Carlo. Duncan immediately noticed that she had a red Scorpio-Blaster Flying V guitar slung over her shoulder. Impressive, he thought. She had surprisingly soft features for a Wambaugh. She also looked the part of a punk rock goddess: Replacements concert shirt, ripped jeans, Doc Martens, tousled hair. She had a burning heart tattooed on her left biceps, too, which impressed Duncan more than a little.

  “Hi,” he said to the girl. “You must be . . . ?”

  “Freddie didn’t even tell you my name?” she asked incredulously. “What a friggin’ dope my brother is.”

  “No, he must’ve told me and I just forgot it. Really sorry.”

  “So you’re the dope,” she said.

  “Right. Something like that. I’m Duncan.”

  “I’m Sydney,” she said, smiling faintly. “People just call me Syd.”

  “So there’s a new person in the band, Duncan,” said Stew with mock calm. “Did you know this? I suppose an e-mail went out and I just missed it. Or maybe a memo was circulated. Or maybe it was in the band’s newsletter and somehow I overlooked it. Oh, well.”

  “Sorry,” said Duncan, pressing his hands together. “I really am. I totally meant to tell you guys. You were not supposed to find out by—”

  “—meeting Syd for the first time while she was breaking into your garage?” asked Stew. “No, I doubt we were supposed to find out that way.”

  “Again, I’m really sor—” He paused. “Syd broke into the garage? ” He looked at the new guitarist. “You broke into the garage, Syd?”

  “Well, I would have broken in if these guys hadn’t shown up and opened the door. Good thing they did, too. I guess there’s an alarm. Hee-hee.”

  “Yeah, good thing. Why wouldn’t you just go to the front door of the house?”

  “There was a note. Freddie gave it to me. ‘Meet in the garage,’ it said.”

  “Exactly. It did not say ‘Meet in the garage, but if it’s locked, break in.’ Who does that?”

  “Um . . . people who want to avoid yet another conversation with their guidance counselor?” offered Syd.

  “Ah, right,” said Duncan. “I can see that being awkward.” He looked at Stew and Jess. “So let me get this straight: you two guys see a strange person breaking into my garage—the place where we keep, like, hundreds of dollars’ worth of instruments and sound equipment—and you let them in?”

  “What were we supposed to do?” asked Jess. “Tackle her?”

  “Well, maybe. Tackling seems appropriate.”

  “She didn’t give off a burglar vibe, Duncan,” said Stew. “She had a guitar with her. If she were going to break in and take sound equipment, would she bring her own guitar?” Stew paused, glancing away. “And she turns out to be pretty cool.”

  Duncan looked at the three of them.

  “So,” he said hesitantly, “she’s cool enough that you two guys aren’t mad at me for adding someone to the band without asking? She’s that cool?”

  “Hey,” answered Stew, “as long as she can play.”

  “And, um . . . can she?” asked Duncan.

  “We haven’t really jammed,” said Jessie. “We’ve been introducing ourselves to the new guitarist. Since you weren’t here to make a formal introduction.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Once again. Very sorry.”

  “Not an issue,” said Jess. “We like her. I think we’ve pieced together the important details of this whole covert deal between you and Freddie.”

  “It was Freddie’s idea,” said Duncan.

  “Yeah,” said Syd, “big idea man, my brother.”

  “In any case,” said Jessie, “it turns out this chick has excellent taste. She’s a connoisseur of the eighties Minneapolis rock scene, which I appreciate deeply.” Jess pointed to the Replacements T-shirt. Syd struck a coquettish modeling pose. “A girl after my own heart,” said Jess, grinning.

  “Nice,” said Duncan, plugging his guitar into an amp.

  “So,” he said, “maybe we can play, um . . . well, anything, I guess. Just to establish a musical rapport. What do you know, Syd?”

  She shrugged. “Hmm. I’ve been trying to teach myself a few Stones songs. I haven’t mastered anything, but I’m getting the hang of a few of ’em.”

  “Cool, great. Give us a taste of something.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ve been working on ‘Rocks Off.’ Know it?”

  “Exile on Main Street,” said Stew. “Very nice. Best album ever, if you want my opin—”

  “Oh, come on!” said Duncan. “It’s a great record, but seriously. Best ever? It’s no Houses of the Holy. It’s no Zeppelin IV. Hell, it’s no Zeppelin I, eith—”

  “Enough!” said Jessie. “Let’s just let the girl play. I’ve gotta leave for home in, like, five minutes. Can we all just agree that ‘Rocks Off’ is a kick-ass song, and we’d love to hear Syd’s version? ”

  “It’s a totally kick-ass song,” said Stew. “In fact, I’d say it’s the best opening song on any album, ever. Hands down, the bes—”

  “Puh-leez!” said Duncan. “Better than ‘Black Dog’? I don’t think so. Better than ‘Good Times Bad Times’? You’ve gotta be kid—”

  “Dudes!” yelled Jessie, smashing a drumstick against a cymbal. “Let the girl play.”

  “Oh, right,” said Duncan.

  “Sorry,” said Stew.

  “So,” began Syd, “are practices always this, um . . .”

  “Full of disagreement, violence, and very little music?” asked Jess. “Yes,
pretty much. I’d say you’re witnessing a pretty typical practice. Normally I yell a bit more.” She smiled. “Hope that’s not a problem.”

  “No, I admire loud women,” said Syd. She and Jess fist-bumped. Syd then swung her guitar forward. She looked slightly awkward arranging her delicate fingers, Duncan noted. She cleared her throat nervously, then spread her feet wide.

  “Okay,” she said tentatively. “‘Rocks Off,’ here goes . . .”

  To say that she sounded awful is an insult to guitarists who are merely awful. Syd sounded like an implement of torture. No, she sounded like the suffering victim of an implement of torture. She was excruciatingly slow and screechy. Whatever she was playing, it wasn’t the scorching opener from Exile. It was more like something that should be played on an endless loop in Hell. And, to make matters slightly worse, she kept making guitar faces, scrunching up her eyes. She shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed operatically. Duncan felt a little queasy.

  When the drums were supposed to enter, Jess did nothing but stare. When a vocalist was supposed to jump in, Duncan blurted, “Okay, okay!” into a floor-stand microphone, then walked toward Syd.

  She stopped playing and smiled sheepishly. “What’s up?” she asked, her warm green eyes looking up at Duncan. “Man, I just love that song.”

  “Yeah,” said Duncan. “Me, too.” And I hate to see it treated this way, he thought. “Solid, um . . . solid effort there, Syd. Very passionate. Really, um . . . committed.”

  “Thanks!” she said.

  Jessie and Stew were simply looking at Duncan. Jessie seemed halfway amused. Stew seemed peeved.

  “Hey, Syd,” said Jess. “Come inside with me. I totally need a Mr PiBB before I leave. I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Boone.”

  “Dude, I’ve met Mrs. Boone. She wasn’t overly impressed with the transcript from my last school.”

  “You’ll find that in her capacity as Duncan’s mom she’s a little nicer and wackier, if no less judgmental.”

  “So she won’t tell me that another C-minus means community college, then an early pregnancy, then a series of unful filling hourly-wage retail jobs?”

  “No, she won’t tell you that stuff when she’s at home. She’ll still be thinking it, but she won’t say it. Probably.”

  “Cool, then. I like Mr PiBB.”

  Jess and Syd marched out the side door of the garage, chit-chatting. Stew simply glared at Duncan.

  “Dude,” he finally said.

  “Dude what?” asked Duncan.

  “Dude nothin’,” said Stew. “Sometimes a situation is so fantastically messed up that all you can really say is ‘Dude.’ ”

  “So she’s not a strong guitarist, I’ll give you tha—”

  “Not a strong guitarist?!” yelped Stew. “She’s not any kind of guitarist, Duncan. I won’t even say that she’s a bad guitarist, because that would imply that she belongs to the global community of guitarists. Which she doesn’t.”

  “Well, she looks cool,” Duncan offered. “She’s a punk rock girl who’s not totally vulgar and covered in sores and eyebrow rings and stuff.” He paused, running a finger over a dusty work surface, strewn with tools. “She has a tattoo,” he added.

  “I have a dim-witted cousin on my mom’s side who has about a hundred tattoos. He’s in a penitentiary in Oregon. He tried to rob a liquor store armed with a vacuum attachment. Can he be in the band? Did I mention he has tattoos?”

  “Well, when he gets out, if he can play the bass, we might be in the mark—”

  “Seriously, Duncan,” said Stew. “She really sucked. I mean, nice girl. Don’t get me wrong. Happy to know her, despite the fact that her brother’s a raging psycho. But she just can’t play. Not even a little.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You can kick her out of the band is what you can do.”

  “Dude,” he said, then fell silent.

  “What?” asked Stew.

  “This is one of those nothin’-to-say-except-‘Dude’ situations. ” Duncan, frustrated, sat on top of the dusty workbench. “I can’t kick her out. She’s Freddie’s sister. I need Freddie. We have a deal. She’s in the band, Stew. She’s gotta be, or else I’m dead—either I’m metaphorically dead, or I’m physically dead. But dead.”

  “Then fix her.”

  “Wha—? You know she’s not a puppy, right?”

  “Make her better,” said Stew. “At guitar. Make her suck less. Way less. She needs lessons, dude.”

  Duncan thought for a moment. Between band practices, homework, his dogged pursuit of Carly, and his burgeoning commitment to TARTS, he already felt a little overextended. But he didn’t want the band to completely stink, and he knew he’d been wildly inconsiderate to his friends. And anyway, Syd seemed nice enough. Perhaps this would earn him extra points with her brother.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try. It’s kind of a delicate matter, though. One guitarist offering to give another lessons. But I’ll pitch it.”

  “Cool,” said Stew.

  They heard voices and footsteps outside along the path that led to the garage.

  “See, I told you Duncan’s mom was a hoot,” Jessie said to Syd as they returned. They were each carrying two Mr PiBBs. Jess tossed one to Stew, and Syd handed one to Duncan.

  “Gross,” said Stew. “Stuff tastes like liquefied dog hair.”

  “’Cuz you eat a lot of dog hair and you’d know?” asked Jess. “This stuff rocks.”

  “Thanks, Syd,” said Duncan. “So, um . . . Stew and I were talking, Syd, and we thought maybe that you and I could sorta, um . . .” She looked at Duncan eagerly. He paused. “Well, we were thinking that you and I could play together a little bit. Just us. Ourselves. The guitarists. It’s way important that we get the guitars to mesh. To interact. To develop an organic kind of relationship, an interplay, a unified—”

  Syd snorted, then grinned. “You figured that since I totally blow you’re gonna give me lessons, yeah?” She bounced in place. “Awesome! I totally need it. I suck. If you guys hadn’t detected that, I would have lost all respect for . . . uh . . . what’s the band’s name, anyway?”

  “Fat Barbie,” said Stew.

  “Awesome,” said Syd. “Cool name. Total rejection of materialism. Nice.”

  “Exactly,” said Duncan. “That’s just what we were going for.” He paused. “But, um . . . we’ve had a slight name modification. ” Stew and Jess glowered. “Very recently.” More glowering. “Like, earlier today.”

  “But I was gonna get an overweight Barbie painted on the kick drum,” said Jess. “Dang, Duncan!”

  “Well, I’m sorry, it’s just tha—”

  “Oh, what’s the friggin’ name now?” asked Stew.

  “The Flaming Tarts,” Duncan offered with a hint of guilt.

  “What?” asked Stew.

  “Like Pop-Tarts?” asked Jess. “Like SweeTarts?”

  “More like, um . . . Teens Against Rodent Tes—”

  “No way!” yelled Stew. “You have got to be kidding me?! You are not gonna politicize this band, Duncan! No friggin’ way!”

  “You think naming the band after the little rat/beaver club is going to get you some sweet Carly lovin’?” asked Jess. “Is that what you think?”

  Syd’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, just calm down,” he said. “This doesn’t make us political, exactly. We’re only peripherally, um . . . less disconnected from the problems facing, um . . .”

  “Beavers!” shouted Stew.

  “The Flaming Tarts,” said Syd. “I don’t quite get it. Where are the beavers? And how is it political? Are Republicans setting beavers on fire and I’ve somehow missed this?”

  “Well, it’s complicated,” said Duncan.

  “It’s lame,” snapped Stew. "L-a-m-e.” He looked toward Jess. “Don’t you have to get home? I’m definitely ready to go.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, glancing at her digital watch. “Whoops. Later, um . . . Tarts. Nice to meet you, Syd!”
<
br />   She and Stew grabbed their gear and hurried off, leaving Syd and Duncan alone in the garage. Duncan sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “That could’ve gone better,” he said.

  “Lotta drama in this band,” said Syd. “I think I’m gonna like it.” She picked up her guitar. “So, how ’bout one of those lessons?”

  Duncan sighed. “Yup. Sure. Gotta start sometime.” He ripped off a quick sequence of notes.

  “Hey, was that ‘Witchcraft’?” she asked. “I love Wolfmother. Totally Sabbath-sounding, but still.”

  Point, Syd, thought Duncan. Yeah, this could all work out.

  15

  Or not. The first guitar lesson with Sydney Wambaugh addressed only the basics, and in a straightforward manner. She and Duncan reviewed guitar tablature, practiced chords, worked on transitions. “G, C, D,” he said patiently. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.” She was determined, focused, and not easily frustrated. And she completely sucked.

  Syd was miserably slow-fingered. Her hands seemed too tiny to control the guitar. It made wretched, horrible sounds. Duncan would have felt safer if he were giving her Uzi lessons. Outwardly, he tried to be encouraging. Inwardly, he was thinking of analogies to describe the terrible effect that her playing had on his senses: glass down a chalkboard, chewing tinfoil, removing his own fingernails with a grapefruit spoon—that sort of thing. Syd at least looked like a proper guitarist, he told himself. That was half the battle. Well, no. It was probably no more than 5 percent of the battle. But it was something. At six thirty, she put her guitar in its case and walked to the Monte Carlo.

  “Very cool of you to try to help me, Duncan,” she said. “As a musician, I know I’m not exactly Jimi Hendrix.”

  Dude, as a musician you’re not exactly Jimmy Fallon, he thought.

  “Oh, don’t get down on yourself,” he said. “That’s the worst thing you can do. Think successful, be successful. That’s what my Little League coach always told us.”

  “And did that work?”

  “Not for baseball, no. Sure didn’t. I can’t hit speeding balls. It’s my astigmatism. But I’m pretty sure the guitar is totally different. ” Syd smiled at that. “It’s really just a matter of practicing. Come over on Thursday, same time. We’ll try again.” I’d seriously rather eat marbles, he thought. Big ones. But I owe Freddie.