She shook her head at Tanner, who grinned at her unrepentantly. “You are just plain wicked,” she said, trying—and failing—to sound stern.
“I’m sorry, I know that was over the top. I’m just so ridiculously happy.” He leaned over and kissed her just as her father walked back into the room. He vanished into the kitchen before either could say a word.
“Must have seen his shadow,” murmured Tanner, and scooted his chair closer to hers so that he could continue kissing her more conveniently.
Chapter 11
Maddie swirled the ice cubes in her drink and stared morosely at her beer mat. The bar’s sound system was playing eighties synthpop to get everyone in a receptive mood for Aerosol Cheese while the band finished setting up. She was concentrating on her drink so she wouldn’t be tempted to watch William. She knew he’d refuse to meet her eye.
It would have been better for both of them if she hadn’t come. But an Ash Grove girl group called Bitchkrieg was playing at McCloskey’s, and Joy had insisted that she and Tanner take her for a night out.
“But you and Tanner should have Saturday night to yourselves,” Maddie had said.
“I’m not going to let you sit alone in the dorm being unhappy,” Joy told her. “You’re coming out with us.”
Maddie regretted agreeing as soon as they picked her up. They were so obviously still in the honeymoon stage, always catching each other’s eye and sharing secret smiles, touching each other—it was cute and all, but kind of aggravating at the same time, because it was clear they’d rather be alone.
Then, when they’d arrived at the bar, they found out that Aerosol Cheese was opening for Bitchkrieg. Apparently they’d played the previous Saturday and were such a huge hit that they’d been booked for this return engagement just a week later. Joy had suggested they go somewhere else, but Maddie wasn’t going to let her and Tanner continue to shape their evening around her—especially because she sensed that Tanner wasn’t feeling very pro-Maddie. Probably he was siding with William, and she couldn’t really blame him.
So here she was, feeling as useless as wheels on a dolphin, trying to pretend she wasn’t there.
“I talked to Blake, and he said it won’t be a long set,” Tanner told them, returning to their table. “Just half a dozen songs, and they’ll be done.”
Maddie usually enjoyed McCloskey’s; the bar and tabletops were covered with vintage postcards under lamination, and the walls were decorated with old album covers. Entertainment switched out from trivia night to karaoke to live performances, like tonight’s, by local musicians. Best of all, the bartenders had a highly relaxed attitude toward carding. Not coincidentally, it was a popular hangout for students.
Even so, this was a surprisingly big crowd for a weeknight and for a high school band. And that wasn’t the only surprise. In the crush of students already gathered before the stage, a blaze of red hair caught Maddie’s eye. “What’s Sheila doing here?” she asked Joy.
“Maybe she’s dating one of the guys in the band,” Joy suggested. “Or hoping to.”
“I hope it’s Eric. They deserve each other.”
“I don’t know, Mads. She does seem a lot nicer now. She’s called me up a couple of times to see if I needed her to run any errands for me.”
“You turned her down, I hope.” As far as Maddie was concerned, Sheila was still not forgiven.
But Joy had always been a nicer person than she was. “I told her I’m still able to drive myself. But it was nice of her to volunteer.”
At that moment Sheila caught sight of them then and waved energetically. Joy returned the wave, and Sheila took her response as an invitation to join them. She was with them in moments. “Hi, guys! I didn’t know you’d be here tonight. Joy, how are you feeling?”
“Pretty good,” she said. “Just trying to avoid sharp objects so I don’t pop like a balloon. Who are you here with?”
“Nobody, really. Alissa and Grace already had plans.” Something about the way she said it made Maddie wonder if there had been a falling out between the creature and her minions. “Maddie, I wish you’d called me; we could have come together.”
“I came with Joy and Tanner,” she hedged. “So you’re a fan of Bitchkrieg?”
“No, but I’m starting to be a fan of Aerosol Cheese. William’s been helping me with a project and I wanted to, you know, support him.”
“William?” Joy repeated. Sheila nodded eagerly.
“Isn’t he fantastic? He’s so talented. He’s even—”
Maddie broke in. “What project?”
“My senior recital piece. He’s doing a new arrangement of a flamenco song for me. Isn’t that sweet?”
“William’s a great guy,” said Joy. Maddie was unable to speak.
Sheila beamed at them. “He really is. I can see why you hang out with him so much. Well, bye now. I want to get a good spot before the crowd gets really bad.”
She glided off, and Maddie and Joy stared after her in stupefaction. Maddie was the one who broke the silence.
“William and Sheila?” she said incredulously. “What the hell?”
Joy looked just as stunned as Maddie felt. “He hasn’t said anything to me about it,” she said. “Not even about helping her with her senior project. But you know, it would explain why she started making nice with us.”
Tanner had been watching Sheila warily, but now that she was gone he relaxed and took a sip of his drink. “I still don’t trust her,” he told Joy. “Not after the way she treated you.”
“Well, if she’s started to appreciate William, maybe she really has changed.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Maddie. “He would never go out with such a bullying, entitled—”
Blake’s velvety voice came over the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are Aerosol Cheese.”
Whoops and screams of enthusiasm came in response, and the energy of the crowd took a leap upward as the music started. Maddie didn’t leave her place at the table, but Joy, heavily pregnant though she was, clambered off her bar stool and pulled Tanner into the crowd to dance. Joy was crazy about dancing, but Maddie doubted her endurance would last long with all the extra weight she was carrying. Tanner, not a fan of fast dancing, nonetheless endured it for Joy’s sake.
She was amazed at the crowd’s response. True, the guys were sounding great, even with pre-recorded drums instead of a live drummer. William was looking more happy and relaxed than he had since—she hastily sidestepped that mental picture. An original song, a ballad called “Mesmerize” that she knew Blake had written, got a huge response. (Joy and Tanner danced that one together; the sight of Joy turned half sideways to get her pregnant belly out of the way so her fiancé could hold her closer was comical but strangely touching.) The little pub was more crowded than she had ever seen it, and strangers were jostling her where she sat.
She recognized another familiar face in the mob. “This is insane!” she shouted to Becca over the music and the crowd noise.
“I know, right? These guys are awesome!” Becca yelled back.
But just last summer Aerosol Cheese was playing to half-empty coffeehouses, and even other Ash Grove students hadn’t made much effort to attend their concerts. Was the difference because they were doing more original material now? This was another original song they were starting now, with a dark violin intro played by William. To her surprise, he had moved up to the center mike, while Blake fell back and filled in on the keyboard. When William began to sing he was almost drowned out by the screaming of the girls in the audience, but when Maddie was able to hear the words, she felt as if a knife made of ice had been thrust through her body.
William was singing about her. About them.
She was jumping to conclusions, she told herself. But then in a break in the lyrics Eric stepped forward to yell into the microphone, “This one’s for you, Maddie!” before he retreated to let William resume singing.
She heard a ripple of laughter even louder than the music, an
d saw faces turning toward her in curiosity and amusement. Joy sent her one shocked look across the room and began pushing her way through the crowd toward her, Tanner at her side. William was finishing the second verse by the time they made it back to where Maddie sat.
Why should she settle for just one
When she can have a hundred men?
She takes him home and has her fun
And then she starts the game again
And if you open up your heart
She’ll say while putting on her dress
“Don’t be naive, it isn’t smart—
What made you think I’d be impressed?”
Takes all she can
And nothing less
From every man
When she says yes
She fooled you too
Go on, confess
Thought she loved you
When she said yes
Everyone seemed to be staring at her now, snickering, pointing. “Let’s get out of here,” she begged.
The other two seemed to understand her even through the roaring applause that marked the end of the song. “It’s getting too packed in here anyway,” said Tanner. “I don’t like for Joy to be crowded like this.” With a protective arm around Joy’s shoulders he shepherded them toward the door.
Outside, the air was cold and clear, and the noise level dropped to almost nothing, leaving her head ringing.
“It wasn’t my imagination, was it?” she said. “That song—?”
“It was horrible.” Joy put her arm around her. “But it may not have been personal. Maybe Eric was just being a jerk.”
“Of course it was personal.” She felt sickened at having so much bitterness aimed at her. And from William, who had always been so gentle. As much as she would have loved to blame Eric alone, she knew it had to be William who had written the song.
On the ride back to campus she sat huddled in the back seat, silent, while Joy and Tanner made conversation. Since Tanner was never much for small talk even in the best of circumstances, it amounted to an intermittent monologue from Joy. Maddie knew she was trying to help, but she just couldn’t bring her focus to anything Joy was saying. William had as good as called her a slut, and in public. In verse, yet. Clearly he was not in a forgiving place.
“Maybe he just needed to vent,” said Joy presently. “Maybe this’ll actually help him work through everything.” She appealed to Tanner. “That’s possible, right?”
“It’s possible,” was all he would say.
It was a flimsy hope, but Maddie clung to it. And in the meantime, she prayed nobody remembered that Eric had identified her as the girl in the song.
Her prayer was unanswered. As soon as she walked into morning assembly on Monday, the whispers started. Heads turned in her direction, and Alissa elbowed Grace significantly. “Hey, Maddie,” said Grace sweetly. “Do you have a pencil I can borrow? I just know you’ll say yes.” She emphasized the last three words.
“Hilarious,” said Maddie, not breaking stride.
Next it was Alissa. “So I hear you’re auditioning drummers for Aerosol Cheese now.”
Maddie gave her a bright smile. “Sure am,” she said. “Your boyfriend’s already come back for three callbacks. He just keeps pounding and pounding…”
Alissa glared at her, and Grace raised her voice to get the attention of the closest teacher. “Mrs. Minish? Can you come here? Elvira Rosenbaum is being inappropriate.”
“Yeah, just ask her,” Alissa said. “I’m sure she’ll say yes.” She and Alissa dissolved into giggles as the teacher approached them.
“Wow, that’s not getting old at all,” said Maddie, and then Mrs. Minish hauled them all to Dr. Aysgarth’s office.
Maddie was called in first. “I want to give the other two plenty of time to get nervous,” the principal explained. She perched on a corner of her desk, the stance she took when she wasn’t mad at you. If you were really in trouble, she’d be seated behind her desk, in the position of power. Maddie recognized and appreciated Dr. Aysgarth’s use of blocking. She’d make a good director.
“I’d like to get your version of what happened,” she said now. “I don’t want you to soft-pedal it. Dr. Marzavan is with the boys in the band right now, so you don’t need to worry that they’re not being held accountable. I have no patience for slut shaming in my school.”
“Well, I’m not a slut, so I don’t feel shamed,” said Maddie, sounding more pert than she felt. No matter how secure she felt in her personal choices, it was still humiliating to have them held up for the whole school to pick at.
Dr. Aysgarth’s smile was a little frosty. “I’m glad to hear it. But the point is that none of my students are entitled to judge others’ personal lives. Don’t worry, I’ll save the full lecture for the others.”
In a few short sentences Maddie told her what had happened at McCloskey’s. Dr. Aysgarth looked grim, but not surprised. Then she took off her glasses, signaling a change of conversational gears. “I have no wish to invade your privacy,” she said, “and your choices are your own. But while I’m acting in lieu of your parents, I will say that I hope you’re practicing safe sex, and that if you ever feel pressured or in a situation you can’t handle, I hope you’ll let me or one of the other faculty members know at once.”
Maddie nodded, not looking at her. This was not a conversation she wanted to have with the principal.
“And if there’s ever anything you’d like to talk over confidentially, please remember you can come to me.”
“When I’m doing so brilliantly exercising my own judgment?” But the sober gaze of the principal made her ashamed of being flippant. She was silent for a moment. She could faintly hear Dr. Aysgarth’s secretary talking on the phone in the next room, and the ticking of the big institutional clock over the door. It sounded portentous enough to be something out of Edgar Allan Poe.
“I guess there is one thing I wouldn’t mind some advice on,” she said eventually. “What do you do when you’ve hurt someone and you can’t undo it? Someone you really care about?”
Dr. Aysgarth considered this for a few moments. Without her glasses she looked younger and less severe. For the first time Maddie wondered what her story was, if she had any romance in her past. She knew the principal was unmarried, but nothing more than that. Maybe she’d had her heart broken when she was young—or done some breaking herself.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a surefire solution to that,” she said at last. “You probably know already the right things to do: take responsibility, show him you’re remorseful. And keep proving to him that it won’t happen again—to him or anyone.”
“You mean, show him I’ve grown as a person?” Maddie couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“If you want to put it that way,” was the unperturbed reply. “If you’re looking for some secret shortcut, there isn’t any that I know of.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. So… can I go now?”
“Yes, you may go.” Dr Aysgarth put her glasses back on and took her seat behind her desk, preparing to intimidate Grace and Alissa, no doubt. “One thing, though: we’ve all made decisions we regret. What’s important is learning from them. And right now,” she added, with a conspiratorial smile, “Alissa and Grace are going to do some learning. Tell them I’m ready for them.”
Chapter 12
William fumed.
He and the rest of the guys from the band were being chewed out by Mo. They stood in front of his desk—there weren’t enough seats for them all in his dim cavern of an office—as their teacher rumbled disapprovingly at them. William hadn’t been lectured like this since he was a kid. It was ridiculous, treating them like they were kindergarteners.
“… such an irresponsible and cruel thing to do,” Mo was saying. Before him, his computer monitor displayed rough video footage of the McCloskey’s gig, now paused, taken by somebody’s phone. “I expected better from all of you. To perform in public a vicious screed a
bout another student—”
“She’s not named in the song,” said William. “There’s nothing in the lyrics to even suggest that it’s a real person.”
“Your bandmate took care of any doubt there.” Mo regarded Eric with a cold eye. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”
Eric shrugged. He was the only one present who looked at ease.
“All I did was dedicate the song to a girl we all know. Know biblically,” he added, but under Mo’s withering gaze his snickering dried up. “Hey, I hadn’t planned on it. It was, like, spontaneous.”
“But nothing else about that performance was. As a group, you’d taken the trouble to write the music and lyrics and to rehearse them. Did it simply not occur to you that it might be hurtful?”
William wondered if Jeremiah would say “I told you so.” But he wasn’t that petty. Instead Jeremiah suggested, “What if we wrote new lyrics? It’s such a cool song—come on, you’ve got to admit William did a great job. It would suck if the whole thing had to be pitched.”
Mo considered this, his gooseberry eyes fixed on the distance. With one hand he tapped out the rhythm of the song.
But William was feeling mutinous. “I don’t want to rewrite the lyrics. They say exactly what I wanted to say.”
“I’d be happy to take a shot at it,” offered Blake. “I’ve got some ideas I’ve been turning around, if you don’t mind. It could be about being in love without knowing where you stand. You know, hoping she’ll say yes.”
He did mind. He didn’t want his song turned into something safe and bland. The words were as essential as the melody, the arrangement, the key—they all interlocked to make a unified whole. Changing the subject while keeping the rest as it was would be like casting Lady Gaga as Lady Macbeth.
But then the resentment went out of him. “I really don’t care at this point,” he said, and realized it was true. “I’m working on other material now. If Blake wants to waste his time recycling ‘She Says Yes,’ it’s no skin off my nose.” He was thinking suddenly about a new song, less jaded and more optimistic, about meeting someone new. The beginning of something, not the end.
Casting Shadows (The Ash Grove Chronicles) Page 13