Offbeat

by Megan Clendenan

  “Okay, I’ll play the first couple of notes, and y’all play it back to me. We’ll repeat that a few times until we’ve got it,” Robin says. “I’ll play the tune for you once first so you can hear it.” She raises her fiddle and starts to play, bowing on more than one string at a time. Somehow it sounds like more than one fiddle playing.

  I lean over to Shilo. “She’s amazing! It sounds like she’s accompanying herself, like she’s her own band.”

  “I so want to learn how to do that,” Shilo says.

  When Robin finishes, everyone claps like she’s just performed a full concert. “Okay, the trick with this one is that you need to play it kind of slippery. Picture yourself as a snake coiling ’round and ’round some thick tree branches.” She demonstrates a few notes again. “You don’t want to play it harsh, like a bunch of stomping trolls. Think light.”

  We learn the notes by listening to Robin play. We repeat it over and over. I can feel myself playing with gritted teeth and a clenched jaw as I will myself to learn the melody. I wish we had the music. I’m so much better when I can read the notes first.

  “One more time! You guys are starting to sound great!”

  Robin’s energy is contagious. I can hear Liam playing behind me. He seems to have caught on to the whole melody already, and that makes me focus more. My brain slowly begins to release its death grip on the rest of my body, and my fingers take over, automatically going to the right strings, the right notes. I begin to relax, move my body and look around the room as I play.

  “That sounded amazing, everyone,” Robin says, leaning back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. “How did it make you feel?”

  I shift in my chair, which suddenly seems hard as rock. I’m thinking of the perfect answer when Liam shouts out.

  “Like climbing a mountain. While being chased by wolves!”

  Everyone laughs. I can’t help but smile as well.

  “Nice. Yeah, I know what you mean. It makes me feel like I’m surfing big waves,” Robin says. “Anybody have any questions?” A boy puts up his hand.

  “She has a degree in folk music,” Shilo whispers in my ear.

  “I didn’t know you could get a university degree in folk music!” I whisper back. My mom would certainly have an opinion on that.

  “I once heard of someone who got their degree in puppet making. So anything’s possible.”

  Behind me I can hear Liam plucking the melody we just learned. A woman asks Robin to check the tuning of her fiddle. I run my hand over the back of my fiddle, the smooth wood warm as usual.

  “Hey.” Liam leans forward between our chairs, a puzzled smile on his face. A few pieces of dark hair have escaped his cap.

  “Hi,” I say. “How’s it going?”

  “Do you know where the tune goes in the second phrase of the B part? I think I’m missing a note.” He plucks the part, and I listen like it was the most important test of my life.

  “Here…in this spot.” He stops and looks at me.

  “Oh, that goes up to the A,” I say, trying to sound casual, but I’m not 100 percent sure. He tries it out, and it sounds right.

  “Okay, yeah. I should have picked that up.” He smiles all the way to his eyes.

  “No problem,” I say.

  “Okay, everyone, thanks for your patience,” Robin says. “Let’s get back to playing some more tunes!”

  “Thanks,” Liam whispers. I give him one of my best smiles and then turn around to face the front again. Shilo pokes me on my toe with her bow. She knows I want to keep talking with Liam.

  “Okay, let’s learn another Cajun favorite of mine.” Robin puts her fiddle under her chin. “I’ll teach you the melody and then let’s get some of you doing a harmony part. Let’s give this one some southern swamp flavor, all right?”

  We learn the melody and then Robin gets a few volunteers to play a simple harmony. This is exactly the type of music I want to learn.

  “Great work, everyone! Sadly, our time is almost up.” Robin stands, and everyone quiets down. “Since this is the first workshop of the festival, I’m supposed to share some news with y’all.” She has my attention. “For those of you who participated in the first round of the fiddle contest yesterday, don’t forget to check the information board.”

  I was so focused on the tunes, on trying to remember all the parts at once, that I forgot to worry about the contest!

  “Results should be posted soon. Good luck to y’all.”

  Seven

  “The results must be up already,” Shilo says as we leave the workshop. “Look at the crowd!” People are standing five deep on tippy-toes to see the notice taped to a huge slab of wood covered in papers. Shilo hops up and down. No way that will work.

  “Come on,” she says, pulling me into the crowd. I feel people filling the space behind me. Nervous energy pours off everyone like steaming water. People at the front turn and try to push back. Some look gleeful, and others look like someone stole their puppy.

  I know it will be bad news. I played sloppy. And too slow. My name won’t be up there.

  Eventually Shilo and I make it to the front. And there is the list, a handwritten page.

  Shilo puts her finger on the list and runs down the page. “There!” she shrieks. “You’re in!”

  I throw myself at the board, accidently elbowing the woman beside me. There it is—Rose Callaghan. I nod like an idiot. We turn and push our way back out.

  “Wait, what about you?” I ask. I didn’t see her name. Didn’t even think of looking.

  “I didn’t make it.” Shilo says this with a smile. But I know it must hurt.

  “Oh, there’s Emilia. I’m going to go see if she made the next round,” Shilo adds.

  “Hey, you look like you just got good news.”

  I turn around. Liam. I try to look cool about it, but I can’t wipe off the giant grin plastered across my face.

  “Yeah, I did,” I say. “You?”

  “Yep,” he says, smiling. “Now the real fun begins.”

  “Totally,” I reply.

  “I saw a tent over in the Marketplace that was full of sheet music. It looked kind of cool,” he says, swinging his fiddle case onto his back.

  “Do you want to go check it out?” I blurt out the question before I have time to worry about whether he’ll say yes.

  “Yeah, let’s do it,” Liam says. “Does your friend want to come with us?” He looks at Shilo, who has wandered back over.

  I’m also looking at Shilo, hard. I hope she is getting the message no, you don’t want to come.

  “I’m Shilo. Thanks, but…I promised Emilia I’d eat lunch with her,” Shilo says quickly. “She didn’t make the next round either. Let me know if you find anything good.”

  “All right. See ya, Shilo,” Liam says and turns to leave.

  I give Shilo a quick hug. “Thanks for understanding,” I whisper. She nods. I wish she had made the final round too.

  I am about to join Liam but realize Robin Ross is standing right behind me. It’s now or never.

  “Excuse me, Robin?” I say. “I was just in your workshop. Could I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” she says. “But it will have to be quick. I’ve only got a minute.”

  “I’ll be quick as lightning,” I say, hoping that sounds quirky not dorky. I see Liam behind her, watching us with a puzzled look on his face.

  “Well, I remember you mentioning that you have a degree in music. And it doesn’t seem like you’re into classical music so…” I realize I’m not really sure what I want to ask her. “I…uh…I’m starting to think about what I’ll do after high school. I think I want to study Celtic or folk music.”

  “That’s fantastic! And I know just the place.” She puts her fiddle case down. “It’s called Berklee. Not Berkeley in San Francisco. People often get them confused. Berklee College of Music is in Boston and is considered one of the best places in the country to study contemporary music. I wasn’t lucky enough to go there mys
elf, but lots of my friends did. They offer programs in everything from jazz to rock to folk.”

  I feel something inside me light up. “You mean it’s like a music university?”

  “Absolutely!” She nods. “And I’m pretty sure they have summer camps for kids your age. Check out their website. Sorry, I have to get to my next workshop. But good luck!”

  “Thanks,” I say. As she walks away, I am thinking that Robin has given me the puzzle piece I didn’t even know was missing. Berklee sounds perfect. Maybe there actually is a way for me to follow my dreams and keep my mom happy.

  Eight

  Liam and I make our way down the path to the Marketplace. An intoxicating smell of Indian curry and sweet greasy pastry makes my stomach rumble. I hope Liam can’t hear it.

  “I know I said music tent, but I’m pretty hungry,” Liam says. “Want to get some grub?”

  “Sure,” I say, because I’m starving too. We veer toward the food tents.

  “Falafels?” I suggest, nodding toward a Lebanese food tent.

  “No way.” He smiles. “We have to go all out.” He scans the tents. He looks serious, like he’s on an important mission.

  “Okay, how about mini donuts?” I say. “Deliciously greasy and nutrition-free. Plus covered in sugar.”

  “Perfect.” He smiles his crinkly smile again.

  We leave the tent with a warm bag of donuts and plop down on the grass next to a circle of musicians strumming mandolins. I reach into the bag and grab a donut. I pop the whole thing in my mouth. It’s so hot it almost burns my tongue, but the sweet sugar and cinnamon taste like summer.

  I steal glances at Liam when he’s not looking. He keeps his cap on even in the heat. His head must be hot. I want to ask so many questions. Where is he from? Did he come here with anyone? But I like the feeling of sitting in silence with an almost complete stranger. It feels right and weird at the same time.

  We get through the bag of donuts in no time.

  “Music tent?” Liam asks.

  “I’m in,” I say. Along the way we pass bongo drums, a tent filled with jewelry made from seashells and rough twine, and a tent advertising Special Tea. It’s so crowded now, it feels like I’m stuck in an ant hill.

  “Here.” Liam nods toward a white tent where blue milk crates are stuffed with sheets of music. “This should keep us entertained for a while.” He grins.

  “Do you think these are sorted somehow?” I say, looking at the jumble of papers. It looks like my dad’s filing system. Everything piled in a mysterious way only he would understand.

  “Well, so far I’ve seen some Hungarian dances, some Finnish polkas and a Scottish jig,” Liam says. “A bit random.”

  I flip through a few sheets. Some are crisp and new, but others are crumpled and stained, like they’ve been sitting in the bottom of a box for a hundred years.

  “I like trying to figure out what the tune is about,” says Liam, not even looking up from his intent flipping. “My teacher back home likes to tell random bits of stories. I never really knew if she was making them up or not. Did you know that the Irish folk song ‘Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór’ is about big and little fairy hills?”

  “Really? Cool. Did you ever play around with ‘Old Joe Clark,’ making up even crazier lyrics?”

  “Totally,” he says. We both get back to flipping through sheets. I can’t stop smiling.

  After a while I can’t keep all my questions blocked up inside. “Where’s home anyway?” I ask, dusting my hands off and standing up.

  “Back east,” he says, like the east coast is some quaint town and not thousands of places. “But we just moved to Calgary. That’s where my folks were able to find work.”

  “Oh.” I nod. Moving sounds scary. I wonder if he finds it easy to make new friends. “Are you performing tonight?”

  “Just a sec. I’m going to buy this sheet. It’s a crazy-looking polka my dad will love.”

  We join the lineup at the front of the tent, where a grizzled little man sits in an old-fashioned wooden school desk. He hands out change from a beat-up cookie tin. Liam turns around to answer my question.

  “I’m not performing tonight. I’m not here with a group.”

  “You came by yourself?” Interesting.

  “I did,” he says. “But my family totally supports me, which is awesome, since it’s kind of a big deal to come all the way across the mountains.”

  “How did you get here?” The man is carefully counting out nickels and dimes.

  “Took a Greyhound bus. I busked at stops along the way for money.” I picture him standing at a busy bus terminal, his case open and filled with change. My mom would never have let me take the bus alone. Taking the airplane from Vancouver with my group had been a pretty big deal.

  Liam finally gets to the front of the line and pays for his music. “Do you have to be somewhere now?” he asks. “We’ve got some time before dinner.”

  “I wouldn’t mind checking out some other parts of the festival,” I say. I also wouldn’t mind walking through the crowds with him some more.

  “There are tons of small stages,” Liam says, rising up on his toes to see over a pack of teenagers in front of us. They are all carrying cello cases like backpacks, making them about seven feet tall. “I can see one that way.”

  “Let’s go,” I say. I should head back to practice my performance tunes with Shilo. But I know the tunes backward and forward. I like that this day with Liam feels as if it will never end. We stop and listen to a trio on guitar, double bass and fiddle. The bass player keeps his eyes shut but moves his whole body as he plays.

  “I love how everyone here is so into their music,” Liam says. “I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.”

  “Me too,” I say. I only wish my mom could see that this is where I belong.

  We stroll through the tents of the Marketplace and onto yet another winding path through the trees. We come across a dozen or so small kids sitting on rocks covered with soft moss, playing a familiar reel. I smile, because not too long ago I was one of them. Squeaking just out of tune, pressing too hard on the strings, but feeling like a superhero. I look over at Liam. He’s also smiling.

  We walk for a few minutes more and discover a huge vegetable garden bordered by a rough stone wall just high enough for us to sit on.

  The music of the tiny fiddlers plays in the background, like chickadees singing. Liam and I settle on the stone wall. It feels warmed by the sun.

  A young woman walks by carrying a huge bin of freshly dug carrots. “I might see if they’re looking for a farm intern,” Liam says, watching the girl walk away. “I could stay a while.”

  “You want to stay here? What about home, school?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. It would be something different. My family would be happy if I went to college, but they can’t help me pay for it. So I might try some other stuff first.” He looks at me. “What do you want to do?”

  I want to tell him my dreams of touring and being a Celtic musician. But they sound silly now. There are so many musicians just at this one camp. I didn’t realize how many people might share my dream.

  “I’m not sure,” I say, watching a sprinkler wave back and forth across the vegetables.

  “I want to try everything I can,” he says. “Like the farming thing. I figure, why not?”

  I don’t want to think about this anymore. I open up my fiddle case, the zipper making a familiar, satisfying sound.

  Liam snaps open his case. “Pretty crap case, hey?” he says, pulling out his fiddle. The wood is so dark it’s almost black. “But I love it. It’s been in my family for ages.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I say. “This fiddle was my dad’s.” I gently touch the smooth wood.

  “Can I see it?” Liam asks, setting his own fiddle down and stretching out his hands.

  “Sure,” I say, but I’m a bit reluctant. I don’t like handing it over to anyone. He takes the fiddle gently and touches the wood just like
I did.

  “Want to play mine for a tune and I’ll play yours?” he asks. “Something slow.” The mini donuts pitch around in my stomach. I don’t know how I feel about someone else playing my dad’s fiddle.

  “Okay, but just one tune,” I say. Liam holds my fiddle with one solid, large hand. I notice several bracelets of dark beads on his wrist. With his other hand he picks up his fiddle and passes it to me. It feels completely different but somehow the same as mine. I lift it to my chin and my fingers know what to do.

  “Let’s play ‘Skye Boat,’” I say.

  “Simple and classic,” he replies. “Can’t go wrong.” The melody is slow and beautiful and makes me think of searching for something. Liam’s fiddle has a dark, rich tone that surprises me. And I like hearing the bright tones of my own fiddle as he plays it.

  His fingers are long, and he moves them across the fingerboard with such ease. I’m impressed. He counters my melody with long, beautiful harmony notes.

  “Nice fiddle,” he says when we finish.

  “Yeah, I like it,” I say. “My dad gave it to me.”

  “He’s not around anymore?”

  I can’t bring myself to look at him or answer. I just nod.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  I nod again, not trusting myself to speak.

  “I can’t imagine what that must be like so I won’t try to,” he says. “I know I’m lucky to have my whole family. And yeah, I love that my fiddle has been in my family pretty much forever. A great-great-great-uncle brought it with him when he sailed here from Scotland. He played down below on the journey.”

  I’m so relieved Liam didn’t ask me a million stupid questions about my dad. Usually people force me to talk about it and go on and on about how sorry they are.

  “Okay, I have to get going,” Liam says, handing me back my fiddle. “I have to do some prep for my performance tomorrow.” I must look confused, because Liam explains, “Yeah, I…uh…I won the People’s Choice.”