Drum Roll, Please

by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

  As soon as Damon stepped down from the stage, the lodge exploded into movement and noise. Olivia pulled me up from the table. “I can’t believe they didn’t put us together!” she said, dragging me across the room. “We’ve got to talk to Damon before this goes any further.”

  Olivia planted us in front of Damon, where he sat sorting his stack of papers. His eyebrows went up. “Girls. What can I do for you?”

  “There’s been a mistake,” Olivia said. “Melly and I came to camp together. We’re supposed to be in the same band.”

  Damon looked from Olivia to me and back again. He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind his beard.

  “Check our applications if you don’t believe me. It’s right on there,” she said. “See, Melly plays drums, and I play bass. We’ve been playing together for years. We’re tight.”

  “That’s terrific,” he said. “There’s nothing like a great musical partnership.”

  Olivia brightened. “So, you’ll do a little switcheroo and fix things?”

  Damon shook his head. “Part of the Camp Rockaway experience is to learn to play with new people. Embrace it as part of the challenge.”

  “But it’s on our applications.” Olivia’s voice grew a hard edge—an edge that sounded mean, but I knew from experience meant she was close to tears.

  Olivia wasn’t used to hearing no. I don’t mean she was spoiled, exactly, just that she had good ideas, so people usually came around to her way of thinking. Like me going to the instrument petting zoo, and Ms. Estrada letting her play electric guitar. Olivia denied it, but I was pretty sure she was the one who’d finally convinced my parents I needed a drum set. Otherwise my percussion career might have been confined to the back row of the music room forever.

  But Damon didn’t budge. “I hear what you’re saying,” he said. “You girls will have plenty of chances to be together. Meals, time in your unit, your other camp activities. But this is one area you’ll need to be self-reliant. I know it’s scary—”

  Olivia bristled and stood a little taller.

  “—but you can do it. And I believe you’ll come out stronger people and musicians at the end. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years. Trust me. Now, go and have a great day.” Damon stood and waved good-bye. We had no choice but to walk away.

  “Ugh, this is stupid,” Olivia said as we hiked back to Treble Cliff. “It’s like school, where they always try to split friends up into different classrooms or project groups. They say it’s to make you grow as a person or whatever, but if you ask me, it’s a total power trip.”

  I nodded.

  “Damon wouldn’t even have known we were friends if we hadn’t asked to be put together! We should’ve pretended not to know each other. We should’ve come up in separate cars. Set up in different tents.”

  “It’ll be okay,” I said.

  “No, it won’t. I screwed up everything.”

  “There was no way you could know.”

  “But I promised you. You were anxious about coming here, and I said, ‘It’ll be okay, we’ll be together,’ and now we’re not going to be together.”

  “Just during band practice,” I said, uncomfortable. It was one thing when my parents called me Mouse. It was another when my best friend treated me like one. Besides, if anyone was acting anxious, it was Olivia. I wasn’t the biggest fan of surprises, but after my parents’ news, Damon’s pronouncement didn’t seem like that big an issue.

  “You don’t need to worry about me,” I said. “I’d rather play with you, of course. But I’ll deal. We’ll both deal.”

  “I guess we don’t have much choice in the matter,” Olivia said. “It’s a long walk home.”

  We ambled in silence. The tension dissolved in the warm air.

  “So,” I said, “Candace. I can’t remember what she plays.”

  Olivia snorted. “She’s one of those random violin players Shauna warned us about. And don’t think I can’t tell you’re changing the subject. If you’re trying to make me not mad at Damon, it won’t work.”

  I smiled. “You can be mad to your heart’s content. I won’t stop you.”

  “And you’re with Gladeline. I bet you’ll end up playing happy hippie music.”

  So Olivia had noticed the “Peace Love Music” sticker, too. “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe I’ll introduce her to metal. Teach her to embrace her inner Madeline.”

  Maybe that was another reason I wasn’t feeling too bad about my band assignment. Sure, it was disappointing not to be with Olivia, and I was more scared of Donna than I cared to admit. But I was also excited to spend more time with Adeline. I did want to know what kind of music she liked. I wanted to know how she knew about frogs, and whether she was always a vegetarian, and why she came to camp in a taxi. I wanted to know how guitars could kill fascists. It seemed like playing in a band with her would be a good way to get answers.

  But telling Olivia this stuff wouldn’t make her feel any better.

  “Oh, Melly.” She groaned. “I know Damon’s right, and we’ll be together almost all the time. But being in different bands? It’s like being on different teams. It’s like being from different countries. Different planets.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Maybe we should’ve signed up for drama camp instead.”

  Pouting, Olivia shoved my shoulder. I stumbled off the path into a tree. I was fine, just a little dizzy, but Olivia ran to my side and put her arm around my shoulders. “Oh my God, Melly! Are you okay? Did you hurt something? Your ankle? I’m such an idiot. Here, lean on me.”

  “‘When you’re not strong,’” I sang, and did a little chorus girl kick.

  I knew she would recognize the song. It was in Grandma Goodwin’s collection of old 45s, and on a visit last winter Olivia and I had played it so many times it was a miracle the needle didn’t dig grooves clear through the vinyl. It was also a miracle Grandma didn’t go insane listening to us, but she just smiled and said it was one of her favorites. Olivia said it was our song. The perfect song for best friends forever.

  Olivia let go, and I tripped all over again. “You goof,” she said. “You’re not hurt!”

  “What? You won’t be my friend? You won’t help me carry on?” I giggled.

  “I can’t believe you fool people into thinking you’re a shrinking little violet.”

  “What can I say?” I said, skipping ahead. “You’re the only one who knows the real me.”

  The oldest campers had band practice first, giving us over an hour to kill. Shauna advised us to visit the shower house. “The little kids are at the beach and stuff with their units in the morning, so it’s the perfect time for us to get in there,” she said. “No line!”

  I expected the showers to be like the ones at the Y, just a bunch of spigots in a wide-open tiled room. I hated showering at the Y. It didn’t matter how many times my mother said, “We’re all girls here. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” She was probably trying to convince herself as much as me. She wouldn’t even walk around the house without a robe to cover her pajamas, and that was with just Dad and me.

  Emphasis on was.

  It turned out the showers at Camp Rockaway were totally different. The best, most important thing was they had individual stalls with curtains. The strangest, coolest thing was they had no ceilings. Everything was open-air. If you looked up, there were the leaves of the trees, and the blue sky beyond. If it were raining, you’d get rained on—but that hardly mattered, since getting wet was the whole point!

  In fact, when I pulled the shower chain, the spray felt like warm, gentle rain against my skin. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep. Rain on my shoulders and sunshine on my face, I imagined staying at camp forever: sneaking into the practice cabins to sleep at night, stealing food from the lodge, showering under the sun. It didn’t sound too bad.

  A sharp sting jarred me. I slapped at my leg, leaving a mutilated mosquito and a smear of blood for me to scrub off.

  At ten thir
ty, we were back in the clearing with the practice cabins. Olivia had retrieved her bass from her locker. I had my sticks. We both had our water bottles, filled to the brim and still icy from one of Camp Rockaway’s woodland wells.

  Outside Gibraltar, Olivia said, “I regret to inform you that, thanks to a certain bearded camp director who shall not be named, I must leave you now. However, I’ll be back to rescue you in ninety minutes. Hang in there, okay?”

  “Somehow I think I’ll survive,” I said.

  Adeline was already outside Trolltunga, waiting for the previous group to come out. She was wearing a Marquette Food Co-op T-shirt, cut-off corduroy pants, and hemp sandals. Olivia’s happy hippie assessment was probably not far off the mark. Her face lit up when she saw me. “Melly! Yay, bandmates!”

  I smiled back and echoed, “Yay, bandmates.”

  “Do you realize in all my summers at camp, I’ve never been in a band with a girl drummer?” Adeline said. “This is awesome. You’re awesome.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was pretty sure being a girl didn’t affect my ability. And while female drummers were in the minority in the rock world, I hadn’t chosen drums to make a political statement. I wondered what Shauna would say. She’d have the appropriate feminist response.

  Instead, I stuck to the obvious. The extremely obvious. “You play acoustic?”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m kind of old-school,” Adeline said. “Anyway, it does the job.”

  I didn’t have a chance to ask what she meant, because just then our remaining bandmates walked up. The first boy had a chalky complexion and spiky blond hair that wasn’t much darker. He wore all black. The other boy had light brown skin and black hair flopping over his eyes, so I could barely see his face. He wore a shirt that said Wyoming Junior High. I smiled to think of one junior high serving the entire state of Wyoming, until I realized Wyoming was probably the name of a town. Then I was really glad I hadn’t said anything. Sometimes being shy pays.

  “Hey,” Adeline said. “What’s up?”

  The blond boy grunted. The black-haired boy stared at the ground. This will go well—not.

  The cabin door swung open. A bunch of high schoolers trooped out, and Donna gestured for us to come inside. Today her inky hair was pulled into a high ponytail, choppy strands escaping the elastic. She wore a T-shirt with a unicorn skeleton on it, cut off at the sleeves and waist. She also wore cargo pants cut off at the knees and scuffed combat boots. In other words, she looked every inch a rock star.

  She must have thought I was such a poseur.

  Now that I wasn’t paralyzed with fear over my audition, I looked around the cabin. The floor was covered with rugs. The walls and ceiling were lined with rippled foam. Besides the drums, the room was equipped with a full-length keyboard, cables and amps, mics, and music stands. A chalkboard hung on the wall across from the drums. A portable stereo sat on a shelf.

  Donna shut the door. Instantly the temperature seemed to rise ten degrees. Without windows, Trolltunga was practically a sauna. “Have a seat, everyone,” Donna said.

  This time I went straight for the stool behind the drums. Donna surveyed us through half-shut eyes, her mouth a straight line. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get introduced. Name, instrument, and how long you’ve been playing. Let’s start with our drummer.”

  I itched under my bandmates’ gaze as I said, “Melly, drums, almost three years.”

  Then came Adeline. “Adeline, acoustic guitar, five years.”

  The floppy-haired boy was next. He mumbled, “David, bass, two years.”

  Last came the blond boy. “I’m Caleb,” he said. “I’ve been playing since I was six, and I’m here to play metal. Last year I got stuck in a band full of Radio Disney freaks, and I lost a piece of my soul that I’ll never get back.”

  “Noted,” Donna said coolly. “This might be a good time to talk about expectations. I’m sure you have your own, and we’ll have plenty of opportunities to address those. But for now, let’s talk about my expectations. Honestly, I don’t care how long you’ve been playing. I don’t care what kind of music you like. The moment you walk in that door each day, you are all on equal footing. Everyone deserves their fellow musicians’ respect.”

  She held each of our gazes in turn until we nodded.

  “Camp Rockaway has whole sessions devoted to teaching rookies their instruments. Since you’re not at one of them, I’m assuming you already know how to play. But if you ever get stuck, I can step in and help. More than anything, you are here to learn how to be a band. I am the training wheels keeping you upright as you find your balance. The goal is that by the end of camp, we can take off the training wheels, and you will ride on your own. Sound good?”

  We all nodded.

  “Let me hear you say it,” Donna said.

  “Sounds good,” Adeline said. The rest of us murmured our agreement.

  “Okay,” said Donna, “yesterday at your auditions you had the opportunity to express your musical preferences. I’ve taken the liberty of choosing four songs, each with one of you in mind. We’re going to tackle them over the next few days, one at a time. From that point on, if there’s something else you want to play, it’s up to you to let me know.”

  She grabbed four folders from the floor and passed them out. I opened mine to find a Camp Rockaway pencil and a single chart with “I Knew You Were Trouble” written at the top.

  “Taylor Swift?” Caleb said, horrified. “This is the total opposite of my preference!”

  “Really?” Donna said. “I must have been thinking of someone else when I picked it.”

  Caleb shot Adeline a dirty look. I wasn’t sure how he’d decided it was her fault, but I felt relief. I liked Taylor Swift. Her songs were so catchy that whenever they came on the radio, in the car or at the store, I couldn’t help tapping along to the beat. The only reason I’d never played her songs on drums was Olivia had deemed her music too poppy. Still, I didn’t want to get on Caleb’s bad side. I didn’t want to get on anyone’s bad side.

  Adeline smiled brightly. “Looks like it’s not your day, Caleb.”

  Caleb’s skin went from white to purple. “Freaking chick music,” he muttered.

  Donna, who’d been slouching against the chalkboard, was upright in a flash. “Excuse me?” she said. “In this room, there is no ‘chick music.’ There is no ‘dude music’ or ‘bro music.’ There is music. Period. There are different musical genres. There are male and female musical artists. But music is music. Is that understood?”

  Everyone nodded, even Caleb.

  “Let me hear you say it: music is music.”

  “Music is music,” we repeated.

  Donna nodded. “And now, ready or not, we are going to make some.”

  Donna was one of the strictest teachers I’d ever had—and we hadn’t even begun playing.

  Six

  Practice was, to put it nicely, rocky.

  Things started out okay. “First we’ll just listen,” Donna said. “Don’t worry about the lyrics or chords. Just soak up the music. Feel it in your body. If it helps, close your eyes.”

  She pushed play on the stereo, and the short, bright opening chords of “I Knew You Were Trouble” burst from the speakers. The song was pretty straightforward: four-four time, medium tempo, basic chord progression, simple lyrics. It was guitar heavy, too, which was probably good considering Caleb and Adeline were the most experienced players. Plus, I was sure everyone—including Caleb, even if he despised it—had heard it plenty of times before. I didn’t know what other songs Donna had up her sleeve, but it made sense to start with this one.

  The only confusing thing was the lyrics. I’d never thought too hard about them before, but now that I was staring at the chart I couldn’t help it. If you knew someone was trouble when they walked in, why would you want to get involved with them? Why would you doom yourself to misery and failure? Come to think of it, probably 95 percent of rock songs were about unhealthy relationships. Maybe it simply
reflected reality. I mean, I never thought my parents’ relationship was unhealthy, and now they were splitting up, so what did I know?

  At the end, Donna said, “I’m going to play it again. And this time I want you to sing.”

  Wait a minute—this wasn’t part of the deal! I’d come to camp to play drums, not to show the world just how lacking I was in the vocal department. David must have felt the same way. He looked up, his eyes wide and alarmed.

  “Singing together is one of the surest ways to not only learn a song but also stay in sync,” Donna said. “At least, that’s my opinion, and as the teacher, my opinion goes.”

  “I’m not a very good singer,” I said in a low voice. David nodded vigorously.

  “It’s rock and roll, for crying out loud,” Donna said. “Taylor Swift’s talent is mostly in her attitude, not her vocal cords. Anyway, it’s just us here. Sing.” She requeued the music.

  We were mostly terrible. Caleb’s voice kept cracking. David barely mouthed the words. I sang only slightly louder, because even though I knew the melody by heart, I kept missing notes.

  Only Adeline seemed comfortable. She sat at the edge of her chair, shoulders relaxed, head tipped back a little as if she were singing to the clouds and the ceiling just happened to get in the way. Her voice wouldn’t blow anyone away with its power. It was a little bit rough, a little bit sweet. But it was full of feeling. It was real.

  I was flooded with a mixture of admiration and envy. I hoped she’d rub off on the rest of us before the end-of-camp concert.

  The third time through, Donna finally let us play our instruments. “Take it slow,” she said, picking up her acoustic. “Keep it simple, as simple as you can. Rome was not built in a day, yada yada yada. Oh, and don’t forget to sing.”

  You might think with Donna leading us we’d be okay. Not great, but not disastrous either. Nope. David and I couldn’t get in sync. Every time I looked his way, he was doing his own thing, just a little bit off from me. I couldn’t catch his eye because his hair was in the way. But it probably didn’t matter, because I don’t think Caleb was even listening to us. He was what Ms. Estrada called “off to the races,” like faster meant better. But I had no room to talk. If I’d thought my audition was bad, this was twenty times worse. I was so nervous I dropped a stick. And forget the singing!