She just laughed. “I’ll come by tomorrow after school—around four. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
She walked over to the door. I was about to offer her a ride home, and then I had a sudden flashback to the first time I offered Mimi a ride home. We were standing in the same place. On the way to her house, we stopped and got McDonalds, and then we sat in the car and ate it while talking about all of the venues we wanted to play one day. We both agreed that Wembley Stadium would be the coolest venue. “Maybe one day we’ll play it together,” Mimi said to me. And that was the first time she looked right into my eyes, and I realized that her eyes were an amazing green colour that almost seemed impossible. We made another stop on our way to her house, at a billiards hall. “Let’s play one quick game,” I said. She was surprisingly good at pool—though we didn’t finish the game because a big fight broke out in the billiards hall between a Vietnamese gang and a group of gritty brown guys. We ran to the car when the chairs started flying, giggling like little kids because we didn’t settle our tab.
And now, I was staring into Danni’s eyes the way I stared into Mimi’s eyes that night. So I looked away quickly. “Get home safe,” I said.
“Will do,” she said. And then she was gone, leaving her keyboard set up in my jam space.
I didn’t go straight to sleep, even though it was past midnight. Instead, I went to my computer and looked her up on Facebook. I was able to find her page by searching for her e-mail address. ‘Danni Wong’ was her full name—so she must have been half Asian—though that still didn’t explain that strange twang to her voice.
I looked through her pictures. She didn’t have many, but she looked good in the ones that she had. There was one picture with her hair down, hanging slightly in front of her face. She looked sexy in the shot, like a model. But there was a strange, eight month old comment from one of her friends on the photo. “Wow—look at you! You’re transitioning so well!”
A felt that fluttering in my chest again. What was the friend talking about? I’d only ever heard the term transitioning in reference to a transgender person—but Danni wasn’t a transgender, was she? She was far too attractive for that to be true—though that might explain that strange twang in her voice. It was a bit masculine, now that I thought about it. And she was taller than most girls, though that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Was she actually a guy? Did I just spend an hour jamming with a biological male? Did I just spend an hour ogling a dude? No, no—there must have been some other explanation. She was too cute. Those eyes were too big and shining. Guys don’t have big shining eyes like that. Right?
CHAPTER IV
When she showed up the next afternoon, I was ready for her. I had the jam space all tidied up and freshly vacuumed. I even went out and bought a diffuser to make the space smell more inviting. That was one thing that Mimi always complained about: that the jam space always smelled like men. Now, it had a flowery smell, which didn’t make me think about music, but I needed to make sure Danni stuck around.
I also had a surprise for her, though I was a bit worried that my surprise would scare her off. “What are you doing on the twenty-first?” Once she had a Coca-Cola in her hand and she was standing next to her keyboard.
She shrugged her shoulders. “School during the day, and I think that’s it. Why?”
“We’re playing a show that night, at the Media Lounge. I got us a slot opening for Wildebeest.”
I watched as her eyes widened and her skin became white. “What?” she said with a weak voice.
“We’re opening for Wildebeest. I pulled some strings. It’s a thousand dollar gig—three hundred and thirty bucks each.”
“But it’s the eighteenth now,” she said. “And we’re not even a band. We don’t have a drummer or a bass player—and when you say three hundred and thirty each—that’s a third. Does that mean there’s a third member? This is all just happening so… fast.”
I could see a tinge of regret in her eyes. Maybe I was coming on too strong. I knew she would either be excited or deeply confused—and I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised when she was the latter. “There’s no third member, but I think we can find a drummer before the show. And then we don’t even need a bass player as far as I’m concerned. Last night it sounded like we had a bass player. Don’t you think?”
“Because I was playing bass notes on my keyboard—because we don’t have a bass player,” she said. And her face was still that shade of white.
“Well perfect. So you agree that we don’t even need one. Should we jam? We need to come up with five songs before then. And in my opinion, we’ve already got two. So this should be easy, right?”
She didn’t reply. She just stared into my eyes with her lips slightly parted. I was beginning to think that I’d had a bit too much coffee before she showed up. Maybe I really was coming on too strong—but she was still there. She hadn’t run away yet. She was even walking up to her keyboard as if she was open to the challenge—or maybe she was just entertaining me. Maybe she was just going to force a smile for the rest of the night and then never show up again or answer any of my text messages and calls.
“Let’s start with that one you played last night,” I said, picking up my guitar.
“I don’t remember it.”
“But you wrote it,” I said.
“I was just making stuff up.”
“Oh. Well make stuff up again. And I’ll record using my phone, in case it’s gold.” I pulled out my phone and started to record. I could feel beads of cold sweat forming on the back of my neck. If Danni left me and our project, then I had a real problem on my hands. I’d called up Mandy over at the Media Lounge and promised her that I had a new act with a whole repertoire of songs. On the phone, she kept saying, “I really hope you aren’t screwing me over.” I would definitely be blacklisted if I ended up showing up for the gig alone, with just my guitar and amp.
Now, in my jam room, Danni started playing. She was slow at first, her face still white from the shock of my big news. But she quickly started falling into a rhythm, and it wasn’t long before she was playing a cool little song. I jumped in, starting with some simple power chords, and then I came up with a neat little riff for the chorus. It was like our jam the previous never ended. Our chemistry was perfect. Playing with Danni was so effortless. And I could tell by the smile on her face that she felt it too.
As I was looking at her, I couldn’t help but notice the choker she was wearing around her throat. It was black and lacy and it seemed to be covering a slight lump. Was that lump an Adam’s apple? My gaze scanned down to her skirt. I couldn’t see any bulge, but that didn’t mean anything. It’s not like my bulge was showing through my pants. But was it possible that she was a man? If she was, then she made for a convincing woman—almost entirely convincing if not for that voice, and maybe her jawline in a small way. Maybe her jawline wasn’t quite so feminine. And maybe her shoulders were just a wee bit broad. And her hips weren’t quite as wide as they maybe should have been in proportion to the rest of her body. But that face! Her eyes were so stunning and her skin looked so smooth and perfect. I almost wanted to walk up to her and run my fingers through that soft blonde hair.
And then there were her feet, which were stuffed into a pair of knee-high boots. They looked to be bigger than a pair of feet should be on a woman—but only by a little bit. They weren’t comically big by any means, and I probably would never have noticed had it not been for that comment on that Facebook photo. But now I couldn’t help but notice. That itching curiosity just wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to push it out from my head. It didn’t matter if she was actually a dude in disguise—she was good at playing the keyboard, and that was all that mattered. It’s not like we were dating—we were just playing music together, and the music was good—that’s all that mattered.
I was still terribly tempted to ask, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t want to give her a
ny reason to run out on me. We were a single member short of a decent band, and we were already coming up with music.
Once we finished our first little jam, we started talking about how we could make the song better. We came up with an awesome little bridge, and then I came up with a cool intro riff, which also worked for the outro. “It’s too bad we don’t have a singer,” she said. “Because I’ve got a good idea for a melody in the chorus.”
“Sing it so I can hear,” I said.
Her cheeks turned red. “I’m not a great singer,” she said.
“I don’t mind. I’m the worst singer. I sound like Kermit the Frog when I sing.”
She took a deep breath, and then she started playing the chorus. She parted her lips and then a surprisingly beautiful sound came out. She wasn’t a good singer—she was a great singer. I didn’t even bother playing along. I just stood and listened and admired her talent, and then when she was done I said, “You have to be our singer. It would be a waste of talent if you didn’t sing for this band.”
Her cheeks became even redder. “I don’t know. I’ve never sung for people before. That was kind of the first time.”
“Well it’s your calling, so you have to do it,” I said.
It wasn’t easy to get her to sing throughout the rest of the jam. I had to beg her, and then she would sing quietly but beautifully for a little bit before reverting back to focusing her attention on her keyboard. We jammed for hours, until it was dark and well past dinnertime. “Want to play that first song again?” I asked.
She was slow to reply. “To be honest, I’m kind of hungry. I think I should get home and get some dinner in me.”
But I didn’t want our session to end. I’d never made so much great music in such a short period of time, and I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to find that spark again before our show at the Media Lounge. “There’s a little pasta restaurant at the end of the block. I’ll buy you dinner and then we’ll come back and we’ll keep going. How does that sound?”
She had to think about it, but she ended up agreeing. I put on my coat and my boots and then we went down to the restaurant. I couldn’t stop thinking about our new songs. We already had three and I was so excited about all of them. We talked for a while about what kind of drummer we would look for. We both agreed that simple drumbeats would be best, so the songs wouldn’t get too muddy. “But someone with a lot of groove. I want people to dance to our music,” Danni said.
I liked the idea. I’d always played in bands that were more on the progressive side, so no one ever danced at our shows. But our new songs definitely had dance vibes to them. They were catchy. I had all three of them currently stuck in my head, on a loop.
After our dinner, the waiter came by with a slice of cheesecake. “This is for the young couple, courtesy of the manager,” he said. I felt my face suddenly becoming warm. The waiter thought that we were a couple, and apparently the manager thought the same thing. That happened from time to time with Mimi when we would go out together—but at least with Mimi, I knew that she was definitely a chick. I didn’t mind when people thought we were a couple because Mimi was cute—unless it was other girls thinking we were a couple. And it’s not like Danni wasn’t cute, assuming she was actually a girl.
I looked forward at Danni, who had red cheeks of her own. “We’re not a couple,” I said to the waiter, as if it mattered. But I wanted to set the record straight, just in case Danni was actually a transgender. I couldn’t let people think that I was dating a transgender—especially people who lived and worked on the same block as me.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the waiter said. “But the cake is still on the house. It’s a New York cheesecake, made fresh this morning. I hope you enjoy it.”
I looked back at Danni. She was looking down with an embarrassed look on her face. I didn’t know if she was embarrassed that they thought we were dating, or if she was embarrassed because I was so quick to set the record straight.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Take the first bite.”
“I’m not that hungry,” she said.
“Well we have to eat it or they’ll never give us free food again.”
We ate the cake and then we went back up to my apartment for a couple of hours to continue working on our songs. A bit of that spark had disappeared, but we were both getting tired. She had been up early for school and I was crashing from all of the coffee I drank. So we called it quits around 9:00 PM. “Come back tomorrow after school?” I asked.
“Sure—sounds good,” she said. And I was excited when she left her keyboard behind, proving that she really did plan on returning. Now I just needed to find a drummer.
I spent the rest of that night online, messaging every musician I knew, asking if they had any leads on a drummer. I even asked drummers from other bands if they might be interested in working on a second project. But apparently drummers were a hot commodity at the moment, and everyone was booked solid. I considered renting a drummer, just for the upcoming show, but all of the half-decent drummers charged over six hundred bucks per show, which would leave me with next to nothing for my rent.
I kept searching. I had the brilliant idea of looking through the local instrument buy and sell listings. I could find a guy selling a drum kit, and then beg him to join my band instead of selling the kit. I messaged a few guys, and then I came across a listing for a drum machine. I normally hated drum machines, but our new music wasn’t too complicated. It was all in 4/4 time without any changing tempos like my old band used to have. “What’s the lowest you’ll go on the drum machine?” I asked the seller.
“I can do down to one hundred, but no lower,” he replied quickly. I met up with him that night to take the unit off of his hands. I got home and plugged it into my PA system, and it sounded pretty good. I was up until the early morning hours tinkering with it, trying to program beats for our new songs. I had the biggest smile on my face. I paid a hundred bucks for the unit, but it was already going to save me almost double that on our first show. And now, I had a whole band, and we almost had enough music to play most of the venues in town.
CHAPTER V
Danni’s face turned pale again when I told her that I bought a drum machine for our upcoming show. I don’t think she liked the idea of having even more attention on her—though it wouldn’t have mattered if there were ten guys up on that stage—all of the attention would be on her anyway, and not just because she was singing.
“So we need one or two more songs, and then we’re good to go,” I said.
“And when’s the show again?” she asked.
“Tomorrow night,” I said, forcing a big smile. She looked terrified, but she still wasn’t running away. We spent the whole night practising and coming up with our final couple of songs.
We ordered Chinese takeout and watched a silly reality TV show while we ate. Danni started telling me more about her school, and then she started telling me about how she couldn’t wait to graduate. “It will be nice to finally get away from the bullying,” she said.
My heart silently skipped a beat. I looked up at her and then casually asked, “Why are people bullying you?”
“I’m sure you can guess,” she said. I bit down on the edge of my tongue. I only had one guess: because she was transgender. But I didn’t want to say it, in case it wasn’t true. But what other guess could I have? Were people bullying her because she was tall? Were they bullying her because she had a slightly masculine twang to her voice? Back when I was in school, that wouldn’t have been enough to get someone bullied—but the transgender thing on the other hand… That would have done it.
“And I can’t wait to be done school so I can focus on music full time,” she said. “I really want to go on tour. Though maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve never even played a show before and here I am talking about touring.”
“Touring is fun—especially when you’re with good people,” I said. And I found myself thinking about Mimi, and all of the fun we got up to when we
were touring around the country. I remembered the weekend we spent in New York City. She challenged me to a race across the Brooklyn Bridge. I thought I could do it, but I didn’t even make it halfway before I was exhausted. She surprisingly made it to the end. I got a text message from her, asking me where I was. After that, she gave me the nickname ‘Fatty’ even though I wasn’t fat—just unfortunately out of shape.
That night, after Danni left, I found myself back on my computer, trying to get to the bottom of her gender situation. I looked again through her Facebook photos, and then I found her Instagram. I scrolled through dozens of photos, trying to determine whether she was a legitimate female or just a boy in disguise. I kept reminding myself that it didn’t matter either way. I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t just going to sleep, so I could be fully rested before our show. Her gender didn’t affect her ability to play music, so why was I wasting my time?
The very first picture she posted on her Instagram was a simple selfie of her face, with the caption: ‘Dropped the Y, added the I. Officially starting my transition.” Was she referring to her name with the letters? And what other transition could she be referring to? I stared for a while at the picture. It was three years old, and she did look slightly different in the shot, but I couldn’t put my finger on how she looked different.
I found myself on Google, looking up different definitions of the word ‘transition’, hoping there was a different context it could be used in. Maybe she meant she was transitioning jobs—but what did that have to do with changing letters around in her name?
It was around 2:00 AM when I finally went to sleep. But the image of Danni refused to leave my mind. If she was actually a boy under that long blonde hair and makeup, then I had to admit that she pulled the female thing off better than most of the girls I knew. She was kind of sexy, though I would never admit it to her face.
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