Blowin' My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, page 16
But, if I’m being honest, the best thing about musical rehearsals is they give me countless hours to study every last square inch of Mary Hanson, the statuesque senior girl who’s playing the lead role in Oklahoma! and is perhaps the most stunning female specimen I’ve ever seen. No offense to Juliet, of course, but Mary looks like she just stepped off the cover of a magazine. And she can actually sing. Just being near her sends me into an uncontrollable panic, as if I’m being forced to stare at the sun. I can’t help it. It’s an alarmingly disorienting experience.
One day, before rehearsal starts, I’m in the bathroom washing my hands when Mary breezes in. As usual, my breath catches, and the room pushes in on me. In the mirror, I watch her turn around and begin undoing the buttons on her white Oxford. For a split second, I catch a glimpse of her bare torso and a flicker of her pink lace bra before the T-shirt she’s changing into comes down. It’s at that moment that she looks up and our eyes meet in the mirror. I’m so flustered that I turn the wrong way and literally walk into a wall.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” she asks.
“Fine!” I announce with way too much gusto, holding my nose and pretty much sprinting out of there.
Talking to daydream-worthy girls is going to take some getting used to.
One afternoon during rehearsal break, I’m sitting at my secret piano singing “The Weight” as softly as I can when a figure flickers in my peripheral vision and I realize I’m being watched. Panicked, I shoot up from the piano bench and begin speeding past the watcher—tallish, male—head down, feet moving. Flight mode, activate!
“Wait! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Stop. Please!”
I turn and brace for a scolding from a teacher, but instead see a boy I recognize from the Oklahoma! chorus. Evan something, I think. Tall and a little pudgy, he’s got broad shoulders, tightly curled blonde hair, big ears, and glasses. A lost member of Hootie and the Blowfish.
“That was amazing,” he says.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, slightly relieved not to be in trouble. “I wasn’t sure if people were allowed to play this piano or not. I just do sometimes during breaks and stuff.”
The boy shrugs, as if he’s not sure either and doesn’t much care.
“It’s kind of out of tune,” I say.
“Mrs. Deeter sent me back here to find a box of cowboy hats nobody can find, and I got turned around,” he says, looking over his shoulder. “I didn’t even know this hallway existed. Hey, where’d you learn to play and sing like that? You’re really good.”
I shrug, which is the same way I’ve responded to this question since I was five.
“By the way, I’m Evan. Becker.”
“I’m Rainey,” I say.
“Rai-ney? Whoa, that’s a really cool name.”
I don’t respond, but he’s only the second person ever to say that about my name.
“Wait!” he says, raising his hands in triumph. “I know who you are. You’re new this year, aren’t you? Weren’t you home schooled before you came here?”
“Yeah.”
“Someone told me you’re famous. Or that your parents are famous?”
“They did?”
Guess my secret is out.
“Yeah! They’re a band or something. What are their names?”
I hate this part so much. I’ll say my parents’ names and wait for the gushing response that always comes with being linked to fame, reminding me, once again, that who my parents are is, and will always be, the most interesting thing about me.
On my tombstone, it’s going to read: Here lies Rainey Cobb, no one noticed when or how she died, but her parents were Luce and Tracy Cobb.
“Mmm, sorry,” Evan says, shaking his head when I say my parents’ names. He actually seems kind of embarrassed. “I never know who anybody is, though. When people are talking about actors and stuff, I’m always like—who?”
That’s the moment I know that Evan Becker and I are going to be friends.
“Anyway,” he says, “so, I’m in this band. We don’t have a name yet or anything. And we’re kind of looking for a keyboard player. Do you maybe want to play with us?”
Track Eight
Chicken in Heaven
On a Saturday in early October, I go to Lakeview Cemetery in Burlington with my mom to say hi to my grandmother’s grave. It’s a weird tradition. Not the paying our respects to Grandma part. The chicken part. I have a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken warming my lap as we cruise up 89 North. That’s the weird part.
We walk through the grass, past headstones and over grave markers, some of them dating as far back as the early 19th Century, to where my Aunt Becky, my mom’s younger sister, is already standing. Way shorter and more petite than my mom, Aunt Becky has short, styled brown hair and wears big sunglasses. My mom has the chicken now and even outside I can still smell its greasy fingerprint on my clothes.
“Hi, Aunt Becky,” I say.
“Hi sweetie,” she says and wraps me up in a big hug, then holds me by the shoulders and looks me all over. Why do adults reserve the right to appraise us like we’re cars or cattle? Is there an age when that stops happening? And can it be soon, please?
I’m wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, my black Chuck Taylors, and some purple lipstick that I bought at the mall. It’s almost the same shade that Juliet wears. Someone at school called me a “Goth” the other day, whatever that means.
“God, look at you, you’re a woman, aren’t you? Your boobs are already bigger than mine.”
“Becky, leave her alone,” Mom says.
“And look at that,” Becky says. She reaches out and nearly touches my nose ring. “That’s new. When did you get that? I like it.”
“Over the summer.”
“Yeah?” Aunt Becky looks at Mom. “I’m surprised your mom gave you the green light. My sister is hardly the free-loving hippie she used to be.”
“Oh, I wasn’t consulted on the matter,” Mom says, prying the lid off the chicken bucket. “You want a leg or a thigh?”
“Leg, please,” I say, accepting my piece of chicken.
“I’ll take a leg too,” Aunt Becky says and reaches into the bucket. Mom takes a thigh and sets the bucket down.
“Okay, Mom,” my mom says, waving at the air with her chicken and taking a bite, “we’re here.” We all look down at Grandma’s grave and eat our chicken in silence. Rebecca L. Martin, 1919-1983. Beloved mother, wife, and friend.
The chicken story goes something like this.
My grandmother had breast cancer and toward the end, my mom and Aunt Becky moved in with her and took care of her. I was only three and don’t remember any of this. Apparently, though, it was really bad. Grandma didn’t know where she was a lot of the time and would mix up her memories and get confused.
Then one day, for a few stolen hours, she was her old self, and the three of them talked like normal. Stepping through thick fog, Grandma could suddenly remember everything. She talked about growing up in rural Pennsylvania and how her father came home from work with coal soot under his fingernails after long days in the mines. About meeting my grandpa one day when she was working as a waitress. About how they wrote letters to each other every single day while he was in the South Pacific during World War II. About how it poured rain and they ate soggy cake on their wedding day and laughed like absolute loons.
And somewhere in all that remembering, she found her appetite. Apparently, all she’d consumed for weeks was juice and vegetable broth, but she told Mom and Aunt Becky how hungry she was. She was less than a hundred pounds by then, her nightgown baggy like a girl wearing her mother’s clothes. “Do you think you could get me some chicken?” she asked. “And a Coke?”
My mom and Aunt Becky ran out to KFC and bought a bucket of Original Recipe. As the three of them ate greasy, crispy chicken and slurped down giant sodas, Grandma, with juicy tears sliding down her pale cheeks said, “I sure hope you can get Colonel chicken in heaven.”
And so, a tradition was born. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, Mom and Aunt Becky go and eat chicken at their mother’s grave in a deep-fried tribute. This is the first year I’ve been invited into the chicken inner sanctum. It feels good. Grown up, and important somehow.
“Twelve years,” Becky says, then hurls her chicken bone into the trees, whose green leaves have turned all manner of orange, red, and purple, so vibrant and explosively colorful they’re like a child’s imagining of the word “fall.”
I watch the chicken leg go, mildly stunned.
“Twelve years,” Mom says, throwing her bone after Becky’s.
I’ve finished my piece and stand there holding the pale bone awkwardly by my side.
“Chuck it,” Aunt Becky says. “It’s okay, we always do it. It’s not trash. The animals eat it.”
I smile and launch my chicken bone into the woods.
“Good throw,” Aunt Becky says, then winks at me. “Welcome to the club, kid.”
We each select another piece and stand there eating our chicken. Nobody says much, which feels a little awkward at first, but the longer we stand there, the more I like it. Mom lays the final piece in the bucket, a juicy thigh, on the yellowing grass in front of Grandma’s grave.
“Won’t a fox get it or something?” I ask.
“Probably,” Aunt Becky says.
We walk back to the cars and stand there catching up. Aunt Becky quizzes me about all things public school. I talk about my classes, about the Pena twins, about Oklahoma!
“But I’m just on the crew. I’m not the lead or anything.”
“You could have been,” Mom says. “I still don’t know why you didn’t try out. You could sing circles around those girls.”
I shrug.
“And end up with a huge target on her back,” Aunt Becky says, immediately understanding what my mom doesn’t. “She’s trying to fit in, Tracy.”
“Fitting in is overrated,” Mom says.
“You said fitting in was good,” I say.
“Will you stop quoting me all the time? I meant there are certain situations.”
“Easy for you to say,” Becky says.
“Moving on,” Mom says.
“What else, sweetie?” Aunt Becky asks.
“I might start playing music with some friends from school,” I say, telling her about Evan and how he heard me play and sing, then invited me to join his nameless band.
“Oh, that will be so fun,” Aunt Becky says. “Playing with people your own age for once.”
“Hello,” Mom says, “I’m standing right here.”
• • •
I’ve hung out with Evan Becker a few times since the day we first met. We agree pretty quickly that we’re cut from the same geeky cloth. We both love tunneling unapologetically into the nether regions of music, books, and math. We have spirited arguments about utterly insignificant topics. We argue about the best season (I say fall, Evan says spring), the best pizza toppings (I say sausage and black olive, Evan says extra cheese and pepperoni), the best jelly for PB&J (I say strawberry, Evan says grape), the funniest Monty Python movie (I say Life of Brian, Evan says Holy Grail).
We never agree, but the never agreeing kind of becomes our thing.
When he finds out I’ve never played Nintendo, he invites me to his house after school, and we play Mario Kart and laugh for hours. Before long, I’m kicking his ass no matter what character I play with, even Peach and Bowser. It’s fun. And, even better, I get to cross more things off my list of things I’ve never done and add them to my growing list of year-fifteen firsts.
Things I Did for the First Time When I was Fifteen.
6. Went to school.
7. Made friends.
8. Played Nintendo.
One day I’m at lunch with the Pena twins when Evan comes up and asks if he can have lunch with us. He sounds nervous in a way I’ve never heard before.
“It’s a free country,” Rachel Pena says.
“Yeah, it’s a free country,” Clara echoes.
I scoot over and make space for Evan, who sits down so close beside me that our shoulders are touching. I wiggle slightly away, trying not to make it obvious.
“I’m Evan,” he says.
“Oh, we know,” Rachael and Clara say at the same time.
“Girl, he totally has the hots for you,” Clara says after Evan leaves for class.
“Totally.”
“We’re just friends,” I insist.
“Uh, you might want to tell him that,” Clara says. “Did you see the way he was looking at you?”
“What way?”
“Girl, please.”
“Yeah, girl, please.”
“He looks at you like you’re an ice cream sundae,” Clara says.
“With extra hot fudge and cherries,” Rachel adds.
“Gross, you guys,” I say, and we all crack up.
Track Nine
Songs About Being a Girl
Band practice happens on Friday nights in Evan’s massive basement to the colorful glow of Christmas lights that never come down. There’s five of us. I’m the only girl.
For the first few rehearsals, I hang back, watching, waiting. Trying to figure it out. How to be. What to say. Wondering what they think of me. I feel kind of giddy playing music with people my own age, though, like I’ve wandered onto the set of a movie about a high school band. I play minimal accompaniment on my keyboard to whatever grunge or classic rock song we’re covering. Basic voicings. Simple structures. Just trying to fit in and not draw too much attention to myself. It’s easy. And fun. Kind of. I think. Actually, I’m not sure.
The boys look at me a lot, but rarely talk to me.
Evan’s mom orders us pizza, and I sit quietly while the boys in the band dip their crust in small tubs of ranch dressing and energetically debate what their unwritten music should sound like. They sound pretty ridiculous, but I don’t think they know that.
We’re splayed out across the biggest sectional sofa on planet Earth. Freddie, who plays rhythm guitar and sings lead vocals, says we should be a cross between The Pixies and Pearl Jam. Max, who also plays rhythm guitar, argues for edgier Soundgarden and Dinosaur Jr influences. Chris, who plays bass, pushes for less Pearl Jam, more Pavement. Evan, who is the drummer, says, through a mouthful of crust, “I don’t really care what other bands we sound like, but I think maybe, um, Rainey should be our lead singer.”
I stare at him in disbelief. He warned me he might do this, but I thought he was kidding.
“Yeah right,” Freddie says, clearly thinking it’s a joke. He has a buzz cut and lots of pimples and looks a little bit like Sid Vicious. When he realizes it’s not a joke, he says, “But I’m the lead singer.”
“Yeah,” Evan says, nudging up his glasses, coughing into his fist, “but only because nobody else can really sing. You’re the singer, but you’re not a singer. There’s a difference?”
“No there’s not.”
“Yeah there is.”
I sit up a bit. Set my pizza plate down.
“I thought you liked my voice,” Freddie says, sounding hurt now.
“I do,” Evan says, though not very convincingly. “But even you said that your voice wasn’t that great. That it was kind of whiny. And you have trouble singing on key.”
“Yeah, but, I mean,” Freddie says, seeming unsure what else to say, adding, “I’m the most natural front man.” He looks from one silent face to another in disbelief. What is it with boys and not talking? “Do you want her to be the singer?” he says to Max.
“He says she’s really good,” Max says.
“You want to have a girl singer?”
Max shrugs. “Is there any more ranch?”
“What about you?” he asks Chris.
“I gotta piss,” Chris says, bringing his slice of pepperoni along. I hope he washes his hands, but I’m not overly confident.
Freddie is aghast. “Is this a mutiny or something?”
“It’s not a mutiny,” Evan says, “we’re barely even a band yet.”
“Can you even sing?” Freddie asks, turning to me.
“Trust me, she can sing,” Evan says.
“I want to hear it from her.”
“I can sing,” I say.
“Well, let’s hear it then.”
Evan retrieves his acoustic guitar from its stand and hands it to me.
“Show him,” he says. “Play that one you played me.”
“Which one?”
I know exactly which one, thinking back to the other day when, between Mario Kart sessions, Evan asked me if I played guitar, but I’m trying to buy myself some time.
“The one from the last time you were over? I forget the name.”
“Sunday Kind of Love?”
“That’s it. By what’s her name.”
“Etta James.”
“Etta who?” Max says, sounding disgusted.
Evan is looking at me in a way no boy has ever looked at me before, as if my face is the answer to a riddle he’s been trying to solve for a really long time. I notice the way his ringlet curls are lighter at the tips and darker at the roots.
With a fresh layer of tension added to an already tense room, the boys fan out further so they can listen. Collectively, their odor is musky deodorant meets gym bag. It’s a little funny, having all these boys watch me, their eyes ranging from accusatory to curious to adoring. I feel hyper-aware of my surroundings, of the way my bra is scratching against my side and the way my feet feel in my shoes. My adrenaline is pumping, but I’m not nervous. Reading Macbeth in front of the class, I’m nervous. In the lunch line, I’m nervous. Around Mary Hanson, I’m NERVOUS. But old habits are hard to break, and when music is involved, I don’t get nervous. I tune the guitar, then pluck a G7 chord. I close my eyes. I sing.
“Holy fuck,” Max says when I finish.
“Sorry Freddie,” Chris says. “You’re cooked, bro.”
Evan’s smile is so wide it swallows his whole face.
“Told you,” Evan says to Freddie, but still looking at me.
