Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

by Valerie Thomas

  Chapter 13

  Loser: For anyone who was lucky enough not to see it, I went to the Homecoming dance last night. Danced like a total spaz (LOL). Tried to run into everyone… Literally.

  Jake: Haha, way to go Loser!

  Quinn: I was totally there for that. She looked like an absolute retard!

  Will: Guys, stop. This isn’t funny anymore. I’m telling the principal.

  Loser: Oh, boohoo. Good luck proving that we’re doing anything wrong. Loser McGee is a FAKE profile, and everything on here—even stuff that might seem like it was inspired by a certain someone—is made up. So shut up, Will.

  I couldn’t help it; Loser McGee was wearing on my nerves. I finally took the plunge and responded to the post:

  ­Ashley: I know this is about me… You can say whatever you want I guess, but I think using the r-word is a little far. It’s a real psychological condition, and using it as an insult is cruel to anyone who has it. The reason I was dancing like that is because it was fun. Maybe if you guys learned how to really have fun instead of tear others down, you would understand that.

  Was I naïve to think that would actually work? Yeah, I suppose so. In fact, in the coming weeks I started to wonder whether Jessica had been waiting for me to show that I knew about Loser McGee, and the fact that it was about me. The posts got meaner, and life in general got pretty hard to bear. I could hardly look at my classmates without wondering if they’d snickered at some of the comments, maybe even agreed with them.

  But I didn’t tell the principal, or any adults. Maybe because I didn’t want them to think I might get suicidal, maybe because I didn’t want to worry Mom, or maybe because there was a general perception that high school was a fish bowl, a miniature world where the only thing that mattered was what we decided amongst ourselves. If I got adults involved, I didn’t feel as if it would solve any of my problems in the long term.

  Charlie and Joey were my allies in what once again felt like all-out war. Joey, of course, took every opportunity he could to cuss Jessica up one side and down the other, and Charlie helped by being there for me. He was the best listener I’d ever met, and more often than not I’d stay late at his house after band practice, complaining about my life.

  It wasn’t pretty, but I survived. I counted down the days until we were going to go back to Cat’s Cradle, as if the try-out would solve all my problems. We decided to do it on a Saturday, on the theory that if other people were there they might help pressure the owner into giving us a performance.

  I jogged up the soft, carpeted steps leading from my basement to the main floor. “Mom!” I called once I’d reached the entryway. “Mom, are you home?” Judging by the relative quiet, I guessed not.

  Creaks echoed off the ceiling, followed by the sound of footsteps coming my way. Mom leaned over the railing to look at me. “Yeah, I’m home. What’s up?”

  “Um, not much.” I just haven’t talked to you in a while and I wanted to see your face, I thought. But I didn’t have the guts to say it. “I was about to head out to see if we could get a gig at that music store down the block. Wish me luck?”

  “Good luck, honey.” She smiled down at me. “I know you’ll do well. Do you want a ride over there?”

  I wanted to find a way to break down the wall that had grown between us. It seemed like Kent was at the center of it all, but I couldn’t exactly make Mom break up with him. “No thanks. Charlie’s dad is gonna drive us.” That wasn’t quite true, but I wasn’t sure how Mom would react if she knew that Joey—who had just gotten his provisional license a few days ago—was going to be the one driving.

  “Oh, okay. Well, if you need anything, just give me a call. I have work soon, but Kent should get home before I leave, and I know he’ll be happy to help.”

  “Okay, thanks. See you later.” At some point, I knew I’d have to let Kent into my life a little more, but I kept putting it off. I had too much stress to deal with already.

  “See you later. Have fun. All that good stuff.” Her head disappeared, followed by the sound of footsteps trailing back to her room.

  Since I didn’t want to wait inside, I pulled the door open and stepped out onto the front steps. It was a nice day to be outside, not overly warm or cold, with only wispy clouds floating overhead. Across the street, there were rows of townhomes just like mine, colored in alternating shades of brown, green, and white.

  The minutes passed, mostly unnoticed as I inhaled the crisp air and watched the breeze blow at our small apple tree. I didn’t pay much attention to the time, but I wasn’t waiting for long when a beat-up Saturn pulled into view.

  Charlie pushed open the silver passenger door, looking like he’d just been sent into space without a suit. “Hey, you ready?”

  “Yeah.” I pushed myself up and sauntered over to meet them. I paused just before reaching Charlie, unsure whether I should kiss him, hug him, or awkwardly sock him on the arm. In the end, I simply stood there with my arms at my sides.

  Luckily, Charlie was a lot more skilled at the whole relationship thing than I was. He wrapped his arms around me. “Well, shall we?”

  The car was one of those ones where the passenger seat had to be pulled forward to access the back. I didn’t know it as Charlie helped me in, but that also meant almost no leg room. Even though I was hardly a giant, I felt cramped as Charlie pushed the passenger seat back into position and closed the door.

  “Don’t worry,” Joey said, looking back over his shoulder, “I promise I won’t kill us all in a fiery crash.”

  “Um, yeah, please don’t.” His sense of humor didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Once he started the car I had the unfortunate realization that dying in a fiery crash was a possibility; the car was a stick-shift, and each time Joey had to switch gears it sounded like the engine was about to explode.

  My hands found my seatbelt and gripped it tightly, as if that would save me from anything that might happen. I hadn’t even gotten my permit, but I still felt like I could drive better than Joey. It wasn’t that he disobeyed any traffic laws—in fact, he stopped for probably five seconds at the signs—but his jerking lane changes and overuse of his blinker didn’t inspire confidence.

  “Do you know what song you want to do?” Charlie asked as we ratcheted to a stop at a red light.

  “Um, Plastic Hearts?” I answered, grateful for the distraction from Joey’s driving. Plastic Hearts was my personal favorite out of all of our songs, and the one I felt most confident singing.

  “Naw. I think we should do Jaded,” Joey said.

  Before we could get into too much of an argument, and before I could beg Joey to keep his attention on the road so that he didn’t kill us all, the mall came into view. I turned over the thought of Jaded vs. Plastic Hearts as Joey turned into the parking lot. They’d both been written from a similar place, emotionally. I guess I liked Plastic Hearts more because it was positive, in a strange way. It was about feeling something, whereas Jaded was just about hiding from the world.

  “My vote’s on Plastic Hearts,” Charlie said after a few seconds of silence. “I think it shows how we’ve grown as song-writers as well as performers. So that’s two to one.”

  Joey shrugged, or he would have if his hands had been free. As it was, his shoulders rose slightly, but the movement looked disjointed. “I’m fine with Plastic Hearts if it’s what you guys wanna do. But Charlie, we need to talk about the bros before hoes doctrine when we get back.”

  “Bros before hoes?” Charlie snorted. “Ash isn’t a hoe, so I don’t think that applies.”

  “Nope, it definitely does.” Joey pulled into one of the open spots in front of Cat’s Cradle, managing to come to a stop without jostling everyone inside.

  We piled out and grabbed our gear from the trunk; I noticed a small dent in the box I used for my mic, but decided not to say anything. It was cool that Joey could drive, and I figured if I gave him too much grief about the way he drove that he might stop.

  The glass windows of the
store were heavily tinted, but I could see a few other people inside even before we pulled the door open and entered. I took the lead, walking up to the owner while Charlie and Joey plugged into the same outlet we’d used before.

  The old man was busy helping a customer, but the moment he saw me he nodded a greeting. For my part, I waited silently, my microphone gripped safely in my right hand.

  “You came back,” the owner said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you here to try out again?”

  “Yeah, we are.” I was surprised by how confident I sounded, as if this was just one try-out among many, and not something I’d spent the entire past year building up in my mind.

  “Okay, let’s hear it. Um, just be sure not to block any of the customers please.”

  I took a step back, so that anyone who wanted could have unobstructed access to the register. I could practically feel Charlie and Joey behind me; their presence had become as familiar as a shadow, always around.

  The first notes echoed as Charlie played the intro.“There are people, who they say, never have to feel this way.” I shook my head; something was off, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. Pitch-wise, I was fine. “There are people, not like us, who’ve never felt our bare disgust.” It wasn’t anything with the guitars, either.

  I moved onto the chorus. A young woman stopped shopping and watched, a hint of a smile playing across her face. The store owner looked on impassively as we performed, and I did my best to stop worrying. The good news was that my voice didn’t tremble; I’d outgrown that particular manifestation of nervousness.

  We got a reaction out of the store owner at, “Let me show you how to bleed.” He jerked his head back, obviously surprised by the lyric. I just hoped it was a good kind of surprise.

  Before I started in on the second verse, he waved for us to stop. I let the mic swing down to my side as the echo of Joey and Charlie’s final notes drowned to silence. The young woman who’d been watching us gave me a thumbs up as the owner helped another customer check out.

  I waited on tenterhooks for him to finish. The moment he handed the tattooed man his bag, I stepped forward. “So, what did you think?”

  His face was impossible to read. “You did better. It’s clear you worked on my notes from last year.” Before I could get too excited, he added, “But you still have one major problem. That song was pretty heavy, and I’m okay with that. But I don’t think you believed it. You didn’t have the right emotion. You seemed almost happy. Maybe you should talk to whoever wrote the song and figure out how they were feeling at the time.”

  “No! I mean, I know what you’re saying.” I swallowed hard, knowing that our chance was slipping away. “I do believe that lyric though. I was the one who wrote it.” In a way, I understood what he was saying; it was the missing element I’d noticed when I was singing. But I also understood the lyrics. “Please, you have to let us play! I promise, I’ll sing the songs with all the emotion that I have!” My pleading tone reached even my own ears.

  The old man sighed. “Alright, I’ll let you play. In a few weeks—November thirtieth—there’s a band who will be here signing CDs, and I’d like you to play something for everyone waiting. Who knows, if you have a CD of your own maybe you’ll even sell a few copies.”

  I could have fallen to my knees in gratitude, pulled the store owner into a hug. Instead, I ended up jumping up and down, like a kid who’d just been told they were going to get ice cream. “Thank you! Thank you so much!” It took a few seconds for the giddiness to subside, after which I politely thanked him for the opportunity and headed back out with Joey and Charlie.