Battle of the Bands

by Eric Smith

  “YOU! YOU! YOU ARE HELL! I CAN’T STAND YOU. OUR TONGUES DANCE BUT OUR HATRED IS ETERNAL —!”

  How was this only the first band? When his friend Jonah had asked — okay, had sort of blackmailed — Karan into selling merch for his band Chump 2.0 at the Battle of the Bands, he’d known it’d be a slog, but man. They were only one band in and he could feel his blood starting to enter a constant state of vibration.

  It was also possible that he was just stationed too close to a speaker, but whatever. It was definitely the bad music.

  Was it really only this afternoon that he’d had the prospect of a full, glorious, plan-free weekend ahead of him? He looked down at the text Jonah had sent him again: U SELL MERCH OR UR MOM FINDS OUT WE WENT 2 THE BCH INSTEAD OF FRENCH CLASS LAST WK

  Jonah was the worst. Last time he’d trust the argument that skipping school was “the only way to stick it to the man.” More like “the only way to make my friends do shit they don’t want to do.”

  WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH —

  Karan jolted out of his musings, expecting to see another random flannel-wearing pest in front of his table, but was surprised to realize the movement and vocals were coming from someone at the table next to him. He pulled out one of the bargain earplugs.

  “HELLO!” The person standing in front of the neighboring table was frantically waving a hand, trying to get the attention of an Indian girl who seemed to be there to, well, sell merch. Or he’d have assumed as much if she wasn’t sitting behind the table, head down, curved over what seemed to be a book with approximately two thousand pages. “Hey!!”

  “Huh? What? Oh, hi. Do you wanna buy something?” The girl folded over the corner of the page and shut the absolute unit of a tome sitting on her lap. Then she turned toward her customer, and Karan saw her face. And while his brain didn’t register it, his heart did, and he fell in love a little bit.

  ROCK YOUR MOUTH, CONTINUED

  Saru bit back the sigh that was trying to make its way through her lips. She’d just gotten to her favorite part of The Secret of the Undercurrent, book two of the best series in the world: Space Crowns.

  Prince Deverindara of Mahabali was about to give up his throne for the sea sprite Sonal! But no, Saru was here to do a job, so she paused in her reading, folded down the top corner of the page, closed the book, and turned to face the woman leaning over the table.

  “Do you wanna buy something?”

  “Yes.” If words and emotions could be physically manifested, that one would have been dripping with actual disdain.

  Saru took a deep breath in through her nose, held it for three seconds, and then exhaled.

  “Okay, which one of these do you want?”

  “I need a medium in that shirt.” The woman pointed at Saru’s personal favorite piece of merch, a shirt with a unicorn and the name of her sister’s band, Breakfast of Champions. Saru gestured for her to take it.

  “It’s twenty bucks.”

  The woman held out a credit card in response.

  “Uh, sorry, no cards.”

  “Why?!”

  “Well, this is a pretty homegrown, grassroots-type situation. We don’t have card readers.”

  “Guh, fine.” She reached into her pocket, presumably to pull out some cash, but before she could, a concertgoer shoved by her and she fell forward, bumping hard into the table, which then bumped into Saru, and her book fell to the disgusting, sticky floor with an unnerving splat.

  Books should not go splat. Saru reached out and peeled the book back off the linoleum, and it sounded like someone sucking their teeth, which made the whole thing worse. The floor was so gross, it was like the high school auditorium was trying to bring the atmosphere of an actual club or something. Maybe the scene kids had spilled soda and snacks on the ground in the name of authenticity?

  Saru let out the hefty sigh she’d held back earlier. She was supposed to be on her way to her local bookstore, picking up the new book in the Space Crowns series, which was dropping at midnight. There was no way she’d make it at this point; people had started lining up this morning. Plus, her sister’s band hadn’t even gotten close to going on yet. She was going to have to wait a full extra twelve hours to find out what happened between Sonal and Deverindara and it was infuriating. Gita owed her so hard. But her sister knew that.

  “Saru, I will do your chores for the next three months. Please, you’re our only hope. Tejas got food poisoning and can’t sell our merch, can you please please please please.”

  “Gita, but the book —”

  “Will wait! The Battle of the Bands waits for none of us.”

  Saru had rolled her eyes at that one. Didn’t Gita know about spoilers?! But Saru had acquiesced as she usually did. She could play the Good Sister.

  So now, instead of screaming in frustration, she turned back to help her customer, only to find a crisp twenty-dollar bill in place of one of the unicorn tees. Great, that worked perfectly for both of them. She did another quick breathing exercise, tuned out the crowing onstage, and reopened her book.

  . . . Only to feel an itching at the back of her neck, like someone was staring. She looked to the kid at the table to the right of hers. He was on his feet, pumping his fist to the music, and paying her not the least bit of attention. She panned back to glance to the left, and oh. The scruffy-looking Indian kid at Chump 2.0’s table had clearly been staring at her. No way was picking at a tabletop that interesting.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “Hmm?”

  THE GREATEST PLACE

  Crap.

  The girl definitely knew Karan had been staring like a complete weirdo. But in his defense, everything about that interaction was distracting. He didn’t want to be here, either, but at least he could interact with a customer without coming off as a complete misanthrope. Just, like, 60 percent of a misanthrope, he thought.

  “Hmm?” he’d responded to her, like hmm was a word that meant anything.

  “I asked if you needed something!” she yelled back at him over the music.

  “Nothing. No, why would I — I mean, no. I don’t need anything. Just, uh, selling merch. Same as you.” The band chose that moment to end their set, but his unprepared butt kept yelling. “Sort of.” And that was painfully loud.

  If he thought she’d looked irritated before, the “sort of” qualifier at the end of that sentence seemed to really piss her off.

  “Well, apologies if my customer-service skills aren’t up to your standards, person I’ve never seen before in my entire life. But if that’s all you had to say, I think I’ll get back to sort of selling merchandise for my sister’s band.” And with that, she opened that massive book again and started reading. She was punctuated by the sound test of a very aggressive guitar twang. The next band on the roster must be setting up onstage, and the crowd was swapping one set of fans for another, though Karan couldn’t really distinguish a difference.

  He mentally groaned. Just his luck to end up next to a stuck-up, sensitive brown girl. They were going to be there all night; maybe he should try to apologize.

  “That’s not — sorry, that is not what I meant. I just — this sucks, right? You don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here. Same. Same.” Why was he talking so much? He tried to send a smile in her direction. Nothing, no recognition that he’d spoken whatsoever. He swore he could feel an actual ice wall between the two of them. He drummed his fingers on the table. Ugh, this was so boring. His eyes flickered back to the girl next to him. She was leaning her head in her hand, and her hair had fallen around the slope of her shoulder and pooled onto the table. The lights of the stage reflected against her glasses, barring him from seeing if she was actually reading or just daydreaming. Then she turned a page. Actually reading.

  What could be that big and that interesting to be able to block out all of the hectic sounds and sights of the Battle of the (Too Many) Bands?

  Karan narrowed his eyes. At least it had to be more interesting than wha
t he was doing . . . which was a whole lot of nothing because, really, how many people were going to spend money on a band they hadn’t even seen yet? He took a deep breath to fortify himself. Why did talking to another human being always feel so awkward? He pulled the napkins out of his ears.

  “Look, really, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean anything by the ‘sort of,’ I swear.”

  Karan saw her shoulders shift slightly. She’d definitely heard him.

  “You’ve got to tell me the secret of being able to ignore all this crap. What are you reading?”

  THE GREATEST PLACE, CONTINUED

  Well, those were the magic words, weren’t they? Saru tried to keep the corners of her mouth from going up. She just really loved talking about this series. It was her happy place! Even if it meant talking to a guy she’d already written off as a jerk. She dog-eared her place again and closed the book, wincing as her finger grazed a spot of unidentified stickiness on the cover. She needed to get some Wet-Naps. She wiped her hands on her jeans and turned to face whatever-this-guy’s-name-was.

  “It’s the Space Crowns series. I’m Saru.” She gave him a mini-wave in lieu of a handshake.

  “Hey, Saru. Karan. What’s Space Crowns?” He nodded in the direction of her book. She, honestly, was taken aback. How did anyone not know Space Crowns? Oh no, maybe he didn’t read.

  “I’m sorry, did you just ask me what one of the best fantasy series ever was? One that’s been turned into four movies already, and inspired Shane Crawford’s last album? And the new book comes out tonight and I’m missing it to be here.” She tried not to sound too angry. Her mom was always telling her she was too “spirited” for her own good.

  Karan looked semi-abashed, but also annoyed.

  “Well, maybe I just live under a rock.” As if it knew, an intense guitar riff punctuated his frustration.

  “Please tell me you’ve heard of Mars Man? It’s the first book and what they called the first movie, or —”

  “Yes! Oh man, I liked that movie, I think? I think I saw it.” Karan had scrunched up his face, and Saru couldn’t help but notice that he was kind of cute. He had that flop of Punjabi curls on his head, and the stubble of a few-days-old beard on his face that told of a kid too lazy to shave on the daily. But she could see the high cheekbones and full lips. Honestly, he wasn’t so off from the description of Prince Deverindara.

  Deverindara’s jet-black hair curled and gleamed in the sunlight. His beard shone, and his eyes were dark and cunning. His mouth held a smile so sharp it could cut the world itself in half.

  So, his face was good. The jury was out on the smarts part. She bit back a grin. Then her brain caught up with what he’d just said.

  “You think you saw it?”

  THE MARCIA, MARCIA, MARCIAS

  Oh man, this girl was a nerd. Like, there were nerds and then there were nerds.

  “Yeah, I think. It came out like three years ago?” Karan had to smile; he could see her physically restraining her own emotions to his deliberate nonchalance about her favorite book. She opened her mouth to respond when more banging started.

  “Five-six-seven-eight.”

  Great, a new band was on. Saru rolled her eyes, and instead of yelling just picked her chair up to move it closer to the end of her table, gesturing for him to do the same. Karan shrugged and complied, moving closer to Saru, his chair lifting from the floor with the disconcerting sound of something that has spent too long on a tacky surface. At least this would pass the time.

  “You are missing out; this series is amazing. It has everything: romance, comedy, drama, tragedy, clever plotting, all of it!” Was it just Karan, or were Saru’s eyes actually shining? He shook his head; it had to be a trick of the light.

  “It sounds like a Bollywood movie.” He laughed. He was surprised when she didn’t immediately snap at him but grinned back instead.

  “You’re not wrong; it’s just missing the musical part. You have to buy the e-book for that.”

  It took him a second to realize she was joking.

  “Oh, ha! Talk about a nightmare situation. That’s all I need, is for my mom to discover singing e-books. Oh man.” He shuddered at the thought of his mom introducing e-book songs into her antakshari repertoire.

  “Gita — my sister — loves Bollywood music. And I get it, it’s fun. I’ve just never had any interest in the dancing-and-music part of it. I like the stories, though.”

  Karan shrugged noncommittally before responding. He wasn’t a musical guy, either, but he really wasn’t a “Rahul, naam to suna hoga” kind of guy.

  “I’m more into, like, the Criterion Collection.”

  “That feels kind of snobby, don’t you think?” Saru’s entire body had moved several inches backward at his admission. Hilariously enough, she was in time with the percussion of their current soundtrack.

  “Okay, Miss ‘YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF SPACE CROWNS.’”

  She frowned. “Fair point.”

  This was starting to actually get enjoyable. Maybe Karan owed Jonah for being a blackmailing asshole. He was just about to ask her what else she was into when he was beaten to the punch by a conspicuously well-dressed older white dude who looked like he had literally run to Saru’s table.

  “Excuse me, are you Kareena?!”

  THE MARCIA, MARCIA, MARCIAS, CONTINUED

  Saru’s head swiveled around to stare daggers at whoever had just asked her if she was that famous Indian-American pop star, which was definitely not irritating, and definitely had not happened four hundred other times over the course of Kareena’s short career.

  She took in the dude standing in front of her, from his expensively distressed jeans to his too-rich-to-really-be-that-torn-up button-down. Then she poured every ounce of ice that she could into her voice.

  “No.”

  “You look just like her.” He was so committed to his absurd idea that he didn’t even notice when the back end of the crowd slammed up against him like the powers in the sky were telling him to cut it out.

  “Wow, you’ve guessed it. I’m famous and I’m here, at a local battle of the bands . . . selling merchandise. Way to go. You solved it.” Saru rolled her eyes and glanced over at Karan in the universal way brown folks did at the small packages of racism the world liked to Secret Santa into their laps.

  The man flinched a little at her tone, but then his smile morphed into a slight sneer.

  “Look, she’s hot, it was a compliment.”

  He sidestepped over a few feet to the right to look at another table before she had a chance to respond.

  Jerk. People did that all the time. She and that Kareena honestly didn’t even look —

  “No offense, but uh, you do not look like Kareena.” Karan voiced her thought out loud before she could even get there herself. She threw him a dirty look.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you don’t look like the only other Indian girl that guy’s probably ever seen?”

  “. . . Oh. Okay. Yeah. It happens all the time, and it’s super annoying.”

  Karan tipped his chair back and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Yeah, people ask me if I’m Michael Singh all the time. But you know, maybe they’re all, uh —”

  “A little racist?” It felt good yelling that part over the din of the crowd and the music they were screaming along to.

  “You said it.” Karan raised an eyebrow and let out a puff of laughter. But there wasn’t any joy in it. “Just once it’d be great if it could work out in my favor, like, ‘Yes, I am Michael Singh. Please give me a free smart watch.’”

  “There was one time that someone bought my food because they thought I was their friend from middle school.”

  That time his laugh was real.

  THE MARCIA, MARCIA, MARCIAS, CONTINUED AGAIN

  “So, I think we were talking about how you’re a snob,” the girl — Saru, Karan reminded himself — said with a grin. It made him feel good. He smiled back and shrugged, unsu
re of how to respond in a way that wouldn’t make him sound like an actual snob. She shot him a small smile and shook her head before turning back to the music.

  They listened to the band play onstage for a few minutes. Karan started getting nervous about the conversation dying. Maybe he should say something? Or maybe Saru had just been being nice and really was just waiting to get back to her book? He looked over at her and she was nodding in time to the music. Screw it. He looked around and saw the set list his friend had taped to the cash envelope sitting on the vinyl tabletop in front of him.

  “There’s a band here called Reckless Love!” he yelled.

  “What?” she replied without looking at him.

  “I SAID THERE’S A BAND HERE CALLED RECKLESS LOVE!” he yelled louder.

  “I heard you. I just think it’s a funny name.”

  Karan rubbed the back of his hair like he did when he was feeling awkward.

  “Oh, sorry — what’s so funny about it?”

  “Isn’t all love reckless?

  Well, that’s not where he thought this conversation was going to go. Saru had settled her chin in her hand, and her eyes had unfocused behind her lenses.

  “Uhhhh . . .”

  Then she shook her head and looked like she realized she’d said more than she’d meant to.

  “I mean, that’s from a book. This book.” She lifted up her giant fantasy novel. “Yup. Just thinking about how I could be at a book party right now.”

  She sounded like she was lying, but Karan was not going to go down that road. Luckily, Saru changed the subject before he had to. She faced him again, not even flinching when a random body jostled her whole table.

  “Anyway, we know why I’m here. Why are you here?”

  Karan sighed. This was not going to make him look great.

  “My friend Jonah blackmailed me into it.”

  Instead of laughing, Saru widened her eyes and turned her chair entirely toward him.

  “That’s incredible! What did he blackmail you with?”

  “Incredible?”

  “I mean, come on. Who blackmails in high school?” She scrunched her nose and flung her hand up in that universal gesture of Are you kidding me? And that was a fair point, actually. Who did blackmail in high school? “Is your friend super into The Godfather? Full disclosure: I haven’t seen it, but I can’t imagine there’s not blackmail in The Godfather.”