Frail Days

by Prendergast, Gabrielle;

  “I can sing tenor range too, but whatever.” Tamara drops her empty Slurpee cup into the overflowing trash and picks up the iPod from the top of Jacob’s amp. “What about Tracy Bonham? She’s a girl.”

  “You know ‘Mother Mother’?” I ask.

  Miles coughs explosively, and Jacob frowns at me, but Tamara doesn’t even twitch.

  “Give me five minutes and some headphones and I’ll be good,” she says, taking the iPod and headphones outside to sit in the sun.

  As soon as the door closes, Jacob sighs. “Why’d you choose such a hard song?”

  “It’s not hard. We play it all the time.”

  “It’s hard to sing, Stella,” Miles says. “Maybe you could ease her into it a bit?”

  “This is a rock band, isn’t it? Aren’t we trying to find out if she can rock out?”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t think we should scare her off. I mean, she’s literally our last hope.”

  He’s infuriatingly right. They both are. Now I’m worried that the song will freak her out. Not only is it hard to sing, but it’s pretty dark. I start searching through my phone for something a little lighter while the boys tune up. But before I find anything suitable, Tamara comes back in.

  “Ready to roll?” she says. She doesn’t look scared. Maybe a little nervous. But I’m terrible at reading emotions.

  Jacob starts playing the opening of the song, and Tamara comes in right away, just like she’s supposed to. She changes as she sings, loosens up. Her eyes close and she sways a bit, until the song changes and Miles and I come in with bass and drums. Tamara jumps in time with us, clutching the mike, waving her free hand and looking very rock and roll for a girl in pink yoga pants and a Gap cardigan. When she wails out the ironic chorus line “Everything’s fine!” with a genuine growly break in her voice, Jacob’s eyes almost bug out of his head. Miles just grins.

  She doesn’t miss a word or a note. She makes me believe every emotion. And she looks cool. Somehow the music transforms her into a rough-and-ready rock chick singing about how hard it all is. It’s some kind of musical magic. When the song ends we all just sit there silent for a few seconds.

  “Well,” Jacob finally says. “I vote yes.”

  “Me too,” Miles says. “That was wicked.”

  I’m smiling like a drunk monkey when I add my vote. “One hundred percent. What do you think, Tamara? Are you in?”

  She has a thoughtful look on her face, and for a second I’m worried she’s going to tell us she doesn’t think we’re her scene. But then she grins. “That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks,” she says. “Let’s do it again.”

  Five

  Music has a look. Rock, punk, metal, emo, whatever. It’s not that you need to be super beautiful (though, hello, it helps), but every type of music has its own look. Maybe it’s superficial, but music is a product. And products need to be branded, right? McDonald’s couldn’t just change the golden arches to pink arches and expect people not to freak out. I’m sure my mom would have plenty to say about the commercialization of cultural experience and the resulting degradation of blah, blah, blah, but they call it the music business for a reason.

  So if you’re playing one type of music, your look should fit with it. It just makes sense. And as much as I think Tamara has a voice and a musical attitude that will set this town on fire, her look reminds me of a soccer mom. In fact, when I played soccer and my mom came to my games, she looked way more rock and roll than Tamara does.

  Tamara says she still has all her Fantalicious outfits and that some of them still fit her and more or less cover her lady parts. I’m tempted to throw the whole lot into a vat of black dye and see how that turns out. But the outfits are pretty skimpy. And I hate that skimpily dressed rocker-chick look. Why do female musicians have to prance around half naked just because they’re girls? It’s not a beauty contest.

  I guess it’s not a fashion show either. It feels a bit like one, though, because I’ve been waiting for Tamara to come out of the fitting room for ten minutes. We’ve already searched through her entire wardrobe, and apart from her Fantalicious clothes and her school uniform (which had a temptingly AC/DC effect), there wasn’t much that said Rock Goddess.

  “Do you have the skinny jeans on?” I say through the fitting-room door.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But butt. My butt looks huge.”

  “Put the Clash T-shirt on with them.”

  “Why? Does the Clash have magical butt-shrinking properties?”

  The saleslady frowns at me as she folds artfully frayed chinos. I think she’s upset that someone is saying “butt” in her store.

  “Just come out, Tamara,” I say. “Let me see.”

  Tamara opens the fitting-room door and stands there in the skinny jeans and black T-shirt I picked out. She looks at herself in the giant mirror. “I look sad.”

  She’s right. She does look sad. I may have met the only girl in the world who doesn’t look good in black. And the skinny jeans do nothing for her either. An outfit that is practically my uniform, and the only thing I really feel like me in, looks terrible and wrong on her. That’s an eye-opener.

  “What do you like to wear?” I say through the door as Tamara changes back into her own clothes. “What’s your favorite?”

  “Pajamas,” she says. “And the long robes we wear in the church choir. Hey! Maybe I could wear a burka! That would be a unique look. Or I could dress like a nun.” I’m still trying to picture this when she comes out in her own clothes, leaving the jeans and T-shirt behind. “Those are dumb ideas. I would never wear a burka. It’s not right to mock other cultures like that. And even nuns don’t dress like nuns anymore. I could wear a sari. I mean, not in a mean way either. I think they’re lovely. But I wouldn’t want to offend anyone. You know, because…I’m going to just shut up now.”

  I can’t help laughing. Soon we’re both laughing so hard that the saleslady gives us dirty looks until we leave the store.

  “Argh!” Tamara groans as we head up the escalator to the food court. “I hate shopping for clothes. It’s so demoralizing. Nothing fits or suits me. I should get a body artist to paint me and perform completely nude.”

  We howl with laughter all the way to the coffee kiosk. But when we get there, there’s a massive lineup.

  “The coffee here is awful anyway. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Tamara leads me out of the mall and down the pedestrian arcade to a little vintage diner at the end. Dad used to take me for breakfast here sometimes when he still worked at city hall. But I haven’t been here for ages. It seems to have had a hipster makeover. Jazz is drifting out of a jukebox, and there are posters of detective movies on the walls.

  I join Tamara as she takes a seat at the counter. A second later, the cute guy from her choir practice plops two cups in front of us.

  “You look desperately in need of caffeine,” he says, pouring coffee from a glass pot.

  “Stella, this is my brother, Nate,” Tamara says.

  Her brother? Why does he look cuter all of a sudden? He has little glasses and sandy-brown hair with a cowlick you could park a bike in. His eyes are so blue and bright, he looks like a cartoon version of himself. I reach out to shake his hand and knock over the coffee he’s just poured. Seriously? I should just run away right now.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He wipes up the coffee as I apologize. “Tammy tells me you’re a drummer. That’s pretty cool.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I mean, thanks. Do you play an instrument?”

  “Clarinet. Just in school band though.”

  Oh dear. That’s disappointing. Saxophone would have been better. Still, he makes a good cup of coffee, now that I’m actually drinking one rather than flooding the countertop with it.

  When we finish our coffees, Tamara and I hop on the bus and head to the studio. The boys are waiting there for us, Miles playing my drums and Jacob playing Miles’s bass.

 
“Hey, ladies,” Jacob says, popping the bass strings. “We thought of a name for the band.”

  “Here we go,” I say. Jacob and Miles come up with about ten names per day, each one more disgusting than the last. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Crustcore,” Miles says, embellishing it with a little cymbal flourish.

  “Ew,” Tamara says. “What does that even mean?”

  “It’s a terrible name. Next?”

  “What about Scum? We could even make it an acronym. Like, Serious Criminals something something. scum.”

  “Stupid Children Using Marijuana?” I suggest.

  “Stoned Chimps Under-Motivated?” Tamara offers, not missing a beat.

  Jacob and Miles look hurt. “We don’t use drugs. This is a drug-free band.”

  “Scum is a doubleplusdisgusting name.”

  “Newspeak? George Orwell. Nice,” Tamara says, nodding.

  “Can you two speak English, please?” Jacob says. “We still need a name.”

  “What about the Toenails?” I suggest.

  “God,” Tamara says. “And you thought Scum was disgusting. Why would you want such a negative name? Why not just call us the Screaming Rejects?”

  Before the boys can start discussing the merits of that name, someone knocks on the door. Nate pops his head in.

  “I finished my shift early. I thought I could take some band pictures.”

  “Nate, I’m dressed like a kinder-gym teacher,” Tamara says.

  “No one cares about that,” Nate says and proceeds to take about twenty pictures of me before I even have time to fluff up my faux-hawk. “Do some drumming. I’ll get some action shots.”

  I do a big rolling solo as Nate snaps a bunch more pictures.

  “That was awesome. I slowed down the speed so the sticks are blurred. Look how cool it is.”

  He shows me the camera screen, and he’s right. It’s pretty cool. After I’ve admired myself for a few minutes, I notice no one else is saying anything. Tamara is standing with her arms crossed. The boys just look awkward.

  “I don’t mean to be a diva,” Tamara says, “but aren’t I the lead singer of this band?”

  “Don’t be so touchy, Tammy,” Nate says. “Like you didn’t get enough pictures taken with the Fantasy Lickers.”

  Tamara’s face falls. “You. Are. A. Total. Dick,” she says. Then she grabs her bag and flounces out the door.

  The girl can sure flounce.

  “Tammy! Wait,” Nate says, following her.

  So much for rehearsal. This is why I’m glad I’m an only child.

  “Well,” Miles says, after we’ve taken a moment to process what just happened. “I think it’s possible Tamara might actually be a bit of a diva.”

  “No she’s not,” Jacob says. “Nate was making a fool of himself, slobbering all over Stella.”

  “He wasn’t slobbering over me!” Jeez. Was he? That’s embarrassing. And oddly intriguing. “He was taking band pictures.”

  “Yeah? And how many did he take of anyone other than you?”

  I know the answer to that. It looks like we might have our first groupie.

  Six

  I set a different text tone for everyone I know. But I guess I forgot that I set Tamara’s tone to be a cat meow. So when I wake up, I think there’s an invisible cat in my room, and I’m very confused for about five minutes. That’s just what it’s like being me. Once I figure out the invisible cat is no threat, I read Tamara’s text.

  Sorry. Call me.

  I press the button, and she picks up after one ring.

  “I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” she says straight away. “My brother brings out the worst in me sometimes.”

  “S’okay,” I say, scanning my floor for a clean T-shirt. I’ve had some time to think about it, and I can see why Tamara is feeling sensitive. It must have sucked, getting pushed out of Fantalicious, especially for such a dumb reason. And I don’t know what was going on with Nate taking so many pictures of me. I decide not to mention that part. “Calling them the Fantasy Lickers was mean,” I say.

  “Yeah, I guess. I know it was cheesy, but it was fun. And I miss them.” She sighs into the phone. “I just feel like crap right now.”

  I’m not normally the type of person to follow up someone saying “I feel like crap” with a request for more details. So no one is more surprised than me when I say, “You do? Why?”

  “I just…hate my body. I feel ugly and stupid. I really want to be a performer, but I don’t have the image. You know? And you’re so…like, perfect and cool and…”

  “Chinese?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Name a Chinese girl rock drummer.”

  That stumps her, but only for a second. She counters with “Name a fat pop singer.”

  “Ann Wilson, Aretha Franklin,” I say. “Meatloaf.”

  “Meatloaf! You’re supposed to make me feel better, not worse!”

  She’s laughing though. That’s good.

  “Image isn’t everything,” I say. “The music is what matters. This band is old school, remember? We’re going back to the days before video clips and style blogs.”

  She’s quiet for a second. “I’m surprised to hear you say that.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, to be honest, when I met you I thought you might be a bit of a poser. I mean, you’ve got the hair and the piercings. Lots of kids look a certain way, like rockers or whatever, but they don’t know anything about that scene.”

  “But you don’t still think I’m a poser?”

  “No way! You’re an awesome drummer. And it’s wild to sing with a real drummer. Fants only ever used canned music. It’s just not the same.”

  “Right? This is my whole motivation for the band! Real music for real people.”

  “Totally.”

  We have one of those silences where you’re talking to someone and you know that you both feel exactly the same way about something. You just have to take a moment and enjoy how good that feels. I realize I’ve been standing in the middle of my room with a pair of red-and-black leggings in one hand and my phone in the other. Also I’m wearing only an oversized Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

  “Stella?” Tamara says suddenly. “Can I send you some lyrics? I mean, lyrics I wrote?”

  “You write lyrics? I’d love to read them.”

  “Cool. I’m going to email them. Don’t, like, barf or anything. You’ll probably think they’re dumb.”

  “Just send them. I promise I’ll be nice.”

  After we hang up, I get dressed, which basically means putting the red-and-black leggings on under the Led Zep tee. Then I open my laptop. Tamara’s email has already arrived. She doesn’t waste time with salutations or anything. It’s just the lyrics.

  They’re amazing. And heartbreaking. Tamara has this air of confidence sometimes, especially about music. But other times she seems so unsure of herself. I guess that’s normal—I feel that way most of the time too—but her lyrics just capture it. The song is called “The Alien,” and it’s kind of a story about someone who can’t hide the fact that they’re from another planet. And the more they try, the more people shun them. The last verse of the song is about the alien falling in love with someone who can’t love them back.

  Wow. I have tears in my eyes when I finish reading. I pick up my phone and text one word back to Tamara.

  GENIUS.

  She replies in seconds with a happy face.

  Normally I hate happy faces, but it’s nice to see her smile.

  * * *

  The boys hunch over the printout I made of Tamara’s lyrics while Tamara and I open all the studio windows. The neighbors usually don’t complain about the noise so early in the day, and it’s hotter than Tabasco in the studio, so we decide to risk it.

  “Something like Nine Inch Nails?” Miles says. “Sort of slow and rolling?” He plucks out a few bass notes in an interesting progression.

  “Nah, it needs to be darker,” Jacob
says. “Like ‘Creep’ only not so emo. And more minor chords.” He strums a chord, then taps a pedal with his foot. His guitar is nice and distorted when he plays the second chord. Miles nods in agreement as Jacob plucks out some killer intro riffs.

  “Nice,” he says as they continue jamming.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Tamara whispers to me.

  “Sure about what?”

  “About them turning my lyrics into a song.”

  I look at her like she’s just grown moose antlers out of her eyebrows. “What?! What else are lyrics for?”

  “Well, they’re for songs and everything, of course. But this is a little dark. And personal.”

  We watch the boys improvising for a few seconds. Jacob starts to mumble the words in a cool melody.

  “Don’t you think the crowd will like covers better?” Tamara says.

  “What crowd?”

  “At the summer festival. They might relate to stuff they know better.”

  She’s right. Most people, especially around here, love to hear songs they know. And we could play some well-known classic stuff—Beatles or the Stones. U2 is popular, obviously. We could get the crowd singing along, like they did on the bus. That would be cool. But…

  “You look lost in thought,” Tamara says. The boys are ignoring us, having transitioned into what I guess will be the chorus of this increasingly epic song.

  “I think we should play originals. We should be making our own sound. If we play, say, a U2 song and the oldies in the crowd go wild, then they’re going wild for U2, not us. What’s the point of that?”

  “But what if we play originals and they just sit there?” She’s nodding her head in time to the music, a little smile growing on her face. “They sound really good,” she says.

  The boys play on, oblivious. Tamara and I abandon our argument as I plop down behind my drum kit and start with a simple pattern. She plugs in her mic and starts singing the chorus of her song as if she’s sung it a million times. Miles and Jacob adjust their volumes, and soon we’re blasting out “The Alien,” a grungy ballad with blues overtones. Tamara sings her lyrics with a little Janis Joplin edge. Then, as though we’ve all tapped into some unspoken agreement, in the middle of the song we bust into power alt rock—like Nirvana meets Queens of the Stone Age but with more feedback. It rapidly turns into a rock bridge from the Devil’s list of all-time greatest rock bridges. Jacob takes a wicked solo, and Tamara improvises some wild vocals, while Miles and I just look at each other, huge grins on our faces.