“You know, most of the people I play with, they pretend to like music, but it’s just a bullshit thing to them,” Lake says. “At least you’re honest about not being that into it.”
I open my eyes and look at her. She’s being serious with me. Like the room has cast a spell on her, too. A nice spell.
One thing I’ve noticed is that when I’m quiet, other people just start talking and spilling out their secrets. I want to confess something, too, but I can’t think of anything to say.
“They’re, like, just visiting music,” she continues. “They don’t take it seriously. They do it more for the look. But I don’t care — I’m going to take over the world. This winter I’m going to record. Next summer, I’m going to go on tour. Mark my words. Tour equals adventure time.”
I guess that’s what every musician calls it: adventure time. Everything I know about rock tours comes from The Rat’s postcards. Bad food and hours on the highway, long stretches away from home. That doesn’t sound adventurous to me. It sounds terrible. I’m away from home and I don’t feel like I’m on adventure time. But I’d like to be the kind of girl who goes on an adventure. Peru would have been adventure. Why there and not here?
“There’s an all-ages show later. Wanna go?” Lake asks.
I’m not really paying attention when I nod. I actually say yes.
“Cool,” she says, like it’s nothing. No big deal that I said I’d go to a show. Like it was the expected answer. But me, I feel jittery and nervous. Like I’ve agreed to do something that will get me into trouble. This place feels as though any thing, any thought is possible. Dangerous thoughts. New thoughts. Before I have time to back out, the door opens up and the other members of her band start trickling in.
They are a different kind of girl than Lake. It surprises me. They look like they belong in a different band, not her band. They look like the punk you see in magazines, not dressed down like Lake is.
“Who’s that?” one of the girls asks Lake, flicking her glitter-lidded eyes over to me.
“Beige,” Lake says. “She’s The Rat’s kid. She’s visiting for the summer. She’s going to do our merch.”
She doesn’t say I’m a friend. She makes it sound like I’m a drag. Since I sound like a drag, the girls look like they feel sorry for Lake. They look back over at me.
I sink deeper into the couch, so deep I stab myself in the back with a broken spring. I try to make myself invisible with my book held up as a barrier while they all strap their instruments on, flip on the amps, and begin jamming.
The music here is not just a soundtrack in the background. Somehow the notes flowing together lead to new waves of thinking. I can’t help it. I’m listening.
Immediately, the spell the jam space cast on me is broken. It’s too loud. I can’t concentrate on anything else but them as Lake sings into the mic.
“You’re so lost,
And I’m so found,
And I know now
To stop hanging around.
Listen to what I say —
IT’S OVER.
GO AWAY.
I will be beastly
Next time you see me.
I’ll show no mercy
Next time you’re with me.
Listen to what I say —
IT’S OVER.
GO AWAY.”
Lake’s baby-girl voice is surprisingly powerful when she sings. But I don’t like when she screams. She isn’t afraid to jump with her guitar, to smash and rub the strings. When her lips come up to the microphone to sing, it’s like she’s kissing it. Her mouth opens and it’s sexy. She doesn’t look like a girl; she looks like a fearless woman. Roaring. Then she jerks back and concentrates on the guitar, turning her back against the mic she was just making a kind of love to, and crouches low, fingers flying along the fret board.
Despite what Lake says, the other girls don’t seem like they’re faking their enthusiasm. They seem like they’re totally into it. They sound just as serious as she does about it. They sound like they’re making good music. Even though I don’t really know what good music sounds like, at least I can sort of understand the lyrics. Not like Suck, where I couldn’t understand a single word. Lake doesn’t sing like she has marbles in her mouth.
I just know my foot taps without any effort at all.
I was going to bail out of going to the show with Lake until the other girls in the band said they were too busy to come and then I felt obligated.
“We don’t have to see every band,” one of the girls, the one named Kim, whined.
“Well, I do,” Lake said. “Come on, Beige.”
I think we are going to a club, but it’s actually a show at the Armenian Recreation Center. Kids of all ages are everywhere outside. It’s a whole scene. It reminds me of the Fourth of July barbecue, only at least here everyone is closer to my age. It doesn’t make a difference, though. I still don’t fit in.
“I can’t get them to do anything outside of practice,” Lake complains. “And they barely ever do that. It sucks.”
I watch Lake as she sticks her hand out to the ticket guy to get a wristband and I do the same. I know I look plain in my Le Tigre shirt and capri pants. How is it that her dressed down is punk, and mine makes me look like I don’t belong? How does that work?
“You don’t look punk,” I say. “Like what I thought punk was.”
“Oh, is there a punk look?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, like a Mohawk or something. Plaid pants,” I say. “Like the girls in your band.”
“You don’t know shit,” she says. “You can’t just go into a Hot Topic and buy a costume and be punk. It’s more than that.”
I shrug.
“So what is it?” I ask. “What’s punk?”
She shoots me a look.
“You need to figure it out for yourself,” Lake says.
I hate the way she always tries to shut me up. Shut me down. I hate more that I don’t know anything.
Why can’t she just tell me?
As soon as the band comes on, Lake shoves her way to the front. I follow her. I don’t want to be left alone in an ocean of people I don’t know.
Lake leans forward so she’s draping half her body onto the stage. I hang back behind her. People push up against me, bumping me into Lake’s back, so I keep saying “I’m sorry” and “Excuse me,” but then I realize that everyone is on top of each other, and no one is being polite about personal space, except me. So I stop apologizing.
The light plays on Lake’s face, changing from yellow, to blue, to red, to green, her eyes half open during some songs, her mouth moving, her face holy. Like she’s in church. Everyone around us has the same expression. I turn around and look at the ocean of people behind me, moved by the musical spirit.
I just don’t get it. To me it’s too much noise and too much sweat from too many bodies too close together.
I watch the singer as he jumps around and pushes himself off the monitors. I watch the bass player bouncing around with his perfectly rock-floppy hair and two front teeth made of gold. I listen hard; I feel the music pounding in my chest. What is it about this band that makes the bass player jump and the crowd sing along?
Three other bands take the stage, and then the last one plays a bunch of encores. I think they’re never going to stop, but then thankfully, they do, and the show is over.
“I’m going to get a T-shirt,” Lake says, and splits. She’s probably still mad at me because of my faux pas. I am alone as the crowd starts to move around me, dispersing. Socializing.
I notice that Lake is standing near the merch table, handing out something to people passing by.
“Hey!” a girl next to me says. “How’d you like the show?”
Why is she talking to me? I don’t think I know her. I don’t think she is in Lake’s band. They said they had better things to do.
“It was OK,” I say. OK is neutral. Noncommittal.
“I thought it was awesome.”
<
br /> I shrug.
“Beige, it’s Garth,” the girl finally says. “Garth Skater.”
I have to readjust my eyes to change the gender of this pretty girl in front of me into a boy.
“You probably didn’t recognize me without my helmet on,” he says.
“Yeah, that must be it.” I don’t want to tell him it’s because I thought he was a girl. He is really pretty. Too pretty. Not boy pretty. He should keep his helmet on. It’s less distracting.
“I totally spaced on getting your number or anything. You know, to hang out.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“But I guess we’re hanging out now!” he says. He nods to someone waving hello, to people who are passing us by. They don’t seem to really acknowledge him, but it doesn’t stop him from making an effort to be social to everyone.
“Yeah,” I say.
I want to ask him where his helmet is. I think I feel more comfortable when he has it on. I don’t ask him, though. I just keep staring at the top of his head. I focus on his brown-blond curls, trying not to notice his long, long eyelashes, his smooth girlish skin, his high cheekbones, his pouty lips. He is prettier than I could ever hope to be. I’m kind of jealous.
I don’t find him attractive like I find Leo attractive. Garth Skater doesn’t do it for me. He’s just so girl-pretty I can’t help kind of staring at him.
“What. Do I have something on my face?” Garth asks.
He starts taking his hand and rubbing at his chin.
“Did I get it?” he asks. He looks really concerned. “I don’t want to look stupid. Be honest with me, Beige. Is it gone?”
I nod. He smiles. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Lake waving at me from next to the merch table.
“Oh, snap, Beige! Are you friends with Lake Suck?” Garth asks.
I nod. Nodding makes it not really a lie. Right?
“Holy shit, you are like the coolest girl I know,” he says, and then he starts bowing to me, like I’m a goddess and he’s worshipping me.
He must not know a lot of girls if he thinks I’m the coolest one he knows.
“I gotta go,” I say.
“Meet me tomorrow at Casbah!” he says. “Like elevenish.”
I nod OK. It’s not really saying yes. It’s more like having a spasm. And a spasm could mean anything.
I leave him and join Lake as he does a little victory dance.
“Who’s your girlfriend?” Lake says.
“Some kid who lives around me, I think,” I say. “His name is Garth Skater.”
“Oh, him? He’s a pain in my ass.”
“You know him?” I say. “He doesn’t seem so bad.”
“I see him at school and at all the shows. But I don’t talk to him.”
Surprise, surprise, I think. Does Lake actually talk to anyone?
Come to think of it, I’ve only ever seen her talk to me.
“Did you give him a Grown-Ups sticker?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
“Why not?” she asks.
“I don’t have any,” I say.
She shoves a bunch into my hand.
“Get to work,” she says. “We’ve got promoting to do.”
I slink into a seat outside at the Moroccan-style café called the Casbah. I order a yerba maté because it is very South American and I imagine that my mom is having one right now. I picture her as she finishes drinking it, puts the cup on the shelf in the tent, and goes outside and begins to bend her fingers into the earth as she digs through history.
My fingers dig through an Entertainment Weekly. It’s not quite the same thing.
Garth skates up to me, giving me a big dumb wave. As he approaches, he jumps off his board. He’s wearing his helmet. He doesn’t take it off. Secretly, I’m glad.
“I was kind of worried that you wouldn’t show,” Garth says.
“I had no plans today,” I say. I play it as though I always have plans. I don’t say I don’t have any plans these days. Besides babysitting, my calendar is totally free, which is why I even got here early.
“Yeah, well, a lot of people are flakes,” Garth says. “They say one thing, but they do another. I always do what I say I’m going to do.”
“Always?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m a man of my word.”
Boy. Boy of his word, I think, as he goes over to the counter and orders a coffee. There is nothing about Garth that I would call manly. He spills some of his coffee on the floor on his way back to join me at the table. He makes an angry-with-himself face. I feel bad; he was walking so slowly and smoothly and yet he still couldn’t keep it from spilling.
I bet that is his lot in life, always spilling things, always tripping and falling. He’s done something like that every time I’ve ever seen him.
Garth removes his messenger bag off his shoulder and that’s when I notice it.
He has a boner.
I want to say, What is that? I want to point to his crotch.
“What?” he says.
He follows my eyes. Then he gets two red spots on his cheeks. He’s really embarrassed. “It won’t go down,” he says quietly. “I’m not hot for you or anything. It’s biological.”
“That’s weird,” I say. I want to be the kind of girl who’s not embarrassed. But I am. I really am. It’s just there in front of me. Eye level. I wish he’d sit down so I wouldn’t have to see it anymore.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he says, kind of whispering. He finally quickly takes his seat. “I’m just nervous. If I liked you, or if I were facing bodily harm, I’d lose it.”
“Really? Isn’t it supposed to work the opposite way?” I am whispering now too.
“Yeah. I have no control over it,” he says, shaking his head, trying to shake it off, trying to play it cool, like it doesn’t matter. “I have no game. I’m probably going to be a virgin forever.”
The waitress comes over with the triple-decker sandwich and soup that he’s ordered. For a skinny boy, he’s ordered a lot of food.
“I’ve never seen you around before,” Garth says. “I mean, I have seen The Rat around for like, ever, but I’ve never seen you. What school do you go to?”
“I live in Canada. In Montréal.”
“Do you speak French?”
Garth is the only person so far here who knows that French is a language spoken in Canada.
“Oui,” I say.
“Cool. J’apprends à parler le français à l’école,” he says with not too bad an accent. “I already speak Spanish. I aspire to be trilingual.”
He takes a big bite out of his sandwich, so we’re quiet while he chews with his mouth open.
“So, what’s it like?” he asks when he’s done.
“What?” I say.
“Canada. The Great White North.”
“Different.”
“How?” He smiles.
He pushes his plate of food toward me and indicates that I should eat something. I take an olive and put it in my mouth.
“I dunno. The food tastes different.”
“It does?” he says. I wish he’d shut his mouth when he chews.
“Yeah, it’s got more flavor. Everything here seems, like, bland.”
“Trippy.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“And you have winter,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Do you live in an igloo?”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Hang out with Eskimos?”
“They are called Inuit,” I say.
“I’ve never seen snow fall in my life.”
“Never?” I ask. That just seems incredible to me.
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen snow. On the ground. Or on those mountains over there. And I’ve seen it falling in movies, but I’ve never seen it fall in real life.”
“Well, it gets really quiet during a snowstorm. And it kind of warms up a bit. And in Montréal, it’s cold enough that they make, like, homemade ice rinks in the park. But it gets
really cold. And dark super early. It’s actually kind of depressing.”
“Sounds nice,” Garth says. “I’m going to put Montréal on my list of places to visit.”
“Yeah, it’s a good place.”
We don’t say anything for a little bit. We just kind of sit there.
I am lost in my thoughts about my fake temporary home. Now that I’m staying for the summer, I might try Garth out as a friend. I can’t pretend to have fun for two months with no one to hang out with, and since I don’t have that many options, I do like Mom says. I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Finally Garth says, “I’ll wear tighter pants if that makes you feel more comfortable.”
That seals the deal. He’s kind of a keeper.
I’m lying by the side of the pool, my feet dangling in the water, looking up at the sunset. The sky is orange. Orange like an explosion. The light that falls on me makes my pale skin look tan.
“They call it the magic hour,” a voice behind me says.
It’s Leo.
He’s standing right above me, his bare feet almost stepping on my hair. His legs are shaved, a bit stubbly. His bathing suit, blue, doesn’t hide much.
I can’t breathe.
“You can swim if you want. I’m a lifeguard.”
Then, with the grace of a dolphin, he bends his legs and springs forward, diving right over me. For one half second he is parallel to my body. My heart beats wildly.
When he hits the water, the drops fly back and splash me.
I sit up and watch his long arms break the water as he does laps.
The sky has changed in a matter of seconds. The streetlights flicker on with a buzz, set off by the dipping sun.
Leo swims up to me. He puts his hands on my calf, then he pretend pulls, like he’s going to pull me in.
“Psych,” he says. His teeth are very white. Does he bleach them? Or does he just have good teeth? Who cares? They are perfect. Perfectly pearly-white teeth set in a perfect smile.
“You coming in?” he asks.
It is still hot despite the fact that the sun has set. The air is still. I slide into the pool. I begin to tread water, but I get tired. I hang on to the edge, to steady myself. Leo has continued with his swimming.
Beige Page 8
