The Sound of Us

by Julie Hammerle

  Oh my God, TV. Is someone asking me about TV? “Of course,” I say. “I mean, yeah, I’ve seen it, I guess. Once or twice.” It’s only one of the best shows ever.

  “Well, remember Hamsterdam where the cops made selling drugs legal in, like, a two block radius, and said that if everyone kept things safe and quiet no one would get arrested? Well, the RAs are kind of like the cops and we’re the drug dealers in Hamsterdam. We have an understanding.”

  But that worked because everyone was in on it. When people started getting hurt and word got out…

  I mentally compose a tweet to @Windry87 and the other TV nerds. “I am living in Hamsterdam. Pretty sure I’m Bodie.” They’ll totally get it. Trust me.

  I shake the thought out of my head. “Kendra,” I say. “I have a bad feeling about this. Please be back in your room tonight at ten o’clock.”

  Kendra pats my head on the way out. “Oh, Kiki. You’re so sweet for worrying about me, but I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine.”

  I wish I had her confidence.

  chapter ten

  Kiki Nichols @kikeronis: Opera camp is becoming like a sweeps episode of #ProjectEarth. #theresamole!

  Early the next morning, I’m in Jack’s car.

  However, he’s not in it, unfortunately.

  We voice campers are heading into downtown Indianapolis for a voice retreat. I drive with Kendra, Mary, and Norman, who’s borrowed Jack’s car for the trip. Apparently he’s a townie, an Indianapolis native.

  “Last week, he took me to pick up a prescription for my toothache in the middle of the night,” Norman says, after I quiz him a bit on his roommate. “I was dying and he was like, ‘Let’s go.’”

  “You guys snuck out?” asks Mary.

  “We told Chet, to cover our asses.”

  I file all this away with the other things I know about him—the secret drumming, the Project Earth fandom, the golf…the list kind of ends there, unfortunately, and that’s where it will have to stay. Jack is not part of my new and improved opera camp domination plan. I am going to kill the competition with my musicianship and my intense focus. I will keep my own nose clean, but I will not rat out anyone who chooses to thwart the rules.

  I am going to be perfect. I’m going to be Brie, but nicer.

  Kendra spent all of last night in Finley’s room, and she’s super smug about it this morning. “You girls were so worried,” she says, shoving half a muffin in her mouth.

  Norman glares at her in the rearview mirror. “Kendra, every crumb of that muffin better leave the car or I will haunt you for the rest of your life because Jack will murder me.”

  I don’t usually notice these things, but Jack’s car is really nice, especially for a teenager. It has leather seats and a push-button ignition. It makes my twelve-year-old Altima look like a piece of garbage. I add this and the fact that he’s a neat freak about his car to my “Things I know about Jack” list, which now boasts a whopping six items. Then I pinch my arm hard for wasting even a few of my brain cells on this dude. There’s only room in my head for music right now. That’s it.

  “I’m just saying,” Kendra adds after she’s swallowed, “I was right about the RAs. No one even knocked on Finley’s door. Philip didn’t care that I was there, either. He spent most of the night playing video games in Chet’s room, I think.”

  “Just don’t get too cocky,” I say.

  “Maybe you got lucky,” Mary adds.

  “Yes, I did,” Kendra says, eyebrows raised.

  For most of the morning, we work as a large ensemble, practicing the songs we’re working on in our choir classes. I have my pencil at the ready to take notes. I make sure to listen to the other sopranos around me. I squash every thought that isn’t about singing or opera or being a better opera singer.

  I haven’t even opened Twitter once today.

  After lunch, the plan is to break us into small groups, quartets. Right now we’re awaiting instructions in one of the large conference rooms. I’m sandwiched between Mary and Brie; and I’m so focused on memorizing a song for my next voice lesson, I barely notice when Kendra shuffles in. She walks like a zombie over to me, Mary, and Brie. She looks about to cry, which, I get the sense, isn’t something Kendra does very often.

  “Are you okay?” asks Mary, as Kendra plops down next to her.

  “What?” I ask, my stomach dropping to my feet.

  “They know,” she says. Her big brown eyes widen, about to overflow with tears. She keeps glancing around the room, her long feather earrings dancing with each movement. “They know about me spending the night in Finley’s room.”

  I feel Brie next to me about to say something, probably “I told you so,” but I elbow her in the ribs before she can open her mouth.

  “Who’d you talk to?” I ask. “What did they say?”

  But I don’t find out, because the voice teachers are commanding us to settle down and take our seats.

  The five voice teachers are lined up in front of the piano, facing us. They all look pissed. Even though I haven’t done anything wrong, my nerves take over. Maybe I’m feeling sympathetically bad for Kendra. Maybe I realize how easily it could’ve been me if I’d gone down to the basement with Jack the other night.

  Mr. Bertrand steps forward. “Voice students,” he says, “it has come to our attention that some of you are not taking the rules of this voice camp seriously. Some of you”—he looks right at Kendra as he speaks, and everyone turns to stare at her—“decided to break curfew last night. You thought you were safe. You thought you had it all figured out. Well, eyes are everywhere.”

  Shit. Brie was right. There’s a mole in our midst.

  “We are awarding only seven scholarships this summer. That means twenty-eight of you will go home empty-handed at the end of term. Twenty-eight. It’s not enough for you to be a good singer. All of you are good singers. We wouldn’t have admitted you if you weren’t.” He takes a moment to clear his throat. “It’s going to come down to who wants it most, who shows us that they are willing to work, to do what it takes, to prove they have the dedication to become a great singer. Don’t make our decision easy on us. Don’t essentially bow out of the competition by breaking the rules we set forth.”

  I whisper to Kendra, “Someone ratted you out.”

  She stares straight ahead, eyes on Mr. Bertrand.

  Mr. Zagorsky steps forward. “The last thing we want to do is act like police officers all summer. We’re here to help you all grow as singers. But you’re still high school students. Your parents have put you in our care for the summer and they expect us to return you in one piece.” He pauses.

  “Curfew,” says Mr. Bertrand, who can’t allow anyone else to speak longer than thirty seconds. “You will be in your rooms by ten o’clock, midnight on weekends. The RAs will now check to make sure you’re in there. No more honor system.”

  “You’ve lost that privilege,” adds Mr. Zagorsky.

  Mr. Bertrand steps forward and claps his hands. “On to happier things. Though you are all in direct competition with everyone in this room, it’s important to remember that no singer is an island,” he says. “We still depend on one another for support. The soloist needs to be supported by her chorus. The tenor in the quartet needs to work closely with his soprano, alto, and bass. We teachers all work hard to develop a sense of camaraderie among our own students, but my students won’t work solely with each other when they leave this school. And neither will those of you in other voice classes. Today we hope to foster a network of support and enrichment amongst all of you students, whether from my class or Mr. Zagorsky’s or Ms. Jones’s or anyone else’s. Each of you is a vital cog in our vocal machine. Each of you provides a distinctive voice that enriches the whole. And that’s what we’re going to work on now, putting your unique voices together in quartets to perform for us later this afternoon.”

  “Oh, so now he’s all about fostering team unity,” I whisper, looking across Mary to Kendra. She’s still a statue, her hands
folded tightly in her lap.

  “I’m going to call Ms. Jones’s class to the front of the room.” From all corners, Ms. Jones’s voice students saunter up to the piano.

  “Let’s do this like old school P.E. and pick teams.” Mr. Bertrand points to Finley Chen, Kendra’s booty call. “Kick us off.”

  Without even stopping to think, Finley picks Seth, who walks up to the front under the watchful eyes of every girl in the room. Yvetta Moriarty makes a big show of fanning herself as he passes by. The rest of Ms. Jones’s students choose their first round draft picks. In the second round, Finley picks Kendra. By the time we get to the third round, Norman, Brie, and I are still available. Brie looks pissed, but I kind of get why no one wanted her. It’s the same reason no one’s picked me. Everyone up there is choosing their friends first, and, other than Seth, Brie doesn’t have many of those.

  Having intense flashbacks to seventh grade gym class softball, my heart pounds and my palms sweat as Finley surveys the available talent. I try hard not to make eye contact with him because eye contact shows weakness, like I really care if I get picked early or not. I’ve played this game before.

  Finley starts to say, “Br—,” getting only the first two letter sounds out, and my shoulders slump. He’s going to pick Brie; of course he is. But then Seth grabs Finley’s arm and whispers in his ear.

  Finley squints into the crowd and says, “Kiki?” He looks back at Seth and mouths the words, “Is that right?” Seth nods and Finley repeats, “Kiki Nichols?”

  All the blood in my body makes a beeline for my face. Brie nudges my shoulder. “Get up,” she says. I listen to her. As I stand, I catch sight of Yvetta Moriarty giving me a look like she wants to remove my pancreas and eat it raw. I avert my eyes and walk to the front of the room to stand next to Seth.

  “Thanks,” I whisper to him. “I thought I’d be dead last.”

  He grins at me with his one overlapping imperfect tooth. “You’re one of the best musicians here.”

  Kendra and I follow Seth and Finley to a far corner of the room, where Finley hands us each some sheet music.

  “Thanks,” Kendra says, sneering as she takes the music from him.

  “What’s the matter with you?” He seems hurt.

  She glances at me, bug-eyed, those tears once again threatening to spill over. Then she turns to Finley. “You ratted me out,” she says. “I was the one the voice teachers were talking about up there. I’m the one who broke curfew.”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t tell on you.”

  “Well, who did?”

  “I don’t know, but,” he says, leaning forward. The four of us are sitting in a kind of circle, or a square, I suppose. I’m between Kendra and Finley, right across from Seth. “It wasn’t me.” He puts his hand to his heart. “I swear.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Kendra, it wasn’t me. If I told on you, I’d have to admit that you were in my room after curfew. I’d be in trouble, too.” He reaches across and starts stroking her hand with his thumb.

  She rolls her eyes and then wipes away the tears before they fall. “I knew it wasn’t you.”

  I glance up at Seth and grimace, trying to send him a telepathic message, wondering if we should leave Kendra and Finley alone. I feel like Seth and I are quite literally getting in the way of their sexual shenanigans. We’re the training wheels on their bicycle, and they are beyond ready to remove us and ride free. Seth’s eyes are fixed on their hands.

  “Well, somebody ratted you out,” I say, breaking the mood. “Who could it have been?”

  “Anyone,” says Kendra, dropping Finley’s hand. “Mary, Brie, Philip, Norman, Andy, anyone else down in Unit Six. You two.” She looks from me to Seth and back again.

  “Somebody ratted me out, too,” says Seth.

  We all look at him.

  “For the beer on Friday night. Greg called me in to talk about it yesterday. I told him it was Dave and Eric’s, but he didn’t believe me. He came by and checked my fridge.” He shakes his head.

  “Well, it wasn’t Seth.” Kendra looks directly at me.

  “It wasn’t me,” I say. “I swear to God.”

  “That’s exactly what a guilty person would say.”

  I consider how to respond. She’s right. A guilty person would lie. So I come clean. “Yesterday, in my lesson,” I confess, “I didn’t do a great job. Mr. Bertrand kicked me out, but before I left, he told me…” I lean in closer so that no other groups can hear me. “He basically told me that I could help my scholarship chances if I ratted you guys out.”

  “Why would he do that?” asks Finley.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I say, “but he’s always going on about how we have to take care of our voices and follow the rules and prove how dedicated we are. I think he just wants to know, unequivocally, who the most—and least—dedicated students are.”

  The three of them stare at me.

  “What did you say?” Kendra asks after a minute.

  “No,” I tell her. “Of course I said no. I would never do that. I mean, A, that’s a total dick move, and B, I want to get the scholarship on my own merits. That’s why I’m here. I don’t want the thing if I can’t earn it.”

  Seth nods, like he believes me. Finley says nothing. Kendra’s mind appears to be running through every possible explanation and scenario. Finally, her shoulders slump and she says, “I am so fucking confused right now, I have no idea what to believe. Or who.”

  “Completely,” I say. “It’s how I’ve been feeling for the past twenty-four hours. Honestly, it feels good to get that off my chest.”

  “But who…?” Her eyes swing around the room, stopping on every singer in turn, even Finley, Seth, and me.

  “It could be any one of us,” I say. “Or more than one of us.”

  “If Bertrand’s goal was to make us all paranoid and afraid of trusting each other, mission accomplished,” says Kendra.

  “Yup,” I say. All the more reason for me to keep my mind focused and my nose clean.

  chapter eleven

  Kiki Nichols @kikeronis: Indianapolis is an urban Brigadoon, daring to jut up out of the cornfields of Indiana. Also, there’s a Steak & Shake.

  Our quartet kills it at the retreat.

  After we stop fretting about the mole, Seth, Kendra, Finley, and I buckle down to learn our song. We do what we came to this camp to do—we work. The three of them are really impressive. I hold my own, but my quartet partners are harmony masters. It occurs to me that they, along with Brie, are definite scholarship front-runners. Four down, three to go. This is not going to help alleviate the tension in my upper body. I’ll be walking with a hunched back permanently by the end of summer.

  On top of all that, the rest of the quartets perform well, too. Nobody stands out as a bottom feeder. All of us are capable singers, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. We wouldn’t have gotten into the program if we weren’t. Also, I think we were all motivated to kick ass after Mr. Bertrand’s speech. We all want that scholarship. We all want to prove our worth. We’re all incredibly hungry.

  And it feels like nothing I do will ever be enough.

  After the retreat, I hop out of Jack’s car in the parking lot behind our dorm. I’m raring to head back to the practice rooms. I’d start sleeping there if the RAs hadn’t been charged with checking up on us at curfew every night. That doesn’t mean I can’t practice in my room, though. I can still listen to recordings and memorize lyrics and tap out rhythms. I’ll sleep in August.

  I say goodbye to Kendra, Mary, and Norman. “I’m heading off to Yunker.” I hoist my backpack onto my shoulders.

  Kendra removes her feather earrings and shoves them in her pocket. “No, you’re not. We need to discuss the mole.”

  I look to Mary for support, but she’s already following Norman into the dorm.

  “Haven’t we discussed it enough?” I ask. We talked about it the whole ride home. Kendra grilled Norman and Mary about their families’
financial situations, trying to assess how much either of them needs the scholarship.

  “Not with everyone.” She moves toward the building. “I want to hear what Brie has to say for herself.”

  “Brie will be in the practice rooms.” I stand pat. I need to practice. I need to go to Yunker.

  “She won’t. I told Seth to bring her to Norman’s room, even if he has to drag her kicking and screaming.”

  “We’re meeting in Norman’s room?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  Of course, Norman’s room isn’t just Norman’s room. It’s Norman and Jack’s room. I haven’t seen him since Saturday night, two nights ago, when he came up to my room after I blew him off. He could be in his room right now.

  I ache to see him. But I need to practice. But Jack. But practice. “How long will this take?” I run after Kendra.

  “As long as it needs to.”

  I follow Kendra through the first floor of Chandler Hall and into Unit Six. My mind is on fast forward, analyzing every possible scenario. He could be in there right now. What if he sits next to me? What if he asks me to hang out again? What if he just got out of the shower?

  My stomach is about to burst from nerves when Kendra and I arrive at Jack’s room. She bangs on the door, and I pull my hair down from its ponytail and fluff it up. I hope my hair isn’t horribly tragic. I had no time to check my makeup. I’m sure I look like I’ve been through hell. After the drama of the retreat, it kind of feels like I have been.

  Norman throws the door open, and Kendra and I step inside. I scan the room for Jack, but there’s no sign of him aside from his life debris—a Notre Dame sweatshirt, some empty Doritos bags, and a half-dozen loose golf balls. His bed, covered in gray sheets, is unmade.

  Mary and Andy are lying prone on the floor, playing cards. Norman sits between them and Andy deals him in. Kendra paces the length of the room. “Where’s Seth?”

  “Bathroom,” says Andy.

  I find a seat on the floor next to Jack’s bed and rest my neck against his unmade bed, which is covered in soft, gray T-shirt sheets. I note that while Norman’s walls are covered in pictures of under-clad women, Jack’s walls are bare.