The Sound of Us

by Julie Hammerle

  After a few moments of consideration, Kendra says, “Be yourself.”

  “That’s never worked in the past,” says Mary.

  “But also, put yourself out there. Be your best self.”

  Mary and I both stare at her dumbfounded, like, “Say what now?”

  “Kendra,” I say, coming to Mary’s rescue, “that’s easy for you to say. You’re…awesome. You’re beautiful and confident and sexy. Not everyone can just ‘be herself’ and wait for guys to fall all over her. I’m always myself and I’ve been living in a sexual desert for seventeen years.” The guy I like, the guy I thought might like me, bolted away from me when we were about to kiss. Am I that repellent? Is this going to be yet another of those goddamn, fucking “I don’t like you that way” situations? I really hate those. I’ve had a lot of those.

  Kendra raises an eyebrow. “You haven’t been living in a total sexual desert.”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I say.

  “What about Tromboner Dave?”

  My mouth drops open.

  “Everybody knows, Kiki. Dave’s been shooting his mouth off for days.”

  Still my mouth hangs open. “Everybody knows about it?” Does Jack know about it? Is that why he stopped himself before kissing me? Because the blight from Tromboner Dave has attached itself to me? I shake my head. That’s stupid. “You never said anything.”

  “We were waiting for you to come clean.”

  I keep picturing Jack jumping off of me and darting toward the door. The look on his face said, “What did I almost do?” He almost kissed the girl who once had her lips on Tromboner Dave’s, is what he almost did. Though, I mean, seriously, if that’s the reason he stopped himself before kissing me, that’s his problem, and he can suck it.

  “Regardless,” I say, “if I ever made an actual move on a guy, I’m sure he’d laugh his ass off, then run out of the room and tell all his friends about what a gross psycho I am.” It’s probably what Jack’s been telling people all day. Fabulous.

  “He would not,” says Kendra. “I reject that. You ladies need to give yourselves more credit. And also, I didn’t say ‘be yourself.’ I said ‘be your best self.’ There’s a difference. Being your ‘best self’ is being true to who you are and not apologizing for it. It’s not being afraid to have self-confidence or tell people what you want. It’s spending time doing what you love and exuding so much happiness and contentment that guys can’t help but want to be with you. All the other nonsense, the phony ‘trick a man into loving you’ crap? Guys see right through that. Grow some balls and be like, ‘Hey, we should make out.’ He’ll say yes. They always do. It’s easy.”

  “For you, maybe,” says Mary.

  “For you, too,” she says.

  “I don’t know,” I say. A guy literally jumped off of me last night. We were having a great, amazing time together; his face was in my face and then he leaped away, horrified. That actually happened. I did not imagine it.

  That’s the kind of reaction my “best self” elicits.

  *

  The next day, Saturday, I spend the entire day in the practice rooms working on theory homework and learning my music. I’m finding it harder than usual to concentrate, though. Kendra’s advice to Mary keeps running through my head: “Be straight with him. Tell him what you want. Tell him you want to kiss him. Guys love when girls are straightforward like that. It’s the twenty-first century. You don’t have to wait around for him to make the first move.”

  But it’s different for Jack and me, isn’t it?

  He had the chance and he physically bounded to the opposite side of the room.

  I flub my way through another one of my songs (“Se tu m’ami,” which I always think of as “Say to mommy”), before giving up and pulling out my tablet. I open some sheet music I downloaded a while ago, one of Dana’s sappy lady songs. “Love Will Come to You” by the Indigo Girls. It seems appropriate today. And extra sad.

  Because, yeah, I’m not sure love will ever come to me.

  I play the accompaniment and hum the lyrics in my head, feeling the melody resonating against my bones. I have to clench my lips tight to keep sound from escaping. My lungs are practically bursting to sing.

  The tears fall until the end of the song. Then I wipe them away and pull out “Se tu m’ami” again.

  Time to get back to work.

  *

  Later that evening, after a full day in the practice rooms, Mary, Kendra, and I venture down to Unit Six for, yes, more Project Earth. Norman has kept his promise to marathon the show on Friday and Saturday nights for whoever wants to partake.

  Seth and Andy’s room is already packed with people, shady figures in the darkness. Mary finds a spot in the corner between Philip and Daffodil. Kendra climbs into the bottom bunk with Finley and Andy.

  Jack and Norman are nowhere to be found. Not that I’m surprised. I figure whatever was or was not going on between Jack and me has reached its end. Maybe I should just give up on life and accept that Tromboner Dave is the best I’ll ever be able to do.

  Nowhere else to go, I climb up to Seth’s bed, where I find Sad Mezzo straddling a guy I’ve come to know as “Angry Tenor,” who spends most of choir rehearsal berating the other guys in his section. Apparently Sad Mezzo has moved on from her Cleveland boyfriend.

  “Can I sit up here?” I ask, trying to be polite, but not really waiting for an answer.

  “Fine,” growls Angry Tenor.

  I make it through one whole episode struggling both to hear the Project Earth episode and to block out the mating sounds happening on the other end of Seth’s bed. It’s too much to take. How does Sad Mezzo get not one, but two guys to want to suck her face like that? How come I can only get Tromboner Dave, who happened to be drunk at the time? Feeling pretty sorry for myself, I’m about to leave when the door flies open. “You started without me.”

  Norman’s shape is silhouetted in the doorway, his arms holding a laundry basket. “I can’t believe you started without me,” he repeats. “I told you I’d be back by eight. I was at his parents’ house.” Juggling the basket, he points a thumb at another humanoid shape behind him. Jack. “And I have to do laundry.”

  He moves aside so Jack can cross the threshold.

  Norman steps out of the room and yells from the hallway. “I’ll be right back! Don’t start the next episode without me!”

  Jack’s eyes dart around. It’s dark, but not too dark. The shades are drawn, but the sun outside hasn’t set yet. I know he’ll see me if he looks at the top bunk. I hold my breath, waiting.

  Here’s the moment of reckoning.

  Finally his eyes find me. I prepare for the inevitable. He’s going to sit on the floor or leave. But he doesn’t. He gives me a slight smile and climbs up next to me. At least he’s not ignoring me. At least we’re still talking. Maybe I should get comfortable in the friend zone.

  “I want to sit by a real pro,” he says. “None of these Project Earth novices.”

  I can’t help myself. I grin like a damn fool. Maybe the friend zone isn’t so bad.

  Our backs against the wall, feet dangling off the side of the bed, we’re the exact opposite of Angry Tenor and Sad Mezzo. We don’t touch. We don’t talk. We don’t make disgusting noises. We produce no moans. But the electricity is there. I feel it, and I know Jack does, too. He has to.

  Seth turns on the next episode of Project Earth, but it doesn’t even register with me. It could’ve been the bootlegged premiere of the next season, for all I knew. Norman enters the room at one point, but I barely notice him. The only sound in the room is Jack’s breath, the only smell is his apple shampoo, the only thing in my vision is Jack’s tanned forearm covered in an aura of sun-bleached hair. I can feel him concentrating on me just as hard. I sit perfectly still, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

  I decide to confess, to put it out there. I whisper, “I kissed Tromboner Dave.”

  With a slight chuckle, Jack says, “Yeah, I heard.”


  “It was huge mistake.”

  “Obviously,” he says. “But who hasn’t done something stupid like that? I’m sure everyone in this room has a Tromboner Dave in his or her past.”

  “So, that news doesn’t…upset you?”

  He glances at me. “Why would it?”

  Now I’m even more confused than ever. I’m relieved he didn’t jump off of me because of Tromboner Dave, but then what was the reason?

  I have to find out. I have to make the first move and see what happens.

  I keep telling myself that I’m not the same girl I am back home, trying to trick myself into believing it, to psych myself into being what Kendra calls my “best self.” Jack doesn’t know who I am back in Chicago. To Jack, I’m not the chronically chubby girl with low self-esteem who dresses like a grunge lumberjack and doesn’t expect anyone to like her. He sees me as a talented musician whose vast knowledge of television is an asset, not a liability.

  I run through a million options. I could lean over and kiss him. I could straddle him like Sad Mezzo is doing to Angry Tenor. Looking for any excuse to get close to him, I even consider recreating this old Saturday Night Live sketch where Jon Lovitz keeps trying to stop people from picking each other’s noses.

  But I don’t.

  I simply reach over and take his hand, lacing my fingers between his.

  I feel his shoulders relax against mine and he says, “Let’s get out of here.”

  chapter thirteen

  Kiki Nichols @kikeronis: Almost resorted to near-nose-picking as a seduction technique, but I stopped myself in time. #maturity

  In the hallway outside his room and Seth’s, Jack stops in his tracks. He stares at his door for a second, then turns around to face me.

  He bites his bottom lip. “Play something with me one more time,” he says.

  “Jack,” I say, “I’m not supposed to—”

  “I know you’re not supposed to,” he says, shaking his head. “I know that. But please, play with me one last time and I promise I’ll never ask again.”

  I gape at him. “I could get in huge trouble.”

  “If this weren’t a life or death situation—”

  “It’s a life or death situation?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He wrings his hands and looks toward his door again.

  Seeing him in the light of the hallway, I realize he looks haggard. He’s not his normal, put-together self. His hair is standing on end and the back of his polo shirt is untucked from his khaki pants. It’s kind of freaking me out. I wonder what went down during dinner at his parents’ house tonight.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. Usually he’s the one asking me that.

  “I’m not sure,” he says.

  I sigh. “Will it make things better if I sing one song with you?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  It could hurt me, I think. But because he looks so forlorn, I say, “One song.”

  His eyes light up. “Really? You sure?”

  I nod, and even though I know this could be my downfall, I’m excited. This is what I’ve been longing to do for weeks. I want to sing with Jack again.

  “Let me get my drums.” He darts into his room before I can change my mind.

  When he emerges a few seconds later, he’s not carrying a set of drumsticks and an old magazine. He has a full electric kit in a box under one arm.

  “Where were you hiding that?” I ask as we take off toward the basement.

  “In the closet.”

  “Along with your super-secret drumming ability?”

  “You know it.”

  Down in the basement, it’s quiet except for a rhythmic thump from the laundry room at the bottom of the stairs. Jack and I turn right and head toward the end of the hall, to the secret lounge with the barely in-tune piano.

  “You need anything?” he asks as he sets up his drums on the coffee table in the corner.

  “What song are we doing?” I ask. “‘Deathly’? The one we were supposed to play before?”

  He looks up at me. His eyes are serious. After a few moments, he says, “Sure. That one.”

  I take my place at the piano. “I know it by heart, I think.” I’ve only been practicing it during every spare moment since he first mentioned the title to me.

  He raises his eyebrows. “You do?”

  “Well, we’ll find out.” I run my fingers over the keys without pressing down, playing the song without a sound. I glance back up. “You ready?”

  He holds up his drumsticks.

  I grin and take a deep breath, ready to begin.

  He stops me before I start. “Kiki?” he says.

  I look over at him again.

  “Thanks.”

  I nod and give myself a note and start singing. The song comes right in on the first verse, no introduction, with this line about wanting someone out of your life almost immediately after you’ve met them. It’s used verbatim in the movie Magnolia and it’s a really poignant moment where this train wreck of a character wants to banish the nice guy from her life before she screws him up as well.

  I’ve heard this song and this line a hundred times before, and I’ve always thought it was beautiful and melancholy and I admit that I’ve sometimes longed for that kind of passion, that kind of messiness, the kind of confusion that comes from wanting someone in your life while at the same time knowing they should go because it will only end badly.

  For a second, it hits me that Jack was the one who picked this song, specifically. There are a hundred million songs from Project Earth to choose from, and he chose this one.

  Is there a hidden meaning? Did he want me out of his life right after he met me? Does he know this won’t end well?

  Don’t overthink it, Kiki. Sometimes a song is just a song. Not everyone nerds out over lyrics like you do.

  I shimmy my shoulders and keep going, focusing on the music, focusing on the two of us playing together again, for the last time. As I sing the word ‘deathly,’ I peek over at Jack, who is singularly focused on his drumming. His hair, which was a bit of a mess earlier, is sticking to his forehead now on account of the sweat. A shadowy pit stain lurks under his arm, which, honestly, is kind of sexy. If I saw Tromboner Dave in a drenched T-shirt (assuming he’d ever deign to put on a shirt), I’d probably barf. But because it’s Jack and because he’s so talented and he’s working so hard, the perspiration is an asset, not a liability.

  Probably feeling my eyes on him, he glances up and shoots me a big smile. We’re inside a musical interlude and he starts talking. “I love this, Kiki. Let’s play like this forever.”

  “We can’t,” I say.

  “Can’t, schmant.” He rolls his eyes with a laugh. “Once you get that scholarship and you’re here next year, we’ll sing like this every night.”

  “But not until then.” I’m so focused on the music, I barely have a second to realize he basically just said that we’re going to be together next year, at least in some form.

  Heading into the third verse, I grin and start to change the lyrics, “This is a bummer. You’re a great drummer. But I can’t keep singing these songs. Know that I love this. I’ve been dreaming of this. But I need that damn scholarship!” Laughing, I belt out those last two words. I’m knocked from my revelry by a thud from the doorway.

  Instinctively, my foot releases the damper pedal and my eyes dart toward the sound. Norman is standing there, a laundry basket at his feet. “What are you doing?” he asks. He’s looking at Jack.

  “Norman,” I say, not sure where I’m going with this.

  He doesn’t hear me, but he points a finger my way. “She could get kicked out of camp,” he says.

  Jack drops his drumsticks on the couch next to him. “I know. This was a one-time thing. That’s it.”

  “I don’t care,” says Norman. “There’s a mole.”

  “I wanted to do it,” I say. “Don’t blame Jack. It’s my fault.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll blame Jack.” Norman
picks up his laundry basket.

  “It’s not what you think,” says Jack.

  “Right.” Now Norman looks at me. “Come on, Kiki.”

  “What? No. You’re not my dad.”

  Norman cocks his jaw to the side. “Come with me now or I’ll go straight to Bertrand and tell him what I saw.” He taps his foot on the ground in a quick rhythm.

  I give Jack one more glance as I stand up. He looks completely pained. He’s doubled over, elbows on his knees, palms against his eyes.

  When I reach Norman, I whisper through clenched teeth, “What the fuck is your problem, man?” I can’t believe he’s ruining this for me.

  “I’m not going to let you throw everything away for him.” He spits out the last word like it tastes bad.

  “Seriously, Norman. I don’t know why you’re so pissed at him. I’m the one who broke the rules. It was my idea,” I lie.

  He shakes his head. “Stay far away from him. Promise me. We’re done with that asshole.”

  Norman turns to leave the room, but I hesitate.

  “I’m not kidding, Kiki. I will go to Bertrand.”

  I shoot Jack one last glance and follow Norman back upstairs.

  chapter fourteen

  Kiki Nichols @kikeronis: Men, amirite?

  Norman is freaking me out. I know he knows something I don’t, but he won’t tell me what it is.

  On Sunday, the day after the whole basement thing, Jack has a big golf tournament somewhere, so I don’t run into him on campus. I do, however, run into Norman. Everywhere. He’s with me at breakfast. He walks with me to Yunker and takes the practice room right next to mine. He follows me to lunch. His red hair is sticking straight up and his eyes are crazy. He looks like he didn’t sleep at all last night.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him on our way back to Yunker after lunch.

  “Nothing,” he says, staring straight ahead. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Kendra, Mary, and Andy are with us. I haven’t told them about the basement piano situation, let alone about my liking Jack. I wonder if Norman has told them anything. From what I can tell, they appear to be completely clueless.