Drum Roll, Please

by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

  Neither of us said anything for a long moment. Finally I said, “Thanks. You’re the first person I’ve really talked to about this. And thanks for not freaking out when . . . when I did.”

  “I was a little freaked out,” David said, and we laughed.

  “Let’s do our staring practice,” I said. “Olivia’s probably wondering where I am.”

  We got back into position, and I reset my watch. Staring at each other was still weird, but I had to give Donna credit. Not only had our playing improved, but I also felt like I understood David better as a person. How could I have ever thought him rude? His wide brown eyes, when I could see them, were soft and kind.

  Suddenly I realized those wide brown eyes weren’t open anymore. David’s face came closer as he leaned toward me. I pushed myself backward, yelping, “What are you doing?”

  His eyes flew open, and he shot back across the room. “Nothing!”

  “You were going to—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  “I thought you wanted to,” he protested.

  “What possibly made you think that?”

  “The way you looked at me.”

  “Only because Donna told us to!”

  “And we were talking.”

  “Because I was upset. And you actually seemed to know how I was feeling.”

  “And you gave me this bandanna.”

  “Because your stupid hair was in your stupid face all the time!”

  Hurt swept over him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t really think your face is stupid. But, God!” I jumped to my feet, barely remembering to grab my stick bag, and ran out of the stall.

  Why had David spoiled a perfectly good moment trying to kiss me? It had felt so good to let go of all that junk that had built up inside me. What if he’d only been nice because he was trying to butter me up? The thought sickened me. I’d trusted him, but I’d been wrong before. I was wrong all the freaking time.

  I forgot to meet Olivia. Or maybe I didn’t forget, exactly. All I knew was I had to get away, fast, before David decided to come after me. If I hadn’t permanently scared him away—which honestly I wouldn’t have minded. I ran from the lodge, not knowing where I was going, where I’d end up. But when I got there, it made perfect sense: the infirmary.

  The infirmary was attached to the back of the camp office, another cabin in the woods. The nurse looked up, startled, as I threw open the door with a bang. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I nodded. I was breathing hard, and my face felt swollen. “I just need to lie down.”

  “You do that,” she said. “But first, I’d like to take your temperature. You’re flushed. And would you like to wash your face?”

  I splashed cold water on my face in the bathroom. Afterward I took a cot by the window, facing into the deep trees. The nurse poked a thermometer under my tongue.

  “Ninety-nine point one,” she said. “A little high, but probably nothing to worry about. Here. Have some water. You lie down, cool off, and relax for as long as you need to, okay?”

  I took a sip. “I forgot to flip my pick.”

  “That’s okay, we know you’re here. What’s your name, hon?”

  “Melly Goodwin.”

  “Okay, Melly. If there’s any change in how you feel, better or worse, I’ll be right in the other room. Just give a holler.”

  The springs dug through the flimsy, Pine-Sol–scented mattress and squeaked irritably as I squirmed to get comfortable. I couldn’t. What a day. What a week. My parents, Dad especially, dumping the divorce on me. Olivia keeping me from Adeline. David—the one person I’d thought out-shrank me in the shrinking violet department—trying to kiss me. None of these things was my fault, but why did everyone act like I’d stand there and take whatever they threw at me?

  Why couldn’t I be more like my drums? Drums are strong. You can play them with all your might, yet they’re almost impossible to break. They absorb each blow, but they don’t take it quietly. The harder you hit them, the louder they yell.

  Everyone thought because I was quiet I must not care, I must not mind. They could speak for me, act for me, make decisions I’d be happy to go along with, because I wasn’t fighting, was I? They didn’t understand my quiet.

  My quiet wasn’t like dew gathering on the grass each morning, then evaporating in the sun. It wasn’t like the moon watching silently from hundreds of thousands of miles away. My quiet was like a needle held in a flame, changing slowly from silver to red hot, to blinding orange, with a spark of blue at the point. I couldn’t be quiet for much longer.

  Four days to fix things with Adeline. Four days to figure out what, exactly, I was going to do when my parents showed up. They wanted to discuss the future calmly and rationally? All I wanted to do was scream at them for screwing up our lives. And how could they expect me to be rational when they were the ones making crazy decisions? They were the biggest hypocrites on the planet. Somehow I had to let them know it.

  I rolled over and stared out the window into the greenery, willing answers to come to me. None did. Before long my eyes drifted closed.

  I woke when the nurse poked her head back into the room and said softly, “Dinner’s in a few minutes. Are you up for eating?” I sat up and realized I was hungry. I nodded and pulled myself out of bed to use the bathroom.

  “One more temp check,” she said afterward, handing back the thermometer. When I was finished, she read off the numbers. “Ninety-eight point six. You are perfectly normal.”

  “That’s up for debate,” I muttered.

  She laughed. “That proves it. The girl who came in here a few hours ago never would’ve made a joke like that.”

  A few hours? Yikes. Olivia would be furious. I’d missed percussion workshop, too. I walked to the Fretboard. My pick still showed me as being at the lodge, so I left it alone. A line had begun outside. Olivia was sitting on the lawn, frowning. My stomach dropped, but I kept walking toward her.

  “Where did you disappear to?” she demanded, jumping to her feet. “Don’t tell me you were with her.”

  Anger rose like bile in my throat. Some random. Her. If I’d been with a boy I liked, David or anyone else, Olivia would never talk about him that way. What did she have against Adeline?

  “I got sick. I had to go to the infirmary,” I told her.

  “Without even telling me where you were going?” Olivia said. “I waited for you, you know. I searched for you. I even found David. He said he didn’t know where you’d gone either. That you ran out of the room all of a sudden.”

  “I got sick.” When she stared skeptically, I blurted, “He tried to kiss me.”

  “He tried to—”

  “Shhh!”

  “He tried to kiss you?” Olivia repeated in a whisper. “Oh my God, Melly! How . . . ?”

  “We were doing our staring practice. He closed his eyes and leaned in. It was weird.”

  “What were you thinking, running away? You could’ve had your first kiss!”

  “I don’t like him like that,” I said, thinking, Second kiss. Sort of.

  “You don’t? But you said—”

  “No, I didn’t. You assumed.”

  “Still, you got sick? Was his breath, like, really bad or something?”

  “No! It was . . .” Ugh! Why wasn’t it enough that I hadn’t wanted David to kiss me? To explain, I’d have to go into everything. The conversation he and I’d had. The letter—the awful letter—from my father. In the end I could only shrug.

  “Well,” Olivia said, more gently, “are you feeling better now?”

  “Mostly,” I said. What was one more little lie?

  Twenty-Two

  When Damon announced the winners of the second open mic drawing the next morning, Adeline’s name was among them. Maybe it was stupid to wish she’d ask me to play with her, but I did, harder than anything. It would solve so much. I’d have to say yes—out of politeness, of course—and Olivia would have no right to get mad. I’d prove to Olivia that I
could be friends with both of them. I’d prove to Adeline that everything since the field trip had been one big misunderstanding.

  But when I sneaked a look at her, she was thick in conversation with Yasmina.

  Toni said, “Hey, Mel. I’m debuting a new song tonight, and I want you on drums.”

  I glanced back at Adeline. She still wasn’t looking at me. “Okay,” I told Toni. “I’m in.”

  “Fabulous,” said Toni. “We’re practicing after B-flat.”

  I started to say something about staring practice, but I stopped. As far as I was concerned, that ritual was over.

  At band practice, Donna noticed something was up. “People! What is going on with you?” she said, stopping us halfway through a song. “David and Melly, are you even listening to each other? Never mind looking at each other. What happened to all the progress you made?”

  David ducked his head, his hair falling in his eyes. The bandanna was nowhere to be seen.

  “Sorry,” I said in a small voice.

  “Don’t be sorry!” Donna said. “Do better! We’ve only got three days until the show.”

  I counted us off once more. As we played, Adeline’s eyes flickered curiously at David and me. But that was all: just a flicker. She’d given up on me. My throat swelled up. I had to do something before I went back to all that crap with Mom and Dad and never saw her again. I had to turn the next three days into something good. Otherwise—otherwise—

  I didn’t know how to finish the thought.

  Just when I couldn’t feel any worse, at the end of practice, Donna said, “Melly, please stick around. I’d like to talk to you.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I should zip up my sticks or not, whether I should stay behind the drums or stand up, so as the others packed up their instruments and left Trolltunga, I perched at the very edge of my stool, ready to snap to Donna’s commands. I watched forlornly as the patch of woods beyond the doorway disappeared as she nudged the door closed with her foot. What did she want from me? When you were doing a good job, Donna ignored you. This was the opposite.

  She surprised me by sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the blackboard. She slapped the rug in front of her and said, “Come join me.”

  I almost tripped getting there as fast as I could. Donna looked at me with curiosity—and disappointment, too. “Really, Melly? Are you still scared of me?”

  “I—” I didn’t know what to say. Yes, actually, terrified. Never underestimate my cowardice! I shook my head no, wishing it weren’t so obvious a lie.

  “Lots of kids are scared at their auditions, and I get that I’m not the warmest, fuzziest person. But I thought in the past week we’d come to . . . an understanding.” Donna shook her head. “Anyway. That’s sort of related to what I wanted to talk about. Melly, is something going on I can help you with?”

  My breath caught in my throat. She had to be talking about the David incident, but how did she know what had happened?

  She said, “Last week, I heard you becoming more and more confident as the days went by. A little stiff, yes, a little timid, but way more relaxed than the first time I heard you. But ever since we started up again Monday, it seems like you’ve had some kind of setback. I see you literally curling in on yourself. And today? Well, you and David already got an earful from me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

  Donna breathed out hard through her nose. “Melly. You don’t owe me anything. But I don’t want you to leave camp feeling disappointed in yourself. I get this sense that you’re holding back. Tell me, how do you feel when you play at home?”

  “Good, I guess. It’s fun.”

  “So what’s different here? Is it playing with other people that’s giving you a hard time?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, it’s not easy playing with new people, but I’m getting used to it.”

  “That’s encouraging,” Donna said, but she didn’t sound happy, only confused. She tapped her fingers on her chin. “Tell me. What do you think will happen if you let go?”

  “Let go?” I remembered my tantrum last week. “I broke a stick the other day.”

  Donna smirked. “All right. I wasn’t thinking in terms of property damage.”

  “I guess I don’t know what you mean,” I said. We were sitting as close as David and I had during staring practice, and I wished I could back up. But even as I turned my face away, I could feel Donna’s eyes drawing mine back.

  “Music isn’t just playing notes on a page. You’ve got to put your heart into it,” she said. “I’m not saying lose control. I’m saying let what’s happening inside you come out.”

  “But what if you can’t do one without the other?” I asked.

  Donna waited a long moment. Then she said, “Ah.”

  “I love the drums,” I said around the lump in my throat. “Usually they make me feel . . . I don’t know. Brave, kind of. Strong. But some things have been happening lately.”

  “Things out of your control,” Donna said. I nodded. “And you don’t want that to happen on drums, too.”

  I stared at my hands. “Something like that. Maybe.”

  “Okay,” Donna said. She frowned at the ceiling, as if the perfect thing to say was written up there. Too bad there was no perfect thing to say. I was hopeless.

  I didn’t expect her to say, “Remember Rebel Girl?”

  Of course I remembered Rebel Girl. I remembered how she strutted around town, the object of admiration and envy and scorn, breaking every rule, each word people said about her rolling off her back. I remembered how different we were.

  “You realize I picked that song for you,” Donna said.

  My mouth dropped open. “You did?”

  “Don’t act so surprised.”

  “I thought my song was ‘Landslide,’” I said.

  “‘Landslide’? It doesn’t even have a drum part,” Donna said quizzically. “Oh, right—you mean because of the things in your life. I get it. But no. As soon as I met you, I thought, This is a girl who needs to meet her inner rebel.”

  “What makes you think I have one?” I asked.

  “Every girl has an inner rebel,” said Donna. “But come on. You’re a rocker. You’re a drummer. You’ve got rebel written all over you, even if you haven’t realized it yet.”

  I shook my head. It was a bunch of baloney. Yet this was Donna, with the stare that could see right through you. She didn’t waste time on anything less than the truth.

  “I want you to remember Rebel Girl when you play,” Donna said. “I want you to be Rebel Girl. I’m not saying play loud and fast when the song isn’t loud and fast. I’m not saying break sticks or, God forbid, crack cymbals. I’m saying let go of what other people think. I’m saying stop judging yourself so harshly—because I’ve got your number, Melly; I know you have been.”

  I nodded.

  “Let me hear you say it,” said Donna. “‘I will be Rebel Girl.’”

  “I will be Rebel Girl,” I mumbled. This was way too cheesy, even for Camp Rockaway.

  “I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”

  God, she was annoying. “I will be Rebel Girl!” I yelled.

  Donna grinned her shark grin. “Good. Go get some lunch. I heard it’s chicken nuggets.”

  As I ran to the lodge—though I don’t know why I bothered; those chicken nuggets were going to be stone cold, anyway—I realized something crazy. I wasn’t scared of Donna anymore.

  That afternoon, Toni signed out a group practice stall with both drums and keyboard. But I stopped at the door when I saw who else had shown up for our rehearsal: Candace.

  She was still hanging out with Noel, which meant Olivia still had a problem with her. I should have a problem with her, too. That was how it worked. The enemy of your friend was your enemy. Simple math. The associative property of friendship.

  Except as far as I knew, liking the same jerky boy wasn’t a crime. I walked in and said hi.

  “Hey, Melly,” Candace
said, glancing up from her violin as she tuned. “I’ve been wanting to play with you for a while.”

  “You have?” I was stunned.

  “Sure. Adeline’s had nothing but good to say about you.”

  “She has?”

  “Yeah. We’re in the same tent, remember? We’re always talking band stuff.”

  “Okay, ladies,” Toni said. “I spent all of B-flat making this chart, even though I was supposed to write a letter to my cousins, so let’s get down to business.”

  Hanging out with Toni was always fun, but I saw a whole new side of her as she slipped behind the keyboard. Her skinny fingers were strong, striding confidently over the keys. She set up a simple yet haunting hook with her right hand. A few measures in, she added her left, playing in counterpoint.

  The two lines of melody were like two people on a dance floor, doing their own moves while keeping the same beat. They slid close one moment and spun apart the next, never quite colliding. Sometimes one hand echoed the other, but it almost seemed like an accident, because then they were off doing their own thing again.

  As if that weren’t impressive enough, Toni started rapping.

  Folks underestimate me ’cause I’m flyweight

  Like being petite means that somehow I don’t rate

  That sentiment makes me extremely irate

  ’Cause hell yeah I’m fly, but I ain’t no lightweight

  I’m here to create, won’t be sedate, can you relate

  Gonna strike a match, light my fuse, and activate

  Watch out people, Ima blow your mind

  I may be small, but I’m dynamite

  Cover your head and take a step back ’cause

  TNT comes in a cute little package

  She sang that last part. Of course I already knew she had a great voice, but I had only heard her at firebowl. She must have worked hard to blend in then, because now as she let loose, her voice filled the small room and then some. It was rich and throaty and absolutely did not sound like it should be coming from a tiny thirteen-year-old girl. But then, that was the whole point of her song, wasn’t it? Chalk me up as one more person who’d underestimated Toni.

  She stopped abruptly after the first chorus and said, “Well?”