My Year of Epic Rock

by Andrea Pyros

  But when Jackson and I walked through our front hallway, I noticed that the dining room table was set with the pretty bamboo place mats that we never use unless we have company—adult company, not, like, a friend of mine or Jackson’s—and that the house smelled nice. Dinner party nice. There was plenty of noise coming from the kitchen too—banging and whisking and whirring.

  “Hi, guys!” Mom said, coming out to the hall to greet us wearing her “All Hail the Chef” apron Dad gave her last year for Mother’s Day.

  “Do you want something to eat?” she asked us, adding, like always, “Wash your hands.”

  I rolled my eyes but walked over to the kitchen sink anyway. The school bus is epically gross, I admit. While the bus is waiting to pull out, the fifth grade boys like to play “Pull My Finger” and compete for the loudest, foulest fart bragging rights, and on Fridays they have a contest they call the “Hock-a-Loogie Olympics.” Plus little Joe Frieburn throws up on the ride home every time the cafeteria serves chili. It is the worst.

  I was halfway up the stairs to my room when Mom called out of the kitchen, “Nina? Nina? Come back.”

  I sighed and went back downstairs.

  “What, Mom?” I said, eyeing the plate of chocolaty cookie bars on the counter. “What are those?”

  “No-Bake ‘Mocklate’ Chocolate Energy Bars.” She passed the plate toward me. “Try one.”

  I took a tentative bite. Tasty!

  “It’s for the book. I’m making a few new things to try out tonight. Shreya is coming over.”

  “Who?” I said, a crumb falling out of my mouth where Pepper was waiting, tail wagging, to snarf it up.

  “Shreya. Dr. Mehta.” Mom stirred something on the stove with a wooden spoon and put the lid back on. “Remember, I told you a few weeks ago that she was going to come over for dinner some night to talk about the cookbook?”

  Dr. Mehta is my allergist. I go to her once a year for blood tests and to find out that, yes, big shock, I still can’t eat peanuts or eggs.

  “She’s going to write the introduction.” Mom was clearly excited—she was talking with her hands as much as her mouth. “This is a big deal. She’s quite a well-known name in the allergy community, and—”

  “Mom, really, she has to come over for dinner? Tonight? Is she going to want to give me a check-up or something while she’s here?”

  “Don’t be silly. She’s coming to eat. So she can try some of my food and we can talk about what she’ll be writing.”

  “That’s weird. No one else’s doctor comes over to hang out. Doesn’t she have better things to do?”

  “Nina, I explained this. And I thought you liked Dr. Mehta.” Mom sounded like she was only half listening to me.

  “She’s fine, Mom. But that doesn’t mean I want to spend my free time with her. Sheesh!”

  Dr. Mehta is nice and all, even though she used to be obsessed with whether I was eating enough and gaining enough weight and upping my protein intake and blah blah blah. Her office would make my parents bring me in twice a year to step on the scale. She may be a genius when it comes to allergies, but that was completely annoying. I’m scrawny. And short. So sue me!

  Also she once suggested to my parents that they serve me mini meatballs on toothpicks to fatten me up, so I swear we used to have that for dinner five nights a week. If I never see a meatball again, it will be too soon. Memo to parents everywhere: Just because you cook something teeny-tiny does not mean it’s any more appealing. Your child knows it’s still a boring old meatball, doll-sized or not!

  It wasn’t the guest that was the problem, anyway, it was my mother. Every time she promotes one of her cookbooks, I get trotted out like a specimen. She’s talked about me in interviews. I’ve been in photos on the back of her book, looking enthusiastic while I pretended to eat something. I even had to be her sous chef the time our local TV station had her come on for their morning show and make her special soy blondies (aka her “SoLongy SoBlondies”—don’t ask about the name, it’s the worst).

  Mom got so overly enthusiastic that while she was serving the blondies to the news anchor and the weather guy, she described them as “Amazeballs.” Twice. I almost died. But instead I valiantly pretended I thought the whole thing was, yep, amazeballs!

  This time, I didn’t feel like pretending that having food allergies was so great. Let Jackson hang out with Dr. Mehta. He’s the one who’s obsessed with all things medical anyway, not me.

  “I don’t feel that well, actually,” I said, trying to make a coughing noise. “Something is going around school. A virus. I better go lie down. And I have all that homework.” I looked hopefully at Mom.

  Mom gave me a not at all sympathetic look.

  Of course she wasn’t going to let me off the hook for her precious cookbook.

  Great. Just great.

  Chapter 9

  Dinner was fine. But I couldn’t bring myself to be the life of the party, or even polite.

  After Jackson and I cleared the table, we were excused and I went to go sit in my giant beanbag chair and wait for my parents to come in to lecture me about my admittedly not-so-fabulous behavior. I felt too guilty and distracted to start on my homework. Instead, I turned up my music loud enough to drown out any footsteps coming down the hall and took a Does He Like You Back or What? quiz in a magazine I’d bought over the summer and forgotten about.

  I thought about Ethan while I was answering each quiz question, like “What did he do on your birthday?” (Nada.) and “When’s the last time he complimented you?” (Seven years ago, when he told me my Dora pj’s were colorful.)

  I added up my score. The quiz results said, “He’s Intrigued.”

  That sounded like a big “denied” to me, because the other two results you could get could were, “He’s So In Love” and “He Can’t Get Enough of You.” “Intrigued” was for sure the worst of the three. You’d think the magazine writer would have just admitted, “He’s Kind of Meh on You so Maybe You Should Move On, Loser.”

  Intrigued, schmintrigued.

  There wasn’t a peep from either of my parents, not even after I saw Dr. Mehta’s car drive off over an hour later.

  At bedtime, I stepped out of my room to wash up as quietly as I could, hoping to get through the rest of the night without a lecture, but Mom was in the hallway. It was like she’d been waiting for me. Her hair was wet and she was in her fuzzy robe that has blue and pink cupcakes all over it.

  “Do you feel like your behavior tonight was mature?” Mom said.

  “Mom, I know! I’m sorry!” I yelled it though, which made me sound not as sorry as I should have sounded, even though she was right.

  “When we have a guest here, I expect good manners.” With that, Mom turned and went into her bedroom without waiting to hear what I had to say.

  I went to bed feeling awful. And also, of course, hungry. That’ll show me not to get up from the table before I’m full.

  That off-my-game mood stayed with me for the whole next morning too. I pretty much moped, not walked, to school, ignoring Jackson as he went on and on and on about how awesome Dr. Mehta was.

  As I was walking on the side pathway up to Woodgrove, I saw Jody getting dropped off by her dad. She mouthed, “WAIT!” and gestured at me to wait for her to get out of the car so we could walk in together.

  “Are Brianna and Shelley having a huge party for the whole grade?” she asked as soon as she caught up to me. “That sounds so cool. Do you know who’s going?” Jody flipped open the front pocket on her purple zebra print messenger bag and took out a lip gloss.

  Her question totally took me by surprise. I had no clue Brianna and Shelley made their official party announcement. I wondered where Jody heard about it.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess, well, I don’t know much about it.”

  “Actually, I overheard them talk
ing about it. I figured you’d have more of the details.”

  “I’m not really hanging out as much with Brianna these days,” I replied. “You know I’m…she’s…everyone is so busy with everything.” Even though it was noisy, with tons of other kids racing by us and yelling, it felt like the whole school must have heard me say that out loud.

  “Oh.” Jody looked at me and seemed curious but didn’t say anything else. I was sure she was dying to ask me about Brianna, since of course she’d noticed what was going on, but didn’t want to seem like the hugest gossip.

  When we walked in, Brianna and Shelley were already there, talking to each other. They had on matching dark skinny jeans and fuzzy boots and hoodies, Shelley’s a pure, snow white with not even a speck of dust or dirt on it; Brianna’s was yellow. Their hair even matched—straight and shiny, each of them sporting a thin braid on one side of their heads. They’d both dyed a streak of their hair purple. They had taken time to coordinate outfits, like Brianna and I used to do.

  They both looked really good.

  Glancing down at my now-awkward-looking black capris and long-sleeved red tee, I felt less like a seventh grader, and more like my little cousin Beth who refuses to leave the house unless she matches her sparkly socks to her sparkly shirt and sparkly headband. I was definitely not by any stretch sophisticated. Or elegant.

  “Do you want to go sit down?” I asked Jody, motioning to the bench near where Brianna and Shelley were sitting.

  They looked both of us over as we got closer, and I saw Jody adjusting her shirt, tugging it down over her jeans, and flipping her hair back with her hand. Maybe she felt babyish too. Shelley and Brianna both said hi, but Brianna didn’t shuffle over to make room for us to squeeze in next to her, so I stood awkwardly instead, watching the second hand on the big wall clock tick along until first period started, trying to focus on what Jody was saying instead of worrying about what I was missing.

  Feeling so stupid and hanger-on-y was why when I got to the cafeteria for lunch later that same day, I’d already made myself a promise that I’d sit anywhere besides at Brianna and Shelley’s table. Even eating alone was looking like a better alternative.

  Almost.

  When I got inside, I wasn’t sure what my plan was, but then I saw Tiernan and everyone else at the peanut-free table. I walked over and stood there shyly until they noticed me.

  “Yo, Nina.” Tiernan slid his tray over to make room for me, and I sat down between him and Madison.

  “Hey,” I said. “Hi, Madison.”

  “Nina, wait, you’re allergic to eggs, right? Hang on.” Madison took out a wipe from her backpack and cleaned off the table where she’d been sitting. “Mayo,” she explained. I noticed that each of her fingernails was painted in a different mega-bright Day-Glo color, which matched the rubber bands holding her braids.

  “Oh, thanks. You didn’t have to do that,” I said, putting my brown bag down on the shiny, still-wet table. I was surprised. No one ever remembers what I’m allergic to in the first place, and the few that do wouldn’t even realize mayonnaise has eggs. They’re all like, “Oh, wait, you can’t have this?” or “But I thought you couldn’t drink milk,” or “Can you eat chicken?” “Don’t you wish you could have an omelet? That’s sooooo sad that you can’t.”

  It’s annoying.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “Not a big deal.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, to no one person in particular.

  “We’re talking about doing something for the Halloween Talent Show,” said Shane. “I say it would be cool. At my old school, everyone got into our talent show. It was huge, and there were judges there who worked at record labels and everything.”

  Heidi laughed and made a face. “That’s New York City though. There’s no way it’s going to be a big deal here, Shane. Usually it’s really small and a lot of people don’t even go.”

  “So what?” Shane shrugged. “We could make it major.”

  Just then I heard a scream of “No way!” I turned to see Shelley giving Brianna a big hug—and they were both laughing super loud. My stomach felt funny again.

  “We should start a band and name it The EpiPens,” I said, turning away from Bri, acting like I didn’t care about what she was doing or thinking. “I mean, half of us have to carry them around anyway. Might as well make a joke out of the stupid things.”

  Bringing my EpiPen with me everywhere I went was like having a stupid pimple that never went away! Besides, like I was going to have the guts to stab myself with a giant needle in the leg if I ate something I was allergic to anyway. Wouldn’t I be too busy barfing or fainting or something else awful to be my own doctor?

  “Dude, yes! Awesome idea!” Shane said, putting down his weird drink box so hard some of it splashed back out onto his retro band T-shirt. “Who’s with us? Who here can play an instrument anyway?”

  “Me,” said Tiernan. “The guitar.”

  Madison was laughing. “Does the flute count?”

  “Oh, you know it,” said Shane. “Heidi, what can you play?”

  “Nothing, really,” said Heidi, picking at a slice of orange.

  “That’s not true,” Tiernan said. “You have an awesome voice. You’re the only one in music class who can actually sing. Poor Mrs. Urbano probably wishes she had earplugs when she has to listen to the rest of us try to belt out ‘Let It Be.’”

  “That’s not true,” said Heidi.

  “I swear, I have seen the giant Tylenol bottle she keeps tucked in her desk drawer for all those headaches she gets from our voices. But the point is that you have a great voice.”

  “Thanks,” said Heidi, and amazingly, she smiled a huge happy smile at Tiernan. Whoa, that was a first!

  Tiernan smiled back and rolled his hand in a little circle and did a mock bow over it, like something old-fashioned he’d seen in a movie that involved people who jousted.

  “Nina, what can you play?” Shane already had a notebook out and was writing down all our names on it.

  “The drums, but I’m not all that—”

  “A girl drummer? Yes!” Shane pumped his hand. “That is money in the bank!”

  “I’m not all that great,” I finished.

  “Who cares? Girl. Drummers. Rock. That’s some serious cred.”

  “Cred with who, exactly?” said Madison, looking dubious.

  “Everyone. Just ask anyone in the biz. Ladies on drums are in.”

  “Okay, guys, wait. I’m not so sure about this after all,” I said, hunching over so my chin was almost level with the table.

  “Why not?” said Tiernan. “Shane’s right. It’ll be fun. Why should the talent show blow anyway? Is there a town law that only the untalented must apply?”

  “Come on, Nina, if I’m going to play the flute in front of the whole school I need moral support. At least you can hide behind your drums,” Madison said.

  “We could get T-shirts that say The EpiPens on them,” said Shane. “We could write a song that’s called ‘The EpiPen Blues,’ or maybe ‘Anaphylaxis Anarchy.’ Whoa, wait, whoa. Hang on. Listen. What if we got EpiPen to sponsor us and send us on tour?”

  “Dude, dream on,” said Tiernan.

  “Yeah, let’s actually practice first,” said Heidi. “I doubt anyone is going to sponsor us, anyway.”

  “Except the ear plug company,” I added. “Or the soundproofing people.”

  Shane ignored us both. “Okay, Heidi, vocals. Tiernan, guitar. Nina, drums. Flute courtesy of Madison. And yours truly on keyboard. I can ask my dad about us practicing in his studio too.” Shane put his pen down.

  “Your dad has his own studio? Where?” Madison asked.

  “It’s in our basement,” Shane said. “He had it built when we moved up here so he wouldn’t have to go back and forth to the city all the time for work. He’s in the industry.”


  “What industry?” Heidi asked.

  “What industry? The industry! Music. Obviously,” Shane answered, surprise in his voice.

  “I still have to think about it,” I said. “I’m kind of rusty on the drums.” What I didn’t say to them was the truth: I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be labeled as a complete and total dork, which is no doubt what would happen if we signed up for the talent show, or if I could truly handle everyone in the school—especially Shelley and Brianna—laughing at me if we bombed.

  Chapter 10

  “Hi, Nina,” said Dad, not turning around. He was sitting on the couch typing on his laptop when I got home that day.

  “Hi, Dad.” I gave him a wave and kept walking toward the kitchen. Then I turned back again.

  “Um, Dad?” I said, sitting down next to him.

  “Mmm?” He sounded like he wasn’t totally listening, which is what he does when he’s in front of the computer working.

  “Remember how I used to play the drums?”

  Dad turned to me when he heard that. Nothing gets him to stop researching monarch butterflies, which is his job, faster than talking about music. He’s even in a cover band with a few other people from the ecology department at the college he teaches at. They call themselves Thin Vitae, a name that for some reason cracks up every adult. Me? Not so much.

  Anyway, they “jam” (yes, seriously, that’s what he calls it) once a week to oldies music in their faculty lounge. They even play the annual student/teacher picnic. And Dad was so gung-ho that I share his love of music that when I was ten, he signed me up for two weeks of Girls! Rock! Camp! in New York City where Grandma lives. He convinced me to go, even though I was intimidated by the whole idea, but after the two weeks of being bossed around, big time, by a woman with long hair and a grumpy attitude and a series of faded T-shirts who said she played backup on a bunch of alt-country albums, I could at least keep a beat.

  It was actually fun.

  Dad was beyond ecstatic. I thought he was going to pass out when we had the concert for the parents on our last day and we played Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” I think I saw him get teared up after the show when everyone was having juice in those tiny paper cups that always get all soggy. He made all the other professors he works with watch the video of my big drum debut and showed it to any college student unlucky enough to enter his office for months afterward.