Keep the Beat: A Band-Com for Romance Geeks

by Kata Čuić

  She grabs it then scans the underside and rifles through the papers like she’s checking for an errant spider. “No, I’m trying to figure out where the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are hiding.”

  “What?” James is still laughing. “Why?”

  Kim points at the two of us. “This. This is a sure sign of the end times.”

  James accused me of being dehydrated, but I think it’s his brain that got fried in the sun. He only laughs harder. Like a complete and utter lunatic.

  If the section leaders think this poorly of us, neither James nor I are going to get their votes. If we don’t get the section leaders’ votes, then they might convince their underlings not to vote for us either.

  I widen my smile until it feels like my face is shattering. “Nothing horrible is happening here!” Lie. “We’re just two drum majors serving our band and sorting music!” Not totally a lie. “Jimbo and I are friends now!” Biggest lie ever.

  My tongue tastes like the piquant flavor of curdled milk vomit.

  James really is having a mental breakdown. He’s clutching his stomach, practically on the floor with uncontrollable laughter. Which only makes Kim eye us more suspiciously.

  I do my best ninja kick to get him to knock it off, and Kim’s expression immediately brightens. “Oh, that’s more like it. Okay then. Carry on with the war. All hope is not lost.”

  She slowly backs out of the room then slams the door shut behind her. The sound of her footsteps running at top speed away from the scene of the almost-crime echoes in my throbbing skull like a death knell.

  “James!” I shriek.

  No response, except more stupid laughter. Did he put vodka in his water bottle this morning?

  I kick him again. “Jimbo!”

  Nothing. My brain went off-line for a few horrifying seconds, but his hard drive has obviously crashed.

  “Jimmy! Jim! Fossoway!”

  That brings his high jinks down to awkward chuckles. Huh. Maybe he does resent his brother’s fame.

  “Sophie, I can’t. I can’t with you. It’s just too hilarious to even be reality in an alternate universe.”

  So, he’s abandoned his plan to make me fall in love with him? Sweet. Less Herculean effort for me.

  “This isn’t gonna work,” I agree. “You heard Kim. They expect us to hate each other. They’ve been institutionalized to crave the ‘war.’” I make air quotes. “Switching things up on them now is like telling them not to roll step everywhere they go. Like preventing them from walking in step with any group, no matter where they are. Like telling them to actually care about football!”

  He sobers on a dime. With a frown. “Some of them actually do.”

  “Gross.” Cocking my head back in disgust is another reflex. “Football is barbaric and should be outlawed.”

  His eyebrows kick up into the shock of nearly black hair that falls just over his forehead. “You … think football is barbaric?”

  “Yeah.”

  Shouldn’t he feel the same way, considering his brother goes out onto that field of carnage every Sunday? As usual, I feel the burning need to defend myself in his presence. I’m all too happy to provide a shot of normalcy that won’t tank my end game.

  “It’s nothing but sacrificing human dignity in the name of capitalism. The games are fixed; it’s a multimillion-dollar industry, not a sport; everyone knows about the unavoidable risk of CTE now, but no one does anything to really stop it; it’s built on the horrific marketing platform of sex sells. I could go on, but you get the point. It’s the modern-day equivalent of the Roman Colosseum!”

  The idiot just starts laughing again. Harder than ever.

  Fuck my life.

  I’m done playing. This is serious. I grab his stupid matchy-matchy drum major T-shirt in my fist and do my best to shake some sense into his tiny brain. “Damn it, Jim! Pay attention! I know all about your stupid plan to make me fall in love with you, and I’m telling you, it’s not going to work!”

  Like someone flipped a switch on his personality, he goes deathly still, his expression stone-cold sober. “How do you know about that?”

  “Because I listened in on your secret little meeting from the uniform room,” I tell him with my best duh tone of voice. “If we act like we’re falling for each other, everyone in band is going to be so freaked out that they’ll vote for one of the other guys! Abort mission! Abandon ship!”

  “Act?” That familiar hatred I’ve come to find like an often-worn, old sweatshirt flames to life in his eyes.

  “Yes, act,” I scoff. “You can quit with the act now. It’s not going to work. Not on me, and most importantly, not on them. They’re going to vote for someone else, and then neither of us will be head drum major! I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth, but …” I shake his shirt in my grip a little more because the universe is so damn unfair. “We have to work together to come up with a new plan. This is going to be my band this year, Jimbo. You’re never ruining anything for me ever again.”

  Shannon might have been on the right track when she said something along the lines of my crown would straighten after letting this burden go. I feel freer now than I did before. Like just admitting he stole something precious from me is enough to move on and reclaim something else precious for myself.

  “Act?” he repeats like the pea-brained Neanderthal he is. “Ruining everything for you?”

  “Stop playing stupid! I know you’re not!” My molars might have to be sacrificed in the name of brutal honesty. It’s still such a foreign sensation. My body involuntarily battles against the genuine words escaping the deepest recesses of my gut. To him.

  He shakes free of my hold then stares me down with the kind of intense, debilitating focus I’m used to from him. “You know I’m not stupid.”

  It’s said like a statement, not a question, but I can’t pay attention to that right now. I pace the floor, rubbing my temples like it will magically produce some new idea in my brain. I already thought I had the perfect plan. How am I going to come up with another? “Okay, okay. Parts of this plan could still work. The other guys could still be sidetracked, competing over me, but you and I have to go back to publicly hating each other.”

  “What?”

  “What did I say?” I round so violently to face him that I almost tip over but catch myself at the last minute and distract him from my clumsiness with a pointed finger. “I already told you, I overheard the whole conversation between you and the other guys. You were practically tripping over each other this morning on the practice field to see who could gain my favor the most. I know I said the past was forgotten, but that was as big a lie as you trying to kiss me a few minutes ago. You owe me this, James. You might be the slimiest piece of dog crap I’ve ever encountered, but even a dog wouldn’t take a girl’s virginity, then ghost her, then pretend like he’d never seen her before in his life when he came face-to-face with her again.” I take a deep breath, relishing in the burn of my lungs. In the sting of ripping off this bandage that’s been keeping the wound from fresh air and healing all this time. “I’m not saying I’m better than you. If I wasn’t such a wild child in high school, I never would have slept with you at that band camp to begin with. If I was really over it, I wouldn’t have let you bait me again and again and again these past three years and always risen to the challenge just to try to regain a sense of power over my bruised heart. I wouldn’t have—”

  He makes a time-out gesture with his hands. “Okay, okay. I get it. We need a new plan. Spare me the diatribe and all your feminine feelings.”

  His typical dismissal of me wraps around my shoulders like a weighted blanket—so comforting, cozy, and stress-relieving. And this is really just another thing I have to hate him for. What does it say about my altered mental state post-James coitus that hate should bring me relief?

  He squints his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. Obviously, I don’t bring him the same sorts of feelings he gives me. No surprise there. “
I can’t form a new plan until you tell me what your plan is. What’s this about sidetracking the other guys by making them compete over you?”

  “My plan was to just be the best drum major I could be and hope the band would choose me because they wanted to. Until I heard your dumb plan and had to regroup on the fly!”

  “You think better under pressure,” he mutters then releases his death grip on his face. “What was the next plan you hatched?”

  I can’t give him the full blueprints to the Death Star. That’s plain stupid and asking for defeat. “When I heard you all arguing about who was the best man for the job to make me lose focus, I just figured I’d play up on your competition and distract all of you.”

  “Like a reverse harem?” He wrinkles his nose in disgust.

  “How do you know about that?” It’s eerie to hear words he just said to me echoed in my own voice.

  “What else were you planning?”

  Oh, no way. He thinks he’s going to deflect that? When it’s such powerful ammunition to add to my arsenal? “Do you read romance books, Jimbo?”

  He screws his expression into what I’m sure he thinks is further disgust, but this one isn’t as genuine. There are definite cracks in his armor. “I don’t read at all. I’m a playboy. I’m too busy having sex to read. And competing with you in our classes. The only books I read are history, political science, and whatever other crap I have to consume to fulfill my arts part of a liberal arts degree.”

  I am definitely shattering my face by grinning so hard now. And I don’t even care. A blooming warmth spreads through my chest because I have never been so eloquently handed this much intel about the enemy on a silver platter before. It’s like the entirety of Interpol risked life and limb to deliver me this. “What’s your favorite trope? It’s obviously not reverse harem.”

  “You are getting distracted,” he says emphatically. “Focus, Soph. We need a new plan. You’re right. This one isn’t going to work.”

  “Oh, I think it might.” My grin has reached nuclear levels. Right up until meltdown occurs. “Oh, wait. If I spill this information, it’s just going to boost your vote with the ladies. You don’t need any more help in that department.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Glad we agree on that front.”

  “Seriously. What’s your favorite book of all time? I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” I just can’t let this go. This information is like a drug, and I’m dependent after only one hit.

  “What’s yours?” he volleys back.

  “I’m not telling you that!” Reading romance novels could easily be seen as wanting to be in touch with women and disavowing toxic masculinity for him. For me? It would be labeled as hysteria for having a sex drive, as women have been tortured with for centuries.

  I’ve already had enough of the patriarchy dismissing my sexual voice. Oh, God. I sound like Shannon. She’s rubbing off on me.

  “This is pointless,” he scoffs. Right before walking out the door.

  Damn. We never did form a new plan.

  Chapter Eight

  “There’s a new plan?”

  If the trumpets were at the front of the room right now, entertaining everyone with their rookies’ efforts to sing the alma mater and fight song, Shannon wouldn’t be asking me this question.

  As it is, the clarinet section is providing the theater with dinner tonight, and Shannon noticed Kim throwing me sympathetic glances in between glaring at James on the other side of the dining hall. So, I had to spill the entire sordid fiasco to her in a whisper.

  Everyone at our table thinks we’re planning some sort of potentially criminal hazing for the trumpet section tonight.

  “Will you calm down already?” Shannon reassures the rookie trumpets surrounding us. “I’m your section leader. It’s my job to make sure you have the best possible experience at your first camp! We’re not talking about anything to do with you!”

  “And as one of your drum majors, I would never do anything to invite a lawsuit against the State band. Hazing isn’t something we do here. I promise.”

  The baby trumpets look at me like my promises are worth about as much as Jimbo’s to me.

  Great. If I can’t get votes from my own section, I’m so screwed.

  Shannon elbows me in the side then hisses, “Don’t blatantly lie to them.”

  “I’m not,” I whisper back. “The drum majors already had a meeting with the directors. It’s why we’re all sitting with different sections tonight. To pass on the word. Absolutely no hazing is to take place during camp this year, not even the wholesome bonding kind. You know what happened with a couple other bands last season. They don’t want to risk it.”

  “Aww, man!” she whines. Loudly. “That was my favorite part of camp as a rookie!”

  The entire table stares at us with saucer-plate eyes.

  “No hazing in State band,” I emphasize for their benefit. “None. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. If anyone even so much as makes you do push-ups because you don’t remember your drill spots, you immediately come tell me.”

  “She gets my vote!”

  Shannon shakes her head. “You still have to learn your positions.”

  “Crap.”

  I want to ask this freshman why he even joined band if he doesn’t like learning drill, but I zip my lips. I need his vote. I need every vote.

  “So?” Shannon prompts. “What is it? What’s the new plan?”

  I chew on a carrot stick and try to swallow past the lump forming in my throat. “I think the new plan needs to be the old plan. I didn’t tell him everything. Just that I was going to use their plan to distract them by encouraging them to compete over me.”

  “So, the new plan is the old plan?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m not buying it. He gave you the perfect litmus test today when he dared you to kiss him. You couldn’t even go through with it for pretend. I’m surprised you didn’t have to visit the health center for hives treatment. You can’t make him fall for you, babe. You barely tolerate being in the same zip code as him.”

  I thump my head on the table and groan. “I know.”

  Applause and a few wolf whistles go up from the band as the clarinets take their bow. I’m running out of time for this little powwow. After dinner, the bandies break into sectionals for music then icebreaker games to ease the rookies into their new band family. We have a leadership meeting with all drum majors, section leaders, and squad leaders after that to go over the new, stricter anti-hazing policies. The directors want us to be their mouthpieces, so there won’t be as much pushback against the tighter leash. Judging by Shannon’s reaction to the news, it’s going to be a long meeting.

  “You know what?” Shannon muses. “Maybe we’re thinking about this from the wrong perspective. There’s a fine line between love and hate, right? You could use that to your advantage. Both are passionate and, in your case, somewhat incendiary. Channel those exact same feelings but in a slightly modified way. That could work.”

  I lift my head from the dinner table to pin her with my you can’t be serious expression. “That still doesn’t solve the problem of everyone else in band being weirded out if James and I start acting all cutesy-cutesy toward each other. The other drum majors will get the votes then.”

  “Why do you call him James?”

  “For the same reason he calls me Sophie. Because I know he hates it.” I shrug.

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” She gets weirdly excited. “You have special nicknames for each other. Most couples do!”

  I shudder at the implication of me, James, and couple in the same sentence.

  “And use the same concept for everyone being so weirded out if you and Jimbo start acting nice toward each other. Maybe it will be like our own personal band reality show! They’ll be so intrigued that the rest of the guys will be forgotten!”

  “And so, it still boils down to me versus James.” I go back to thumping my head on the table.

  She places h
er hand on my back and rubs in a soothing motion. “It was always going to come to this, Soph. Finish this. Take your power back.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Fine.” Jared, the tuba section leader, crosses his arms over his chest. “If you’re going to take this away from us, then you’ve gotta give us something to replace it.”

  Suddenly on the same page now that we’re faced with a small army of angry band seniors, the drum majors all exchange nervous glances.

  Of course, it’s James who speaks up first, “Okay, what are your suggestions?”

  “Since we’re all voting for one of you to be head drum major anyway this season, then we want a good show.” Kim’s voice is way more excited than it was this afternoon when she found James and me in a compromising position in the music file room. “Instead of the annual rookie hazing on the last night of band camp, we want a drum major competition of our design. The directors get no say in this.”

  Oh, God. This could either be the best idea in the history of off-the-cuff ideas, or it could result in my swift defeat.

  “There can be nothing that would even be perceived as offensive,” Nate emphasizes. “Nothing sexual, nothing physically dangerous or emotionally triggering. You can design whatever competition you want, but if a single freshman texts mommy and daddy that they felt uncomfortable by what they saw, then it could mean lights out for the entire program. The directors are not messing around this year. They don’t want to lose their jobs.”

  There’s a bit of grumbling, but they get it. In the past several years, hazing incidents at different colleges have made headlines. And lately, it hasn’t been just the athletic teams. An entire marching band was suspended halfway through the season last year for hazing behavior that still hasn’t been made public. So, obviously, everyone has assumed the worst. A few years before that, the director and half the staff of a top-tier football school were fired after hazing of a sexual nature that had resulted in siblings being coerced into performing lewd acts on each other.