Drummer Girl, page 14
“Oh, sure. I knew that…I mean about the coke. Or cocaine…but you know what I meant by coke. And you smoke pot, or whatever…it’s fine…”
Jesse laughs and cups his palm over my mouth.
“My mom is not on board with the pot, so,” he holds his finger to his lips. I lock my own down tight and nod.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
I catch my own reflection in his dark pupils, and his eyes flicker with a soft smile that splays on his lips.
“Come with me,” he says, threading our fingers together. We walk past his mom as she comes back for her coffee.
“No making out in your bedroom with the door closed,” she says with her back to us.
I blush again—a lot harder this time.
“Just a little closed?” Jesse says as we continue to walk away.
“Fine, but no strip poker,” his mom says back without missing a beat.
We round the corner and step into the guest bathroom.
“She’s joking, right?” I whisper to him.
He laughs and nods.
“That’s how we are with each other. I’ve been her only other adult for so long that we just sort of have this sarcasm thing down.” He pulls a few bottles from his cabinet, handing me three of them, and I read the long, unrecognizable names.
“She was nervous about meeting you.” He leans back against his sink with his hands gripping the edges. I give him a bashful smile and hand him back his pills.
“Why? I’m nobody,” I say through light laughter.
“Mmmm…” he tilts his head.
My eyes squint and stare into his. I think about asking what his reaction means but I decide in that instant I’d rather not have him say it. I feel it, and that’s enough. I’m somebody.
“So what’s with the pharmacy showcase?” I ask.
There are about a dozen various bottles on the counter. Most of them are empty, except for the three he had me hold.
“This is my medical history. Well, the chemical part at least. I’ve been in four psych holds, had a principal sit on my chest to hold me down and keep me from hurting myself in third grade, and I’ve been kicked out of two experimental trials.” He shrugs and twists to pick up one of the empty bottles.
“I like saving the bottles. I’m hoping to get up to twenty.” His lips twist with his dark joke.
I take the empty bottle from him and pull my brow in so tight I feel my skin fold.
“What’s a psych hold?” I run my thumb over the long name on the bottle. The sticker is too short to print it all on one line.
“It’s been a while. First one was when I was little, after the whole thing with Alton showing up and trying to take me away. I didn’t sleep, and getting sleep is a big part of my algorithm it turns out. I got pretty manic and then started having some…episodes, I guess?”
I try to imagine what he’s describing.
“I’m ‘bipolar manic depressive with psychotic features,’ technically. Basically, when my head gets messed up, I start believing shit that isn’t real, and I get pretty into it.” He shrugs, but I can tell by the way he’s gripping the counter behind him that it makes him nervous to show me all of this.
I read the long name on the bottle again, pronouncing it in my head, then set it back down on the counter with the others while I step in close enough to touch my chest to his. I tilt my head up to meet his stare and run my hands around his body until my hands grip the back of his shirt. I let my head fall forward so my mouth hits the center of his chest and I kiss him there tenderly.
“I’m all kinds of fucked up crazy, Ari. It’s just a part of who I am.”
I nod my forehead against him, and open my mouth to speak. My words won’t come out though. I’m all kinds of fucked up crazy too. I just don’t quite know how or why or what. I’m not even sure the name of the blue pill I take every day.
“Okay,” I eventually say, a soft whisper that’s followed by a sense of peace inside.
Jesse’s arms wrap around me, his chin resting on top of my head, caging me in warmth. I think, maybe, I do love him. And I think it scares me a whole lot.
Chapter Fourteen
Normally, Mr. Williams kicks off the week, after one of our big competitions, with enthusiastic verve about the next year and all of his great plans and the set list and formations he wants to try because he saw Ohio State pull something epic off on the field.
My teacher has basically erased the entire thing. He’s pretending we never competed at all. His disappointment is that real. The only thing that can make his mood any worse has just busted through the double doors to our band classroom, completely ruining his first hour.
Jesse has something to say. He’s not the kind of person who waits. I just can’t tell if he’s here to talk to me or Mr. Williams.
“Awwww hell, I knew you were going to be my nightmare, Barringer! Get the hell out of my classroom. You have a first hour…it isn’t this one. God help the teacher who is your first-hour teacher. If there’s a saint in this world at all, they put you in study hall…”
“First hour is government, sir,” Jesse says, almost proud to prove Mr. Williams wrong.
“Well, I would guess you’re failing it.” My teacher flops down on his stool and pulls his glasses from his eyes, then begins to rub his entire face with his other hand.
“Actually, my grade’s an eighty-seven. I’ve only had one test, and I’ve taken this subject before…at my old school…”
Mr. Williams stands with his palm out, fingers wide to signal stop.
“I don’t really care. Just…get out.” He moves toward Jesse and makes a shooing gesture. I’ve already started walking Jesse’s direction, too.
“I just need to borrow one of your students…” Jesse laughs as he speaks, amused by his disruption. I’m not. I can feel everyone looking at me, and I hear the snickers as I weave through the rows to get to him.
“Miss Wakefield, you should really consider your choices. Next time your boyfriend messes up my anything, I’m failing you.”
“Yes, sir,” I say with my hand raised over my shoulder. I push Jesse in the chest and move his laughing body back through the doors into the empty hallway. I think my teacher was joking. People don’t really fail advanced band. And it probably wouldn’t matter to my transcript anyhow. But the threat sits in the pit of my stomach, and the fact that Jesse is amused by it irritates me.
“Oh, come on. That was a little funny,” he says, strolling backward with his hands in his pockets.
“Do you ever actually go to class?” I’m shouting, and my heart is racing with rage. His brow dips and his mouth closes tight. “And you had a doctor’s appointment this morning.”
“I went to class last week. And appointment’s done. I just thought you’d be excited that a producer is coming to check us out…”
My face reacts before my mind mentally unpacks this information. Producer…us…the band…that I am a part of.
“Shut up!” I slap his chest with both hands and he laughs harder, his back landing on the wall behind him. I palm my cheeks because I’m instantly numb. I’m still a little pissed, too. I’m a mix that doesn’t make sense.
“So now you want to hear me out?” He teases.
“I’m pretty sure my teacher hates you with the fire of a thousand suns, so make it fast,” I say, giving into my hungry curiosity. I’m a little excited for myself too. I’m in a band that’s legitimate.
“Are you sure it’s that many suns? I feel like he sorta likes this cat-and-mouse game we have going…”
I push into him again and he wraps an arm around my waist and drags me into a nook around the corner, his lips finding mine fast and melting away my anxiety.
“I’m positive he does not like the game, Jesse,” I say through a smile I just can’t help, my lips brushing against his while I speak.
“Fine. I’ll let him win one of these times,” he jokes. He leans his weight back into the corner and I stand between his feet, his hands on my hips and his face tilted up letting his perfect smile shine for my own private showing. He smells like weed, and I wonder if he’s been smoking all morning. His eyes are red, and his sense of urgency is this odd paradox. For someone who was so insistent on busting into my class with hot information, he’s not really in a rush to tell me.
“Jesse,” I grip his shirt in the front and shake it lightly. He chuckles.
“Yeah, right…so, I finally went through that packet my dad left, and I’m no lawyer, but it doesn’t really seem to have his name or company or whatever involved anywhere in there. It’s just this independent talent group, so I called the guy whose card was stuck on the front and he checks out. He’s a real rep, with a real label and they’re putting together one of those reality shows for bands, and my dad—for once in his fucking life—thought about me. He knew this guy was looking for talent, and he talked me up and when I called the guy he knew exactly who we were.”
Jesse’s mind feels a million miles ahead of this place we really are. I press my palms to his chest and try to ground him, but his heart is racing. And he is definitely high right now. But he’s making sense, and this sounds real. I hope it, in fact, is. Skepticism has taken root in my chest, so I’m trying to push it to the side for his sake.
“So do we have to audition? Or…” I ask.
“About that…” Jesse’s neck shrinks in, amused by some secret he has.
I lift my brows high. I hear the band door open around the corner and I silently pray it isn’t Mr. Williams. I’m relieved when I see Josh step into our view. He holds his arms out to his side and his mouth goes wide.
“He’s pissed you aren’t back!” Josh whisper-shouts. His eyes dart between Jesse and me. I sigh while Jesse laughs.
“I’ll be right there,” I say, stepping back a little. Jesse reaches for my body, though, and he folds me up in his arms, rocking me side to side with actual glee.
“No, stay, Josh. You should hear the good news, too!” Jesse says.
Josh’s eyes light up at this act of acceptance. He steps in closer.
“What’s up?” my friend asks.
I blink with hope that this is actually the big deal Jesse believes it is.
“A guy from…” Jesse reaches into his back pocket to pull out a bent card with a staple still in it. He twists it in his palm to read it. “Oakford Witness Entertainment,” he reads, then stuffs the card back in the place he pulled it from. “He’s coming to our show on Friday. To maybe put us on some pilot, for a network and maybe…I don’t know, recording or…”
Jesse brings his hands to his forehead as his own mind starts to blow. His mouth cannot frown, the curve too deep and intense. His happiness is real, even if the weed he smoked is accentuating it…embarrassingly so.
“Oh my God, man. I mean…wow!” Josh’s reaction is perfect. It’s probably what my reaction should have been, only Josh doesn’t know the deal about Alton. He wasn’t at the diner watching dollar signs glow in the man’s eyes.
“I know, right?” Jesse leans past me to grab Josh’s palm in a bro-five.
I filter through the new information.
Friday.
We didn’t have a gig Friday. I was going to work at the store so my parents could go out. They try to have an evening together once every few months so it isn’t always just work. Part of the whole “living our lives” thing we’ve been doing for the last decade, only now I’m old enough not to have to go to a babysitter for their date nights.
“Wait…wait…” I break into the boys’ celebration. “Where are we playing Friday?”
“About that…” Jesse’s eyes lock on mine just long enough to send me a non-verbal oh, shit. I groan in preparation.
“It’s going to be fine. It’s a bar, in San Jose. Rag will drive us, and…oh yeah, we’ll need to get you a fake. You have to be twenty-one.”
“You’re not twenty-one!” Weird that’s my first reaction because there are so many other things to react to with this.
Jesse just lowers his head and gives me this stare I’ve come to both love and hate. Of course he has an ID. Of course Logan does. Rag doesn’t need one. I’m the only loser who doesn’t have an ID because, before I met Jesse Barringer, I didn’t bother with bars, we did our drinking in abandoned swimming pools and front yards with homemade firepits. And Sam did most of it.
My stomach feels sick.
“It’s gonna be fine. I promise. We’ll go today. After school. I can borrow my mom’s van, and I’ll drive us to my guy,” Jesse says.
“You have a guy…” I laugh nervously through my words. Unbelievable.
“Ari, I promise.” He takes my hands in his and with clear eyes for a breath, he means it. My ribs feel like claws closing around my lungs.
“If my two students don’t get their asses back in here in the next ten seconds, I am going to ruin some lives.” The band room door slams shut after Mr. Williams shouts out his warning.
“We better go,” Josh says, grinning ear-to-ear. I almost wish he did take my place in the band now.
He bro-hugs Jesse, slapping his back with this genuine excitement I wish I had. I have jelly legs. And an ulcer.
“Go on. I’ll text you when I get the van,” Jesse says, leaning in to peck me on the lips. He starts heading down the hallway to the back door behind the cafeteria. The alarm is going to sound the moment he opens it. He’s not going to class today. Maybe that’s for the best. Rather than stick around and be a witness, I hurry back to the band room a few steps behind Josh, and the security alarm sounds the second I step inside, giving me an alibi.
Mr. Williams glares at me as I weave through the path I took to exit his room minutes ago. I’m sure if it were quieter in here I would be able to hear the low growl accompanying his breath. He’s deeply disappointed in me. But he doesn’t know Jesse like I do. I’m just worried I don’t know him like I should.
Chapter Fifteen
Jesse got the van. He also napped the rest of the school day away. I’m pretty sure he never saw his doctor this morning, but maybe his mom had to reschedule. I have bigger concerns right now, and number-one is the fact that I’m barreling up the 101 with thirty-seven dollars in my pocket to meet some guy named Biddy.
Jesse’s calmer than he was earlier, but he’s still excited. I’m trying to hold on to the idea that this is all going to work out. I feel a sense of doom, though. That’s how I roll—doom around every corner. Maybe that’s why I still have to take the blue pill.
“I feel like a fake ID should cost more than thirty-seven bucks,” I say, rechecking the amount in my wallet. It’s still the same. I’ve saved birthday money from the summer. I can’t touch the cash my parents put in the bank for my work at the store. That’s “for college,” though I have no idea what college I can afford with the eleven hundred dollars I have saved in there. Maybe the fake ID guy can make me some fake scholarship cash too.
“He’s a friend. He owes me, and basically the money is just like…good faith, ya know?” Jesse glances my way. It’s weird being in the passenger seat with him in a mom-van. His little brother’s booster seat is in the back, and old Cheerios are stuck on the floor mats.
His brother and sister spend the afternoons at after-camp until six most days. I feel for AmberLynn because I remember being a pre-teen at after-camp. It sucks—too old to color, but too young to just be hired on as a counselor to work there. So, older girls basically walk around in cliques with other girls whose parents don’t trust them to be home alone.
“Maybe we should just bail and go pick up your brother and sister. You could get by with a sub for me…or maybe call Chris…or Logan can run a drum kit, or…”
“It’s going to be fine,” Jesse says, chuckling at my nerves.
I am nervous. I’m actually a little terrified. We’ve made it from the highway onto some back roads through a neighborhood of mostly mobile homes. Jesse slows the van in front of a doublewide, and he idles out front for a few seconds until someone flips open a drape in the front window.
“All right, we’re good,” he says, backing up and pulling into the carport attached to the trailer. A back door opens near the rear of the home, and Jesse kills the engine, checking his rearview mirror. I pull my gray hoodie up over my head in an effort to be discreet. This isn’t a place I want to be seen; I feel it.
“Where are we?” I stop him just as he’s getting out of the van. His pause is brief but full of so many clues.
“It’s a guy I know. It’s fine,” he brushes my worry off.
I’m sweating because of my anxiety, but I clutch my sleeves around my fists and draw my hoodie in tighter, wanting to tuck the ends of my hair in. The world’s worst disguise. Jesse laughs a little when he turns to see me at the front of his car.
“This isn’t a drug deal, Ari. It’s fine.” He reaches for my hand but I hug myself instead and shake my head.
“Fine, I mean…yeah, this is the guy I buy my weed from, but this is a retirement park, and he’s like sixty-four, and nobody is going to come jumping out of the bushes to grab us in a sting.” He mocks me, but when I see the round, bearded-but-bald old man stick his head out the back door and wave us through, I see his point and relax.
“My grandson did the best he could on short notice. It’s still wet from the gloss, so don’t touch it,” he says, smiling and nodding at me as we enter his dark home. A TV blares some gameshow in the corner, and an older woman is rocking in a chair while she smokes a joint. Her eyes shift to Jesse, and she leaves them there.
Fucking California.
“Take a look,” the man says, grinning at me proudly as if his grandson is an artist and he’s showing off his latest watercolor.
I follow Jesse to the dining table and he slides a placemat closer for our inspection. A replica license with my photo on it is glistening in the center.
“Is that my yearbook photo?” I look at Jesse then squint to look more closely at the photo. It’s a little blurry. I’m so getting caught with this thing.
