The Sound of Us Read online

  He rolls onto his back and the two of us look at the stars again as he says, “My mom was a music teacher, you know, before she had kids, so we all had to learn an instrument. My oldest sister got piano. The next one got violin. And so on and so forth until I was born and drums were the only thing left.”

  “And no one knows you play?”

  “No one outside my family, really. My friends don’t know. They wouldn’t approve.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugs and his polo scratches my arm again. “They’re not so into artsy stuff. They wouldn’t understand.” He laughs. “Well, it’s more than that. They’re huge jerks to people in band and stuff. I’ve always gone along with it.”

  “That’s…dickish,” I say. “You bully musicians.”

  “No,” he says. “Well, kind of. My friends do.”

  “But you never stopped it.”

  “I’ve always felt bad about it, even more so now that I’ve gotten to know Norman…and you.”

  “Musicians are the best people I know,” I say, excepting Beth, of course. “They would never, ever ostracize someone for being different. Because we’re all different. We’re all wounded in our own way.”

  “I’m one of you,” he says. “Or I want to be.”

  “How are you wounded, Jack? You sound like the one doing the damage.”

  There’s a pause. “I’ve never been allowed to be myself.”

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that. What do you mean?”

  He rolls onto his side now and he’s looking right at me. “My entire life has been heading in one direction, you know? My dad’s a judge. All my siblings are lawyers. It’s inevitable. I have to join the family business.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say. “I mean, it sounds like your dad’s got a whole gaggle of attorneys. Maybe he’d be proud to have a drummer.”

  He sighs. “But I don’t not want to be a lawyer, either. I feel like I’m two people sometimes, like I’ve compartmentalized my life. There’s the Jack everyone at home knows and expects me to be and then there’s this other guy, Camp Jack, who wonders what would happen if he took a different path.”

  I laugh.

  “I’m glad my existential pain is so hilarious to you.”

  “No.” I stifle a final giggle. “I was thinking about that one Friends episode where everyone gets to see what their life would be like if one thing never happened, like if Rachel hadn’t been a runaway bride or if Monica had never lost weight. Too bad you can’t gaze into your own future and see how it all turns out.”

  “Would that I could. I wish I knew definitively what to do with my life, who I want to be. I want to be more like you. You’ve got it all figured out.”

  I snort. “Yeah right.”

  “At least, you make it look that way.”

  “I still think about the what-ifs, though. I mean, if I hadn’t gotten into camp, maybe Beth would have. Maybe it wouldn’t have disrupted our friendship’s power balance.”

  “But then you never would’ve met me.”

  “True,” I say, grinning like a fool. I’m glad it’s dark so he can’t really see me. “But that’s life. Whichever road you choose, you’re going to be missing out on something.”

  “That’s depressing.”

  “The good news is, though, that in college you can try out both roads. You could study pre-law while minoring in drumming. You have that option. I don’t. Either I get this scholarship so I can study music, or I don’t and I have to go to my dad’s school where they basically treat the fine arts like a waste of time.”

  “Irrelevant,” he says. “You’re going to get the scholarship.” Jack nudges my arm. “Tell me what happened with Davis Blankenshaft the Third.”

  “Now?”

  “Things were starting to get a bit heavy.”

  “This won’t lighten them up, believe me.”

  “That’s all right. I want to know what happened. I want to know about you.”

  “Okay.” How can I deny his request when he puts it like that? I sigh. “It all started during the musical this year. Our school was doing Guys & Dolls, and I was in the show with Davis. And Beth.”

  “The best friend who dicked you over.”

  “The very one.” The stars above me have faded into blackness. I turn to face Jack, and I’m now acutely aware of the fact that my mouth is very close to his nose. I hope my breath isn’t too disgusting. “And Davis—I think this was the first play he ever auditioned for. He’s, like, the guy in high school. He could do anything and it would be cool. He’s smart and funny and on the football team. He’s someone I never would have had the courage to talk to if we hadn’t been in the play together.”

  “So he’s like me. Ha ha.”

  “He’s exactly like you. Ha ha.” I thank the darkness for its existence, because I feel my face go hot. “I had never spoken to Davis before. I don’t think I ever had occasion to.” I desperately want to lick my lips to moisten them, but I’m wary of drawing too much attention to them. I keep talking. “Davis and I totally hit it off during the play, friendship-wise. We started, you know, having these inside jokes and goofing around and stuff.”

  I pause at some commotion outside the room. I let out a shaky breath and lower my voice even more. “Everyone would go to parties at this guy Matt Carroll’s house and Davis would hang around with me the whole night. Like, there’d be tons of other people there, but I was the one he wanted to spend time with. I started to develop an immoderate crush on him. I mean, he sought me out. Obviously he liked me? I even taught myself to play a song on the piano because of him. Because it reminded me of him.”

  “What song?”

  “‘Falling is Like This’ by Ani DiFranco.”

  “Don’t know it.”

  “You wouldn’t. It’s not from Project Earth.” Jack’s breath is wafting toward my face and I’m surprised to discover I don’t mind it at all. “I told Beth about my crush and the song, obviously, because she was my best friend. She got really excited about the prospect of me performing it for Davis. I thought she was kidding, but she was like, ‘No, you have to do it. It will be amazing.’ I was kind of chuffed at how supportive she was being. She had been really standoffish since I got accepted to camp and she didn’t. I thought, hey, she’s over it. It was starting to feel like old times.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah, uh-oh. At Matt Carroll’s next party, she pulled me over to the piano and announced to the room that I was going to perform a song for Davis.”

  “This is not going to end well.”

  “It is not.” I flash back to that night, to everyone standing around the piano in Matt Carroll’s back room. The place was packed. It wasn’t an intimate little moment. It was me and Beth and Davis and about forty of our classmates. Everyone’s eyes were on me. I could’ve not done it. I could’ve not sat down on that piano bench, but I did it. Because that was what I wanted, wasn’t it? I wanted to bare my soul to people, musically, and a big part of me believed that maybe, possibly, my performance would seal the deal for Davis, that he’d fall in love with me because of it. It’s what Beth had said would happen.

  “I played the song.” I spare Jack some of the details. “And then I saw Davis and Beth off in a corner dancing.” My voice falters as I tell the story, the same way my fingers faltered in the moment. “I kept playing, though,” I say. “And then, when the song was over, Beth ran over and announced to the entire room that she and Davis were going to prom. She told Davis that she asked me to learn the song for her, that those were her feelings.” And then she told Davis I thought he was gross and I was probably a lesbian or asexual anyway, so he shouldn’t bother. Like all good friends do.

  “So the two of them went to prom together and I stayed home, watching Netflix and listening to my angsty lady music.”

  Jack waits a few seconds. “Sing me the song,” he says.

  “Never.”

  “What? I’m not going to get up in the mid
dle and go make out with Kendra or Mary.”

  I chuckle.

  “What are you scared of? I’ve heard you sing before. I’m not Davis Blankenshaft the Third. I’m a Krakow. You said so yourself.”

  For a moment, I think about the song and its lyrics and how really, with Davis, I was, on some level, looking for an excuse to fit this song into my life. Maybe this is where it belongs, in this bed between Jack and me. Maybe I can transfer the significance of the song onto us. I blow out a breath, toward the underside of Norman’s bed, away from Jack’s face, and I sing the song like a lullaby.

  Jack puts his hand on my hip and I worry for a second that he must be touching an awful amount of flab, but then he starts tapping on my hipbone like a drum, keeping time as I keep singing.

  We lie like that for the duration of the song, me with my face in his face, him with his hand, attached to that arm, playing my hip like a bongo. When I finish the song, Jack says, “I need to go find Kendra.” And he starts to stand up. Laughing, I pull him back down and this time he’s on top of me, his body weight giving me life.

  Our eyes lock, and I feel it, the moment. This is it. He’s going to kiss me, or I’m going to kiss him. There’s something in his eyes I can’t read, nerves or fear or I don’t know what. I’m about to reach up and pull him to me when he jumps up and turns on the lights.

  “It’s curfew,” he says. “You’d better go.”

  “Oh, okay,” I say, standing up.

  He won’t even look at me.

  “Um.” I pull open the door and try to catch his gaze. “Goodnight?”

  He gives me a quick, sad smile. “Goodnight, Kiki.”

  *

  Obviously I’m a mess all night and the next morning, running through everything that happened over and over again. We were about to kiss. I felt it. I did. I really, really did. And he stopped it. Why? What did I do wrong?

  I can’t figure it out.

  I have to get up and sing during voice class Friday afternoon, which is unfortunate. I’m an emotional wreck and I can’t concentrate on anything beyond the fact that Jack didn’t kiss me, but life goes on, I suppose.

  I still need that scholarship. That hasn’t changed.

  I shimmy my shoulders like I’m trying to physically shake Jack from my body and approach the piano at the front of the room. I hand my battered sheet music to the accompanist and wait for Mr. Bertrand to tell me what to do next.

  “Who are you and what are you singing?” he asks.

  “Kiki Nichols, and I’m singing ‘Deh vieni non tardar’ by Mozart.”

  I nod at the accompanist and start in on the recitative. “Giunse alfin il momento.”

  Mr. Bertrand holds up his hand to stop me. He sighs and repeats the line, “‘Giunse alfin il momento.’ With feeling, my dear.” He signals that the piano should start again.

  I jump back into the song, this time trying to concentrate on what the words mean, on what I had read about Susanna beckoning the count to her just to piss off Figaro. Kind of like how Beth beckoned Davis to her just to get back at me. I shake that thought from my head and try not to think about the eyes of my classmates staring up at me, judging me, comparing their voices to my voice. I try not to think about Jack, which, in doing so, only makes me think about him more. But Mr. Bertrand only stops me twice more during the aria, which I consider a small victory, especially considering my mental state. When I finish singing, he dismisses me after only fifteen minutes of post-performance notes.

  Not too shabby, I think, especially after a week of hanging out in Jack’s room in the evenings. I did work hard during the daytime. Maybe that was enough. Maybe the fact that I gave myself some time off helped my mind relax and recharge and I performed well because I was less stressed. Maybe I’m just looking for positive reinforcement for my deviant behavior.

  Then Brie gets up and sings the same song I just performed. She knocks it out of the park. Mr. Bertrand never stops her once.

  “And that is how you do Mozart, ladies and gentlemen.” He applauds her back to her seat.

  *

  Jack doesn’t show up for dinner that night. Norman says he’s busy.

  “A golf banquet or something,” he explains.

  I want to take that at face value, but I can’t. It’s too coincidental. Jack just happens to have a “golf banquet” the day after he thwarted our almost-kiss? Sounds fishy.

  I consider heading back to Yunker to work on my music, even though it’s a Friday night. Brie totally schooled me in our master class today. Obviously I have things to work on. But I don’t feel like it. I worked hard all week. I’ll work hard all day tomorrow.

  Mary saves me. Kind of.

  “Come to Kendra’s room,” she says when we’re back in the dorm. She grabs my arm and pulls me toward the stairwell.

  “Why? No.” I haven’t talked to Kendra since Monday. I haven’t exactly tried to talk to her, nor she to me. It’s not that I’m mad at her or anything. I’m just really, really good at the silent treatment, especially when it’s being deployed against me. With Beth as a best friend for twelve years, I’ve had a lot of practice. I pissed her off at least once a month.

  “You guys need to talk it out. She thinks you’re mad at her.”

  “I’m not mad at her.” I’m not. I just don’t want to participate in the finger-pointing bullshit.

  “See? Talk things out.”

  I’m dreading what’s about to happen. Whenever Beth decided she had punished me long enough, she’d show up at my house, usually with some item I had left in her room at some point, and wait for me to apologize. Since she was the one who made the effort to come over, I’d always acquiesce and then we’d hang out in my room for an hour while she read me a litany of all the ways I’d most recently disappointed her. Then I’d say something stupid to throw her off her game and we’d laugh and she’d forget about the whole thing.

  Then we’d go back to singing musical scores and plotting ways to seduce the guys we liked. I miss those days. I don’t miss the silent treatment, but I miss the fun. And Beth was fun. Whenever I was at the top of her friendship list, it was like I had won the lottery. Getting positive attention from her was like getting a personal sun shower while the rest of the world was covered in clouds.

  Mary and I stop outside Kendra’s door on the third floor and knock. I prepare to hear a list of my failings, but when Kendra answers, I’m the one who’s thrown off my game. She’s wearing a pair of basketball shorts under a long T-shirt with a picture of a sheathed sword above the word “Vagina.”

  I stare at her open-mouthed. “Your shirt,” I manage to squeak out.

  Wrinkling her nose, she looks down, then up at me. “You don’t like it?”

  I shake my head. “I love it. Oh my God. You’re a Latin nerd.”

  She grins and ushers Mary and me inside. “I’m in AP next year.”

  “Me too. My dad has been pushing me toward the dead language since birth, practically.”

  Mary claps her hands, her ringlets bouncing up and down. “You’re talking again!”

  “We are.” I grin at Kendra.

  She looks up at me with big brown eyes. “I got a little ‘tinfoil hat’ about the mole thing,” she says. “I’m sorry I freaked you out.”

  “I’m sorry I cut and run.” I look at her, then Mary. This is the point where, with Beth, I would’ve promised to change but then gone right back to doing the stuff that annoyed her—tweeting in her presence, blowing her off to watch TV, making fun of the stupid stuff she’s into. Right now, with Mary and Kendra, this is a chance for me to stop making that same mistake. “I’m not…great…at friendships. I don’t have the best track record. My first instinct is to flee, but I don’t want to flee from you guys. I want to get to know you. Especially now that I know you’re a Latin dork.”

  “Latina vivit,” says Kendra.

  “Semper ubi sub ubi,” I add.

  “Numquam.” She shakes her head. “Numquam ubi sub ubi.”


  Mary laughs. “I have no idea what you’re saying!”

  I take a seat on Kendra’s bed with Mary. Kendra plops down on a rug just inside her door. “This is my shaving rug,” she says. She has one leg bent, foot near her groin. The other leg is sticking straight out, and she runs a razor up the length of it. “It’s impossible to shave in those communal showers,” she explains, cleaning her razor in a cup full of soapy water. “You need to be a contortionist.” She’s not wrong.

  “How are things going with Philip?” Kendra asks, eyes down on her leg.

  I glance at Mary. That question must’ve been for her. Mary’s cheeks are flaming.

  “Mary?” I ask. “What’s going on with you and Philip?”

  “Nothing. He was nice to me at the retreat the other day,” says Mary. She presses her hands against her cheeks.

  “Yeah?” says Kendra, “and…?” She dips her razor back into the shaving cup and swirls it around.

  “And maybe I kind of like him.”

  “He’s not hooking up with Daffodil?” I ask.

  “Nope,” says Kendra. “According to Andy, he’s not hooking up with anyone. That’s why we’re going to hook him up with Mary.”

  “Exciting,” I say, feeling very invested in this conversation. I wonder if Kendra might be able to help me with my own hooking up issues. She seems very knowledgeable, boy-wise. She had a long-term boyfriend, and she’s been hooking up with Finley since the first week of camp, practically.

  “Okay, but what do I do? How do I, you know, broach this subject?” Mary asks.

  “How have you done it in the past?” Kendra runs her razor up the other shin.

  Mary looks at me, her eyes pained. “I’ve never done it in the past.”

  “You’ve never done…?” asks Kendra.

  “Anything. I’ve never done anything.”

  Kendra drops her razor in the cup and pulls her long, dark legs into criss-cross applesauce, her elbows resting on her knees. This is serious now. I’m reminded of when I once asked Beth about how I could get a guy to like me. She told me, “Stop dressing like you just left the gym and start putting your social life ahead of your TV shows.” The way Kendra answers Mary is the exact opposite of that.