Boring Girls(46)

Edgar laughed. “Two girls, a black guy, and you. Yeah, I’d say it’s pretty unusual.”

“And not just that.” Socks nodded. “I mean, Rachel, you’re so much better than Annika, and she’s the most prominent girl singer in metal. You kick her ass. And Fern, you are amazing on guitar. Like, really good. And you’re going to get better and better.”

“That’s surprising?”

“Well, yeah,” Socks said. “I haven’t seen a girl play guitar as good as you, like, ever.”

One night when I was on the phone with Fern, I brought up what Socks had said. “Why do you think there aren’t more girls in metal? I mean, I can think of Marie-Lise and that Annika, but that’s it. It’s all guys.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it’s because guys don’t want to give girls a chance or something. Maybe they think girls don’t have the aggression to play metal. You see how surprised Socks is by the fact that I can play. Maybe guys just dismiss us, because they think we can’t fit the image or something. Or think that we can’t play. Or they hear that awful Annika and just assume that girls can’t sing metal either.”

“I think we have a really good chance to prove them all wrong,” I said. “Imagine if we play shows? Get famous? We’ll be the only band with girls in it that’s done that.”

“Except for Marie-Lise and Gurgol,” Fern agreed. “Wouldn’t it be cool to meet Marie-Lise? Talk to her and ask her what it’s been like for her in the band?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I think it’d be pretty cool to meet Balthazar Seizure. He’s such a damn amazing singer. I’d totally like to ask him a couple of things.”

She laughed. “You like him,” she teased. “You totally crush on him. You do realize you’re always talking about him, right?”

“It’s because I find him inspiring,” I said. How silly, to have a crush on a musician. So what if he was really talented and also had all that long hair and those gorgeous eyes and was so tall and handsome and . . . it was foolish to have band crushes. I giggled then, even though I knew it was ridiculous, and looked up at my poster of him. He looked back down at me, and I wondered if one day, if our band ever did anything important and got anywhere, whether or not he would be impressed by me. The whole thing was so ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it.

As summer waned I made some changes to my room, as promised by my parents and as earned by me by doing extra stupid chores around the house. It wasn’t so bad, weeding the backyard or sorting through the basement storage or whatever other pointless idea my parents dreamed up to justify giving me the money to buy black bedding and paint for my furniture. I’d just put on my headphones and focus on Balthazar’s voice while I mindlessly worked.

The duck lamp ended up in Melissa’s room.





EIGHTEEN


School started again, and the problems I’d had with Josephine at the end of last year seemed to have blown over. We had a few classes together, and she chattered about her summer — her family and going to parties and other crap — as though we hadn’t argued at all. It was nice to have a friend there even though I couldn’t have cared less about school. I would just drudge through the week, waiting for weekend rehearsals, and spend my nights doing homework, listening to music, and writing.

Edgar got the idea to try recording our rehearsal. Socks rigged up a few microphones around the room, and we ran through our four songs. We sat back on the couches afterwards and played back the recording.

I was happy to hear that my attempts to incorporate Balthazar’s techniques were working. I sounded really f*cking good. Hearing the songs played back without seeing my friends play them was really weird. Without watching Fern play her solos, for example, I was able to listen to them objectively, and once again acknowledge how good she really was. The recording was pretty crappy, but all of us were really impressed with the way we were starting to sound.

“We have to play a show,” Socks announced afterwards.

“We can’t play a show with only four songs,” Fern said. “But I agree, it would be awesome.”

Socks burned copies for all of us, and even though it sounded lousy, I listened to the CD over and over. We were a good band. Even the shoddy recording couldn’t hide it.

xXx

As winter neared, I was finding it very hard to focus on school when all I wanted to do was spend time with Edgar, Socks, and Fern working on music. I was jealous that Fern and Edgar went to the same school and I was stuck at Glen Park with Josephine. Sometimes I would see Craig in the hallways, and we’d wave at each other, but I was finding it increasingly frustrating that I was basically alone at school. During classes I would sit and look out the window, daydreaming, and often writing lyric ideas in my notebooks rather than taking notes on whatever subject I should have been focusing on.