Connection (Le Garde) (24 page)

“
We didn’t see that part,” Kaylie said quietly.

“
Well, I did,” I said, slamming my locker shut. “I was pissed at him.”

“
You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

“
It was the first time,” I said. “Kaylie, I wouldn’t do that to Steven.”

“
Phone calls at three in the morning, weird meetings with him,” she said, her eyes boring into me like my facial expression might reveal something.

“
Kaylie, I swear it was the first time.”

She’s shoulder sagged. “Well, I believe you, but Sam’s kind of pissed off.”

I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t want to deal with this right now. I felt Aaron approach and I glanced around for him. I saw him at the end of the hallway, and he walked straight toward us. “I’ll talk to her,” I told Kaylie.

“
I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

“
Didn’t Aaron tell her he wasn’t interested?” I asked.

Kaylie just shrugged. Aaron reached us and asked how I was.

“
I’m fine, thanks,” I said. We’d texted a bit last night. I’d told him Steven’s mom blamed me for the crash. He thought it was ridiculous, but he didn’t blame Steven again like he had yesterday. I motioned to Kaylie. “Kaylie saw us on the sidewalk yesterday.”

Aaron’s face fell, and he looked at Kaylie, who glared at him. “That was all me,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. He did that when he was put on the spot. “I, uh.
 
.
 
.” He met my eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

I didn’t think he meant it. “Well, Sam saw, too.” I sighed. “I’ll talk to her in math.”

“
Good luck,” Kaylie said. “I’ll see you in Government.” She ducked into the crowd.

When I walked into Algebra 2 second period, Sam sat in her usual spot. She acted like she didn’t even notice me as I sat down next to her. I’d planned to explain myself or something, but seeing her act all aloof just made me angry. Why should I have to defend myself? Aaron knew I wasn’t interested. Steven knew it was a mistake, or at least I’d tried to tell him it was. Aaron didn’t even
like
Sam. It’s not like she had a claim on him. If anything, I did, since we’d been best friends for seven years. I didn’t say anything to her as I took out my math book.

After a few moments, she asked, “How many stitches did you get?”

“
Four.” I looked at her, and her gaze traveled over my stitches and the scratches on my face.

“
Are you feeling all right?”

I nodded, surprised she was asking. I was about to say something when Jordan’s girlfriend Vickie sat on the edge of my desk. She leaned toward me, and I shied away. She smirked. “I just want to see your stitches.”

“
You can see them just fine without touching them,” I said.

She stood. “You should be more careful next time you give someone road head.”

My mouth fell open, and a few people around us snickered. My face burned.

“
Leave her alone,” Sam snapped.

Vickie glared at her. “I’m just repeating what I heard.”

“
Do you believe everything Jordan tells you?”

Vickie looked shocked at first, then she patted me on the head. I shoved her hand away. “It’s cute that you have someone else fight your battles,” she said.

“
It’s called having friends,” I said.

The teacher came in, and Vickie swept away to her seat. I looked at Sam, giving her a grateful smile. She leaned toward me. “Look, I was pissed about you and Aaron, but I know he doesn’t like me anymore. He can kiss whoever he wants.”

“
It probably looked a lot worse than it was,” I said.

“
I know you wouldn’t do that to Steven, but others—” She shot a dirty look at Vickie. “—don’t. You need to tell him to keep his hands off you or people are going to start rumors about you.”

“
Even more rumors, you mean,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t worry, I told Aaron to back off.”

“
Did he apologize?” Sam asked.

“
For kissing me?”

“
For being a jerk when Jordan was harassing you.”

“
Oh.” I thought back to that day by the deserted house. “Yeah, he did.”

Sam leaned back in her chair. “Good.”

I smiled. I was lucky to have her as a friend.

* * *

I didn’t see or talk to Steven until he returned to school the next day. I saw him walking through the halls with crutches, his leg in a cast. I pushed past people to get to him. “Hey,” I said breathlessly. “Do you need help with your backpack?” He looked like he was going to fall over as he tried to keep his backpack on his shoulder.

He smiled sheepishly. “Sure.”

I took it from him, holding him steady as he balanced on his right leg. “How are you feeling?”

“
Better. I think the worst of the concussion is gone.” We walked to his locker. I tried to find the right words to ask why he hadn’t been answering his phone, but he spoke first. “I’m really sorry about my mom. She’s been watching me like a hawk, and she keeps taking my cell. I think whenever you call she hangs up before I can get to it.”

I frowned as he opened his locker. “She still blames me?”

He scoffed. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

“
Steven,” I began.

“
Don’t,” Steven said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so upset.” He nodded to his backpack. “Can you get me a white binder in there?”

I looked through his backpack and pulled out the binder. He handed me his Trig book that I put in his bag.

“
I feel horrible,” Steven said. “You’ve always told me I should slow down.”

“
Steven,” I groaned. “Don’t beat yourself up for this.” I dropped my voice. “If I had never kissed—”

“
Anna,” he cut me off. “You can’t seriously blame yourself for me speeding like an idiot.” He shut his door. “Just.
 
.
 
.promise me it won’t happen again. Between you and Aaron.”

“
It won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

He smiled, though a bit uneasily. “Walk me to my first class?”

“
Of course.”

15. le bassiste (the bass player)

Aaron

We had band practice each Thursday at Chandler’s house. We played rock music, but I thought most of our songs would sound good with a ska twist. With three people, though, it wasn’t really possible. I was stuck on the bass when I wanted to play my sax.

Chandler twirled around in his chair, his drumsticks moving against his legs frenetically. “Battle of the Bands is in six weeks, dude. You think Oliver will play trumpet?”

“
I don’t know,” I said. “He says he has a lot of AP classes this year.”

Chandler rolled his eyes. “The prize is five hundred bucks! Tell him that.”

I shrugged. “I did.” I sat on the couch in the corner of the basement. The couch’s springs dug into my back. This thing had to be older than I was. I looked at my watch. “Where’s Jordan?”

“
Dang, he’s half an hour late! I’ll call him.”

I set my bass down and walked around Chandler’s basement. One half was his bedroom, with his clothes and dirty dishes and magazines. The other half had our gear and old stuff of his family’s: a basketball hoop that leaned to the side, a broken treadmill, boxes of family pictures. It was a cool place to have a party, actually.

I grabbed the basketball, and Chandler and I started shooting hoops. Ten minutes later, Jordan finally showed up.

I tossed him the ball. “About time.”

He rolled his eyes and made a shot that went through easily. “I got us a new bass player.”

I swore I bristled like a dog. Since when could he just bring in new members without the rest of us? “Is that so?”

“
Who is it?” Chandler asked.

“
Wendy, Vickie’s sister,” Jordan replied.

“
She plays bass?”

Wendy was a sophomore who mostly kept to herself. She was nothing like Vickie, who had as many enemies as she did friends.

“
Yeah, she’s cool,” Jordan said. “She digs you, Aaron.”

Chandler laughed, punching me in the shoulder.

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“
She’ll be over in fifteen minutes. You should go home and get your sax.”

“
You should have texted me,” I said. “I have like a thousand papers to do tonight.”

Jordan scoffed. “Just get Anna to do them. That’s what you’re doing in Composition, right?”

I narrowed my eyes. “She’s just tutoring me.”

“
Is that what they call it these days?” he asked. “Go get your sax; she’ll be here by the time you get back.”

I ran home, told my parents I’d be an extra hour, and rode back to Chandler’s with my saxophone. When I came downstairs, Wendy was playing with my bass while Jordan and Chandler played one of our songs. It was one of our only good ones, the one we’d play at talent shows and open mic nights and get good feedback on. We’d even recorded it in Chandler’s basement and handed out fifty copies over the past six months. Wendy was small and had long dark blonde hair that swept over her face as she tried to figure out the chords. She wore jeans and a Cold War Kids t-shirt. I liked her already.

They stopped mid-song when Wendy couldn’t get the chords of the chorus.

“
You guys sound good,” I said, taking out my saxophone. I nodded to Wendy. “How long have you been playing?”

“
Only two years,” she said, her cheeks going pink. “Probably sounds like less, huh?”

“
No, you’re good. The chorus is tricky.” I motioned to the bass. “May I?”

She nodded, lifting the bass. Her shirt lifted to show a strip of her pale midriff. I took the bass and showed her the chords of the chorus as Jordan played through it again. She looked intently at my fingers and asked me to play it again.

“
Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Wendy took the bass back. “I’ve heard this song a thousand times, you’d think I’d know it.”

“
Wendy has the single,” Jordan said. “Vickie says she listens to it all the time.”

She blushed again, staring down at her fingers as they moved along the neck. “Well, it’s really good.”

“
Thanks,” I said, smiling. I picked up my sax.

“
Your duet with Anna at the spring concert was awesome,” Wendy said.

I grinned. “You think so?”

“
Yeah! You two sound great together.”

I shrugged, trying to make it look like it wasn’t a huge deal, both to impress Wendy and to downplay it in front of Jordan. “Thanks.”

“
Did you guys get a lot of time to practice? Melissa only got sick a few days earlier, right?”

Nodding, I said, “Yeah, we only had two days, but I already knew the Entertainer, and Anna and I have played together before.”

“
I didn’t know you guys played together,” Jason said, watching me intently as I tuned.

“
It was a couple weeks ago,” I said, shrugging. Heat crawled up my neck. “Nothing huge.”

“
But then there was that freak power outage,” Wendy said. “Did they ever figure out what caused that?”

“
I don’t think so,” I said. “You want to go through the song again?”

Wendy was a natural bass player. When I told her the chords, she picked up on them quickly. I wrote them down for her and when the changes were too quick for her, I showed her. It was fun playing my saxophone with them; I could add a lot of stuff I couldn’t earlier. The rhythm changed just the slightest, but Chandler picked up on it.

Afterwards, we sat around Chandler’s basement playing video games for a while. “I’ve got to find a trumpet player,” I said. “We could sound so awesome for the Battle of the Bands.”

“
Are you guys going to enter that?” Wendy asked.

I nudged her side. “
We
are! You want to be our official bass player?”

Wendy smiled. “Okay.”

“
Nice!” I held my hand up for a high five, and she obliged. “Welcome to Pinwheel.”

“
Awesome.” 

We sat around and talked for a little while, then Wendy left. I watched her jog upstairs. She had a cute butt. It wasn’t Anna’s, that’s for sure. Whereas Anna was all curves, Wendy was slim, almost gangly, but she was still nice to look at.