Five Flavors of Dumb (9 page)

“You are. You’re kidding. Either that or you’re completely insane.”

“Technically, no. Although there are times I wonder about that,” I conceded.

Ed sighed dramatically, but forced himself to perk up as a new customer joined us. I figured our conversation was about to be put on hold, so I took a seat at the back of the shop and studied the ancient black-and-white photos of guys in uncomfortable sporting attire holding gigantic oars.

The photos made sense, I suppose, as the shop was called Coffee Crew, a tiny place sandwiched between a pizza parlor and a dry cleaner’s. To be honest, I’m not sure I knew it existed until Ed drew me a map. Half a dozen round oak tables filled the available space, while the warmth of an electric fire lured people to stay a little longer than they might have intended. The seven people who sipped coffee from chunky glasses seemed as much a part of the place as the furniture. I made a mental note to come back again when I wasn’t on business.

As soon as another customer had been satisfied, Ed shuffled over and sat down opposite me. “And I repeat: You’re crazy.”

“It’s just one song.”

“And you want me to teach it to everyone tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Ed shook his head like he couldn’t believe we were really having this conversation, but he also began to sift through the stack of CDs I was placing on the table, which told me his resistance was waning. I tried to hide my relief.

“So what instruments am I writing for now?” he asked. “What does Kallie play?”

“Uh . . . I don’t know.”

Ed frowned. “You were the one who wanted her to join. How can you not know what she plays?”

“You voted for her too!”

He sighed and looked toward the door, presumably hoping that a customer would come in and rescue him. “Fine. One song. I’ll only use the chords of C, F, and G, and maybe A minor if you can promise me we’ll have the whole two hours to work on it tomorrow.”

“Deal.” I held out my hand.

“Fine.” Ed looked at my hand for a couple seconds before he finally shook it, his grip pleasantly firm. Before we let go of each other’s hands I noticed dark stains around his fingernails, and looked closer. “Barista’s fingers,” he explained apologetically, watching me the whole time. “Coffee stains, you know?”

“You have nice hands,” I told him, wondering which of us would let go first.

Ed seemed frozen to the spot until reawakened by the sound of the door opening. “I’ve got to . . . you know,” he said, taking his hand away with him. “So get writing that song.”

“What!?”

“Get writing. I said I’d compose a song, but I’m not writing the lyrics as well. That’s all you.”

“What do I write?”

“I don’t know. Look at the CD inlays and read the lyrics, then come up with something similar.”

I was about to protest again, but Ed clearly valued his job enough to serve customers in a timely manner. Over the next fifteen minutes I scribbled away, penning verse and chorus of the most insipid love song ever composed:

I didn’t hear Ed rejoin me. I didn’t know he was there at all until I saw his reflection in the window from the corner of my eye. I flushed red with embarrassment before he’d said a word.

He sat down opposite me, sipping a large cup of what I hoped was decaf coffee; although, given his usual energy levels, I had a feeling that decaf wasn’t part of Ed’s vocabulary. He saw me staring at the drink and pushed it toward me, reluctantly taking it back when it became clear I wasn’t interested in getting even tenser.

“They’re good lyrics,” he said finally.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”

“I’m serious. I can do something with this.”

That perked me up. “Really?”

“Really.” Ed smiled. “By tomorrow afternoon Dumb will be performing our first love song.”

And then there was silence while we both digested those words.

I’ll be home late today,
I signed to Mom as she headed off to work the next morning.

Mom shrugged.
Tell Dad. I’ll probably be later than you.

Dad was in the kitchen, banging spatulas against countertops and pans to see how Grace would respond. For her part, Grace was enjoying the entertainment, swinging her head around to follow every sound. Eventually she seemed to get bored, craning her neck toward the front door.

Dad clapped his hands and laid a big fat kiss on her tiny forehead. “Good job, Gracie!” He beamed at me. “Incredible, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The way she heard Mom closing the front door. I’m not sure she could hear it a few days ago.”

I felt my chest tighten. “That’s good,” I managed, willing myself to believe I’d actually heard it too.

“Correction: It’s
amazing
.” Dad bent down until he was at eye level with Grace in her high chair. “Simply amazing.”

I wanted to ask him if he’d been as fascinated by the physiology of my hearing loss as Grace’s improvement, but I could guess how that conversation would play out.

“I’m going to be home late, Dad.” Dad nodded, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Grace. “I said I’m going to be home late, okay?”

Dad glanced up. “Oh, yeah, fine. Whatever.”

Whatever
. It was probably one of the top ten words spoken each day at school, but coming from Dad it sounded so very different. I shook my head and was about to leave when he stopped me.

“Hold on. What are you up to?”

“You mean, what am I doing after school?”

“Yeah. That’s what I said.”

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
“Dumb has a rehearsal after school.”

“So? You don’t play anything.”

“I’m the manager.”

“Still? I figured you’d be done with that already.”

“No.”

“Oh. So have you made any money yet?”

And just like that my pent-up anger dissipated, turning me from ferocious tiger to self-pitying kitten. I couldn’t even maintain eye contact.

“Oh,” he said again. “Well, I guess it’s up to you how you spend your free time.”

I nodded vigorously, like we could agree on that, but inside I knew what he was really saying, and I just needed to get away. I yelled to Finn that he had one minute to get in the car, then slammed the front door behind me.

Finn used the full sixty seconds, and when he piled into the passenger seat he was out of breath and his shoelaces were untied.
You’re angry,
he signed.

I rolled my eyes. “And you’re perceptive.”

Finn tied his laces while the engine turned over a gazillion times. When I slammed my fist against the dash, he sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong? Is it me?”

“No!” I shouted. Finn raised his eyebrows expectantly, waited for me to continue. “It’s everything, okay? It’s Dad, and Dumb, and the fact that I need them to learn a whole new song today, and I’m still not sure how to get us serious money.”

“Forget about the money. Focus on getting them to play better. Add some new songs.”

I turned the key again, and this time the engine fired up, blasts of black smoke filling the air behind us. Finn covered his mouth with his scarf, knowing that we’d probably get a lungful as I rolled down the driveway.

I took the car out of first gear—my less-than-ideal solution to a faulty parking brake—and ground the gearstick into reverse. Then I paused. “Sitting in the basement playing guitar with headphones on doesn’t make you an expert, you know.”

Finn stared straight ahead, blinked twice. “Please don’t be mean to me.”

I could have responded with something sarcastic, or dismissive, but I didn’t. Because for all his faults, Finn looked small in the seat beside me, and I knew he was right. Besides, I was about to say something that would annoy him: “We won’t be leaving school until five o’clock tonight.”

Finn kept the scarf wrapped over his mouth, but his eyes gleamed as his hands produced an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

I figured he must be kidding, but as I continued to stare at him it was obvious Finn wasn’t feigning enthusiasm. For whatever reason, the same kid who seemed hell-bent on expulsion seemed positively thrilled that we’d be staying late at school.

Something was up, and I just hoped I found out what it was before Belson did.

Josh had omitted to mention Kallie’s instrument of choice for a good reason: Lo and behold, she was an aspiring guitarist, with the emphasis on “aspiring.” Tash saw Kallie removing a guitar from her case and muttered a phrase that seemed to consist entirely of expletives, while Kallie smiled as if it were the most delightful coincidence in the world.

Josh sidled up and grinned at me, presumably to reassure me that this was all for the best. I even believed it until he wrapped an arm around Kallie’s shoulders, easing her toward him like he was claiming her. Meanwhile Kallie ran her fingers along a broken guitar string, seemingly unaware of his attention.

“Guess this is a bad time to say I don’t have any spare strings, right?” she asked no one in particular.

Josh squeezed Kallie’s shoulders playfully and nodded in Tash’s direction. “Don’t worry, Tash has spares. Can you fix this, Tash?”

Tash glared at Kallie, no doubt thinking of several better uses for a steel string. I contemplated asking Will to bail Kallie out instead, but then I realized that his bass guitar strings wouldn’t work.

“I only have one spare set,” Tash huffed.

Josh produced a five-dollar bill like so much spare change he’d found in the folds of his pocket. “You can get yourself another, right?”

Tash hesitated, but she took Kallie’s battered guitar, wound the string around the nut, and tuned it methodically. Then she tried tuning the neighboring string as well, which instantly snapped. She gazed at her dwindling supply of spare strings and shook her head.

“Have you ever tuned this?”

“Of course,” insisted Kallie.

“With what? A tuning fork?”

“No. I only play by myself, so I just tune the upper strings to the lowest.”

Tash threw up her hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m done. I’m not going to sit here and replace every single string.”

Josh dug into his pocket and retrieved five more five-dollar bills. “Just get on with it, Tash.”

He meant it to end the discussion right there, but instead all eyes were drawn to the wad of notes he dangled like a carrot inches from Tash’s face. Even Will looked up, his face creased like he’d just detected a nasty odor, or maybe in distaste at his brother’s flaunting the family wealth in public.

Tash paused again, but it was just for show. It was clear she’d do it, and was privately hoping that every single one of the strings snapped before she was done.

Which they almost did. Twenty-five minutes later, Kallie had four new guitar strings, Tash had twenty dollars, Josh had his arm surgically attached to Kallie’s shoulder, and Dumb had significantly less than two hours to learn a new song and discover they had just been reinvented as a soft rock band.

“
What
?” Tash exploded.

“Soft rock,” I repeated. “If we can learn this song today, we’ll be heard on KSFT-FM, and interviewed live too.” (Okay, so I was getting ahead of myself, but I figured if it all fell through I’d be out of a job anyway, so it hardly mattered. After all, there were only twelve more days until my month was up.) “It’ll be serious exposure, the kind we can use to get Dumb’s music heard on other stations, maybe even get us paying gigs.”

I knew I had Josh at “exposure.” At “paying,” I had Tash too. I never knew when I had Will, so I just discounted him completely. Then I looked at Kallie—she was technically a member too now, hard as that was to believe—and she smiled back vacantly, which was perfect. Then I signaled to Ed to get started, which he did after an annoyed glance at his watch.

For the next hour and a half I watched with morbid fascination as Kallie tried to coordinate her playing with Tash, Will seemed to slip in and out of consciousness, and Josh sang “I’ll stay with you / We’ll see this through” like he was dry heaving. By the time it was all over, Ed looked exhausted, Kallie seemed to be having second thoughts about joining us, and I’d discovered that my least favorite song in the whole wide world was the one I wrote myself.

If I’d thought that Dumb’s first recording session had taught them a lesson about discipline and studio etiquette, I was sadly mistaken. Tash spent the first five minutes outside with Baz, lecturing him about some aspect of the recording that I probably wouldn’t be able to hear anyway. When she finally joined everyone else, she moved her chair as far away from Kallie as possible, even though they were playing roughly the same music.

“You’ll be pleased to know I brought an extra broom,” said Baz, taking a seat beside me. “You know, just in case you wear out the first one.”

He erupted into laughter, which was kind of annoying, so I pretended that my hearing aids had been turned off. By the time I signaled they were on again, he didn’t bother to repeat the joke.

Even with several legitimate reasons for the recording to go badly—lack of rehearsal time, ongoing issues with the studio headphones, Kallie’s inability to play guitar—Josh decided to spice things up a bit by adding some sound effects (pretend coughing, burping, vomiting) to the first two renditions of “Loving Every Part of You.” I couldn’t exactly hear what he was doing, of course, but I could see it clearly enough. Meanwhile, the rest of the band plowed on, lost in their own little worlds.

When Josh reprised his hilarious antics for the third run-through, Baz had clearly had enough. He jumped out of his chair, shut down the mixing console, and began pacing around the control room.