Write This Down (10 page)

Kylee and I order steamers—vanilla for her, raspberry-chocolate-hazelnut for me (I love when a barista lets me mix flavors). Steamers aren't a coffee drink; they're just warm milk with Italian soda syrups mixed in—yum. We sit at the only empty table we can find. Unfortunately, it's right next to the performance space. So much for hoping that Hunter might not even see me there. I don't want him to know about the review until it's too late to stop me.

The first band up is called the Electric Orangutans. Their five members are singing a song that sounds like a deafeningly loud chant by medieval monks wearing black jeans and black T-shirts. If it has words, rather than guttural hums, I can't make out what they are.

I take a sip of my steamer. Kylee produces her knitting from her oversized purse. A thought pops into my overheated brain (it's too warm in here, as well as too loud): Given that there are no empty tables right now, Cameron—if he comes—may need to sit at ours.

Is it okay if I join you?
I imagine him saying or, rather, mouthing, since it's too loud for any words to be heard.

Or maybe he'd pantomime, pointing to the one empty chair at our small table, and then to himself, with a questioning expression on his face:
Do you mind?

Now I almost wish I hadn't begged Kylee to come.

It would have been almost like a
date
for Cameron and me.

Except for all the ways it isn't.

Ten minutes later, the Orangutans are apparently done performing. They've started putting their instruments back in the cases and dismantling their drums so that Paradox can set up.

But where is Paradox?

Then I see them, coming in from a door in the back, the stage door, probably.

Cameron is with them. He's helping Hunter drag in the many components of his drum set: bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat cymbals. I can't believe someone as wonderful as Cameron is a roadie for someone as awful as Hunter. Maybe he doesn't think Hunter is as condolence-worthy as he led me to believe.

Kylee keeps on knitting, but her eyes meet mine. I'm definitely glad I made her come with me now. She's the only reason I can survive being here at all.

It's blissfully quiet in the Spotted Cow between sets. The barista who made my triple-flavored steamer comes to the mike to make an announcement.

“Thanks for coming out tonight, everyone,” he says, “to support live music. Our musicians aren't getting paid for their time and talent, so remember to tip generously.”

He points to a large jar on top of the piano, about two feet away from Kylee and me, which has one twenty-dollar bill in it. I'm sure it was put there ahead of time to inspire customers to tip large-denomination bills rather than whatever spare change they find in their pockets.

“And now please join me in welcoming to the stage … Paradox!”

The audience gives a roar of applause. Kylee and I clap, too. I'm opening my Moleskine to a blank page and uncapping my pen when Cameron sits down next to me.

No mouthed request to join us, no humble chair-pointing gesture. He sits down, as if any empty chair is for the taking, including the one that happens to be at our table.

Then he smiles at me, not a huge toothy grin that lights up his face, but a sort of slow half smile, like:
We meet again
.

I might faint.

I'm still going to take notes on the concert. Maybe Cameron will think it's cool that I'm willing to sit in public devoting myself to my art. Maybe it will look as if I don't care what anybody else thinks, just the way he doesn't care what anyone else thinks—even though I actually do care about what
he
thinks more than anything else in the world. But it's hard to anticipate what he'll think about anything.

As the band plays their first number—and I have to admit it sounds good, with a catchy melody and driving beat—I write down cleverly disparaging turns of phrase I can use in my review:

The real paradox is that anybody would ever voluntarily listen to this music.

If you want a way to kill live music, this is it.

If not dead before, the song was beaten to death by the mishandled drumsticks of incompetent drummer Hunter Granger.

The torn T-shirts, evidently purchased from some rockstar-wannabe website, were designed to give the false impression of having been ripped by adoring fans.

They make the error of confusing
loud
with
good
.

The original artists who first recorded these songs should sue.

Another number finishes, to whoops and hollers from the audience. Oh, well. Opinions can differ. That's why reviews are interesting to read, because not everybody thinks the same way about everything.

David, at the mike, says something, and I hear Cameron's name. He must have said either that the
last
song was by Cameron or that the
next
song would be by Cameron. Do people announce a song before or after it's played?

I was hardly listening to the song they just played, too busy thinking up witty insults. But it didn't sound as if it had come pouring out of Cameron's soul.

It has to be the next song, I decide.
Please let it be the next song.

The tempo changes. The song is slower, softer, not music for which you'd need earplugs. I wish I had a copy of the lyrics so I could read along as David and Timber sing, but I can make out at least some of the words.

“I tell myself that I don't care …

But I do.

I tell myself that it's just me …

But it's you.”

I can't tell if the boy in the song is trying to tell the girl he's falling
in
love with her or
out
of love, only that he's sad about whatever it is because it doesn't fit with the person he thinks of himself as being. I wish I could download it on my phone and listen to it ten thousand times.

Maybe the boy in the song is falling
in
love.

Maybe the girl is me.

 

15

We do peer critiques of our reviews in class on Wednesday. When Ms. Archer stands up to read out the names of the people in each group it occurs to me to really,
really
hope I'm not with Cameron. He did give me condolences for having Hunter as a brother, but he never said anything snarky about Hunter's band, the band about which I've written the most devastating review in the annals of journalism.
His
brother is in the band, too. The band performed one of
his
songs, producing the only line of praise in the entire review, which, now that I imagine Cameron reading it, is over-the-top gushing, and something I'd feel awkward if he read, sitting right there next to me. Of course, he'll be able to read it if the review gets published. But it will feel different then.

If we're in the same critique group, I'm going to have to get a pass for the health room.

We're not.

I get Max Fruh, who's an okay writer but not great; Tyler, who might appreciate the artful nastiness of my review; and Olivia, who would like my review a lot more, I'm sure, if she were the one who had written it.

“So who wants to go first?” I ask after I've led the way in dragging our chairs into a corner of the room as far away from Cameron's group as possible. Olivia isn't the only one who can take a leadership role.

The others shrug.

“Okay, I'll start,” I say, pretending I don't care either way.

I pass out copies of the review for them to read. Ms. Archer has us bring four copies to class on peer-critique day.

As they start reading, Ms. Archer pulls up a chair to join us. She likes to circulate from group to group. She never says anything about the piece itself; she just listens to the critique to make sure we're following her guidelines: Start with something positive. Ask questions of the author rather than making assumptions. Don't try to rewrite someone else's piece the way you would have written it. Stay constructive.

I hand Ms. Archer my copy of the review so she can read along.

Please, please, please let her think my review is good enough to be published in the
Peaks Post
!

I hear Tyler chuckle. I wonder which line he just read. Maybe it was “There's bad, there's horribly bad, and then there's Paradox.” Or “It's paradoxical how songs by artists as different as John Lennon, Prince, and Coldplay can all end up sounding exactly the same.”

Olivia takes the lead again once it's clear everyone has finished reading. This time she's not being bossy: by Ms. Archer's rules, the person sitting to the right of the author facilitates that person's critique.

“So?” Olivia says. “What does anyone like in Autumn's review?”

“It's hysterical,” Tyler says. “It's piss-your-pants hilarious. Man, that band must capital S-U-C-K.”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I liked that part, too.” He's the kind of kid who waits to hear what someone else says and then says he agrees with it.

I notice Olivia doesn't say anything
she
likes about it. Instead she says, “I have a question for Autumn. What do you think the reader will
learn
about this band from your review?”

“Um—that they're terrible?” I offer.

“But terrible
how
?” Olivia asks. “Is it their choice of music that's terrible? Or their playing? What
about
their playing? Are they off-key? Is there something odd about their interpretations? We get that they're loud, but all rock bands are loud. We get a lot of funny insults about the band, but I don't think you really supported them with
examples
and
details
.”

I look over at Ms. Archer to see if she's nodding, as Olivia practically quoted her directions to us from last week word for word. But she just sits with her head tilted to one side, the way she does when she's paying close attention.

“Well, I guess I could put more of that part in,” I mumble.

What
does
make a band bad? Olivia's question might be fair, but it's hard to answer.

That it has my brother in it
isn't going to be enough.
That my brother said even worse things about me
isn't going to be enough either.

“The line about Cameron's song doesn't fit in with the rest,” Tyler says.

“Is that the same Cameron as our Cameron?” Max asks. My sudden blush gives the answer away. “I didn't know he wrote songs. Cameron!” Max shouts across the room. “Autumn wrote about you in her review!”

Cameron looks up at the sound of his name.

“She loved your song!” Max shouts.

Well, I did love his song. What's so terrible about that?

“She said”—and now Max is reading aloud from the review, despite Ms. Archer's attempt to shush him—“‘The only redeeming feature of the evening was the haunting ballad by promising songwriter Cameron Miller.'”

Okay. Now I'm cringing almost as much as I did when Hunter read my poem to his friends. I might as well have a big sign hanging around my neck saying
AUTUMN GRANGER IS IN LOVE WITH CAMERON MILLER
.

But wouldn't Cameron want to know that the only reviewer at the gig thought his song was wonderful? If I had written a song and he had heard it performed and called it a “haunting ballad,” I'd be delirious with joy.

Cameron's eyes meet mine but reveal nothing.

To my relief, Tyler focuses our group's discussion back on the substance of what I wrote. “It's an okay line, but I'd like the review better if it was a hundred-percent hating on the band.”

“But then it wouldn't be true,” I put in, even though another one of Ms. Archer's rules for the groups is that the author isn't supposed to say anything except in reply to a direct question.

“Autumn,” Olivia reprimands me.

As if she's never defended herself when a comment is unfair, which she does
all the time
.

“Anything else?” Olivia asks.

Tyler and Max shake their heads.

“Maybe…” Olivia begins. “It's just … when you're writing a review? Sometimes funny can come out sounding just … mean.”

So Olivia isn't critiquing my review. She's critiquing
me
.

As always, Olivia looks over at Ms. Archer for her approval.

Maybe Ms. Archer will tell her,
Now, Olivia, remember, we're here to discuss the writing. It's not our job to comment on the character of the writer as a person.

She doesn't.

She smiles and says, “Thanks for letting me sit in for a while.” Not that we had any choice.

Then she heads over to another group.

Did she like my review? Or not?

After all, she's the one who told us that the pen is mightier than the sword. That has to mean that it's okay to use the pen sometimes
as
a sword.

Doesn't it?

 

16

Olivia's snide comments burn a hole in my heart all morning. But at lunch, when I tell Kylee what Olivia said about my review, she says, “Oh, come
on
. It wouldn't be funny if it was all nicey-nice.”

After school Kylee and I get a ride from my mom to the public library. We're supposed to be finding books on the Cherokee Trail of Tears (Kylee) and the Iroquois Confederacy (me) for reports due next week for multicultural history. But first we're looking at the fiction in the YA nook to see if there are any new Creekside Clique books for Kylee or Princess of Paragonia books for me. Even though Kylee is the nicest person at Southern Peaks Middle School, she adores books about mean girls. Even though I'm the daughter of an orthodontist and a homemaker living in suburban sprawl, I devour books about heroic quests and tragic love. Maybe that's not surprising. Readers love to read not only about themselves but also about characters who are as different from them as anyone could be.