“Ridiculous,” my mom said again. “When it rains, it pours.”
“I’m in a monsoon, then,” Ames replied. He was still talking directly to me. “But I’ve got a couple of leads on jobs, and some friends with open couches. I’ll be okay.”
My dad was pulling into the driveway, the garage door opening. “You don’t have to resort to that when we have a free bedroom just sitting there,” my mom said. “You’ll stay with us until you find a new place.”
I froze, my fist full of forks.
“Julie, no,” Ames told her, a fake firmness in his voice. “I can’t impose on you like that.”
“You’re not imposing,” she replied. “After all you’ve done for Peyton, and us, it’s the very least we can do.”
Somehow, I managed to set the table, then sit through dinner. Ames was there in my brother’s traditional seat, to my dad’s left and across from me, and now he’d be moving into his room, as well. He continued to pretend to resist, while my mom assured him it was just until he was “back on his feet.” After we ate, I took as long as I could to load the dishwasher and clean up before I went upstairs to do homework. Even so, I had a front-row seat as Ames unloaded his stuff—such a coincidence, he happened to have it all in the car—load by load into the room next to mine. Each time he passed, he glanced in at me. Finally, I shut the door.
CHAPTER
21
“WE’RE IN!”
I’d never seen Eric run before, but in the seconds preceding this announcement, he’d covered the school parking lot in the blink of an eye. Now, panting, he stood before us, eyes wide.
“In . . .” Mac repeated, prompting him.
“The showcase! We made it!” He bent over, hands on his knees, then sucked in a breath and straightened up. “I just got the text.”
“Seriously?” Layla said.
Eric nodded, still breathing hard. “It’s three weeks from this Friday, at Bendo. Five bands, all ages. Holy crap, I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“Dude,” said Irv, who was leaning against the truck, eating a bag of pretzels, “you seriously need to work out more.”
“Three weeks,” Mac said. “Not much time to practice.”
“Which is why,” Eric told him, “we need to go hardcore. Clear the schedule, pedal to the metal. This takes top priority, starting now.”
“Some of us have jobs,” Mac pointed out.
“And lives,” Layla added.
Eric just looked at them. “Are you serious? This is our shot. Our big chance! Winner gets to record a real demo with Hambone Records. That’s where Truth Squad and Spinnerbait started out.”
“Hate Spinnerbait,” Mac said.
“True. But the point is,” Eric continued, “nothing is more important than this.”
“Except my post-school meal,” Irv said. “So if you want a ride, you’re buying at DoubleBurger.”
“I can’t believe you go there,” Layla told him, shaking her head. “Their fries are greasy. And mushy.”
“Just how I like ’em,” Irv replied, and she rolled her eyes. “Come on, Bates. My stomach’s grumbling.”
As he said this, he was still eating pretzels. Irv’s appetite always surprised me, but at times like this, I was almost scared.
“Practice,” Eric said. “Tomorrow, right after school. Yes? I’ll tell Ford.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mac said.
“Do what you have to. This is serious. There’s no gray area here. We win or lose. Triumph or go down in flames. Succeed or—”
“Why is there never a gray area with you?” Irv said. “Everything’s always brilliant or catastrophic.”
“Because,” Eric replied, “that’s the way true artists—”
“That should be your band name,” Layla, studying her phone, said.
Irv said, “True Artists?”
“No. Brilliant or Catastrophic.”
Silence. Due to experience, I was expecting immediate rejection of this from someone (probably Eric), followed by the debate beginning all over again. But then Mac said, “I like it.”
“It is intriguing,” Eric agreed. He thought for a moment. “Also, it fits the idea of our ironic take on the songs we’re doing as well as what they did for the larger community of music. So pop, total earworms: you have to give the songwriters credit. Even while acknowledging the damage they caused not just to the integrity of the music industry, but society as a whole.”
“Society?” I asked.
“I just like how it sounds,” Irv said, starting to walk away.
“I’ll sit with it awhile. Let you know what I think,” Eric told us, falling in behind him. Watching them go, all I could think was that they were the oddest of pairings.
“Huge Guy and Hipster Guy,” Layla observed, once again reading my mind. “They’re like superheroes. Without the, um, super part.”
I snorted, then looked at my watch. I was doing that these days. “It’s getting late. I better go.”