“Fair enough.”
Inside the garage, Hunter was standing front and center, tuning an electric guitar. A guy I knew from school—a senior, I think—sat behind a drum kit that had seen better days, and another guy, totally unfamiliar, was wielding a bass like a weapon, a look of contempt on his face.
“This isn’t working,” the bass player grumbled as we approached, setting his instrument down dramatically on the stand at his feet. Hunter looked up, and Abby waved. He nodded at us and gestured with his chin for us to take a seat in the two folding chairs that were off to the side, but still in plain view of the band. We sat.
“We have to practice, even if Shay isn’t here. There are only a few weeks left till Sol Jam.” The drummer peered over a cymbal at the bass player, like a parent reminding a child to do his chores. The bass player rolled his eyes, and Hunter continued to tune his guitar, ignoring the other two.
Abby and I looked at each other nervously. It felt like we’d walked into the middle of something we weren’t supposed to hear. I was just contemplating grabbing Abby’s elbow and dragging her out of there when she stood up and squared her shoulders.
“Hi, guys, or should I call you the Frisson?” She laughed too loudly and smiled too brightly. I cringed for her. “Um, I’m Abby Gold, and I write for the Henderson Herald. I’m sure Hunter has told you about the article I’m going to write.” Bass and Drums looked at her blankly. “Right. And this is Tatum Elsea; she’s designing the Sol Jam poster, and if I can convince her, she’s going to help me with the article.” I raised an eyebrow to no one in particular. It wasn’t me who needed convincing.
“Hey,” I said, and tried to smile.
Hunter finally stopped messing with his guitar. “This is Paolo.” He pointed to the guy behind the drums. He waved his drumsticks at us and smiled. “And that grump in the corner is Kyle. Ignore him.” Kyle said nothing. No smile, no wave, no friendly gesture at all.
“Our fourth member, Shay, is unfortunately on vacation,” Paolo said.
I would probably need a vacation if I were in the middle of an entire summer of band practice with Kyle too. His sour attitude definitely needed to be tempered by some sand and a cool ocean breeze. I could think of a few people I’d like to take a vacation from as well. If that was Shay’s intention, she sounded like someone I’d get along with.
Kyle took his bass back up and started picking out a line. Hunter and Paolo exchanged a look that affirmed Kyle was the timekeeper and perhaps tyrant of the band. The boys launched into something that sounded a little bit rock, a little bit folk, and a little bit something all on its own. Even without a microphone, Hunter’s lead vocals cut through the instrumentals like an emotional laser. The lyrics spoke about the possibility of love, of wondering what might come next, and I fully believed that Hunter knew just what that felt like as he sang.
Kyle and Paolo were uber-focused on their instruments, concentrating on playing the right notes and keeping the beat, but I couldn’t help but notice Hunter’s eyes stayed on Abby. A quick glance to my left confirmed that Abby was waffling back and forth between watching Hunter sing and pretending to take notes about the performance in her journalist’s steno pad. I checked myself before I laughed at the rows of hearts and stars she’d drawn instead. Good for them. I wonder which one of them would crack first. I hoped it would happen soon, before my feeling like an unwanted third wheel set in.
By the fourth song, I’d relaxed enough to start singing along with their bluesy arrangement of a pop song that’d achieved overplayed-on-the-radio status months ago. Abby pulled me out of my chair and we did a clumsy jitterbug, twirling each other around the dusty concrete floor of the Hansen garage. By the time the song ended, my sides ached from laughing so hard. As Abby dropped my hands, I looked up at the guys. They were all grinning like clowns at us, which I assumed was a good thing. At least they weren’t pointing and laughing.
“Do you ladies want to be our official fly girls?” Paolo stood up from behind his drums and started making some jerky movements with knee bends and robot-like arms. I covered my mouth and stifled a laugh.
“I think our moves were better than that.” Abby put a hand on her hip in mock annoyance.
Hunter swept his hair to the side. “You could be plants in the audience during Sol Jam. If a whole crowd of people got up and danced during our show, that would be awesome.”
Kyle nodded in agreement. “And then it won’t just be Shay acting like a fool on stage.”
“What does Shay do?” I asked.
“Ignore Kyle,” Hunter interjected. “Shay just likes to have fun. Stands up while playing the piano, dances around, people seem to like it.” He shrugged. “Generally, the audience is into it,” Hunter said a little louder in Kyle’s direction. He leaned closer to us and whispered, loudly, “Some people don’t have much of a sense of humor.”
“Noted. So that was really fun. Thanks for letting us crash.”
“Thanks for risking it.” Hunter half-smiled at me. He’d set his guitar down in its stand and taken a few steps closer to Abby. “Do you want to, um, talk about your notes, Ab?”
“Oh, sure.” She blushed so red, her cheeks looked purple in the fluorescent lighting of the garage. She parked herself back in her chair, and Hunter sat down in mine.
“I’ll just go use the restroom,” I said to no one in particular, and booked it into the house. After finishing up, I came back out, and smiled when I saw Abby and Hunter both hunched over, talking like no one else was in the room. Kyle was fiddling with his bass again, but Paolo beamed up at me from his stool as I approached.
“So you’re making our poster, right?”
I nodded. “It looks that way. Which reminds me, I have some samples in the car. Do you want to look at them?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
He followed me to Abby’s brother’s car, jaw practically dragging on the ground when he saw it. “This is yours?”
“Uh, no. I am not to be trusted.”
He looked at me quizzically, but didn’t say anything more. I pulled out my hobo bag and handed him the samples. Paolo studied them for several minutes, and the longer he took, the more my heart raced and the harder I gripped the car door. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to people looking at my work and deciding if they wanted to use it to promote themselves. Letting me help them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get used to it.
When my knuckles were fully white and aching, Paolo lifted his eyes to meet mine and handed me back the mock-ups. “These are awesome!”