I was early. I waited. I’d half-expected to find ancient catacombs down here, lined with flickering torches and maybe some disturbingly humanoid skulls, but the basement wasn’t as old-fashioned as the rest of the music library. The underground halls had the shabby appearance of something built on a whim in the seventies and totally ignored ever since, with chintzy still-life paintings dangling here and there.
After a few minutes, a tall kid shouldered his way out of practice room 003—my competition. He was handsome in a baseball-player sort of way, with a round face and floppy chestnut hair. He nodded to me before disappearing upstairs.
Shit. Did the Sharps care how good-looking the auditioners were? That was part of their whole shtick, right? Being stupidly attractive? Maybe I could pass as a guy, but I somehow doubted I could pass as a hot guy.
J. Crew Junior wasn’t hot, I reassured myself. But that was because he hadn’t looked old enough to be hot yet. Even he was pretty, like one of those weirdly old-looking Renaissance babies from art history slides.
I should’ve found a suit. A suit could turn a 6-out-of-10-looking dude into a solid 8.
My watch’s second hand ticked across home base: seven thirty. I knocked, and deep within practice room 003, a muffled voice called something that the soundproofing blurred into nothing. I cracked the door and slipped in.
The room was bigger than I’d expected. Filing cabinets were lined up along one wall, and a grand piano sat against the other, sleek and black, lid down. Isaac Nakahara sat on the lid, legs crossed. Baritone God—Trav—was perched at the piano bench with the ramrod posture of a soldier. He was even more solemn up close. His face looked as smooth and unlined as marble, like he’d never smiled in his life.
Dr. Graves was nowhere to be seen, but the other Sharps littered the room. They weren’t all hot, thank God. Mainly, they were just intimidating, eyeing me with such obvious evaluation that I got the urge to somersault under the piano.
The seven of them made up a decently representative sample of Kensington kids: majority white, but not by much, overall well-dressed, and covered in symbols of the Kensington “middle class,” which was a pretty ill-defined term around here. They wore crisp neon running shoes, Mizuno or Asics or Nike, barely broken in, a new pair bought every season or so. On wrists gleamed watches that bore zero resemblance to the scrap of Walmart plastic on my arm. These were a different species, muscular chunks of silver with miniature dials set into their generous faces, which made sense, because if your watch is as expensive as multiple watches, why not get a few extra dials in there? And tossed over shoulders were Kensington hoodies from the bookshop, soft and thick.
I only envied the school gear. Everything emblazoned with the Kensington logo was marked up obscenely for no other reason than that it was part of this place, and if you wore it, then you were part of this place, and eighty dollars—for most kids here—wasn’t too steep a price to belong a little more.
“Julian!” greeted Isaac from the piano, with so much familiarity in his voice, you’d think we’d known each other for years. “Great to see you.”
“Y-you too.”
“You have a good weekend?”
“It, um, yes, good,” I blurted, and resisted the strong urge to whack my forehead repeatedly on the door. God, get it together.
Isaac grinned, showing pointy canines. “Well, welcome to callbacks. First, let me tell you a bit about us.” He flourished a hand at the guys. “We are the Sharpshooters. Originally, the group was called the Wing Singers, and they performed at the cathedral services, but that was ages ago. We’ve been here since Kensington added the music school in 1937. I mean, not us specifically, we haven’t been here since the thirties.” He reconsidered. “Except Trav, who has absolutely been here for eighty years.”
Trav closed his eyes. “Isaac . . .”
Isaac shot him a grin and barreled on. “In terms of workload, we practice every night from eight to nine. We’ve got two gigs for the school in fall, another three in spring. And this year, we have that competition in December against the other groups, and if we win, we’ll get to tour in Europe with Aural Fixation.”
From the corner, J. Crew Junior let out a snicker. “Oral,” he said.
Isaac looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Yes, Erik, thank you for your contribution.” He unfolded his legs, letting a mile of dark wash denim hang over the edge of the Steinway. Scanning his outfit, I felt a sudden flash of insecurity about how I looked in my cheap, formless disguise. I hated how sensitive I’d become to minuscule markers like the Polo player on Isaac’s gray V-neck. It wasn’t that I wanted to care about brand names, but they were loud. When I met one of those kids wallpapered in brands, it felt like they wanted me, specifically, to know they were wearing a thousand dollars’ worth of cashmere or cotton or silver or leather. It was the least I could do to acknowledge it.
Trav lifted the lid from the piano keys. It creaked very slowly. When he spoke, it was with sinister softness: “We will win that competition. Or else.”
Isaac nodded. “There’s that lighthearted attitude we love so much.”
I suppressed a laugh. Isaac looked at me in time to catch the tail end of my grin. “I think that’s it,” he said, looking satisfied. “Questions?”
I shook my head.
“Then it’s all you, Trav.”
“Mm.” Trav’s nose wrinkled. “Off the piano.”
Isaac rolled his eyes but jumped off the lid. He leaned deep into Trav’s personal space, pulling one of those boy-stretches that showed the flexing sides of his underarms.
Trav sighed, shoved Isaac away by the shoulder, and looked back to me. “Let’s get started,” he said, in the tone that most movie villains would use to say, “Prepare to die.”
The other Sharps leaned against the wall as Trav guided me through a range test, marking my results in a leather-bound journal. He played a series of notes on the piano and ordered me to sing them back, adding a new note to the end with each repetition. Finally, he played a set of chords and asked me to sing the top, middle, or bass note.
His facial expression didn’t flicker, offering no clue as to how well I was doing. Finally, he scribbled something in his journal and flipped it shut.
“Circle up,” he ordered, standing. “One last thing. A blend exercise, to see how you sound with the group.”
The Sharps came forward from the wall. I hesitated before joining the circle. It was one thing to fool them from a stage, another to do it a foot in front of their faces. I stood between Trav and a boy wearing a turban, keeping my face tilted downward.
“Erik, lights,” said Trav. The tiny bass hit the light switch and darkness clamped down. The sudden invisibility felt freeing. I waited for a pitch, for a direction, anything.
Then a hand grabbed me.
“Hey.” I twisted away from the contact, staring blindly around. Another hand landed on my shoulder. One grabbed my arm. “Dude,” I said, stumbling back. “What—”
“Shut the fuck up,” said Trav’s voice, calm and steely. It shocked me so much I went still. Someone’s hand found my face, and a piece of cloth stretched over my eyes in the dark, back behind my head.