“God, that’s the dream,” I mumbled. “Getting interested in something that’s actually going to make money.” I always wondered whether other Asian kids had as tough a time as I did, convincing their parents to let them come to an arts school. “Are your parents doctors?” I asked.
“Yeah, my mom’s an anesthesiologist and my dad’s an orthopedic surgeon.”
“I hope my job title never has that many syllables.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re setting the bar pretty low with ‘actor.’”
“Same with ‘painter,’” I retorted.
“Please.” Nihal gave me a wounded look. “Visual artiste.”
It caught me off-guard. I laughed, desperately tried to keep the sound deep, and it came out as a strangled sort of hurr-harr, horf! noise. The sort of laugh a cartoon dog would have.
“Um,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yep absolutely. Yes. Just something. Caught in my throat.” I snapped open my copy of Antigone, face burning, and chewed on the end of my pen.
“Well, there’s a water fountain downstairs, if you need.” Nihal sank back into his drawing. Contented silence took over. In the evening light, a thin barrier collapsed from around me, connecting me to the Crow’s Nest, its centuries-old walls, its scuffed-up armchairs, its summer air. The black flag on the door rippled in the breeze.
Loud, casual voices surged in the stairwell, reawakening my first-rehearsal jitters. Jon Cox and Mama piled in, Adidas logos splashed across their chests, shiny running shoes double-knotted. I blinked rapidly, my eyes playing tricks. The pair of them were complete opposites, with Jon Cox’s golden tan and Mama’s milky complexion, with Jon Cox’s top-heavy muscle and Mama’s evenly distributed fat, with Jon Cox’s swish of blond hair and Mama’s frustrated tangle of dark brown—but their best-friendship was so immediately recognizable, they still somehow looked like twins. They moved in that same bouncing, space-occupying way.
Erik strutted in after them. He had a hand folded in front of his mouth, and with the beat that clattered out from his cupped hand, it sounded like he’d managed to hide a full drumkit between his fingers and his lips. Over Erik’s meticulously parted hair, Jon Cox and Mama continued a heated argument. From the cheerful tone of their bickering, they were enjoying it.
“—like, I’m sorry, but Haydn is bullshit,” Jon Cox said. “All his concertos sound like that boring startup music that plays whenever you open Sibelius.”
“What?” Mama looked like he’d been slapped. “That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me. I’m disowning you.”
“But you’ll give me mommy issues,” Jon Cox said.
“Dude, suck a dick.”
Jon Cox adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses, grinning. “You’ve got to be the only person in the world who cares this much about Haydn.”
“Thousands of scholars—you know what, I’m not talking to you. We’re in a fight.” Mama shook his head, but his eyes were bright with good humor. He headed for the window closest to me and swung it open, waving in more cooling evening air.
Through the open door, Isaac strolled in, and Trav followed, carrying a black folder. Everyone went quiet. Erik stopped beat-boxing. In the sudden hush, I heard the air stirring outside the library, curling around our tower.
“Gentlemen,” Trav said. “Let’s get started.”
In all my time in theater, cabarets, and performances, I’d never seen a group with this rapt focus, especially not a group of boys. Even Marcus, who was on the solo line and had barely anything to learn, shifted in place and waited patiently.
After we’d warmed up, Trav handed me a thick, stapled piece of sheet music. “Love You Forever,” it said at the top, and the subtitle added, “by the Lonely Wingmen.” It was one of those Top 40 radio songs you’d try to escape by switching the station, only to find the same song wailing through every possible wavelength. Just the sight of the title made its infuriatingly catchy hook blare in my head (“I can’t do that / I can’t do that / I can’t do that, oh no, no, no”; repeat until you want to pour boiling oil in your ears). Trav had written my name in crisp blue pen beside the system’s top line. His handwriting looked like a bundled Windows font.
It was all very official until I read the words beneath the notes. Jin jah, it said. Dah din deh dat. Jin jah, love. Jah wah, if you promise you’ll, din deh dat.
I tried not to look amused. It would be like laughing at Trav’s religion.
As we dug into the piece, time fell away. The darkening world outside the windows vanished. Half the time, it seemed like the others weren’t even breathing, they were trained so hard on Trav’s solemn comments.
And those comments. With a few years of trumpet and choir under my belt, I could sight-read decently. I knew my mezzofortes and my crescendos. But what was a “diminished two in second inversion,” and why were Mama and Jon Cox nodding along like it was totally standard? What the hell was a “deceptive cadence”? An obscure supervillain?
I kept my mouth shut, trying to absorb as much as possible. Reassuringly, some of the others weren’t great sight-readers, Jon Cox especially. But the guy could sing back a line perfectly the instant Trav played it, even though line by line, the arrangement didn’t sound like much of anything.
After five minutes’ teaching, Trav ordered us to put the parts together. He counted us in, a collective intake of breath rustled around the circle, and the richness of the sound hit me so hard, I nearly stopped singing. We were loud. Erik and Mama’s voices, deep and vibrant, thrummed like a bass guitar. The soft excitement of the higher parts punctured the baritone lines, creating a texture that popped and danced. This was what I’d heard onstage last spring, the sound that made people in the seats around me shift, tense, and jog their knees in rhythm.
We finished the eight measures he’d taught. Trav, with patient displeasure, gave us an itemized list of everything we’d done wrong, absolutely none of which I’d noticed.
“Again,” he said, finally. “And don’t make me repeat anything.”
So it went. Measure by measure, part by part, line by line, and every so often, we rewound to assemble the phrases. Someone always fumbled something or other, losing a note or the thread of a harmony in the mix, and Trav’s face reflected the problem instantly, a downward twitch of his mouth or a concerned-looking eyebrow.
Half an hour in, Isaac said something to Mama while Trav was teaching a part. It wasn’t loud enough to hear, not even loud enough to distract, but Trav went quiet and still, like a predator going rigid before a killing pounce. Mama’s face slackened with dread.
Trav turned toward Isaac, who looked back unconcerned.
“Your part, Isaac,” Trav said crisply, tapping a note on the piano.
Isaac cleared his throat and sight-sang the line as if it were nothing. Even the weird chromatic part, which Trav seemed to have written in just to make life difficult.
The two guys held eye contact for a long moment. Trav’s lips thinned.