Big Time (9 page)

Jack runs to Granddad's room to get his guitar, and when he comes back we all pull our chairs into a circle and spend the next hour or so enjoying a good old-fashioned sing-along. We run through some of the old songs I've heard Granddad play for as long as I can remember, and then other residents of the home begin shouting out requests. A lot of them aren't his style, but Granddad seems to know them all, from jazz standards to wartime big band anthems to sixties folk songs. Nobody knows all the words to the songs, but it doesn't matter—there are enough people who know various bits and pieces that the rest of us pick up what we can and the music keeps rolling along.

I watch Granddad play one tune after another, amazed that he has so many chords and lyrics and melodies stored in his mind. At one point or another, he took the time to memorize each one of these songs, and now he's able to access them, belt them out, share them with the world. Keith has the same kind of dedication and wants to learn as much as he can about music. It's not just a skill or a hobby, it's a passion. I'm starting to feel that way too.

“How about it, Gerri?” asks Granddad. I snap out of my daydream and realize that the music has stopped and everyone's looking at me.

“Sorry, what did you ask?”

“How's about doing a duet with your old granddad?” he asks. “One from the old days.”

“I thought these were all from the old days,” says Jack, and everyone laughs.

“Sure, Granddad,” I say. “What were you thinking?”

He starts playing and I recognize the song right away, and when he finishes the intro, I'm prepared to sing along with him.

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you,
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you,
Away, I'm bound away
'Cross the wide Missouri
…

I expect people to pick up the words and begin to sing along as we get further into it, but everyone stays silent, letting the two of us sing this one together. I get so caught up in the music that I forget there's anyone listening to us until the song ends and they break into loud applause. I glance over at my parents and am surprised to see them beaming—my dad's eyes have even welled up with tears.

It's not like there are all that many people here, but it's obvious that we've made an impact. I can't imagine feeling any better if I'd just performed for a live studio audience.

“I can't remember you ever sounding even half as good as you did today, Gerri,” my mother says as we're driving home.

“It was beautiful,” says Dad.

“I'm just going to come out and say it,” says Mom. “I'm happy you didn't get picked by
Big Time
. This choral group is the best thing that's ever happened to you.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I'm learning a lot. I think I'll be a lot more prepared for next year's auditions.”

“Tyler says you guys have a show lined up,” says Jack. “What's that all about?”

Mom turns around, her eyes wide. “What?! Where? When?”

“It's not really a show,” I tell them. “We're going to perform a couple of songs at an open mic downtown. It's not a big deal.”

“You bet it's a big deal,” says Dad. “As if you weren't going to tell your parents about your first public performance!”

The truth is, I haven't been looking forward to the Human Bean open mic. When Keith mentioned it to Ms. Kogawa, she jumped all over it, calling the managers and making sure it would be okay for us to do two numbers. Now we're booked in for the end of the month, which only gives us a few weeks to practice.

That would all be fine except for the fact that working with Bernice on her mashup has been zero fun. She's determined to keep the piece pretty much exactly the way she imagined and wrote it in the first place, which means it's as lame now as it was the day she proposed it, even though we've been meeting for an hour a week to work on it. At least, Bernice and I have been meeting for an hour a week. After a couple of meetings Tyler stopped showing up, blaming it on college applications and track practice.

It's not like I can blame him, but I don't have good excuses like he does, so I'm stuck with her. I'm intimidated enough by her background that I have a hard time making suggestions, and on the few occasions I try, she shoots them down. Eventually, I give up altogether and spend the weekly meeting sitting on the couch in her basement, watching her play the parts again and again on her piano.

Ms. Kogawa has started breaking up Sunday rehearsal into two segments. During the first half, we work on Macy and Davis's mashup, which is super fun to sing and is getting better with every week, thanks to Olive's and Keith's contributions. In the second half of rehearsal, we do Bernice's, which practically puts us all to sleep.

A couple of weeks out from our performance, Ms. Kogawa tells us that we need to lock things down.

“Take some time this week to iron out the final bugs in your pieces,” she says. “Next week we'll do a last rehearsal before the open mic. I've decided that we'll start with Bernice's piece. It's slower, so it will get the crowd used to us and give us a chance to showcase our vocals. Then we'll finish with the faster piece, because it will pump the crowd up.”

“I think she means wake them up,” Tyler whispers to me.

We run through each of the songs from start to finish before wrapping up for the day. Bernice heads toward me as I'm filling my backpack. Tyler glances over and bolts when he sees her coming.

“I was thinking we should get together one more time tomorrow and make sure everything's in order with the piece,” Bernice says. “Can you come to my house after supper?”

“I can probably do that,” I say.

“I guess there's no point asking Tyler,” she says. “Even when he does show up, he doesn't contribute anything.”

I'm left wondering what it is she thinks I contribute, but I'm not about to make an issue out of it.

Keith comes up to me as I'm leaving. “Hey, Gerri,” he says. “You interested in grabbing a coffee at Human Bean?”

My heart skips a beat.
Is this a date
?

“Sure,” I say. “Sounds great.”

“Cool,” he says. “Macy and Davis and I were just gonna hang out for a while and talk about the mashups.”

It's a bit of a letdown that he isn't actually asking me out, but I'm still happy to tag along with them. I've been wishing I was in their group since the day Ms. Kogawa assigned us. One of the things I've regretted most about the way she broke up the class is that while working with Bernice is a boring chore, the other group has gotten really friendly. I know that they've been hanging out regularly and messing around with other ideas for songs, which sounds like a lot more fun than sitting in Bernice's basement twiddling my thumbs.

Macy has their parents' car, so she drives us downtown to the café. Inside, we grab seats near the empty stage. I hadn't noticed how small it is before.

“We'll be crowded up there, hey?” I say.

“Yeah,” says Keith. “We'll probably have to spill over onto the floor.”

“Maybe we can arrange it so that Bernice ends up standing in the bathroom and we can conveniently forget to do her song,” says Davis.

Macy elbows him in the arm.

“Sorry, Gerri,” he says. “I forgot you were here. Your group's song is lovely and emotional.”

I laugh. “You don't have to worry about offending me,” I say. “I don't really have anything to do with it. I just show up and she tells me what to do.”

“You shouldn't let her get away with that,” says Macy.

“It's true,” says Keith. “You're really good. You could bring a lot to the song if she'd let you.”

I'm surprised to hear them talk like this, as if I have something to contribute besides my voice.

“I don't really know much about that stuff,” I say.

“What stuff? Music stuff?” asks Keith. “Come on, Gerri. You've got a great voice, and you have a better ear for harmony than anyone else in the group.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I say. “I don't even know how to read music that well.”

“You're learning though,” says Macy. “You really have a great sense of what sounds good. It's not just being able to sing a melody line—it's being able to interpret it, to know when to sing loud or soft, how to balance with other singers. It's really cool. Anyone can learn to read music and understand theory. The hard part is the stuff that comes naturally to you.”

My first impulse is to assume they're just being nice, but they look totally serious. What if they're right? What if I'm actually talented, not just with a decent voice but with a good head for music? Not that it really matters now, at least as far as the song is concerned. Our last meeting is tomorrow, and it's not like I can come up with any suggestions by then, let alone convince Bernice to take them.

“The problem,” says Davis, echoing my thoughts, “is that it really doesn't make much difference at this point.”

“Doesn't hurt to try,” says Keith.

“I wouldn't know how to begin,” I say.

“How did you guys figure out your songs?” Keith asks Macy and Davis.

“We just kind of messed around with different songs and stuff,” says Macy.

“Only took an hour or so to get the basic idea down,” says Davis. “The rest was just figuring out how to make it work.”

“I don't think I can come up with anything that quick,” I say.

“Don't worry about it,” says Macy. “I'm sure it will all sound great when we have the chance to do it in front of an audience.”

None of them look all that convinced, though.

Chapter Thirteen

After we leave Human Bean and Macy drops me off at home, I can't get their suggestion out of my mind. I keep running through “Love Doesn't Die” and “The Brightest Star in Space” in my head, trying to drop a new song into the center, something that will make the other two sound different the way “Pop Goes the Weasel” turns “Rock and Roar” into something unique.

Eventually, I just give up. It's too hard to imagine introducing something to those two dramatic, powerful songs that will help make a new sound. By the time Dad calls me down to eat, I've pretty much decided that Keith, Macy and Davis were mistaken about my abilities.

“Go call your mother in from the garden, will you, Gerri?” Dad asks as he dishes up spaghetti.

I yell into the shadows at the back of the yard and grab a seat at the table. Mom comes in a few moments later, her hair a mess and her hands covered with dirt. She looks totally frustrated.

“What happened to you?” Dad asks as she washes up.

“Oh, it's that stupid lilac stump near the shed,” she says. “I spent almost two hours hacking at it with an ax, digging as far down around the roots as I could, and it won't come out.”

“Why don't you just leave it in the ground?” asks Jack.

“I can't leave it there,” she says, “because I want to plant a new perennial bed on that spot, and the stump is in the way. Nothing will be able to put down roots because there's a big hunk of dead wood taking up all the space.”

“That's it!” I exclaim. Everyone turns to look at me.

“What's it, sweetheart?” asks Dad.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just got an answer for a homework question.”

I hurry through supper, then race up to my room and go online. The problem with the two songs Bernice chose, I've realized, is that they're just too powerful together. For something else to fit in and change the sound, one of them has to be removed completely. I doubt Bernice will agree to it, but at least nobody can say I didn't try, even if no one ever hears what I come up with. I almost want to do this more for my own satisfaction than to change Bernice's composition.

I spend more than an hour watching videos and listening to songs online, closing my eyes and trying as hard as I can to imagine how each song could drop into “Love Doesn't Die,” but nothing seems to work.

After I've unsuccessfully run through what seems like a hundred options, I groan and spin around in my chair, wondering if there's any point at all. That's when I glance across my room, and everything clicks into place.

I walk to Bernice's house early the next evening, wondering how I'm going to bring up my idea. It turns out to be easier than I expected.

She opens the door before I even have a chance to knock.

“Come on in,” she says. “We need to get to work.” She waits impatiently as I take off my shoes, then bounds down the stairs to the rec room so fast that I can barely keep up. She drops onto her piano stool and looks at me frantically.

“What's the matter, Bernice?” I ask. She's acting bizarre.

“It just isn't working!” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“My—I mean our—mashup,” she says. “I tried to do everything properly. I picked songs that have similar tempos and are in the same time signature, but it just doesn't work!” She pauses and looks at me almost desperately. “You need to help me out—you've got a good ear. You need to help me make the harmonies more exciting or something.”