Being Friends With Boys (9 page)

I’m tempted to tell him to dump her right then. To say how she drags on him all the time and that no one else likes her. But I learned early from his thing with Carmen Finney in eighth grade that he doesn’t really want my opinion on his girlfriends. So I just nod, stare back out the windshield, and wait for him to start up the car.

At Oliver’s house, his mom hovers in the kitchen, offering us snacks and juice the minute we walk in. I’m plenty at home here, but it’s still nice how Mrs. Drake always treats me like a favored guest. Eli arrives right after Oliver and I do, which is a good distraction from my excited nervousness about seeing Fabian again. Eli asks Oliver’s mom if it’s going to be okay if they’re practicing down there, what with the noise and all. It is funny how polite he is, in spite of the mohawk. Abe comes in, without knocking, as usual. Mrs. Drake says hello to him and he waves, then the guys beeline downstairs. I hover in the kitchen to be helpful, and hear Eli start up the bass line for “For Your Face.” I’m amazed he’s learned it so fast.

“And how are your sisters doing?” Mrs. Drake asks me, wiping her hands on a towel. I tell her about Jilly, how she likes her roommate and seems to be doing well. I say that Gretchen and Darby are fine. I’m wondering if it’s weird that I’m up here chatting with Oliver’s mom, or if I should go downstairs.

“And you’re all still getting along okay?” Mrs. Drake wants to know.

“Oh yeah.” I nod emphatically. Everyone worried how me and Jilly would deal with two new sisters in the house at first. Still do, I guess, now that it’s just me and them.

Watching Oliver’s mom move around the kitchen in her print skirt and her cashmere sweater, I realize I’m not going downstairs because I’m waiting for Fabian to get here. That I’m jittery-dying to see him. It makes me wish I could tell Lish about him. Some girlfriend, anyway. The way I felt Saturday—the way I feel this minute—is so different than when I first met Clay, the last guy I was even semi-into. With him I was tolerant, I guess. Or maybe obedient. Everyone said he liked me and so I just liked him back. It was like it was already done for me. And it was nice. When we broke up, it sucked, but then I got over it and since then— nobody’s stood out, really. Until now.
But he’
s
just a nice guy in the band
, I tell myself, pressing my hands against my knees.
That’s all.
That’s what I would tell Lish anyway, if we were talking. She’d be able to tell, though, how I think his niceness stretches out of his face—down his arms and his chest—and how badly I want him to think I’m nice too. It’d be a bad idea, I guess, to like someone in the band, though. Not “I guess”; definitely “off limits.” That’s what I’d end up saying to Lish. What I end up saying to myself now.

Oliver bolts up the stairs then, slides into the kitchen in his socks. “Spider,” he says, a little breathless. “Come down here.”

I tell Mrs. Drake to let me know if there’s anything she needs help with, but she waves me off happily.

Down in the rec room, Eli’s moved on to another of our old songs, “Every Kind of Kindness.” He stops, starts over and slows down—trying it a different way. The new pace is jarring, but good. Abe joins in, fleshing out Eli’s rhythm with drum flourishes of his own. They nod at each other. It’s a good fit.

Oliver sits down on the couch in front of the TV, his guitar across his lap.

“I wanted to hear what you thought,” he says. And then he strums lightly, leaning close, humming in my ear so I can hear this new thing. Though it’s hard to hear much outside of Abe and Eli behind us, I recognize the first lines of that “Too Close to See” song that I wrote about Lish. I feel my face brighten.

“Yeah. I mean, I think that’s right.”

Oliver smiles. That slow, full-lipped, wide-mouth one he has that takes up half his face, not showing any teeth. The one that crawls into his deep blue eyes from the bottom.

“I’ve had a couple of tunes in my head,” he goes on, “but that one seemed—” Above us, the doorbell rings. We both look at the ceiling, but neither of us moves. Eli and Abe finish and fist-bump each other. To me, Abe says, “Good, right?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” I tell him.

“All right, then.”

We hear Mrs. Drake greeting Fabian upstairs. His voice comes down through the open door: calm, quiet. Sweet.

I have to smooth my hands on the tops of my jeans to keep them from sweating. I don’t look at any of the guys because I don’t want them seeing my sudden anxiety.
I
don’t want to be seeing my sudden anxiety.
He’s just nice
, I insist to myself. He arrives at the bottom of the stairs, and—is it me? Or as his eyes go around the room, does he seem surprised, in a glad way, that I’m here?

We all say what’s up, and as Fabian unpacks, the boys discuss where to start. I sit, knees up by my chin and arms hugging around my ankles. It’s like watching fish swim around each other in the ocean or something, the way they bob and waver.

“I was wondering,” Fabian says, “if we couldn’t start with ‘Disappear,’ maybe.” He shoves his glasses up his nose. “It might be rough, because I haven’t had as much time to lay anything down, but it’s such a strong song.” He’s apologetic, but not in a ground-scraping way.

Oliver simply nods and goes over to the mic. “Ready?” he asks everyone.

“Let’s do it,” Eli says. I can tell he already knows all the songs and is the type who needs little practice. Or sleep. Only food.

Abe counts off, and immediately I remember him, Oliver, and
Trip starting the set at Nimby’s pool party with this song, Trip vibrating with excitement as I watched from the edge of the deck.

Now it’s incredible and it’s weird at the same time, hearing Oliver’s voice and Abe’s steady drumming mixed with these two new people, who know when to change chords and how it should all go. It’s like a real band. Even more than before. A real band with real songs that I helped write. It’s wonderful. And utterly surreal.

Listening, I realize maybe part of why this song always sounds so good is that Oliver doesn’t play guitar. Not that Oliver isn’t talented. It’s just that focusing both on guitar and vocals can be a little complicated for him. But this song is all about his voice: his arresting ability to make you really
feel
what he’s singing. I mouth the words with him:
“Would you help me disappear? Transparent. Invisible. Nothing. Clear.”
Because of the new guys he’s nervous at first, not knowing where to look, shifting back and forth. You can really see—I can, anyway—how jittery and awkward Oliver can be. I mean, I’ve known him since before either of us went through puberty. Most people think of Oliver as this mysterious, cool guy—a boy who has lots of friends but talks to very few; whom teachers like but are also suspicious of, because he’s mischievous, skips class, and possibly cheats. To everyone else he is charming and a little dangerous. A boy with something up his sleeve. Someone everyone wants to know. And when I look at him, I see all
that, too, but because I remember him from before, he’s also just this too-skinny, too-hyper, too-preppy-for-his-own-good kid.

But when he’s singing—the way he is now, letting go a little, getting into it—this quiet, calm, strong version of Oliver comes out. The one who makes you feel like he’s really seeing you, and understands and likes what he sees.

Maybe it’s this energy that makes him such a good lead singer, that makes him the boy Whitney and all the other girls wish they could grab hold of and keep close. He’s someone you want to have nearby, even if he never really acknowledges your existence, because he just always makes things feel extraordinary.

Sometimes I see Oliver so much, I have to close my eyes.

Which is when I realize I’ve stopped mouthing words and am actually singing a little with him. I’m not the real singer in my family—Jilly is—but in helping her practice, I guess I got used to the feeling of my voice melting with someone else’s. I didn’t think it would feel that way harmonizing with anyone but my sister, but it’s like I can hear my own voice somehow made richer, being carried by Oliver’s. And his is highlighted by mine. Even singing quiet, the experience makes my whole body vibrate, like a harp long after you’ve plucked the last string. It’s like the shell of me disappears and this other part—this raw, feeling part—rises up and takes over.

The end of the song is coming now. When I open my eyes again, I notice that Fabian’s lips are parted, tongue slightly out in concentration. And the way he’s so focused is totally hot. I watch his eyebrows duck down in a tiny frown, concentrating. I wonder what changes his face makes when concentrating on, um, other things. The idea of this fills me with magenta. And I understand that, as beautiful as Trip’s guitaring was, something else has taken its place now—something richer. Listening, I’m out of my body, out of the room. It’s like we’re jellyfish, floating in the sound. We have no bones inside us, are held up only by the music.

When they finish, it takes a moment before I remember to clap. I prepare myself to go into Nit-Pick Mode, because Oliver likes it better if I’m not too gushy right away in my feedback, but mostly I think they were amazing. When Oliver looks up at me, I can see he thinks so, too.

“Well?” Abe says to me, knowing Oliver wants my opinion first.

“Overall it was good,” I say carefully. “Abe and Eli, you should listen a little more to Fabian, and drop back when he comes forward, but overall you’re working together well. I mean, I like it.”

“I’m sorry,” Eli says, rubbing his wiry red mohawk into a further state of disturbance. “But can I just—” He gestures over at me, not wanting to be rude, but clearly confused. “Can I ask who she
is
?”

“That’s Charlotte,” Abe says fast. Though of course they already know that.

“She’s important,” Oliver says, going for his guitar. And I can’t help it—the smile it gives me. “She organizes things for us, writes lyrics.” I think he’s going to explain that part more, but he barely pauses before saying, “So, what next?”

Walking home, I can’t help it. I call Trip.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I say to his voice mail. “I think it’s going to be really, really good.” I pause a second. “But it was weird, you not being there. I just wanted you to know both those things.”

Later, after dinner, I’m falling asleep in the remains of my English reading when my phone rings. Trip.

“Hey.”

“That’s so good,” he says, his voice loose. “That practice was good, I mean.”

“Are you okay?” Something is weird with him. Weirder than today at school.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just—really glad.”

I wait to see if he’ll say more. When he doesn’t, I go: “Okay, well, good.”

“Yeah, it is good. It is. Reading how you describe it, you know, this weekend, it’s all really good. I’m really glad.”

“You said that.”

“Well, it’s just because I am, you know.”

We’re both quiet a minute. I can hear him breathing.

“Okay,” I finally say.

“Okay, well,” he echoes. “I guess that’s all I wanted to say.”

“Got a song for me tonight?”

He makes a thick swallowing sound. “Too sleepy.”

I’m disappointed. And also still not sure something isn’t really whack with him. “Okay, well. Good night?”

“Yeah. G’night.”

My phone blinks that the conversation has ended. I think, for a second, of calling him back again. He sounded drunk. And sad around the edges. But I’m not sure how far we’d get with any kind of conversation, the way he’s just repeating everything I say.

The rest of the week marches forward as normal. Trip catches up with me in the notebook, and when I get it back I spend all of lunch reading about how his classes are difficult but he feels like he might be up for the challenge. He’s glad, he says, that he isn’t going to be weighed down by the band this semester. When I write back, I tell him about practice (Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays is the plan), but I’m also careful, for the first time, about how much I tell him. I’m definitely not going to say anything about Fabian, for example, and how I found myself looking
up famous keyboardists, just so I’d know better what he does. I can’t say, either, how by Thursday, Eli and Fabian already have most of the old songs nailed down and are ready to plunge forward. Which means I also feel weird about mentioning the new songs I’m writing, which is terrible because we used to work on those together.

Mainly I avoid writing about the band at all, and emphasize other things. (Lish-bashing takes up a lot of space.) In the periphery of the rest of my life, Darby and Gretchen fight and Gretchen spends most of her evenings over at her boyfriend’s house. I walk home by myself again one afternoon, just because I know I can. Hannah makes dinner. Dad comes home and tells us funny stories he heard from his clients. Jilly sends me an email. It’s a pretty regular week.

Regular, that is, until third period Friday, when Dr. Campbell hands out another take-home test for us to finish by Monday.

“Aw god,” I groan to Benji, who’s waiting for me outside of class.

“No sweat.” He tries to take my arm, but I pretend I’m reaching for something in my bag. “So, after school? Or tomorrow maybe? What do you want to do?”

“Is it cheating,” I ask him, genuinely unsure, “if we work on it together?”