Casey Barnes Eponymous (18 page)

Always knew you were a man of refined taste,
she
wrote back.
 
Another moment
passed.
 
Still no response from
Ben.
 
Then it came.
 

Not bad, Barnes.
 
Not bad at all.

24

By the end of day one of talent show auditions, the front-runners
for the coveted music slots revealed themselves to be:

1. The Alex Deal band.
 
Otherwise known as ‘Air Morocco.’
 
Ben rolled his eyes when they said their name, but everyone else was
under their cooler than thou spell hook, line, and sinker.
 
Air Morocco glanced at the crowd with a
look of dominance and then played their audition song.
 
Everyone applauded loudly when they were
done.

2. Hair Band were three juniors who played heavy metal music,
wore long blonde wigs and fake tattoos, and set up a shrine to Yngwie Malmsteen
on the guitar amp.
 
Under the guise,
Hair Band were clean-cut and square.
 
The singer/guitar player wrote book reviews for the school paper, the
bass player was in the Dungeons and Dragons club, and the drummer was a math
team buddy of Sukh’s, something Casey did
not
approve
of.
 
After she saw Sukh speaking to
him she snapped, “What if he steals band secrets, Sukh?
 
Huh?
 
Blood’d be on your hands, Sikh man.”

“Though it’s okay for you to consort with the phlegmatically
instrumental rockers,” Ben said.
 
She
scowled.
 

Hair Band had humor going for them.
 
And they also played in last year’s
talent show.
 
But Casey had a
feeling they were not going to be that big of a threat.
 
They were a one-trick pony and there was
only so far an overplayed Spinal Tap riff could carry sub-average geek metal.

3. Eleanor Hoffman.
 
Bethesda, Maryland was, unfortunately, not a racially diverse place and
Eleanor was one of about fifty black kids at a high school of eight hundred
students.
 
She was a junior, funny,
smart, ran track in the spring, and was on cheerleading squad in the fall.
 
She was, in an omniscient, Yull kind of
way, very popular.
 
Not only that
but she had the best singing voice Casey had ever heard in a live person.
 
Eleanor auditioned with a version of “At
the Dark End of the Street” and when she was done the auditorium was so quiet
you could hear a pin drop.
 
Then the
place erupted into thunderous applause.

4. The Mother Fuckers.
 
That was not their real name.
 
But it was what Casey called them.
 
In reality they were Note Mountain, a four-person acapella group.
 
Note Mountain won the all-state acapella
contest the previous year, which they announced before performing.
 
“What the hell’s
that
?”
Casey snorted to Ben, “Next thing you’re gonna tell me there’s a state championship
for making toast.”
 
Note Mountain’s
soprano was a girl named Carol Emilio whose hair accouterments matched her
socks but who also, infuriatingly, was an all-state soccer player.
 
She was friends with all the players,
male and female, and, thus, had street cred.
 
Note Mountain auditioned with a show
tune, at which point Casey started brainstorming alternative names for Note
Mountain.
 
The Mother Fuckers topped
the list while Products of Incest and Glue Sniffers came in second and third.

When they were done, a few (nerds) clapped with gusto.
 
Ms. Vernon, a French teacher and the advisor
to talent show,
remarked to Carol Emilio that
acapella would add a richness to talent show.
 
Casey then said, from the fourth row Ms.
Vernon had assumed out of earshot, “THOUGH POP WIRE DOES NOT NORMALLY TAKE PART
IN PAYOLA, EXCEPTIONS, NAMELY BEN’S NUBILE FLESH, CAN BE NEGOTIATED.”
 

5. Pop Wire had the best name of any band auditioning.
 
In Casey’s opinion.
 
Despite this, however, their tryout song
did not engender the kind of response that Eleanor Hoffman’s had (but really no
one’s would), the laughter Hair Band had, the admiration
 
(only on the part of Ms. Vernon and the
losers, but still) Note Mountain had, or the awe Air Morocco had.
 
In fact, Pop Wire’s audition did not get
much response at all.
 
When they
first got up, Casey was nervous.
 
She tried the trick from the day before, the one where she imagined Alex
and Maxine together, but it did not work.
 
Perhaps it was because he was in the room and was not even looking her
way, but the trick may have even backfired.
 
She flubbed a lyric and got so scared
about messing up again that she lowered her voice.
 
Sukh tried to compensate by making his
bass louder, but that only served to drown out the vocals altogether.

When they finished a handful of kids clapped politely.
 
Danny from Alex’s band gave them the
thumbs-up sign.
 
Then Yull, who
decided to grace the talent show committee with his presence that day, brought
his hands together with force.
 
There
was a chain effect in that everyone around him did too.
 
But Alex Deal was in the back of the
auditorium talking to a girl.
 
Casey
slumped to the seats with Ben and Sukh.

“We weren’t bad, Casey,” Sukh said.

“Yes we were.
 
But
it wasn’t your fault.”

“Some people clapped,” Sukh offered weakly.

She snuck a look at Ben hoping he would at least try to refute
what she was saying, but he appeared to be considering something.
 
“Can you guys rehearse now?”

“Why bother?” Casey moaned.
 

“Why not?”

Casey sighed, stood, and Ben and Sukh did as well.
 
The three of them walked to the back of
the auditorium.
 
Alex was still
standing with the girl for whom he had ignored Casey’s talent show
audition.
 
As Casey got closer she
realized it was Maxine French.
 
Her
stomach tightened.
 
Then, when she,
Ben and Sukh were no more than five feet away, something horrific occurred.

Maxine French leaned over, kissed Alex Deal, looked at Casey, and
spoke.
 
“Look who it is, AD.
 
Your
rival
rock
star.”
 

AD.
 
Casey had heard one of his guy friends call him that.
 
His eyes met Casey’s.
 
They seemed embarrassed.
 
“Nice job up there,” he mumbled.
 

She turned to Ben and Sukh.
 
“Let’s go.”
 

Songlist for a rock and roller who’s just
had an arrow shot through her heart

1. Song 1 - “Why Are You Looking Grave” by
Mew.
 
Seeing Alex Deal
kiss Maxine French made Casey want to die.
 
She felt distinctly uncomfortable, like everything about her was
wrong.
 
A thought ran through her
head that had never been there before: In order to get him back, she would have
to start acting mean, make her hair sleek, shop at the mall, and scream in the
halls when she saw Leigh.
 
In other
words, she needed to be more like Melanie Corcoran and Maxine French.
 

She was not sure if anything could make her feel better in that
moment.
 
But a pop song as bright
and bursting as a Dip ‘em stick, as this one was?
 
Maybe.

2. Song 2 - “A Winner Needs a Wand” by
Sufjan Stevens.
 
There was a killer
bass line in the Sufjan song that made Casey think of the third act of movies
when heroines have to take on bad guys.
 
Plus Casey loved Sufjan because he once said he was going to write a
theme record for every one of the fifty states and then, once he did Illinois
and Michigan, shelved the idea.

3. Song 3 - “A Sunday Smile” by Beirut.
 
Liking this band
was problematic at times.
 
Those
would be the times Yull caught her listening to them.
 
Yull liked them a lot too.
 
And by rights, Beirut was more of a Yull
kind of band.
 
Their sound was
orchestral and grand.
 
More neat,
over-achieving Yull, less punk, you can’t even get a talent show audition right
Casey.
 
Yet Casey listened anyway,
especially to this song.
 
There was
something about it that made her feel like everything would be okay.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Ben said.
 

The members of Pop Wire had been reduced to taking the public
bus to Ben’s house after talent show auditions.
 
Oh how the soon to be mighty had never
really risen.
 
Ben and Sukh were in
front of Casey as she scribbled out her song list.

Sukh turned and looked.
 
“Is that a set list, Casey?”
 

She moved her hand over it and looked at them.
 
“Do allow me to suffer in silence before
we hit the drawing board again.”

“It was not so bad,” Sukh said.
 

“We just lacked a little luster,” Ben added.

“And how, in the space of one rehearsal, are we going to get
lustered up enough to compete with what we saw today?”
 

Sukh shrugged.
 
“Perhaps we write a new song about that cheerleader who was attempting
to engage you in a taunt fest as we departed the auditorium.
 
What is the name there?
 
Maxine French?”
 

“We shouldn’t target specific individuals,” Ben said.
 

“I think there are many people who do not like this girl.”

“Sign me up,” Casey growled.

“Two of them are girls in my bio lab,” Sukh continued, “I heard
them say that girl had breast augmentation as well as a touch of rhinoplasty
performed over the summer break.”

Casey cocked her head to one side.
 
“Rhino--?”

“She got a nose job,” Ben said.

“And a boob job too,” Sukh added.

“Allegedly,” Ben said, “Remember that the source for this
knowledge was teenage girls.”

Casey stared at Sukh.
 
“Teenage girls in Sukh’s bio lab, which means they have an above-average
intelligence, correct?”

Sukh nodded.
 
“Of
course.”

Casey took her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed a
number.
 
“This is very interesting,
Sikh man.
 
Very interesting indeed.”

“What are you doing?” Ben asked.

“Research.”

“Resear--?” Sukh began.

Casey silenced him with her hand.
 
“Greetings Barnes household,” she said
in a voice slower and louder than normal, “This is Casey.
 
I was wondering if anyone who’s home,
namely Yull Barnes, the exalted community leader whom I am graced to have as an
older brother, could pick--”

The answering machine recording was cut off by Leigh picking up
the phone on the other end of the line.
 
“This is very dangerous,” Leigh whispered.

“Is someone else there?”

“No, but the machine’s on.”

“Hit the stop button, then rewind and hold down record for like
thirty seconds.”

“Done.”

“Good.
 
Now I need
you to do something.
 
Go to my room,
get the freshman yearbook off the shelf, and bring it back down to the phone.”

“My mom sent me a really intense email today,” Leigh said, “She
hasn’t slept for two nights.”