Guitar Notes (2 page)

“Hi, Mrs. Sykes!” a girl next to him calls out. “How was your summer?”

It’s oval-faced Annie Win, with her friend Lyla Marks, famous at his school. Perfect at being perfect. They are passing him, walking fast, carrying their instruments, happy to see their teachers, happy to be back. “Do your brains sing chipper songs inside your chipper heads all day?” he asks them.

Annie throws him a foul look and pulls Lyla to the bulletin board in front of the music room. Tripp notices what they’re reading:
MUSIC PRACTICE ROOM SIGN-UP
.

“Patricia Kent already has her name up here!” Annie exclaims.

He stands behind them and peers around Lyla’s hair to read:

While Annie writes her and Lyla’s names on the first two lines, Tripp scans the bulletin board and sees another notice:
BAND/ORCHESTRA STUDENTS NEEDING TO SIGN OUT A SCHOOL INSTRUMENT, PLEASE CONTACT MR. JACOBY ASAP
.

“Let’s go,” Annie says, and they head into the orchestra room.

Tripp gets out a pen. Under Lyla’s name he writes:

He begins to leave and then stops and adds:

As soon as the final bell rings, Tripp heads to his locker, and his phone buzzes.

Mom calling.

“I’m not talking to you, Mom.”

“How was school?”

“I said I’m not talking to you.”

“I spoke with your algebra teacher at lunch,” his mom says. “She’ll only take off two points if you turn in your summer packet at the end of this week.”

“I spoke with God today. He’ll only take off two points if you confess your sins and return my guitar.”

“Very funny. Look, I know it was probably a shock—”

“I can’t survive without my guitar.”

“See. It’s like you’re addicted to it. This will be good for you to take a break and focus on—”

“I can’t do it.”

“I warned you so many times this summer. I know it’s a drastic step, but I don’t know what else—”

“Is it in the attic?”

“It’s not in the house, so don’t go tearing it apart. Oh, that reminds me. The guy is supposed to be there at four
to do the termite eradication thing. Take him to the basement and show him that wooden rafter they’re eating through. The one I showed you. He’s supposed to spray it with poison and put in some kind of traps or something.”

“You do realize that you are a termite,” he says. “You are eating through my soul.”

“Very funny.”

“I am an empty shell. I am going to crumble.”

“Go home and fill yourself up with math problems. I’m going to check them tonight. Bye.”

Tripp closes his phone, slips it into his back pocket, and makes his way down the noisy hallway. When he walks outside, the bright beauty of the day stabs him.

 SEPTEMBER 3. WEDNESDAY.

“Tripp!” His mom’s voice bites the room. She’s standing in his doorway, holding up the bag of dirt. “Where’s my coffee?”

He turns to face the wall and pulls up the sheet. The Termite has arrived.

She marches over. “This is completely immature. Where did you put it?”

“Maybe it went to visit my guitar.”

“You better not have thrown it out.”

He turns to look at her. “You sound so tense, Mom. It’s like you’re addicted to it.”

She gives him a look. “If you think that by messing
with my coffee, you’re going to get your guitar back, you’re dead wrong. I can always buy more coffee, Tripp. And I’ll be sure to take it out of your bank account.”

The Termite storms out. He sticks out his tongue at the door as it slams. Is he immature? Yes. If maturity means you can grow up and take away the one and only thing that gives meaning to your son’s life, then why would anyone strive for maturity?

 SEPTEMBER 4. THURSDAY.

With Mr. Jacoby on the podium, the Advanced Orchestra is playing through a new piece—a new teacher, a new year—and Lyla is waiting for the entrance of the cellos. Her index finger is just above the spot on the A string where her first note will be, but a dark little fantasy is flickering through her mind like a ten-second horror film: when she presses down on the string, a bomb that has been rigged inside the cello will explode.

She knows it’s just her imagination, but her palms are sweating and her heart is racing. As a new metronome amplifies an annoyingly loud, incessant clack, the violin bows leap in perfect unison, and all the cellos to her right
pounce on their opening measure, but Lyla’s hands do not move.

Her heart is beating too loudly. Maybe the muscles around her heart are squeezing too tightly? Is that possible?
Calm down
, she tells herself.
Jump in on the next measure
.

“Measure sixty-four,” the boy next to her whispers, his voice purring with the satisfaction that for once Lyla Marks has lost her place.

She begins to play, and the cello does not explode. Her left hand fingers the pattern of notes, and her right hand holds the bow, but it feels as if her hands belong to someone else and she is merely attached to them.

“More energy!” Mr. Jacoby calls over the rising sound.

After the piece is over and the teacher is giving comments, Annie Win turns around, scrunching her eyebrows and pumping her shoulders up and down to imitate him. Lyla forces a smile.

When class is done, she is relieved to put her cello away.

“Jacoby is a joke. Everything we did is too easy,” Annie whispers. “And Jessica needs to brush her teeth. I should tell her.”

“You can’t just say that,” Lyla whispers back.

“Maybe I’ll put mouthwash on her music stand.” Annie makes another face and pulls Lyla out the door. “Jessica said that Ms. Collivet wants to start a French club and she’ll give anybody who joins an automatic A.”

“Annie,” Lyla interrupts. “I think I might … do you think it’s possible for someone our age to have a heart attack?”

Annie laughs. “I saw a show on TV where this really young guy had a heart attack and he had a disgusting nipple ring and when the doctor put the defillibrator, or whatever it’s called, on his chest, the electricity hit the metal ring and electrocuted the doctor!” Annie starts laughing. “So the moral of that story is, don’t try to save anybody who has body piercings.”

“Who has body piercings?” Kenneth Chan is on their heels.

“Lyla does,” Annie says.

“I do not!”

Annie laughs, and then as soon as Kenneth passes by, she whispers, “He likes you, but his nose is too big.”

Lyla hears her own heart beating even above the noise in the hall. She shifts her books, pressing them against her chest to dull the sound. “Annie, has your heart ever been so loud that you could hear it without a stethoscope or anything?”

“No.” Annie stops. “Is your heart being weird?”

“Sort of.”

“That’s what the first week of school does.” Annie shrugs it off. “It gives you a heart attack. Hey, remember that time in fifth grade when you swore to me that you could hear your bones grow? For, like, six weeks I tried to listen to my bones.” She laughs and leads the way into
the English room, which is noticeably hot and stuffy.

Sweat prickles on Lyla’s forehead.
Stay calm
. She has to get through school.

Annie turns and whispers, “If you die of a heart attack and leave me alone this year, you know what I’ll do?”

“What?” Lyla asks.

“I’ll kill you.” Annie laughs.

 SEPTEMBER 8. MONDAY.

As Tripp is walking to class, he notices the music teacher posting a sign on the music bulletin board.

“Thank you. Thank you!” Tripp says.

Mr. Jacoby turns and looks at him. “Tripp?”

Tripp nods. “You have just saved my life.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. I found one guitar in storage. This program really focuses on band and orchestra.”

“What kind of guitar is it?”

“Acoustic, steel strings, but the strings are shot.” Mr. Jacoby frowns. “You’ll have to provide your own.”

“I don’t mind, as long as I can play. Can I take it home?”

He shakes his head. “No. You’re not in the music program here. Technically, the instruments can be checked out only by students in the program. We’ll keep it in Room B. By the way, two of these girls are serious musicians and would like to practice every da—”

“I’m a serious musician, too.”

“I wasn’t implying that you aren’t. If you decide that you don’t want to use the room, just let me know right away so that I can reassign it. The rules are posted in the rooms: One person per room; the computers in each room are to be used only for music—no video games or surfing the web; clean up after yourself.”

“Got it. Thank you.”

Mr. Jacoby heads into the orchestra room, and Tripp continues on his way to class. He has been allotted precisely forty-four minutes of joy every other day, beginning next Monday. Something inside him bubbles up and he leaps into the air.

“What was that supposed to be?” one girl behind him asks another.

“I don’t know. Who does that?”

He laughs. “I do.”

The studio is large and white. In the back, a gray cloth is draped on the wall and floor. Lights are set up on either side of the cloth, facing in.

The photographer shows Lyla into a dressing room. While she is changing into her performance dress, she hears her dad taking her mom’s cello out of the case. He starts explaining to the photographer that he wants to include one photo in her Coles application and wants to send the other to the local newspaper with a note about her upcoming Kennedy Center audition.